After 18 months Rep. Darrell Issa finally releases his report which finds, hold on for a shocker folks, NO connection between the White House and the IRS "scandal." What?

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) wasted enormous congressional resources over the last 18 months trying to inflate the IRS "scandal" into a mountain. The release Tuesday of his final, petulant report on the affair marks what may be its final decline into a mouse. 

The bottom line: Contrary to his assertions in countless appearances on Fox News, there's no evidence that the Obama White House directed -- or indeed was involved in any way -- in the supposed targeting of conservative nonprofit groups for special scrutiny by the IRS. There's no evidence that "tea party" groups were exclusively targeted, as opposed to tax-exempt "social welfare" organizations from across the political spectrum. 

The evidence set forth in the report, which was issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's GOP majority without sharing it first with the Democratic minority, instead depicts an IRS struggling to apply complicated rules for nonprofits engaging in political activity, all without guidance from Congress. 

Issa launched his investigation last spring with the charge that the IRS had screened c-4 applications for words such as "tea party" in their names in an effort to deprive conservative organizations of a tax exemption.

Of course that turned out to be bullshit as the report  reveals that the IRS also applied scrutiny to various liberal groups seeking the c-4 exemption as one of the keywords they were looking for was "progressive."

In fact the ONLY group applying for the exemption, who did not receive it, was a group called Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office.

So in other words there was a wild goose and Darrell Issa spent millions of taxpayer money to chase it around for a year and a half. 

And let's not forget that Issa wasted similar amounts of taxpayer money in his "Fast and Furious" and Benghazi investigations.

God what a tool.

Senator Lindsey Graham responds to report by the Republican led House Intelligence Committee exonerating the White House over Benghazi as you might expect: "I think the report is full of crap."

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday blasted a House GOP-led investigation that recently debunked myths about the 2012 Benghazi attack. 

“I think the report is full of crap,” Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 

After Graham was asked whether the report exonerates the administration, he initially ignored the question, and then eventually said “no.” 

The House Intelligence panel, Graham said, is “doing a lousy job policing their own.” Graham didn’t clearly pinpoint why he dismissed the report’s findings, but suggested its information was provided by people in the intelligence community who had previously lied to Congress about the attack. 

“I don’t believe the report is accurate given the role [former CIA deputy director] Mike Morell played in misleading the Congress on two occasions,” Graham said. 

Host Gloria Borger said the report found no one lied. 

“That’s a bunch of garbage,” Graham replied.

I swear if this keeps up Graham might have to go lie down on his fainting couch with a chilled mint julip. 

After all what part of "Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!" did this intelligence committee not understand?

Republican led House investigative committee finds there is no Benghazi scandal. Gee, really?

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 The House Select Intelligence Committee—controlled by Republicans—has been investigating the Benghazi attacks in minute detail for two years. Today, with the midterm elections safely past, they issued their findings. Their exoneration of the White House was sweeping and nearly absolute. So sweeping that I want to quote directly from the report's summary, rather than paraphrasing it. Here it is: 

The Committee first concludes that the CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi....Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support.... 

Second, the Committee finds that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks. In the months prior, the IC provided intelligence about previous attacks and the increased threat environment in Benghazi, but the IC did not have specific, tactical warning of the September 11 attacks. 

Third, the Committee finds that a mixed group of individuals, including those affiliated with Al Qa'ida, participated in the attacks.... 

Fourth, the Committee concludes that after the attacks, the early intelligence assessments and the Administration's initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate....There was no protest. The CIA only changed its initial assessment about a protest on September 24, 2012, when closed caption television footage became available on September 18, 2012 (two days after Ambassador Susan Rice spoke).... 

Fifth, the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI asked for—and which were used for Ambassador Rice's public appearances—was flawed.... 

Finally, the Committee found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi. The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC shipped arms to Syria. 

It's hard to exaggerate just how remarkable this document is. It's not that the committee found nothing to criticize. They did. The State Department facility in Benghazi had inadequate security. Some of the early intelligence after the attacks was inaccurate. The CIA should have given more weight to eyewitnesses on the ground. 

But those are routine after-action critiques, ones that were fully acknowledged by the very first investigations. Beyond that, every single conspiracy theory—without exception—was conclusively debunked. There was no stand down order. The tactical response was both reasonable and effective under the circumstances. The CIA was not shipping arms from Libya to Syria. Both CIA and State received all military support that was available. The talking points after the attack were fashioned by the intelligence community, not the White House. Susan Rice followed these talking points in her Sunday show appearances, and where she was wrong, it was only because the intelligence community had made incorrect assessments. Nobody was punitively reassigned or polygraphed or otherwise intimidated to prevent them from testifying to Congress.

Okay does anybody else feel that this should be national news on ALL cable and network news outlets? Including Fox?

And not only that I feel that the Republicans should also apologize to President Obama and Hillary Clinton for essentially accusing them of allowing Americans to die and treason.

Of course that would never happen. But it should.

So I guess the Republicans will now simply shift their focus to attacking Obamacare again and suing the President for doing his job.

Different shit, same bunch of assholes.