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(I wrote this for the Urban News a couple of months ago.)

You’d be excused if you thought this was 2010 or 2011 or even 2012. For one party, they simply are replaying their greatest hits. It doesn’t seem to matter whether those hits brought them any political gain or not. As you remember, Lois Lerner, not Lois Lane, who worked at the Daily Planet and could be found in the SuperMan cartoons, was the IRS official who was at the center of the Republican-led IRS investigation. Remember the IRS was targeting tea party groups. This caused initial outrage but soon, with a little investigative reporting, it was clear the IRS was targeting not just tea party groups but also liberal groups with words like “progressive” who were applying for tax-exempt status. The targeting was probably okay since political groups shouldn’t be given tax exempt status. The House just voted to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for pleading the 5th. (My good friend, Linda [the lawyer] pointed out, “On the law, it is well established that a witness cannot “testify” and then claim the Fifth. That is what Lerner did. Her “opening statement” made assertions about her innocence that is impermissible when exercising your right to remain silent. You have to remain silent. You can’t open the door and then slam it shut.” As usual, she brings the knowledge.) Let’s remember that no court in the history of the US has upheld a contempt of Congress citation when someone employs their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves. Yet, the Republicans just voted for this. Why? They “believe” that Lois Lerner is holding the key to a White House backed conspiracy.

Benghazi. Yes, Benghazi. Republicans are dredging up Benghazi, once again. John Boehner just appointed a special select committee which is made up of 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats to investigate Benghazi, once again. Now, it is important for me to say that Benghazi was a tragedy in which 4 Americans died including Ambassador Stevens. We’ve had 7 investigations into the Benghazi tragedy. It is clear we did not have adequate security. Once the fighting started, we did not have adequate military assets in the area to intervene before 4 Americans were dead. These are facts. It is also been discovered that Ambassador Rice’s talking points which are given to her before she went on the Sunday morning talk shows were changed. They were not change by the White House. There’s no evidence that the White House was involved. It is clear that they were changed for political reasons. All of this information is already known. One must wonder why Republicans want to open yet another investigation. (more…)