Evan Mathis, Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman, responded to the recent Obama administration/IRS scandal by doing what comes naturally – pretending to pee on their office sign.

Via NBC Sports:

Already the least popular of the federal governmental agencies, the IRS has taken a significant hit in recent days amid news confirming longstanding beliefs that the U.S. tax department exercised its discretion to conduct audits and generally give folks a hard time with politics in mind.

Like most if not all Americans, Eagles offensive lineman Evan Mathis doesn’t like it.  Unlike most if not all Americans, Mathis has opted to make his views known, in an entertaining way.

Mathis posted on Instagram a photo of himself in the universal standing pee position by an IRS sign, with the message “Audit this.”

A report released by state ethics regulators provides insight into the actions that led to Democrat Assemblyman Vito Lopez’ censure.  The report indicates that Lopez told female staffers to wear suggestive clothing, stay with him in hotel rooms, forcibly groped one woman until his hands wandered up her legs, and even infected one woman with pink eye when he made her give him eye drops.

As always however, the cover-up becomes a major aspect of the crime, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is being accused of “encouraging” Lopez to continue his harassing actions by paying the victims to go away with over $100,000 in taxpayer funds.

Via the Times Union:

Reports unveiled on Wednesday by Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan and the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics also highlighted unusual steps taken by aides to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to keep under wraps a set of complaints from two Lopez victims that were settled just before another pair of women from Lopez’s staff began facing the same sort of mistreatment.

Donovan said the “secretive manner” used by Silver’s staff “encouraged” Lopez to keep up his harassing behavior. Silver’s press officer responded by noting that the reports found no criminal acts by the speaker’s staff.

Silver’s staff apparently takes pride in that they committed no tangible crimes, but were unable to spot and discipline morally reprehensible actions being committed by a colleague in the Assembly.

Lopez also, according to multiple sources, was even witnessed leering at a 14-year-old female intern, commenting on her “sexy attire”, and saying she should be emulated by the other ladies in his office.  The incident led to one woman’s mother calling 911, after which police filed a child abuse report.

But hey, at least a crime wasn’t committed, eh Sheldon?

Fred Dicker at the New York Post writes:

The scathing reports that found Assemblyman Vito Lopez harassed and abused several female staffers, coming on top of the latest indictments of several allegedly corrupt lawmakers, show why, at long last, it’s time for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to resign.

Despite Silver’s repeated claims to be shocked, shocked, to learn of repeated cases of sexual harassment and abuse of women at the Capitol — even after those cases reached criminal levels in his own counsel’s office a decade ago — the reports confirm what has long been suspected: Silver is trying to hide from the public what may be the most sexually abusive workplace in the nation.

Is the New York State Assembly the most sexually abusive workplace in the nation?  It may very well be.

Should Sheldon Silver resign?  No doubt.

Readers of the Mental Recession will note, that we have called for Silver’s resignation from the moment reports of a payoff to cover up Lopez’ actions first surfaced.  And for the very same reasons just now revealed in these reports – Silver’s actions in previous harassment complaints allowed Lopez to do these things to other women.  He allowed Lopez to victimize at least two others by pandering to his harassing ways.

Last summer we wrote:

Silver has consistently swept sexual harassment complaints under the rug, has continually used taxpayer funds to placate victims, and by extension has allowed these unprofessional and abhorrent behaviors to be perpetrated upon other victims.  He has proven willing to sacrifice ethics for his allies in government.

He is a panderer to predators, and must resign.

Remember, there was no political bias regarding the targeting and harassment of Tea Party or conservative groups.  The IRS is strictly a non-partisan entity.

Via the Center for Public Integrity:

President Barack Obama collected more than $110,000 from employees of the Internal Revenue Service during his 2008 and 2012 campaigns — significantly more money than any other contemporary political candidate, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission filings maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The donations were split roughly evenly between Obama’s two presidential bids.

Ahead of the 2012 election, IRS employees collectively gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about $25,000 — less than half the amount received by Obama. For his part, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008, collected only about $6,000 from IRS employees.

The trend isn’t new either.  The report indicates that employees have donated over $840,000 between 1989 and 2012, with over two-thirds of it going to Democrat or liberal-leaning organizations.

So much for the low-level employees in Cincinnati defense.

Via the Washington Post:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.

IRS employees in Cincinnati also told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.

Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters on Friday the “absolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names.

In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed an attorney representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application was under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in D.C. and California sent detailed questionnaires to conservative groups asking more than a dozen questions about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents.

“For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to take a look at some of the more inappropriate, probing questions being saved for conservative groups, please visit the Gateway Pundit.  There, you’ll find a rundown of actual questions posed to an Ohio Tea Party group, including requests for copies of Facebook and Twitter correspondences, printouts of all web site pages, and the resumes of all officers and board members.

Also, veteran reporter Larry Connors is claiming that the IRS started harassing him after a particularly hard-hitting interview he conducted with the President.

This is a big deal, folks.  So much so that Fox’s Bill O’Reilly has predicted that if the President is involved in this scandal “he’ll be impeached”.

What do you think?

In what is being called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” of government power against the press, the Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) secretly obtained two months worth of telephone records of reporters and editors at the news organization, including the personal phone records of individuals.

Via the AP:

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

Were specific reporters being targeted for specific messaging purposes?  The PJ Tatler reports:

The DoJ notified the AP on Friday but included no explanation for the seizure.

It included phone numbers for five reporters and an editor who were involved in this May 7, 2012, story on the thwarting of a new underwear bombing plot.

The plot was significant because the White House had told the public it had “no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden’s death,” the AP noted today.

Which begs the question – Why is the White House so hell bent on covering up any story that may involve the concept of terrorism?

Meanwhile, the National Press Club is demanding an explanation.  Via Yid:

In the wake of reports today that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone records of several of AP’s reporters and four of its offices, the National Press Club requests that the Obama administration publicly explain the reasons behind the action.

…

“This appears to be a gross violation of press freedom,” said National Press Club President Angela Greiling Keane, a Bloomberg News reporter. “If there’s a good explanation for this, the public has a right to hear it promptly.”

The Benghazi scandal was swept under the rug because it hurt the American military and targeted Obama’s foreign policy.  The IRS scandal was swept under the rug because it targeted conservatives and reiterated Obama’s Chicago-style politics.  Until recently anyway.

But this scandal targets the President’s friends in the media.  Will they finally relent and accept that this is one of the most corrupt administrations in history?

Double entendres always make for fascinating headlines, but every once in a while somebody just writes the material for you.

The above quote actually came from a Democrat aide.

Via the New York Post:

Bill and Hillary Clinton will not support Anthony Weiner in his dream of becoming mayor even though they love his wife, Huma Abedin, sources say. “The Clintons wish Weiner would just disappear. Every time he pops up, it’s a reminder of Bill’s scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and it isn’t helpful to Hillary’s hopes for 2016,” one Democrat told Page Six….

Bill flew to Los Angeles last month to campaign for Wendy Greuel, who is up against Eric Garcetti in the May 21 election for mayor. But he is not expected to endorse any of the New York mayoral candidates.

(Alright, let me give this a shot anyway)

The Clinton’s flaccid response to Weiner’s mayoral aspirations has to be hard on the former Congressman, and delivers a tough blow to an already rigid uphill battle in the race to become mayor of New York City.

Think I got four in one sentence.  That’s pretty good, right?

So it really should come as no surprise to hear that New Jersey Democrats are expressing the same desires.  And yet somehow, actually hearing them discuss it, and patronize gun owners by referring to their “little guns” is indeed a shock.

Via CNJ Politics:

Our friends at the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs sent out an e-mail alert earlier today that leaves no doubt that the liberal New Jersey State Senate wants to confiscate all legally owned firearms in New Jersey.

After yesterday’s Senate Budget Committee hearing, an open microphone caught several Senators openly discussing their contempt for gun owners, and their wish to confiscate your firearms, legally owned or not. (Audio links below)

This blatant contempt for the 2nd Amendment by our elected officials should outrage all law abiding citizens.  If they feel this way about guns and the 2nd Amendment, what will they want to do away with next?

Oh, that dreaded after-meeting hot mic.  Some relevant comments provided by Guns Save Lives:

“We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.”

“They [gun owners] want to keep the guns out of the hands of the bad guys, but they don’t have any regulations to do it.”

“They don’t care about the bad guys. All they want to do is have their little guns and do whatever they want with them.”

“That’s the line they’ve developed.”

The conversation appears to have involved Senators Loretta Weinberg, Sandra Cunningham, Linda Greenstein, and at least one member of Senate Democratic staff.

Have a listen for yourself…

Via CNN:

Construction workers bolted the last pieces of a 408-foot spire into place atop One World Trade Center on Friday, symbolically capping New York’s comeback after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The spire brings the iconic building to a height of 1,776 feet — an allusion to the year the United States declared its independence. It also makes the building the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest in the world.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey confirmed the installation in a statement.

“This milestone at the World Trade Center site symbolizes the resurgence and resilience of our state and our nation,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in the statement.

Port Authority Chairman David Samson called the building “a national symbol of hope and strength in the face of tragedy.”

The building still has a ways to go, not being scheduled for opening until 2014.

Until then, it looks like the New York City skyline just flipped terrorists worldwide a giant bird.

Here’s our picture of the day…

This is a shocking admission by a governmental organization that works for the President.  To confess that they actively harassed groups who likely oppose President Obama, during an election cycle, sounds borderline criminal.

But, no worries … the IRS has restored their image by assuring these groups that they’re really, really sorry for their actions.

Via the Associated Press:

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.

Oh also, it was just a few low-level staffers who did this.  Totally not a widespread problem.  And totally without political bias.  Pinky swear.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Of course, the problem with that argument is that this wasn’t based solely in Cincinnati.  It was a nationwide problem.

Via Michelle Malkin (h/t Yid With Lid):

As for respecting the privacy rights of Obama’s foes? Not so much.
It seems to me no small coincidence that this disclosure charade comes just as numerous tea party organizations are reporting that the Internal Revenue Service has targeted them for audits. According to Colleen Owens of the Richmond (Va.) Tea Party, several fiscal-conservative activist groups in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas have received a spate of IRS letters. The missives demand extensive requests to identity volunteers, board members and … donors.

Amazing.  Even when they apologize, they can’t tell the truth.

How do those bus tires on your back feel, random nameless low-level staffers in Cincinnati?

American Crossroads this morning released a new video, “Benghazi,” detailing the massive contradictions between the statements of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama Administration on the Benghazi attack, that it was the result of a protest stemming from a “video,” and revelations from Wednesday’s hearing that Sec. Clinton knew from the beginning that Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

The video asks: “Why did she blame a video? And was she part of a cover-up? … Americans deserve the truth.”

Watch below…