HAS HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings been colluding with the IRS?

True the Vote's attorney is on the case.

This could get interesting, but the MSM will do its best to provide cover for the Democrats.

WHAT'S HE GIVING AWAY NOW? Obama speaks with Putin on Ukraine.

UPDATE: Now we know.

IT'S NOT ABOUT JOBS OR THE ECONOMY, it's about control.

YES, LET'S EXPAND MEDICAID: make the poor poorer as we kill them off with 'death panels'.

Virginia's new governor and legislature are in the midst of a battle to expand (McAuliffe) or not (Legislature) Medicaid. I'm (slightly) hopeful that the legislature will prevail.

FOR PROGRESSIVES, it's a feature, not a bug.

JEFF JACOBY: Islam, 'honor' violence, and the silence of the progressives. They're silent about Islamic extremism because deep down, they're shallow, and their blood runs yellow.

ONCE AGAIN, Democrats prove their racist bona fides. Every time they look in a mirror, they see their worst enemy -- themselves.

UNEXPECTEDLY, to be sure: Survey shows ObamaCare sending premiums rising at fastest clip in decades.

SPRING LEAVES, Week Five: today's look at the onset of Spring 2014. It was gorgeous yesterday, but has turned cloudy and breezy today. Still, the trees are delighted and beginning to bud out.

You can see bits of green at the top left and in the tops of the white oaks at the top right of the picture.

The pear tree across the street from our house fully blossomed out on Friday; as you can see, the blossoms are beginning to fall as the leaves take command. Here's what it looked like just a few days ago.

Last week's picture is here. You can to continue to scroll back in time from there.

VOTER FRAUD: the Left's tool for 'social justice'.

NEWT GINGRICH on ObamaCare's latest casualty. Kathleen Sebelius's tenure at HHS was a disaster, certainly, but she deserves the strongest criticism for her failure to stand up to the buffoons in the White House.

IT'S NOT ABOUT HEALTH; it's about control (and taxes).

MONOTONY MOTORS: Why today’s cars all look alike.

You may thank your government safety nanny. You're welcome.

THE BEST THING for the environment is for the government to stop controlling it.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Background check backlog to blame for gun sales to Maryland fugitives, felons:

A tough new gun-control law pushed by Gov. Martin O'Malley and passed by the legislature spurred gun sales leading up to Oct.1, when the law took effect.

By then, the wave of buyers, racing to get ahead of the state's new handgun licensing requirement and ban on the sale of assault weapons, had grown to a tsunami.

More gun purchase applications were received in September 2013 alone than the state often sees in a year, police said.

Ban guns to increase sales ... who'd have thunk it?

ERIC HOLDER: Maybe lawful gun owners should have to wear electronic bracelets to use them. I think a more appropriate use of bracelets (the non-electronic kind) would be on Holder himself.

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

It never fails to impress me that lefties always agree that taxing is done to hurt something you don’t like, subsidizing is done to help things you do like…and then completely disagree that subsidizing laziness and broken homes creates more of them, while taxing hard workers makes them work less.

Their religion truly is a cult.

From the comments this post.

AND NOW FOR some female GOP candidates for President.

ROGER SIMON on Gov. Rick Perry for President in 2016. Despite his gaffes in 2012, I've always been impressed with Perry.

HIT HIM WHERE IT HURTS: Rep. Frank Wolf to withhold funds from lawless Eric Holder.

Wolf has sought dozens of reports required from the DOJ under the FY 2013 Omnibus Act.... The law required Holder to provide Congress and Wolf’s committee 66 separate reports about DOJ activity.
...
“Today, I am announcing a new policy that these overdue reports will no longer be tolerated by the committee. When our FY 2015 bill is marked up this spring, I intend to withhold $1 million for every overdue report from the FY 2013 and FY 2014 bills.

Wolf is retiring at the end of this current session. I will be sure to ask his likely successor, Barbara Comstock, if she will continue to support his aggressive stance.