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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

John Koskinen, IRS commissioner, spared impeachment by House Republicans




This guy is as guilty as sin.




When Trump talks about draining the swamp... 


I can think of a few Republicans who are bottom dwellers feeding on whatever  excrement Democrats choose to serve up. These two are prime examples.


Remember after the videos how they were going to defund PP?

Remember how they were going to pass Kate's Law?

Remember how they were going to nix Barry's $4 trillion spending budget?

Remember how they defunded sanctuary cities?

And the capper is... they own the House and Senate!!!

Koskinen is a lying crook and these feckless bastards don't have the balls to impeach him!



Thank God for Trey Gowdy and Jim Jordan.


Video 305



The miracle computer crash

Not only did the hard drive crash on Lerner's computer destroy key emails on her computer, it also somehow managed to forever erase them from the IRS servers and backup tapes.

It just so happens that the destroyed emails would have quite possibly have been to and from people in places like the Obama White House.

Perhaps most amazingly, however, the crash took out emails on the computers of six other key IRS officials, even though IT experts like David Kennedy, appearing on Fox News' "On The Record" With Greta Van Susteren insists that is a digital impossibility.

Give me a f@#*ing break!

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Republican leaders managed to derail impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday, forcing the debate back to a committee for more study, where it will die when Congress adjourns at the end of this year.

It was a quiet end to a saga that had bedeviled GOP leaders for more than a year, dating back to revelations that Mr. Koskinen misled a congressional investigation looking into the tea party-targeting scandal and former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s lost emails.

Conservatives had been agitating for impeachment, saying Mr. Koskinen should be punished for defying a subpoena and providing inaccurate information.

Some Republicans sought a lesser penalty, such as censure, while Democrats said the entire impeachment drive was misdirected. Those two sides joined forces Tuesday in a 342-72 vote that sent the debate back to the Judiciary Committee.

“Members have different opinions about what to do,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the committee, as he asked lawmakers to give him a chance to sort things out.

But with lawmakers looking to clear out of town this week, the move essentially kills the impeachment drive in this Congress.

Mr. Koskinen’s term runs through November, meaning that, unlike other political appointees, he will remain even after President Obama leaves office Jan. 20.

Whether conservatives try again early next year, amid a series of new fights over President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, remains to be seen — but the impeachment effort’s leaders were disheartened by the vote.

“I am disappointed,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican. “We just referred the resolution to the committee, where it has been for 18 months, so that is wonderful.”

The tea party-targeting took place before Mr. Koskinen’s tenure, and he was brought in to clean up the agency after it admitted to the wrongful practice.

However, during the investigations into the targeting, Congress discovered that emails from Ms. Lerner, the key figure in the investigation, had gone missing. Hundreds of backup tapes containing some of the messages were deleted even though they were subject to a preservation order and subpoena from Congress.

Despite that, Mr. Koskinen assured lawmakers that all of her messages were being saved and produced.

At an impeachment hearing earlier this year, Mr. Koskinen pleaded for his job, insisting at a hearing that the attacks on him were “improper.”

He admitted that he did give inaccurate information to Congress in the Lerner investigation, but said it was inadvertent and said he’d helped the agency clean up its act in the wake of the tea party scandal.

The commissioner also warned that the fate of the civil service was riding on the outcome of his case, saying that if he, a veteran of several government jobs, was taken down, others would be discouraged from joining the federal workforce.

Democrats said the accusations against Mr. Koskinen were misguided, and said he was cleared by the IRS’ internal auditor, Inspector General J. Russell George, the Republican appointee who first exposed the tea party targeting.

Mr. George concluded that the deletion of the backup tapes was done by low-level employees at a computer facility in West Virginia, and his auditors found no evidence that anyone directed the erasure, nor that they intended to interfere with the investigation.

“In order to vote in favor of this resolution today, you have to believe that the Republican inspector general of the IRS is essentially lying,” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat.

Impeachment is the process of bringing charges against an executive branch official, and it takes a majority vote in the House. If someone is impeached, the Senate then holds a trial in which it takes a two-thirds vote to remove the official from office.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Democrat, said even though Republicans decided against impeachment, Mr. Koskinen’s reputation had been ruined.

“No matter what happens here, they got their pound of flesh, because when his grandkids Google Grandpa’s name, they are going to see the words ‘high crimes and misdemeanors and impeachment,’ as if Grandpa did something wrong. When in fact Grandpa did nothing wrong.”






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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Proving once again...



Stupidity is her only attribute.
Wonder how many checks she bounced?


Video 304


Pelosi gave Republicans another reason for celebration after her fellow morons reelected her minority leader. A delusional Pelosi stood firm about her party’s future when pressed with what she’ll do differently to win back disenchanted Democrats.

“I don’t think people want a new direction,” Pelosi told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”  “Our values unify us and our values are about supporting America’s working families.”


Just what I wanted to hear.







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Sunday, December 4, 2016

A couple of observations









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Neutered Dems Are All Bark, No Bite On Trump's Nominees





Senate Democrats are as furious with President-elect Trump's Cabinet picks as they are powerless to stop them.

Thanks to a change to Senate rules that Democrats forced on Republicans in 2013, it only takes 51 votes to confirm a nominee, except for Supreme Court nominees, which will still require 60 votes. Republicans will have 51 or 52 seats in the Senate next year, which means the GOP can approve anyone they want to Trump's team as long as they all agree.



Without the rule change, Trump's team might very well be carefully weighing whether it can scrounge up the eight Senate Democrats needed to secure a confirmation. But the simple majority vote is significantly reducing the value of statements like the one Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., made this week about Trump's choice to have Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Tom Price has led the charge to privatize Medicare, and for this reason, I cannot support his nomination," he said.

Thanks to the rule change, Donnelly's "no" vote on Price will hardly matter, something that other Democrats seemed to acknowledge this week.

Democrats like Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., oppose Price because of his opposition to Obamacare. But even she was left to admit that Democrats' only resort is to "fight back" by asking "tough questions in the committee."

Murray also said the Democrats may only be left with the option of trying to influence public opinion by making Trump's nominees look bad during their hearing. She talked about putting a "spotlight" on Price's plans.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., seemed to have the same idea. He said Price would "get a lot of very strong and very thorough questions," and said he hopes public pressure will give Democrats a "chance" to scuttle the nomination.

Trump's move to make Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., his attorney general is also drawing opposition from Democrats, who again are pushing for a drawn out confirmation hearing in order to make Sessions look as bad as they can.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., seemed to acknowledge that the only real weapon for Democrats is to try to make a good public case against Sessions, and hope the public starts calling for a new nominee.

"We'll be as persuasive as possible in what we say about it, hoping to reach and arouse as many people as possible," he told the Associated Press.

Democrats have also criticized Trump's decision to make Steven Mnuchin his treasury secretary, but in response, Democrats were again left with the option of asking him tough questions.

"I look forward to asking him how his Treasury Department would work for Americans who are still waiting for the economic recovery to show up in their communities," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

But it seems little more than a hope for Democrats, as Republicans are likely to quickly approve all of the nominees Trump has chosen so far.

And even the press at this point seems to be admitting that there's not much drama to a story about the Democratic minority trying to stop Trump's nominees.

"Dems to unload on Mnuchin," said a headline in Politico. The story said Democratic questions will "make for some uncomfortable hearings and negative headlines," but aside from that possible discomfort, the story said nothing about actually blocking the nominee.






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Saturday, December 3, 2016

Bergdahl requests a pardon from Barry




Published December 02, 2016


Will President Obama pardon Bowe Bergdahl?


If he served his country with honor and distinction I would hate to find out what qualifies as a traitor/deserter! BTW...it's been over two years and still no trial.

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Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl--held captive for five years after being captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan--has requested a pardon from President Obama, Fox News has learned from two senior US officials.

According to a well-placed source, Bergdahl thanked the president for rescuing him in May 2014 in a controversial exchange for five Taliban prisoners from Gitmo, in addition to asking for a pardon in the letter.

The Secretary of the Army was copied on the letter to the president, but the pardon was not formally requested through the military chain of command.

A Justice Department official confirms that it received a pardon petition from Bergdahl. Pentagon and White House officials would not immediately respond for comment.


Bergdahl’s pardon letter was sent to the president via the Department of Justice, officials said. There was no immediate comment from DOJ.

Reached by phone, Eugene R. Fidell, the attorney representing Sgt. Bergdahl, would not comment on the letter.

Last month, Sgt. Bergdahl’s court-martial trial was delayed for a second time and will now begin May 15 at Fort Bragg, NC.

Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and could face up to life in prison.

President-elect Donald Trump called Bergdahl a “dirty, rotten traitor” early in his presidential campaign during a town hall in August 2015.

The Army general who investigated Bergdahl’s disappearance from a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009 recommended that Bergdahl not receive jail time.

After being captured by the Taliban a short time after he left his post, Bergdahl was transferred to the Haqqani network, which top officials say is the most dangerous militant group in the region.

Wait a minute. Captured by the Taliban? Didn't Josh Earnest tell us the Taliban was not a terrorist organization? They're just an "armed insurgency".

The State Department designated the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan, as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.

The US officials have long accused Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, of supporting the Haqqani network made up of Taliban fighters in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

During the U.S. military’s intensive man-hunt for Bergdahl over a five-year period it was reported that up to six American soldiers died and others were wounded in the search, but these claims have been disputed.

Shortly after he was returned to US custody, President Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice said Bergdahl served his country with “honor and distinction.”

Didn't you know? If you served with  “honor and distinction” your reward is a court martial.








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