Irs Explodes Into A Huge Scandal Now
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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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and, btw, they asked conservative groups names of donors. Then those names of donors were
GIVEN to the leftwing groups on the opposite side of the conservative group's issue.
yahoo.com:
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"...The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin, said it was time to correct the IRS's problems.
"You are owed an apology," Levin, from Michigan, told the witnesses. "We say to you that each of us is committed to doing our part to ensure this does not happen again."
The leader of a small South Carolina tea party group said her organization first applied for tax-exempt status in 2010 — and is still waiting for the application to be processed.
"Nearly three years in waiting for an answer is totally unacceptable," said Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County Tea Party. "The IRS needs to be fully investigated and held accountable for its incompetence harassment and targeting of conservative groups."
Belsom said her group in rural South Carolina has about 60 members and "seeks to educate ourselves and fellow citizens on various issues pertinent to living in a free country." The group also holds candidate forums in election years, she said.
"I'd like to note that our group is a small-time operation with very little money and this represents a complete waste of time by the IRS in terms of any money they would collect if we were not tax-exempt," Belsom said.
For more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, IRS agents in a Cincinnati office singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.
The report said tea party groups were asked inappropriate questions about their donors, their political affiliations and their positions on political issues. The additional scrutiny delayed applications for an average of nearly two years, making it difficult for many of the groups to raise money."
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The president of another group, the National Organization for Marriage, said the IRS publicly disclosed confidential information about donors. George Eastman said he thought the IRS's release of that information was designed to intimidate contributors to the group — which opposes same-sex marriage — "to chill them from donating again."
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Now, name one lib group that had it's donor names and info made public in the election process....
you can't.
So, there you go. More info to decide you are wrong, Heck. It seems so much like a dishonest game with you and political issues.
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You should be more worried about the middle east quickly descending into anarchy but by all means worry about the tax status of tea party organizations.
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You should be more worried about the middle east quickly descending into anarchy but by all means worry about the tax status of tea party organizations.
agree about the middle east but to quote your boy woodie " cant we handle more than one thing at a time?"You should be more worried about the middle east quickly descending into anarchy but by all means worry about the tax status of tea party organizations.
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There's so much "nothing there", that there are now
a dozen FBI investigators on the case. I hope Ms. Lerner goes to the pokey.
And anyone else who would use gov power to intimidate political views they don't like.
And I don't care what side goes after what side. The PRINCIPLE is, everybody is equal
in the eyes of the law. NOT according to the left....or the right, in case that ever happens.
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Last night, Mitch McConnell told a crowd at the American Enterprise Institute that they shouldn't the IRS controversy to turn into an real scandal:
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the conservative American Enterprise Institute on Friday to update a warning he issued at the same venue one year ago about President Obama’s supposedly anti-free speech administration.
But the subtext was actually quite different: McConnell effectively acknowledged to disappointed conservatives that recently revealed IRS malfeasance probably wasn’t the consequence of any direct action taken by the White House.
“There might be some folks out there waiting for a hand signed memo from President Obama to Lois Learner to turn up,” he said, referring to conservatives and Republicans who have charged that the IRS was following White House instructions when it targeted conservative non-profits. “Do not hold your breath.”
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Aww! But but but...obamao!
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