Yeah, it is only 157 times more than the previous Commissioner visited with President Bush in his last 4 years. And of course Obama learned about the targeting from the media.
Seriously, if you don’t see the problem then you are part of the problem. Even if this was the only scandal in the Obama administration it would be worthy of impeachment.
But again, remember that the biggest issues we should emphasize here aren’t Obama’s incompetence, maliciousness, lying and law-breaking. The issues to emphasize are the dangers of expecting government to solve all of our problems and trusting it to be better than the free market to choose winners and losers. Point to the doctrine of original sin and how giving unchecked power to anyone is a bad idea.
Even though we know at least two Senators pushed the IRS to target the left’s political enemies, and despite the fact that White House council knew about it weeks – maybe months – before it appeared in the papers, the official line is that Obama learned of the IRS scandal only when it appeared in the media. He’s a busy guy and, since the agents involved were just “low-level rogues,” it was impossible for the President to hear about the targeted auditing of Tea Party groups.
It’s not like he’s being directly briefed by the head of the IRS on a regular basis. He has no time for that.
Except, for some reason, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman was spending a staggering amount of time at the White House. According to a Daily Caller analysis of public records, he visited at least a whopping 157 times.
To put that in perspective, he enjoyed more White House visits that Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry combined. He was there three times as often as Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS secretary who’s been instrumental in the Obamacare fiasco. Heck, it’s more than twice the number of appearances made by our resident gun-runner, Eric Holder.
I shared this on Facebook a while back and possibly here, but it is definitely worth a re-post. The humor from the massive understatement of the first line is surpassed by the “but it was worth it, of course” vibe of the second. Dedicated to all my spider-hating friends and family.
Parents, before you post about your small children, imagine a 13-year-old version of them reading over your shoulder. Your child bears the image of God just as you do. Does what you communicate honor them as equal image-bearers? Does it provide short-term gratification for you or honor long-term relationship with them? Does it potentially expose them to ridicule or label them? Does it record a negative sentiment that an adult would recognize as fleeting but an adolescent might not?
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Our Lawless President: Obama’s IRS Thuggery Certainly Was No Coincidence — Obama has operated like this during his entire career. In Illinois he won elections by illegally getting divorce records unsealed. The IRS issues are just the tip of the iceberg. You do not want government to have that much power, because it will inevitably get abused.
Oh, and when they are playing the “we were idiots / gov’t is too big to know everything about it” card, that is a good time to remind them of how much time Obama spends on golf, vacations and fundraising.
Also see The IRS abuse of power scandal started from the top. Typical Chicago-style thuggery to intimidate donors. (“That’s a real nice business you have there. It would be a shame if my IRS organization had to go audit it.”)
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.
Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.
The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn’t account for what the president’s vilification has done to his business and reputation.
A great take down here:
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Venezuela, out of toilet paper — and more! But socialism is still the right path for the U.S.! At least that’s what the media, education system, entertainment industry and Democrats tell me.
They forgot the most obvious one: Real butter tastes better! I just switched to it recently. The key is using one with a little olive oil or something similar so it is spreadable. When in doubt, go with the most natural thing.
Before he ran for President, Obama’s short careers as a lawyer and politician were studded with events that clearly indicated a weak character that would be dangerous in the presidency: representing Chicago slumlords and getting poor people—African-Americans, no less—thrown into the street in freezing weather, and winning elections via crony David Axelrod’s underhanded means. But the news media widely chose to not publicize those events: chose to instead glamorize Obama. He was from Harvard, brilliant, a gifted communicator, even our savior: hail Obama, minus the stiff-armed salute.
Some indications suggest, and were largely ignored by most major news media companies, that even in high school and undergraduate and graduate school, Obama showed a suspect character. By his own admission, he used drugs every day and skipped class in high school. His supporters, including those working for major news media companies, apparently thought this made him cool.
Since becoming president, Obama’s questionable character has shown itself repeatedly: his “green-energy” program, which looks like a means to repay rich, fat-cat campaign donors; his “fast-and-furious” gun scandal, which apparently entailed illegally selling US guns to Mexican drug dealers so they’d use the guns to kill people and create anti-gun fervor in the US; his continual, and very public, practice of encouraging supporters to aggressively attack those opposing him, so they’d do exactly what his supporters embedded within the IRS have done. Like a common bully, he publicly jeers at and insults his opposition, and his supporters love every word of it. They support him for who and what he is; because he divides rather than unites Americans; because he seeks to publicly humiliate half the US population; because he plays dirty; because he talks a smooth line of bologna.
Throughout all of this, most major news media companies have either remained silent or even defended Obama. Thus encouraged, he became bolder. His character, already weak, folded completely, and his arrogance, which has filtered throughout his administration, has run amok: widespread, unmonitored use of drones for killing . . . some people, we don’t know for sure whom; arming Mexican drug lords; domestic spying and harassment. You name it. He’s even grossly misrepresented his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, named “Obamacare” erroneously because he neither conceived of nor wrote it. It doesn’t “provide healthcare for 30 millions Americans,” as he’s said. It provides health insurance, and the two are usually opposed to each other; health insurers work to minimize costs by minimizing and/or denying care. The federal government, already deeply into the healthcare business, is now in the health insurance business as well, and our beloved, trustworthy IRS is in charge.
Don’t Make it About Barack Obama — He isn’t running for office again and is very unlikely to be impeached. Use his scandal-fest to attack big government and Liberalism, not Obama. That will help in many elections. One of their excuses (read: lies) is that government is too big for Obama to know enough about it. So just agree with them and point out how we need to make it smaller and less intrusive in our lives.
Friendly reminder: If someone uses the “tea bagger” pejorative against you, just ask them what it means. Then point out that they must be homophobic if they are using the slang for a gay sex act to demonize their ideological foes. Shouldn’t the gays be as offended as if they called you the “f” word? Haters!! Hate speech!!
Note that this is also an effective question to ask when someone is punished for using other slurs against homosexuals. I’m not advocating the use of the slurs, of course, but it is worthwhile to point out their hypocrisy. The people reflexively using “tea bagger” are the same ones who go into full pants-wetting mode if someone uses other slurs. For some reason those are worthy of major fines and even the termination of employment, while the Liberals get a pass. Also feel free to ask if those using the term “Santorum” in a derogatory way are “homophobes.”
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Socialism Leads to D.I.Y. Dentistry in Britain — Ouch. The government can force you to use their insurance plan, but they haven’t figured out how to force people to be dentists. This is the predictable and inevitable results of socialized medicine.
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Wow, Sojourners finally posted on the Gosnell case! I’m glad to see that. Until now, searching for his name returned zero hits. It is harder to imagine a case more opposed to the “common good.” Killing babies, storing their body parts in jars, unsanitary conditions, pure racism (white women got better treatment than blacks and the clinic mainly targeted blacks), government officials deliberately not enforcing laws, Planned Parenthood knowing of the conditions there yet saying nothing — and then pretending to be aghast at Gosnell, and more.
We should never stop reminding people that Gosnell’s main crimes were killing these babies 30 seconds too late. He did a bad job of killing them before they were completely delivered, so he just finished the job outside the womb. But all abortions are just as immoral.
And he isn’t the “rogue” that this article makes him out to be. People who kill unwanted human beings for a living don’t seem to mind breaking the rules regarding how to legally kill unwanted human beings for a living.
Remember that Obama and Planned Parenthood are on record opposing the obligations of abortionists to save the lives of babies who survive abortion. And Planned Parenthood has been caught countless times hiding statutory rape and sex trafficking, yet they continue to get hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding and “social justice” groups not only give them a pass but they support the Democrats’ platform of taxpayer-funded abortions. The right to life should be the foundational principle of “social justice,” not an afterthought — or worse yet, something completely ignored or even opposed.
Flight: The Genius of Birds – Official Trailer — great examples of Intelligently Designed beings.
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His behavior is getting borderline comical. He dramatically releases Benghazi emails in an attempt to appear cooperative, but the earliest is dates 9/14 when the incident happened on 9/11. Uh, so, either no one sent any emails for 3 days (unbelievable, but very bad if true) or he has good reasons to hide those emails (believable, and a tacit admission of guilt). And then he “fires” the IRS guy who was leaving next month anyway. Great leadership, champ.
Those Pre-Christian Deities Aren’t Much Like Jesus After All — A popular atheist objection to Christianity is that it copied its believes from other religions. The link thoroughly debunks the comparisons of Jesus to the mythical Mithras. (Also see Copycats for more reasons why the atheists’ approach is riddled with errors). The alleged comparisons are all false, meaningless or cases where the Mithras details post-date Jesus.
Claim: Mithras was born of a virgin on December 25th, in a cave, attended by shepherds Truth: Mithras was actually born out of solid rock, leaving a cave. He was not born of a virgin (unless you consider the rock mountain to have been a virgin). His birth was celebrated on December 25th, but both Mithras worshippers and the earliest Christians borrowed this celebration from earlier winter solstice celebrations. The earliest version of the Mithras narrative that includes shepherds appears one hundred years after the appearance of the New Testament; it is far more likely Mithraism borrowed the shepherds from Christianity than the other way around.
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Claim: Mithras had 12 companions or disciples
Truth: There is no evidence for any of this in the traditions of Iran or Rome. It is possible that the idea that Mithras had 12 disciples came from a mural in which Mithras is surrounded by twelve signs and personages of the Zodiac (two of whom are the moon and the sun), but even this imagery is post-Christian.
Claim: Mithras promised his followers immortality Truth: While there is little evidence for this, it is certainly reasonable to think that Mithras did offer immortality, although this is not uncommon for any god of mythology.
IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups — Would they have apologized if they hadn’t been caught? This is a great reminder that you can’t trust those in power to be fair. This is just a sample of what they are capable of. More here about how they’ve known about it since 2011.
Now, President Obama, tell me again why we are shouldn’t be concerned about tyranny? Be prepared to remind people of this when they claim you are paranoid merely for questioning the goodness of our leaders and their plans.
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Idols of Awesome and Shibboleths of Community — A great read to help keep things in perspective. If you really want to do something radically different because of your faith, that’s great. But you can be an authentic believer anywhere. Don’t let people guilt you into thinking you need to do something that is radical by their definition. What is really radical today is a stay-at-home mom.
Every once in a while I stumble over something that opens my eyes wide to a lot of the silliness of secularism that pervades evangelicalism and, in turn, warps the whole of generations.Anthony Bradley points out that there is a crazy movement going on right now within young evangelical circles to shun the suburbs and engage in a “new legalism” of radical faith.
The best I can figure is that somehow suburbs are just bad. (Read Keith Miller on this point) I think there is something bigger than that and it goes beyond evangelicals to, particularly, millenials and those who close out the tail end of Gen X and Y. We’ve made idols of the awesome in our lives. All of us.
Each of us forms in our head an ideal. Instead of enjoying our present where, as CS Lewis noted, we are closest to God, we either look to a future that may or may not be, or we hold on to a past that maybe was not as shiny as we think. Then we surround ourselves with others and, in a culture of Baby Boomer grandparents and their offspring, decide our life will not be fulfilled unless it is in some way awesome.
P.S. Shibboleth is a term from the Bible. It is an interesting Old Testament story that all Christians should know about.
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9 things you should know about p*rnography and the brain — clear examples of how sin manifests itself and impacts us physically. Too bad the “comprehensive sex ed” classes don’t teach this. They are too busy pretending there are no consequences.
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Homosexual man complains to NZ Human Rights Tribunal for being barred from seminary — And he’ll probably win. This is how “gay rights” advocacy is used by Satan to try and destroy the church. The complaint should be dismissed simply for its absurdity. Imagine a Christian complaining about not being able to be an LGBTQ leader, even if he wants the position just so he can undermine their organization with his opposite beliefs.
The tax exempt cabinet— first Geithner, now Daschle. The timeline is even more damning to their cases than I had been led to believe.
I can’t believe the media is letting them get away with this. Oh, wait, I can believe it. I forgot their mantra: Elect and protect Obama.
Geithner and Daschle should have been laughed off the stage. Obama hasn’t been in office two weeks and we’ve seen one thing like this after another, and his supporters don’t seem to care.
At an absolute minimum this should lead to radical simplification of our tax code. Even if Obama and his appointees were such blatant liars it would still point out that if these experts can’t do their taxes right then who can?
UPDATE: Great video link supplied by Bill showing Daschle’s “tough on tax cheats” attitude.
James White debated Bart Ehrman, an expert textual critic who nonetheless draws rather odd conclusions about the Bible — namely that if we don’t have the original writings then the Bible can’t have been inspired by God. Interestingly, if you keep Ehrman talking long enough he concedes all sorts of important points about orthodox views on the Bible. Read the recap. Sounds like White did a great job in pointing out Eherman’s errors.
Smorgasbord theology, its problems and solutions — I’m speaking to a few dozen folks at church tonight about world religions, but the foundation will be how Jesus is the only way and how other religions do not lead to God. I’ll be sharing some key differences between Christianity and major cults and religions as well as how to navigate in conversations with others to share the Gospel accurately and productively.
This should be a “duh” viewpoint on my part but I know that some of these people have been duped by the “all religions lead to God” lie.
Eternity Matters 