A Missouri reporter is wondering if the IRS came after him after he asked President Obama tough questions in a White House interview last year.

From the Facebook page of KMOV’s Larry Conners:

Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS.

I don’t accept “conspiracy theories”, but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me.

At the time, I dismissed the “co-incidence”, but now, I have concerns … after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members.

Originally, the IRS apologized for red-flagging conservative groups and their members if they had “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their name.
Today, there are allegations that the IRS focused on various groups and/or individuals questioning or criticizing government spending, taxes, debt or how the government is run … any involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, or social economic reform/movement.

Reporter: IRS Pressured Me After I Asked Obama Tough Questions

Angry Obama was back at the mics Monday. Just weeks after a frustrated President Obama stepped to a lectern and insisted he still has “the juice” to get legislation through Congress, a forceful President Obama met the press to try and shut down two stories that threaten to derail his second term agenda. Obama is known for not showing a lot of emotion publicly, but lately he’s been much more expressive as he tries to corral a polarized Congress into acting the way he wants. On Monday, he was forceful in his condemnation of reported IRS targeting of conservative groups with extra scrutiny and angry over Republican attacks on his administration’s handling of Benghazi. Congress is currently obsessed with both stories, and political operatives are already lining up to talk about how they’ll influence the 2014 midterm election and Obama’s political power.

Obama Gets Mad, Again

Just five days after Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney for a second term, a group called “Ready for Hillary” made its quiet entrance on Twitter. “Ready to go! Are you?” read a first tweet, dropped into the radio silence of a barely followed feed.

Half a year later, the political action committee is FEC-registered, with a hefty social media presence, a list of 200,000 email addresses, and a handsome cadre of established Clinton supporters who have, to varying degrees, given Ready for Hillary the thumbs-up, and helped make it the predominant vessel for voters hoping, early as it may be, that the former secretary of state will run for president in 2016. Now when the PAC posts a tweet or a picture on Facebook, the responses come in the thousands.

But as more people learn the Ready for Hillary name, many of the allies and former aides in Clinton’s orbit are watching the organization warily, suspicious of the PAC as it gains outsize attention in the absence of any official moves from Hillaryland.

Clinton Loyalists Watch Ready For Hillary PAC Warily

 After two years of being front and center in the GOP’s fight with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner seems to be missing in action from messaging and legislative battles, worried Republicans told BuzzFeed this week.

True, Boehner still does one or more on-air press events a week, and aides said he’s actively preparing for the fiscal fights looming on the horizon. But with no presidential nominee to be the party’s public face and set its agenda, that role has fallen to the Ohio Republican. And his members worry he’s not doing enough.

“He is actively hitting his marks nationally; he’s fundraising and he’s doing everything a speaker is required to do,” said a Republican congressman, who asked not to be named so he could speak freely. But “much has fallen to [Majority Leader] Eric Cantor and [Whip Kevin] McCarthy for the legislative load here, near as anyone can tell. That is markedly different than the last Congress. He’s disengaged, and that’s not helpful. This place has to be actively managed if we are going to achieve results.”

Another member remarked that Boehner seemed to be “a bit checked out” when it comes to the day-to-day duties of running the House, leaving the agenda — and the blame when things go wrong — to Cantor.

Republicans Ask: Where Is John Boehner?

ellievhall:

Prince William, Prince Harry and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge honor fallen soldiers.

Vice President Joe Biden told a South Carolina environmental activist Friday that he opposes a controversial oil pipeline from Canada, but said he is “in the minority” inside the Obama administration, according to the activist’s account of the conversation.

Biden made the remark at Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual “World Famous Fish Fry” Friday evening, where he met Elaine Cooper, a Columbia resident and group chair of the South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, while working the ropeline amongst hundreds of supporters in attendance. An email obtained by BuzzFeed from the organization’s national program assistant, Jessica Eckdish, provides Cooper’s record of the encounter, in which she “was able to ask Vice President Biden if he supporting [sic] rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline,” Eckdish writes.

The email continues: “Here’s his response from Elaine: He grabbed my Sierra Club hat on my head and said, ‘yes, I do — I share your views — but I am in the minority’ and smiled.”

Joe Biden Tells Supporter He Opposes Keystone Pipeline, But Is “In The Minority,” She Says