WELCOME TO TOM'S BLOG

Thank you for stopping by for a visit. You are invited to read and comment on anything posted on this blog. I advocate the maximum amount of Personal and Economic Liberty, consistent with the defense of individual rights. I am fiscally conservative yet socially tolerant, I favor lower taxes, free trade, individual rights, strong national defense and limited government. I subscribe to the Freedom Fighters Creed: I am an American Patriot, defender of the Constitution, First Principles and Essential Liberty.

I believe that buried deep down inside every Conservative you'll find a Libertarian - And Inside Every Liberal Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out.

"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" - Plato

FYI any crude or vulgar comments will be removed from the blog.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

When Untruth Undermines Democracy

Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble.

If the Internal Revenue Service acts unlawfully, our voluntary system of citizens computing their own taxes implodes.

Yet Lois Lerner, one of the IRS's top officials, would not answer simple questions about her agency's conduct during congressional testimony, instead pleading the Fifth Amendment. Any taxpayer who tried that with an IRS auditor would end up fined and in court.

Almost everything that IRS officials have reported about the agency's unlawful targeting of conservative groups has proven false. IRS malfeasance was not limited only to the Cincinnati office, as alleged, but followed directives sent from higher-ups in Washington. Top IRS official Lois Lerner confessed to the scandal only through a rigged and preplanned public query by a planted questioner, designed to pre-empt an upcoming critical inspector general's report. There is legitimate dispute over both the number and purpose of former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman's visits to the White House and nearby executive office buildings, but he did his credibility no good by snidely remarking to Congress that he might also have visited for an Easter egg roll with his kids.

Attorney General Eric Holder -- who had already been held in contempt by the House of Representatives for declining to turn over internal Justice Department documents in the prior "Fast and Furious" scandal -- swore to Congress that he had no knowledge of any effort to go after individual reporters. But Holder had earlier done just that, signing off on a search warrant to monitor the communications of Fox reporter James Rosen. In other words, the attorney general of the United States under oath misled -- or lied to -- Congress.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was recently asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) whether the National Security Agency collected the phone and email records of millions of ordinary Americans. Clapper said that it did not. That, too, was an untruth. Clapper's supporters argued that Wyden should not have asked such a sensitive question in public that threatened the needed secrecy of the program. But Clapper did not demur or request a closed session, instead finding it easier to deceive, later dubbing his response as the "least untruthful" answer possible.

Washington reporters and spin doctors argue whether newly appointed National Security Advisor Susan Rice knowingly lied when she wove a yarn about a single video-maker being responsible for spontaneous violence that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Yet no one disputes that her televised fables -- as well as those of both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- were untrue, and demonstrably so, at the time. Yet Rice was promoted, not censured, following her performance.
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