Chris Matthews: Unlike IRS, VA Scandal Is Real, Except When He Compared IRS to ‘Profiling’ Innocent Arabs

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems determined to kill the idea that unlike the Veterans Administration scandal, past Obama scandals such as the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups are not in fact legitimate issues to investigate. 

Appearing on his nightly Hardball program on Wednesday, May 21, Matthews declared “For the first time, President Obama speaks out about the VA scandal and this is no phony IRS or Benghazi nonsense, this is the real deal.” [See video below.] 

While Matthews is correct that the VA scandal is in fact serious, his dismissal of the IRS scandal contradicts his past statements on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. On May 22, 2013, the Hardball host proclaimed that “profiling” by the IRS was akin to targeting innocent Arabs: 

I go to the airport and I'm running TSA. Instead of deciding based upon people's movements around the world that might be suspicious, going to countries that cause us trouble, I just look for everybody that looks Arab and I put them in one line. The American people would say that's outrageous.

While Matthews insisted that in 2013 “The IRS scandal is like profiling” he maintained on Wednesday May 22, 2014 that it was not a scandal. Speaking to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Matthews cheered “President Obama today, as you saw, addressed a growing scandal that unlike the phony, if you will, scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi, has the potential, the real potential, to cause some real political damage.”

The MSNBC host went on to promote Robinson’s recent article entitled “Heads Need to Roll at the VA” and swooned that “I loved the way you said this is a real one, not like the other ones.” The Washington Post columnist reiterated Matthews’ argument and maintained “It’s not like the phony ones. Bad stuff happened, right?” 

Despite Matthews’ decision to change his tune on the legitimacy of the IRS scandal, he was not the only MSNBC host who in 2013 held this same viewpoint. On May 16, 2013, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski lamented that “Unfortunately the information and the guts of the story are there and it's an opportunity.” On May 10, 2013, MSNBC contributors Chris Cilizza and Ruth Marcus, who both write for the Washington Post, were stunned by the “outrageous dumbness” of the IRS.  

Via: Newsbusters

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Grimes & Nunn Dodge ObamaCare Questions

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid have publicly told their caucus to run on ObamaCare.  Yet it’s becoming more and more clear that the party bosses within the Democrat Party are telling red-state Democrats who weren’t in office to avoid any and all questions about ObamaCare.

In Georgia, Democrat Michelle Nunn has painfully gone out of her way to tell voters she doesn’t know how she would’ve vote on ObamaCare.  While in Kentucky, anti-coal Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes remains mum on if she would’ve vote for ObamaCare.  Yet they have no problem telling voters that they do not want to repeal this job-killing law.     

Below is a Tumblr post and statement from the RNC:

“Despite the happy face Democrats put on, it’s evident the liberal bigwigs in Washington are telling Alison Lundergan Grimes and Michelle Nunn that they shouldn’t discuss ObamaCare.  Sooner or later, Grimes, Nunn and the rest of the Democrats’ liberal recruits will need to explain why they’re stonewalling voters about their support for ObamaCare.”  Jahan Wilcox, RNC Spokesman        

• http://rncresearch.tumblr.com/post/86500890410/duck-duck-dodge-on-obamacare

Via: GOP.com

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Warren to Raise Money for Merkley in Oregon

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is bringing her name and fundraising prowess to Oregon next week to help her fellow Democrat, Jeff Merkley. Politico Playbook reports:

Elizabeth Warren heading to Oregon to help Sen. Jeff Merkley fend off an unexpectedly tough challenge: The senator is flying to Portland next Wednesday for a "grassroots fundraiser." Republicans nominated pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby in Tuesday's primary, who they think can put the state on the map. Democrats have sent Andrew Zucker to be Merkley's deputy campaign manager, reassigning him from Louisiana - where he's been assisting Sen. Mary Landrieu's reelect. He ran communications for Ed Markey in the Massachusetts special election last June to fill the seat opened by John Kerry's elevation to State.

Merkley appears weaker than expected for reelection. One recent NPR poll found a third of registered voters in Oregon had no opinion or did not know of him, while other polls showed him below 50 percent support. The new Republican nominee, Monica Wehby, is considered even by GOP strategists to be a dark horse to win. Oregon remains a strongly Democratic state, but two factors give Republicans some hope in pulling off a surprise win.

The first is that Merkley might be considered an "accidental" senator. In 2008, incumbent Republican Gordon Smith had a moderately conservative record with some libertarian tendencies, but his party affiliation cost him in a year dominated by George W. Bush fatigue and high Democratic turnout to support Barack Obama for president. Still, Merkley, then the speaker of the state house, only beat Smith by three percentage points. Merkley was also didn't win a majority, winning just under 49 percent of the vote. Oregon may look and feel like a Democratic lock, but in 2008, that Senate race was one of the most watched and competitive of the cycle.

The second is that the politics of Obamacare in Oregon do not favor anyone who supports it. The implementation of the law has been a disaster, with the state-run health insurance exchange having so many problems that the program's been shut down and rolled into the federal exchange. (The FBI has been investigating the exchange, called Cover Oregon, for malfeasance, and just yesterday the state's U.S. attorney subpoenaed records from Cover Oregon.) Merkley voted for Obamacare in 2010 and continues to support the law, saying as recently as this month that it has "a lot that's going right in Oregon." As a medical doctor and former board member at the American Medical Association, Wehby has an added benefit of authority on the subject of health care, which may dominate the campaign.

Via: Weekly Standard

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The Obama Administration's Ethics Problem

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki cannot get a handle on the recent scandalous treatment of veterans in VA hospitals, where more than 40 sick men were allowed to die without proper follow-up treatment. A cover-up allegedly followed. When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal broke under the George W. Bush administration, heads rolled. So far, Shinseki seems immune from similar accountability.

Almost nothing that former secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius promised before, during, or after the implementation of the ill-starred Affordable Care Act came true. She was also cited by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for violating the Hatch Act, as she improperly campaigned for Obama’s reelection while serving as a cabinet secretary.

Former IRS official Lois Lerner used the federal tax-collection agency to go after groups deemed too conservative. She invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid telling Congress the whole truth.

Susan Rice, former U.N. ambassador and now national-security adviser, flat-out deceived the public in five television appearances about the Benghazi catastrophe. She insisted that the deaths of four Americans were due to a spontaneous riot induced by a reactionary video maker — even though she had access to intelligence fingering al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists as the culprits who planned the attack on the anniversary of 9/11.

Rice recently blamed Obama foreign-policy failures on domestic political polarization. But that is best described as the give and take of democracy and was once thought to be our foreign-policy strength.

Rice also knows little history. In 2007, in the midst of the surge, when Americans were fighting for their lives to stabilize Iraq, then-senator Hillary Clinton implied that the commanding general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was a veritable liar. Senate majority leader Harry Reid agreed and declared that the war was already lost. Then–presidential candidate Barack Obama prematurely wrote off the politically inconvenient surge as a failure. Was Rice then shocked that “polarization” affected foreign policy?

Via: Real Clear Politics

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McConnell vows ‘free-wheeling’ Senate under his leadership

Fresh off his resounding Republican primary victory Tuesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday laid out a broad vision of what the Senate would look like under his control.

Bottom line, McConnell, wouldn’t run the way Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., runs it now, the Kentucky Republican told the center-right American Enterprise Institute.

‘A Senate majority under my leadership would break sharply from the practices of the Reid era in favor of a more free-wheeling approach to problem solving,’ McConnell said in a speech. ‘I would work to restore (the Senate’s) traditional role as a place where good ideas are generated, debated and voted upon. We’d fire up the committee process. We’d work longer days and weeks, using the clock to force consensus.’

And McConnell’s money shot: ‘In marked contrast to the Reid era, we would allow an open amendment process – ensuring senators on both sides a chance to weigh in on legislation and alleviating the frustration that inevitably results when they can’t.’

McConnell and Republicans believe the Senate is within their grasp this election year. They need a net gain of six seats in November to gain control of the chamber.

Last November, Reid and the Democratic-controlled Senate changed the chamber’s long-standing rules to strip the Republican minority of its filibuster power to block many presidential nominations, a move that makes it easier to confirmed President Barack Obama’s appointees but increased partisan tensions in an already acrimonious chamber.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/05/22/228196/mcconnell-vows-free-wheeling-senate.html?sp=/99/104/244/112/#storylink=cpy

Harry Reid Offers 2017 Effective Date for Immigration, Sets August Deadline

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered to make 2017 the effective date for an immigration overhaul Thursday so Republicans no longer can use President Barack Obama as an excuse not to pass a bill — and set an August deadline for the House to act.

“Let’s pass immigration reform today. Make it take effect in 2017. Republicans don’t trust President Obama,” Reid said. “Let’s give them a chance to approve the bill under President Rand Paul or President Theodore Cruz. To be clear, delaying implementation of immigration reform is not my preference. But I feel so strongly that this bill needs to get done, I’m willing to show flexibility.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, has repeatedly said that most Republicans want to act on immigration but don’t trust the president to enforce the law — a view he repeated again Thursday.

Reid warned that if Republicans don’t take the offer and pass a bill by August, President Barack Obama would go as far as he could to act on his own.

“If they don’t take our offer, then we’re going to have to go to the second step, which is not my preference,” Reid said. “Administrative rules cannot trump legislation but we’re going to have to do what we have to do as we proved with DACA,” he said, referring to Obama’s program to grant deportation relief and work permits to young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children.

Reid’s offer of a 2017 effective date mirrors a suggestion that had been made by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

In the press conference with Reid, Schumer, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., and Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., Schumer suggested there was a six-week window for action after Republican primaries on June 10 and before the August break.

Schumer was asked about Republican response to 2017 compromise after the press conference and he said, “We haven’t gotten yes and we haven’t gotten a no.”

Schumer also put the kibosh on smaller immigration patches, like the ENLIST Act that would allow young illegal immigrants to get legal status by signing up for the military.

“We are not going to go along with minor fixes that fail to address the huge systematic problems in our immigration system today,” Schumer said. “If the oil is leaking in your car, your muffler has a whole in it and you have a flat tire, you don’t change the windshield wipers. But that’s what they want to do with this ENLIST Act. Republicans are barely even considering that but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of our immigration system. We support giving those that serve in the military the opportunity to earn citizenship, but we also want to fix our agriculture worker programs, secure our borders … and provide a pathway for the 11 million that live in the shadows.”

The senators’ threats come as House Republicans continued Thursday to demand a public display of trust-building from the president before they take up any changes to the immigration system.

Via: Roll Call

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The Sign Is Clear: ‘No Weapons, No Concealed Firearms’ — Why Didn’t These Three Thugs Obey Gun-Free Zone?

Despite a sign posted outside designating the business a so-called “gun-free zone,” three thugs reportedly assaulted restaurant employees during a robbery attempt in Durham, North Carolina, earlier this week.

At around 9 p.m. on Sunday, three men wearing hoodies and armed with handguns invaded a newly-opened barbecue restaurant in Durham through the back door, according to police. The thugs reportedly forced employees to the ground, assaulting two of them. Thankfully, they were not seriously injured.

While the robbery occurred in the kitchen, patrons in the restaurant were able to safely escape through the front door.

Restaurant owner Greg Hatem told WTVD-TV that he’s offering $2,000 for the “arrest and conviction of these guys.”

“We want to make sure our guests and our staff are taken care of,” he said.

Pro-gun advocates have criticized the restaurant’s “gun-free zone” policy and argue allowing citizens to protect themselves in the establishment is a much more effective way to ensure their safety. Second Amendment supporters have repeatedly argued that “gun-free zones” only entice criminals because they know they will likely face minimal opposition.

A recent study out of Purdue University found that all but two mass shootings since the 1950s have occurred in locations where victims were restricted from carrying weapons for self-defense

Via: The Blaze

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Sens. Rockefeller and Johnson Battle over Whether Obamacare Opposition Is Racist

Two U.S. senators, a Republican and a Democrat, got into it on Thursday over whether opposition to Obamacare has to do with the color of the president’s skin. Democrat Jay Rockefeller strongly suggested it was, and Republican Ron Johnson fired back by scolding Rockefeller for his “very offensive” comments.

Rockefeller said plenty of people have already “made up their mind” that they don’t want Obamacare to work “because they don’t like the president, maybe he’s the wrong color.” He asserted that he’s personally “seen a lot of that, and I know a lot of that to be true.”

Johnson jumped in to blast Rockefeller’s “regrettable” decision to “play the race card.” He said, “I found it very offensive that you’d basically imply that I’m a racist because I opposed this health care law. That is outrageous.”

Via: Mediaite

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SARAH PALIN: OBAMA TOO 'LAZY' TO HOLD OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE FOR VA SCANDAL

On Wednesday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said President Barack Obama does not hold officials in his administration accountable for their scandals because he is lazy. 

SARAH PALIN ON 'HANNITY,' 5/21/14

Sarah Palin on 'Hannity,' 5/21/14

“When you hold someone accountable, it takes energy and resource, and Barack Obama is lazy," Palin said on Fox News' Hannity. "In fact, he warned us that he was lazy, and he attributed that to having been brought up in Hawaii. It’s his words, not mine."

In a 2011 interview with Barbara Walters, Obama did, in fact, say he was lazy, as Palin noted. 

"There is a deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there's a laziness in me," Obama said then, as Politico reported. "It's probably from, you know, growing up in Hawaii, and it's sunny outside and sitting on the beach."

Obama said he learned via the television about the scandal in his Veterans Administration. Forty people reportedly died after being placed on secret waiting lists. And Palin said things like the disastrous Obamacare rollout, Benghazi, and the VA scandal occur "when you have a commander-in-chief that is not engaged."

Palin said Obama will just spew "more rhetoric," and she expressed her belief that "nothing is going to happen when Obama is in charge of the military, the VA, and the federal government in general."

"And another thing is that Barack Obama still doesn’t see what the main problem is," she continued. "The main problem is government. It’s not the solution, like Ronald Reagan said; it is the problem."

She said since Obama does not recognize this, "government is going to continue to grow" under him and "will create and perpetuate" more problems.

Palin asserted that America's veterans "have earned the benefits that we should be providing them and they have been promised," and she blasted the media for continuing to let Obama off the hook by "not holding him accountable."

Via: Breitbart

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Sen. Coburn Demands Pentagon Show How $500B Budget Is 'Squandered'

Retiring Sen. Tom Coburn has called on Congress to force the Pentagon to start showing American taxpayers exactly where the military is spending – and overspending – its $500 billion annual budget.

In a commentary for The Washington Times, the Oklahoma Republican said the Department of Defense is violating the Constitution by never having "passed a single audit," while also attacking the agency for its "wanton mismanagement" of government money.

Coburn wrote that the Pentagon is the only government agency that cannot produce auditable financial statements "in accordance with the law."

"Not knowing where this money is going isn’t just lawless, it is a threat to both our economic and national security," he said, adding that "Congress is fully complicit in this scam on American taxpayers."

He said that without an annual financial audit, the Pentagon has no idea where its tax dollars are going, whether it’s getting good value for money or even if it got what it paid for last year.

"Sadly, few in Congress seem to care that untold billions are squandered every year through wanton mismanagement and neglect," wrote the senator, who was diagnosed with a recurrence of prostate cancer last year and is stepping down after the November elections, two years before his term expires.

"The only way this cycle can be broken is for the American people to demand that Congress use its power of the purse to demand accountability at the Defense Department, rather than simply rubber-stamp the defense budget."

In his guest column, Coburn said that an "open amendment process" would result in the push for an annual Pentagon audit being debated in Congress.

He singled out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for criticism, saying that the Nevada Democrat would not even allow amendments to be introduced and debated on the nearly $700 billion, 600-page annual defense authorization bill.

Via: Newsmax
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Pitts: Top 10 unanswered questions about Obamacare

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, led by Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R.-Pa.), rebooted and restated its oversight of the implementation of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with the release of May 19 10 ignored official requests for information from President Barack Obama and his team.

Certainly, the list is an homage to the brilliant May 14 press conference held by Rep. Harold W. “Trey” Gowdy III (R.-S.C.), when he challenged reporters to answer simple questions about #Benghazi.

If anything, the last five years of the Age of Obama has been a sensory overload of scandals, debacles and crisis after crisis. It seems almost by design that the White House intends to overwhelm us to the point of eventful unintelligence.

There is no better example than how the PPACA was legislated and enacted. But, maybe Pitts and his fellow Republicans, like the full committee’s chairman Rep. Frederick S. Upton (R.-Mich.) are tired of playing Whac-A-Mole.

Putting out this list is a good first step.

Via: Canada Free Press

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A “Left-Right Alliance” Against Public Sector Unions?

Consumer advocate and left-wing activist Ralph Nadar has just written a book entitled “Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.” In a Salon interview published on May 2, Nadar lists five areas where the left and right can agree on policy goals: (1) controlling security state overreach, (2) eliminating corporate welfare, (3) fighting military overspending and waste, (4) cracking down on Wall Street financial fraud, and (5) revisiting international agreements that undermine American sovereignty.

Populist right-wing commentator Patrick Buchanan has taken notice. In a column published on May 19th entitled “A Left-Right Convergence?,” Buchanan identifies the rift within conservative ranks that provides an opening for convergence with the left. He writes:

“Undeniably, there has been a growing gap and a deepening alienation between traditional conservatives and those Ralph calls the ‘corporate conservatives.’ And it is not only inside the conservative movement and the GOP that the rift is growing, but also Middle America.”

As for the left? Here are two easily identified, escalating rifts that are dividing liberals: The first, construction unions vs. environmentalists, as exemplified by their conflict over the Keystone Pipeline. The second, public sector union Democrats vs. progressive Democrats. As San Jose’s mayor Chuck Reed, a Democrat, puts it:

“There’s a difference between being liberal and progressive and being a union Democrat.”

This second rift has immediate importance in California, and it has immediate potential for what could become California’s regional version of a left-right alliance. Here are three areas where California’s left and right can unite:

(1) Charter schools: California’s public schools have failed millions of students. Charter schools, unconstrained by union work rules, have become laboratories of innovation. They have consistently delivered better educational outcomes at lower cost. Their proliferation should be encouraged.

(2) Pension reform: California’s cities, counties and state agencies now face unfunded pension liabilities that – depending on what assumptions you make – total between $200 and $500 billion. Annual pension contributions now consume as much as 25% of the general fund budget in major cities. Reform is vital.

Via: California Political Review

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Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Thursday, May 22, 2014

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance. Forty-eight percent (48%) disapprove (see trends).

The latest figures include 22% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 37% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15.

Results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).

Twenty-nine percent (29%) think the United States is headed in the right direction. 

Following the U.S. government’s indictment of five Chinese military hackers for stealing commercial secrets, 45% believe a cyberattack by another country poses a greater economic threat to America than a traditional military attack. 

Just 18% of homeowners now think their home is worth less than when they bought it, unchanged from March and the lowest level of pessimism measured since regular tracking on this question began in April 2011.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) expect their home’s value to go up over the next year. That ties the highest level of confidence since early 2009.

Via: Rasmussen 

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[CARTOON] Obama’s View

Via: California Political Review
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IRS Approved $2.3 Billion in Fraudulent Alimony Deductions

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) authorized $2.3 billion in alimony deductions for divorced persons last year that did not match with their ex-spouses’ income, according to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

The audit, released last week, found that nearly half of all alimony deductions in 2010 were improper.

“In Tax Year 2010, a total of 567,887 taxpayers claimed alimony deductions totaling more than $10 billion,” TIGTA said. “An alimony income reporting discrepancy occurs when individuals claim deductions for alimony which they did not pay or individuals do not report alimony income they received.”

Persons who pay alimony are allowed to deduct their payments on their tax return to reduce their tax burden. However, the payments must be accounted as added income for the recipient of the alimony.

TIGTA examined 567,887 returns with an alimony deduction claim in 2010, and found that 266,190—or 47 percent—had income from claimed alimony deductions that were not reported or were inconsistent.

“There is a discrepancy of more than $2.3 billion in deductions claimed without corresponding income reported,” the audit said.

TIGTA noted that the IRS does not have a system in place to address improper alimony claims.

“Apart from examining a small number of tax returns, the IRS generally has no processes or procedures to address this substantial compliance gap,” the audit said.

Via: WFB

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