Thursday, June 27, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Reading List for the Conservative, Constitutional Patriot.
After the Welfare State
The Essential Federalist Papers
Hayek's Constitution of Liberty
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxCwJOmjp_kQZWRPRVA0Qkk2TGM/edit?usp=sharing
Rules for Radicals
The Constitution of the United States
The Republic, by Plato
The Essential Thomas Jefferson
Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxCwJOmjp_kQQldqak1SVHprZUU/edit?usp=sharing
Obama and the Environment
Today, Obama will unveil a series of
executive actions — taken on his own authority rather than through new
legislation — to clamp down on power plants and otherwise reduce the country’s
carbon footprint. Meaning raise our price of energy, redistribute “wealth”,
make our costs of doing business higher, making our products and services more
expensive. All, again by executive fiat. Ideology trumps truth and facts every
time. Why you ask, well, let’s review.
The People’s Republic of China is
the world’s largest consumer of coal, using more coal each year than the United
States, the European Union, and Japan combined.[1]
Coal power has been the dominant source of energy used to fuel the rapid
economic development of China in the past two decades, with significant impact
on its physical environment and human population. China relies on coal power
for approximately 70-80% of its energy, with 45% used for the industrial sector
and the remainder used to generate electricity.[2]
By 2010, China comprised 48% of world coal consumption.
In September 2010, Greenpeace
reported that China's huge number of coal-fired power plants generate so much
toxic coal
ash that the coal waste could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool
every two and a half minutes. According to the report, China consumed more than
3 billion tons of coal in 2009, more than triple what is used by the
second-ranked United States, and generated 375 million tons of coal ash in its
single-largest source of solid waste.[71]China depends on coal-fired power for 70 per cent of its energy, and Greenpeace found that China's methods for disposing of the ash are inadequate, with disposal sites often located near residential areas, allowing for contamination of surface water and deeper well water. China's coal ash production has grown by 2.5 times since 2002, when the country began a rapid expansion of coal-fired plants. Roughly one coal-fired power plant was being built each week in China, which currently has an estimated 1,400 such plants.
In 2006, the Chinese government deregulated coal prices, undoing its practice of specifying coal prices for electricity producers. Since China deregulated its coal market in 1992, the government had set coal prices for power-plants at a much lower level than the prevailing market price in order to sustain low electricity retail prices.[54]
In 2007, China’s demand for coal outpaced its supply and it became a net importer of coal for the first time. The World Coal Institute estimates that in 2008 China imported approximately 47 million tons of coal.[9]
In 2009, China overtook the U.S. as the world’s biggest energy user (annually), according to the International Energy Agency. China surpassed the U.S. in carbon emissions in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. China released 6.533 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2008, compared with 5.832 million for the U.S
China's coal demand set to double - Wood Mac
China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined
So, unless green house gases are addressed with the world's largest energy user, CHINA, this is all just another ideological stroke that hinders America. I favor responsible stewardship of our eco-systems and our environment. But, to continually take unilateral action that harms the USA is unacceptable.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Duty, Honor, Country
Duty, Honor, Country:
Those three hallowed words reverently dictate
what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your
rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain
faith when there seems to be little
cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence
of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell
you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant
phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker,
and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to
downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they
do: They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians
of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and
brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending
in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words
for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of
difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm
but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others;
to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how
to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take
yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness,
the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the
will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs
of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over
love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what
next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and
a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable?
Are they brave? Are they capable of victory? Their story is known to all of you.
It is the story of the American man-at-arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many,
many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then as I regard him now -- as one
of the world's noblest figures, not only as one of the finest military characters, but also
as one of the most stainless. His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In
his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.
He needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. He has written his own history and written
it in red on his enemy's breast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under
fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into
words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism.
He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles
of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.
In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed
that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which
have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other
he has drained deep the chalice of courage.
As I listened to those songs [of the glee club], in memory's eye I could
see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under
soggy packs, on many
a weary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle-deep
through the mire of shell-shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack,
blue-lipped, covered with sludge
and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective,
and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory
of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and
on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always, for them: Duty, Honor, Country; always their
blood and sweat and tears, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.
And 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth
of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling
suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness
and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and
cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical disease; the horror of stricken areas of war;
their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable
purpose, their complete and decisive victory -- always victory. Always through the bloody haze
of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men reverently following
your password of: Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws
and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift
of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints
are from the things that are wrong.
The soldier, above all other men, is required to
practice the greatest act of religious training -- sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death,
he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image.
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help
which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who
is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of
mankind.
You now face a new world -- a world of change. The thrust into outer
space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles mark the beginning of another epoch in the long
story of mankind. In the five or more billions of years
the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development
of the human race, there has never been a more abrupt or staggering evolution.
We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances
and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless
frontier.
We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds
and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace
our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new
fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundreds of years;
of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain
and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer
limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict
between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy;
of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development, your mission
remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.
Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes,
all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment.
But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the
will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you
lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be:
Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international,
which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian,
as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the
arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions
of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits
or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit
financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups
grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals
grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our
personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems
are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands
out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national
system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny
in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us.
Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would
rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are war mongers.
On the contrary, the soldier,
above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds
and scars of war.
But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato,
that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of
old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things
that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and
caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint
bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash
of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.
Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that
when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and
The Corps.
I bid you farewell.
An excellent article.
Friends of the Poor Are Often Their Greatest Enemies
By Diana Furchtgott-RothPope Francis has repeatedly called on those in positions of responsibility to protect and care for the poor. What is the best way to do this?
For an answer, look to a new book by Columbia University professors Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, out next week from PublicAffairs. Based on data from India, it shows how countries can achieve higher growth and reduce poverty. Entitled Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries, it analyzes what India did right and what it did wrong in its struggle to lift its millions from poverty.
A concern for the poor is not the same as doing something effective about reducing poverty. The Indian experience shows that policies matter as much as objectives, and that the worst enemies of the poor can ironically be those who profess to be their friends. Pope Francis can use this important book as a guide to provide the pro-poor leadership that he promises from the Vatican.
An examination of global economic systems shows that capitalist systems have been the most successful in delivering high incomes and better quality of life. Look at economic growth in North Korea vs. South Korea, and, in the 20th century, East Germany vs. West Germany, the Soviet Union vs. Europe, Taiwan and Hong Kong vs. China.
The latest Economic Freedom of the World report, co-published by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and 70 other think tanks, finds that:
* Countries ranked in the top fourth of the world in economic freedom had average GDP per person of $37,691 in 2010, whereas countries ranked in the bottom fourth had average GDP of $5,188.
* For countries in the top fourth, average per person GDP of the poorest 10 percent was $11,382. In the bottom fourth, the same group earned $1,209.
* The average income of the poorest 10 percent of citizens of the most economically free countries was more than twice the average income for all citizens in the countries with the least economic freedom.
Or, as Catholic theologian Michael Novak wrote in The Universal Hunger for Liberty, "Developed countries are better able to order the economic elements of life to the good of human prosperity. In this way they reduce scarcities, raise the average age of mortality, eradicate diseases, diminish illiteracy, and so forth. To be well ordered for the achievement of such goals is what it means to be developed."
India's economic reforms started in earnest in 1991 after a balance of payments crisis, according to Bhagwati and Panagariya.
Prior to 1991, India's economy was characterized by extensive intervention, with strict industrial licensing for capacity creation and utilization, with Kafkaesque results. Bhagwati told me that the problem with India was that Adam Smith's Invisible Hand was nowhere to be seen.
India's public sector proliferated into every kind of activity, not just natural monopolies. When India produced inputs such as steel, the inefficiency undermined several user sectors in turn. These public sector enterprises were often given monopolistic positions, with no private entry allowed and with import controls preventing foreign competition.
Hence, India's share in world trade and trade to GNP ratio declined, while those in successful developing countries rose. Direct foreign investment shrank, and by 1991 equity investment into India had fallen to almost $100 million, smaller than the budgets of major American universities.
Bhagwati and Panagariya show that the 1991 reforms virtually swept away industrial licensing, reduced tariffs, and opened the way to entry by private firms into the industries reserved for the private sector, thus forcing them to compete. New firms such as Jet Airways entered private aviation in India, forcing Indian Airlines to raise its level of performance. The effect was a sharp rise in the growth rate and in the reduction of poverty.
Bhagwati and Panagariya explode a series of common myths about India's economic progress, such as that India pursued growth as an end in itself, without considering poverty reductions or the provision of health and education. They show that poverty fell more rapidly after the 1991 reforms than before.
Rather than more open trade leading to increased poverty, as is often alleged, the authors show that trade decreased poverty in India. They write, "trade openness in a labor-abundant economy stimulates growth in general and the expansion of labor-intensive industries in particular so that it can be expected to lower rather than raise poverty." In particular, two of India's poorer regions, Bihar and Orissa, now are among the fastest-growing states today.
India still has problems, of course, and the authors do not shy away from recommendations for changes in the provision of electricity, infrastructure, and transportation. Labor laws, many over 40 years old, need wholesale reform because they discourage hiring. Mandates on employers rise steadily with the number of employees.
For instance, manufacturers which use electricity and employ 10 workers, or those which do not use electricity and employ 20 employees, need to whitewash their premises every 14 months and repaint every 5 years. A firm with 150 employees must provide a lunch room, and a firm with 30 female employees must provide a day-care center. No one can be fired without extensive discussions with labor tribunals and courts.
Many anti-poverty programs focus on redistribution, but growth is a precondition to generate revenues to help the poor. This applies to countries with many poor and few rich, not only India, but also China, Indonesia, Brazil, and many countries in Africa. Redistribution cannot help countries where there is little to redistribute in the first place.
And welfare programs need careful consideration to be effective. One suggestion from Bhagwati and Panagariya: Replace the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which guarantees one member of a rural household 100 days' worth of employment at a given wage, with simple cash transfers through an ATM. These will give the poor more purchasing power and it will enable them to sell their labor at a higher wage.
All economic correlations are complex, and many factors are at play, but Why Growth Matters shows how the poor benefit from economic development, and which regulations can still stand in the way. As Pope Francis opens a discussion on reducing poverty, the book could not have come at a better time.
Source: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/03/26/friends_of_the_poor_are_their_greatest_enemies_100220.html
The IRS Scandal
There is no more important story than this in my opinion. Where and when will a special prosecutor be appointed? When? The people are watching.
What else was happening in the summer and fall of 2010? The Obama administration and its allies continue to suggest the IRS was working in some political vacuum. What they'd rather everyone forget is that the IRS's first BOLO list coincided with their own attack against "shadowy" or "front" conservative groups that they claimed were rigging the electoral system.
Below is a more relevant timeline, a political one, which seeks to remind readers of the context in which the IRS targeting happened.
Aug. 9, 2010: In Texas, President Obama for the first time publicly names a group he is obsessed with—Americans for Prosperity (founded by the Koch Brothers)—and warns about conservative groups. Taking up a cry that had until then largely been confined to left-wing media and activists, he says: "Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."
Aug. 11: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sends out a fundraising email warning about "Karl Rove-inspired shadow groups."
Aug. 21: Mr. Obama devotes his weekly radio address to the threat of "attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don't know who's behind these ads and we don't know who's paying for them. . . . You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation. . . . The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide."
Week of Aug. 23: The New Yorker's Jane Mayer authors a hit piece on the Koch brothers, entitled "Covert Operations," in which she accuses them of funding "political front groups." The piece repeats the White House theme, with Ms. Mayer claiming the Kochs have created "slippery organizations with generic-sounding names" that have "made it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington."
Aug. 27: White House economist Austan Goolsbee, in a background briefing with reporters, accuses Koch industries of being a pass-through entity that does "not pay corporate income tax." The Treasury inspector general investigates how it is that Mr. Goolsbee might have confidential tax information. The report has never been released.
This same week, the Democratic Party files a complaint with the IRS claiming the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is violating its tax-exempt status.
Sept. 2: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warns on its website that the Kochs have "funneled their money into right-wing shadow groups."
Sept. 16: Mr. Obama, in Connecticut, repeats
that a "foreign-controlled entity" might be funding "millions of dollars
of attack ads." Four days later, in Philadelphia, he again says the
problem is that "nobody knows" who is behind conservative groups.
Sept. 21: Sam Stein, in his Huffington Post article "Obama, Dems Try to Make Shadowy Conservative Groups a Problem for Conservatives," writes that a "senior administration official" had "urged a small gathering of reporters to start writing on what he deemed 'the most insidious power grab that we have seen in a very long time.' "
Sept. 22: In New York City, Mr. Obama warns that conservative groups "pose as non-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups," even though they are "guided by seasoned Republican political operatives" who might be funded by a "foreign-controlled corporation."
Sept. 26: On ABC's "This Week," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declares outright that the "benign-sounding Americans for Prosperity, the American Crossroads Fund" are "front groups for foreign-controlled companies."
Sept. 28: The president, in Wisconsin, again warns about conservative organizations "posing as nonprofit groups." Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS demanding it investigate nonprofits. The letter names conservative organizations.
On Oct. 14, Mr. Obama calls these groups "a problem for democracy." On Oct. 22, he slams those who "hide behind these front groups." On Oct. 25, he upgrades them to a "threat to our democracy." On Oct. 26, he decries groups engaged in "unsupervised spending."
These were not off-the-cuff remarks. They were repeated by the White House and echoed by its allies in campaign events, emails, social media and TV ads. The president of the United States spent months warning the country that "shadowy," conservative "front" groups—"posing" as tax-exempt entities and illegally controlled by "foreign" players—were engaged in "unsupervised" spending that posed a "threat" to democracy. Yet we are to believe that a few rogue IRS employees just happened during that time to begin systematically targeting conservative groups? A mere coincidence that among the things the IRS demanded of these groups were "copies of any contracts with and training materials provided by Americans for Prosperity"?
This newspaper reported Thursday that Cincinnati IRS employees are now telling investigators that they took their orders from Washington. For anyone with a memory of 2010 politics, that was obvious from the start.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529571309012846.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
An IRS Political Timeline
President Obama spent months in 2010 warning Americans about the 'threat' to democracy posed by conservative groups, right at the time the IRS began targeting these groups.
Perhaps the only useful part of the inspector general's audit of the IRS was its timeline. We know that it was August 2010 when the IRS issued its first "Be On the Lookout" list, flagging applications containing key conservative words and issues. The criteria would expand in the months to come.
What else was happening in the summer and fall of 2010? The Obama administration and its allies continue to suggest the IRS was working in some political vacuum. What they'd rather everyone forget is that the IRS's first BOLO list coincided with their own attack against "shadowy" or "front" conservative groups that they claimed were rigging the electoral system.
Below is a more relevant timeline, a political one, which seeks to remind readers of the context in which the IRS targeting happened.
Aug. 9, 2010: In Texas, President Obama for the first time publicly names a group he is obsessed with—Americans for Prosperity (founded by the Koch Brothers)—and warns about conservative groups. Taking up a cry that had until then largely been confined to left-wing media and activists, he says: "Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."
Aug. 11: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sends out a fundraising email warning about "Karl Rove-inspired shadow groups."
Aug. 21: Mr. Obama devotes his weekly radio address to the threat of "attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don't know who's behind these ads and we don't know who's paying for them. . . . You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation. . . . The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide."
Week of Aug. 23: The New Yorker's Jane Mayer authors a hit piece on the Koch brothers, entitled "Covert Operations," in which she accuses them of funding "political front groups." The piece repeats the White House theme, with Ms. Mayer claiming the Kochs have created "slippery organizations with generic-sounding names" that have "made it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington."
Aug. 27: White House economist Austan Goolsbee, in a background briefing with reporters, accuses Koch industries of being a pass-through entity that does "not pay corporate income tax." The Treasury inspector general investigates how it is that Mr. Goolsbee might have confidential tax information. The report has never been released.
This same week, the Democratic Party files a complaint with the IRS claiming the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is violating its tax-exempt status.
Sept. 2: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warns on its website that the Kochs have "funneled their money into right-wing shadow groups."
Sept. 21: Sam Stein, in his Huffington Post article "Obama, Dems Try to Make Shadowy Conservative Groups a Problem for Conservatives," writes that a "senior administration official" had "urged a small gathering of reporters to start writing on what he deemed 'the most insidious power grab that we have seen in a very long time.' "
Sept. 22: In New York City, Mr. Obama warns that conservative groups "pose as non-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups," even though they are "guided by seasoned Republican political operatives" who might be funded by a "foreign-controlled corporation."
Sept. 26: On ABC's "This Week," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declares outright that the "benign-sounding Americans for Prosperity, the American Crossroads Fund" are "front groups for foreign-controlled companies."
Sept. 28: The president, in Wisconsin, again warns about conservative organizations "posing as nonprofit groups." Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS demanding it investigate nonprofits. The letter names conservative organizations.
On Oct. 14, Mr. Obama calls these groups "a problem for democracy." On Oct. 22, he slams those who "hide behind these front groups." On Oct. 25, he upgrades them to a "threat to our democracy." On Oct. 26, he decries groups engaged in "unsupervised spending."
These were not off-the-cuff remarks. They were repeated by the White House and echoed by its allies in campaign events, emails, social media and TV ads. The president of the United States spent months warning the country that "shadowy," conservative "front" groups—"posing" as tax-exempt entities and illegally controlled by "foreign" players—were engaged in "unsupervised" spending that posed a "threat" to democracy. Yet we are to believe that a few rogue IRS employees just happened during that time to begin systematically targeting conservative groups? A mere coincidence that among the things the IRS demanded of these groups were "copies of any contracts with and training materials provided by Americans for Prosperity"?
This newspaper reported Thursday that Cincinnati IRS employees are now telling investigators that they took their orders from Washington. For anyone with a memory of 2010 politics, that was obvious from the start.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529571309012846.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
READ:
The
Inspector General report on the IRS
targeting conservative groups.
If anyone would like to download a pdf
version it's
here...
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/irsigreport.pdf
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/irsigreport.pdf
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