Right Pundits

On July 10th, the IRS held a press conference to formally apologize for elements and/or individuals within the organization who they now admit were specifically targeting conservative organizations during the 2012 election season for additional scrutiny. Any organization using the title “tea” or “patriot” was flagged for a review of their tax returns. Of the 300 organizations flagged for scrutiny in Cincinnati, 75 of them were conservative organizations identifying with the tea party movement.

But this is not the worst part of the problem. There’s good evidence that, across multiple states, conservative organizations were targeted by the IRS in numerous ways. From unusually long questionnaires demanding membership rosters and donor lists, to warning letters sent out to donors suggesting that their contributions to 501(c) groups could be retroactively taxed. And all this right as the 2012 election season began to heat up.

Could this be seen by some as an attempt to chill political speech? Of course. Even liberal NY Time opinion columnist Maureen Dowd agrees with this!

How did the White House respond to this revelation? How do you think? They blamed Bush of course!
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Every year, the National Journal rates the US Senate and the House members on ideology, and then tells us who are the most liberal and conservative in each body. Here, we’ll look at who were the most liberal senators last year and compare it to the most liberal senators in 2011.

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According to Politico, Fox News has decided not to re-sign Dick Morris to a new contract. Morris has not been on the network for months following last November’s election, when he repeatedly claimed that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide.

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You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a fact checker these days. There are several widely used fact-checking sites in the US and we often see in-person and online debates punctuated with lines like “PolitiFact rated that as a big fat lie!” The problem with these sites is that, on the whole, they are opinion journalists masquerading as authoritative sources. To be sure, sites like Snopes.com have a long history of giving reliable information related to rumors and urban myths. But for Snopes, politics is a minor element of what it covers. For sites dedicated primarily to covering politics, there is neither a long or reliable history.

It’s quite possible that efforts like this are the mainstream media’s attempt to restore some of the lost authority and relevance they once had in the country. To be sure, public confidence in mainstream media reporting continues to drop year-by-year. What the media does not seem to get is the fact that, as the MSM has moved left, the American public moves away. The liberal response to this is to blame conservative radio and Fox news for “deception” and to call on the federal government to increase regulation in hopes of making them go away.
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During the presidential campaign just ended, or as it will become known in history as the presidential campaign about nothing, one of the silly issues that erupted was when Mitt Romney clumsily addressed the issue of pay equity by responding, ‘I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men… I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.’

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According to Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine, Dick Morris and Karl Rove are off of Fox News by orders of Roger Ailes. Any show that wants to have either on as a guest must first get permission from Ailes. Rove is being penalized for his on-air temper-tantrum during the 2012 election night coverage. When Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama, Rove went into a fit and even made Megyn Kelly run around in her high heels to consult with the network′s polling brain trust on why they called Ohio. As for Morris, well, he′s just an idiot always trying to promote his website or another stupid book he wrote. Will other political pundits get benched like Morris and Rove? How about Ann Coulter who has also drunk from the same cup as Rove and Morris?

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As Democrats so often like to remind Republicans, the election 0f 2012 is over and, basically, they won. In actuality, it was not the Republicans who lost, it was the Democrats who managed not to lose. At the same time, for the past four years, the American people have been losing under Democratic policies. What happens in the next four years will be largely decided in the next six months. Of most concern to us, as it should be to every American, is the vast “fiscal gap” which opened up in 2009 and remains today, virtually undiminished. It is that gap which could potentially swallow the entire country. It is that gap which makes the coming “Fiscal Cliff” look like a minor bump in the road.
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Tonight, I will present a short list of some of my favorite, interesting political ironies, with a short analysis. After the political ironies, we will look at the Al Smith Dinner, one of my favorite parts of the campaign:

“The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever, to 46 million people. Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us “Please Do Not Feed the Animals.” Their stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”
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