5 Headlines Team Obama Didn’t Want You to See

Dan Holler | May 13, 2013

Government Obtains Wide AP Phone Record in Probe
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

Did political spin hide the truth of Benghazi?
Ever since Watergate became the shorthand for a government run amok, the political cliché of our time has been about the political lesson of that era: That the coverup can be worse than the crime. Apply that cliché to Benghazi — and questions about the motive for removing the terror link from talking points about the Libyan attack in the heat of an election.

IRS senior officials knew Tea Party targeted as early as 2011

About Those Conservative ‘Rebels’

Dan Holler | May 6, 2013

Channeling the frustration of many Republican political operatives, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel recently wrote the “real divisions in today’s Republican Party are not so much over ideology as they are over strategy.”

If only.

Instead, the division is between those who want to prevent the passage of bad bills that infringe on our constitutional rights and those who, as Strassel put it, “want to make some progress.” If we’ve learned anything over the last decade, it is that Washington-style progress is bad for Americans trying to earn an honest living. A corollary to that is politically driven tactics won’t win the battle of ideas and therefore won’t save the nation.

Delaware’s Chris Coons Doesn’t Want You to Pay Taxes…Sometimes

Dan Holler | April 26, 2013

Last night, the Senate moved to end debate on so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, more commonly known as the Internet Sales Tax. The bill would turn small, online businesses into tax collectors for states in which they have no real connection. Despite representing a state without a sales tax, Delaware Senator Chris Coons favors the legislation.

According to the Associated Press, Coons “supports the bill in part because tax-free Internet sales are eating into sales by Delaware retailers.” The article continues:

“In our region, we’ve long benefited from significant commercial sales from residents of Maryland, of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, who come to Delaware to shop because we’re a tax-free state,” Coons said. “Over time, the benefit of that has eroded as folks discovered that they could buy the same things online without paying sales tax from home.”

This is earmark-style parochialism at its worst. Coons wants to end tax-free shopping online so people will bring their tax-free shopping habits back to his home state.

So insular is Coons’ focus, he is urging “residents of Maryland, of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere” to break their respective states’ tax laws. As the same AP article explains, “In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales taxes when they file state tax returns.”

Liberal Assault on Second Amendment Fails

Katherine Rosario | April 18, 2013

For all the bullying, bribery, and attempts to beat the American people down, the left just sustained a devastating defeat on gun control. As it turns out, they didn’t have a winning formula. Conservatives, on the other hand, fought to defend the Constitution, and that resonated with the American people.

The left lost, but they are not blaming themselves. They say bribery failed them. One of their own — an unnamed official for a major gun-control group — explained:

Bribery isn’t what it once was. The government has no money. Once upon a time you would throw somebody a post office or a research facility in times like this. Frankly, there’s not a lot of leverage.

No Pass on Toomey-Schumer-Manchin Gun Bill

Dan Holler | April 10, 2013

Although latest gun bill was by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), it is actually the Toomey-Schumer-Manchin bill. According to the Wall Street Journal, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “helped negotiate the final bill.”

Even more interesting is this Roll Call report:

…Toomey’s public support for the bill hinged on not having to stand next to Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York” at the press conference.

…

“Manchin and Toomey are the best people to sell this agreement to the pro-gun community, and Schumer doesn’t want to get in the way of that. His job is to persuade the gun safety groups that it’s an acceptable deal,” a Democratic aide said of the group’s dynamic.

Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham said the following about the backroom dance: