Michelle Malkin - Culture of Corruption - Every Day a New Eruption

Former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller had originally said that a couple of lower level employees went “rogue” and “off the reservation” by targeting conservative organizations for extra scrutiny. With that in mind, there’s this from FOX19 in Cincinnati:

• One of FOX19′s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim “they simply did what their bosses ordered.” FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.
• In fact, according to that report, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, was told on June 29, 2011 that groups with ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriot’ or ’9/12 Project’ in their names were being flagged for additional, and often burdensome, scrutiny..
• While the IRS is pointing at ‘two rogue employees,’ the number of organizations that were singled out has swelled to nearly 500, according to Rep. Congressmen Darryl Issa and Ohio’s Jim Jordan..

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Lurita Doan - Democrats Embrace Voter Fraud

With a dismal record of achievement and forced to accept the bitter harvest of their failed economic and foreign policies, no one should be surprised that Team Obama and the Democrats in Congress are running scared. Nor are the Democrats’ fears irrational.

With an historical supermajority in the House and the Senate, Team Obama and Democrats pushed their pet, progressive ideas with a vengeance, spending and borrowing. Yet despite full political power and despite the trillions of dollars thrown into the maw of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi vision of utopia, our nation is left with the nastiest of all financial hangovers as a result of queasy, Democrat-initiated, shameful indulgences. Of course too, the bills, some $16 trillion dollars of them, are coming due as well.

No one in America can possibly be pleased with the sorry achievement of Team Obama, perhaps the most miserable record of failed leadership in American history. And yet, Obama and his Democrat allies that are responsible for so much of the economic pain, including the jump in the misery index, are now determined to win the next election, remain in office, and presumably spoon out even more of the wealth redistribution, job killing regulatory regimes, and anti-business policies that have gotten us into this mess.

So how do Democrats plan to get elected? They certainly cannot run on their record. Even they must know their grand, economic plans to transform the American economy have failed. They know, too, that Americans, by wide margins, believe the country is on the wrong track. So what to do?

Desperate people do desperate things, and taking a harder look at some recent Team Obama actions, it seems clear that one of the primary strategies for the election is going to be voter fraud.

In the past, ACORN was the Democrats’ trump card, empowered and encouraged to recruit fraudulent voters that would return the favors by padding votes to favorite candidates. But the ACORN sham, which had been such an obvious wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, was exposed and is now (mostly) out of the voter fraud business.

With ACORN gone and unable to produce the loyal legions of fraudulent voters, there’s a good chance that Team Obama may “pull a Putin.” There are lots of different ways to rig an election and encourage voter fraud. Americans recently saw that in Russia, where Vladimir Putin’s party gained a “surprise” election win, despite the widespread, anti-Putin sentiment throughout Russia. Putin showed that voter fraud, intimidation, and slick electioneering schemes can be effective.

Already, Team Obama is putting voter fraud policies in effect to tilt the election. Eric Holder’s stance on the right of individual states within the U.S. to require voter identification is the most obvious example. Several court cases have already upheld the states’ right to require voter identification.

Furthermore, many studies have shown that requiring voter identification prevents voter fraud and is no more illegal than requiring identification to obtain Medicare or Medicaid or social security payments. Nevertheless, , Holder’s move—especially claiming that voter identification requirements are racist---is indicative of the panic that Democrats in power are feeling as the 2012 election looms and they search for ways to replace ACORN’s fraudulent voter numbers.

More recently, Team, Obama is speeding up the immigration process and rushing illegal aliens to citizenship, often ahead of those who have waited, patiently and legally, for years. A 2011 report exposed the problem wherein the immigration visa processors within DHS are, apparently, being pressured by senior officials within the agency to approve applications as quickly as possible, often ignoring issues relating to eligibility and security.

Many Americans have broad-based concerns about immigration, illegal and otherwise, and there is broad-based consensus that the current immigration system and our nation’s policies need reform urgently. But what the Obama Administration is doing is not the kind of reform Americans had in mind. This current urgency to relax immigration standards in advance of the upcoming election looks exactly like it is-- a craven attempt to mine for new voters to tilt the election.

These kinds of desperation moves by Obama Administration officials are especially despicable because they seek short-term, political advantages at the expense of longer-term policies that could actually benefit the nation. For example, it is an act of economic stupidity to force foreign-born science and engineering majors from our leading universities to leave the country following graduation. These are the very technology and science professionals that we need her to spur economic growth. But, Obama is mute on the need for this sort of urgent immigration reform and, instead, now spends his time and effort on relaxing standards of the immigrants that he hopes will reward him with a vote in November. How sad is that?

Obama is a desperate man, desperate to win an election, and desperate enough to take a shameful path to his goal. Obama cannot win on the merits of his policies, and even his once, most-fervent supporters recognize that Obama’s economic policies have failed. Expect Obama to find and push even more imaginative electioneering schemes as he takes the desperate path to “pull a Putin” and resorts to voter fraud.

Lurita Doan

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Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Lurita Doan - 2012 - The Year the Can Kicks Back

President Obama may best be known as the president who took kicking the can down the road to new, unimagined levels. Obama has demonstrated an unusual ability to delay decision-making, to obfuscate issues, to divert attention from matters of critical importance, and his preference to take half measures when pushed to the brink is now well known. Obama is the Grand Master of Kicking the Can Down the Road.

But in 2012 that seems likely to change—the can is going to kick back.

The problems besetting our nation can only be ignored and obfuscated for so long—and the past three years of the Obama Administration shows that things have gone about as far as they can go.

Here are some likely can kicking back scenarios.

• Young adults and college-aged students get angry. Bad as matters may be for taxpayers, small businesses and minorities under the Obama Administration, matters are far worse for young adults who have the highest unemployment rates, both short-term and sustained, and little hope, in the short-term of improvement. College student loan rates have reached legendary highs and with parents who are also either unemployed, overextended credit-wise and facing diminished retirement savings, these young adults are facing a tsunami of debt in the upcoming years. Soon, these young adults are going to wake up to the realization that the added $4 trillion dollars in indebtedness, courtesy of the Obama Administration, must be paid back by their generation. Team Obama has falsely promised an ever-expanding set of entitlements that the country can’t afford and the young are left with the bill. The young adult population, which almost overwhelmingly voted for Obama in the last election, are going to wake up to the unhappy realization that Obama’s promise of “hope and change” is really just host and chains—a 21st century version of parasitic slavery—with young Americans enslaved by debt. That can will kick back fiercely and the inter-generational animosity, aware of Obama’s unfair wealth redistribution plan that forces the next generation (and most likely the one after that too) to pay the costs of this generations fecklessness--will be fierce.
  
  
• The economy does not recover. Small business owners and entrepreneurs who have been the brunt of many of Obama’s attacks, through excessive regulation and increased fees and taxes, are not able to ignite the American job machine as they have in the past. Small businesses account for 3 out of every 4 jobs created in the United States, but Obama persists in demonizing these work-horses of the American economy. Obama’s attempts to incite class warfare (and other examples such as Harry Reid’s determination to ignore the contributions of business owners in this country) may cause this “can” to kick back. Already, the reports are in that show that during 2011 there were less IPOs than in the past 10 years. IPOs, while not the sole indicator of success, are an indicator of the state of small businesses and entrepreneurship in this country since IPOs are one of the ways that businesses obtain access to capital, measure growth and financing for long-term enterprise expansions. Even in the federal market, small businesses are being hit hard as surveys show that in 2011, there were far fewer, first-time, entries into the government contracting arena and that far fewer small businesses provided first-time goods and services to the federal government.


• The can could also kick back over Obama Administration scandals—of which there is a large menu—but where “Fast and Furious” and “green contracting” endeavors such as the bankrupted Solyndra top the list. Americans should expect that these are just the tip of the iceberg of bad Obama Administration policies in action. And, Americans should also expect that the oversight from congressional committees such as the House Oversight committee led of Chairman Darryl Issa will be fair, measured and balanced but will undoubtedly uncover even more egregious excesses from the Obama Administration’s partisan politicking and crony capitalism.

A new EPA leader will be required. Americans for three years have watched an assault on job creation and economic growth in a quixotic effort to achieve dubious environmental goals. Yet somehow, Obama has not been held accountable for the many weird decisions (attempts to kill of coal fired power plants, regulatory maze to prevent the exploration of oil and gas are just two). Our nation needs a coherent energy plan that allows for safe production of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power as well. The biggest impediment to developing such a plan is the EPA’s extremist environmental views that now intrude on every aspect of American lives and has been given expanded powers to regulate our every breath of air. The path we are now on is just plain crazy.

Lastly, 2012 should see the can—finally--kicking back on Obama’s tendency to define as “racist” any voiced disapproval to his ill-thought, ill-executed policies. The United States is a nation that has elected its first minority president, a nation that provides more supplemental assistance to minorities than any other country in the world, and should not be labeled “racist” by the very man benefitting from the open-mindedness of the American people.

Obama needs to understand that it is not the “color of his skin” that causes problems with the American people, but, rather, the “content of his character”, that leads him to disrespect the first principles that have made this the greatest nation on this earth, that causes the push-back from many Americans.

No other President in American history has been so determined to avoid pressing issues, to delay until tomorrow the unpleasant, and heap the costs and bills to be paid on the next generation--all because Obama is not able to summon the leadership required.

Obama has taken can kicking to “unprecedented” levels during the past three years. You’d think, by now, his foot would be tired.

But, watch out Obama—2012 is the year when the can kicks back.

Lurita Doan

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Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government. Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Barack Obama's Transparent Administration

"Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the Attorney General and the white house counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law.

Information will not be withheld just because I say so; it will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well-grounded in the Constitution. Let me say it as simply as I can: transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
Barack Obama

The Attorney General (Eric Holder) has been accused of lying to Congress about 'Operation Fast and Furious'.

Updated November 2011

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Austin Hill - President of the Protesters?

What happens to a U.S. President when he aligns himself with civil unrest? Barack Obama’s pledge to the occupy protesters that he is “on their side” is – to use the President’s word of choice to describe himself – “unprecedented.” Where this association takes him and his fellow Democrats will be very interesting to watch.

American history is replete with corruption and legally questionable behavior at the White House, much of which pre-dates those of us who are alive today. President Andrew Jackson, for example, was caught transferring taxpayer money out of federal coffers and “investing” it into private banks that were owned by his campaign donors.

President James Buchanan was known to have “sold” positions in his Administration before he was even elected. Years later after President Buchanan had negotiated an opportunity to buy the island of Cuba, Congress refused to appropriate funds for the purchase because they didn’t trust the President to handle the money properly.

Thus, the Obama scandals are not “unprecedented.” The President’s selfish waste of American taxpayer dollars to the now-bankrupt MF Global Holdings Corporation with former Governor John Corzine, the now-bankrupt Solyndra green energy Corporation, and former Vice President Al Gore’s Finland-base electric car company, fit right in with the corrupt behavior of many of our past Presidents who controlled to much of our public assets.

What is different about President Barack Obama is his proactive effort to publicly and intentionally align himself with a scandal that, so far as we can tell, has emerged from outside of the White House. And the occupy movement is indeed “scandalous” in as much as it is antithetical to our Constitutional system of governance, and our free market economic system.

Ask any occupy protesters you meet, and you’ll likely hear the usual talking points: “We’re the 99% and we need to let our voices be heard;” “The government only represents the top 1% and ignores the rest of us.” The rhetoric is designed to create a sense of victimization, and to a certain point, it is effective.

But then ask your local occupy protester some very basic questions about our representative government and you’ll likely find that the discussion falls apart. Simple questions, like “who has been elected to represent you in your state legislature?,” or “Who is the Mayor of your city?,” or “Who are your U.S. Senators?” will likely take the conversation over a cliff. And if naming their elected officials isn’t sufficiently challenging, try asking your occupy protester “How does legislation get created?,” and then prepare for a very dismissive, if not angry response.

The point here is that the occupy protesters can scarcely tell you anything about the design and functioning of our American representative governmental system, yet they are nonetheless quite sure that it has “failed.” And whether they realize it or not, they are pushing for something on the order of a “direct democracy,” a system of government that the world mostly rejected several centuries ago in favor of representational government.

The lessons of history don’t matter to the occupy protesters. And their lessons in basic American civics – if indeed they ever learned basic American civics – don’t matter either. They want what they want, whether it fits with the U.S. Constitution or not.

Thus we have a “movement” that has brought about costly damages to both private and public property – an estimated $19,000 worth of damage in Portland, $35,000 in New York, and $25,000 in Oakland – and multiple instances of sexual assault, public urinating and defecating, and allegations of rape. And it’s all for the cause of – what? – abandoning our Constitutional form of government?

Indeed, it is “unprecedented” for a U.S. President to align himself with this type of anti-constitutional movement. How much longer will America remain aligned with him?

Austin Hill

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Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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How Solyndra Spent Your Money

Green company's $733 million plant featured whistling robots, spa showers

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