Thank you for the summation.. I will answer within..
Here's what I came away with, after spending days just reading all the articles I could and people's perceptions therein...
The IRS debacle and AP dealio, both have some validity in reflecting badly and being questioned. As to Benghazi...incompetence, lack of resources, CIA hush-hush...but no sleeping dragon...at least not the dragon hunted.
All three, however, share the common theme of something, anything, to make the admin and President look bad. The outcry is specific in tone. It's not, "shit, something went down on this persons watch, lets see what the fuck happened." It's, "shit, something went down on this persons watch, I know that muther fucker is up to his eyeballs in involvement!" The former acknowledges an investigation is needed to see exactly what happened, why, how and who. The latter acknowledges a forgone conclusion and an investigation that should specifically link to/prove that conclusion.
worse, all three proved their fears about Obama all along.. we've said it before, unfortunately this admin and every single one of the million or so people who work for the gov't under this admin.. cannot in any way become tainted by scandal.. sure-sure that's an extremely unreasonable and illogical idea because who, in their right minds, would blame Obama for what an assistant to a field officer in Dubuque, IA did on her lunch hour one friday..But we're not dealing with people
in their right minds... and these scandals, not red-flag warning scandals IMO more like "wtf, someone fucked up" problems, are amplified times infinity..
The IRS deal is just a cluster fuck of odd. Tea Party groups WERE targeted, in that, certain indicators viewed to be identifiers of Tea Party groups were used to give them some extra special attention. But, because of the way the language was changed with regard to 501c(4)'s and because no real guidelines existed or were ever put in place with verifying intent of groups applying for 501c(4) status...IRS workers are sort of left to their own devices to figure how who's full of shit and who's not. When those workers saw a neon glowing pattern, I think they said fuck it....grouped them together and started in with what they felt was appropriate questioning/verifying.
Now mind you, the real bullshit, at least to me, was/is that these groups, who are about as political and politically active as you can imagine and who promote no or next to nothing in taxation, had the balls to apply for a "primarily" non-political, tax-exempt free status. So a bunch of hyper-political, taxation loathing people/groups wanted to apply for tax-exempt status, under the umbrella of a 501c(4), who weren't going to be primarily political...? There's so much bullshit in there, that you'd drown. I see a silver lining though. This may very well FORCE our cluster fuck of a congress and senate to finally address exactly what a friggin 501c(4) is. You can't raise this much hell and pretend the thing that's at the center of what you're bitching about, doesn't exist or isn't a concern. The Republicans saw an opening to "possible impeachment" (well, to be fair, they see everything as an opening to possible impeachment) went for it (with some justification...SURPRISE! THEY GOT ONE!) and now...oopsie. Karl Rove didn't waste ANY TIME trying to link his superPac to...the NAACP...even if in the most obscure, full of shit way as possible. He and the Koch's know EXACTLY what this genie coming out of the bottle means...and they ain't happy...at all.
that's what I don't get at all.. Issa's trying to dampen this one down.. or was when he admitted he's known about the investigation for a pretty long time.. and if Issa's not railing and wailing, then you know not only is it nothing, but it involves people with (R) after their name or will hurt people with (R) after their name.. I mean, of all people in congress to make a mountain out of a molehill? Darryl Issa is it.. and even he's like "eh, nothing to see here"..
and there isn't anything to see.. as far as I can tell, these organization were
intending on scamming the tax office by, as you said, claiming 501c(4) status.. everyone knows it's open-legit scam, everyone knows this. doesn't mean the IRS can't make you answer extra questions when trying to file as one. especially when you're name is a throw-back to a tax-revolt.. Jesus, you call yourself the tea-party, you're mission statement is 'kill the irs,burn the tax office down,stop paying the crooks in Washington your money', you file under a know scam-law.. and you're shocked the gov't would say "Um, we're going to give you this rope you're asking for, but 1st we want to fille this paperwork out in triplicate"....
again, whiney bullshit iMO..
The AP and the Fox News Journalist? Yea, they get to bitch on that one too. Even as much as I loathe Fox, or anyone who works for them as a journalist who feels that they can be employed by them and have an ounce of integrity as a journalist. Especially the Fox News one. What happened there wasn't really anything earth shattering, in the details released. "North Korea's going to answer the U.S.'s finger wag on Nuclear Weapons, by setting off more." Well duh. The suns coming up tomorrow and North Korea threatens something involving nukes...no brainer. It was excessive for the DOJ to go ape shit over that particular factoid getting out a bit earlier than their projected release of the information. The bigger question should be, why the journalist, citing anonymous sources, thought that story was even worthy of using anonymous sources in the first place. It's like a 1 or a 2, on the "Oh My!" scale of reporting.
Now the AP crap...I'm torn. There was some sensitive friggin information going on there. Information that could of blown covers and literally gotten people killed. So yea, call me hyper-vigilant, but in that particular instance, how secure are they on their end to receive that information? And I'm not even going to get into the person that felt that was *crucial* information the reporter needed to know, so he could tell the world...and how secure were they? This isn't kiddy time. That was a deep ass, under cover operation, in about as a hostile environment as you can imagine. What were we going to gleen from the sharing of this information? Were the operatives doing something wrong? Did we need to know about some treachery going on that would never see the light of day otherwise? *Usually* the motivation for airing laundry is to shine a light on something dubious that the public needs to be made aware of. In my reading, I can't seem to find anything dubious. Covert? Yes. But dubious? No. So I'm trying to wrap my head around the motivation, the need. Was it just so they could show they had the inside track on secret operations? That they were watching? To show how big a dick they had on anonymous sources? I'm confused.
either the AP deserves what they got.. or Julian Assange doesn't deserve what FoxNews has vilified him for.. it's just that simple... Yes, the AP can legally disseminate classified intel.. but the gov't can legally investigate who disseminated that intel to them.. and after the Pat Act, that means emails baby..no-knock warrants,no-warrant taps etc etc... don't like it? sorry, you didn't mind when it passed don't come whining about it now..you claimed 'national security' when it was happening to others, you can't now claim 'gov't overreach' when it happens to you..
as for the Fox guy.. he too was seen meeting with a known 'leaker'.. one who was being investigated himself... hell, if I go into a drug-dealer house, while he is being watched by LE, my ass is going to get secretly followed and background checked too.. it's the name of the game. Should he have been implicated? Should the DOJ have used all the legal means at their disposal when the found out it was 'press'? why not? What gives Fox news or any other a free pass? Are we supposed to say "Oh, whoops, that guy has a press pass.. let's end the investigation.. damnintman"... if that's the case then every AlQ group out there should start embedding US journalist to hide behind..
in neither case were these journalists trying to protect the people from an evil rogue gov't.. neither of these people were exposing gov't corruption that is damaging the foundation of this country.. that is what a free-press is about. and that's when the press
does get a free-pass.. but when they are involved with telling a non-story that will, by being told, jeopardize months or years of investigation,lives,covers,contacts.. well, your editor should have stopped you from putting that story out there because now you're involved in a national security leak, in a time of war, and homey don't play that.
