Rick Perry indictment is part of liberal campaign of harassment

Travis County Sheriff

The news of the indictment against Texas Governor Rick Perry on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official surprised the country and shook up the early presidential race for 2016. Debate ranged from how the charges would affect Perry’s chances at winning the Republican nomination and the White House to whether Perry would be convicted. A surprising number of liberals and Democrats have broken ranks to defend what many call an unconstitutional attempt to criminalize politics as usual. This is not the first time in recent memory that prosecutors have pressed charges against Republicans on dubious grounds.

 

In Texas, the Travis County DA office has prosecuted other high profile Republicans. In 1993, Rosemary Lemberg’s predecessor, Ronnie Earle, indicted newly elected U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on charges of misusing her previous office of state treasurer according to National Review. Hutchison was originally elected in a special election and faced the prospect of running for reelection in 1994 with the indictment hanging over her head. She pressed for a quick resolution and, when the case went to trial, Earle told the court that he could not proceed without the admission of records seized from Hutchison’s office without a search warrant. The judge promptly ordered the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

 

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2014 Senate prospects look good for GOP

David W. Thornton

Forecasts for the 2014 senatorial elections increasingly favor the Republican Party.  The trend toward the GOP is likely driven by a combination of factors including the economy where President Obama’s approval has fallen to 35 percent in an August 15 Gallup poll.  The problems with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act are also a drag on Democratic candidates.  Rasmussen reports that only 41 percent of likely voters now have a favorable view of the health care law while 53 percent view it unfavorably.  The Obama Administration’s scandals, particularly the IRS scandal and NSA wiretapping, have also hurt Democrats.  A Fox News poll from early August showed that largely majorities of Americans believe that all of the Obama scandals should be taken seriously and investigated.

 

Rasmussen’s generic congressional ballot for August 12 shows 39 percent for both Democrats and Republicans, but the prior week showed the GOP with 41 percent to 38 percent for the Democrats.  The two parties have spent much of the past four months in a statistical tie.

Read the rest on  Elections Examiner

Barack Obama I, the benevolent dictator

The White House quietly announced on Wednesday that members of Congress can still their federal health insurance subsidies in spite of a clause in the Affordable Care Act that specifically says otherwise.  The law requires members of Congress to purchase unsubsidized insurance on Obamacare’s new exchanges “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”  Obama made a “personally request” that his Office of Personnel Management continue to pay the subsidies to congressional members and staffers with salaries as high as $175,000 according to the Wall St. Journal.  In response, the OPM decided to interpret the clause completely opposite from the way it has been traditionally understood.

According to NPR, the prospect that Congress would have to pay the same insurance rates as the rest of the country led to a “bipartisan uproar” and fears of a “brain drain” as staffers retired to keep their benefits.  When rumors of a congressional exemption became public last April, a Rasmussen poll indicated that 95 percent of Americans believed that Congress should face the same requirements as all other Americans.  It would have been a political nightmare for Democrats in Congress to enact legislation exempting themselves from an unpopular law just prior to a hotly contested election.  Fortunately for Congress, President Obama stepped in to save the day.

Trail in IRS scandal leads to Washington

On Sunday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced that interviews with Cincinnati-based IRS employees suggest that officials in Washington, D.C. directed their efforts to target conservative and Tea Party groups.  According to Politico, partial transcripts released by Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee don’t refer to a specific individual in Washington, but to the IRS Exempt Organizations office.  That office was headed by Sarah Hall Ingram, who now heads the IRS office charged with implementing the Affordable Care Act as Examiner previously reported.

 

The transcripts released do not refer directly to President Obama, but it was reported last week that the IRS commissioner met with the president 118 times in 2010 and 2011.  According to Investor’s Business Daily, President Bush met with the IRS head only once in four years.  Whatever President Obama knew about the IRS overreach, the scandal fits the pattern of centralized power and disregard for the rule of law present in other Obama Administration brushes with scandal.

 

Read the rest on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/rep-issa-irs-scandal-leads-to-washington

Relax! Obama won’t be impeached.

The “perfect storm” of political scandals that has embroiled the Obama Administration over the past few weeks has some conservatives and Republicans speculating that President Obama might be impeached or be forced to resign in disgrace.  While there are plenty of serious accusations of misconduct in the White House and federal government, the scandals are all still in their infancy and President Obama’s precise role is not known.  It is all but certain, however, that the president will not be impeached.

 

The first scandal, the cover-up after the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, is the most advanced.  The White House released emails earlier this month that showed that references to al Qaeda had been scrubbed from the administration’s talking points about the attack according to ABC News.  ABC reported as early as Oct. 9, 2012 that the street protests were non-existent.  More than two weeks after the attack, President Obama was still blaming a “crude and disgusting video” that allegedly “sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world” in a speech to the United Nations.  President Obama’s only mention of al Qaeda in the speech was to call it “weakened” in reference to Osama bin Laden’s death.  There is still no satisfactory explanation as to why there was no rescue attempt.

 

The second scandal involves abuse of power by Internal Revenue Service.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/scandals-won-t-result-obama-impeachment

IRS manager in problem offices got bonuses, promotion to head Obamacare unit

IRS logo

Sarah Hall Ingram was the IRS official in charge of the Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt Division from 2009 through 2012.  Her division has recently made headlines as part of the IRS that singled conservative groups who were seeking tax exemptions.

One might expect that Sarah Hall Ingram would have been dismissed from the IRS after President Obama announced his displeasure over the IRS scandal.  Obama requested the resignation of acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller after the scandal broke.

In reality, the IRS confirmed Friday to ABC News that Ingram, rather than being fired or demoted, now heads up the IRS Affordable Care Office.  The Affordable Care Act dramatically expands the size and power of the IRS by putting the IRS in charge of enforcing the individual and employer mandates.  The IRS also controls and regulates the Affordable Care Act’s federal subsidies for health insurance.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:  http://www.examiner.com/article/manager-of-irs-scandal-office-now-heads-obamacare-unit

IRS scandal is worse than Benghazi for Obama; impeachment still a long shot

IRS logo

Over the past week, the Obama Administration has been repeatedly rocked by scandals.  Beginning with last week’s hearings on the pre-election attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of ambassador Chris Stevens, President Obama has endured a steady stream of bad news.

 

Although the Benghazi hearing has raised the ire of conservatives, the real danger to the Obama Administration comes from the domestic scandals.  In particular Obama’s problems with the Internal Revenue Service can fire the imaginations and anger of the American people.

 

As reported by Examiner last October, the fundamentals of the Benghazi fiasco were known within weeks after the attack.  The recent hearings have confirmed that President Obama lied about the nature of the attack to avoid having his foreign policy questioned just before the election.  Benghazi never captured the public’s imagination, however.  Even though a U.S. ambassador, a consulate employee, and two former Navy Seals were killed by al Qaeda-linked militants, the media mostly ignored the story of the cover-up.  The American public, weary of war after more than a decade of fighting, seemed unwilling to get angry over the attack, even if it was the result of Obama’s foreign policy or Secretary of State Clinton’s refusal to reinforce the consulate’s security forces.  This week’s revelations of IRS bullying and Justice Department subpoenas of Associated Press phone records seem likelier to hit home, each for different reasons.

Read the rest on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/domestic-scandals-more-dangerous-to-obama-than-benghazi

 

Beware of tax protest conspiracy theories

David Thornton/IRS

As we approach April 15, the deadline for filing federal income tax returns for most individual taxpayers, many people question whether Americans are really required to pay an income tax. Scores of Youtube videos featuring people such as former IRS agentJoseph Bannister claim that the federal income tax is illegal and that Americans cannot be forced to pay taxes to the IRS. In celebration of the Ides of April, let us once again don our tin foil hats and delve into the world of income tax protesters.

One claim made by tax protesters is that there is no law on the books that permits a federal income tax. It is true that the original incometax signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. This problem was fixed with the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913. Some tax protesters argue that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. Professor Jonathan Siegel of the George Washington University Law School explains that the 16th Amendment had the same ratification process as other amendments and really is part of the Constitution.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/tax-protester-conspiracy-theories-can-lead-to-jail-fines