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National papers react to the developing conflict between the Associated Press and the Department of Justice, which secretly obtained phone records of AP reporters and editors in 2012, supposedly for national security purposes…

New York Times: “We are not convinced. For more than 30 years, the news media and the government have used a well-honed system to balance the government’s need to pursue criminals or national security breaches with the media’s constitutional right to inform the public. This action against The A.P. … ‘calls into question the very integrity’ of the [Obama] administration’s policy toward the press.” (more…)

One scandal, two scandal, red scandal, blue scandal…

At Rep. Steny Hoyer’s weekly meeting with reporters on Tuesday, the Maryland Democrat was asked if he was concerned about the DOJ seizing phone records from Associated Press journalists working in the House press gallery in the Capitol building.

Hoyer’s answer was well-delivered: Articulate, clear, firm and precise.

One problem: He responded to the wrong scandal.

“The IRS activity was inappropriate, inconsistent with our policies and practices as a country, very concerning, needs to be reviewed carefully,” Hoyer, one of the top-ranking House Democrats, said in response to a question from Fox News’ Chad Pergram about the DOJ. “We need to ensure that this does not happen again, and we need to find out how long it continued, when it was stopped. It is my understanding—there was a front-page story on this at the [Washington] Post—it’s my understanding that [IRS official] Lois Lerner, who was apparently overseeing this, at some point in time found out about this and said …”

When Hoyer named Lerner, Pergram interrupted.

“We’re talking about two things,” Pergram, who apparently had not heard the first mention of the IRS, said from across the table, “You said Lois Lerner and the IRS.”

Another reporter sitting closer to Hoyer, Public Radio International’s Todd Zwillich, learned over and said softly, “He’s talking about the AP story.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, excuse me,” Hoyer said, pausing briefly. “Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. I don’t know enough about whether there was a warrant sought.”

As of last week Meredith and I here on TheBlaze Blog have started tweeting from a new official account @TheBlaze_Blog.

It’s different from TheBlaze’s main Twitter account (@TheBlaze) in two ways:

1. It’s for sharing the content you find regularly here rather than elsewhere on the site.

2. Unlike the main account, Meredith and I have plans to tweet back with those who choose to tweet at us and engage in a reasonable amount of debauchery.

While the two of us will be the main drivers of the account, other writers from TheBlaze will pop in from time to time as well. So, you never know who you’ll run into on there.

Now, this is a new thing so we’ll be doing a lot of experimenting. Like a fine wine, it’ll get better with time.

Give us a follow so we can get started! @TheBlaze_Blog.

And by the way, if you want, you can follow Meredith and I on our separate accounts, too: @MeredithJessup and @eScarry. See you there!

If you or someone you know wear Abercrombie & Fitch, then this message is for you:

The only thing I’d add to this delightful video is that while you’re rummaging through your closets to thrust vengeance upon A&F, keep an eye out for other clothes you could also donate to the less-fortunate.  Spreading goodwill is still cool even when it’s not making a political statement.

Cindy Adams, gossip columnist for the New York Post, wrote in her Tuesday op-ed that she recently had dinner with veteran newswoman Barbara Walters. What’d Walters say while reflecting on her retirement set for next year? (more…)

When Coca-Cola changed its recipe and rebranded itself as “New Coke,” the world recoiled in horror. What does New Coke have to do with conservative politics? Who is the classic conservative and who is the new conservative? And does the marketing plan of Pepsi resemble modern progressivism?

Find out what Bill Whittle thinks in this week’s Afterburner:

Would nation have the courage to remove its first black president IF proved he is corrupt?

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) May 14, 2013

A compilation of “Carney’s overwhelming gratitude,” via Politico:

Et tu, Lisa Jackson?

It’s not just the IRS that treats groups on the right differently from the rest. According to documents obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency is in on it too.

Public records produced by EPA in response to a lawsuit filed by CEI under the Freedom of Information Act illustrate a pattern of making it far more difficult for limited-government groups – in particular those who argue for more freedom and less EPA – to access public records.

Such groups are precisely those Congress and courts made clear FOIA was intended to protect from fees being used as a hurdle to obtaining information, without prejudice as to their perspective. Worse, CEI has now obtained proof of the spectacularly disparate nature of the practice, specifically revealing extraordinarily favorable treatment of the same green groups it’s been shown to be collaborating with on its agenda.

Continue reading…

h/t DrewM. and his “Obama Scandal Scorecard” (via AP)

Well said:

[...] When the Bush administration was wracked with the leaks of classified information about its counter-terrorism policies, most notably its interrogation and electronic surveillance programs, Democrats in Congress happily took advantage of the information. Nary a peep was heard about protecting national security and preventing the media from publishing classified information.

But now President Obama has to live in the leak-happy world that he and his colleagues created to undermine the last administration. And they don’t like it. Unlike the Bush administration, however, they are willing to go to lengths that threaten the freedom of the press to stop it — this administration has conducted far more investigations and prosecutions for leaking than its predecessors. And, for the most part, this administration has gotten away with it from the press, which has given them a pass on civil liberties compared to how they treated Republicans.

I deplore the Obama administration’s assault on freedom of the press. But I have no sympathy for the AP or the mainstream media, because this is how you get treated when you are in a politician’s pocket. If the AP’s editors and reporters and their colleagues at other newspapers had been more adversarial toward this President, as they were with President Bush, they would been treated with far more respect. The AP should wish for a return of the days of a Republican administration, which considered the press a worthy adversary, rather than a servant to be mistreated at will.

– John Yoo, Ricochet.com

Writing in the Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen says congressional Republicans are afflicted with “Benghazi Syndrome,” a made-up mental disorder that incites “a compulsion to grossly exaggerate matters and to compare almost anything to Watergate.” (more…)

The Comedy Central host is… well, not a happy camper.

During his Monday evening broadcast, Stewart dissected the Obama administration’s latest scandals involving the IRS and the Associated Press and scolded the president for lending credence to conservatives’ warnings against Big Government.

“Well, congratulations, President Barack Obama,” Stewart quipped. “Conspiracy theorists, who generally can survive in anaerobic environments, just had an algae bloom dropped on their f—–g heads, thus removing the last arrow in your pro-governance quiver.”

WATCH (language warning):

h/t Katie Pavlich

Cartoonist A.F. Branco expertly reflects on the administration’s latest scandals with the president’s own words .

Remember when he said this to students at Ohio State University earlier this month?

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

Yeah…

Related: Three scandals could bring down this administration

“[O]ur family is always up for adventure, so never say never.”– Sarah Palin, Newsmax.

@eScarry

Predictably, liberals are having a field day with this news…

Pablo Pantoja walked away from his job as state director of Florida Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee last August. But now, he says “the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today” has forced him to switch party allegiance altogether and he now calls himself a Democrat.

According to the Miami Herald, the Democratic National Committee circulated this note from Pantoja Monday night:

From: Pablo Pantoja
Subject: From Republican to Democrat
Date: May 13, 2013 5:57:11 PM EDT

Friend,

Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.

Studies geared towards making – human beings – viewed as less because of their immigrant status to outright unacceptable claims, are at the center of the immigration debate. Without going too deep on everything surrounding immigration today, the more resounding example this past week was reported by several media outlets.

(more…)

TIME offers an interesting** take on the scandals plaguing the Obama administration these days and what they mean for the commander in chief:

From the article:

Republicans are painting a cartoon image that won’t stick, Obama’s allies insist. “It’s absurd and not remotely believable unless you’re a conspiracy theorist or one of the 39% of voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history but don’t know where it is,” former Obama national security spokesman Tommy Vietor told TIME. “This is one of those ridiculous theories fringe political groups cook up to vent their anger that just has no basis in reality. No one is alleging Obama directed the IRS to do what it did.”

But nothing unites a divided party like going on the attack. And for a GOP still defining its post-2012 identity, the message that Barack Obama is a secretive, menacing tyrant is proving to be one that its various factions can agree upon.

 **By interesting, I mean ridiculous. 

The Benghazi scandal grows

The IRS scandal grows

Why did Susan Rice deliver talking points and not Hillary Clinton?

Government now offers more low-wage jobs than Wal-Mart

Detroit sinks to a new low

George Will: This IRS thing smells like Watergate

Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein unloads on AP scandal:

On ABC’s Good Morning America Tuesday, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly said the news of the Department of Justice seizing phone records of several Associated Press reporters will likely amount to little if any trouble for the Obama administration.

“I don’t think that’s going to amount to much,” O’Reilly said, “because it looks like they went through the warrant process and they had authorization to look at these records, the Justice Department did.” (more…)

So, let’s recap…

On Benghazi:

“The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” the president said. “What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it has occurred, what the motivations were.”

On the IRS inquisition:

“I first learned about it through the same news reports other people learned from.”

On the Department of Justice’s tracking of media phone lines:

“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP.”

Plausible deniability is this administration’s best friend.

Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser in New York Monday evening, President Obama said his intention is to “govern” for the rest of his final term in office. That is, if Republicans will “cooperate.” (more…)

TheBlaze has super smart readers, so most of you may already know this… but that doesn’t mean everyone knows it!

In the latest from Prager University, Chapman law professor John Eastman outlines the context of atheists’ favorite motto and its historical implications on America:

Via Politico:

“We are looking at it pretty seriously,” said Dan Backer, a lawyer who represents a half dozen conservative groups targeted by the IRS, including Combat Veterans Training Group and TheTeaParty.net. “Given the sheer scope of maleficence at the IRS, there may be a legal recourse.”

Backer said the IRS asked some of his clients for donor lists and extensive information from their Facebook pages.

The agency has maintained that although its actions were inappropriate, laws weren’t broken.

As President Obama dismisses the ongoing Benghazi investigation as a political “sideshow,” Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie lays out three key reasons why the search for the truth is still essential:

Reuters reportedly snapped this pic of President Obama as he spoke during today’s press conference and even added a caption mentioning his “tear.”  The news service also falsely identifies the U.S. mission in Benghazi as an embassy:

“A tear runs down the face of U.S. President Barack Obama as he answers questions about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi during a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington.” (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

Buzzfeed highlights the tear in question:

What say you?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is on Capitol Hill this month lobbying members of Congress to pass new legislation. But they’re not calling for increased funding for pediatric health coverage or scientific studies for disease prevention. No, they are going door-to-door asking members to pass gun control legislation.

Via The Washington Times:

Among their goals: Bans on assault-style weapons; mandatory background checks for all; required waiting periods for all gun buys; prohibitions on ammunition purchases and high-capacity magazines; and new laws for firearm storage, NBC said.

“We have to have a collectively louder voice,” said Danielle Laraque, the chairwoman of the pediatrics department at Maimonides Infants and Children’s Hospital in Brooklyn, NBC reported. “What we need is a call to action, to really look at how we can change public policy that is not affected by data.”