Irs Explodes Into A Huge Scandal Now
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Issa’s claim is right on. Many organizations are still awaiting an IRS response regarding their status. A Washington, D.C. law firm that represents some of these groups says that the IRS’s claim that the system was streamlined after 2010 is demonstrably false in light of a massive increase in the amount of information the agency required of the firm’s clients. Like Fox, the firm debunk the “low-level employee” excuse because two of its clients’ applications had been referred to a “special task force” in Washington, DC.
The organization True the Vote, which applied for tax-exempt status in 2010, is still waiting for approval. They have endured three years of delays, during which time they have dealt with four different IRS agents, been subjected to six FBI inquiries, and have submitted thousands of pages of documentation to the agency, all to no avail.
As the afternoon wore on, another Democrat attempted to rescue the IRS, albeit indirectly. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) used his time to denounce the “absurd decision” by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case. He claimed it has brought so much money into the political system that it threatens the ability of Congress to do its job. This absurd notion picks up where former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) left off ten days ago, when she contended broader amounts of political activity — also known as freedom of speech — made it harder for the IRS to do its job. However, it is in fact left-wing groups that dominate the non-profit sector, long before Citizens United, while their highly politicized work is rarely interfered with.
Another key moment in the hearings occurred when Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) told George that Holly Paz was present during 36 of 41 interviews conducted during the IRS audit. George contended he was unaware of the total, noting that many of the IRS auditors who produced that information are based outside Washington. This lack of knowledge, coupled with the aforementioned omission of targeted pro-life groups, and the failure to question anyone about possible White House involvement in the scandal, calls the thoroughness of the IG’s investigation into question.
After the hearing, Issa hardened his position with regard to Lerner. “When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told Politico. “She chose not to do so–so she waived.” Stan Brand, general counsel for the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1983 disagreed. “I don’t think a brief introductory preface to her formal invocation of the privilege is a waiver,” he said. But Brand introduced the possibility that Lerner’s previous appearances before Congress may constitute a waiver of her Fifth Amendment rights. “Bottom line,” he warned, “I think we will hear no more from Ms. Lerner” unless she is provided immunity.
Thus, Lerner remains in the eye of the storm, which may be precisely the way the Obama administration wants it. As PJ Media’s Brian Preston notes, “several lefty bloggers known to be very close to the Obama White House were in fact meeting in the White House” on Tuesday, after Lerner’s attorney had announced she would be taking the Fifth. Two of them were Journolist veterans Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, and Josh Marshal of Talking Points Memorandum (TPM). In previous columns, Klein contended the IRS scandal was “a mess. But it’s not a mess that implicates the White House, or even senior IRS leadership.” Marshal insisted the scandal was a way for Republicans to reconnect with their base, now that the “touch points” of immigration and gays are no longer as effective as they used to be.
Yesterday, within 30 minutes of each other, Klein released a piece contending ”heads should roll at the IRS,” while Marshal insisted Lerner “has to go.” Preston notes the “synchronicity,” of getting “reliably friendly bloggers and columnists on board with a story that focuses attention away from the White House.”
It is more than that. It is also Rule Number 12 in Saul Alinksy’s “Rules for Radicals”: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.”
As of now, Lois Lerner is the unsympathetic target of the IRS scandal. It behooves Darrell Issa to grant her some sort of immunity for the simplest of reasons: the American public deserves to know how deep the corruption goes within the most powerful agency of government they deal with — and how far it may extend beyond it.
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A conservative rep at the IRS ordered Ms. Lerner to tell a pro life group that
if they would promise to not picket abortion clinics, etc, ?
Or heckbunker thinks Ms lerner is a Conservative rep at the IRS? Really ???
Seriously? No. Just a really ignorant spin to see what works with stupid people.
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You mean this?
"Please explain how all of your activities, including the prayer meetings held outside of Planned Parenthood are considered educational as defined under 501
(3)." -
Thou art wither'd like an old apple-john.
It does not matter what or which political party these IRS workers support. The fact remain the same. These IRS peoples acted above the law and are being protected by the same political party that has brought us communist care and death panels.
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I find that cartoon very ironic being posted here
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Yeah, that was a classic Browns Board moment.
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So Cummings released the entirety of the IRS interview transcripts.
Again, hate to break it to you, fellas, but there's nothing here. Nothing at all. You've got pages of a conservative Republican saying, "I did this." And why? Because he thought grouping all of the Tea Party groups together would allow them to be treated equally instead of letting them go to different IRS offices.
There's your scandal, folks.
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So let's recap:
Benghazi was supposedly about how the White House, in order to help their re-election campaign, scrubbed the talking points Susan Rice then recited on the Sunday morning shows in order to obscure the reality and the embarrassment of a clear terrorist attack.
The reality: The White House had nothing to do with the talking points, which were drafted through the normal inter-agency process and then delivered by Susan Rice almost verbatim. The person who had the largest hand in the drafts was a career State Department official who last worked for Dick Cheney and is married to Robert Kagan.
The IRS scandal was supposedly about how the White House, through the political office or some other avenue, directed the IRS to target Right-wing 501c4 groups for special scrutiny in order to slow walk their applications and keep them from participating in the political process.
The reality: There is zero proof of political direction from the White House. All of these targeting mechanisms seems to have originated with the IRS itself and had no political motivation. Progressive groups were also targeted. And the man who owned up to devising the process is a self-described "conservative Republican" who believes to this day that he was just doing his job.
Will anyone in here own up to either of these realities? Of course not. And neither will the Republican base.
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I know, I know. It's very disappointing. So shoot the messenger and all that. Or tell me where I have my facts wrong.
But don't worry. This is the modern day Republican Party. You'll just continue on believing your bullshit anyway.
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Republican and Democratic committee staffers interviewed IRS official John Shafer on June 6 about the agency's decision to scrutinize a tea party group's application for tax-exempt 501
(4) status. Shafer, who identified himself as "a conservative Republican" and said he'd worked for the IRS since 1992, said that he and a fellow screener initially flagged a tea party group and continued to do so with subsequent applications in order to maintain consistency in the process.
Throughout much of the interview, Shafer describes the mundane bureaucratic challenges of dealing with incoming applications for nonprofit status. He said his team flagged the first tea party application because it appeared to be a high-profile case, and he wanted to make sure all high-profile cases received similar attention.
"What I'm talking here is that if we end up with four applications coming into the group that are pretty similar, and we assign them to four different agents, we don't want four different determinations," he said. "It's just not good business. It's not good customer service."
Asked plainly, "do you have any reason to believe that anyone in the White House was involved in the decision to screen Tea Party cases?" Shafer replied, "I have no reason to believe that."
"Do you have any reason to believe that anyone in the White House was involved in the decisions to centralize the review of Tea Party cases?" he was asked. "I have no reason to believe that," he replied.
Asked if he had "ever communicated with [then IRS] Commissioner Shulman about the screening of Tea Party cases?" he replied, "I have not."
Interviewers also asked Shafer if he told his screeners to specifically pull Tea Party cases.
"Again, I was not asking them for those kind of cases," he said. "f I would have directed them to pull our Tea Party cases, little Susie's Tea Party would have been pulled and it wasn't."
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So again, ladies, tell me: what's the scandal now?
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It's in the testimony BEFORE CONGRESS that you conveniently won't admit was very, very powerful in proving political harrassment and "profiling by group" was most certainly happening.
This "conservative" doesn't know anything about the testimony before Congress, ....eh? I call BS. I don't believe he is a conservative just because he's making himself out to be.
And, he is just one character who is either lying, or completely out of the political harrassment operation.
Heck translation: "Goshdarn it, why can't I be the only one with information on issues? Things would be
so convincing with my cherry picking"
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Issa's staff said Shafer played an early role in the Tea Party screening activities, so he was not aware of what happened once interaction with Washington began.A Cincinnati official in another unit, Liz Hofacre, initially created a "Be on the Lookout" (BOLO) list containing the terms "Tea Party," "Patriot" and others. She said she was asked to do that by another Cincinnati superior, according to her transcript, also reviewed by Reuters. (Editing by Peter Cooney) -
So again, ladies, tell me: what's the scandal now?
So again, ladies, tell me: what's the scandal now?
Ladies? Good to see you're not letting this get to you.
The Republican Party as of late has been notorious for whipping out their dicks, then tripping all over them when called into action.
This IRS thing is kind of silly, Benghazi otoh, represents more of an "uh oh" over trying to downplay a colossal lapse in judgement by the administration. The failure to respond to what was happening on the ground would be equivalent of the DevGru blackhawk helo's getting the call to turn around upon "landing" in the compound on their trip into Pakistan 2 years ago.
Both of these "scandals" are taking up valuable real estate in what should be a ragefest over those 3 letters that begin with an "N" and the other 5 that begin with a "P"
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I'm shocked to seeyou are a closet misogynist.
Anyway I think I've been clear as to my opinion of the presidents depth of understanding so I'd be surprised if he actually orchestrated any of this himself.
So if we set the bar of actually calling it a scandal with him directing the program I guess, well you know.
But it would be great fun to see an overzealous special prosecutor badger and harass everybody until he can scrape out an obstruction or a lying to Congress charge.
WSS
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You could set it at anyone in the White House directing it. You could set it at anyone in the Democratic Party directing it. Set it wherever you like. The problem is they don't have the proof that any of that happened, and so what they're left with is ...nothing. The entire "scandal" narrative has collapsed.
They've got a guy at the IRS, a self-professed "conservative Republican", saying he did it, and for reasons completely related to his job, and completely unrelated to politics.
So again, what's the scandal?
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That's bs, Heck. They have far more than that. Paz admitted it, it was TESTIFIED before Congress that Lerner
told a pro life group to promise to not be politically active and their request would go forward.
You can't be serious, so what ARE you being?
From Hannity.com
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Polls on IRS Targeting June 18, 2013Yesterday I told you about the latest poll numbers related to Obama's approval rating and trustworthiness. Today we have new insight from the CNN/ORC survey related to the IRS scandal. The latest findings show us two important things.
1. The number of Americans who believe that the IRS targeting of conservative groups was a direct order from the White House has increased by 10 points in the last month to 47%. For independents, the number who believe the White House ordered the targeting of conservatives has crossed the 50% threshold.
2. The other thing to note is that this IRS targeting scandal is still important to the majority of the American people, but that number is starting to slip. In May, 55% felt it was a “very important” issue to the nation, and now that number is at 51%.
If we put these numbers in the context of the numbers I told you about yesterday, it is clear that people are losing faith in this president. The benefit of the doubt is beginning to erode as scandals hammer his credibility, and the possibility of wrong-doing no longer seems all that far-fetched. I'm not saying that the American people are correct in that the White House directly ordered the targeting of conservatives, but the perception that this is possible is important. It will hurt Obama's ability to govern effectively, if you can consider what we've seen over the last few years to be “effective.”
The fact that this is slipping as an “important issue” is, in my mind, a failure of the media. Or more accurately, it is by design that the lapdog media has backed off this story and in some cases still fails to make the connections and updates we've come to learn. For example, a top IRS official in Washington by the name of Holly Paz has admitted that she was involved in scrutinizing 20 to 30 cases related to conservative groups. This is on top of information we've since learned, which completely puts to rest this lie we were initially told – and some still maintain – that the targeting was isolated to the employees in Cincinnati. This is a lie. But as Jay Sekulow points out in a column today, there is an urgency by the left to “move on” from this scandal, and I have no doubt that the lapdog media will comply. However, Jay Sekulow's lawsuit continues to grow; He is now up to 41 plaintiffs in this lawsuit against the IRS.
There are a few other updates to the IRS scandal.
I just told you about Holly Paz, the IRS’ director of rulings and agreements. She says that the term “tea party” was used as a blanket term to describe any group engaging in political activity. She described it like people using “Coke” to describe any “soda.” I'm not buying it and you shouldn't either. The fact is that you can call it “Coke” and say it applies to all sodas, but if you are only targeting “Coke” products, then it's pretty much a moot point. The fact is that no liberal groups were targeted. No matter what you called it, the nature of the targeting was based on the content of the politics at hand.
According to testimony from an IRS agent based in Cincinnati, pro-Israeli groups applying for tax-exempt status had their applications routed to the antiterrorism unit of the IRS and underwent additional screening.
Meanwhile, during the height of the campaign season in 2012, while the IRS was targeting conservative groups, the Religion News Service reports that CAIR – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – miraculously had its tax-exempt status reinstated just in time for Ramadan, a highly charitable time for Muslims.
Tomorrow, Wednesday June 19th, there will be an "Audit the IRS" rally from noon until 2 p.m. on the West Lawn in Washington DC. The Tea Party Patriots website reads: “It’s time that Washington sees first-hand just how outraged the American people are by these discriminatory acts.”
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Was that a news article or an opinion piece?
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You have to prove that the IRS targeting was political in nature, for reasons other than their core mission. Asking 501c4 groups to explain why they're educational and not political is not evidence of a scandal. That's what the IRS is supposed to do. So saying Tea Party groups were asked to prove they weren't overtly political is also not evidence of scandal. It's evidence of the IRS doing their job.
They simply don't have the link they want, or the proof of that link. But again, it's okay. They don't care.
Look, when this started I thought there was something improper going on. I thought people should be headed to jail. But the more we learned, the more we discovered that it wasn't partisan targeting at all, and it wasn't designed by anyone for political reasons. The only problem they seemed to have stumbled on is that it takes the IRS a really long time to approve these applications.
So, you have to adjust according to the facts. Or in Steve or Cal or just about every other Republican's case, you stick with what you want to be true.
If more facts become known, we'll have to adjust to those too. But right now, there's no scandal here.
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Then you didn't listen to the testimony before Congress. No other lib group was asked an inane, endless bunch
of stupidass questions and their app delayed for months, even years. And CAIR? Not a politically active group?
Got THEIR app approved expeditiously?
Why not just believe that Obamao is the Tooth Fairy?
Name one lib group that was given a bunch of "the business", and endless delays.
Name one Anti-Israeli group who was.targeted. You want to buy the left bs, go ahead. But the testimony
about Ms. Lerner stands. And there were plenty of other groups who have been given the run around, and all of them
were conservative. Every one of them.
No coincidence. Not even you can get anyone to change their mind about it, Heck. It is what it is. If there were nothing there,
Lerner wouldn't have claimed the Fifth too late, and run and hid. And Paz is way, way past what you tried to paint a picture of,
with that one "conservative" goof saying he didn't do it for political reasons. Look at the timing. It was election time. Look at the groups,
dozens and dozens were every one - conservative.
Nah, that's all coincidence, you think?
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