Oh and....the week wouldn't be complete without posting up articles on two of   
   the week's hot topics: the scandals that just keep coming out of the   
   woodwork....and (my latest favorite) the IRS debacle.   
      
      
   First lets take the scandals as whole:   
      
      
      
   A Darkening Cloud of Scandals Engulfs Obama Administration - Donald Lambro   
      
      
   Jun 05, 2013   
      
      
   WASHINGTON - President Obama is being hit by new scandals almost weekly in a   
   growing web of investigations and revelations that have further damaged his   
   troubled administration.   
      
      
   The U.S. Treasury's Inspector General released a new report Tuesday that the   
   Internal Revenue Service spent $50 million on 220 conferences for IRS   
   employees   
   over a three year period beginning in 2010.   
      
      
   Despite annual federal budget deficits of more than $1 trillion throughout   
   Obama's first term, the IG found many of the IRS's expenditures to be   
   downright   
   wasteful.   
      
      
   In one of its findings, the IRS focused on a conference in Anaheim, Calif. --   
   home of Disneyland -- where some 2,600 employees in the agency's small   
   business division gathered for a little fun and relaxation paid for by the   
   American people.   
      
      
   In a conference that cost taxpayers about $4.1 million, IRS workers were shown   
   two training videos that cost at least $60,000 to produce. One of them was a   
   parody of Star Trek in which employees, wearing Star Trek uniforms, talked   
   about how to dig out tax fraud in a full-scale mock-up of the bridge of the   
   starship Enterprise.   
      
      
   In the video, an IRS employee portraying the Russian character Pavel Chekov   
   tells one of his colleagues, "Back in Russia, I dreamed someday I'd be rich   
   and famous."   
      
      
   "Me, too. That's why I became a public servant," his starship colleague   
   replies.   
      
      
   In the other video, IRS employees are seen dancing the "Cupid Shuffle," as a   
   female IRS agent remarks, "They don't pay me enough to do this."   
      
      
   Two keynote speakers together at the conference were paid at least $44,000,   
   plus $2,000 for first-class air travel. In a speech about how art influences   
   leadership, the speaker painted six paintings and gave two to them to IRS   
   employees attending the event.   
      
      
   "The outrage toward the IRS is only growing stronger. Clearly this is an   
   agency where abuse and waste is the norm and not the exception," said Rep.   
   Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana who chairs the House Ways and Means   
   Committee oversight subcommittee.   
      
      
   This IRS scandal comes on the heels of the IG's bombshell disclosure that   
   dozens of conservative groups who filed for tax-exempt status were targeted by   
   the IRS for intensive, delay-provoking scrutiny.   
      
      
   It also forced the resignation of the IRS's acting commissioner and led to a   
   wave of congressional hearings and investigations, a Justice Department   
   criminal probe, and calls in Congress for a special prosecutor.   
      
      
   Then there was a troubling report from the U.S. Labor Department's Inspector   
   General who charged that the Job Corps has badly mismanaged its budgeting   
   operations by allowing program costs to rise far above its appropriations. The   
   IG said out-of-control spending led to $60 million in red ink.   
      
      
   The Job Corps has been one of Obama's pet agencies over the course of his   
   presidency as the White House has sought to boost its budget in the midst of   
   persistently high unemployment over the past four and a half years.   
      
      
   The IG's report "sheds new light on the persistent failure to adequately   
   budget, plan and monitor costs," said Sen. Robert Casey Jr., Pennsylvania   
   Democrat, who asked for the audit. Jane Oates, the department official who   
   headed the Job Corps when the budget deficit occurred, resigned last month.   
      
      
   More recently, a lengthy investigation by the Associated Press revealed   
   Tuesday that a number of appointees in the Obama administration have been   
   using "secret e-mail accounts" that raised suspicions they may be attempting   
   to circumvent future investigations or public inquiries.   
      
      
   "The secret e-mail accounts complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to   
   find and turn over e-mails in response to congressional or internal   
   investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees   
   assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the   
   accounts to search them," the AP news wire service said. "Secret accounts also   
   drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or   
   decisions."   
      
      
   One of the administration's top Cabinet officials using a secret government   
   e-mail account is Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius who   
   has been in the thick of Obama's continuing controversies and legal fights   
   over his health care law.   
      
      
   How secret is Sebelius's off-the-books e-mail account? Google, the global   
   search engine, said it could not find any reference on the Internet to her e-   
   mail address.   
      
      
   Bear in mind, this is a tightly closed administration that zealously guards   
   its secrets to the point where the Justice Department has secretly seized and   
   searched the phone records of Washington journalists and the e-mails of a Fox   
   News reporter -- another scandal that has triggered a rash of investigative   
   hearings in the House and Senate.   
      
      
   Part of that widening investigation centers on Attorney General Eric Holder's   
   sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 15 when he said he   
   was not involved in the "potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure   
   of material."   
      
      
   "This is not something I've ever been involved in, heard of, [or] would think   
   would be wise policy," Holder said.   
      
      
   News accounts have reported that Holder signed off on the decision to obtain   
   the Fox News reporter's e-mails and Republicans are looking into whether he   
   lied under oath when he made that statement.   
      
      
   These investigations -- plus ongoing inquiries into the administration's   
   misinformation about the deadly terrorist attacks at our consulate in   
   Benghazi, where four Americans were killed, including the ambassador -- casts   
   a darkening cloud of scandal and possibly criminal activity over Obama's   
   second term.   
      
      
   Sen. John McCain says Obama has become "mired" in a swamp of scandals and that   
   "the president's credibility obviously is at stake here."   
      
      
   The Gallup Poll said Monday that Obama's job approval score has sunk to 47   
   percent, a 12 month low, and, lately, the West Wing is increasingly sounding   
   like it's coming unglued.   
      
      
   As McCain observed Monday on CBS's "This Morning" in a delicious bit of   
   understatement, administration officials are "not covering themselves with   
   distinction here."   
      
      
      
      
      
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