At a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Lew declined to answer a question from Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, about whether he agreed with Lerner’s assertion today that she has “not done anything wrong.” Garrett told Lew it was a “yes or no” question.
“Congressman, it’s not a yes or no,” Lew said. “I’m going to wait to have all the facts.”
This is the primary psychological tool used by both the left-wing and the right-wing media to subconsciously propel their respective political myths. In this case, the tool is being employed by a member of Congress. Notice that Garrett trying to force an inappropriate "yes or no" answer from a person who doesn't know the answer.
Now that the event has happened, video of the event can be cut to eliminate context. It can be thrown up on FOX as a talking point that "Democrats are playing fast and loose with the facts" and "acting like they've got something to hide. When the light reflected in the mirrors hits the smoke, the holographic image of an actual scandal appears. As far as I can tell from the inquiries, so far, the only scandal is how the GOP are trying to gain from a situation they themselves created.
In order to grasp the whole picture of the IRS non-scandal, I'm gonna have to start waaaaaaaaay back in the dark ages of the 2008 Presidential campaign. It was Barack vs. Hillary. The GOP knew they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the presidency within 8 years of Bush. So they sacrificed their most popular pariah (John McCain) to help consolidate party ideology, and they focused their efforts on the Democratic primaries. GOP leadership were and still are afraid of Hillary. So they and their donors, from whatever nation foreign or domestic, threw hundreds of millions of dollars into squashing Hillary's primary hopes. She surrendered after it became clear her margin was two or three whiskers behind Obama. All that GOP spending gave us candidate Barack Obama.
But that's not the only regretable choice the Republicans made for themselves that cause them to wring their hands today. You see, the FEC decided that the groups spending large amounts of un-traceable cash on political campaigns was a threat to national security, and it was a violation of the clunky McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2002. The actual case centered around a basic free speech argument, that the government had no right to block a film, regardless of it being full of distortions about a political candidate and regardless of whether its funding came from Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia.
Yes, it was a thorny case. And Roberts, to his credit, was going to rule on the strict question of whether the hack film about Hillary could be shown publicly. (Of course, the answer is yes.) Justice Kennedy pulled some ju-jitsu and got to write the majority opinion, in which he reached outside of the scope of the case and the question before the court saying, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." Now watch closely, because that's another smoke-and-mirrors trick.
Of course we agree with that! The concern inspiring the campaign finance reform law attempt was the subjection of the USA to criminal and/or foreign influence due to a lack of reasonable campaign finance regulations. But the question in before the Court was simply, "Should Citizens United be allowed to air NWO propaganda films?" And the majority, reasonably and somewhat thankfully, said yes. *sigh*
So now money equals speech, and if you don't have enough money, you don't get to speak. Funny how a brilliant guy Kennedy could only think that one halfway through. I surmise a few large, untraceable monetary gifts to a few friends on the sly might make up Kennedy's other half....
When the Supreme Court ruling was handed down in 2010, Obama had been in office for two years. He was basically tasked with administrative overhaul of the IRS to accommodate yet another kink in the system's bureaucracy. You have to remember that people who accept bureaucracy in order to work in it run like machines. They have habits. They are only semi-aware of their surroundings. When you change the machinery of that bureaucracy, they still run on their old habits, which is where this "scandal" started and most likely ended, according to the Treasury Department's report. The elimination of regulations by the Supreme Court caused a backlog of requests for tax-exempt status, so the bureaucrats ran triage and moved the most overtly political applications to the back of the line.
For the GOP to suggest that this entire situation was intentionally created by the President they themselves pushed into power is a ridiculous political game. If only enough Americans are too busy with the struggle of everyday life to be unable to read up on this story, maybe the GOP can get away with peeing on the public's leg while telling us it's raining. It's too bad the Democrats don't go for the jugular and pull the false face off these machinations more frequently. It's not difficult.
But at least the GOP are huffing and puffing and making themseles look a little less stupid than they did with their empty-handed Benghazi scandal inquiry. The only news from that side of the Republican brain is that the Representatives who got most indignant about the murder of an ambassador also made sure to avoid accepting responsibility for paying for embassy security. The Democrats have introduced yet another embassy security funding bill into the Senate, but I'm willing to bet that the GOP have enough control of the media to let it die in the House again.
I've gotta say the style of Lois Lerner is admirable. She should just come forth with answers to all the silly questions these new Republicans want to parade in front of the American public. In this day and age, it is admirable to see a lifelong bureaurcat standing up and exercising her Constitutional right not to go along with horse manure.
In the meantime, all you GOPers, I know there are those of you frustrated with a party that no longer represents your traditional values. Hang in there, but just know there's more internecine strife a-comin'. I know how much it rubs conservatives to defecate in their own nest, but that's the only way left to win the party back. I can't tell you how many of my Republican friends have been saying "we need a third party" but it's close to the number of times I hear them say "hello".
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