azazel the cat wrote:
Sounds like education to me. Irrespective of what side of the aisle the perpetrators sit on, misinformation in the media should always be corrected. (and by "corrected" I mean validated/invalidated via peer-reviewed, published scientific studies with proper methodology)

 Frazzled wrote:
I pity Canada. God help them if you get into power. You have no conception of freedom of speech do you boy.

The rright of free speech is a benefit. To utilize that right all speech must generally be permitted, not just GoodSpeech.

 dogma wrote:

Spoiler:

 whembly wrote:
Another splash of mud in the IRS' name:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/conservative-activist-green-name-gets-irs-stamp-approval-193457897.html

In May 2011, Drew Ryun, a conservative activist and former Republican National Committee staffer, began filling out the Internal Revenue Service application to achieve nonprofit status for a new conservative watchdog group.

He submitted the paperwork to the IRS in July 2011 for a research site called Media Trackers, which calls itself a “non-partisan investigative watchdog dedicated to promoting accountability in the media and government.” Although the site has investigated Republicans like Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the site’s organizers are unapologetically conservative.

“One thing we don’t hide is: ‘Yeah, we’re conservative—free-market, free-enterprise, full-spectrum conservative,’” Ryun told Mother Jones magazine last year.

Eight months passed without word from the agency about the group’s application, Ryun said. In February 2012, Ryun’s attorney contacted the IRS to ask if it needed more information to secure its nonprofit status as a 501(c)3 organization. According to Ryun, the IRS told him that the application was being processed by the agency’s office in Cincinnati, Ohio—the same one currently facing scrutiny for targeting conservative groups—and to check back in two months.

As directed, Ryun followed up with the IRS in April 2012, and was told that Media Trackers’ application was still under review.

When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone nonprofit status, and he tried a new approach: He applied for permanent nonprofit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.

The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions’ request for permanent nonprofit status in three weeks.

Can we say here... BUSTED!

No.

There is a difference between applying for nonprofit status and filing as a nonprofit. And the article itself even alludes to this fact:

Having a previous file with the IRS could very well have been the reason Greenhouse's application was approved so quickly.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Media Matters specifically targets what it terms "Conservative misinformation", without extending the same critical eye to left leaning misinformation. It should be plain to see that they are a partisan group, and should therefore not have been eligible for the tax-exempt status that they have received.

 whembly wrote:

I'm not trying to be snarky...

But, what's the difference between "filing" vs "applying"? Shouldn't both those actions warrant the same scrutiny (if any) by the IRS?

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Sounds like education to me. Irrespective of what side of the aisle the perpetrators sit on, misinformation in the media should always be corrected. (and by "corrected" I mean validated/invalidated via peer-reviewed, published scientific studies with proper methodology)

I agree that misinformation should be corrected. However it should be done in a non-partisan way. Media Matters specifically targets what it terms "Conservative misinformation", without extending the same critical eye to left leaning misinformation. It should be plain to see that they are a partisan group, and should therefore not have been eligible for the tax-exempt status that they have received.

The President couldn’t even bring himself to breathe a word of the truth.
He could fire some hapless Acting Commissioner, but last night Mr. Obama never came close to discussing that which must never be discussed.

The IRS?

It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but a union whose current president, Colleen Kelly, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and Obama administration appointee (of which more in a moment).

It’s about 94% of NTEU union contributions going to Democrats in the Senate and House in 2012 — candidates who campaigned as vociferous opponents of the Tea Party.

And the recently released report from the Treasury Inspector General? You will not find a single reference to the NTEU. Whose members are both player and referee in the exploding controversy over the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

Which raises the obvious question: how many NTEU members were involved in the writing of the Inspector General’s report?

Even more to the point, what contact — what coordination — has the Obama White House had with their allies in the NTEU leadership as both the White House and the NTEU race to get on top of a scandal that is rapidly engulfing both?

Did I mention that the NTEU has no comment on all of this? And that when President Obama went in front of cameras to make his statement on the IRS scandal — he never once mentioned his very powerful union buddies that have the run of the IRS? Right down to the control of who gets a Blackberry? Literally.

Let’s first see how the IRS/NTEU game with the Tea Party and conservatives is played, shall we?

In the 2012 election cycle, the IRS union gave its money this way:

For the U.S. Senate:
Total to Democrats: $156,750
Total to Republicans: $1,000

For the U.S. House:
Total to Democrats: $391,062
Total to Republicans: $23,000

And the candidates on the receiving end of those IRS employee dollars? Yes indeed. They were candidates who were running flat out against the Tea Party, depicting Tea Party-supported candidates as dangerous, extremists, and crazies. Exhibiting exactly the anti-Tea Party antipathy on the campaign trail that has been revealed to be permeating the IRS.

No wonder. These Senate and House races were fueled in part by money donated by IRS employees.

Let’s take a look at specific races where the IRS employee money was involved.
• Wisconsin: One of those IRS employee-backed Senate candidates was Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who in fact won her Senate race over ex-Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.

The NTEU, the union representing IRS employees, gave Baldwin $8,500. And what was Baldwin’s view of the Tea Party? If you check over here at the Midwest Values PAC, a left-wing political action committee set up by liberal Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, you will find this headline:

National Memo: Tammy Baldwin Runs Straight At The Tea Party

The story begins this way, and I have put the key sentence in bold print:

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin wants to be the first openly gay candidate elected to the United States Senate. In an exclusive interview with The National Memo over the weekend, she made clear how she means to go about doing it: running straight at the Tea Party.

• Indiana: In the Indiana Senate race, the Democrats’ candidate was Joe Donnelly, who used his $5,000 contribution to run a winning anti-Tea Party race against Republican Richard Mourdock. Donnelly’s campaign website, presumably financed in part with the money contributed by IRS employees, has this headline attacking the Tea Party:

FACT CHECK: Mourdock Trying to Change Subject from Extreme TEA Party Views

The text of the Donnelly press release begins this way, with a direct attack on the Tea Party:

Indianapolis, Ind.—Today, Joe Donnelly’s campaign responded to Richard Mourdock’s latest ad trying to change the subject from his pattern of extreme TEA Party views.

“Hoosier voters are rejecting Richard Mourdock’s pattern of TEA Party extreme positions, so he is desperate to change the subject,” said Paul Tencher, campaign manager. “In fact, Indiana voters are responding to Joe’s message of working with both parties to get things done for middle class families. The only person playing politics in this race is Mr. Mourdock, as he tries to distract voters from his extreme views that are out of the mainstream.”

• Missouri: Over in the Missouri Senate race between Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Todd Akin, the IRS employee money — in the form of a $10,000 contribution to McCaskill — was used by the McCaskill campaign to help send this e-mail to supporters that bluntly attacked the Tea Party as “dangerous”:

Akin’s Rap Sheet Makes It Clear: Tea Party Congressman’s Outside Of The Mainstream Views, Dangerous Policies Are Wrong for Missouri, From his record to his rhetoric, everything about Todd Akin’s Tea Party policies are outside of the mainstream and dangerous for Missouri families.

When Missouri Republicans nominated him last night, they pinned their Senate hopes on a far right, Tea Party Congressman whose candidacy diminishes the party’s prospects for November.

And over in House races? At the very top of the high dollar list were two vividly anti-Tea Party candidates who each received a $10,000 contribution of IRS employee dollars.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi’s strategy was made plain in this interview with liberal columnist Eleanor Clift of the Daily Beast:

Stung by the debt-deal loss, the minority leader plans to get Democrats back on their jobs message and hammer Tea Party lawmakers as extremists who want to destroy government.

• House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: Hoyer famously attacked the Tea Party this way, as seen with this headline:

Hoyer: Tea Party People Come From Unhappy Families
“There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families.”

Understanding all of this — that IRS employees themselves are paying, through their union the NTEU, for the election of anti-Tea Party candidates — the absence of any mention whatsoever of the connection between the IRS and the NTEU puts the IG report in a very different light.

For example.

The IG report says — and I will bold print the key phrases — the following:

The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary potentially involving information requests to be issued.

Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign

intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these

applications for 13 months. This was due to delays in receiving assistance from the Exempt Organizations function Headquarters office. For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications TIGTA reviewed as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).

More than 20 months after the initial case was identified, processing the cases began in earnest. ….IRS officials stated that any donor information received in response to a request from its Determinations Unit was later destroyed.

Just in these opening statements of the IG report there is one very significant and glaring omission.

Where is the NTEU?

Note the phrases in bold print:
“The IRS”
“identified for review Tea Party and other organizations”
“Ineffective management”
“the processing”
“delays in receiving assistance from”
“approved”
“IRS officials stated”
“request from its Determinations Unit”

In each and every case these phrases identify actions taken by people — by IRS employees. IRS employees are members of the NTEU. The NTEU that is using money from these very same IRS employees to fund the campaigns of anti-Tea Party candidates like Baldwin, Donnelly, McCaskill, Pelosi and Hoyer. Not to mention all the rest of the Democrats who got a piece of the IRS employee money action.

As one would suspect, given the enormous clout of the liberal IRS union, it’s all about the politics. Liberal politics and the financing of the liberal welfare state. A federal version, if you will, of the recent famous struggle between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and state employee unions.

How powerful is the NTEU within the IRS?

Look no further than this IG report from back in January of this year that discusses the role the union has inside the IRS bureaucracy in the minutia of which IRS employees get to carry a Blackberry. The report notes:

In June 2010, the IRS and the NTEU signed an agreement to standardize IRS policy regarding which IRS employees would be allowed (referred to as a “profiled” position in the agreement) to receive certain information technology equipment, including aircards and BlackBerry® smartphones.

This doesn’t even mention the power the NTEU has inside the IRS to decide everything from promotion rules to size of employee workspaces and on and on.

So the obvious.

If you are working in the IRS, and you are an NTEU member, and you know your union leadership is funneling your union dues to anti-Tea Party candidates, and your union has so much raw power within the IRS that they even control whether you, an IRS employee, can get even such mundane tech gear as a Blackberry — what attitude are you going to display as you review Tea Party applications that must, by law, come in to the IRS for approval?

You already know what to do. And inside the IRS, that’s exactly what was done. The Tea Party, in the vernacular, was screwed. By IRS bureaucrats whose union money is being used to attack the Tea Party. Of course these IRS employees know what to do — most probably without even being asked. There is no need to ask. And if they don’t follow the union program — and want a Blackberry — tough luck.

And what of the NTEU president, Ms. Kelly? The one-time IRS agent also doubles as an Obama appointee (announced here by the Obama White House) to the Federal Salary Council. Identified in the Washington Post as:
…a panel obscure to most Washingtonians but one that performs a vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees.

Got that? The President of the NTEU — a union that has gone out of its way to use IRS employee money to defeat the Tea Party — has a “vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees” — which includes, of course, IRS employees.

As if IRS employees don’t have enough incentive to go after the Tea Party, their anti-Tea Party president has a say in whether they get not just a Blackberry but a raise as well.

Can you say: “conflict of interest”?

Let’s stop here and take a look at a famous incident with the IRS that has made news in the last few days: the Articles of Impeachment filed against President Richard Nixon.

By now, all manner of people have been reminded that President Nixon’s resignation was prompted by the House Judiciary Committee passing Articles of Impeachment, with Article 2, Section One specifically saying:

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

But there’s something missing in this recall of the tale of Nixon and the IRS.

In the early 1970s, President Nixon bypassed Congress and postponed salary increases for General Schedule federal employees. This included, of course, the IRS. The NTEU was furious with Nixon and took the President to court in a case called NTEU v. Nixon. The union won, and the federal government was forced to pay $533 million in back pay to federal employees.

So far, so normal in the world of Washington and relationships between a president and federal employees. Right?

Wrong.

Two years later, in 1974, the year the Watergate scandal reached high tide and Nixon was forced to resign, his abuse of the IRS cited in Article 2 as one of the reasons, there was another story out there involving the IRS and Richard Nixon.

As the liberal drive to get Nixon increased to the force of a political hurricane, reporter Jack White of Rhode Island’s Providence Journal-Evening Bulletin received an illegal leak — from the IRS. Specifically, an illegal leak from someone inside the IRS — an IRS employee — that leaked Richard Nixon’s 1970 and 1971 taxes. There was an immediate uproar — not about the leak or the identity of the leaker — but over the accusation that Nixon had underpaid his taxes. The House Judiciary Committee took the information and ran with it, opening an entire line of inquiry about Nixon’s tax deductions. So public was this it resulted in Nixon famously answering a question at a press conference this way:

People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.

And while people are remembering Nixon in the current furor over the IRS because of his own abuse of the IRS and Article 2, there was another Article —Article 4

— that was based on the leaked information from the still-unknown IRS employee to reporter Jack White. Read Article 4:
He knowingly and fraudulently failed to report certain income and claimed deductions in the year 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 on his Federal income tax returns which were not authorized by law, including deductions for a gift of papers to the United States valued at approximately $576,000.

Nixon vigorously disputed this, of course. But it didn’t matter. He was out the door, forced to resign. A leak from the IRS to the media about Nixon’s taxes one big no-never-mind.

And what happened to reporter Jack White? The man who received the illegal leak of Nixon’s tax returns — a violation of law — and published them?

Jack White was rewarded by his liberal media peers with the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for National Reporting.

So.

What’s really going on with the IRS?

The Internal Revenue Service , with all of its mighty taxing and police powers, is in the hands of anti-Tea Party, anti-conservative, political activists. Liberal political activists from the NTEU masquerading as neutral career bureaucrats. The money of IRS employees used to fuel the National Treasury Employees Union’s open and expensive assault on the Tea Party and conservatives.

And comment on all this from the NTEU? Here’s this from the Washington Post:

So far, the National Treasury Employees Union, which generally is not shy with public comment, has next to nothing to say about that or anything else.

“NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.

A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: “We’ve been directed by national office. We have no comment.”

No comment? No wonder.

“IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases”??!! What a joke.

Here in the Wall Street Journal is author James Bovard with a short history of the political manipulation of the IRS by various presidents, and Bovard notes that: “With the current IRS scandal, we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg.”

Aside from Nixon they include FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton. The difference is the latter three weren’t forced to resign because of it — and Clinton’s abuse of the IRS was not include in the Articles of Impeachment that focused on his lying to a grand jury over that liberal favorite — sexual harassment.

The real question now?

With the IRS assuming serious police powers of Obamacare, in effect the members of one left-wing labor union will have access to the private health care records of every single American.

And notes the Wall Street Journal, again the bold print for emphasis:

This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.

Got that? The real meaning here is that the NTEU is asking for 1,954 more union members whose union dues will be put to use to “hammer the Tea Party” in the words of Nancy Pelosi.

As James Taranto also noted over in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

The Internal Revenue Service last year supplied a left-leaning nonprofit charity with confidential information about conservative organizations, which the charity disseminated to the public, ProPublica reported yesterday.

Once again, IRS employees — they of the anti-Tea Party union NTEU — were caught leaking private information.

Did I mention they were targeting Billy Graham — 95 year old Billy Graham??!!! Why? Because the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was urging “voters to back ‘candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles….’”

You know what terrifies every liberal in America right now? You want to know the real reason President Obama abruptly felt the need to go on national television last night and fire the Acting Commissioner of the IRS last night as Americans were having their dinner?

The distinct possibility that the IRS and the whole confection of Big Government liberalism built around the federal taxing power is about to implode in scandal.

Big scandal. The kind of scandal that will make Watergate look like a piker.

And the irony?

That in seeking to destroy the credibility of the Tea Party, the Obama administration and its allies have destroyed not just the credibility of the IRS and one very seriously powerful union.

They have destroyed their own credibility.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
That is, hands down, the most bonkers tinfoil hat screed I have ever seen posted on Dakka. I feel significantly dumber having read it.

It takes the fact that the employees all form a single union and jumps straight from that to deciding that the union is calling the shots.

Um, what?

The employees are also probably all netflix subscribers. When will netflix come clean about their hand in this?

 whembly wrote:
Man.. the hit just keeps coming.

This group was told its tax-exempt application depended not on promising to stay out of electoral politics, but on pledging not to protest Planned Parenthood.

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

 streamdragon wrote:
It also shows a staggering lack of knowledge of how the federal employment system works.

"The union decided promotions": next to impossible. Each position within the government has a range of grades associated with it. You can be brought on at any grade within the position, commensurate to your experience and prior time (if any) within the federal government. Each year after that, assuming you haven't done anything to warrant being fired or placed on probation, you automatically promote to the next grade. So if a position is from GS11 through GS13, and you are brought in as a GS11, after your first year you automatically get promoted to GS12. The year after that, GS13. Once you reach the top grade for a particular position, you start moving up the "step" system. GS13-1, GS13-2, GS13-3 ,etc. all the way to GS13-10. After that, there's no more promotion potential. Unless you change positions, you are done, regardless of what any union says.

"But Stream, they'll control who moves between positions!"

Bullcrap. The hiring process in the federal government usually takes forever because of how regulated it is. HR takes in all the resumes for a particular position. Anyone without correct experience or education is immediately rejected. Once the first cull is done, veterans and people with disabilities are moved to the top of the list. If there are none, the candidates are given scores according to experience and education. The position is then awarded to one of the top three candidates, with management being required to submit written justification if the TOP candidate is not chosen.

I mean really, there's certainly a wealth of things to pick apart in that piece of conspiracy trash.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Man.. the hit just keeps coming.

This group was told its tax-exempt application depended not on promising to stay out of electoral politics, but on pledging not to protest Planned Parenthood.

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

Forget people getting fired, if the above is true some people need to go to jail.

Seriously, making life difficult for people because of the political affiliation of their not-for-profit is one thing and bad enough in itself, directly contacting them and telling them what political action they can and cannot take is something else entirely.

Agreed... but, I seriously doubt they'll find anything concrete. All we know is their actions and hearsay. It's going to take some time to sort this out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Damn... the quote thingy is goober'ed up.

Bullcrap. The hiring process in the federal government usually takes forever because of how regulated it is. HR takes in all the resumes for a particular position. Anyone without correct experience or education is immediately rejected. Once the first cull is done, veterans and people with disabilities are moved to the top of the list. If there are none, the candidates are given scores according to experience and education. The position is then awarded to one of the top three candidates, with management being required to submit written justification if the TOP candidate is not chosen.

whembly wrote:>snipped my quote<
Huh... didn't know that. Is that true for basically all Federal Jobs (other than the elected officials)?

So, working for the feds is like getting tenure?


That part didn't jive... I didn't want to parse that article so I posted the whole thing...

I thought it might've been one attempt to explain why the IRS in general is hostile towards the tea party / patriot /conservative groups.

Jihadin wrote:

Bullcrap. The hiring process in the federal government usually takes forever because of how regulated it is. HR takes in all the resumes for a particular position. Anyone without correct experience or education is immediately rejected. Once the first cull is done, veterans and people with disabilities are moved to the top of the list. If there are none, the candidates are given scores according to experience and education. The position is then awarded to one of the top three candidates, with management being required to submit written justification if the TOP candidate is not chosen.

Steam right. Also its law for them to post the job but have someone already in line for it....its a point syste they use

5 points for a vet
10 points for a disable vet

then the disability rating goes into play. Go o USAJOBS and make an account...and a resume....and go through the process for the positon. Its quite interesting. Like someone said though....have a security clearence thats active and be prepared to get fitted into a position that won't relate to the outside world.

 Jihadin wrote:
Think Obama kind of made that into law. Veterans are to be giving first consideration on gov't jobs. Wounded Warrior units are giving oppurtunity to OJT for six or more months. Also depending on deployment assignments be it Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, or Qatar one if smart enough would have establish a network

Also another thing about USAJOB tailor your resume to the job being offered. There's a keyword filter to

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

 Frazzled wrote:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/17/flashback-schumer-franken-urged-irs-to-target-tea-party-in-2012/

A reminder that members of Congress have actively called for this to occur in the past.

 dogma wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/17/flashback-schumer-franken-urged-irs-to-target-tea-party-in-2012/

A reminder that members of Congress have actively called for this to occur in the past.

Called for what to occur? A crackdown on 501(c)(4)s? Because the only component of that article which claims that Schumer and Franken urged the IRS to target the Tea Party is the headline.

 streamdragon wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/17/flashback-schumer-franken-urged-irs-to-target-tea-party-in-2012/

A reminder that members of Congress have actively called for this to occur in the past.

Called for what to occur? A crackdown on 501(c)(4)s? Because the only component of that article which claims that Schumer and Franken urged the IRS to target the Tea Party is the headline.

But that's the most important part! That's why it's first, right?!

 whembly wrote:


IRS Made Calculated Decision to Not Confess to Political Scandal Until After the 2012 Elections:
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-irs-deliberately-chose-not-fess-scandal-election_724711.html

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

I really doubt it would had that much impact, if at all, to the election... but, damn!

 whembly wrote:

Isn't it more plausible that this is a case of Henry II's "will someone rid me of this toublesome priest" event?

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Isn't it more plausible that this is a case of Henry II's "will someone rid me of this toublesome priest" event?

No.

It's not.

It is not more plausible that the IRS was listening to off hand comments made by senators who they do not answer to and changed policies to attack those senators' political opponents than it is that the IRS took a wrongheaded and ill advised shortcut in determining which groups were political in nature.

Hanlon's Razor.

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. "He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?" asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.
Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.

The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn't account for what the president's vilification has done to his business and reputation.

Donate, and the president would at best tie you to Big Oil or Wall Street, at worst put your name in bold, and flag you as "less than reputable" to everyone who worked for him: the IRS, the SEC, the Justice Department. The president didn't need a telephone; he had a megaphone.

The same threat was made to conservative groups that might dare play in the election. As early as January 2010, Mr. Obama would, in his state of the union address, cast aspersions on the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, claiming that it "reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests" (read conservative groups).

The president derided "tea baggers." Vice President Joe Biden compared them to "terrorists." In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. "Nobody knows who's paying for these ads," he warned. "We don't know where this money is coming from," he intoned.

In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: "All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."

The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see. In his Tuesday press grilling, no question agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney more than the one that got to the heart of the matter: Given the president's "animosity" toward Citizens United, might he have "appreciated or wanted the IRS to be looking and scrutinizing those . . ." Mr. Carney cut off the reporter with "That's a preposterous assertion."

Preposterous because, according to Mr. Obama, he is "outraged" and "angry" that the IRS looked into the very groups and individuals that he spent years claiming were shady, undemocratic, even lawbreaking. After all, he expects the IRS to "operate with absolute integrity." Even when he does not.

probably isn't beneficial to society at all, but it doesn't reduce the value or impact of free speech.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:


IRS Made Calculated Decision to Not Confess to Political Scandal Until After the 2012 Elections:
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-irs-deliberately-chose-not-fess-scandal-election_724711.html

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

I really doubt it would had that much impact, if at all, to the election... but, damn!

Why is this shocking?

The OP article noted that IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman publicly noted the issue in March 2012, so why would IRS Commissioner Steven Miller not be aware of it?

Moreover, Steven Miller hasn't been IRS Commissioner for a full year.

 whembly wrote:

Isn't it more plausible that this is a case of Henry II's "will someone rid me of this toublesome priest" event?

 whembly wrote:

See here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578487332636180800.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet%22

Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

 whembly wrote:

and here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323582904578487460479247792.html

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:


IRS Made Calculated Decision to Not Confess to Political Scandal Until After the 2012 Elections:
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-irs-deliberately-chose-not-fess-scandal-election_724711.html

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

I really doubt it would had that much impact, if at all, to the election... but, damn!

Why is this shocking?

The OP article noted that IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman publicly noted the issue in March 2012, so why would IRS Commissioner Steven Miller not be aware of it?

Moreover, Steven Miller hasn't been IRS Commissioner for a full year.

Actually the person Congress should be asking these questions is Sarah Hall Ingram, who is now in charge of Obamacare(scary thought doncha think?).

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Preposterous because, according to Mr. Obama, he is "outraged" and "angry" that the IRS looked into the very groups and individuals that he spent years claiming were shady, undemocratic, even lawbreaking. After all, he expects the IRS to "operate with absolute integrity." Even when he does not.

 Frazzled wrote:

Yes. She should be fired out of hand and then criinal charges pursued.

 dogma wrote:
I'm curious as to what Obama's breach of integrity was. Are politicians no longer allowed to make political statements?

an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record."

The president derided "tea baggers." Vice President Joe Biden compared them to "terrorists." In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. "Nobody knows who's paying for these ads," he warned. "We don't know where this money is coming from," he intoned.

"All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."

 Mr Hyena wrote:

probably isn't beneficial to society at all, but it doesn't reduce the value or impact of free speech.

So there is no point in silencing it then.

It starts with good intentions. Then its silencing your opposition.