[WASHINGTONTIMES] IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of "treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors" needed for him to be impeached.
The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional subpoena that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of the investigation into tea party targeting.
But Mr. Koskinen, who said his schedule is too crowded for him to be able to appear on Tuesday, said the allegations against him are "unwarranted," and no matter what, they don’t rise to the level of impeachment.
In a point-by-point refutation of the four counts of potential impeachment, Mr. Koskinen says he "acted in good faith" and was telling the truth as best he knew it when he told Congress all of the emails were preserved. He said he only became aware later that emails were lost after Ms. Lerner’s computer hard drive crashed and backup tapes stored at an IRS facility in West Virginia were erased.
"The IRS made great efforts to produce all available Lerner emails, conducting a broad search at substantial expense. The breadth of the IRS’s efforts illustrates the good faith underlying the promise to comply with the committee’s request," he said in his statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Going for "Plausible Deniability" I suppose. Good luck.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:48 Comments ||
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#2
This arrogant liar needs to be removed as an example
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 8:42 Comments ||
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#4
Quite probably he had indeed not spoken personally with Ms Lermer. The top boss usually doesn't -- that's why middle management was invented. But as soon ss she became a problem he should have been informed of all the particulars as they developed. And he most certainly should have found out who authorized the erasures -- or didn't notice that the hard drive and all those backups had been destroyed against explicit orders -- and immediately and publicly made horrible examples of them. Being senior management means dishing out necessary punishments as well as rewards and setting direction.
If it was deliberate, that would constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. If accidental, that's negligence or gross incompetence -- a firing offence.
[USATODAY] ... So why do the rest of us bother to obey the law? And, yes, that’s an increasingly serious question.
People follow the law for a mix of reasons. First, they may simply fear punishment. That undoubtedly motivates a lot of people, though in fact the risk of punishment is usually pretty low, and people, in general, obey the law even when the risk of being caught is negligible.
People may also obey the law because they agree with it: I don’t need to worry about the likelihood of punishment for torturing kittens because I think that’s wrong, and I wouldn’t do it anyway.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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[WSJ] The constitutional challenge to President B.O.’s executive action on immigration keeps getting more remarkable. A federal judge has now exposed how the Justice Department systematically deceived lower courts about the Administration’s conduct, and he has imposed unprecedented legal measures to attempt to sterilize this ethics rot.
On Thursday District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas found that Obama Administration lawyers committed misconduct that he called "intentional, serious and material." In 2015 he issued an injunction--now in front of the Supreme Court--blocking Mr. Obama’s 2014 order that rewrote immigration law to award legal status and federal and state benefits to nearly five million aliens.
When 26 states sued to block the order in December 2014, Justice repeatedly assured Judge Hanen that the Department of Homeland Security would not start processing applications until February 2015 at the earliest. Two weeks after the injunction came down, in March, Justice was forced to admit that DHS had already granted or renewed more than 100,000 permits.
Justice has also conceded in legal filings that all its lawyers knew all along that the DHS program was underway, despite what they said in briefs and hearings. One DOJ lawyer told Judge Hanen that "I really would not expect anything between now and the date of the hearing." As the judge notes, "How the government can categorize the granting of over 100,000 applications as not being ’anything’ is beyond comprehension."
Justice’s only explanation is that its lawyers either "lost focus on the fact" or "the fact receded in memory or awareness"--the fact here being realities that the DOJ was required to disclose to the court. The states weren’t able to make certain arguments or seek certain legal remedies because the program supposedly hadn’t been implemented, leaving them in a weaker legal position.
More to the point, an attorney’s first and most basic judicial obligation is to tell the truth. Judge Hanen concludes that the misrepresentations "were made in bad faith" and "it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct." Many a lawyer has been disbarred for less.
As a result, Judge Hanen ordered that any Washington-based Justice lawyer who "appears or seeks to appear" in any state or federal court in the 26 states must first attend a remedial ethics seminar on "candor to the court." He also ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to prepare a "comprehensive plan" to prevent such falsification. Such extraordinary judicial oversight is usually reserved for companies with a pattern of corruption or racially biased police departments. Justice is sure to appeal, and whether Judge Hanen has the jurisdiction to impose his plan is uncharted legal territory.
Yet the misconduct he has unmasked should trouble Americans of all political persuasions. Prosecutors often abuse their powers in run-of-the-mill cases. But this is a constitutional challenge with major consequences for the separation of powers, and the deceit must have required the participation and coordination of dozens of political appointees and career lawyers. That suggests a serious institutional failure, not mere rogue actors.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Sure you will.
[RedState] This afternoon, . . . CNN reported that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-Cash) has spent the past year under federal investigation for campaign finance shenanigans. Best comment: "Explains why McAwful restored voting rights to felons in Virginia -- so he will be able to vote for Hillary from behind bars in November." :-D
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has released an ad portraying Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of is... as a rapist as part of an attack on his wife, Hillary, who is the billionaire’s main opponent in the 2016 US presidential election.
Known and criticized for misogynistic views himself, Trump appears to be resorting to a psychological projection to blame Clinton, who is of course reminiscent of a major sexual scandal in the US history.
Trump released Monday the 15-second horror clip, showing the former president with a big cigar in his mouth.
In the clip, women are heard crying and accusing Bill of sexual harassment while Hillary is heard laughing maniacally.
Titled "Is Hillary really protecting women?", the ad targets her appeal to women and maidens of tender years by showing that she is not as supportive of women’s rights as she claims.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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psychological projection
Dat's some mighty big words for the Mad Mullahs.
They know how to do it, of course.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:47 Comments ||
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#2
If the ad is libelous the Clintons should sue. But they won't, will they?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:20 Comments ||
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The Don is doing what the Feds should be doing. Making serious prosecutorial charges. Unlike the feds, Trump is using a sledgehammer.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
05/24/2016 12:56 Comments ||
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#4
Pass the popcorn and enjoy the show.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
05/24/2016 12:58 Comments ||
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[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Sen. Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... defeated Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Liberatress of Libya and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Dean Rusk ... by 12 points in last Tuesday's Oregon Democratic primary. It was an unusual victory in that Clinton's nomination is already a done deal.
Sanders has no hope of catching the Democratic establishment's chosen champion. Even he knows superdelegates, party guardians of the status quo, are not going to defect from a candidate who has the most votes and earned delegates.
Yet not only did Oregon reject Clinton at this late stage, but Kentucky, viewed by most as a relatively safe state for her, very nearly went to Sanders as well. Her 1,900-vote, 0.5 percentage-point margin will probably hold. But it's not a ringing endorsement, more a resigned acceptance of the lifeless Democratic queen anointed long ago by the party episcopacy.
On their own, Tuesday's results and Sanders' recent wins in Indiana and West Virginia might not signify much. But combine this with the bitter chaos that enveloped the Nevada Democratic convention last weekend, and suddenly Democrats seem to be at risk from a party-unity problem not unlike that afflicting Republicans.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Well, it's not fair! The evil Trumpbots are ... they're ... attacking our candidate! Trump's not playing by the old rules! I think I'll cry myself to sleep...
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:43 Comments ||
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The Clinton's have dominated the Democrats and will take the party to ruin. When they recover from the ruins the Democrats will be totally socialist.
#4
Sanders is campaigning hard in California. Last week he made at least two appearances in San Diego County. He drew large, enthusiastic crowds of young people who appeared to me to be mostly minorities. They were smiling, cheering and some almost swooning like they did for Obama back in 2008. They looked like exactly the kind of people Hillary would like to attract but she is nowhere to be seen. Bill has been here but he doesn't draw the same kind of crowds and he has a preference for fund raisers in posh, exclusive neighborhoods like Rancho Sante Fe. Sanders might be behind in the California polls but you'd never know it from the appearance of the crowds at his rallies.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:30 Comments ||
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I'm thinking he'll win CA. Hillary is an awful candidate and horrible human
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 12:06 Comments ||
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My expectation is that Hillary will be given the win easily.
My hope is that this so infuriates the Bernie-bots that they all stay home or vote for the Donald.
#8
I can never forget the anonymous but utterly believable story of her Secret Service detail leaking her comments when they went to a small rural 4-H event with just normal farmers and ranchers and their kids. Her comment to the staffer who arranged the drop by: "What the F.ck and we doing here? There's no f.ucking money here!" Says everything I believe about that grifting duo in a simple story. Pure liars and thieves set on looting the public treasury while in office!
[CNN] Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.
The investigation dates to at least last year and has focused, at least in part, on whether donations to his gubernatorial campaign violated the law, the officials said.
McAuliffe wasn't notified by Sherlocks that he is a target of the probe, according to the officials.
"The Governor will certainly cooperate with the government if he is contacted about it," said Marc Elias, attorney for McAuliffe campaign, in a statement to CNN.
As part of the probe, the officials said, Sherlocks have scrutinized McAuliffe's time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of is...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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No Can Prove - I'm Wang Wending and I approve this message.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
05/24/2016 0:13 Comments ||
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This smells like trouble for ole Terry. It appears that arrogance led to over reach. A former official in the Chinese Commie government with a green card is interesting...same guy appearing to funnel millions to the Clintons and six figures to ole Terry won't pass the smell test green card exemption or no. Our laws were specifically designed to prevent foreign governments and officials from influencing our elections...and through intentional circumventing of our laws - this is exactly what happened. I hope it is true the prosecutors are involved and get to do what they do so well...prosecute.
[THEHILL] Top Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... supporters Dr. Cornell West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be among those on the Democratic Party's important Platform Drafting Committee after the Vermont senator won a key concession as he looks to leave his mark on the party's platform.
The roster of the drafting committee, released by the Democratic National Committee on Monday, reflects the party's agreement that Sanders would have five supporters on the committee, compared to six for Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Charles Evans Hughes ... Sanders previously panned DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ...Congresswoman from Florida, the abrasive chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She has been a politician since 1992, and prior to that was in training as a political science major. Her primary accomplishment seems to be that she's Jewish... , who appoints all of the committee members, for failing to include enough of his supporters on an initial list. But the latest statement notes that Wasserman Schultz allocated the campaign's seats "proportionally according to the current vote tally."
Along with West and Ellison, Sanders supporters on the committee are author Bill McKibben, Arab American Institute head James Zogby and Native American activist Deborah Parker.
Clinton loyalists on the committee are Ambassador Wendy Sherman, former Clinton staffer and current Center for American Progress head Neera Tanden, Ohio Rep. Alicia Reece, environmentalist Carol Browner, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutiérrez and union head Paul Booth.
The remaining four members were chosen by Wasserman Schultz.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 00:00 ||
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If they think the wall can't be built and won't be effective even if it is built then why are they spending so much time, effort and money to stop Trump?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:37 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[WSJ] The constitutional challenge to 
[Iran Press TV] GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has released an ad portraying 
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Sen. 
[CNN] Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.
Hillary Clinton
