Benghazi, the IRS, ObamaCare, and AP Oh My!

I have covered the Benghazi White House and administration cover up from the beginning. The talking points about the Benghazi terror attack were scrubbed 12 times to mislead Americans into believing that one, Benghazi was not a terror attack, and two, that al-Qaida died along with bin-Laden which was Obama’s campaign narrative. The Benghazi scandal failed to gain traction for 8 months, which incidentally followed another huge cover up which garnered little media attention even though it led the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans and U.S. Border Agent – Fast and Furious. Now it appears there is one scandal a week being revealed about the Obama administration’s handling of all types of affairs.

I touched briefly about the IRS scandal in my last post in which the IRS specifically targeted conservative organizations. The IRS not only broke the law by using bias in its audit process, they also failed to act in a timely matter when conservative groups sought tax-free exemption. All of this occurred during the 2012 election cycle and undoubtedly helped Obama win reelection.

We also learned this week that Kathleen Sebelius, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, was seeking help from healthcare providers to fund the implementation of ObamaCare. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander has asked the Government Accountability Office to review the legality of Secretary Sebelius' unorthodox and ethically-suspect fundraising efforts. Alexander suspects the scheme "could violate Congress' power to direct policy through appropriations." And this isn't the first time Sebelius has been accused of violating the law by testing the boundaries of her official duties.

Finally, if all of this is not bad enough, it has also come to light the Department of Justice (DOJ) had secretly monitored the phone records of dozens of journalists at the Associated Press (AP). The DOJ suspected there was a leak in the White House who was providing information to the AP that related to National Security. This is really a massive expansion and abuse of the Patriot Act. First, the reporters were not the source of the leak. Secondly, a subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period". Thirdly, news organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and then they enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules.

Many of these scandals / cover ups are Nixonian in nature. Nixon’s paranoia got the best of him and it may do the same to Obama. Obama claims to have known nothing about Fast Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, ObamaCare funding, and the secret monitoring of journalists. If this is true, then Obama is a bad President who is not doing his job and proves that government is too big. If it is false, then Obama should be impeached like Nixon – he is a criminal doing anything possible to bring down his adversaries and win elections. After all, the above actions by this administration are far worse than what Nixon did.