Free Republic

The burglary occurred in 1972, the climax came in 1974, but40 years ago this week — May 17, 1973 — the Senate Watergate hearings began exploring the nature of Richard Nixon’s administration. Now the nature of Barack Obama’s administration is being clarified as revelations about IRS targeting of conservative groups merge with myriad Benghazi mendacities. This administration aggressively hawked the fiction that the Benghazi attack was just an excessively boisterous movie review. Now we are told that a few wayward souls in Cincinnati, with nary a trace of political purpose, targeted for harassment political groups with “tea party” and “patriot”...

The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday. “The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report. “In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications...

President Barack Obama said Monday those responsible for any improper scrutiny of conservative groups' tax status would be held "fully accountable," hours before it emerged that the current and former heads of the Internal Revenue Service were informed last May that tea-party groups had been targeted. ... Separately, investigators told congressional staffers Monday that Mr. Miller's predecessor, Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008, was informed of the problems in May 2012, according to an aide. But Republicans say Mr. Shulman—who had previously testified that there was no IRS targeting—never told them of what...

... This conduct has included one or more of the following: 1.He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner. 2.He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights...

A frustrated President Obama on Monday dismissed new questions surrounding the White House role in producing a set of public talking points after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, calling the debate around them a politically motivated “side show.” “We don’t have time to keep playing these political games in Washington,” Obama said, arguing that the more important work is ensuring that U.S. diplomats are adequately protected. “We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus.” “The whole issue of talking points throughout this process has been a side show,” Obama said Monday. “Suddenly...

Stretching Oscar Wilde’s adage “I never put off til tomorrow what I can do the day after,” some in the mainstream media have finally started to Think Again about the Benghazi attack launched last year on the anniversary of 9/11 — thanks to new revelations by high-ranking State Department whistle-blowers including experts in security, counterterrorism, and the No. 2-ranking diplomat in Libya under slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Contrary to the “spin” that the U.S. Consulate assault was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam YouTube video, the truth is that American officials knew “from the get-go” that it was a premeditated...

"But what about the American people? Really? Think about that for a few moments. Now … you’re not telling me that the same people who put this colossal failure back into the White House for four more years is going to get worked up over Benghazi, are you?"

Here we go. The House Oversight Committee hearings on Benghazi begin today, and do you know what we’re going to learn? We’re going to learn that 0bama and Hillary Clinton were informed almost immediately that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was being waged by Islamic jihadists connected to al Qaeda. Then we’re going to learn that 0bama and Hillary immediately went into protective mode … protecting 0bama’s reelection efforts and Hillary’s chances for 2016. 0bama had a narrative to protect. His diplomatic efforts in the Middle East had brought about a new era of cooperation and peace, right? Al...

More serious than Watergate 'because 4 Americans did in fact die' To this day, it is not known what role President Richard Nixon played in the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, but the tape recordings from the White House confirm he and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to slow down the FBI investigation. It was the cover-up, as history records, that eventually brought about Nixon’s resignation in disgrace. Now, Congress is investigating an alleged cover-up of the terrorist attack Sept. 11, 2012, on the U.S. foreign service facility in Benghazi, Libya, amid predictions from prominent voices...

During the 2nd Presidential Debate on Oct. 16, 2012, President Obama was indignant at the suggestion that anyone on his team would play politics with Benghazi. Recent reports suggest that talking points were altered to remove references to al Qaeda and prior attacks in Benghazi, both of which might have left the State Dept. open to criticism.

President Barack Obama will be unable to finish his second term due to the Benghazi scandal, media personality and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee expects. The prediction came Monday during his radio show, "The Mike Huckabee Show." "I believe that before it's all over, this president will not fill out his full term. I know that puts me on a limb," he said, according to Politico. "But this is not minor. It wasn't minor when Richard Nixon lied to the American people and worked with those in his administration to cover-up what really happened in Watergate. But, I remind you...

Progress Kentucky is a super PAC that is acting more like a rogue operation in its efforts to unseat Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell -- sending out racially sensitive tweets and allegedly making a secret recording of the Senate minority leader’s re-election strategy talks. The group has been around only since December, raising about $1,000 and spending $18, compared to the McConnell campaign that has raised $10 million toward 2014 re-election efforts, according to recent Federal Election Commission filings. Kentucky Democrats have over the past week made numerous, overt efforts to separate their party from Kentucky Progress and its questionable...

Up to 20 churches have decided to no longer be under the direction of Sovereign Grace Ministries because of disputes over the leadership capabilities of the group's president, Pastor C.J. Mahaney, and its executive board, say former and present associates. A pastor who was at one time a close adviser to Mahaney compares the behavior by the SGM's leadership team, including Mahaney, during the fallout due to the controversy, to that of President Nixon and his staff during the Watergate scandal of the early '70s. "I also expect C.J., the Leadership Team, the interim Board and the current Board will...

Here's the link.

This month, I spoke at an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal with some of its survivors at the National Press Club. While much of the discussion looked back at the historic clash with President Nixon, I was struck by a different question: Who actually won? From unilateral military actions to warrantless surveillance that were key parts of the basis for Nixon’s impending impeachment, the painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be. Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral...

Yes, everything is about Barack Obama. From the beginning, he has built his career on his own personal story, and the funeral service of former Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye at the National Cathedral on Friday apparently struck him as an opportune time to remind the world what that story was. In his 1,600-word oration, Obama even managed to work in the fact, as though someone in the universe might not have heard, that he had "a white mom [and] a black father" "and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." The problem, however, is not just that Obama used the word...

Watergate Judge John J. Sirica aided the prosecution in pursuing the White House connection to the Democratic headquarters break-in by providing the special prosecutor information from a probation report in which one of the burglars said he was acting under orders from top Nixon administration officials, according to once-secret documents released Friday by the National Archives. One newly public transcript of an in-chambers meeting between Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, and then-Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in July 1973 shows the judge revealed secret probation reports indicating that E. Howard Hunt had cited orders from...

In June, the Washington Post celebrated the 40th anniversary of the biggest scoop in journalistic history — Watergate. Looking back on it, the Post has every right to crow. The story was so huge that every political scandal since has been labeled with the word “gate” tagged onto the end of it. However, the Post should also consider the adage, “You’re only as good as your last story,” because there’s a bigger one out there for the taking, if it only had the courage to pursue it. That story is, of course, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,...

YES!!!

Flashback to 1973...