Republican Jackass of the Week

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Did you catch his two-hour press conference yesterday? Gone was the pompous, snotty attitude and the sarcasm ("Yeah, I was in charge of the cones. I was the guy who set out the traffic cones to snarl traffic at the George Washington bridge").

This was the fourth month he had to deal with the controversy surrounding the unnecessary closure of most of the lanes of the bridge that connects New York City with Fort Lee, New Jersey, leading to gridlock in Fort Lee for four days -- inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of motorists, keeping thousands of kids from getting to school on time, and impeding life-saving emergency vehicles from reaching their destinations, with at least one death the result.

This happens to be the world's busiest bridge.

It also happens to directly affect the city of Fort Lee, in which the mayor refused to endorse Christie in his re-election bid.

Coincidence? Not after a flurry of emails were released on Wednesday.

 "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," wrote Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's deputy chief of staff to David Wildstein, Chrisie's appointee at the Port Authority.

"Got it." was the response.

Responding to the mess, Fort Lee's Mayor Sokolich sent emails to the Port Authority saying, "Help please; it's maddening."

Christie's closest aides wrote to each other: "Is it wrong that I am smiling?" followed by "I feel bad about the kids." Another aide wrote, "They are the children of the Buono voters [who couldn't get to school]." Barbara Buono was the state senator who ran against Christie in the last election.

And Wildstein, Christie's appointee at the Port Authority wrote, "It will be a tough November for that little Serbian," referring to Fort Lee Mayor Sokolich, who is actually Croatian.

Clearly, the lane closures were done on purpose. Christie originally claimed the four lanes that were merging into one toll booth were the result of a "traffic study." But the Port Authority testified there was no traffic study.

So yesterday, when New Jersey's governor walked out for his press conference, the attitude was gone and he knew he had to at least appear to be apologetic.

Now, he could have said one of two things:

(1) "I purposely demanded the closing of three lanes to retaliate against the Mayor of Fort Lee who refused to endorse my re-election, because I am a petty, spiteful, vindictive little man."

or

(2) "I didn't hear about those emails until yesterday and I had no idea whatsoever what was going on in my inner circle, with my top aides who I deal with in my office every single day."

Of course, he went with the second option, essentially admitting he is oblivious and ignorant of what decisions are made on his behalf, in his own office, with his closest staff.

Those who know Christie say he runs his office like a military camp, where practically no one even goes to the bathroom without permission. So how it could be remotely possible that he was oblivious to what his top staffers did for four days is a mystery.

This is criminal abuse of power that came right from the top. Yet Christie portrayed himself as the victim.

"I'm hurt and saddened," he said. "I have 65,000 people working for me every day. And I cannot know what each one of them is doing at every minute."

No, governor, we're not talking about just any of these 65,000 people. We're not talking about some snowplow operator in Hackensack. We're talking about 3 or 4 of your closest aides that you see every day in your office.

The bottom line is this: whether New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spitefully closed most lanes of the George Washington bridge for retribution, or whether he is so oblivious he has no idea what his top aides are doing right under his nose, he is not fit for the job.

And this guy thinks he's presidential material.  Give me a break.

Chris Christie, our Republican Jackass of the Week.

Republican Jackass of the Week

This time it's the entire Republican-controlled House of Representatives, allegedly run by Speaker John Boehner.

Today's their last workday, if you can call it that, before their 5-week summer vacation. Usually at this time of year, they tend to scramble to get things done before running out the door.

But not Bourbon Boehner's Bunch.

Today, they'll waste more time and taxpayer money voting, for the FORTIETH TIME, to defund the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, despite the fact that even the rightwing Supreme Court admitted it was Constitutional, and Boehner himself referred to it as "the law of the land."

Since the Democratically-controlled Senate is not in a million years going to agree to kill off Obamacare, and the President is certainly not apt to sign a bill destroying his own signature health care plan, this is just another circus act to placate the far rightwing radicals in the Regressive republican party. Now they'll be able to go home to their gerrymandered districts and beam with delight in bragging about their vote that accomplished, yet again, absolutely nothing.

They're calling this 40th attempt to defund Obamacare the "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act." Cute.

Another waste of time bill passed this week is called the "Stop the IRS Act," which would mandate the firing of any IRS agent who "takes official action for political purposes." Of course, not a single IRS agent has been found guilty of such a thing, despite months of interrogations from car-thief and insurance-fraudster Darrell Issa. Even the Bush-appointee who was in charge of the IRS during this fake scandal said there was no political motivation and the Obama White House had nothing to do with scrutiny of some rightwing groups.

Were any jobs bills passed? Any infrastructure bills passed? Budget plans? A way out of the sequester? Transportation bill? Housing bill? Immigration reform? Efforts to reduce gun violence? Background checks?

No.

They haven't accomplished a single priority demanded by Americans according to most polls.

John Boehner remains the weakest, least-accomplished Speaker of the House we've seen in decades, a so-called leader who can't control the fringe element of his own party. And his Congress remains the least productive in American history.

But hey, enough about that.
It's vacation time, right John?

The IRS "Scandal" Explained

This is not as complicated as it sounds. And you won't fall into a coma and hit your face on your keyboard. I promise. Here we go:

Once upon a time, the US Supreme Court decided to uphold the Citizens United case, allowing corporations and organizations -- including foreign entities -- to spend unlimited amounts of money in support or opposition to a candidate, without having to disclose where that money came from. It struck down a previous law banning this practice.

The Supreme Court  not only opened the floodgates allowing unlimited and unregulated corporate money to flow into campaigns, it also blurred the line between political groups and non-profit social welfare groups. Until then, these social welfare groups could only apply for tax-exempt status as "501(c)(4)" groups, with the strict privilege of not engaging in political speech. But now it's difficult to determine which social welfare groups live up to that standard. Certainly the Teabagger groups did not: they were completely political in nature.

So this Supreme Court ruling occured in 2010, and immediately afterward, over 3,000 rightwing groups that opposed President Obama sprang up like weeds and demanded to be recognized as non-profit, civic organizations that should be given tax-exempt status. The IRS noticed they all used the words "tea party" or "patriot." So they used those as search terms.

Because of this, it was determined 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," as the complaint goes.

In other words, yeah, the IRS is supposed to determine which groups deserve tax-exempt status and which don't; they just can't use specific terms flagging rightwing groups.

So the IRS is now faced with the challenge of filtering out groups that step over the line and flagrantly abuse the social welfare moniker without appearing to specifically target rightwing Teabagger groups. See?

The real problem, as Lawrence O'Donnell clearly pointed out this week on his msnbc program, is that back in 1959, the IRS arbitrarily changed the word "exclusively" to "primarily" in this rule:

Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code defines tax-exempt social welfare groups as: Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.

In 1959, under the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, the meaning of this section was changed dramatically when the IRS decided the word “exclusively” could, in effect, be read as “primarily.”

“For 54 years, the IRS has gotten away with the crime of changing the word ‘exclusively’ to ‘primarily',” said Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word  Monday. “The IRS took a hard, clear word like ‘exclusively’ and changed it into a soft word  ’primarily’ and then left it to the IRS agents to determine if your organization was primarily concerned  with the promotion of social welfare.”

This is why every Teabagger group was given tax-exempt status, despite the fact that they are not social welfare groups, but completely political in nature, which flies in the face of the IRS rule stated above.

The bottom line is that even though the IRS used rightwing-specific terms to search for these groups, not one was turned down for tax exempt status, even though they should have.  And it wasn't an Obama appointee in charge during these years -- it was Douglas Shulman, appointed by George Dubya Bush.

No More Benghazi For You!

So... after months of Regressives foaming at the mouth pretending there was a huge scandal/conspiracy/coverup about Benghazi, and even months after they saw the emails, they tried to indict Pres Obama and Sec of State Clinton because they're scared to death of her chances in 2016. Yesterday the White House released 100 emails, and guess what? No WH tampering with talking points, no Clinton coverup, just the usual intel agencies bickering about how much intel to make public.
Wahh... the rightwings' favorite toy has been taken away.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Marco Rubio, Regressive republican senator from Florida (where else).

This week, he manufactured so much fake outrage at the IRS, with its dastardly scrutiny of Teabagger groups, that he demanded the head of the IRS be fired!

Immediately!

How dare President Obama's IRS commissioner investigate the 3500 Teabagger groups that sprang up immediately after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, requesting non-profit classification for tax-exempt status! Right, Marco?

Here's the problem: there was no "head of the IRS." The usual obstruction from the Regressives of President Obama's nominees caused the IRS to have only a temporary, acting IRS commissioner.

And who was the commissioner in charge of the IRS during the alleged scandal? That would be Douglas Shulman, appointed by none other than George Dubya Bush!

Whoops.

(Steven Miller, who symbolically resigned yesterday, was the acting commissioner whose 210-day term would have ended in 3 weeks anyway, on June 8. He was not the acting commissioner during the alleged scandal.)

And by the way, it's the job of the IRS to scrutinize groups that request non-profit, 401(c)4 status.

Marco Rubio, confused and thirsty Florida senator, who needs to spend 30 seconds with The Google before opening up his big mouth: this week's Republican Jackass of the Week.

The Fake Benghazi "Scandal" is Officially Over

Couldn't have said it better myself. From Maddowblog:

Rachel noted on the show last night that the controversy surrounding Benghazi effectively "went away" yesterday, and given the latest information, it's hard to imagine how any serious person could disagree.

The White House yesterday afternoon released the inter-agency communications that went into crafting the "talking points" requested by Congress last September. Lawmakers already saw these materials months ago -- they found nothing controversial at the time -- but Republicans and the media decided it was time to see them again.

So, the administration, eager to put the matter to rest, released the documents. In turn, we learned what we already knew: there was no cover-up; State and the CIA engaged in a predictable bureaucratic "tug of war"; and this:

The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago.

And with that, everything Republican conspiracy theorists desperately wanted Americans to believe -- there's a scandal; there's a cover-up; there's evidence the White House manipulated and lied about a crisis for political ends -- suddenly evaporated before our very eyes.

House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office issued a statement last night saying the revelations raised more questions. In fact, I have one myself: how is any fair-minded person still expected to take the Republican arguments about this non-scandal seriously?

What's more, note that most sensible people realized the right's conspiracy theories were wrong, which is why the so-called "controversy" was relegated to Republican media, until last Friday's report from ABC News pushed the story into the mainstream. That ABC News report, we now know, was wrong.

There's just nothing left. Trying to characterize this as a genuine political story worthy of attention has been a misguided partisan exercise for months, but now, it's reached the point of ridiculousness. Every reporter saying the White House is engulfed in "three scandals" is misleading the public -- there was a deadly attack against a U.S. diplomatic outpost last year, which left four Americans dead. It was a tragedy; it was not a political controversy.

Put a fork in the Benghazi story; it's done.

Darrell's Issa's Very Shady Background

He's the guy in charge of running one Benghazi hearing after another, in a fishing expedition for a non-existent scandal to attempt to bring down President Obama as well as destroy 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

But Darrell Issa has had more than his share of arrests and suspicion of criminal activity.

• He was suspected of arson when his car alarm factory burned down just three weeks after he quadrupled his fire insurance, removed computers and software from the building and transferred car alarm designs from a filing cabinet to a fireproof box. 
• An old army buddy thought Issa stole his car, and after threatening Issa, the car reappeared the very next day. 
• He and his brother were both arrested for stealing a Maserati from a Cleveland showroom. 
• He was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon in his car. 
• He was arrested yet again when his brother sold Darrell's car to a dealer, immediately cashed the $16k check, and then the next day Darrell reported the car as stolen. 
• Within 6 months of that arrest, he crashed his truck into another car and left the scene before police arrived. The driver sued Issa for $20k and settled out of court.

This is the guy the Regressive republicans elected to be the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight, whose job is to investigate the alleged wrongdoing of others.

More here and here.

The IRS "Conspiracy" Against the Teabaggers

It doesn't exist.

Despite all the shrill noises coming from Rupert Murdock's Fox channel (when they're not screaming about the other imaginary scandal -- "Benghazi!"), there is no IRS conspiracy against the myriad of Teabaggers' organizations. At all.

After Barack Obama was elected to his first term, and after the Citizens United ruling allowing any corporation or organization -- from anywhere on the globe -- to donate unlimited amounts to a presidential candidate, the IRS was suddenly flooded with applications for so-called non profit organizations wanting to be allowed tax-exempt status.

The vast majority of these groups suddenly springing up either had the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their names. So a couple of low-level IRS workers used those words to search for these organizations so they could determine, if indeed, these organizations complied with IRS rules actually allowing them tax-exempt status.

This, by the way, is the job of the IRS.

But once anyone above these low-level IRS workers discovered that the teabaggers' groups appeared to be under additional scrutiny, the practice was stopped and the policy was changed. No high-level IRS official was aware of, or condoned, the scrutiny of these hundreds of anti-Obama organizations. Certainly the President himself knew nothing of what a couple of low-level employees were doing to seemingly make their jobs easier in tracking all these new, questionable groups.

If, during the Bush administration, Liberal groups had come under additional scrutiny, of course there'd be complaints and an investigation. But once it was established that only a couple of low-level employees took it upon themselves to search for these particular groups, and no upper level employees, nor the administration had any knowledge of wrongdoing, it would have ended right there.

"Nothing to see here, move along," we would have been told from Bush's spokespeople and the union teleprompter readers on Fox. But this is something for the righties to whine and carp about. Remember, it wasn't the Obama administration that was asleep while 3,000 Americans were killed in the biggest security failure in American history. It wasn't the Obama administration that lied us into an unnecessary War Against the Wrong Country, or deregulated the banking industry which led to the worst financial mess in 80 years and more foreclosures than we've seen since the Great Depression.

Seems like this is just a whiny bunch of Obama-hating sore losers screaming for attention and pretending they've been wronged. Keep in mind that no Teabagger group was denied anything, including their tax-exempt status because of the extra scrutiny. And keep in mind that the IRS has already apologized and changed the methodology for investigating these situations.

By the way, as an interesting sidenote, the guy in charge during this alleged conspiracy, was IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and was appointed by -- wait for it -- George W. Bush. Shulman ended his 6-year term last November. President Obama has yet to nominate a new IRS commissioner.  So if these rightwingers are looking to put someone's head on a platter, it would have to be the guy Dubya appointed to run the IRS.

As O'Reilly or Hannity would have said, if the shoe were on the other foot, "Where's the problem? So a bunch of Liberal anti-Bush groups suddenly sprang up and a couple of IRS people, on their own, used a few specific search terms to find them more easily and see if they really deserved tax-exempt status. So what? These anti-American, anti-Bush people need to be put under the microscope to see if they really deserve tax-exempt status. I don't see a problem here."

In other words, get over it. Move along. Nothing to see here.

The Fake Benghazi Scandal

I'm getting a little tired of the antics of Grumpy Old John McCain and Little Lindsay Graham, the two largely irrelevant Regressive republicans who are desperately trying to regain credibility by spending weeks and weeks attempting to demonize US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, in this phony Benghazi scandal.

What Rice said, about 5 days after the attack that left four people dead, during her Sunday morning talk show appearances, was exactly what all of the US intelligence sources had released and summarized for her.  No investigation of an attack of this nature is ever definitively wrapped up in just 5 days, and never does the CIA spill all that they know regarding terrorism around the world to the media.

And the Regressives know this.

So Susan Rice not only accurately spoke for the US intelligence agencies in the days just after the attack, but she and the head of the CIA also generously complied with the wishes of John and Lindsay by spending over an hour yesterday answering their questions.

They didn't have to. This was not an official inquiry, an official hearing, or an official anything.

They were being magnanimous in obliging these two resentful senators.  And, as you'd expect, McCain and Graham emerged from the meeting whining that they were disturbed and had even more questions.

I can agree with that first part.  I think they are disturbed.

No matter how accurate Rice was in the days after the attack, and no matter how much she humors people like McCain and Graham, the Regressive republican party is going to continue to discredit her and pretend there's some big conspiracy being hidden. They will demonize her and try to pressure President Obama into nominating Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, instead of Rice, for the next Secretary of State. Why Kerry? So that his senate seat will open up and republican Scott Brown can be re-elected. (Brown just lost to Democrat Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts.)

Here's a handy chart from Mother Jones showing  Attacks on US Diplomatic Targets. Notice how many attacks have taken place during Regressive republican administrations, in red:

From All Voices:

The attack of our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11,which resulted in four Americans being murdered, is now used as an opportunity to gain political points. 

Now there is loud clamor for transparency and investigations, accusations of a cover-up and incompetence, with those doing the talking all the while professing to only want the truth as concerned Americans and conscientious politicians. Give me a break. The only conscientious concern here is self-serving partisan BS.

Where was all that concern for our men and women serving in embassies and consulates across the globe when all the other attacks and killings occurred?

Like in 2002 when the US Consulate in the Karachi, Pakistan, was attacked and 10 were killed?

Or in 2004 when the US embassy in Uzbekistan was attacked and two were killed and another nine injured?

How about in 2004, when the US Consulate in Saudi Arabia was stormed and 8 lost their lives? 

There is more: In 2006, armed men attacked the US Embassy in Syria and one was murdered.

Then in 2007 a grenade was thrown at the US Embassy in Athens.

In 2008, the US Embassy in Serbia was set on fire.

In 2008, bombings in the US Embassy in Yemen killed 10.
 
Notice the dates -- all before the Obama administration.

Not yet convinced that all the noise over Benghazi has nothing to do with love of countryman? 

How about the biggest, most catastrophic attack and murder of Americans? As a New Yorker, Sept. 11, 2001, is indelibly imprinted on my psyche and I’m sure on the rest of the country. 3,000 perished in the most brutal act of terror in our recent history—all under a Republican administration. George W. Bush and his team had nine warnings that al-Qaida would attack within the United States, but they did absolutely nothing. 

Not one head in that administration rolled for that stunning incompetence.

But Republicans now want President Obama’s head for Benghazi.

From Pensito Review:

The Fox News-generated hysteria among Republicans over the government’s handling of the Benghazi attacks relies heavily on the assumption that Fox viewers have incredibly short memories. Watching Fox present this issue, you might quickly assume that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya was unique — that nothing like it had ever happened before. You might also assume that, if there had been other similar attacks in the past, American patriots and their representatives in Washington would be entirely justified in politicizing the attacks and using the failures that led to them, whether real or imagined, for partisan gain. 

In reality, of course, there have been many attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates — more than 40 in the past half century.

The chart above from Mother Jones, for example, shows the frequency of attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites over the past 40 years. What Fox would like to erase from its viewers’ memories is that, as the chart shows, there were many attacks on U.S. missions overseas during the administration of the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush. It is crucial to Fox’s politicizing of Benghazi to make those attacks disappear down the memory hole, because there is an inconvenient fact associated with them: In the wake of the seven or more attacks on American overseas interests on Bush’s watch, Democrats did not politicize them the way Republicans are politicizing Benghazi today.

In particular, no Democrat ever suggested forming a Watergate-style select committee to investigate the attacks during the Bush era, like the one Republicans are demanding now.
There was one full-scale investigation — the one that looked into the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which were the most egregious national security failure in U.S. history — but that investigation was outsourced to a bipartisan commission controlled by Republicans.