Best if pro-life groups start maintaining a “prayer log” for reporting purposes.

Yahoo News:

While applying with the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status in 2009, an Iowa-based anti-abortion group was asked to provide information about its members’ prayer meetings, documents sent by an IRS official to the organization reveal.

On June 22, 2009, the Coalition for Life of Iowa received a letter from the IRS office in Cincinnati, Ohio, that oversees tax exemptions requesting details about how often members pray and whether their prayers are “considered educational.”

“Please explain how all of your activities, including the prayer meetings held outside of Planned Parenthood, are considered educational as defined under 501(c)(3),” reads the letter, made public by the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm that collected evidence about the IRS practices. “Organizations exempt under 501(c)(3) may present opinions with scientific or medical facts. Please explain in detail the activities at these prayer meetings. Also, please provide the percentage of time your organizations spends on prayer groups as compared with the other activities of the organization.”

The IRS is currently under fire for allegedly targeting conservative groups that applied for nonprofit status in recent years. In response, two IRS officials have stepped down, including Acting Commissioner Steven Miller.

At the Ways and Means Committee hearing yesterday, Weasel Miller gave the following response when questioned about the IRS query:

“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller said. He had said earlier that he would not be able to discuss individual cases during the hearing.

“You don’t know whether or not that would be an appropriate question to ask?” Schock replied.

“Speaking outside of this case, which I don’t know anything about, it would surprise me that that question was asked,” Miller said.

Documented proof isn’t good enough for this clown. And judging by his cluelessness, there is very little doubt that Miller was “surprised” a great deal of the time about what the IRS was asking conservatives when auditing their applications.

when the feds came knocking for AP journalists’ call records last year, Verizon apparently turned the data over with no questions asked. The New York Times, citing an AP employee, reported Tuesday that at least two of the reporters’ personal cellphone records “were provided to the government by Verizon Wireless without any attempt to obtain permission to tell them so the reporters could ask a court to quash the subpoena.”

[...]

Controversially, the AP was not given advance notice of the seizure, which is considered the usual protocol when the government is seeking to obtain journalists’ records. However, Verizon Wireless could have notified the reporters, which may have helped them challenge its legality. Companies like Dropbox and Twitter have made it their policy to inform users (whenever possible) that the government is seeking access to their data, and Twitter has been applauded for how it has been willing to challenge authorities’ surveillance attempts in court. But Verizon—like AT&T, Facebook, and Comcast—has been criticized in the past for its lack of willingness to stand up for users’ privacy rights, which suggests its decision to hand over AP reporters’ records is true to form. The company has been rated as one of the worst in the United States for three consecutive years in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s annual “Who Has Your Back?” reports.

Should we initiate the Drudge protocol?

One of the few nuggets of information gleaned from the “not quite fired” former IRS commissioner Stephen Miller in yesterday’s testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee confirmed that suspicion.

The Hill:

Lois Lerner, an IRS official with oversight of tax-exempt groups, disclosed the scrutiny at an American Bankers Association conference last Friday after a question from a lawyer who has served on IRS advisory boards.

Questioned by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Miller acknowledged that IRS officials were aware that the question would be coming.

“I believe that we talked about that, yes,” Miller said at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, the first congressional inquiry into the agency’s actions.

Both Lerner and Miller testified before Congress last week, but did not discuss the attention given to Tea Party groups. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) said at Friday’s hearing that he asked Lerner last week about the IRS’s oversight of political groups seeking tax-exempt status.

For his part, Miller has consistently said throughout Friday’s hearing that he did not mislead Congress — under sharp questioning from Republicans who aren’t so sure of that.

“I always answered questions truthfully,” Miller said.

But never volunteered information that you knew full well was political dynamite.

With the inspector general’s audit of her section due out the following Tuesday, Lerner took the limited hang-out route by asking a lawyer, Celia Roady, who sat on a couple of IRS boards, to ask a question about the potential targeting of political groups.

“Lois, a few months ago there were some concerns about the IRS’s review of 501(c)(4) organizations, of applications from tea party organizations,” Celia Roady, a veteran tax lawyer, asked Lois Lerner, head of the IRS’ tax-exempt organizations division, a few minutes after Lerner finished giving prepared remarks. “I was just wondering if you could provide an update.”

Lerner gave her response, referring to notes that were prepared in advance.

While Lerner’s remarks have since been referred to as a “slip” by lawmakers and media reports, several people in the audience on Friday said they saw Lerner refer to notes when answering the question, as if she’d prepared the response in advance. The whole thing was so strange, some even speculated that the question itself had been a plant.

You don’t just innocently plant a question that anyone with half a brain knows that the answer will set off a nuclear bomb in Washington. There was purpose and planning behind the gesture — a strategy that we are supposed to believe was created and developed at the IRS with no help from the White House.

The public relations strategy to release information that would develop into the most significant and dangerous scandal of the Obama presidency would not be left to the flaks at an agency not known for a good public image.

It’s very difficult to believe that the planted question, the roll out of the narrative, and the rest of the PR campaign to limit the damage from this revelation was not carried out by people in the White House. If so, they must have known of the targeting program far longer than anyone has so far admitted.

This, despite the fact that his White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, had been informed of the probe on April 22. And despite the fact, as the New York Times reports, that officials in his Treasury Department knew in March that tea party groups had been targeted.

The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder Friday when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

The disclosure last summer came as part of a routine briefing of the investigations that the inspector general would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.

Treasury officials stressed they did not know the results until March 2013, when the inspector presented a draft.

So the administration knew in March — a month before it was previously believed the administration had knowledge of the impropriety of the targeting program — that the president had a monumental political problem on his hands.

And yet no one bothered to tell him? His newly minted Treasury secretary claims he knew “in mid March” of the IG’s probe but says he didn’t get any of the details until a week ago Friday:

“I learned the substance of this report last Friday when it became a matter of public knowledge,” Lew said. “Before that, in mid March, I had had a conversation, just a getting-to-know-you conversation, with the inspector general right after I started, and he went through a number of items that were matters they were working on. And the topic of a project on the 501(c)3 [sic] issue was one of the things he briefed me was ongoing.

“I didn’t know any of the details of it until last Friday. When I learned about it — from the moment I learned about it, I was outraged,” he added.

Yes, yes, Jackie, I’m sure your were “outraged.” But perhaps you can explain how some of your underlings knew of the “results” of the IG probe at the same time you claim to be in the dark about the “details” of the investigation?

Instead of answering that, or any other question, Treasury flaks issued a statement that answers a question nobody is asking:

“Treasury strongly supports the independent oversight of its three inspectors general, and it does not interfere in ongoing I.G. audits,” the department said in a statement Friday evening.

Nobody wants to know if Treasury “interfered” in the IG audit. Nobody asked that question. But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?

[I]n short, Phil Griffin’s network revolves around one thing: Politics. And that world just ain’t that compelling unless there’s ballot box somewhere in the near future. MSNBC is also built on pointing out the hypocrisy and/or evil nature of the Republican Party and Fox News, two cornerstones of its content. But now it is President Obama and his promise to be a completely transparent administration that is being gleefully exposed as hypocritical by the GOP and Fox.

[...]

In other words, the President is (to quote Tom Cruise in The Firm): “…like a ship carrying a cargo that will never reach any port”.

On the U.S.S. Obama is MSNBC. And in making a run at Fox and in an effort to distance itself from CNN, they simply rearranged the deck chairs by doing things like moving Chris Hayes from weekday mornings to primetime. The result has been nothing short of disastrous, as he now trailsThe O’Reilly Factor by a 7-to-1 margin while failing to get 500,000 viewers per night (Keith Olbermann, conversely, routinely generated over 1.2 million viewers before being asked to leave).

The only hope, of course, is Hillary and the Clinton for President 2.0 2016 campaign. It was somehow the lead story on the Chris Matthews Show on Sunday. All complete with fat jokes aboutChris Christie (lather, rinse, repeat) from the host, who ain’t exactly Calista Flockhart himself…

Benghazi? IRS? AP phone records seized? Nope…it’s all about an election 42 months away. Why? Because it’s a challenge to defend the President these days. His party won’t win in 2014. He’s already past tense, a lame duck. What to do?

Well, they’re trying to defend the president.

I do not believe what the IRS was reported to have been doing is an outrage. I believe that the IRS agents in this case did nothing wrong. Let me say it again, you won’t hear it anywhere else: the IRS agents did nothing wrong. They were simply trying to enforce the law as the IRS has understood it since 1959.” – Lawrence O’Donnell on the IRS.

“Conservatives still want to change the subject to the fake, ginned up scandal they’ve been pushing month after month.” – Chris Hayes on Benghazi.

[T]he IRS’ indefensible behavior is worse than we first thought, as it targeted both new and existing conservative groups in politically motivated attacks…fortunately my Leadership Institute had the resources to stand up to the government’s bullying and intimidation. Other groups, including grassroots and tea party groups we’ve helped train, did not.

In the end, the IRS accepted the Leadership Institute’s 2008 tax return, which was under review, but not after the non-profit spent $50,000 in legal fees.  Yet, it seems the Franklin Center, which trains citizen journalists, was also on the IRS’ hit list.

The Franklin Center’s Watchdog project reported on May 15 that there was an unusual jump in IRS.gov and EOP.gov traffic to their site from December of 2012 through May of 2013.  Franklin Center staff went back to see if they correlated with Drudge hits, or something of that nature, but couldn’t come to anything conclusive regarding the spike.  What is interesting is that on December 14th, 2012, the IRS visited their site 111 times, despite the average of one or two visits a day. The second highest day for page views from the IRS is twenty.

Will Swaim and Ryan Ekvall, who wrote the piece on Watchdog, mentioned that:

according to Google analytics, the IRS generated 456 unique visitors, between January 2009 and May 2013. The report notes 552 visits and 709 page views from the IRS. Most of the traffic occurred between the second half of 2012 and this week.

[...]

The analytics show 60 unique visitors and 84 page views to Watchdog.org from eop.gov, the Executive Office of the President, between December 2009 and May 2013.

The IRS has apologized in recent days for targeting conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status. Republicans are calling for criminal prosecutions, and the FBI is now investigating.

The source of White House visits, eop.gov, redirects visitors to the official White House website. A message on that redirect reads, “You have requested a page on EOP.gov and have been redirected here. EOP.gov is a domain operated by the Executive Office of the President. WhiteHouse.gov is the public-facing website for the EOP.”

Oh, this scandal reeks of Nixon.

As the Boston Globe notes: “For all [Markey’s] moral outrage about secret money being funneled into his opponent’s campaign, Markey’s real goal is to keep the financial advantage on the Democratic side. As the Globe reported last January, he entered the race with a $3.1 million war chest, much of it funded by the telecommunications and media industries, which he helps regulate as chairman of a powerful congressional committee. According to a memo circulated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Markey received more than $1 million from outside groups during the 2013 Senate primary campaign, more than any other primary candidate.”

So, who are Ed’s biggest fans.  The NRSC discovered through public FEC reports that:

Outside Groups Spent At Least $1.3 Million Supporting Markey

• League Of Conservation Voters Inc. Spent $472,892. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)
• LCV Victory Fund Spent $360,885. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)
• League Of Conservation Voters Action Fund Spent $2,500. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

SEIU COPE Spent $303,450 Supporting Markey. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

NARAL Spent $51,123 Supporting Markey. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

Local 1199 SEIU Spent $39,564 Supporting Markey. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

350.org Action Fund Spent $19,576 Supporting Markey. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

Planned Parenthood Spent $9,807 Supporting Markey. (FEC Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 5/1/13)

Yid With Lid wrote on May 5 that:

As part of his Congressional responsibilities Markey has the following committee work:

• Committee on Energy and Commerce
  • Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Power
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

• Committee on Natural Resources

Based on information from Open Secrets, during his 2012 Reelection campaign the largest donors to his campaign committee and/or his PAC (119 donors in total) contributed a total $586,263 to his reelection efforts, $408,963 (70%) of those contributions came from industries involved with his committees or unions.

Markey also scheduled former congressman Ben Jones, Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard, and his band to play at the $5,200 a head fundraiser, but barred him once it was known that Jones liked the Confederate flag.

Actor and former Georgia congressman Ben Jones, best known as “Cooter” on “Dukes of Hazzard,” was scheduled to play with Cooter’s Garage Band at the $5,200-a-person fundraiser for Markey’s Massachusetts’ senate campaign. But at the last minute, Markey asked Jones not to come. “The fact that this is regarded as a political liability means that they think it’s going to be a close race,” Jones told the Boston Globe.

Markey found out about Jone’s spirited defense of the controversial flag just hours before the party. Jones posted a letter on his website last year after NASCAR banned the show’s iconic car “General Lee” from appear­ing at Phoenix International Raceway because the Confederate flag is painted on the car roof. Jones wrote that NASCAR had dishonored Southerners and caved to political correctness and corporate sponsors.

Jones was unrepentant Tuesday, saying that the Markey staffer who called to cancel his appearance at the home of Ginny Grenham and Paul Zevnik “insulting me, my beliefs, my politics, my heritage, and everything else, and I guess my musicianship. I basically told the guy to fold it four ways and put it where the sun don’t shine.” But, he added, he would still vote for Markey if he lived in Massachusetts.

in 1976, Markey Supported A Constitutional Amendment To Prohibit Abortion. “Markey supports a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion, and opposes busing to achieve racial integration in public schools. He says his abortion position is a matter of conscience, because he thinks abortion is wrong.” (David B. Hilder, “Ed Markey: The Milkman’s Son Who Broke The Rules,” The [Harvard University] Crimson, 11/22/76)

When politicians want to turn scandals into metaphors, actual details of wrongdoing or incompetence no longer matter. In fact, the details of the troubles swirling around the White House this week are bluntly contradicting Republicans who want to combine them into a seamless narrative of tyrannical government on the rampage.

Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.

Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity.

The Obama regime responded to the news with a forked tongue today. The Pentagon acknowledged that the new missile shipment is a huge problem. The State Department denied that Russia was sending in any new missile shipments at all. Bystander Obama will chuckle about it all when he reads about it in the paper. And if there’s a problem, by gum, Barack’ll fix it!

The new missiles would complicate any US-UN-NATO effort to arm the rebels, should we decide to make that mistake.

“It enables the regime to deter foreign forces looking to supply the opposition from the sea, or from undertaking a more active role if a no-fly zone or shipping embargo were to be declared at some point,” said Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review. “It’s a real ship killer.”

Jeffrey White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior American intelligence official, said Syria’s strengthened arsenal would “tend to push Western or allied naval activity further off the coast” and was also “a signal of the Russian commitment to the Syrian government.”

Russia wants Assad to stay. Assad is a nasty butcher. But given the nature of his opposition, it’s hard to say that they’re wrong. Two things are certain. Our government is run by corrupt hacks who don’t look out for the nation’s interests. Russia’s government is corrupt but at least it’s professionally corrupt and does look out for Russian interests. Another Islamist state is not in Russia’s or America’s interests.

“So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong.”

He’s reacting to a column by Peggy Noonan that describes the IRS scandal as “the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.” You can either agree with that or not, but you cannot so glibly dismiss, as Sullivan does, the systemic implications of each of these assaults on the American public. “But how exactly is all this a crippling scandal for the president?” Sullivan asks, employing the singular rather than the plural, and apparently unaware that The White House is in panic mode. “He is not involved in any of these issues directly.” (Sullivan is still stuck on the “low-level” talking point; he’s willing to be outraged so long as that outrage doesn’t extend beyond the borders of a regional IRS office.)  Then: “I guess what I’m saying is that my own confidence in this president’s integrity and abilities is completely unfazed by these unconnected stories.”

I won’t quote anymore of this nonsense, lest people begin to suspect they should actually read it. To paraphrase a character from the movie The Paper, how stupid does Sullivan think we are? What does he think we get when we put two and two together? Three? Three and a half? The notion that no high-level official had any knowledge of, or guiding hand in, the IRS scandal is risible. It simply can’t be believed by anyone with some knowledge of politics and history.

Like Glenn Greenwald, Sullivan’s main rhetorical trope is a cranky self-righteousness, according to which we mere non-Sullivans are all just hateful little machines reflexively performing our hateful little duties. Let this creepy self-worship turn you off from him forever.

The vague Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women’s Services Act has been introduced in past Congresses with no success. Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal(D-Conn.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) decided to reintroduce for the 113th Congress timed to mark National Women’s Health Week.

“While I will defend crisis centers’ First Amendment rights even though I disagree with their view of abortion, those that practice bait-and-switch should be held accountable so that pregnant women are not deceived at an extremely vulnerable time in their lives,” Maloney said.

In years past, the bill gave the Federal Trade Commission enforcement powers to stop “any person from advertising with the intent to deceptively create the impression that such person is a provider of abortion services if such person does not provide abortion services.” It would be a violation of section 5(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Beyond that, it gives wide discretion to which operations the government could decide to close.

“Deceptive practices that prey on women at pregnancy centers are particularly repugnant and reprehensible – and should be strictly punished and stopped,” Blumenthal said. “This bill would end misleading and false pitches that exploit women seeking vital health care.”

The bill is backed by NARAL and the National Abortion Federation. “We know these crisis pregnancy centers lie to women in the moment they most need accurate information to decide the future of their pregnancy and their lives. It’s despicable that anyone would take advantage of that decision to drive their own political agenda,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We’re thrilled that Sen. Menendez is taking action to hold these fake ‘clinics’ accountable.”

Planned Parenthood also regularly lashes out at centers they call “fake clinics run by people who are anti-abortion” that “have a history of giving women wrong, biased information to scare them into not having abortions.”

Congress has a responsibility to determine
not only who is responsible for this outrage, but also how it was allowed to continue despite repeated concerns and inquires raised by Congress. In addition, answers are needed as to why senior IRS officials did not correct the record after learning of the problem.

The House investigation enters a new phase now that the allegations of political bias, denied for two years, have been revealed to be true. On Wednesday, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller submitted his resignation at the request of the White House and the Department of the Treasury.

Whether or not the Administration is sincere in its condemnation of these actions will quickly be revealed by its willingness to cooperate with Congress, turn over requested documents, and make officials available for interviews with congressional investigators. A failure to swiftly and fully comply with congressional requests will speak louder than any words of apology or condemnation could.

The memo is address to all House members, from Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, and House Government Oversight and Reform Chairman Darrell Issa.

Miller’s testimony earlier today was consistently uninformative. When asked for specific information and names of individuals involved in the abuse, Miller tended answer with variations of “I don’t know.”

Attorney General Eric Holder followed a similar pattern earlier in the week when he testified about the Department of Justice’s sweep of Associated Press phone records.

When he was asked about his knowledge of the IRS scandal at the White House Thursday, President Barack Obama likewise refused to answer directly, and instead offered a lawyerly reply that did not answer the question at all.

Today’s memo suggests that going forward, the House will expect the White House to stop claiming that it finds the IRS’ actions outrageous, and just comply with any investigations demanding information, witnesses and answers.

The memo also offers a comprehensive timeline of the major events in the IRS abuse scandal.

And to do this, he’s consulting with other militaries around the world for suggestions.

Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, along with senior enlisted and Vice President Joe Biden, sat down with President Obama yesterday for “a very important, productive meeting” on the crisis, Hagel said this afternoon at the Pentagon.

“It gave the president an opportunity to ask questions directly and get the sense of this huge problem, this serious problem in our military,” Hagel said. “…The president was very constructive. He was very clear. There wasn’t anyone in that room who was disappointed.”

The latest in a string of cases of military sexual abuse program managers to be accused of crimes, Lt. Col. Darin Haas at Fort Campbell, Ky., was relieved of his post after allegedly violating an order of protection and stalking his ex-wife.

“We all have committed to turn this around and we’re gonna fix the problem; this is going to take all of us,” Hagel said, stressing “the problem will be solved here in this institution and we will fix it.”

The new team he’s assembled to come up with intragency solutions, and perhaps ward off an onslaught of legislation, will hold its first meeting next month at the Pentagon.

“It’s not good enough to say we have a zero tolerance policy,” Hagel said.

In addition, every military recruiter will have to undergo special training after a string of sexual misconduct cases in their ranks.

“The risks inherent to military service must not include the risk of sexual assault,” Dempsey said, stressing that “the emphasis on prevention is especially important” and the Joint Chiefs have been brainstorming on ways to “change a culture that has become complacent.”

“Now’s the time for moral courage at every level; there can be no bystanders,” he added of battling “aggressive sexual behavior that rips at the bonds of trust that bind us together.”

Hagel addressed the question of those who say “well, why don’t you just fire some people — well, yeah, who you gonna fire?”

“Where we can find people who have actually perpetrated these crimes, yes,” he said.

Hagel stressed the importance of an independent review board to look objectively at the cases and arrive at suggestions for real-world fixes.

“We need to see what they come up with,” he said. “We’re talking with other militaries from around the world and see what they think.”

The Defense secretary didn’t say which countries he’s consulted. This week he met with counterparts from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey.

There’s only one proper response to Kelly’s performance.

Having spent most of my legal career working with tax exempt entities, the IRS scrutiny on the Tea Party isn’t news to me. In my days at large law firms, I handled a portfolio of nonprofit Tea Party organizations and saw firsthand how the IRS treated them when it came to granting exemptions.

In many cases, the organizations fight tooth-and-nail to get through IRS scrutiny, often facing pages of questions from the IRS on their activities.

In some instances, the IRS went about it in a more roundabout way, calling into question the organization’s use of funds, its outside grants and operational issues.

Several of the applications were even sent up to the IRS’ National Office for elevated scrutiny.

The experiences mirror the allegations of the American Center for Law and Justice, who represented 27 organizations.

On the flip side, I’ve worked with numerous Muslim organizations as well. And every single application of a Muslim nonprofit has gone through the IRS, with less scrutiny. Of course, they still did get scrutiny– after all, Islamophobia is still pretty rampant everywhere and it’s inaccurate to say that they got a free pass. But truth be told, they never got a 10-page questionnaire on each and every one of their grantees.

What does this say about the way that the IRS is handling applications from Muslim nonprofits? For one, in the application phase, Muslim nonprofits seem to have an upper hand over Tea Party groups.

I’m sure no one in the IRS asked those Muslim groups to divulge the content of their members’ prayers.

Outgoing fake-fired commissioner Steven Miller could not address that specific case or question, but allowed that he would be “surprised” if that question was asked.

There was no “if.” The IRS asked it, in writing. Steven Miller’s agency appears to have become a secularist Inquisition.

[IRS official] Lerner disclosed the information last Friday while speaking at a tax conference organized by the American Bar Association. Asked about the incident, she said only that she answered honestly a question that was posed to her. The question, however, was posed to Lerner by Celia Roady, a Washington, D.C. tax lawyer who sits on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities.

Miller indicated today that Roady was in fact instructed by the IRS to ask the question, and the Lerner knew about the question in advance.

“Who told her to ask the question?” asked Republican representative Kenny Marchant.

“I don’t know, actually, I’m not sure, might have been Lois Lerner,” Miller responded. He went on to say that the IRS intended simultaneously to inform Congress, but admitted the agency only inquired about the congressional calendar.

Prior to the hearings, Lisa Myers reported that the IRS deliberately delayed acknowledging the abuse until after the 2012 election.

The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What’s going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when — after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don’t disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we — if you can — what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different.”

The outlines of this scandal are now, that the IRS intentionally, maliciously and systematically abused groups opposed to President Obama’s re-election and agenda. The agency delayed acknowledging that until after the election was over, and only acknowledged it after the fact, once Obama was safely in office for another four years and when its officials believed they could low-ball the news.

When he was asked point blank whether he or anyone else in the White House knew about the abuse, President Obama gave a distracting, non-responsive answer.

“I would say that it’s been a challenging week, but in many ways, a week that I’ve enjoyed because I think that when a press secretary goes to the briefing room and there’s a lot of intensity in the room and a lot of news, that, you know, it’s inspiring reporters to ask hard questions. You know, that’s what it’s all about,” Carney said.

“And I have no problem with that and I think that it’s part of our democracy and part of what makes the process great. So I — you know, some people have said oh — you know, you’ve really been on the firing line and, you know, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve kind of enjoyed it,” he added.

Morgan noted damning commentaries from the New York Times and the Washington Post saying President Obama has been acting like a bystander while letting Carney take the heat.

“What’s remarkable to me, Piers, is that those very fine journalists who wrote those stories would be writing something far worse if a president, this president or any other president, was directly involved in a criminal investigation that in part was looking at his own administration,” Carney said. “That would be — there’s a history to it and I assume the two people who wrote that know the history and understand that it is entirely inappropriate for a president or a White House to be engaged in or, you know, inappropriately knowledgeable about a criminal investigation the likes of which is under way as we understand it by the Justice Department.”

“So you know, those kind of narratives sound right but when you peel back the onion just a little bit, the facts just don’t support it. What the president has done when it comes to the IRS situation is that when he found out based on the I.G.’s report that there had been inappropriate and wrong conduct by IRS personnel, he spoke out about it, he made clear he thought it was an outrage and he has taken action,” he said.

The press secretary also took issue with Morgan’s characterization of the three scandals as scandals.

“One is a total concoction by Republicans on the first hand, you know, and the other, I mean, it depends on the IRS issue, absolutely,” Carney said, referring to Benghazi first.

Asked if he was outraged by the third scandal, the AP phone records grab, as a journalist, Carney said “obviously the Department of Justice, obviously the people involved, obviously the deputy attorney general, were fully aware of the investigation and the activity of that investigation. We at the White House appropriately are not engaged in that activity. It would be wrong if we were.”

But he saved time at the end of the interview for more slamming of “the Benghazi affair that was contrived by Republicans and I think has fallen apart largely this week.”

“The fact of the matter is that we — that this administration has a record on transparency that outdoes any previous administrations, and we are committed to that. The president is committed to that,” he said.

CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson has produced a comprehensive behind-the-scenes report based on her interviews with many officials who were involved in the lack of response to the Benghazi attack. About two-thirds of the way in, Attkisson addresses the role played, or not, by the Counterterrorism Security Group.

Under presidential directive, an interagency task force called the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) is to be convened when emergency terrorist events are suspected. According to a public military document, it’s part of a plan to “synchronize the efforts of all the government agencies that have a role to play in the Global War on Terrorism.” But on Sept. 11, 2012, the Obama administration did not convene this body of terrorism expert advisers.

One official associated with the State Department now acknowledges that the CSG would probably have advised decision makers that FEST “was not just backup generator and radios.” Said the official: “the CSG could have made the argument, they were upset that they weren’t heard.” Another former Defense Department official says he finds no merit to using the CSG. “I’d like to hear them say what they could have done.”

Last October, National Security Council (NSC) Spokesman Tommy Vietor told CBS News that the CSG wasn’t needed because consultations were quickly underway at the highest levels. He indicated that, under the Obama administration, the function of the CSG has become a “lower level group” that “does different tasks” than under the Bush administration. “From the moment [President Obama] was briefed on the Benghazi attack, the response effort was handled by the most senior national security officials in governments. Members of the CSG were of course involved in these meetings and discussions to support their bosses,” said Vietor.

However, absent the CSG’s collective advice, there’s evidence that some high-level decision makers were unaware of all available resources. In October, on a phone call that included then-Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough (now White House Chief of Staff), Vietor initially told CBS News: “I don’t know what [FEST] is… it sounds antiquated.”

Barack Obama and many of his supporters believed that his election to the presidency would essentially end the war on terrorism. That belief rears its head here. What other tasks besides counterterrorism and security should the Counterterrorism Security Group be doing? Why was it pushed down the food chain? What are its current tasks? If they’re not counterterrorism and security, why does it still exist?

Tommy Vietor keeps turning up conspicuously in the Benghazi scandal, in part because the president sets the tone. Obama’s loyalist bus driver was heavily involved in the talking points discussion, playing the pivotal role of looping the State Department into what started as a vetting of intelligence-based talking points and quickly became a political discussion. The eventual outcome of that was a product that was useless on the facts, misleading to the public, but helpful to Obama and his tone on terrorism.

As Attkisson reports, Vietor acknowledges that under Obama the presidential Counterterrorism Security Group has been effectively demoted. This president has consistently downplayed the threat of terrorism, and his administration in fact doesn’t even acknowledge that the Ft. Hood massacre was an act of terrorism. To them, it was “workplace violence.” The Department of Homeland Security infamously tried describing terrorism as “man-caused disasters.”

Here is one consequence of a president going out of his way not to know what’s going on or why:

Vietor initially told CBS News: “I don’t know what [FEST] is… it sounds antiquated.”

Tommy Vietor was Obama’s National Security Council spokesman. His ignorance of the Foreign Emergency Support Team’s existence and capabilities is shocking. It’s his job to know. Obama put him in that position, based not on his national security credentials but on his loyalty to Obama. Vietor wasn’t doing his job and wasn’t even shy about expressing his ignorance. He had some reason to believe there would be no consequences for not knowing basic details directly relevant to his ability to do his job.

The president sets the tone, and raised his loyalist driver to become his NSC spokesman. His administration also just raised Jen Psaki to become a State Department spokesman, despite the fact that she has no foreign policy experience at all. What she is, though, is a loyal partisan who is not shy about attacking Americans who disagree with Obama.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fifty-four percent of those surveyed said they were very or somewhat closely following the news that IRS applied greater scrutiny to conservative political groups, 22 percent said they weren’t following the story too closely, and 24 percent said they weren’t following the IRS story at all.

Fifty-three percent of those surveyed said they were very or somewhat closely following the revelations into the Benghazi attack, 22 percent said they weren’t following the story too closely, and 24 percent said they weren’t following the IRS story at all.

Gallup called these numbers “comparatively low based on historical measures of other news stories over the last two decades.”

“Despite extensive news coverage of these stories in recent days, the level of attention being paid to each is below the average 60% of Americans who have closely followed more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured over the past several decades,” the polling organization said. “Additionally, Americans appear to be paying almost exactly the same levels of attention to both stories, despite the relative newness of the IRS story during the time in which this survey was in the field.”

Forty percent of Democrats surveyed were following the IRS story, while 67 percent of Republicans said they are. Forty-five percent of Democrats said they have been following Benghazi, while 66 percent of Republicans are.

Seventy-four percent said more investigation is needed for the IRS scandal and 69 percent want more scrutiny for Benghazi.

What the IRS actually did was formulate a “be on the lookout” or BOLO list by which it targeted Tea Party, conservative and pro-life groups systematically for years. It kicked patriots in the face, for years, when they decided to become engaged in the political process.

Again under questioning, Miller admitted that this “horrible customer service” did not stop him from promoting Sarah Hall Ingram from the tax-exempt office that abused these groups, to head the implementation of ObamaCare.

If the office Ingram headed provided such “horrible customer service,” then why did Miller promote her?

“Because she is an exemplary civil servant,” Miller replied, evidently creating a new definition of the word “exemplary.”

Miller also offered up another memorable line when questioned about his previous testimony, in which he failed to acknowledge that the targeting had taken place. “It was incorrect but not untruthful,” Miller said.

“I do not believe partisanship motivated” the political and donor questions posed to Tea Party and other applicants, Miller told the panel. “Foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient.”

Under questioning from Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who called the IG’s report “chilling stuff,” Miller said he accepted the inspector general’s findings but “I would not characterize it as targeting.”

“It is absolutely not illegal,” Miller claimed, adding “I don’t believe it should happen.”

J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration who issued the scathing report, said some groups had their applications waiting for three years and through two election cycles.

“In summary, we found that all three allegations were substantiated,” George testified. “The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Because of ineffective management by IRS officials 1) inappropriate criteria were developed and stayed in place for a total of more than 18 months, 2) there were substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) unnecessary information requests were issued to the organizations.”

Miller said when he found out about the selective enforcement “ultimately I issued a directive that said the law in the area was not that clear, that we had not been enforcing in that area substantially.”

“I said let’s not enforce right now, let’s talk about it and study it… I thought that was the fair thing to do.”

He also admitted that he was aware of the leak of confidential applicant information to Pro Publica.

But Miller defended previous commissioner Doug Shulman, who testified last year that no targeting of Tea Party groups was occurring.

“It was incorrect but whether it was untruthful or not…” Miller said. “To my knowledge I don’t believe he knew at the time.”

The IRS official repeatedly refused to use the word “targeting” as committee members did. “I think it’s a term that defines something that didn’t exist here,” said Miller, stating at another point “I’m going to take exception to ‘targeting’ because I think that’s a loaded term.”

Under pointed questioning, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) asked Miller if he had any contact with the White House on the Tea Party targeting.

“Absolutely not,” Miller responded. “I certainly would have had some conversations with Treasury… on this topic I believe it was very recent.”

Nunes also asked if Miller had any contact with President Obama’s re-election campaign or OFA. “No,” Miller answered.

When asked why he’d agree to resign while claiming the IRS didn’t target groups, the acting commissioner said, “I never said I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I resigned because as the acting commissioner what happens at the IRS, whether I was personally involved or not, stops at my desk.”

He later said “I was asked to resign and I will retire.”

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) called the IRS controversy a bipartisan scandal that “has brought us together.”

“Much as I dislike the right, I think it’s wrong,” he said.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said it’s key to uncover “how far did this cancer go, how quickly can we cut it out.”

“It’s too late for the Congress but it’s not too late for the government to get its reputation cleaned up for America,” said Rangel, who stepped down as Ways and Means chairman in 2010 because of his ethics scandal.

Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) flashed a list of 35 questions asked one group, noting that one applicant was asked for a list of books read at her book club.

“I don’t know how you can say it’s not political,” Tiberi said.

“We provided horrible customer service here,” Miller said, still protesting any political motivations.

Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) presented some IRS requests received by anti-abortion groups, including “please detail the content of the members of your association’s prayers.”

Miller said he did not know about the specific case, but “it would surprise me that that question was asked.”

Schock also noted another request to “please detail certain signs that may or may not be held up outside a Planned Parenthood facility.”

“That doesn’t sound like the usual question,” Miller said.

The station is examining Conners’ recent allegations that he was targeted by the Internal Revenue Service after interviewing President Barack Obama.

“He’s not suspended. We just all thought it made sense (for him) to take a few days off,” news director Sean McLaughlin said Thursday.

“We take this very seriously, and we don’t expect this to drag on. We’re still looking into the situation and weighing our options,” he said.

As I wrote the other day, Connors is a local institution — I was watching him in junior high three decades ago. McLaughlin may very well be playing with fire on this one.

(Hat tip, Nolte.)

PIERS MORGAN: Final question, Jay Carney. Obviously the president made a big deal when he came into office of being not like previous administrations and was going to be much more transparent. The charge today after this week is that you have had that reputation for transparency pretty heavily dented. Do you accept that and just on a general picture, how are you going to move on now and restore perhaps faith that some Americans have lost this week in your openness and honesty?

JAY CARNEY: Well, I’m not sure, again, you’re concocting scandals here that don’t exist, especially with regard to the Benghazi affair that was contrived by Republicans and I think has fallen apart largely this week. The fact of the matter is that this administration has a record on transparency that outdoes any previous administration, and we are committed to that. The president is committed to that.

“You’re concocting scandals here that don’t exist…” Plural. Carney just denied that any of the massive scandals ripping around this presidency — the AP phone records sweep, the IRS systematically abusing Americans and even a congressman because of their political beliefs, Benghazi — are real. He also insisted that something is true that clearly is not, and hardly anyone believes — that the Obama administration is transparent. Obama appointed more unaccountable czars than any other previous president, and has operated an opaque and very political administration built in part on a philosophy of “punishing your enemies.”

Carney’s statement isn’t denial and it isn’t accidental. It’s gaslighting.

In the book Gaslighting, the Double Whammy, Interrogation and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Analysis, the late forensic psychiatrist Theodore Dorpat defines gaslighting as a situation in which one individual “attempts to exert control over the feelings, thoughts or activities of another.” According to Dorpat, the gaslighting behavior itself is covert — neither “directly hostile” nor “intimidating.”

“In order to be effective, gaslighting depends on first convincing the victim that his thinking is distorted and secondly persuading him that the victimizer’s ideas are the correct and true ones,” writes Dorpat.

Carney will continue to insist, even as the facts pile up against him, that there is no scandal here and that you’re crazy to think that there is. The facts in the AP scandal suggest that DOJ went on a fishing expedition to retaliate after the news agency ran a story outside of the administration’s preferred timing. The facts of the IRS scandal suggest that it went very high up in and probably beyond that agency’s leadership, and constituted naked political abuse aimed to intimidate Americans and disengage them from the 2012 election. The facts on Benghazi suggest that the administration abandoned Americans under assault so that it could preserve its campaign narrative that al Qaeda had been more or less defeated. The movie was pushed as the reason for the attack to reach that same end.

No one has been held accountable in any of these scandals yet. The State Department’s firings connected to Benghazi turned out to be phony. The IRS resignation turned out to be a sham. Nothing has happened to anyone in connection with the AP sweep yet.

Carney, Obama et al will try to convince America that we’re all crazy to be concerned about and demand justice in these scandals. We’re being gaslit by an abusive and manipulative administration.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Ingram turns out not to be another lifelong Obama loyalist or even partisan Democrat campaigner, which is welcome news. She has been around the IRS for decades, according to an official agency bio of her. That’s less welcome news. Someone around the agency for that long had to have known how deeply wrong it was to abuse citizens as the IRS did.

Since July 2004, Ingram has been serving as Deputy Commissioner of the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division (TE/GE). Ingram began her career with the IRS in the former Tax Litigation Division in 1982. She became Employee Plans Litigation Counsel in 1987, providing litigation coordination nationwide for employee benefit cases. In 1992, Ingram became Deputy Associate Chief Counsel, Employee Benefits and Exempt Organizations (EBEO), where she served until her 1994 appointment as Associate Chief Counsel, EBEO. As part of the IRS Modernization program, Ingram was appointed in 1999 to the new position of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel, TE/GE, where she was responsible for providing legal services to the TE/GE Division and its customers as well as other parts of the IRS.

So she isn’t a Tommy Vietor. Nevertheless, her office abused patriots who became engaged in the political process because they love their country. She was handed massive bonuses to the tune of over $100,000 during the abuse years. And is now on track to head IRS’ ObamaCare enforcement.

This won’t do. She needs to be testifying and may need to lawyer up. It’s not possible that a couple of rogue employees ran such a widespread and granular program of abuse. It had to have buy-in from echelons within and above the Cincinnati office, and we know that it did. IRS officials in Washington participated in it.

IRS should never have been involved in our health care. Ever. Of all the horrible ideas Democrats have come up with, putting the IRS essentially between citizen and doctor may be the absolute worst. The House repealed ObamaCare Thursday, again. If Republicans can take the Senate next year and hold it long enough to see a replacement for Obama elected, it can still be repealed in full and it should be.

When you spend enough time reading denialist literature–indeed, if you spend enough time reading conspiracy theorists in general–you notice the same methods and tendencies appear over and over. One of these is what I call the Law of Mutually Exclusive Exculpations. This is when different denialists propose different but mutually contradictory versions of the conspiracy theory. A weird kind of theoretical inbreeding develops wherein the theorists begin to quote and support one another, absorbing these different arguments into their own narratives, which they continually revise, despite all the narratives contradicting one another.

Holocaust deniers do it all the time. The Holocaust never happened, some say. Others say it happened, but it was exaggerated. There were no gas chambers. There were gas chambers, but they were used only for delousing. The Nazis didn’t do it. Actually, they did but Hitler didn’t know about it. Actually, he did know about it but tried to stop it. And so on and so on. Each of these theories contradicts the others, but all deniers seem to support every one of these theories, so long as the general theme of making light of the “official narrative” is maintained. The objective is not to get at the truth, but to subvert it at all costs, even at the expense of internal consistency.

Scandal denial is no different. I hate to traffic in Godwin’s Law and lump people in with Holocaust deniers, but as a lesson in rhetorical slipperiness it needs to be done. Shape-shifting and mutually contradictory arguments are thrown at the wall like wet toilet paper, in the hopes that some of it will stick. The IRS targeted conservatives, but it was only “local officials” who did it. Actually, it was Washington officials too, but this is somehow still “local.” Actually, the IRS didn’t target conservatives. OK, the IRS was just doing its job in targeting conservatives. Actually, it was “bad management,” but it was still good management since it was justified. Somehow, in the denialist universe, all these arguments obtain simultaneously. Each is valid even though each is contradicted by the other. We are expected to be so stupid and naive as to believe all of them.

An internal IRS memo says Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency’s tax exempt and government entities division, will retire June 3. Grant joins Steven Miller, who was forced to resign as acting IRS commissioner on Wednesday.

As part of his duties, Grant oversaw the IRS division that targeted tea party groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

Grant joined the IRS in 2005.

Congressional investigators should keep his name handy.

Palestinian Christian protesters lament the forced conversions of loved ones

The BBC adds in a sidebar: “The ‘Martyrs of Otranto’ were 813 Italians beheaded for defying demands by Turkish invaders to renounce Christianity.  The Turks had been sent by Mohammed II, who had already captured the ‘second Rome’ of Constantinople.”

Historical texts throughout the centuries are filled with similar anecdotes, including the “60 Martyrs of Gaza,” Christian soldiers who were executed for refusing Islam during the 7^th century Islamic invasion of Jerusalem. Seven centuries later, during the Islamic invasion of Georgia, Christians refusing to convert were forced into their church and set on fire. Witnesses for Christ lists 200 anecdotes of Christians killed—including some burned at the stake, thrown on iron spikes, dismembered, stoned, stabbed, shot at, drowned, pummeled to death, impaled and crucified—for refusing to embrace Islam.

If history is shocking, the fact is, today, Christians—men, women, and children—are still being forced to convert to Islam.  Pope Francis alluded to their sufferings during the same ceremony: “As we venerate the martyrs of Otranto, let us ask God to sustain those many Christians who, in these times and in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence, and give them the courage and fidelity to respond to evil with good.”

Consider some recent anecdotes:

In Pakistan, a “devoted Christian” was butchered by Muslim men “with multiple axe blows [24 per autopsy] for refusing to convert to Islam.” Another two Christian men returning from church were accosted by six Muslims who tried to force them to convert to Islam, but “the two refused to renounce Christianity.”  Accordingly, the Muslims severely beat them, yelling they must either convert “or be prepared to die. . . . the two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them.”

In Bangladesh some 300 Christian children were abducted in 2012 and sold to Islamic schools, where “imams force them to abjure Christianity.”  The children are then instructed in Islam and beaten. After full indoctrination they are asked if they are “ready to give their lives for Islam,” presumably by becoming jihadi suicide-bombers.  (Even here the historic patterns are undeniable: for centuries, Christian children were forcibly taken, converted to and indoctrinated in Islam, trained to be jihadis extraordinaire, and then unleashed on their former Christian families.  Such were the Janissaries and Mamelukes.)

In Palestine in 2012, Christians in Gaza protested over the “kidnappings and forced conversions of some former believers to Islam.” The ever-dwindling Christian community banged on a church bell while chanting, “With our spirit, with our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Jesus.”… Continue reading

Daniel Werfel currently serves as controller of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Werfel has also served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

“Throughout his career working in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Danny has proven an effective leader who serves with professionalism, integrity and skill,” Obama said in a statement. “The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time.”

Werfel, 42, has served in other roles at OMB including as deputy controller, chief of the Financial Integrity and Analysis Branch, budget examiner in the Education Branch, and policy analyst in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The new acting commissioner takes over on May 22. Obama has yet to nominate a permanent replacement for Commissioner Doug Shulman, who left the job in November.

If her name sounds familiar, it’s because Psaki was President Obama’s traveling press secretary during his re-election campaign.

She was then picked by new Secretary of State John Kerry to be his press secretary, replacing Victoria Nuland. Since Psaki’s mid-February selection, she’s been undergoing intensive training within the State Department on global affairs.

Daily briefings at the State Department include reporters from around the world, and the questions usually span a wide range of countries. Psaki comes to the job with no foreign policy experience.

Nuland, on the other hand, was a former U.S. ambassador to NATO in the George W. Bush administration and a former foreign policy adviser to Dick Cheney.

Kerry knows Psaki from her work on his 2004 presidential campaign, but unlike the messaging she shaped for Obama’s and Kerry’s campaigns the State Department is expressly a nonpartisan agency.

Richard Grenell, who was press secretary for four U.S. ambassadors at the United Nations including John Bolton, weeks ago sent Psaki flowers and a note wishing her well in her new role. He hasn’t received a reply.

Suffice to say she’s not being treated with kid gloves by the State Department press corps. Here’s a sampling from today’s briefing, on Benghazi:

QUESTION: And you mentioned the e-mails that were released. Overall, in this building, what is the reaction to that release? Do you think it will quell the debate? Well, let’s start with that.

PSAKI: Well, the White House release yesterday, it allows the American public, including all of you, to see firsthand the conversation that took place over the course of e-mails. It does confirm that these were CIA-drafted and CIA-finalized talking points and that a number of the concerns raised in this building were separately on a different track raised in that building, as well.

I leave that to all of you and to others to determine whether it quells the concern, but I think it certainly does put a lot of facts in clarity for people.

QUESTION: So if it’s such a good thing, why did you wait more than nine months to do this?

PSAKI: Well, they’ve been released now…

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: I don’t want to look into a rear-view mirror on that.

QUESTION: You don’t want to look forward, you don’t want to look backward.

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: I do want to look forward. I’m all about looking forward.

QUESTION: You do? And then you don’t want to prejudge…

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: That’s what the implementation of the ARB is about.

QUESTION: You don’t want to prejudge anything or predetermine…

PSAKI: Well, that’s separate.

It’s been widely speculated around Washington that Psaki is being groomed to eventually replace Jay Carney in the press secretary role at the White House.

Yahoo is digitizing all of them and creating an interactive that works like an email inbox. You can click through and see which email was sent when, and by whom. Check it out.

Only about 25% of the emails have been digitized and included so far. But just looking at the inbox at this point, two things are apparent. Tommy Vietor, the loyalist bus driver who became Obama’s national security spokesman, is the one who looped the State Department into the talking points discussion. That’s in the 9/14/2012 email sent at 6:21 PM. It’s after that that State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has a conversation with her “building’s leadership” and comes back with substantive edits to the CIA’s talking points.

h/t Drew M.

Yeah, about that. It appears not to be true.

For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.

The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange. Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.

Get that? The administration wanted to own the story, and wanted AP to hold off publishing until Obama et al could announce it themselves.

The CIA, which would later allow the State Department to edit the Benghazi talking points, continued arguing with the AP to delay releasing the story even after all the security concerns about it went away.

The news service was prepared to publish its scoop on May 2, 2012. But in discussions with government officials, the CIA stressed to AP that publishing anything about the operation to obtain the bomb and thwart the plot would create grave national security dangers and compromise a “sensitive intelligence operation.”

Michael J. Morell, the CIA’s deputy director, gave AP reporters some additional background information to persuade them to hold off, Vietor said. The agency needed several days more to protect what it had in the works.

Then, in a meeting on Monday, May 7, CIA officials reported that the national security concerns were “no longer an issue,” according to the individuals familiar with the discussion.

When the journalists rejected a plea to hold off longer, the CIA then offered a compromise. Would they wait a day if AP could have the story exclusively for an hour, with no government officials confirming it for that time?

It’s after the AP decides to run with the story, that the DOJ goes after its phone records in a sweep so vast that it even included the AP’s phone at the US House of Representatives. Given who the AP may have been talking to on that phone, we may have a violation of the separation of powers.

Obama bus driver Tommy Vietor helpfully wraps the story up for his boss.

“We shouldn’t pretend that this leak of an unbelievably sensitive dangerous piece of information is okay because nobody died,” he said.

We shouldn’t pretend that lifelong Obama loyalists are qualified to be national security spokesmen, either.

h/t Allahpundit

“Listen, jobs is our primary focus, but while we’re focused on that, we’re also focused on holding this administration accountable. Our committees are working overtime to uncover the truth about what happened in Libya, and they’re trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the IRS scandal,” Boehner said at a news conference today.

“…The best way to repair this damage is for the administration to come forward with the truth, the whole truth, so that the American people will have all of the facts.”

When asked which people he wants to see go to jail, the speaker reiterated that he wants to see all the facts.

“I want to know how this happened, who was responsible for it. It’s clear that there — there is law. Section 7214 of the Title 26 of the U.S. code states very clearly, any officer or employee of the United States acting in connection with any revenue law of the United States who is guilty of extortion or willful oppression under the color of law shall be dismissed from office and, if convicted, be fined up to $10,000 and spend five years in jail,” Boehner said.

“…Somebody made a decision to do this. And I doubt that it was some low-level employees in the Cincinnati field office.”

Boehner was asked if he trusts President Obama in light of all the scandals.

“Listen, it’s not about trusting someone. Our job here is to get to the truth, and we’re going to get to the truth. And I know what you’re up to. I’m not taking the bait,” he said.

At a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today, Obama said his “main concern” with the IRS scandal “is fixing a problem.”

“And we began that process yesterday by asking and accepting the resignation of the acting director there. We will be putting in new leadership that will be able to make sure that following up on the IG audit that we gather up all the facts, that we hold accountable those who have taken these outrageous actions,” Obama said. “…And I’m looking forward to working with Congress to fully investigate what happened, make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and also look at some of the laws that create a bunch of ambiguity in which the IRS may not have enough guidance and not be clear about what, exactly, they need to be doing and doing it right, so that the American people have confidence that — that the tax laws are being applied fairly and evenly.”

Acting commissioner Steve Miller was not in charge at the time of the scandal. He planned to leave the post in June at the conclusion of a 25-year career at the IRS.

Miller is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee tomorrow morning.