The Obama administration found itself facing a series of scandals and it was revealed that the federal government gave witness protection to terrorists.
On the international stage, the Russians sent more than a dozen warships to aid the Assad regime in Syria.
Here’s a recap, or wrap, on the week that was from The Washington Times.
• MILLER: Conservatives aren’t paranoid, the IRS really is out to get them
The left likes to make conservatives out to be crazy, conspiracy theorists — using terms “black helicopter” and “tin foil hats” to mock them. However, as the old saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
After two years of denials, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) finally admitted that it had abused its power by going after conservative groups who oppose big government during the 2010 election.
• Besieged White House rejects Obama-Nixon parallels
The White House wants the public to know that Barack H. Obama is no Richard M. Nixon.
In the midst of revelations that the IRS targeted some of President Obama’s conservative opponents inappropriately, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about comparisons to President Nixon, whose administration compiled an “enemies’ list.”
• Feds gave witness protection to terrorists
The federal government gave witness protection to known and suspected terrorists and the U.S. Marshals Service even lost track of two of those people, according to a report Thursday from the Justice Department’s auditor that exposes the previously hidden side of the witness program.
“We found that the department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the [witness protection] program,” the Justice inspector general said.
• Former NAACP chairman Julian Bond: It’s OK for IRS to target ‘racist’ tea party
Julian Bond, former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said during a Tuesday interview on MSNBC that it’s only right and just that the federal government and the IRS target tea party groups.
Tea party groups are, after all, “overtly racist” and the “Taliban wing of American politics,” Mr. Bond said, Mediaite reported. … I think it’s entirely legitimate to look at the tea party. I mean, here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who tried as best they can to harm President Obama.”
• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s note says U.S. ‘attack’ on Muslims drove Boston bombing
As police closed in on the boat he was hiding in, suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scribbled a chilling note to police.
On the side of the cabin of the boat, the Tsarnaev reportedly wrote: “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.” The writings were first reported by CBS News.
• Jon Stewart blasts Obama over AP, IRS scandals
President Obama is taking heat from all sides, including late-night satirist Jon Stewart.
The longtime “Daily Show” host on Tuesday night tore into the White House and specifically bashed the president for repeatedly claiming he learned of major events at the same time as the American public.
• Russia sends warships, missiles to Syria
Russia has sent more than a dozen war ships to patrol the waters near Syria, U.S. military spokesmen said on Friday. The country also gave Syria supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, model P-800 Onika, United Press International reported.
The message: Moscow is fully supportive of Syrian President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials believe.
• HURT: Washington — where nobody gets fired and everybody eats lunch
So, what does somebody have to do to get fired around here?
Unprepared, you are somehow surprised when your office in Benghazi gets torched and overrun by terrorists on the anniversary of 9/11. They kill your ambassador and three others.
Yet, you are so clueless that you actually think it is a spontaneous protest of a YouTube video that nobody has seen. Or, at least, that is what you tell people.
• Physically strong men lean conservative, study claims
Schwarzenegger? Stallone? There may be something to their conservative political leanings.
A new study by two psychological scientists asserts that a man’s physical strength will affect whether or not he supports the welfare state, according to the Daily Mail.
• Justice Department subpoena of AP phone records unites left, right in opposition to ‘Big Brother’
The revelation that the U.S. government used secret subpoenas to pry into Associated Press reporters’ phone records triggered two contradictory reactions in the political world.
“What the subpoenas did was remind the left that the right has reasons to fear big government and remind the right and left of the objectives they share politically,” said Joe Miller, the Alaska conservative who was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate last year.
• Saudi cleric: Prohibit women from using air conditioning
A man who claimed to be a Salafist-Wahhibist cleric put the word out on Twitter that women should not flip on air conditioners at home because it sends the signal they’re home and that could lead to moral depravities.
• Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal; how the story of a U.S. tragedy unfolded — and then fell apart
The tragedy of Benghazi, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, seemed a cut-and-dried story in the days after a mob attacked the State Department’s mission in eastern Libya.
From President Obama on down, the recap was simple: A crowd of demonstrators angry over an obscure YouTube video that denigrated Islam’s Prophet Muhammad spontaneously stormed the complex. …
Today, the public knows that those early administration pronouncements were false.
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