Read the Inspector General’s report on the IRS/Tea Party scandal

This image of Conan the Barbarian provided as a public-service alternative to pictures of inspectors, hearings or tax forms.

This image of Conan the Barbarian provided as a public-service alternative to pictures of inspectors, hearings or tax forms.

Congressional hearings into news that the IRS singled out conservative political groups applying for tax-exempt status is either a tempest in a teapot or a tempest issuing from the mouth of a tyrannical socialist dragon, depending on which news outlet you read. Mitch McConnell says that the heightened scrutiny of Tea Party organizations reflects a “culture of intimidation” in the Obama administration, which is kind of a weird assertion in light of claims that the President also covered it up. As often happens in our brave modern news cycle, the question of what the IRS did has been elbowed aside by questions of who knew what about what the IRS did, whether what the president might have known they did constitutes an impeachable offense, and how “so many Americans knew this was happening,” as Sarah Palin claims. Now you can know what’s happening, too, simply by reading this 55-page report.

Continue reading

41% of Republicans say Benghazi is “biggest political scandal in American history”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK,) who called Benghazi more "egregious" than Watergate

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK,) who called Benghazi more “egregious” than Watergate

I tried to link to a news article about this week’s Congressional hearings regarding the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, but I had a hard time finding an unbiased source. Benghazi appears to be the most important story in the world for the Daily Caller, Fox News and the Washington Times (official motto: Not the Good Washington Paper) and invisible to everyone else. My theory is supported by this poll in which a mere 44% of Americans say they are following the hearings and, in a more complicated way, by this one, in which 41% of Republicans say they consider Benghazi “the biggest scandal in American history.” So suck it, Peggy Eaton Affair.

Continue reading

She seems like a nice lady. Loves cats.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, seen here at the mouth of a cavernous, damp space.

If Elena Kagan isn’t a lesbian, she’s about to have her feelings hurt. The Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee is a former dean of Harvard Law School, served as an Associate White House Counsel under Clinton, and otherwise—as our disturbingly uniform national media points out—has a mighty thin paper trail. She’s never sat as a judge, so we can’t pore over her rulings to determine whether she’s going to require abortions in church or allow mean dogs wearing American flags to preside over secret terrorist trials or whatever. Her academic writings are well-regarded but also famously technical. And you can’t tell anything about her just by looking, either. Nope—not one thing. She’s like an empty vessel, or maybe a vase with a calla lily in it, or one of those orchids by Georgia O’Keefe. She has emerged freshly formed into the national spotlight from Obama’s side like Eve, or Lilith. Maybe more like Lilith Fair.

Continue reading