Before we begin, we lost over 2 hours of work to what may have been a careless keystroke.  And since we’ve neither the time nor inclination to recreate what was, we’re going with a somewhat shortened format.

It’s Friday, May 24th, 2013…and the fur’s flying so fast on Capitol Hill we’re truly having a hard time keeping up.  So we were very appreciative of Balls Cotton forwarding a format which helps us stay on top of what Republican’s should be painting as the inevitable result of Progressive policies:

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, as the plot continues to thicken…

Holder OK’d Seizure of Fox Reporter Emails

 

…Progressive attempts to defend the indefensible grow not only ever more desperate, but utterly inane:

Heaven forbid anyone in the press pool or MSLSD panel should seriously question this nonsensical nattering, particularly as it was the product of the most partisan Speaker in House history and the former Communications Director for the DNC.

And though The Obamao’s never to blame for anything…

Obama: Increase in domestic terrorism fueled by Internet

 

…it’s good to know something’s Al Gore’s fault!

For a different take on the events we hope and pray make Liberals an endangered species, here’s Jonathon Turley writing at USA Today:

Nixon has won Watergate

Barack Obama’s imperial presidency is just what his controversial predecessor wanted.

 

This month, I spoke at an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal with some of its survivors at the National Press Club. While much of the discussion looked back at the historic clash with President Nixon, I was struck by a different question: Who actually won? From unilateral military actions to warrantless surveillance that were key parts of the basis for Nixon’s impending impeachment, the painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be.

Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. Consider a few examples:

Warrantless surveillance

Nixon’s use of warrantless surveillance led to the creation of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). But the reform turned out to be more form than substance. The secret court turned “probable cause” into a meaningless standard, virtually guaranteeing any surveillance the government wanted. After hundreds of thousands of applications over decades, only a couple have ever been denied.

Last month, the Supreme Court crushed any remaining illusions regarding FISA when it sided with the Obama administration in ruling that potential targets of such spying had to have proof they were spied upon before filing lawsuits, even if the government has declared such evidence to be secret. That’s only the latest among dozens of lawsuits the administration has blocked while surveillance expands exponentially.

Unilateral military action

Nixon’s impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress’ sole authority to declare war by invading Cambodia. In the Libyan “mission,” Obama announced that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a “war” and that so long as he called it something different, no congressional approval or even consultation was necessary. He proceeded to bomb a nation’s capital, destroy military units and spend more than a billion dollars in support of one side in a civil war.

Kill lists

But for pity’s sake don’t waterboard ’em and obtain any useful intelligence!

Nixon ordered a burglary to find evidence to use against Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the famed Pentagon Papers to the press, and later tried to imprison him. Ellsberg was later told of a secret plot by the White House “plumbers” to “incapacitate” him in a physical attack. It was a shocking revelation. That’s nothing compared with Obama’s assertion of the right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction, based on his sole authority. A recently leaked memo argues that the president has a right to kill a citizen even when he lacks “clear evidence (of) a specific attack” being planned.

Attacking whistle-blowers

Nixon was known for his attacks on whistle-blowers. He used the Espionage Act of 1917 to bring a rare criminal case against Ellsberg. Nixon was vilified for the abuse of the law. Obama has brought twice as many such prosecutions as all prior presidents combined. While refusing to prosecute anyone for actual torture, the Obama administration has prosecuted former CIA employee John Kiriakou for disclosing the torture program.

Other Nixonesque areas include Obama’s overuse of classification laws and withholding material from Congress. There are even missing tapes. In the torture scandal, CIA officials admitted to destroying tapes that they feared could be used against them in criminal cases. Of course, Nixon had missing tapes, but Rose Mary Woods claimed to have erased them by mistake, as opposed to current officials who openly admit to intentional destruction.

Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon’s impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement. By coming out of the Democratic Party and assuming an iconic position, Obama has ripped the movement in half. Many Democrats and progressive activists find themselves unable to oppose Obama for the authoritarian powers he has assumed. It is not simply a case of personality trumping principle; it is a cult of personality.

Long after Watergate, not only has the presidency changed. We have changed. We have become accustomed to elements of a security state such as massive surveillance and executive authority without judicial oversight. We have finally answered a question left by Benjamin Franklin in 1787, when a Mrs. Powel confronted him after the Constitutional Convention and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His chilling response: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

We appear to have grown weary of the republic and traded it for promises of security from a shining political personality. Somewhere, Nixon must be wondering how it could have been this easy.

And as this video clip from Special Report details, it’s not only the public who’s blindly following the Missiah:

Liberals, RINOs, an uninformed, disinterested electorate and the Socialist sycophants in the MSM have sown the wind…

…and now America’s reaping the whirlwind!

Next up, Peter Wehner, writing at Commentary Magazine, reports how…

Liberals Are Now Shocked, Shocked at Obama’s Culture of Intimidation

 

Now that the Obama administration has conducted an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering activities, it’s dawning on liberals–four years and four months into the Obama presidency–that something is slightly amiss.

For example, the New York Times, Dana Milbank and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post have all expressed concerns about the Obama administration tactics. They have done so, of course, with a fraction of the umbrage they would be showing if this had occurred under a Republican administration. But at least it’s progress.

It’s late in coming, however, and let’s be honest: it would have been helpful if liberals had expressed some alarm years ago when top Obama White House aides like David Axelrod and Anita Dunn were targeting Fox News in an effort to de-legitimize it. Some of us warned at the time that “The White House’s effort to target a news organization like Fox is vaguely Nixonian.” Yet very few members of the elite media shared those concerns. In fact, they seemed to be sympathetic to what the White House was attempting to do.

But what the White House was attempting to do was quite problematic. On this site back on October 23, 2009, we read this:

We have seen from this White House Nixonian tendencies and, it would appear, a burning anger and resentment toward its critics. Whether it’s Fox News, the Chamber of Commerce, or companies that sponsor reports that take issue with the administration’s assessments, there seems to be a cast of mind that views critics as enemies, as individuals and institutions that need to be ridiculed, delegitimized, or ruined… there are lines that ought not to be crossed, temptations that need to be resisted, and people in the White House who need to say “no” to tactics that begin to drag an administration, and a country, down.

And then came this warning:

The Obama White House is showing a fondness for intimidation tactics that might work well in the wards of Chicago but that don’t have a place in the most important and revered political institution in America. To see these impulses manifest themselves so early in Obama’s presidency, and given all that he has said to the contrary, is rather startling. The danger is that as the pressures mount and the battles accrue and the political heat intensifies, these impulses will grow stronger, the constraints on them will grow weaker, and the voices of caution and reason will continue to be ignored. If that should come to pass — if what we are seeing now is only a preview of coming attractions — then the Obama administration, and this nation, will pay a very high price. Mark my words.

Like Captain Renault, liberals are now shocked, shocked to discover Obama & Co. have been using intimidating tactics (including punishing whistle blowers and slandering Romney campaign donors). But these tactics were obvious long ago to those who were not blinded by ideology.

Liberals in the press have been enablers of this president. Now that Mr. Obama has turned out to be a rather minacious chief executive, overseeing an out-of-control executive branch, I wonder if the president’s press courtiers are having second thoughts. I doubt it.

Absolutely, positively no bout adout it!

Speaking of intimidation, The Washington Times via The New Media Journal…

Bloomberg to Cabbie: ‘I’ll Destroy Your F*&kin’ Industry’

 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg cursed out the chief executive officer of a taxi company who won a court case against the city and pledged a post-mayoral revenge against the entire industry, the CEO and one witness said. “[I will] destroy your [expletive] industry,” Mr. Bloomberg said to Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman, The New York Post reported.

He made the comments during last Thursday’s game at Madison Square Garden during an impromptu meet at the 1879 Club, a witness told The Post. Mr. Friedman subsequently confirmed the exchange to The Post and added that Mr. Bloomberg also said that come January — when his mayoral term wraps — he would destroy “all you [expletive] guys. “It was like Gene had kidnapped his child,” the witness told The Post. “He used the f-word twice.”

The court case centered on the mayor’s attempt to replace the city’s cab fleet with hybrid vehicles — a plan called the Taxi of Tomorrow. The judge ruled that the mayor couldn’t order the fleet change because it violated city code.

Mr. Friedman reportedly saw Mr. Bloomberg at the club a day after the court ruling, and asked him about the Taxi of Tomorrow plan, The Post said. Mr. Bloomberg then made the threats, Mr. Friedman said, in The Post. “He was very angry, very scary, very violent in a non-physical way. He was grinding his teeth, he was spitting, he was red, and he was in my face,” Mr. Friedman said, in The Post. “When we walked away, I asked a friend who was with me, ‘Did the mayor just threaten me?’ My friend responded, ‘No, he threatened you twice.'”

The Post reported that the mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comments.

Gee…where have we heard this sort of rhetoric before?

Oh, yeah…from another Socialist who knows what’s best for everyone.  Any question the MSM reaction had Boobberg been a Conservative?

Since we’re on the subject of Socialists, here’s today’s installment of “The Fox Guarding the Henhouse” segment, courtesy of the Department of Injustice:

U.S. Attorney Investigating Fox News Donated to Obama

 

The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen – the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News – is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit:

Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama’s campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation’s political radar, according to campaign finance records. 

Furthermore, in June of 2012, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Attorney General Eric Holder about the appointment of Mr. Machen to head-up the leaks investigation. During the questioning Sen. Cornyn revealed that not only was Machen a donor to the Obama campaign, he was also a volunteer for Obama for America. Cornyn called into question whether he could conduct the leaks investigation in a fair and non-partisan way.

Watch the exchange here:

Bear in mind, this was back in June 2012; does anyone deem Cornyn’s conern any less pertinent now?!?

Moving to today’s Muslim Minute, we learn of an eerie parallel between the Marathon Massacre and the latest expression of the Islamic definition of peace:

Woolwich terror suspect revealed as Muslim convert known to MI5

 

A man seen ranting at a video camera moments after a soldier was beheaded in the street is Muslim convert Michael Adebolajo – who was known to MI5. Michael Adebolaj, 28, had reportedly been looked at during probes into extremism in recent years – and was also known to hate preachers Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri.

Yet another example of political correctness trumping common sense.  Meanwhile, the IRS targets Conservatives, Christians and the Tea Party.

And heaven forbid…or more accurately, British law…any of the numerous bystanders have easy access to a gun with which to send these murderous Muslims to Hell.

On the Lighter Side…

And finally, in today’s edition of the Crime Blotter, another example of wholly-misplaced Liberal sympathy and compassion:

Killer’s execution delayed indefinitely by Colorado governor

 

Nathan be groovin’ after gittin’ a shotgun ‘n killin’ awl da Whiteys he see!

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper indefinitely delayed the execution of convicted killer Nathan Dunlap on Wednesday and said he was unlikely to allow it as long as he is governor. Hickenlooper said he had doubts about the fairness of Colorado’s death penalty system and about the state’s ability to get the lethal drugs required for an execution.

Dunlap, whose execution was scheduled for the week of Aug. 18, got only a reprieve, not the clemency he sought. Clemency would have removed the possibility of execution and changed his sentence to life without parole. Hickenlooper said he listened to all sides and considered the decision carefully. “We heard a variety of sides and obviously this has weighed heavily on me for well over a year now,” he said at a news conference.

Dunlap has acknowledged fatally shooting four employees — three of them teenagers — who were cleaning a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant after hours in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job there as a cook. On the night of Dec. 14, 1993, he hid in a restaurant bathroom until the restaurant closed, then shot and killed Crowell; Ben Grant, 17; Colleen O’Connor, 17; and Margaret Kohlberg, a 50-year-old mother who was on her first day on the job.

Each was shot in the head. A co-worker Bobby Stephens, then 20, was also shot in the head, but he survived and testified against Dunlap. One of the victims was down on her knees and begging for her life when Dunlap shot her.

In his reprieve, Hickenlooper said Colorado’s capital punishment system is flawed, citing a study that showed the death penalty was sought and imposed inconsistently across the state. He also said the state doesn’t have the drugs in place to carry out an execution by lethal injection, and that many states and nations are repealing the death penalty.

What Hickenlooper didn’t mention was the Colorado Supreme Court determined Dunlap had told a doctor during his mental-health evaluation, “I’m gonna play crazy as long as I can … The police have no case against me, they’re stupid.”  Nor did the gutless governor note Dunlap also made disparaging remarks about the victims, stated the victims meant nothing to him and that he would kill again.

And so what if “many states and nations are repealing the death penalty”, or, for that matter, if Colorado were executing killers inconsistently (which they’re NOT!); THIS particular individual undeniably DID the crime, and deserves to forfeit his life in return.

Liberals: killing the innocent and defending the guilty for as long as we can remember.

Magoo