Headline reflects the “Cliff Notes” Version:

…”Well, as the constitutional lawyer who sits in the Oval Office would tell you is, he would read the entire decision before he passed judgment in terms of his own legal analysis. What we have been able to assess so far … is that there is a problem that has been exposed, which is that there are now a group of women of an indeterminate size who no longer have access to free contraceptive coverage simply because of some religious views held, not by them necessarily, but by their bosses… We disagree and the constitutional lawyer in the Oval Office disagrees with that conclusion from the Supreme Court. And that’s why we–primarily, because he is concerned about the impact it could have on the health of those women”….

Note – The original question of “constitutional authority” is never answered.

Don’t know much about him, we’ll probably find out more in the coming days…

WASHINGTON DC – President Obama on Monday will nominate Bob McDonald, a West Point graduate who served as the chief executive of Procter & Gamble, to take over as head of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs, according to White House officials.
The un­or­tho­dox pick of a retired corporate executive whose former company produces iconic household products such as Tide detergent and Charmin toilet paper — rather than a former military general — underscores the serious management problems facing the agency charged with serving more than 8 million veterans a year. On Friday, White House deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors submitted a report to the president finding “significant and chronic system failures” and a “corrosive culture” at the Veterans Health Administration, which has come under fire for skewed record-keeping in an effort to cover up the long waits it has imposed on former soldiers seeking medical care. (more…)

Yesterday we shared a potentially explosive new aspect to the IRS targeting of groups antithetical to the White House.   In essence Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor III, told a politico reporter that his client was responding to the DOJ’s request for information, not soliciting them.
Yes, there is good reason for people who have followed this story to feel as if it really wouldn’t, or couldn’t, or won’t make a difference.   Given the current state of political affairs a great deal of righteous frustration that nothing shall be done regardless of who initiated the illegal machination is not misplaced…..
Also, Yes, against the recent Cochran V McDaniel outcome in Mississippi this frustrated sentiment is justified, very justified.    And yes, the establishment GOP is just as opposed to the Tea Party as the establishment Democrats in this regard.   Yes to all of this…
However, it really does make a difference.

If the DOJ initiated the inquiry to the IRS under the auspices of FBI investigation of 501(c)(4) group investigation -as the claim by attorney Taylor apparently makes clear- many of the outcomes toward the groups in question reconcile.
Take the example of “True The Vote”, and “Gibson Guitar”.  When both groups were under scrutiny they were visited by various federal agencies like:  the EPA, ATF, OSHA as well as IRS.
However, if the Department of Justice is the internal hub for all the various agencies to assemble their marching orders, then a very specific trail of known evidence is also possible based on outcomes.
(more…)

WOAH – BOMBSHELL !!
The plot thickens.  We might just have found a biggie….
In a recent Politico interview  (publish date 6/27/14) with the Lois Lerner’s attorney William Taylor III an interesting aspect is buried midway through page #2.
During part of the interview Politico author Rachel Bade inquires about the 1.1 million pages of documents Lerner sent to the Department of Justice that became an issue when discovered by the House Oversight Committee on June 9th 2014.   BACKSTORY HERE.
The documents were sent from IRS to DOJ on a series of 21 discs (CD ROMS) and, according to the admission from the DOJ, “contained legally protected taxpayer information that should not have ever been sent to the FBI“.
Some of the 501(c)(4) documentation included confidential tax records “Schedule B” of IRS filings.   These Schedule B’s outline parties who contribute to, affiliate with, or people who support the 501 organization.   Those tax filing schedules are illegal to distribute.
Why the DOJ waited to inform congress, and why they only did so after Daryl Issa found out about their existence, was a matter congressional consternation but no-one made a big deal about it.
Indeed all prior details and media reports of the interaction have been framed around the substance of legality, and illegality,  for the IRS to actually send the confidential taxpayer data.  This is indeed a concerning aspect – but we think we’ve uncovered something considerably more alarming about both the timing, and the substance.
Inside the Politico article is an explosively revealing defensively framed answer from attorney Taylor.   He is specifically and directly stating it was NOT Lerner who initiated the inquiry:

…” […]  Taylor said Lerner didn’t know [about the unlawful confidential aspect] and sent them because Justice requested the documents”…

.

(more…)

Remember the “Bathtub Principle”?   The same strategy applies to outward “messaging”.
Part of this Administration’s strategy has been continual use of cover to avoid sunlight.  In a larger sense it’s part of the liberal/progressive strategy to cover the moment when they begin to lose an argument.   But for this administration adjectives become action words.
So long as President Obama doubles, triples, and double-dog quadruples, his use of the words ‘phony scandals’ – all those who are dependent upon his success are forced to maintain the rigor of their defense.
Whether it be the Obama media complex or the outer circles of protectionism around the official office of the presidency, there is no more concrete way to reinforce their directives than to continue standing firm on a singular position. (more…)

Apparently the four people killed were not his kind of “smidgens”…

However, if we can push the TRUTH behind the “BENGHAZI BRIEF” into the consciousness of the electorate and industrial media complex – there might be an opportunity to wipe that smidgen smirk off his face.

WASHINGTON DC – President Obama charged that his Republican opponents had “nothing to offer except cynicism and fear and frustration” during a fundraiser Thursday in Minnesota.
The fundraiser capped off a day Obama spent with Rebekah Erler, a working mother who wrote the president to detail her financial struggle.
“It moved me,” Obama said of the letter, adding that he only went into politics to help people like her. (more…)

Now the question becomes… if the board appointments were illegal, then what happens to all those NLRB rules -2 years worth- that have been instituted since the Labor Board Members were unconstitutionally appointed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has limited a president’s power to make temporary appointments to fill high-level government jobs.
The court said Thursday that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he invoked the Constitution’s provision on recess appointments to fill slots on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012.
The justices said in their first-ever consideration of the Constitution’s recess appointments clause that Congress gets to decide when it is in recess and that there was no recess when Obama acted. The president said he made the appointments in the face of Republican refusal to allow the NLRB to function.  (read more)

Full Opinion HERE

As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time.

We now have a pretty good understanding of who, what, where, and why surrounding the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi Libya. We are also better positioned to understand why, or perhaps more importantly why not, certain actions were taken before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the attack itself.

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We know the “rebels” were positioned in two strategic places. Benghazi, and the port city of Darnah, both located in Eastern Libya.
We know this covert operation came to be known as “Operation Zero Footprint“, and fell under the military command authority of NATO not (important to repeat), NOT, the U.S. Military. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – The top U.S. official in charge of archiving federal records testified Tuesday that the IRS ran afoul of the law by neglecting to tell his office that a trove of emails from the woman at the center of the targeting scandal disappeared after an apparent hard drive crash.

Archivist of the U.S. David Ferriero, speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made clear that federal agencies are supposed to report whenever their records are destroyed or even accidentally deleted. But he said that after emails from embattled IRS official Lois Lerner vanished after a computer failure in 2011, nobody told the National Archives.
“They did not follow the law,” Ferriero said.  (read more)