Daily Archives: May 21, 2013

Bill O’Reilly: Bernie Goldberg Column – Bernie’s Column: When Is a Scandal Not A Scandal?

by

I don’t like reading the New York Times in the morning because I’m always afraid my head will explode and that would make it difficult to go through the rest of the day.  My aforementioned head almost did explode when I read this headline on page one:

I.R.S. Focus on Conservatives

Gives G.O.P. an Issue to Seize On

Get it?  The real story isn’t that the IRS abused its considerable power by giving special scrutiny to groups with the name “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their title … or that they actually went far beyond those keywords and took aim at groups seeking to “make America a better place to live” or those who would “criticize how the country is being run.” No, the real story is that this gives Republican an issue to seize on.

Aren’t Democrats interested in seizing on this despicable behavior by one of the most powerful agencies of the federal government?  The New York Times, I’m guessing, never thought about that.

Here’s the problem, as succinctly summarized on Hot Air:

“If it’s a scandal involving Republicans, the story is the scandal. If it’s a scandal involving Democrats, the story — or at least a significant part of it — is whether and how Republicans will ‘politicize’ the scandal for their advantage.

Bingo!

It’s the same with Benghazi.  Liberal journalists are more concerned with how Republicans will use the apparent cover-up to hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances in 2016 than they are with finding out what really went wrong and who tried to mislead the American people about it.

Here’s Exhibit A, a headline in the Los Angeles Times:  ““Partisan politics dominates House Benghazi hearing” … as if this is Washington politics as usual and we’re not going to learn anything from the witnesses who swore to tell the truth.

Too many Washington journalists see everything through a prism of politics.  Benghazi isn’t about the death of four Americans … it’s about the future of Hillary Clinton.  The IRS scandal isn’t about the abusive use of federal government power … it’s about how the GOP wil

via Bill O’Reilly: Bernie Goldberg Column – Bernie’s Column: When Is a Scandal Not A Scandal?.

How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press – The Daily Beast

by

How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press

by Kirsten Powers May 21, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Much of the Fourth Estate shrugged when the Obama administration attacked Fox News, writes Kirsten Powers. But now it’s coming for them, too.

First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out—because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak out—because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, and—okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?

James Rosen (Fox News, via Media Matters)

130520-doj-james-rosen-tease
James Rosen (Fox News, via Media Matters)

 

Turns out it’s a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to “delegitimize” a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers.

via How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press – The Daily Beast.

Charles Krauthammer: IRS Scandal Could Be a ‘Fatal Problem’ for Obama | Video | TheBlaze.com

by

Charles Krauthammer: IRS Scandal Could Be Fatal for Obama

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations could be “fatal” for the Obama administration if it turns out that anyone in the White House was aware of it.

Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Krauthammer called the IRS situation “the one scandal that people have a visceral sense about” — it’s the one U.S. institution, besides the military, that can do very serious harm.

Going after conservative groups based on their politics is “a violation that everybody — left or right– understands,” he added.

Krauthammer urged that there’s no suggestion that Obama knew what was happening, “but if there’s any indication that there were people in the White House who knew, who orchestrated, who encouraged or whatever, then it can be a fatal problem.”

via Charles Krauthammer: IRS Scandal Could Be a ‘Fatal Problem’ for Obama | Video | TheBlaze.com.

There is a time to be born, and a time to die

by

From a homily on Ecclesiastes by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop There is a time to be born, and a time to die

There is a time to be born and a time to die. The fact that there is a natural link between birth and death is expressed very clearly in this text of Scripture. Death invariably follows birth and everyone who is born comes at last to the grave.

There is a time to be born and a time to die. God grant that mine may be a timely birth and a timely death! Of course no one imagines that the Speaker regards as acts of virtue our natural birth and death, in neither of which our own will plays any part. A woman does not give birth because she chooses to do so; neither does anyone die as a result of his own decision. Obviously, there is neither virtue nor vice in anything that lies beyond our control. So we must consider what is meant by a timely birth and a timely death.

It seems to me that the birth referred to here is our salvation, as is suggested by the prophet Isaiah. This reaches its full term and is not stillborn when, having been conceived by the fear of God, the soul’s own birth pangs bring it to the light of day. We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the Most High. On the other hand, if what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves. The man of God must reach maturity.

Now if the meaning of a timely birth is clear, so also is the meaning of a timely death. For Saint Paul every moment was a time to die, as he proclaims in his letters: I swear by the pride I take in you that I face death every day. Elsewhere he says: For your sake we are put to death daily and we felt like men condemned to death. How Paul died daily is perfectly obvious. He never gave himself up to a sinful life but kept his body under constant control. He carried death with him, Christ’s death, wherever he went. He was always being crucified with Christ. It was not his own life he lived; it was Christ who lived in him. This surely was a timely death – a death whose end was true life.

I put to death and I shall give life, God says, teaching us that death to sin and life in the Spirit is his gift, and promising that whatever he puts to death he will restore to life again.