Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along.

For those who aren't quite convinced that there's a bias in the media and in this administration, I present the stories below.

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On Friday, the IRS apologized for singling out conservative groups, especially organizations that had "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names, for additional reviews during the 2012 election.

by TONY LEE  10 May 2013, 9:06 AM PDT

According to the Associated Press, Lois Lerner, who "heads the IRS unit that overseas tax-exempt groups," said such groups were targeted and scrutinized excessively to see if they were in violation of their tax-exempt status.

At a conference in Washington, Lerner "said organizations that included the words 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their applications for tax-exempt status" were targeted by IRS workers in Cincinnati and conceded it was wrong.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” said Lois Lerner, the chief IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations

"That was wrong,” said Lerner. “That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review."

The IRS harassment of conservative groups was not politically motivated, claims the IRS. Furthermore, Lerner says the practice of targeting conservatives was done without the knowledge of top IRS officials and was the work of lower-level staff in Cincinatti.

The revelation stands in stark contrast to past proclamations from IRS officials. "There's absolutely no targeting,” said IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman last year.

As the Associated Press notes, many conservative groups "complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS" and said "the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status."

The IRS apology comes more than a year after radio host Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation wrote to the Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury in March 2012 to request an investigation of the IRS for targeting Tea Party groups.

"The information demanded in many cases goes far beyond the appropriate level of inquiry" for tax-exempt status, Levin wrote in his capacity as President of Landmark Legal. An investigation into the IRS "also must determine whether the relevant IRS employees are acting at the direction of politically motivated superiors."

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BBC APOLOGIZES FOR BENGHAZI COVERAGE: HILLARY IN TROUBLE, 'HEADS WILL ROLL'

Mark Mardell, the BBC's North American editor, issued a mea culpa of sorts today after Jonathan Karl at ABC News dropped his bombshell that proves beyond any doubt that the Obama Administration lied about its involvement in editing the CIA's talking points surrounding the September 11 attack on our consulate in Libya.

by JOHN NOLTE  10 May 2013, 8:22 AM PDT

In a piece titled, "After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll," Mardell writes, "In the interests of full disclosure I have to say I have not in the past been persuaded that allegations of a cover-up were a big deal." He adds, "It seemed to me a partisan attack based on very little."

That all changed with today's revelations. Mardell now believes:

This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA's original assessment.

Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: "We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

There's little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.

State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is directly implicated, and the fingerprints of senior White House aides Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney are there as well.

If the rest of the mainstream media shows the integrity Mr. Mardell just did, the Obama Administration is about to finally be held accountable for an unforgivable coverup that started back in September and has lasted straight through to today.

Big hat tip to @RaganEwing.

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ABC News has posted twelve different versions of the Obama administration's talking points on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sep. 11, 2012, showing that the White House and State Department did all they could to remove references to terrorism and to Al Qaeda--likely to deceive Congress and the public.

by JOEL B. POLLAK  10 May 2013, 6:22 AM 

All twelve versions of the talking points, however, include some version of the false claim that "the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex." 
At one point, "attacks" became "demonstrations," and "Consulate" became "diplomatic post." Otherwise the wording remains the same throughout the twelve emails.
Yet we know, as a result of testimony before the House Oversight Committee this week, that diplomats saw no sign of "demonstrations" or even "spontaneous" attacks, and reported directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that night that they were under coordinated attack by heavily-armed terrorists.
Controversy thus far has centered on how the talking points were edited, by whom, and why. Yet the original talking points were themselves misleading. If they were prepared by the intelligence community, as has been indicated, then the intelligence was wrong, or it was politicized, or different parts of the administration were not sharing information with each other. 
Regardless, the story was already wrong from the beginning--for reasons that remain unclear.




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JON STEWART'S ATTEMPTS TO PROTECT OBAMA, HILLARY OVER BENGHAZI LOOKING SILLIER BY THE HOUR

by CHRISTIAN TOTO  10 May 2013


Let's hope Jon Stewart hasn't checked in with the BBC this morning.
The liberal host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show spent a portion of his nightly "newscast" Wednesday spinning madly on behalf of the Obama administration over the latest Benghazi hearings.
The comedian took a deadly serious matter and used it as a wedge against ... the GOP.
“You can’t understand why everyone else isn’t as outraged as you, when it’s because the rest of us aren’t sure if what you’re saying is true,” Stewart says about pundits who wonder why the public isn’t angrier about the story. “And to be quite frank, you do have somewhat of a history of hysteria.”
Truth to power? Holding the president and his team accountable for their actions and honesty? Heck, that's what the years 2000-2008 were all about in Stewart's world. The GOP is always to blame, a knee-jerk reaction to reality which belies Stewart's label as a political comedian of consequence.
To be fair, Stewart has increasingly crossed the political aisle to smite Obama in recent months. This, however, is different. Not only are the stakes higher, the Benghazi whistleblowers could snuff out Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations.
That means Stewart must rush to the front lines, eager to defend his liberal colleagues no matter the truth. The fact that four Americans died during the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Libya must be pushed aside for partisan point scoring.

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WHITE HOUSE MEETS PRIVATELY WITH PRESS TO DISCUSS BENGHAZI

by BEN SHAPIRO  10 May 2013

In the White House’s latest efforts at transparency, the administration announced to reporters that it would brief reporters on the latest shocking developments about the Benghazi situation … behind closed doors. Politico reports that the meeting started at approximately 12:45 PM ET, and that it moved the normal press briefing to 1:45 PM ET. Jay Carney, White House press secretary, did not comment on whether the meeting took place.

Politico reports:

The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

The administration routinely exerts pressure on reporters it feels are not kind enough in their coverage. Reporters like Cheryl Attkisson of CBS News have felt the hand of their bosses for “wading dangerously close to advocacy” with regard to Benghazi. No doubt this “off-the-record” meeting was designed to get all the president’s horses and all the president’s men to put the Benghazi humpty dumpty together again.

UPDATE: Reporters not invited to the off-the-record briefing are reportedly incredibly unhappy about it:

UPDATE II: Jake Tapper of CNN reports that the regularly scheduled press briefing has been delayed even further:

UPDATE III: Politico now reports that the meeting has been characterized as "deep background." The existence of the meeting itself is considered "off-the-record." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, "Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can't be quoted." So expect a fair number of "White House sources" to appear in reportage for the next few days.

UPDATE IV: Jay Carney began his on-the-record press briefing by announcing that 14 news organizations were invited to the closed door briefing, but that it was not a substitute for the on-the-record briefing. He then announced that it was "erroneous" to describe the briefing as "off-the-record," and instead suggested it was "deep background."

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

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