Lois Lerner heads the IRS division that singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns. She was subpoenaed to testify Wednesday before the House oversight committee.

But in a letter to committee leaders, Lerner’s lawyer said she would refuse to testify because of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

Among the harsher Republican comments after the IRS targeting was revealed last week, House Speaker John Boehner said he wanted to know, “Who’s going to jail over this scandal?” Lerner’s Washington lawyer, William W. Taylor III, said Tuesday that his client “has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation, but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course.”

Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for Oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the subpoena stands, raising the possibility of a public spectacle in which Lerner would decline to answer question after question.

News of her plans came on the same day the agency’s former commissioner said he first learned in the spring of 2012 — in the heat of the presidential campaign — that agents had improperly targeted political groups that vehemently opposed President Barack Obama’s policies.

But former Commissioner Douglas Shulman said he didn’t tell higher ups in the Treasury Department and he didn’t tell members of Congress.

And he wouldn’t apologize for it.

via IRS official to take the 5th at House hearing | CNS News.

When does it ever stop?

Monday

Now, let’s see what we are supposed to believe today from the Obama Ministry of Truth….

First, that Hillary Rodham Clinton could possibly be taken seriously as a Presidential contender or a President. This is the woman who traveled one million miles with no positive accomplishments as Secretary of State. This is the woman who masterminded one of the great foreign policy catastrophes of all time… aiding the “Arab Spring” in which governments friendly to the west in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia were replaced with Islamists bent on destroying all human rights and the main repository of human rights on earth, The United States of America.

This is the woman who said, in what was supposedly total stone cold sobriety, “What does it matter how four Americans died in Benghazi? Whether they were killed by people walking down the street or by terrorists? They’re dead. So, what?” That’s a paraphrase.

Apparently, this future first female President does not realize that it matters because 1.) The killings themselves show that Mrs. Clinton was not doing her job properly, and 2.) Her lying about it was contempt of Congress and perjury and obstruction of justice.

So, we are supposed to believe that a supposedly non-inebriated person made these comments and they are worthy of a President.

What else.…

Well, we are supposed to believe that a massive assault by the IRS on a popular uprising called the Tea Party was known to the higher ups at the IRS, at the Justice Department, and at the White House.

But Mr. Obama, much too pure and innocent to be told about mistakes in his administration, was too busy bathing the feet of the poor and tending to lepers to be told that his administration was engaged in an Orwellian attack on free speech.

Now, you see if you fail to believe that, you are the worst thing that you can be in today’s world. You are a racist. You can be a homosexual. In fact, that’s a good thing. You can be a pornographer. In fact, you’re supposed to be a pornographer. You can kiss the butts of terrorists. That’s called leading from behind and abandoning American “exceptionalism,” a really wicked idea that America is exceptionally great. You can be all of these things. But no matter what, you cannot be a racist against blacks. (You can be a racist against whites.)

But if you criticize Mr Obama, you are a racist. Thus, quod erat demonstrandum, Mr. Obama cannot be criticized. So, he did not for a moment know that his IRS was tormenting the political movement that laid him low in 2010. And, if you doubt it, you’re a Klansman.

Let’s see what else we are supposed to believe….Oh, here’s the best one: that it’s fine, in fact, super fine, for a mother to kill a baby in the womb when it’s physically and mentally identical to a baby that’s just been born. That it’s fine to kill them if you don’t like their sex. But it’s anti-woman to want to keep them alive and not kill them because they are female babies.

And, it’s fine to kill 800,000 babies a year in abortion mills, but, it’s heinous to own a gun that you keep locked up in a closet and don’t even take out for years at a time and have never even aimed at a human being. That it’s urgently compelling to protect lizards in West Texas….but perfectly good — even a fine example of the progress women have made — to have women use abortion as a form of birth control.

God help us. Who would have ever dreamed things could go so wrong? And if Mr. Obama can never be held accountable because his father was a Kenyan, when does this ever stop?

via The American Spectator : From the Obama Ministry of Truth.

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In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said, “It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated.”

He said President Obama “should rein in that out-of-control investigation.”

“They’ve been secretive, they’ve been overbroad and abusive — so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,” he added.

Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Usama bin Laden.

The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.

“We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said the AP published the story only after officials from two government entities said the threat had passed. He said the administration still asked that the story be held until an official announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.

The news service viewed the story as important because White House and Homeland Security Department officials were saying publicly there was no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

“So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story,” Pruitt said.

via AP president calls on Obama to ‘rein in’ DOJ probe into wire service’s records | Fox News.

President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an “independent” agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

Assistant editorial page editor James Freeman on Friday’s IRS congressional hearing. Photo: Associated Press

But that’s not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn’t need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he’d like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. “He put a target on our backs, and he’s now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?” asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a “wealthy individual” with a “less-than-reputable record.” Other donors were described as having been “on the wrong side of the law.”

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

via Strassel: The IRS Scandal Started at the Top – WSJ.com.

Deep in the bowels of Washington’s regulatory agencies, and overshadowed by the raft of recent scandals, Obamacare is falling apart. Key provisions of the health law have either been stalled in implementation or tied up in the courts. Out of money, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is begging health industry executives for funding. Many Senate Democrats are now expressing doubts that the law can work.

Meanwhile, outside Washington, Obamacare is palpably failing. Proponents of the law claimed it would bend the cost curve; instead insurance premiums are through the roof. Enrollment in the ballyhooed insurance exchanges has been pitifully low. Restaurants and shops are switching full-time employees to part-time to avoid massive health insurance costs.

Obamacare, as conservatives always suspected, is doomed to fail. But after it does, what does the government do? The schools of thought can be roughly divided into four camps.

Read the entire article: The American Spectator : After Obamacare.

By Charles Krauthammer

Note to the GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran Contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don’t know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn’t meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics.

Let the facts speak for themselves. They are damning enough. Let Gregory Hicks, the honorable, apolitical second-in-command that night in Libya, movingly and grippingly demolish the president’s Benghazi mantra that “what I have always tried to do is just get all the facts” and “every piece of information that we got, as we got it, we laid it out for the American people.”

On the contrary. Just hours into the Benghazi assault, Hicks reported, by phone to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, on the attack with absolutely no mention of the demonstration or video that was later to become the essence of the Susan Rice talking points that left him “stunned” and “embarrassed.”

But Hicks is then ordered not to meet with an investigative congressional delegation. And when he speaks with them nonetheless, he gets a furious call from Clinton’s top aide for not having a State Department lawyer (and informant) present. His questions about the Rice testimony are met with a stone-cold response, sending the message: Don’t go there. He then finds himself demoted.

Get the facts and get them out? It wasn’t just Hicks. Within 24 hours, the CIA station chief in Libya cabled that it was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous mob. On Day Two, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Near East wrote an e-mail saying the attack was carried out by an al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia.

What were the American people fed? Four days and twelve drafts later, a fiction about a demonstration that never was, provoked by a video that no one saw (Hicks: “a non-event in Libya”), about a movie that was never made.

The original CIA draft included four paragraphs on the involvement of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists and on the dangerous security situation in Benghazi. These paragraphs were stricken after strenuous State Department objections mediated by the White House. All that was left was the fable of the spontaneous demonstration.

That’s not an accretion of truth. That’s a subtraction of truth.

via White House Wordplay | National Review Online.

The last scandal dampening rods just failed, and the reactor core at the Internal Revenue service may be about to blow.  From Healthcare IT News:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search.

“IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

How much money is on the line in this suit?  Oh, a mere $25,000 in compensatory damages.  Per violation.  Which adds up to “a minimum of $250 billion.”

Has Congress begun those emergency sessions to shut down ObamaCare yet?  What else do they need to hear?

via IRS sued for stealing the medical records of 10 million Americans | Human Events.

(CNSNews.com) – Although the Obama administration has been hit by three scandals in a matter of days – new revelations about Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups, and the Justice Department seizing Associated Press phone records – the White House scoffed at comparing President Barack Obama with President Richard Nixon.

At Tuesday’s White House press briefing a reporter asked, “President Obama has been compared to President Nixon. How does he feel about that?”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he did not have a reaction from the president to relay on that matter, but also dismissed the premise of the question.

“I can tell you, people who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history,” Carney said. “Because what we have here with one issue, Benghazi, clearly we’re learning more and more is a political sideshow, a deliberate effort to politicize a tragedy. The president feels very strongly about that. You heard him address that yesterday.”

Last week, career State Department officials told Congress that their supervisors were not forthcoming about the cause of the attack in Benghazi, and also questioned the department’s internal investigation by the Accountability Review Board. Also, ABC News reported that the talking points for Benghazi were edited 12 times to scrub out mention of a terrorist attack and denied requests for security.

On Friday, IRS officials admitted to targeting tea party organizations, but said it was not a political move and was done by lower level officials. However, later news reports found that the targeting went beyond tea party groups and included other conservative organizations as well.

Now the IRS matter is subject to an inspector general probe, as well as a forthcoming probe by the House Ways and Means Committee. Obama said on Monday that if the IRS “intentionally harmed” conservative groups, it would be “outrageous.” Other Democrats have condemned the IRS’s actions.

On Monday, the AP, the world’s largest news gathering organization, reported that the Justice Department seized the phone records of 20 reporters and editors in April and May 2012 as part of a leak investigation.

Carney insisted Tuesday that the president cannot comment on either the IRS or the AP matter until further details are available.

“On these other issues, these are issues we are finding out about and we need to wait appropriately for independent action to be completed before he can take any action or comment specifically on it,” Carney said.

via White House: No Comparison Between Obama and Nixon | CNS News.

“On this World Press Freedom Day, the United States honors the role of a free press in creating sustainable democracies and prosperous societies,” Obama said in a statement on May 3, 2012.  “We pay special tribute to those journalists who have sacrificed their lives, freedom or personal well-being in pursuit of truth and justice.”

The AP disclosed on Monday that the Justice Department obtained telephone records of 20 separate lines, including all outgoing calls and personal phone numbers, in April and May of 2012. The AP is the world’s largest wire service serving newspapers, websites and broadcast media.

“We call on all governments to protect the ability of journalists, bloggers, and dissidents to write and speak freely without retribution and to stop the use of travel bans and other indirect forms of censorship to suppress the exercise of these universal rights,” Obama said in the May 3, 2012 statement.

Obama issued a similar statement for World Press Freedom Day in 2011, 2010 and 2009, but not for 2013.

Obama did not issue a written statement this year, but referenced it while in Costa Rica on May 3.

“I’m proud to be here as you host World Press Freedom Day,” Obama said on May 3, 2013 at a joint press conference with Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla. “So everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy.”

World Press Freedom Day is an event sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“In some cases, it is not just governments threatening the freedom of the press,” the president said in last year’s statement. “It is also criminal gangs, terrorists, or political factions. No matter the cause, when journalists are intimidated, attacked, imprisoned, or disappeared, individuals begin to self-censor, fear replaces truth, and all of our societies suffer. A culture of impunity for such actions must not be allowed to persist in any country.”

Outrage at the DOJ information-trolling is coming from both conservatives and many liberals, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The media’s purpose is to keep the public informed and it should be free to do so without the threat of unwarranted surveillance,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office. “The Attorney General must explain the Justice Department’s actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday issued a statement saying, “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP.” He directed further questions to the Justice Department.

via Obama Hailed ‘World Press Freedom Day’ As His DOJ Was Seizing AP Phone Records | CNS News.