Friday Fun Video: Remy vs. the IRS

Jon Stewart vs. IRS "Lost Emails" Nonsense

The Daily Show
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"Borders on criminal stupidity" ... and, why, yes, I do have a old blog category tag called "felony stupidity"!

Nerd News: One Tax Professor vs. the IRS Scandal

If you're not reading Professor Caron's blog, gentle readers, you are missing out.

IRS NSA LOL

Here's a hilarious follow-up to the pathetic Lois Lerner "lost emails" mess. 

Look at this headline. Just look at it: "IRS Claims Two Years Of Emails Were Destroyed In A 'Computer Crash;' Congressman Asks The NSA To Supply 'Missing' Email Metadata."  Bwahaha!

This is also a perfect excuse to listen again to the NSA Slow Jam, as Alessandra just said.  Well, I never need an excuse to post a Remy video, so here you go.

"Boohoo, My Computer Crashed."

I wouldn't take this excuse from my students.  Why should we take it from Lois Lerner?  Come on.  Anyway, "my computer crashed" is the updated version of "the dog ate my homework."

Fill In That Scandal-a-Palooza Wildcard Bracket, People

This scandal bracket was supposed to be a wry joke.  Well, nobody's laughing now as we know that we can definitely fill in that last wild card bracket with the news about the NSA and Verizon.  

People are furious, and they should be.  Don't give us that stupid argument that if we've done nothing wrong, then we've nothing to fear from government agencies snooping around.  Secret blanket surveillance is not OK.  This isn't even targeted.  This isn't about people suspected of wrongdoing.  The NSA's just indiscriminately scooping up everything on everybody.  Anyway, see this and this, which pithily snarks, "from the Verizon: home-to-nearly-100-million-terrorism-suspects! dept."

Oh, by the way, am I the only one starting to get a case of "scandal fatigue"?  Another day, another mess in the news ... Hey, government overreach?  Must be Thursday.

Also, Rand Paul.

UPDATE: But wait, there's more!

Friday Fun Video: Jon Stewart Vs. IRS Scandal

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

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Quote of the Day: "Welcome to Dumb and Dumber."

Via the Other McCain, this quotation by CBS journalist Bob Schieffer is about Scandal-a-Palooza, and it's quite long (hence the fold), but it's worth a look:

Satire Alert: May Madness Scandal-a-Palooza Brackets

March Madness is (sadly) finished, but a wag at Ricochet has something new for us to play with!  Click to enlarge so you can see all the chicanery, hubris, and moral laxity:

"I am not a crook."

Caveat: This is a joke.  I do NOT support irresponsible talk about actual impeachment efforts, because - let's face it - they're doomed to fail and will only backfire. 

Spinning Scandal-a-Palooza

I stumbled across this hilarious image while news-searching for something else entirely, but it's so pointedly relevant that I simply must post it.  (Seriously, does Obama press secretary Jay Carney even listen to himself?)

Ask Not For Whom the IRS Trolls. It Trolls For Thee.

While everybody in a justified uproar about the IRS scandal (and the hearings this week only made its wretched "leadership" look worse), there's a new response/"defense" making the rounds on social media, and I just have to shake my head.  Some lefty people are actually defending the IRS.  They do this despite the fact that the IRS confessed to purposefully going after particular organizations based specifically on their political (and now apparently even religious) convictions.  And you don't think this sort of behavior is wrong?  Really?  Really?

Apparently these folks are fine with the capricious abuse of power as long as it's their team doing the abusing.  The overarching principle that "abuse of power is bad" seems to go right past them.  Partisan ideology makes people blind, blind, blind.  Guys, the government beast that today bites the neighbor whom you hate can tomorrow just as easily bite you.

I've give you this as the quote of the day:

The IRS targeting citizens for political reasons is not simply another Washington scandal. At issue is something that strikes at the very heart of who we are as a people, what we believe as Americans and what this country has always stood for. 

The First Amendment was written to protect many different types of expression. But the Founding Fathers' primary concern -- and a first principle for every generation of Americans that followed -- was the protection of political speech. Apparently, the IRS was even targeting people who criticized how the country was being run. 

Protecting citizens' right to speak out against their government has always been an integral part of what separates us from tyrannical regimes. What the IRS did is how the KGB used to target dissidents. It is how they deal with troublemakers in China. 

It is not how we treat American citizens. Our Constitution guarantees it. 

... This is not about Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal. It is about arrogant and unrestrained government vs. the rule of law. 

Preach!

Scandal-a-Palooza As Animated Gifs

"How the Obama Administration Is Having the Worst Week Ever."  Sure, but seeing as it's self-inflicted and, especially in the case of the IRS scandal, born of a total abuse of power, I am utterly unsympathetic.  Karma's a b*tch ... and so am I.

UPDATE: Check out this video from Reason.

Jon Stewart Vs. Scandal-a-Palooza and Claims of Ignorance

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

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Touché!

Awesome: "IRS Asks for Reading List, Tea Party Group Sends Constitution."

Scandal-a-Palooza!

It's getting to the point where it's hard to keep track of all these exploding government scandals (wow, the snarky guys at Ace of Spades totally called it today).  There's too much fresh hell going on (need a scorecard?).  Here's your quote of the day, complete with awesome Arrested Development reference:

pissing off the tea party, natsec hawks, the press AND russia in a week's time is a Gob Bluth level of difficulty feat.
— john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) May 14, 2013