American College of Physicians plans new report on firearms regulation

The American College of Physicians last put out their policy position on guns in 1996.  Among their positions is a ban on all semi-automatic "assault" weapons.

"favors strong legislation to ban the sale, possession, and manufacture for civilian use of all automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons""sale and possession of handguns should be restricted. Purchases of handguns should be subject to a waiting period, satisfactory completion of a criminal background check, and proof of satisfactory completion of an appropriate educational program on firearm safety"

They are updating their previous positions and have made this announcement:

The American College of Physicians plans to issue an exhaustive, evidence-based review of firearms policy and gun violence later this year.The current policies are "a little dated," so "we’re going through an evidence-based review on firearms policy and gun violence [to] come up with more contemporary recommendations," said Dr. David L. Bronson, immediate past president of the ACP.
"We are aware that firearms are part of the American culture, and this can be a divisive issue for this country and for some of our members," said Dr. Bronson at the annual meeting of the ACP. He said that’s one reason why the college will take an evidence-based approach to formulating its new recommendations. . . .
Dr. Bronson noted that opponents of proposals to rein in firearms may also find ways to reassert their rights and desires in legislation unrelated to gun violence. "You have to keep your eye on the ball," he said, adding, "they have a relentless lobby."

The IRS scandal grows: Deliberately delaying info until after the election, hiding information, clear evidence that people right next to Obama knew about the problem

OK, so senior Obama officials were told of IRS probe last year, but they did nothing with this information?  Now we are told how upset and outraged they are by this information, but if they were so outraged, wouldn't they have said something publicly about this last year?  Isn't the proof of their lack of outrage shown by their lack of action?  From The Hill newspaper:

Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general (IG) for tax administration, testified that he told the department’s general counsel and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin about the probe in June of 2012 — months after media reports started detailing Tea Party complaints about the IRS. . . .
But the attention is quickly shifting to Wolin, who is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee and Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday, where he will be grilled on what he and other Treasury officials knew — and when.
Treasury confirmed Friday that George’s office told Wolin about the forthcoming audit last year, and that the inspector general personally told Treasury Secretary Jack Lew about it in March. Lew confirmed that timeline in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
But the Treasury department also says neither Lew nor Wolin found out about the inspector general’s findings until they started filtering out to the public last week. . . .

NBC's Lisa Myers "reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election."  Obama administration officials clearly knew what the scandal was about (conservative groups being targeted) in June 2012.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has apparently been less than forthcoming in his answers to questions about the scandal.  It looks as if Lew knew about the scandal while he was Obama's chief of staff, which means it is quite possible that Obama knew about it as well.  Examples of how difficult Lew is with speaking openly about what he knew can be seen here:

. . . Bloomberg's Al Hunt asked Lew, whose Treasury Department oversees the IRS: “When were you first notified that IRS agents were targeting conservative groups like the Tea Party?”
Instead of answering Hunt’s question directly, however, Lew instead chose to answer when he first learned about the IG report, a tactic President Barack Obama also used earlier this week during a press conference.
“I learned the substance of this report last Friday when it became a matter of public knowledge,” Lew claimed. “Before that, in mid-March [2013], I had had a conversation, just a getting-to-know-you conversation, with the inspector general right after I started, and he went through a number of items that were matters they were working on. And the topic of a project on the 501(c)3 issue was one of the things he briefed me was ongoing.”
Hunt then asked whether former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Lew’s deputy, Neal Wolin, or the general counsel knew about the IRS’s political profiling of conservative groups.
“I think that there was-the heads-up that I got was something that was a matter of public knowledge,” said Lew. “It was posted on the IG's website in the fall of 2012. I believe that other is typically the practice that an inspector general notify the agencies when matters are opened. I was not aware of any details.”
It is possible that "fall of 2012" could refer to a period of time before the election. Regardless, Lew would have discovered the investigation in his capacity as President Obama's chief of staff, meaning that it is possible the president knew of the investigation in 2012 as well. . . .

Others, such as acting IRS director Steve Miller, are having massive memory failures.

. . . That’s the kind of week Miller is having. To make matters worse, he spent most of the hearing saying he didn’t remember things — like the details of how he first learned of the targeting — and insisting he didn’t mislead Congress by not telling lawmakers.Over and over again, Miller swore he just answered the questions lawmakers asked him in various letters. “I answered the questions as they were asked,” Miller told Charles Boustany of Louisiana.
At times, Miller struggled to find phrases that wouldn’t sound politically tone deaf. He tried to pick a fight over whether the IRS search terms should even be called “targeting” — even though they included terms like “tea party,” “Patriots” and “9/12,” and the inspector general report says specialists were told to look specifically for tea party applications. . . .

Miller also made laughable claims such as the targeting of conservative groups, and conservative groups only, was simply an effort to make IRS agents "more efficient in their workload selection." 

Now we learn that since the IRS knew that a critical IG report was coming out, the Obama people asked a member of the press to raise the whole issue in a press presentation a week ago.

Obama administration rejects reasonable person standard in determining what represents sexual harassment.

The Obama administration apparently views an unwelcome request for a data as serious as rape? In a letter to the University of Montana, the Obama administration defined sexual harassment this way:

"an unwelcome request for a date . . . need not be 'objectively offensive' . . . regardless of the reasonableness of her feelings, and school administrators may be legally required to discipline her 'harasser.'"

Seriously?  From the WSJ:

The letter rejects the requirement, established by legal precedent and previous Education Department guidance, that sexual harassment must be "objectively offensive." By eliminating this "reasonable person" standard—which the Education Department has required since at least 2003, and which protects the accused against unreasonable or insincere allegations—the right not to be offended has been enshrined in a federal mandate. 

The letter further states that campuses have "an obligation to respond to student-on-student harassment" even when that harassment occurs off-campus. In some circumstances, the letter says, universities may take "disciplinary action against the harasser" even "prior to the completion of the Title IX and Title IV investigation/resolution." In plain English: Students can be punished before they are found guilty of harassment. . . .

Even after massive government subsidies, Fiat is losing about $10,000 on each of the tiny electric cars that it sells

At about 1:55 into the video the host notes that Fiat is losing $10,000 for each of the Fiat 500es that are sold.

Scary: Obama uses the power of the federal government to destroy his political opponents

These audits just didn't represent the costs of lawyers' fees and delayed refunds, but also all of the time and emotional drain that was spent personally dealing with the audits.  From Kimberly Strassel in the WSJ:

. . . Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. "He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?" asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.
Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."
This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.
Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.
The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn't account for what the president's vilification has done to his business and reputation.
The Obama call for scrutiny wasn't a mistake; it was the president's strategy—one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. . . .

Peggy Noonan has a similar list here:

. . . Hal Scherz, a Georgia physician, also came to the government's attention. He told ABC News: "It is odd that nothing changed on my tax return and I was never audited until I publicly criticized ObamaCare." 

Franklin Graham, son of Billy, told Politico he believes his father was targeted. A conservative Catholic academic who has written for these pages faced questions about her meager freelance writing income. Many of these stories will come out, but not as many as there are. People are not only afraid of being audited, they're afraid of saying they were audited. 

All of these IRS actions took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. They constitute the use of governmental power to intrude on the privacy and shackle the political freedom of American citizens. . . . 

What some celebrities think of the IRS scandal

Bill Maher's statement is the strongest argument against ever giving the government much power to begin with.  The fact that he believes it is so understandable that the government would take these actions must scare anyone and make them think twice before advocating new government programs.  Will Maher rethink his support of so much new government?

Illinois Senate to consider bill that will only give police discretion over who gets permits

The new proposal could be voted on as early as Friday.  From the Peoria Star:

An Illinois Senate panel approved a measure Thursday allowing the carrying of concealed weapons, but the committee's move followed sharp questioning from Republicans concerning whether packing a gun in Chicago should require special permission and how authorities would determine who is fit to carry. . . .
The most vociferous opposition to the measure has been over a provision that would require gun owners who want to carry in Chicago to get not only a statewide permit from the Illinois State Police, but from the Chicago police. Raoul has repeatedly said the density of Chicago creates greater "sensitivities" to guns and requires an extra layer of scrutiny.
But the NRA has rebutted Raoul's contention that the legislation creates a "shall issue" permit system, requiring police to OK public gun possession for anyone who obtains the proper training and passes a background check. That's because it contains language requiring police to find that an applicant is "of good moral character" and has a "proper reason" for carrying a gun. . . .

All one has to do is look at NYC to see how discretion is used in granting permits to limit issuance to only wealth whites.  I suspect that few people will get permits with this discretion.

Excellent analysis by Ezra Levant: "The CBC is using taxpayer’s dollars to shut down private sector journalism"

Chris Wallace refers to MGLC as "the bible of the pro gun rights movement" and that "there are now some pretty impressive numbers to back up that premise"

Here is a partial transcript from Fox News' Special Report on May 10th:

CHRIS WALLACE: The bible of the pro gun rights movement is a book titled "More Guns, Less Crime." It's a title that has been endlessly mocked by gun control advocates. But tonight correspondent Doug McKelway tell us there are now some pretty impressive numbers to back up that premise. Good evening, Doug.
DOUG MCKELWAY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Chris. Those numbers come from a Department of Justice report released this month that analyzed gun crime from 1993 to 2011. And it found homicides declined by 39 percent while non-fatal gun crimes dropped 69 percent. And it found that among prisoners convicted of gun crimes, only two percent of them bought their guns at a flea market or at a gun show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS COX, NRA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The people who support this freedom know these truths to be self-evident. They know that law abiding gun owners aren't the problem. Our opponents are going to ignore the facts the way they've always ignored the facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKELWAY: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attributed the gun crime decline to the ten-year assault weapons ban that Congress passed in 1994.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Deaths have gone down in large measure because of the legislation that was passed. The problem is even though we have great laws in California and in Maryland and New York, Connecticut, you can name many states, as long as these those guns can cross state lines without having background check attached to them, we still need that legislation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKELWAY: A recent study by the liberal Center for American Progress backs Pelosi's point, finding, quote, "A clear link between high levels of gun violence and weak state gun laws." The Center points to New York City, for example, which has dropped from over 2,000 murders a year 20 years to 418 last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARKADI GERNEY, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: What happened in New York was tough laws including tough gun laws, really smart, tough policing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKELWAY: But the non-partisan DOJ study contradicts Pelosi's view. It found that handguns, not assault rifles, caused 90 percent of fun injuries. And the NRA rejects the Center for American Progress's finding of a link between high gun violence and weak state gun laws.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COX: The sales of the guns in this country have gone through the roof. The number of people with concealed carry permits has gone through the roof. And violent crime with firearms has continued to decrease. You certainly can't make an argument that more guns equal more crimes. And you can make a very serious argument that guns in the hands of law abiding people are a benefit to society.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKELWAY: Yet a separate gun study by Pew Research on May 7 finds Americans are unaware of the gun crime decline. A majority of American think it has gone up despite this new evidence to the contrary. Chris?
WALLACE: Doug, thank you.

Homicides at school for children from 1992 to 2010

The BJS report is available here.  It is pretty hard to look at these numbers and see a pattern during and after the assault weapon ban.

Lois Lerner, at the center of the IRS storm, rewarded handsomely by Obama administration

Lois Lerner apparently sent at least one of the letters to conservative groups out under her own signature.

The director of the Internal Revenue Service division under fire for singling out conservative groups sent a 2012 letter under her name to one such group, POLITICO has learned.
The March 2012 letter was sent to the Ohio-based American Patriots Against Government Excess (American PAGE) under the name of Lois Lerner, the director of the Exempt Organizations Division. . . .
It is unclear if American PAGE had been selected for any additional scrutiny. But at the time of the letter, the group was in the midst of the application process for tax-exempt nonprofit status — a process that would stretch for nearly three years and involve queries for detailed information on its social media activity, its organizational set-up, bylaws, membership and interactions with political officials. . . .

Lerner has also been caught making numerous false statements from only "low level" involvement, that there was "no political bias," and that "seventy-five organizations effected."   Yet, Lerner is the one who has been extensively rewarded for her work by the Obama administration.  From the Washington Examiner:

Lois Lerner, the senior executive in charge of the IRS tax exemption department and the federal employee at the center of the exploding scandal over the IRS targeting of conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel non-profits, was given $42,531 in bonuses between 2009 and 2011. . . .

An additional point.  Obama appears tough by removing Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steven Miller.  Headlines claim: "IRS: First head rolls."  But he didn't really do that.  1) Miller will soon be out of a job anyway because acting commissioners are only allowed to serve for six months and his six months are up in early June.  2) Miller isn't leaving right away and will leave when his acting assignment ends.  As Miller writes:

"It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends inearly June."

So my reaction is: is this serious?  

Even some Democrats are getting tired of Obama never accepting responsibility for anything bad that happens in his administration

Even Dana Milbank at the Washington Post has this:

President Passerby needs urgently to become a participant in his presidency. 

Late Monday came the breathtaking news of a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment by his administration: word that the Justice Department had gone on a fishing expedition through months of phone records of Associated Press reporters. 

And yet President Obama reacted much as he did to the equally astonishing revelation on Friday that the IRS had targeted conservative groups based on their ideology: He responded as though he were just some bloke on a bar stool, getting his information from the evening news. . . .

After a couple times almost passing concealed carry on college campuses, is this the year for Texas?

At least if some state schools allow people to carry concealed handguns, it will make it harder for gun control advocates to predict disaster.  From Fox News:

A bill to allow concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons into Texas college buildings and classrooms got a significant boost in the state Senate on Tuesday, but it remains unclear if it has enough momentum to become law. . . . 

But the House passed a version that lifts the statewide ban on guns at school while still allowing individual campuses to ban weapons. . . . 

"I will take what I can get," said Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels. "Swing for the fences, but be happy with first base." 

The House voted to approve the bill on May 6, prompting Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, to schedule Tuesday's public hearing just a couple of weeks after he declared the issue dead this session. The committee passed the bill on to the entire Senate with a 4-2 vote. 

The bill's fate in the full chamber remains unknown and supporters were cautious about predicting it will pass. 

Republicans hold a 19-12 majority and approved a broader version of the bill in 2011. But Senate rules still require at least 21 members to vote to bring a bill up for debate. Sen. Kirk Watson of Austin, leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the bill may not have the support to pass the Senate. . . .

TrackingPoint Innovations: A Smart Gun that rarely misses, even at long range

Control advocates are obviously having a very hard time keeping up with the technological changes.  The device is currently very expensive:

A team of 70 people spent three years creating the technology. Schauble says there's nothing else like it, even in the military. For civilians, TrackingPoint sells its high-end, long-range guns directly. With price tags of up to $22,000, they're not cheap. . . .

Something gun control advocates should really fear: So-called "constitutional carry" for Illinois

If right-to-carry concealed carry laws are deemed so dangerous by gun control proponents, letting anyone who is not a criminal carry a gun with no other regulations should be really bad, right?  Well, on June 9th, if Illinois hasn't adopted a concealed handgun law by that point in time, it will be legal to carry a concealed handgun in Union county and probably effectively in the rest of the state.  The problem for gun control advocates is the same as it is each time that states pass right-to-carry laws: they have made predictions about impending disaster that never occur.  In this case the damage could be worse since the claims of doom have been particularly loud and the change in laws in Illinois could be particularly extreme with all regulations ended on June 9th.

Press's questions to Acting IRS Commissioner

Press goes after Acting IRS Commissioner



Acting Commissioner: "We will talk on Friday."

Democrats breaking ranks on IRS scandal

Elijah Cummings on IRS: Laws 'probably broken' 'this is one of the most alarming things that I have ever seen'

Even the media is becoming outraged by what is being found

AP exec editor: Never 'seen anything like this'



AP exec editor: "I have been in this business more than 30 years, and our first amendment lawyers and our lawyers inside the AP, and our CEO a well known first amendment lawyer, none of us have ever seen anything like this."

Newest piece at National Review Online: Children and Guns: The Fear and the Reality

My newest piece at National Review starts this way:

Should you ask your neighbors if they own a gun before your child plays at their house? And what do you do if they say yes?After the tragic accidental death this month of a two-year-old Kentucky girl who had been shot by her five-year-old brother, the answer may seem obvious: Do not let your child play at a gun owner’s home, at least if you are not sure he is locking up his guns. . . .

INCREDIBLE: IRS SHARED CONFIDENTIAL INFO FROM CONSERVATIVE GROUPS WITH LIBERAL ORGANIZATIONS

Just when you thought that the IRS scandal couldn't get any worse, this comes up.  Confidential information on the conservative groups that the IRS was hassling were given to Liberal organizations.  From the Daily Caller:

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 or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved — meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We madesix of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.),” according to ProPublica. . . .

Prediction: Texas will see a big increase in the number of concealed handgun permits

At the end of last year Texas had 584,850 permit holders.  Reducing the number of training hours to obtain or renew a permit from 10 hours to 4 to 6 hours will dramatically increase the number of permit holders (a copy of the bill is here).  The exact increase in permits depends on how the final regulations on training are drafted, but it could increase the number of permits to over 750,000.  Reducing the number of hours will reduce the cost of permits, and that will increase both the number of permit holders but also the share of permits held by poorer individuals.  The $140 fee for permits will still make Texas' permits among the most expensive in the country. Texas is still relatively unique in requiring retraining for renewal -- eliminating that would have a dramatic effect on the number of permits.

Portland man with concealed weapon takes down criminal

Another concealed carry permit holder who uses a concealed handgun permit to stop criminal (video link here).  Oregon had about 5% of its adult population with permits in early 2011, though I suspect that it has increased substantially since then.

Specialization of labor in obtaining food different between Neanderthals and Humans

Is this specialization of labor one of the reasons that humans outcompeted Neanderthals?  The WSJ has this:

. . . In all hunter-gatherer societies there is a sharp difference between the foraging strategies of the two sexes. Men generally travel far in search of mobile prey that they need to bring down with well-aimed projectiles. Women generally go out in groups and search for good sources of roots, ripe berries or nuts, which they use their acute powers of observation to spot and collect. . . .
This sexual division of labor over foraging is not only far more marked in people than in most other animals (it was, arguably, the first "gain from trade" we stumbled upon, benefitting both sides), but it may be a relatively recent feature of our evolutionary history, invented in Africa just 150,000 to 300,000 years ago. Some archaeologists have concluded that Neanderthals did not practice it: that female Neanderthals were co-operative hunters with men, not gatherers. . . .

Prosecutors in Trayvon Martin case fight to keep Martin's toxicology report from trial

Why would a prosecutor think that it is reasonable to hide Trayvon Martin's drug use and violent history from the trial?  Violent criminal history is one thing, but what can you say to justify excluding drug use or texting at the time of the attack?  The texting surely goes directly to Trayvon's state of mind.  From WKMG Orlando, Florida:

. . . The state said in motions filed on Friday they want to prevent Zimmerman's attorneys from bringing up Martin's personal life, including his school records, previous suspension from school, fights, text messages sent prior to his death unless related to case and his social media use.
The motion also says the state wants to prevent the defense from using Martin's toxicology report, which showed the level of marijuana in Martin's blood the night he was shot and killed.
The state's filings suggest they fear the defense may try to attack Martin's character, instead of focusing on whether Zimmerman murdered Martin. Assistant prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda argued that Martin's past is irrelevant and would clearly be designed only to prejudice the jury. . . .

Nikki Goeser's title of her new book says it all: "Denied a Chance: How gun control helped a stalker murder my husband"

Nikki Goeser, the winner of the last Sybil Ludington Women’s Freedom Award, has a dramatic new book.  From the description:

“For Nikki Goeser it was a day like any other ... with one exception. Her husband, Ben, had only 16 hours to live. On that fateful day in Tennessee, the man she loved would be murdered by a beast who was stalking her. In compliance with state law Nikki had left her legal firearm locked in the car. With the help of legislatively created pistol free zones, one evil man gunned down Nikki’s husband as she was forced to look on, alone, defenseless and disarmed by an ill-conceived law designed to save her. Read this inspiring story of courage through remorse, as one woman struggles to seek justice for the man she loves. Follow Nikki Goeser as she fights to ensure that others are never held victim to the same terrible fate.”

The paperback version is available here and the Kindle version here.

Illinois may soon become a "constitutional carry" state like AZ, AK, WY, VT, and virtually of of MT

Some information from the Canton Daily Ledger

Q: What happens if no law is enacted by June 9?

A: Gun-rights advocates use the term “constitutional carry” to describe a state in which, with an obsolete, discredited law on the books, Illinoisans could carry any type of weapon anywhere, at any time, concealed or not.

Technically, only those defendants directly affected by the 7th Circuit’s ruling — the attorney general and Union County law enforcement officials — would be prevented from enforcing the law. But it’s likely anyone arrested for illegal weapons possession would have a strong case for having a conviction tossed out based on the 7th Circuit’s ruling.

Phelps wants to avoid that scenario.

“A lot of gun owners don’t want a lot of restrictions so they want to go off the cliff,” Phelps said. “I’m worried about that because of the uncertainty that it brings.” . . .

Judge Jeanine Pirro nails it on the Benghazi whistleblowers

This discussion by her is well worth your time (click here for link).

Obama's past IRS abuses can't be blamed on "low level workers," Austan Goolsbee and the Koch Brothers

This isn't the first time that President Obama's administration has abused the IRS's powers.  Austan Goolsbee who was Obama's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors told reporters the amount of money that the Koch brothers had paid in taxes in 2010.  Note that this, like the abuses against the Tea Party, also occurred in 2010 and that it involved people that that administration hated as much as the Tea Party.  The current ruckus isn't the first time that Obama administration abuses of the IRS have been compared to the Nixon administration.

President Obama claims that he has "no patience" for the "outrageous" IRS mess, but if true, why didn't he do anything or even comment about Goolsbee's actions?

This is part of the discussion from my book Debacle (references in book):

[Austan] Goolsbee also learned how to punish the president’s political adversaries. The battle between the Koch bothers and President Obama hasn’t gotten as much coverage as that between George Soros and Republicans, but it is about as bitter. A New Yorker headline gives one side of the “The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.”71 Goolsbee entered the fray at an August 27, 2010, press briefing where he let slip that he knew that Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar energy business run by the libertarian Koch brothers, had paid no income taxes. “[W]e have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax, some of which are really giant firms. You know, Koch Industries is a multibillion-dollar business,” Mr. Goolsbee told reporters during an on-the- record background briefing on corporate taxes. 

Koch Industries is a privately held company and therefore their tax returns and tax payments are not normally publicly available. This recalls shades of Richard Nixon’s abuse of the Internal Revenue Service to collect information on his enemies, and there were serious questions of how Mr. Goolsbee obtained this information. At first, the White House sent Politico an email explaining that the information was publicly available and referenced testimony to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and Koch’s own website.72 But they were just dead wrong. How much taxes Koch Industries pays appears in neither place. 

The Obama administration then switched to a second line of defense: that Mr. Goolsbee simply misspoke, that he didn’t mean to say what he said, and that it was merely a coincidence that he had just happened to guess their tax information.73 But it was quite a lucky guess. The IRS’s Inspector General promised to look into whether Goolsbee had illegally gotten confidential tax information,74 but a report was never released, and with Democrats in control of both the Senate and House at the time, there was no congressional pressure on the Obama administration to release the report.75  . . .

UPDATE: There is no public record of whether you are an S corp.  There is a public record if they are an LLC, but they can be set in various forms and that won't be public record.  They could also be a C corp and that wouldn't be public information.  Thus for Goolsbee to even know that they are an S corp or what version of being an LLC would be problematic.  Specifically on the point The Koch's lawyer had this point:

"contrary to the administration official's statement on what sources were used by the administration, neither the Koch website nor Forbes' list of private companies has information regarding Koch's tax filing status.  This is confidential information.  Given these facts, one must wonder why the White House is anonymously commenting on the confidential tax status of Koch Industries."

UPDATE: Here is another example of abuse.

”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.” . . .  

UPDATE: Fox News has this updated discussion on Goolsbee.  If the last paragraph in the quote below, it sounds as if many people in the Obama administration were in on this leak of IRS info.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney took some heat Tuesday after he told reporters that nobody in the Obama administration had targeted conservative groups in the past.  

Many questioned the statement and pointed to a 2010 incident involving Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Goolsbee told reporters on Aug. 27, 2010 that Koch Industries, a billion-dollar energy company run by the politically influential Koch brothers, paid no income taxes. 

The tax records of Koch Industries -- a private company – would not have been public information and therefore should not have been known to Goolsbee. At the time, the Obama team backpedaled and said the information was made public in two places – which turned out to be untrue. Then the Obama administration said Goolsbee had misspoken and that he had guessed the company’s confidential tax information. 

At the time, the IRS had promised to look into the Goolsbee gaffe but a report was never publicly released. 

A source familiar with the situation suggested to FoxNews.com Tuesday that Goolsbee’s comments were a “calculated” attempt by the administration to insert Koch’s name into his discussion about companies that don’t pay taxes. . . .

Rush Limbaugh had this extended discussion where a caller (me) brought up the Goolsbee example.

RUSH: To the phones. People been waiting patiently as always. Up first, John in Philadelphia. Hello, sir. Thank you for the call.
CALLER: Oh. Thank you very much. You know, I think this is a very important issue. This isn't the first time that the Obama administration has abused the IRS' powers. In 2010, at the same time they were going after the Tea Party, Austan Goolsbee -- the chairman of the president's council of economic advisers -- was using the IRS to go after the Koch brothers, probably somebody that they hated as much as the Tea Party. There was a press briefing where Goolsbee told the press how much money the Koch brothers have been paying in taxes. You know, at first they said that the information was "publicly available," and when that turned out not to be the case, the administration said, "Well, you know, he simply accidentally guessed the exact amount that they pay."
RUSH: You know, that's exactly right. I'd forgotten that, but you're exactly right. Austan Goolsbee did tell the press how little the Koch brothers were paying in taxes -- in his perspective, how little -- and there was no way he coulda known that.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Unless somebody at the IRS had shared the data with him.
CALLER: Right. This is cover-up by the Obama administration. The inspector general for the IRS was supposed to release a report on Goolsbee, and after the furor died down they kept on delaying it.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Eventually they just never released the report on Goolsbee. So this is one thing. If you want to go and show that this is a pattern -- you know, and Goolsbee's not just some low-level staff person. He was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. And the Obama administration should finally be forced to release the inspector general report on what Goolsbee knew and how he released that information.
RUSH: Well, technically it's not how he released it; how he got it. There's only one way he could know it, and that is if he was able to pick up the phone, call the IRS, and say, "Give me the numbers on the tax return for the Koch brothers and for Koch Industries," and if the IRS gave him the information, bammo! Major, major violation. And, you're right. They've tried to let the passage of time cause everybody to forget about it, because there have been events take place in subsequent days which have taken precedence.
Those events have caused everybody to forget about it. You didn't. You're exactly right.  . . . 

Big omission in media coverage of 19 injured in New Orleans Mother's Day Parade Shooting

I have been looking at the media coverage of the shooting on Fox News, USA Today, New York Daily News, and others ignore a crucial part of the story: the shooting was likely gang warfare, most likely drug gang warfare.  As the Associated Press notes: "Police say gang turf wars often are the root cause." The surprise is that these other stories often relied on the AP report, but still left out this important fact.

What is the risk of a six year old dying from an accidental gun shot?

Lisa Maxbauer recently wrote a piece in the New York Times worrying about her six-year old visiting homes of gun owners.  Here are some numbers from the CDC for both six year olds and those under age 10.

For other ways of accidental deaths, the numbers are as follows:

Dallas: Store owner uses gun to stop four robbers, police don't arrive for 75 minutes after 911 call

The 911 call was somewhat difficult to understand, but that isn't the issue.  Whatever the reason, the point is that it took 75 minutes after the 911 call for the police to arrive.  My point isn't to blame the police dispatcher or an immigrant who may not be able to speak without an accent, but to note the benefit of letting people own guns for self protection.  The 911 call was made after the attack and shooting had already occurred so the police response time at that point was irrelevant.  

On Sunday night, four men tried to rob Pepe's Grocery on Bernal Drive in West Dallas. One of them was carrying an assault rifle, but the manager of the closed store drew first, hitting his target with two shots from his .38. The would-be robbers fled, leaving a trail of blood behind.The manager, Joe Cho, called police and waited. And waited. And waited. And finally, 20 minutes after shooting an intruder, he locked up and went home. Officers arrived at the store some 75 minutes later.
"I'm at home safe, everything, I relax right now," Cho told the Morning News' Scott Goldstein. "Then you call me about an hour something later, you want me to come back over here." . . .

Who was to blame for the delay?

The Dallas Police Department was quick to shift the blame over to Cho. A spokesman said,  “The caller had a very heavy accent and was speaking very quickly…The call taker had a very difficult time understanding the information and did not hear the caller say ‘shot’ or ‘shoot.’” . . . 

I could understand much of the call, and what I couldn't understand the first time through I figured out after listening to it a couple more times.  If the dispatcher couldn't understand whether the caller was saying "shot" or "shoot," she should have asked him to stay on the phone longer.  In any case, these calls are recorded, and the dispatcher could have presumably listened to it again if necessary.

The high pay for presidents of public universities

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting list of how much university presidents are being paid.

Joe Klein: The problem was Hillary's staff

Klein is in a bind.  He doesn't want to blame Hillary Clinton for the Benghazi mess, so he has to blame her staff.  But even then he has to acknowledge that these are the types of people that Hillary attracts.  The problem isn't for the 2016 campaign that Klein acknowledges, it is the risk of her as president.  From Time magazine:

I’m not so sure that Nuland’s reference to her “buildings (sic) leadership” means Hillary Clinton. There is a cloud of highly defensive–sometimes to the point of weirdly paranoid–advisers who have always surrounded Clinton. (Think Sid Blumenthal, back in the day). It’s part of the DNA of Hillaryland. In my experience, this over-protectiveness often works to Clinton’s disadvantage. And it will be a real detriment to her presidential campaign, should she choose to launch one.  

I’m not sure that Clinton herself forced the talking points massage; but “Hillary Clinton”–the bubble that surrounded the Secretary–may well have. . . .

Recalls in Colorado for state legislators who voted for more gun control

It turns out that a tax on obtaining a gun and a limit on magazine sizes may cost a few Democratic state legislators their jobs in Colorado.  Getting signatures from 25 percent of the total vote in the last election in that district is a very difficult task.  From Fox News:

Colorado Democratic lawmakers who recently helped pass some of the toughest gun-control laws in the country now face the political backlash of recall efforts.
Two groups are targeting state Rep. Mike McLachlan and state Sens. Angela Giron, Evie Hudak and John Morse.
The Democrat-controlled legislature passed bills that ban magazines holding more than 15 rounds and require background checks for all gun transfers. They were signed into law in March by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Morse, the Senate president, pushed a more far-reaching proposal that called for holding owners, sellers and makers of assault-type weapons liable for havoc inflicted by their guns. . . .
The petition drives are being organized by the organizations Pueblo Freedom and Rights Group. They will need signatures from 25 percent of the vote in each lawmaker’s district to trigger a special election. . . .

At least for one of the state Senators they appear to be on target for the recall.  Here is part of an email that I received this morning.

I spoke to one of the guys leading the recall for Sen. Hudak this morning.  He's says they are nearly on target for a successful effort so they are heavily recruiting more volunteers to make sure they win and finish strong. . . . 

In the case of Sen. Evie Hudak 18,962 signatures are needed.  Nor is it clear that so much time and money should be spent on recalling state Representative Mike McLachlan who is term limited and has to retire in 2014.

The Denver Post lists two of these state Senators as the biggest losers of the most recent legislative session.

Sen. Evie Hudak. Similar to Salazar, the Westminster Democrat planted her feet firmly in her mouth during a hearing on the bill to ban concealed weapons on campus. Hudak told a victim of a rape who said she'd wished she'd been armed that "statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun" and that it was more likely the rapist would have used the gun on her. Though Hudak later apologized, the comments went viral and contributed to the death of the bill. It also spawned a recall petition against Hudak. Luckily for Hudak, though, the statistics are on her side when it comes to recall petitions, which are extreme longshots.
Senate President John Morse. He sponsored an ill-defined liability-for-guns bill that couldn't muster support from his own Democratic caucus, and pushed a bill to grant tax credits to low-income Coloradans that was greatly watered down in the House. Morse also backed a telecommunications regulation bill and legislation allowing for the repeal of marijuana legalization that he couldn't find enough votes for. Meanwhile, his outspoken support of gun control prompted a recall effort against him — unlikely though it may be. . . .