"Mistakes Were Made"

[B-Man]

The IRS Scandal, Day 32.

 

 

IRS Management Culture Must Be Fixed.

 

 

IRS Agent Tells Group To “Keep Your Religion To Yourself.” Really. “A pro-life legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom, released audio today of a 2012 phone call between an IRS agent and the head of a Texas pregnancy counseling group. During the phone call, IRS agent Sherry Wan is heard lecturing Ania Joseph about how she can’t have a tax exemption and also push her religious beliefs— a bit of advice that would be quite interesting to every church in America.”

People should probably consider taping every interaction with the IRS. It’s your constitutional right.

 

 

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Obama: ‘We Don’t Want to Tax All Businesses Out of Business.’

[DC Tom]

From your post #224:

 

"What on earth makes you think I don't want him to be one"?

What makes you think my second statement doesn't directly inform my first?

 

Good grief. You're both my bitches.

[3rdnlng]

 

 

 

Good grief. You're both my bitches.

 

Spoken like the true assmudgeon you are.

[GG]

Exactly which talents did he waste? The only talents I've seen so far are the ability to read off a TP with forcefulness and the ability to raise money. He hasn't come close to wasting those talents.

 

I think 3rd was projecting the disappointment with Rob Johnson & JP Losman. The POTENTIAL to use that talent was there, execution, not so much.

[3rdnlng]

 

 

I think 3rd was projecting the disappointment with Rob Johnson & JP Losman. The POTENTIAL to use that talent was there, execution, not so much.

 

Well said.

[Nanker]

Hey, anybody ever see Putney Swope?

[B-Man]

The IRS Scandal, Day 34.

 

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL BIAS: The Problem Is Not Just IRS Lawyers; The Problem Is All Federal Government Lawyers.

 

 

The results for the IRS were striking.

Of the IRS lawyers who made contributions in the 2012 election, 95% contributed to Obama rather than to Romney. So among IRS lawyers, the ratio of Obama contributors to Romney contributors was not merely 4-to-1 as previously reported, but more like 20-to-1. The ratio of funds to Obama was even more lopsided, with about 32 times as much money going to Obama as to Romney from IRS lawyers.

 

So has the IRS gone off the rails into hyper-partisanship, leaving behind other more balanced federal agencies? …

 

The data show, however, that the partisanship of the lawyers in the IRS is not unusual or even particularly extreme among federal agencies. In fact, the lawyers in every single federal government agency–from the Department of Education [

100%

] to the Department of Defense [

68%

] — contributed overwhelmingly to Obama compared to Romney. The table below shows the results for all agencies with at least 20 employees who contributed to either Obama or Romney. . . .

 

The root of the problem is the rule by a class of career government employee lawyers who lack the diversity of opinion that is found in the non-lawyer private sector

. The IRS inquiry, rather than focusing narrowly on “who knew what” within the agency, should lead to a top-to-bottom rethinking of who’s doing the administration in the modern bureaucratic administrative state.

 

 

This makes the notion of a “nonpartisan” civil service ring rather hollow.

 

 

 

 

.

Edited June 12, 2013 by B-Man

[3rdnlng]

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/322-irs-visits-to-white-house/?cat_orig=us

 

 

WASHINGTON – The explosion of intelligence-gathering scandals is giving the left time to get its story straight, at least, on the IRS scandal.

 

The IRS’ targeting of conservative groups has fallen out of public view, at least momentarily, as the NSA and PRISM data-collection scandals have burst onto the scene.

 

But, behind the scenes, the left is catching its breath and regrouping, having come up with what it says is an explanation for at least 157 visits to the White House by former IRS Director Douglas Shulman between 2010 and 2012.

 

By comparison, Shulman’s predecessor Mark Everson visited the White House only one time in four years during the George W. Bush administration, according to the Daily Caller.

 

The much greater number of visits by Shulman made many people skeptical of his claim that he never discussed the targeting of conservatives with anyone at the White House.

 

Now, the Atlantic has pushed the narrative that it was really only 11 visits, not 157.

 

The liberal magazine said White House logs show Shulman signed in only 11 times.

 

“According to the White House records, Shulman signed in twice in 2009, five times in 2010, twice in 2011 and twice in 2012,” the Atlantic reported.

 

But that’s no proof Shulman visited the White House only 11 times, or even fewer than 157 times. As the Atlantic also acknowledged, the number of times he signed in “does not mean that he did not go to other meetings, only that the White House records do not show he went to the 157 meetings he was granted Secret Service clearance to attend.”

 

That’s because Cabinet members and other important visitors often don’t sign in when they visit the White House.

 

The Atlantic also conceded that point, noting confirmation of the visits “don’t always show up in the visitor’s access records.”

 

“Neither do visits by staffers, journalists covering large events, or people who enter the White House grounds in their pre-cleared cars, like Cabinet members, who do not wait for badge swipes at the gate with the policymaking hoi polloi.”

 

The Atlantic also maintained Shulman was in the White House to discuss implementation of Obamacare because he was “cleared 40 times to meet with Obama’s director of the Office of Health Reform, and a further 80 times for the biweekly health reform deputies meetings and others set up by aides involved with the health-care law implementation efforts.”

 

But if that were so, why did Shulman have such difficulty explaining to a congressional committee the purpose of his visits, citing as his No. 1 reason the Easter Egg Roll?

 

When asked by a Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Gerald Conolly, D-Va., why he visited the White House so often during a two year period, Shulman responded: “Um, the Easter Egg Roll with my kids, questions about the administrability of tax policy they were thinking of, our budget, us helping the Department of Education streamline application processes for financial aid.”

 

 

Not one mention of Obamacare.

 

A former White House staffer says the sheer numbers make it hard to believe the IRS did not make the White House aware of the targeting of conservatives long before it became public knowledge.

 

Doug Wead served in the administrations of both President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush. Wead noted: “Sarah Hall Ingram, the woman responsible for the IRS division that targeted conservative and constitutional groups, made 165 visits to the White House since 2011″ making for a total of 322 visits between her and her boss, Shulman.

 

Between the two of them, he calculated, that’s almost one visit every other working day.

 

Wead wondered: “[C]an one meet with the president hundreds of times and not talk about ones work? Isn’t the president too busy to talk about life? Or to quiz an IRS official about personal gossip at the agency? Wouldn’t a chief executive want to know what she is doing and how she is doing it? And would she really make hundreds of visits without the details of her work ever coming up? What would be the purpose of the visits?”

 

He is particularly skeptical of Ingram. He said “the administrator of the IRS division that targeted conservative groups, the one who made 165 visits to the White House and supposedly never uttered a word about what she was doing, was given a $100,000 bonus and promoted to run the enforcement of ObamaCare. What is that? Coincidence? A payoff?”

 

The IRS scandal likely won’t stay out of the headlines much longer.

 

Chairman Issa is planning to haul Lois Lerner back before his House oversight committee.

 

Lerner is the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division who attempted to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions before the committee in May.

 

However, she first read a statement claiming her innocence. Issa’s spokesman, Ali Ahmed, said that after consulting with counsel, Issa has concluded that Lerner’s Fifth Amendment assertion is no longer valid.

 

Lerner has blamed the entire scandal on two low-level IRS employees in the Cincinnati office.

 

However, two workers in that office have since told reporters their work was tightly supervised by superiors in Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/322-irs-visits-to-white-house/#jZVChR2yA5AIWdTy.99

[B-Man]

Blaming Cincinnati a ‘Nuclear Strike on Us,’ Says Cincy IRS Employee

 

A Cincinnati-based Internal Revenue Service employee is pushing back against claims by Lois Lerner and other top IRS officials that the agency’s Cincinnati office was responsible for the the targeting of tea-party groups and the botched processing of their applications for tax exemption.

 

Elizabeth Hofacre, who coordinated “emerging issues” cases for the IRS and handled all tea-party applications between April and August 2010, called Lerner’s May 10 disclosure of the scandal at a tax-law conference “a nuclear strike” on Cincinnati employees. Hofacre told House Oversight Committee investigators in an interview, the transcript of which has been reviewed by National Review Online, that her boss immediately called her to apologize on Lerner’s behalf, presumably because “she was flabbergasted that Lois had made such a statement” and “appalled that Lois Lerner said that.”

 

Responding to a planted question from a friend in the audience at the American Bar Association conference, Lerner revealed that the IRS had inappropriately discriminated against tea-party groups, and pointed the finger at “our line people in Cincinnati.” She also said that Cincinnati employees were responsible for the delays in the processing of tea-party applications and for asking intrusive questions of the groups “that weren’t really necessary for the type of application.”

 

Upon hearing this, “I was furious,” Hofacre told investigators.

 

Hofacre also charged that top brass in the IRS, including Lerner, have misled the public by blaming the scandal on a few rogue employees. “Everybody that has been making those statements should know they are inaccurate,” she said. Asked whether “the public has been purposely misled,” Hofacre responded, “Exactly.”

 

Like Lerner, Joseph Grant, the commissioner of the IRS’s Tax-Exempt and Government Entities division who retired in early June, blamed “front-line career employees” in Cincinnati, while inspector general J. Russell George in his report faulted “insufficient oversight,” specifically by “first-line management in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

 

Hofacre explained that, contrary to the claims of IRS officials, agency managers in both Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., “have really tight inventory-control systems” and know “exactly what cases we had, how old they are,” and ”how long we have had them.”

 

“These two rogue agents running amok for three years, even for three months, it would never happen,” she said.

 

 

.

Edited June 13, 2013 by B-Man

[B-Man]

POLL: Most Americans Think IRS Targeting An Intentional Act To Punish Political Opponents.

 

“Two-thirds of American voters (66 percent) think the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups as part of a high-level operation to punish political opponents. Far fewer — 23 percent — think it was a mistake by a handful of lower-level IRS employees.

 

Even Democrats, by a seven percentage-point margin, are more likely to think the targeting was a punitive measure ordered by higher-ups.”

 

 

 

 

George Will: There’s more, much more, to the Lois Lerner story.

Lerner, it is prudent to assume, is one among thousands like her who infest the regulatory state. She is not just a bureaucratic bully and a slithering partisan; she also is a national security problem, because she is contributing to a comprehensive distrust of government

.

 

 

.

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

Most transparent administration in history! Yes we can!

[B-Man]

When Your W-2 Meets an AR-15

By Mark Steyn

 

 

When the IRS is accused of “targeting,” don’t assume they’re speaking metaphorically. From Politico:

As chairman of the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee, [Jeff] Duncan (R-S.C.) toured a federal law enforcement facility in late May and noticed agents training with the semi-automatic weapons at a firing range. They identified themselves as IRS, he said.

“When I left there, it’s been bugging me for weeks now, why IRS agents are training with a semi-automatic rifle AR-15, which has stand-off capability,” Duncan told POLITICO. “Are Americans that much of a target that you need that kind of capability..?

“I think Americans raise eyebrows when you tell them that IRS agents are training with a type of weapon that has stand-off capability. It’s not like they’re carrying a sidearm and they knock on someone’s door and say, ‘You’re evading your taxes,’” Duncan said.

 

 

A bureaucracy is bad.

 

A politicized bureaucracy is worse.

 

A paramilitary politicized bureaucracy is nuts. And, in fact, evil. There is no reason in a civilized society why the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Paperwork should have his own SEAL Team Six. As I wrote in the magazine last year:

By the way, I use the word “agents” rather than “officials” because, in the developed world, the paramilitarized bureaucracy is uniquely American. This is the only G7 government whose education minister has his own SWAT team — for policing student-loan compliance. The other day, the Gibson guitar company settled with the feds over an arcane infraction of a law on rare-wood importation — after their factories were twice raided by “agents” bearing automatic weapons. Like the man said, don’t bring a knife to a guitar fight. Do musical-instrument manufacturers have a particular reputation for violence?

 

The Gibson raid looks a little different in light of recent revelations. Oh, well. Could have been worse. Its chief executive — a Republican donor — might have been shot for “resisting arrest,” right?

[B-Man]

Today's scandal....................................Even after exposure, this administration shows NO sign of actually changing how they operate.

 

 

This is not a real investigation, but a stalling tactic.

 

 

 

 

FBI hasn't contacted a single tea party group in IRS probe, groups say

There is no evidence that the FBI has contacted a single tea party group in its criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service, according to the groups the IRS abused.

 

We have not been contacted by any federal investigative agency and, to date, none of our clients have been contacted or interviewed by the FBI; Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told The Daily Caller on Thursday. The ACLJ has filed suit against the IRS on behalf of 25 conservative groups, with additional groups being added in the next couple weeks, according to a spokesman.

 

I have been very surprised that I have not heard from anybody and frankly, none of my clients have. I talk to other tea party leaders on a regular basis,” said Cleta Mitchell, the lawyer largely credited with pushing the IRS abuses to the forefront.

The revelation suggests that the FBI is in no hurry to get to the bottom of the scandal, despite the Obama administration's promise to investigate the IRS's multi-year abuse of conservative groups.

 

{snip}

 

“Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” Obama said in a White House statement on May 15. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives.”

 

Attorney General Eric Holder promised in mid-May that the FBI would get to the bottom of the IRS’s behavior by opening a criminal investigation.

“I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this,” Holder told congressional investigators on May 15. “This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.”

 

But in separate testimony before congressional investigators Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller seemed completely unaware of the progress of any such investigation.

 

 

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan lit into Mueller for his lack of knowledge during a House judiciary committee hearing.

 

“This is the most important issue in front of the country in the last six weeks, and you don’t know who the lead investigator is?” Jordan asked, sounding shocked.

 

“At this juncture, no I do not,” Mueller responded.

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.c.../#ixzz2WCvIJpkx

Edited June 14, 2013 by B-Man

[DC Tom]

Today's scandal....................................Even after exposure, this administration shows NO sign of actually changing how they operate.

 

 

This is not a real investigation, but a stalling tactic.

 

 

 

 

 

FBI hasn't contacted a single tea party group in IRS probe, groups say

 

There is no evidence that the FBI has contacted a single tea party group in its criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service, according to the groups the IRS abused.

 

We have not been contacted by any federal investigative agency and, to date, none of our clients have been contacted or interviewed by the FBI; Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told The Daily Caller on Thursday. The ACLJ has filed suit against the IRS on behalf of 25 conservative groups, with additional groups being added in the next couple weeks, according to a spokesman.

 

I have been very surprised that I have not heard from anybody and frankly, none of my clients have. I talk to other tea party leaders on a regular basis,” said Cleta Mitchell, the lawyer largely credited with pushing the IRS abuses to the forefront.

 

The revelation suggests that the FBI is in no hurry to get to the bottom of the scandal, despite the Obama administration's promise to investigate the IRS's multi-year abuse of conservative groups.

 

{snip}

 

“Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” Obama said in a White House statement on May 15. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives.”

 

 

Attorney General Eric Holder promised in mid-May that the FBI would get to the bottom of the IRS’s behavior by opening a criminal investigation.

 

“I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this,” Holder told congressional investigators on May 15. “This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.”

 

But in separate testimony before congressional investigators Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller seemed completely unaware of the progress of any such investigation.

 

 

 

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan lit into Mueller for his lack of knowledge during a House judiciary committee hearing.

 

“This is the most important issue in front of the country in the last six weeks, and you don’t know who the lead investigator is?” Jordan asked, sounding shocked.

 

“At this juncture, no I do not,” Mueller responded.

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.c.../#ixzz2WCvIJpkx

 

 

In their defense, the FBI's probably stretched pretty thin investigating all the scandals right now...

[Cinga]

In their defense, the FBI's probably stretched pretty thin investigating all the scandals right now...

 

Your right.... I'm willing to cut them some slack for having their head too far up PBOs a55 to do anything now...

 

I think we need to go in... rectally... and save our Republic....

 

[OCinBuffalo]

OC do you never tire of being wrong? here's an exercise for you, go to a mall and ask a thousand random people what they think about (the IRS scandal, the AP scandal or Benghazi) don't explain it just ask, I think you'll find about as much knowledge and interest as when I bring up LIBOR and ICAP manipulation or HSBC money laundering- the upcoming elections are going to depend on fund rising and demographics - you have been miserable in your political predictions and that is because you can't separate how you want things to be with how they are but I'll give you this, I think Obama has blown his chance at a third term.

But, I am once again: Right. And you have to eat it, again. Who is stating fact in this discussion, and who is applying wishful thinking?

 

First let's deal with ...lybob per my standard approach: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=irs+scandal+polls

 

As such, I don't to go to a mall or ask anybody anything, as everybody, who gets paid to do that, already has.

 

It is as I said it would be: This is a huge problem for the Ds, and they are going to be put to a decision. Either you cut Obama, and the far-left "big government is the answer/we don't have to end the LBJ/FDR legacy, we need to expand it" agenda loose, or, you face losing the next 2 elections, at least. Why? Because NOBODY TRUSTS YOU, the 28% of America who thinks the IRS scandal isn't a scandal. Another name for that group? The far left.

 

The only question will be: how big will you lose ? You can wishful think, or read Dana Millbank columns, or yell at me. When you get done doing that, the decision will still confront you. This is because every single approach the D party has been using is an avoidance of the big issues(which they know are losers for them), but, each approach has an expiration date, and everything you have in the fridge is about to go rotten.

 

Wanna open the lid on Gay Marriage again, and see how it smells? How about Global Warming? How about "everybody who doesn't support Obama is a racist"? Yeah...all of it is headed one place: the trash.

 

As far as polls go, I'm not going to bother rewriting what I said, or why I was right, because you aren't going to pay attention anyway. Instead, here's reality: now you see the effect that Big Data can have on an election. But, in terms of governing, now you see what happens when the ONLY thing you have is Big Data. Analytics, in this case literally means "microtarget tiny slices of the electorate with a customized message for each", which is another way of saying "lie". Or "tell each group what they want to hear", which means lying collectively.

 

It is not "leadership" which is "convince the electorate as a whole that your plan and your ability to execute that plan is superior". You only get that from a real candidate, a real leader, and your guy: ain't.

 

We have the marketing derived and spammed AntiPresident, or, the Spy-Ware AntiPresident(take your pick, because both are 100% accurate), rather than a real President. The difference, and the results, are obvious, are they not?

[B-Man]

Why the IRS IG Stopped with an Audit :Probably in part because the Obama administration intimidates inspector generals.

 

By Gerald Walpin

 

 

Among all the unanswered questions about the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative organizations, one is most crucial: Who ordered this extreme scrutiny?

 

Amazingly, IRS inspector general J. Russell George, responsible for the investigation asking those questions about the IRS, has testified that he did not obtain that information.

 

Details of that testimony are interesting. Representative Tom Graves (R., Ga.) asked, “Have you asked the individuals who ordered them to use this extra scrutiny to punish, or penalize, or postpone, or deny?” George turns around to confer with his assistant. Just the fact that the inspector general had to confer to know the answer to this crucial question is amazing. George’s assistant says something to him that is not recorded, but one can see the assistant shaking his head back and forth. Then George responds publicly to the question, saying, “During our audit, Congressman, we did pose that question and no one would acknowledge who, if anyone, provided that direction.”

 

Anyone who knows anything about the rights and responsibilities of an inspector general has to be shaking his head in disbelief at George’s explanation. First, every employee of the government has the responsibility to cooperate with and provide information to an IG concerning his work.

 

Second, George was particularly careful to limit his answer to the “audit phase.” Every IG has two procedures to obtain information. One is audit procedure, to which IG George referred. That’s generally limited to accounting analysis, to determine whether there may be reason to open an investigation. Once there is reason — and there clearly was reason here, given the obviously illegal conduct — the IG opens an investigation, in which investigators, not auditors, pose the questions, the department employees are placed under oath, and, as a federal court has approved, informed that “failure to answer completely and truthfully may result in disciplinary action, including dismissal.” The question is why George’s office didn’t do this immediately.

 

From my personal experience as an IG of another agency, I suspect the answer. I do not blame IG George personally, as he is a career civil servant who depends on a steady salary and, thereafter, a pension.

 

But I learned, through being fired by the Obama administration, that performing one’s responsibilities as one should, and potentially adversely affecting the administration’s image, is not the way to keep one’s job. (Fortunately, I was not dependent on my federal IG salary.)

[DC Tom]

 

The problem with that article is Walpin: his conclusion is drawn from his personal experience which is not exclusive of him being something of a knucklehead.

[B-Man]

"Toto, I have a feeling we aren't in Cincinnati anymore."

 

 

IRS supervisor in D.C. admits to overseeing tea party targeting

 

An IRS supervisor working in Washington told congressional investigators that she personally reviewed applications from groups for tax-exempt status, in testimony that appears to show the agency’s scrutiny of conservative groups extended beyond the confines of the office in Cincinnati.

 

 

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/17/irs-supervisor-dc-admits-overseeing-tea-party-targ/

[Koko78]

"Toto, I have a feeling we aren't in Cincinnati anymore."

 

 

IRS supervisor in D.C. admits to overseeing tea party targeting

 

An IRS supervisor working in Washington told congressional investigators that she personally reviewed applications from groups for tax-exempt status, in testimony that appears to show the agency’s scrutiny of conservative groups extended beyond the confines of the office in Cincinnati.

 

http://www.washingto...tea-party-targ/

 

It's ok though, she has friends who are conservatives.