Afternoon News Reads: Quick Round-up
Posted: May 15, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, Free Press, Journalism, Media, morning reads, Politics as Usual, Real Life Horror, Tea Party activists | Tags: AP Phone Records, Ariel Castro, Eric Holder, Nixon 39 Comments
Good Late Afternoon!
Dakinikat is boarding a plane and heading home, take care Dak….we hope you have a safe and uneventful flight back to the Big Easy! (Damn, just got a text from Dak that the plane has issues…ugh.)
Connie/Ecocatwoman is back at home from the hospital, healing and doing fine….thank the Goddesses above.
NWLuna is celebrating some good health news….the Taa-Taas are fine! (I think we should be screaming it from the treetops…)
After a period of major life changes, Mona is back blogging with us on the Front Page and that little nugget of cheer makes me clap like a kid whose just been served a big Banana Split.
That is just a quick update on a few of the Sky Dancers, real life has given all of us a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs.
Have I left anyone out?
This is going to be a link dump round-up…
CNN is reporting that they have a Source: 2 ‘rogue’ workers behind IRS targeting of conservative groups
The Internal Revenue Service has identified two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office as being principally responsible for “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, a congressional source told CNN.In a meeting on Capitol Hill, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller described the employees as being “off the reservation,” according to the source. It was not clear precisely what the alleged behavior involved.
Business Insider points out The Attorney General’s Willful Ignorance Of The AP Phone Records Seizure Just Seems Ridiculous:Attorney General’s AP Phone Records
Under current law, the DOJ has the right to demand media phone records when the DOJ can’t obtain the desired information through other reasonable means. The DOJ even has the right to do this without telling the media organization in advance–if it thinks telling the media organization will threaten the integrity investigation.
If those two conditions were met in this case, the DOJ has nothing to worry about. But Americans certainly have every right to ask whether those two conditions were met. (And, then, to wonder whether giving the DOJ these rights is really in the country’s best interests).
But Attorney General Eric Holder is saying that those conditions were met.
He’s saying he doesn’t know anything about the AP case, because he recused himself from it.
That just seems ridiculous.
It’s not ridiculous that Eric Holder recused himself from the case. If he felt he needed to recuse himself, he should have recused himself.
What seems ridiculous is that he’s using his recusal as an excuse to say he knows nothing about the case.
Eric Holder runs the Justice Department. He can be recused from a case and yet still make inquiries about it to understand the decisions that were made in investigating it so he can explain these decisions to Congress.
Even if he’s not involved in a decision in his organization, that doesn’t stop him from being able to ask questions about it for the purpose of relaying this information to investigators.
Then there are the comparisons being made to Watergate: Obama’s Nixon moment
When TV news rivals Greta Van Susteren and Rachel Maddow are beating the same political drum, something is very wrong in Washington.
The Barack Obama administration finds itself under attack from both the left and the right this week as it struggles to deal with three major scandals: the news that the Department of Justice had staged an unprecedented raid on The Associated Press’ phone records; the revelation that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting right-wing groups; and the ongoing fallout from the September attack in Benghazi, Libya.
It is the AP story that has most galvanized the media, threatening to disrupt the generally sympathetic coverage that the White House has enjoyed from large swaths of the press.
Everyone from CNN to Fox News took aim at the Justice Department for its wide-ranging subpoena of the AP’s phone records, thought to be an attempt to find the source of a leak regarding a foiled terrorism plot in Yemen on the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death.
Attorney General Eric Holder is due today to face tough questions on issues like the AP phone records affair by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee.
But the grilling is already well under way.
This next story is beyond ridiculous…I will just give you the first paragraph, it is all you need: Accused Ohio kidnapper, Ariel Castro, ready to deny all charges
Not to be intimidated by the task ahead, the legal team defending Ariel Castro, the Ohio man accused of incarcerating and abusing three young women in his home for the best part of a decade, has asserted that he is no kind of “monster”, he dotes on the daughter born to one of his captives, Amanda Berry, and that he intends to plead not guilty to all the charges against him.
I don’t want to end on something as horrible as this…so here is a cartoon. Something funny. H/T Boston Boomer, who is babysitting her nephews today…
Senator Ted Cruz McCarthy’s Baby by Political Cartoonist Taylor Jones
Well, what are you reading this morning afternoon?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Luna, I haven’t had a chance to email you back, but I will. xoxoxo
Heh, don’t I know, life and all-of-the-above gets in the way of all the things we “should” be doing!
Yesterday we had a big scare with my brother Denny, he was taken to ER in ambulance in severe pain. Dr did not know if it was heart attack/sepsis but turns out it was an infection from a busted tooth he got when he fell last week. A fall he blamed on my big ass. He told the ER doctor he fell down walking out the front door because his sister’s “big butt” was in the way.
He has a dentist appt tomorrow, the EKG they did at hospital was perfect. We don’t know what was causing him to not be able to walk. He was so sick yesterday morning.
At least both my kids passed on to the next grade, that roller-coaster thing…it sucks sometimes but sometimes it makes you giddy with delight.
A sinus infection from that tooth could be affecting his equilibrium.
He falls down a lot…but you are right about the equilibrium…we all have been having bad sinus infections lately.
Easily. Pain itself is enough to affect equilibrium. Glad the EKG was ok; that must be a relief.
BB, they have named the Suspect in Fort Hood prostitution ring identified
What an asshole!
Other items in news:
Suzanna Brown Simpson, S.C. mom, fatally shoots kids, ages 7 and 5, leaves husband in critical condition, police say – Crimesider – CBS News
O.J. Simpson says he didn’t know his Las Vegas cohorts had guns – latimes.com
Judge Says Etan Patz Slay Case Can Proceed to Trial | NBC New York
Weather Service Faulted for Sandy Storm Surge Warnings | NBC New York
Huh? But didn’t we see all sorts of news people and Christie and Bloomberg telling folks to get out?
Y’all have a good evening…I will try to check in later.
I had posted something about Benghazi today, but then I found a much better written and more entertaining article about the investigation, so I’ll share that instead. Enjoy: http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/05/benghazi-reductio-ad-absurdum.html
That was fantastic!! Thanks.
It speaks volumes that we’ve spent more time asking questions about Benghazi than we have about Baghdad.
Yes, 1000 times Yes!
Or the war within our military against female soldiers, and nothing being done about it. The only thing they want to do is abuse women, and shut them up.
Good to hear from you Mona, about crazy cats, how many do you have?
I have two. They’re my baby girls.
Posted the following in the morning thread discussion…but thought I’d bring it here too, to the latest thread 🙂 in case anyone’s just been dying to hear my scintillating analysis of the current political climate LOL (tongue firmly in cheek!) anyhow here goes….
Compared to the treatment Bill Clinton got from mainstream Republicans from before he even formally decided to run for president.. I don’t think Obama’s first term treatment by the GOP was as bad. Obama mostly coddled the Republicans for every whiny objection they raised, rather than fighting them. The fringe lunatic of course and their truly vile and xenophobic birther nonsense was derangement of epic proportions but none of the mainstream news, not even Fox News Channel really, ever treated that story/Donald trump train wreck as anything other than frivolous reality show nonsense (rather than something requiring a Kenneth Starr etc to investigate.) This second term though….The Village has started to hold Obama to what Krugman has so aptly termed “the Clinton rules”…It’s turned into scandalpalooza…I can smell the kangaroo court nearby. A considerable portion of this “scrutiny” seems driven at Hillary’s/Clintons/Dems’ 2014/16 potential and tearing down the Democratic brand. Some of it though just seems to be pure Obama-directed derangement syndrome. And an obsession with Obama and Eric Holder. Seriously, W and Ashcroft/Gonzales—one a total joke and the other who should have been in jail but resigned sweeping the torture memos under the rug—were never held under such a microscope. It’s truly a distraction from real concerns/problems for which the Obama Admin needs to be held accountable.
Have you all heard about this? Holder To Issa: Your Conduct Is ‘Unacceptable’ And ‘Shameful’
Holder did pretty well today 🙂
Louie Gohmert Gets Heated With Eric Holder: “He Has Challenged My Character”
What character?
He has all the character and brains of a rotten tomato.
Ralph,
Please go watch the video. It’s a riot.
LOL. asparaged his asparagus? It was a riot.
Three daughters, can you imagine?
Gomert has three daughters?
From Wiki:
Personal details
Born Louis Buller Gohmert, Jr.
(1953-08-18) August 18, 1953 (age 59)
Pittsburg, Texas
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Kathy Gohmert
Children Katy, Caroline, and Sarah
Residence Tyler, Texas
Alma mater Texas A&M University (B.A.)
Baylor Law School (J.D.)
Occupation Congressman
Religion Southern Baptist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Gohmert
wtf…………….no wonder he smells of pee………….,say what – he got asparagus…………piss on him, that was fucking funny…………………Louie, a penis, and an asparagus was walking down the street one day, somebody pissed green all over his leg………he couldn’t HOLD IT. Hee Hee.
ROFLMAO
Golmer-Pyle is not ready for primetime, he needs to just stay in Nacogdoches.. (..with apologies to the people of Nacogdoches.)
Better yet, let him go live far away in Caribou Country, and become a penis expert, be sure to bring BushMaster with him.
Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi… It’s like Marsha Marsha Marsha…..
I just heard from Dakinikat. She’s in Chicago. She has a direct flight back to New Orleans and should get home around midnight. She sounded pretty energetic.
Yay!
Must be that big Reuben she was chowing down on…lol.
I want whatever it is that allows her to be energetic while flying across country!
Wow………..here comes the sun.
Lolsnort
Emptywheel: The White House’s Imminent Benghazi Coup de Grace
They caught that NOLA shooter they identified yesterday.
Akein Scott, Suspect In Mother’s Day Parade Shooting, Reportedly Arrested
CNN says he’s in custody.
BB I put up a post just now to cover late night early morning. You know what the source was for cnn? The NOLA PD facebook page.