WASHINGTON DC – Republicans are training their attacks on acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller amid new revelations that he and the agency’s former top official knew employees were targeting conservative groups but failed to notify Congress despite repeated requests.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, and 10 other GOP lawmakers wrote to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman on June 18, 2012 demanding answers about why the agency requested donor information from groups seeking nonprofit status.

By the time this letter was sent, Shulman and Miller, who was the deputy IRS commissioner at the time, were aware of the extent of the targeting program for about a month. (more…)

First “his” point:

Then “her” counter point: (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Senator Ted Cruz says the IRS scandal “harkens back to the days of Richard Nixon,” and proves that President Obama keeps an “enemies list.”

“This is part of a distressing pattern of the Obama administration of being less than honest with the American people and using the machinery of government to target their political opponents,” Cruz tells National Review in an interview.

“It harkens back to the days of Richard Nixon and maintaining a political enemies list and treating the federal government as a tool to exact the administration’s retribution,” he adds. (more…)

Update 2:  The White House Reponds –  (Politico) — The White House has “no knowledge” of the Justice Department’s efforts to obtain phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP,” he said in a statement.  (link)

Update 1 :  Eric Holder personally approved of wiretapping reporters – On Monday afternoon, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had “secretly obtained two months of telephone records” from 20 phone lines assigned to reporters and editors from the global news organization. The shocking revelation comes on top of news that the IRS targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny. It will be harder for President Obama to pin the DOJ’s action on lower level bureaucrats, however, because requests to subpoena news organization records require the approval of Attorney General Eric Holder.  (link)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news. (more…)

….. and we’re not JUST talking about the 12 version “talking points”, but the epicenter of the actual White House response – or, lack thereof.

Perhaps now the media has accepted the fact that the “talking points” were highly manipulated, they will turn their investigative eye onto the origin, and subsequently on to something we outlined earlier:

Back in January  we posted a discussion around a newly released photo from the White House. The picture was taken in the oval office on Sept 11th 2012, the date of the Benghazi attack.

At the time we thought the picture was worth a thousand words.  After research, and with the hindsight of the latest revelations, it appears we were correct. Yet again, it provides more sunlight into the events surrounding the Benghazi, Libya events and who made the critical decisions in those moments of crisis.

At 5pm, according to the White House and media reports, President Obama was set for a prior scheduled meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey.   It was just prior to this meeting that White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon tells President Obama of the attack and the fire at the main villa…

…..how long the meeting took is unknown, but we do know by 6:30pm President Obama and Joe Biden were on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (more…)

Given the fact the media huddled with the White House prior to the Carney press briefing this should not be a surprise.   Nah, probably just another one of those now famous NBC production mistakes….  move along, move along…. nothing to see here folks….  Look, over there, shiny things.

(Via Newsbusters)  If you were a journalist reporting on Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, wouldn’t you find it interesting that he was a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama twice?

Someone at NBC News didn’t according to Hicks’s attorney Victoria Toensing who disclosed the spike job to NewsMax host Steve Malzberg on WMAL radio Saturday

VICTORIA TOENSING: By the way, Mr. Hicks is a Democrat. He voted for Hillary – I’ve yet to announce this – he voted for Hillary in the primary and Obama twice. You know what? NBC spiked the story where I told it before the hearings. It’s just amazing what the press is still trying to do to cover this up…So they try to make this partisan because of the lawyer. Well I’m not the messenger, he’s the messenger…The modus operandi, you know, to find anything they can do to just attack. So why wouldn’t NBC News report this? (more…)

Imagine the media response if George Bush were in office and the groups targeted were liberals…

WASHINGTON Associated Press  — A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.

The disclosure contradicts public statements by former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who repeatedly assured Congress that conservative groups were not targeted.

On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status. (more…)

(Via Daily Caller) The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of  CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top  investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals  too aggressively.

CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own  reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s  handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year. (more…)

The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes is reporting that several more ‘whistleblowers’ want to come forward to testify under oath about Benghazi.  The Blaze also reports:

[…] Joseph diGenova, attorney for acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Counterterrorism Mark Thompson, did not specify how many new witnesses there were, but said they had been “on the ground” and “in the fight” during the September assault that left four Americans dead. Thompson was one of three whistleblowers who went before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.  (link)

(Via Mediaite)  NBC’s Lisa Myers told panelists on The Morning Joe yesterday that Benghazi is starting to worry Democrats. NBC Reporter Kelly O’Donnell read from portions of emails in which high ranking State Department officials coordinated with the CIA to alter the official talking points on the Benghazi attack to remove any references to prior warnings or Islamic terrorism.

“This is quite the window into what is usually the hush-hush process about how to deal with these types of attacks and the spin that irrevocably comes afterwards,” NBC reporter Luke Russert opined. (more…)

Many people have noted the general discomfort yesterday exhibited by Jay Carney as he twisted himself into contortions while using seemingly inexhaustible obfuscation.

However, what is lesser known was the backstory prior to the “official” briefing.

The originally scheduled White House press briefing was supposed to take place at 12:30pm.  However, just before start time, the ABC exclusive report containing the secret Benghazi e-mails hit the wire….  The White House delayed the briefing til 1:45pm and pulled select media in for a closed “off record” briefing.

Then word hit of the “propaganda ‘off the record’ briefing”, and the White House pushed it back further, until 3:15pm…  Getting all their Ducks in a row.   The Huffington Post reports on the fiasco: (more…)