Thomas Lifson;

The Associated Press has uncovered what may become a vast new scandal for the Obama administration: the possibly widespread use of covert email accounts by political appointees, enabling evasion of sunshine laws designed to protect the public. […]
This looks very bad indeed. Former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has already lost her hob owing to her use of the pseudonym “Richard Windsor” in correspondence with both agency officials and outsiders, including environmental activists. These communications ought to be available through Freedom of Information Act requests, but the use of a covert email account circumvents FOIA search requests.

A practice that extended across multiple branches of government? It’s like it was co-ordinated or something.

“Surprise”?

It appears, however, that Israeli officials were caught by surprise that details of the facility at Tel Shahar, classified so top secret that Israel’s military won’t officially confirm its location between Jerusalem and Ashdod, would be made so public.

After Stuxnet?

NRO;

“Windsor” is the e-mail alias that Lisa Jackson, former head of the EPA and now an environmental adviser to Apple, used to correspond with environmental activists and senior Obama-administration officials, among others.
Windsor, we have learned, was also an employee of significant achievement.
Documents released by the agency in response to a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that, for three years, the EPA certified Windsor as a “scholar of ethical behavior.”
The agency also documented the nonexistent Windsor’s completion of training courses in the management of e-mail records, cyber-security awareness, and what appears to be a counter-terror initiative that urges federal employees to report suspicious activity.

Has anyone checked to see if he voted?

Q: And she indicated that Washington had requested these specific parts of these specific applications; is that right?
A: Correct.

Good question: “[W]hy didn’t the IG report include this information?”

There’s awkward.

And then, there’s really awkward.

AT NRO: The guy who bugged Mitch McConnell’s office admits that he bugged Mitch McConnell’s office.

McClatchy;

While the developing scandal over the targeting of conservatives by the tax agency has largely focused to date on its scrutiny of groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, these examples suggest the government was looking at a broader array of conservative groups and perhaps individuals. Their collective experiences at a minimum could spread skepticism about the fairness of a powerful agency that should be above reproach and at worst could point to a secret political vendetta within the government against conservatives.

Commentary;

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is a managerial position, not a policy-making one, although his input on the practical realities of tax collection and how the IRS is structured might well be very useful if the President was planning a big push on tax reform. But no such push has been forthcoming. Obama’s sole interest in the tax code has been to raise rates on high earners. So what was the commissioner doing going to the White House more than once a week on average?

More – Washington launches four different investigations into IRS scandal

Led (from behind) by Stupid.

We said so at the time: Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make Sense

In one raid, the feds hauled away ebony fingerboards, alleging they violated Madagascar law. Gibson responded by obtaining the sworn word of the African island’s government that no law had been broken.
In another raid, the feds found materials imported from India, claiming they too moved across the globe in violation of Indian law. Gibson’s response was that the feds had simply misinterpreted Indian law.
Interestingly, one of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood,” which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson’s guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?
Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Breitbart.com;

Kimberly Strassel has a must-read column at the Wall Street Journal today that explains the context in which the IRS scandal emerged–not just during the Obama administration’s attempt to quash the Tea Party, but in Obama’s efforts to shut down all opposition, both Republican and Democratic, in the 2008 campaign.

The story of Catherine Engelbrecht;

…a nice woman, a citizen, an American. She and her husband live in Richmond, Texas. They have a small manufacturing business. In the past few years she became interested in public policy and founded two groups, King Street Patriots and True the Vote.
In July 2010 she sent applications to the IRS for tax-exempt status. What followed was not the harassment, intrusiveness and delay we’re now used to hearing of. The U.S. government came down on her with full force.

Michael Barone: More than all past presidents, Obama uses 1917 Espionage Act to go after reporters
It’s like a pattern, or something.

How Does Eric Holder Survive?

O Admin achieves the impossible. Causes MSM to rally around Fox News. And it’s only Monday.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) May 20, 2013

WaPo;

Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

More: FBI affidavit alleging criminal reporting.
Reason: Obama’s War Against the Free Press Gets Creepier
Update: Three Fox News Staffers Targeted By Justice Department