CNN Pundit Paul Callan points out the problems with Eric Holder rushing in his civil rights division to Ferguson, Missouri.

(CNN) — If the United States Department of Justice has any real interest in obtaining justice in the tragic shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement of a new civil rights investigation in Ferguson, Missouri, (population 21,000) was a step in the wrong direction.

The department’s ham-handed effort to improve the political “optics” of active federal involvement may, ironically, create the reasonable doubt that will ultimately clear the shooter, Officer Darren Wilson.
The Department of Justice is likely to be impeding justice by proceeding prematurely with a federal investigation while local law enforcement authorities struggle with the facts of the complex and controversial case.
The DOJ investigations (there now appear to be two that have been officially announced) are highly prejudicial to the local prosecutor’s presentation of the case to the grand jury. The non-sequestered grand jurors who return home every night after scrutinizing evidence in the case are almost certain to hear of the existence of the new federal investigation.
After all, the investigation was personally announced by the attorney general himself after the President publicly commented on the case. The grand jurors might reasonably wonder why the federal government would open a civil rights investigation at the very same time they are hearing evidence about Ferguson’s most famous homicide. (more…)

We pointed this out last night and apparently it was so brutally obvious even Andrea Mitchell had to admit it:

The bigger story is actually who is not present. Within the list of the absent you can identify President Obama’s approach. (more…)

Do you remember when President Obama was debating Mitt Romney and he said this:

Well check out the list of advisors attending tonights’ Think Tank dinner:
We are doomed. RT @Bridget_PJM: The let’s-strategize-on-ISIS dinner list tonight, via the White House pic.twitter.com/kJI02cdBhI
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 9, 2014
(more…)

If you wanted to find a copy of the CNN/ORC Poll that Jake Tapper referenced during his Monday evening “The Lead” TV show, good luck.
Young Tapper stated the results of a CNN poll released today were “devastating to [president] Obama“. Apparently Tapper is correct because you won’t find the poll data on any CNN website.
And you won’t find any high visibility mention of it either.
If you dig far enough you’ll find an article on Syria / ISIS that references it, but that’s as far as it goes.  And if you read all the way down the article you find:

[…] Obama’s upcoming speech comes as two Americans were murdered and grisly images and stories of the terrorist group needlessly killing enemies have emerged from Iraq and Syria. So far, Americans are not happy with how Obama has addressed the ISIS situation. The CNN/ORC poll shows that only 30% of Americans think that he has a clear plan for dealing with ISIS.
Overall, the President’s approval rating is 43%, while 55% disapprove how he is handling his role as commander in chief. (link)

BINGO – Now we know why the actual poll data is missing. Candy Crowley must have it under her office cushion.
Nothing to see here folks, move along… move along.

The key issue is not that ISIS is using U.S. made weapons.  Given ISIS geographic conquests it would be expected, vis-à-vis Iraq, they were able to capture weapons and armament.     No, it’s the *type* of weapons, specifically boxed M16’s, which identifies the covert shipments to Syria we outlined within the Benghazi Brief.   

In 2012 those small arms were shipped to Syria as a result of President Obama’s authorization.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing the financing, Turkey provided an initial storage base near Adana where the nerve center for supporting what became ISIS was set up.   The UN peacekeeper Kofi Annan was pulled out of Syria, and U.S. weapons were poured in.

On September 5th 2012 a Libyan flag ship called Al Entisar docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, it carried small arms and rockets from the U.S. originally destined for the Free Syrian Army.  However, by that point the FSA had collapsed and most of the leaders defected to join what is now ISIS.

(Via Raw Story) Islamic State fighters appear to be using captured US military issue arms and weapons supplied to moderate rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia, according to a report published on Monday.

The study by the London-based small-arms research organisation Conflict Armament Research documented weapons seized by Kurdish forces from militants in Iraq and Syria over a 10-day period in July.

The report said the jihadists disposed of “significant quantities” of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings “Property of US Govt”. (more…)

There are moments in edited TV content when a keyed-in viewer can see a cut intended to make a “comfort edit”, smoothing out the narrative. The Chuck Todd interview with President Obama was riddled with them. Even when being interviewed by a fellow ideological traveler.

But first to content:
On ISIS:
@00:24 “this administration has” – President Obama using third person distancing tactic discussing an uncomfortable negative. When the topic is positive, or viewed as favorable currency, the term “my administration” is used.
@01:05 “what I have done over the past several months” – President Obama knowing he was caught flat-footed, having called ISIS “JV”, and having admitted not having a strategy is now trying to give appearance of them having been working on this all along.
@01:45 “the next phase, is to start going on some offense” – Again, framing incompetence as if there was a previous outline/plan in place. This is similar to the re-writing of the Syrian RED LINE strategy, ‘yeah, yeah, we, um, we meant to um, create that Russian intervention WMD thing’. Embarrassingly juvenile for a President. (more…)

Now that we all know the full scope of the background story behind the State Department and CIA in Benghazi (See: The Benghazi Brief) it might be additionally interesting to watch this exclusive ‘on the ground’ report of 9/11/12 hosted by Bret Baier as he interviews the security team who suffered the consequences of operation Zero Footprint.

(Via Fox) This weekend, Fox News Reporting will bring you a special on the untold story of the Benghazi terror attack.
It has been nearly two years since the fatal attack. Now, hear for the first time from the men who fought that battle.
“Fox News Reporting: 13 Hours at Benghazi” is based off a new book, to be released next week, called “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team.
The special premieres Friday, Sept. 5 at 10p ET. It re-airs Saturday, Sept. 6 at 1a, 5p and 9p ET, and again on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 12a, 8p and 11p ET.  (link)

The Daily Caller is reporting on, what Judicial Watch is finding.   Both are beginning to find the trail to the “Schedule B” data used to assemble the “Red List”, or the targeting list.
Judicial watch FOIA inquiry has found internal IRS communications about a “Secret Research Project“. This project we have previously identified was a compilation of individual names and organizations the DOJ deemed antithetical to the goals of the Obama administration.
The “Red List” was created as an outcome of the Schedule B filings illegally released by the IRS to the DOJ as part of their collaborative efforts.

(Daily Caller) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly obtained donor lists from nonprofit groups as part of a “secret research project” being run by Lois Lerner and other officials.
IRS official David Fish revealed the “secret research project” in a June 27, 2012 email to Lerner’s direct subordinate Holly Paz, according to emails released Thursday by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. (more…)

Delay, Deny and Non-Delivery

Peel it all back and you find:  The Department of Justice used the IRS 501(c)(3) information to create a “Red List”, a targeting list.  That list was compiled from the illegally shared IRS “Schedule B filings” of conservative groups and Jewish advocacy groups the DOJ viewed as a threat to advancing the Obama agenda.   The Schedule “B’s” gave a detail list of supporters and donors antithetical to the current administration.[Outlined HERE and HERE]

What’s happening now is a massive institutional cover-up between the IRS and DOJ to keep that “Red List” targeting program secret.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS says it has lost emails from five more workers who are part of congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative groups that applied for tax exempt status.

The tax agency said in June that it could not locate an untold number of emails to and from Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. The revelation set off a new round of investigations and congressional hearings.
On Friday, the IRS said it has also lost emails from five other employees related to the probe, including two agents who worked in a Cincinnati office processing applications for tax-exempt status.
The agency blamed computer crashes for the lost emails. In a statement, the IRS said it found no evidence that anyone deliberately destroyed evidence.  (read more)

Oh what a tangled web is weaved…. How is it possible for the DOJ to be investigating an agency they themselves have colluded with to target political opponents? 

(Via The Washington Post)  Congress had little opportunity to debate the Internal Revenue Service’s missing-e-mail controversy while on break during the past month, but lawmakers will have plenty to talk about when they return next week.
One question likely to come up is why the IRS wiped out Lois Lerner’s Blackberry shortly after congressional staffers interviewed the then-IRS official about suspected targeting of conservative groups.
So far, the IRS has provided no answer.
The issue came to light last month after U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the IRS to explain its efforts to recover emails that went missing when the former official’s hard drive crashed in 2011. (more…)