This and That...

[Warph]

More Evidence Emerges that Administration Knew of IRS Targeting During Campaign

(Ok... of course, they knew about it.  They planned it.  There is more evidence that the Obama Administration knew of the IRS targeting during the 2012 campaign.  And where is David Axelrod in all of this.  Could HE be the person that started all of this.  Time to supoena him and get him in front of a Grand Jury.
...Warph)


CBS News reported:

There were new questions Saturday night concerning if anyone in the White House was aware of the IRS' targeting of conservative groups.

Inspector General Russell George said he informed a deputy at the Treasury Department in June of 2012 about the probe into the IRS.

The Treasury Department confirmed the timeline but said they did not know the details of the investigation until last week.

It's the first evidence that someone within the Obama administration knew about the practice during the presidential campaign.

It is unknown whether anyone in the White House was told of the federal investigation.

Republican Congressman Aaron Schock serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS.

"We don't have any reason to believe at this point that it was anybody outside the IRS directing them to do this," said Schock. "Obviously there's been claims that the White House might have been involved and other groups. I don't have any reason to believe that."

He says the IRS' behavior was criminal, claiming it hurt the ability of conservative groups to fundraise and that limited their influence.

"Until we know who it was responsible for the activities, we need to continue to investigate," Schock said.

A six-month-long investigation by the inspector general failed to pinpoint exactly who made the decision to subject some applications to extra scrutiny.
Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee said on Friday that he expects "a lot more" information about the growing political scandal at the IRS to come out over the coming days.

[Warph]

U.S. Urges Nigeria Show 'Restraint' in Striking Back
Against Islamic Militants

(Holy crap... who's side are we on, anywayz)

On May 18, Nigerian war planes "struck militant camps in the northeast" in an attempt to stem the growing tide of Islamic terrorists in the area. The U.S. quickly warned that Nigeria needs to be sure "to respect human rights and not harm civilians."
Reuters reports that Nigerian troops used "jets and helicopters to bombard targets in their biggest offensive since the Boko Haram group launched a revolt almost four years ago."

The situation in northeast Nigeria has become so bad that President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency there days ago.

Since that time, as Nigeria has used jets and helicopters to try to rein the Islamists in, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he has "credible evidence" that Nigeria has committed "human rights violations" in retaliating against the Islamists.

Kerry said he condemns "Boko Haram's campaign of terror in the strongest terms," but he wants Nigeria to show "restraint" in their response.http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/18/Nigeria-Attacks-Islamists-U-S-Warns-Of-Human-Rights-Violations

[Warph]

May 19, 2013
Obama Built This Forgery
Nick Chase

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/m-obama_built_this_forgery.html

I don't normally display lawn signs or bumper stickers during political campaigns; I usually keep my voting preferences to myself.  (That's the point of secret ballots, right?)  But the November 2012 elections got me charged up to the point where I felt the urge to do something public, and since my friends already knew how I felt, I didn't think I would be divulging any secrets by doing so.


But I didn't like the bumper stickers offered by the campaigns, or any of the clever ones being sold over the internet, because I was really against certain candidates rather than for the opposition.  So I designed and ordered my own, shown below in Figure OB:

Figure OB.  "Obama Built This Forgery" bumper sticker.

(The "Obama Built" is a reference to Obama's "You didn't build that!" statement on the campaign trail, because he did build this fake "birth certificate," or had it built for him.)

Because I live in a very blue state, when I was out in my car, I would occasionally be stopped and asked about my sticker, usually by an ill-informed progressive. I would tell this person that the Obama "birth certificate" released by the White House in April 2011 is clearly a fake, and you can plainly see the proof...right on this bumper sticker!  In the minute or two before I would be dismissed as a raving lunatic, I would be able to explain:

The public was essentially told that Hawaii Department of Health officials took a bound volume of original paper 1961 birth certificates, turned to Obama's, placed it on the copier, copied it onto green security paper, stamped and embossed-sealed it, and then delivered it to Obama's lawyer to be flown back to Washington.  In which case, the image on my bumper sticker, a copy of the digital PDF "birth certificate" released on April 27, 2011 by the White House, and which the president declared to be his long-form birth certificate, must be fake -- because near the left margin, especially at the top of the document, the text and lines of the form bend downward (to simulate the bending of the page near the binding).  It's impossible for a copier to do that bending.

This is the point at which I would usually be dismissed as a madman -- a conservative nut-job.

But since you are still reading this, I presume that you are interested in knowing just why this is impossible.

In Figure ULC, take a look at the upper-left corner of the more detailed blowup of the PDF forgery (shown immediately below in Figure LF):

Figure LF.  Obama long-form digitized (PDF) "birth certificate" released by the White House on April 27, 2011 (with wide margins trimmed).

In Figure ULC below, you can clearly see how the horizontal lines of the form bend downward without going out of focus, and how the text bends downward without being out of focus, and how the paper purportedly curves away from the copier glass without going very dark, and even how the penciled numbers "6," "5," and "2" at the very left edge, which are in focus, can be easily read.

Neat trick, huh?

Figure ULC.  Upper-left corner detail of Figure LF

And how does this compare with what a copier really does?

For my at-home comparison I selected a dictionary, a very thick book where the text runs close to the binding, so I would be certain to copy letters which curved well away from the copier glass.

You can see the result in Figure MW, below, where I have reproduced the upper-left corner of the copied image:

Figure MW.  What a copier actually creates.  Text blurs and goes dark (but does not bend) where the paper curls away from the copier's glass plate

.

As the paper curves away from the copier glass, note how quickly the text becomes blurry, and how quickly it turns dark and unreadable.  Also note that the text does not bend; it is impossible for the copier to make this happen.


(The technical reason for this is that copiers copy the original document one very thin line at a time, depositing an electrostatic charge on a rotating drum one thin line at a time, synchronously with the document-scanning mechanism.)


So how was that bending created in the forgery?  The most likely explanation is that the forger began with an image taken by a camera, where the camera was positioned roughly at the bottom of the certificate and aimed slightly upward when the shutter clicked.  Because the camera captures the entire picture at once, the camera lens can create this distortion on parts of a curling image that are well-removed from the center of the picture.  You can see this more clearly by looking at the left edge of the full "birth certificate" image shown in Figure LF.  The lines at the very top-left bend downward most sharply -- at the bottom left edge, hardly at all.  This is exactly the kind of image behavior you'd expect to see in a photograph, where the entire picture was taken off-center.


The forger could have used one of the several images of genuine microfilmed or photographed vintage Hawaiian birth certificates that are floating around on the internet as a template for building the forgery, or the effect could be entirely synthetic, photoshopped by the forger to create the illusion of a bent page in a big book.


Since the president has now been re-elected, this information has zero political value; it is of interest primarily to set straight the historical record.  Therefore, there is no political incentive for any progressive to call you a nutcase when you bring up the subject; you should be able to do so freely, without retribution.  Barack Obama built this fake -- he now owns it.  His campaign peddled it on mugs and T-shirts.  The evidence of forgery can be clearly seen to the naked eye  -- on the internet, in newspaper and magazine stories, on merchandise -- and even on my bumper sticker! -- by anybody.

The shoe is now on the other foot.  You no longer have to prove that that it's fake; it's up to the president's sycophants to try to prove it's genuine.  And "because Barack Obama says so" isn't proof.


About the author: Nick Chase is a retired but still very active technical writer, technical editor, computer programmer and stock market newsletter writer.  During his career he has produced documentation on computers, typewriters, typesetters, headline-makers and other pieces of equipment most people never heard of, and he has programmed typesetting equipment.  You can read more of his work at contrariansview.org.

[Warph]

Two years ago, Obama had declared that he was the defender of Benghazi, protecting it against a massacre that was never going to happen.  And once Benghazi was liberated to be under Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood rule, the man who had sent in the air force to protect Benghazi Islamist militias against Gaddafi, couldn't be bothered to send in the planes to protect his diplomats against the militias.

There is not one single place where a major Arab Spring transformation has led to a happy ending.

Egypt is a political, social and economic disaster.  Obama had been counting on Islamists transforming Egypt into another Turkey on a slow and sensible schedule.  But Morsi had a little too much in common with Obama.  Like Obama, he couldn't wait a decade to crush his opponents and enact repressive policies that would fracture the country.  He could barely wait a month.

[Warph]

President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.

On August 31, 1949, Louis Johnson, who was the United States' Secretary of Defense, announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. The event stemmed from the armed forces' unification under one department – the Department of Defense. The Army, Navy and Air Force leagues adopted the newly formed day. The Marine Corps League declined to drop support for Marine Corps Day but supports Armed Forces Day too.

The first Armed Forces Day was celebrated on Saturday, May 20, 1950. The theme for that day was "Teamed for Defense", which expressed the unification of all military forces under one government department. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the day was designed to expand public understanding of what type of job was performed and the role of the military in civilian life.

Armed Forces Day was a day for the military to show "state-of-the-art" equipment to Americans. It was also a day to honor and acknowledge Americans in the armed forces. Parades, open houses, receptions and air shows were held at the inaugural Armed Forces Day.  Armed Forces Day is still celebrated nationwide today and is part of Armed Forces Week.

[Warph]

Partisan Interest, Reactions to IRS and AP Controversies

Attentive Public Critical of DOJ Use of AP Records

Overview

So far, public interest in a trio of controversies connected to the Obama administration has been limited. Roughly a quarter (26%) of Americans say they are very closely following reports that the IRS targeted conservative groups. About the same number (25%) are tracking the Benghazi investigation very closely, and even fewer (16%) are very closely following news about the Justice Department subpoenaing phone records of AP journalists.

The new survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted May 16-19 among 1,002 adults, finds that 37% of Republicans are paying very close attention to the IRS story, compared with 21% of Democrats and 25% of independents. And the Benghazi investigation continues to draw much greater interest from Republicans (34% very closely) than Democrats (18%).

A historical review of previous controversies involving White House or cabinet officials finds that these levels of public interest – and the partisan divide in attentiveness – are not necessarily new. Previous scandals – such as the Lewis "Scooter" Libby case during George W. Bush's administration or the "Pardon-gate" scandal at the end of Bill Clinton's second term – received similar levels of public attention, and were generally more interesting to those in the opposition party.

The IRS Targeting Controversy:

Overall, 42% say the Obama administration was involved in the decision to target conservative groups. Fewer (31%) say that the decision to target conservative groups was made by IRS employees without administration involvement, while 27% offer no opinion.

Not surprisingly, opinions about this are highly partisan. Nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (69%) say the administration was involved in the IRS's decision to target conservative groups, compared with just 12% who say the decision was made by IRS employees. By contrast, just 21% of Democrats say the administration was involved, while 54% say IRS employees made the decision to target conservative groups. By a 44% to 28% margin, more independents say the administration was involved in the IRS decision than say it was not.

Those who followed the IRS story at least fairly closely (50% of the public) express similar views about the administration's involvement: 49% say the administration was involved while 35% say it was not. But partisan differences are wider among this attentive segment of the population; fully 78% of Republicans who have followed the story believe the administration was involved in the decision to target conservative groups, while 63% of attentive Democrats say the decision came from IRS employees.

AP Phone Records Controversy:

The public is of two minds when it comes to the Justice Department's decision to subpoena the phone records of AP journalists as part of an investigation into the disclosure of classified information. Slightly more disapprove (44%) than approve (36%) of the DOJ's actions.

Criticism of the DOJ is substantially higher among those who are paying attention to the story. By a 55% to 35% margin people who have followed reports about the AP phone records at least fairly closely disapprove of the DOJ's actions. Attentive Republicans are particularly critical: they disapprove by a 66% to 28% margin.

Past Administration Controversies:

The Pew Research Center has been tracking public interest in news stories for more than two decades, and while each political scandal is unique – and the list is hardly comprehensive – the level of public and partisan interest in the current affairs is largely consistent with prior events.

At their peaks, about a quarter of Americans very closely followed controversies involving Alberto Gonzales (22%), Scooter Libby (27%) and Karl Rove (23%) during George W. Bush's administration. All three drew more attention from Democrats than Republicans.

The "Pardon-gate" controversy at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency was followed very closely by 28%, with far more interest from Republicans (42%) than Democrats (24%).

The exception to this partisan gap was the public's first reaction to the Monica Lewinsky story. An early February 1998 survey found 35% following very closely, with high levels of interest across party lines. However, the partisan gap in interest in allegations against Clinton increased during impeachment proceedings later that year.

[Warph]

Blacks Offended By Obama's Morehouse College Commencement Speech,
They Say He Was Pandering To White People

(Obama pander?  That's crazy talk!)

"President Obama: I Might Have Been in PRISON"

Via College Fix: http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/13531/

It's not uncommon for African Americans to criticize President Barack Obama's job performance, and the latest example of that comes on the heels of his commencement speech at Morehouse College on Sunday.

During his keynote address at the historically black, all-male college in Georgia, Obama called for better family values among the black community and personal responsibility over complaints about racism.

During his speech, Obama told the grads to "recognize the burdens you carry with you, but resist the temptation to use them as excuses."

"That's what being an American is about. Success may not come quickly or easily. But if you strive to do what's right; if you work harder and dream bigger; if you set an example in your own lives and do your part to help meet the challenges of our time, then I am confident that, together, we will continue the never-ending task of perfecting our union."

But some African Americans on Monday called that message tired and insulting, saying it was rhetoric meant to pander to white people.

"Trevor Coleman thinks it's time for President Obama to get a new speech for black audiences," The Washington Post reports. "The personal responsibility finger-wagging, delivered most recently Sunday at Morehouse College's commencement, is getting old. ... Coleman, a former speechwriter for former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, said ... he was disappointed that Obama almost always defaults to the clean-up-your-act message when talking to predominantly black audiences."

The Post goes on to quote Leola Johnson, an associate professor and chair of the Media and Cultural Studies Department at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.,  who said Obamas' speeches "are actually not aimed at black people."

"They're actually for white people, liberals especially," she said.

[Warph]

The Honeymoon is Over:
Half of Americans Want to See Obama Impeached

Hey Obuma...  the party's over, Clown.....

...even Shirley Bassett agrees.  Time to head back to 'da hood'... you POS!

I would like to take you back to a time not too long ago. Think back to 2008 and early 2009 and recall the nauseating Obama-hysteria that made Beatlemania look tame by comparison. Children's books were written about the gloriousness of Barack Obama and the cult-like worship took on an unsettling momentum.

People adorned themselves with his ominous image and the buzzwords were- you guessed it- "hope" and "change." Americans were promised change and told that hope was a good thing. While I never bought into the con, even I was naïve as I could not have fathomed just how terrible a president the community organizer would be.

Now let's fast-forward to present day. Where are the "hope" tee shirts with Obama staring dreamily upward? Where are the messengers and Johnny-come-lately political know-it-alls who assert that Obama will change everything and the country is now saved? The dorm room walls of rebellious college students who read Marx for the first time have gone from Che to Obama and are now festooned with a picture of George W. Bush as the students who can't find work mutter, "I guess he wasn't so bad."

That includes a surprising one in four Democrats.

According to a recent poll conducted by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies, half of Americans want to see President Obama impeached.

Fritz Wenzel, who conducted the poll, noted:

"Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington."

"It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it."

When discussing the Benghazi attack and the Obama Administration's cover-up, the poll found that 50.1 percent of Americans said Obama should be impeached. That included 27.6 percent of the responding Democrats.

When discussing the AP scandal where the Obama Administration's Justice Department broadly surveilled the phone records of reporters for, what seems to be, no justifiable reason, the poll found that 48.6 percent thought impeachment is appropriate. That included 26.1 percent of the responding Democrats.

When we juxtapose the current feelings about the Obama Administration with how America felt early in his first term, the fall from grace is as incredible as it is satisfying. Obama's "administration of transparency" has become the most corrupt and villainous administration that this country has ever known.  Even with a lapdog media softening the blows, Americans are still fed up with the criminal who occupies the White House.

http://www.tpnn.com/the-honeymoon-is-over-half-of-americans-want-to-see-obama-impeached/

About the post author, Todd Cefaratti  A graduate of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of California Irvine (UCI) and (HBS) Harvard Business School Executive Program. Todd Cefaratti holds degrees in economics, marketing and digital marketing. Todd is one of the top internet marketing experts in his field. Todd is also the founder of the nonprofit organization TheTeaParty.net which began in 2009 at the height of the Tea Party movement and today is recognized as one of the top national Tea Party organizations in the movement. The organization is still growing at over a 1000 new patriots every day and going strong with over 600,000 loyal active members. Todd is also the CEO of a major marketing consulting and fundraising organization and the Tea Party News Network. In his spare time, Todd is active with his wife and two daughters in their Christian church and Christian school that both daughters attend.

[Warph]

The following will show you how screwed-up the Islamic religion really is.

(This  is the same cleric clown CAIR has repeatedly touted as a moderate)

Top Sunni Cleric Yusuf Al-Qardawi Calls For Jihad While Visiting Gaza, Prays To Become A Martyr...

May 8-11, 2013  Clip No. 3841 

Leading Sunni Scholar Al-Qaradhawi in Visit to Gaza Calls for Jihad, Prays to Become Martyr 

Following are excerpts from the coverage of leading Sunni scholar Yousuf Al-Qaradhaw's visit to Gaza, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV and Al-Jazeera Network on May 8-11, 2013:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya: Today, we say with pride that Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi is the sheik of Jihad in Palestine, the sheik of Al-Aqsa, of Jerusalem, and of Palestine. We say this out of recognition for the great role played by him, as well as other Muslim scholars, in strengthening our position in this land, and in supporting the steadfastness of our people and of the resistance.

[...]

We have been talking [with the people of Gaza] about how our entire Jihad, all our efforts, our lives, our hopes, and our aspirations are to die for the sake of Allah, so that Palestine can live. Brothers, this is essential.

[...]

Master of Ceremonies: Now we shall present our imam, Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, with a Palestinian passport and Palestinian citizenship. The prime minister will now sign it.

[...]

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: We are working toward the liberation of the prisoners, and the liberation of the land of Palestine. We are striving to liberate Palestine in its entirety, without excluding a single inch. Palestine in its entirety has been usurped by those Zionists, who were empowered by the West as a certain point in time. They seized our land, banishing its people to all corners of the world. They began to live in this land as if it were their own, but it does not belong to them. They came from all over, from different countries. With our Jihad, we strive to liberate the land of Palestine, and to bring back all those who were scattered to all corners of the world – to Arab and Muslim countries, to countries of the West, to countries of the East, to Europe, to America, and all over. They have been dispersed worldwide. These people have the right to return.

[...]

For a long time I have been praying to Allah to honor me by granting me martyrdom for His sake. I was expecting the Israelis to fire a missile at me, so that I could become a martyr for the sake of Allah. I pray to Allah...

Crowd: Allah Akbar. All praise to Allah.

Allah Akbar. All praise to Allah.

Allah Akbar. All praise to Allah.

Allah Akbar. All praise to Allah.

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: I pray to Allah to grant us this martyrdom, Allah willing.

[...]


The rest of the chant goes like this:

[Warph]

Obama's Scandals — and His Media Co-Conspirators

Written By : Larry Elder
May 23, 2013
http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/obamas-scandals-and-his-media-co-conspirators/

From the IRS targeting conservatives to the continued confusion over what happened at Benghazi to provoking a battle with The Associated Press by subpoenaing phone records that could involve as many as 100 reporters, what went wrong?

The answer is simple: arrogance, aided and abetted by a compliant, adoring "news" media.

[EX-]CNN's Roland Martin urged the president to "go gangsta" on conservatives who wouldn't confirm his political appointments. Supporters like MSNBC's the Rev. Al Sharpton publicly said they will not criticize Obama — on anything. Even though Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called the then 15.9 percent black unemployment rate "unconscionable," she refused to publicly criticize the President. Politicians, Waters candidly told a Detroit town hall audience on unemployment, want to get re-elected: "If we go after the President too hard, you're going after us. When you tell us it's all right and you unleash us and you're ready to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation." So why shouldn't Obama feel that he operates under different, special rules, and can do so without risking loss of support?

By refusing to hold Obama to the same standard they would hold any garden-variety Republican, the media now face the monster they created.

With a straight face, Obama used lines like he's going to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs. What does that even mean? How do you measure whether a given policy "saves" a job?

"The inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction," wrote William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal. "Never mind that no one — not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics — actually measures 'jobs saved.'"

With a straight face, Obama told us over and over how his mother, as she lay dying from cancer in a Hawaii hospital, fought with her insurance carriers over paying her medical and hospital bills. But according to the book by Janny Scott, a former New York Times reporter, the sole dispute was over a disability policy his mother had taken out. Her bills were paid promptly and without dispute. To date, not one reporter has asked the President about this false narrative he used so effectively to personalize his fight for ObamaCare.

With a straight face, Obama told us that under ObamaCare the "cost curve" would "bend down"; that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; and that nobody will be worse off under ObamaCare. Yet premiums are going up. Employers are dropping plans and cutting hours to shed the number of "full-time workers" for whom employers must provide a health care policy or pay a fine.

With a straight face, Obama told us that the soaring annual deficits come from "two wars we didn't pay for" and "tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for." Did his suck-up media do the math? If you take the generally accepted estimate of the costs of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011 — they annually accounted for 10 percent of the then-deficit. As to tax cuts for the rich, Obama put the "cost" at $700 billion over 10 years and has said, "We need to get rid of ... tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and ... corporate jet owners." But $700 billion over 10 years is $70 billion per year, a small fraction of the current deficit.

With a straight face, then-Sen. Obama, the Un-Bush, said he opposes any military intervention unauthorized by Congress unless the country faces imminent risk of attack. But as President, Obama joined with France and Britain in bombing Libya, a country that posed no imminent threat to America. Libya's then-leader, Moammar Gadhafi, had long before surrendered his weapons of mass destruction to the Bush administration. President George W. Bush obtained congressional approval for Afghanistan and Iraq. Not so with Obama and Libya. President Obama paid no political price for what Sen. Obama would have opposed.

Newsweek, after the passage of ObamaCare, published a gushing cover story: "We Are All Socialists Now." Somehow the piece failed to note economists like UCLA's Lee Ohanian, whose peer-reviewed work shows that FDR's New Deal lengthened and deepened the Great Depression — the opposite of what most Americans learn in high school. But to Newsweek, the question has been settled. A bigger, activist government is simply right and proper and just. If it takes thuggery on the part of Obama to get us there, well, so be it.

Obama's arrogance flows from our fawning, gushing, Bush-hating "news" media, which shirk their responsibility to fairly report the news. The media's fecklessness creates overconfidence. With good reason, Obama expects his media cheerleaders to look the other way, accept excuses without much challenge and turn the President's critics and whistleblowers into enemies.

Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an "Elderado," visit www.LarryElder.com.