no charges in IRS investigation?

[OCinBuffalo]

Lerner's lawyer wants immunity, or she pleads the 5th?

 

How doesn't that say: Guilty?

 

This is the first time I'm hearing the immunity thing come up in such a big way. I remember there as some talk about it last year.

 

But this is the first time they are having meetings about it, and talking about how/what she might have to say.

[3rdnlng]

Lerner's lawyer wants immunity, or she pleads the 5th?

 

How doesn't that say: Guilty?

 

This is the first time I'm hearing the immunity thing come up in such a big way. I remember there as some talk about it last year.

 

But this is the first time they are having meetings about it, and talking about how/what she might have to say.

 

Link?

[B-Man]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE:

 

 

Roll Call: IRS Uproar Intensifies.

 

“As thousands of negative comments flood the Internal Revenue Service on the eve of a Feb. 27 deadline, GOP leaders are moving on several fronts to block the proposed IRS regulations that would curb political activity by tax-exempt groups. . . . The administration has denied knowledge of the IRS targeting, which Obama has attributed to incompetence, not malicious intent.”

 

 

 

Yeah, I don’t believe that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kimberly Strassel:

All the President’s IRS Agents: The targeting of groups opposed to the Democratic agenda has not ended—it’s gotten worse.

 

 

 

 

.

[3rdnlng]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I don’t believe that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kimberly Strassel:

All the President’s IRS Agents: The targeting of groups opposed to the Democratic agenda has not ended—it’s gotten worse.

 

 

 

 

.

 

Why haven't we seen agents fired for incompetence then?

[B-Man]

The IRS Tries to Stifle Internal Dissent

by Hans A. von Spakovsky

 

Thursday was the deadline for filing public comments on the IRS’s proposed rule to restrict political activity by 501©(4) organizations. Unsurprisingly, the IRS website was flooded with last minute comments.

 

When the bytes had settled, the agency discovered it had received a total of more than 140,000 comments. The vast majority condemned the new rules.

 

Among the landslide of critical comments was one filed by eight former commissioners of the Federal Election Commission. I was one of the signatories. The others were Lee Ann Elliott, Thomas J. Josefiak, David M. Mason, Don McGahn, Bradley A. Smith, Michael E. Toner, and Darryl Wold. All together, we have over 55 years of experience in campaign finance regulation. As one, we condemned the agency’s attempt to “interfere with the system of campaign finance regulation established by Congress.”

 

Our joint comment pointed out that the IRS lacks statutory authority to restrict the political activity of 501©(4)s and that the proposed rules do not respect Supreme Court precedent. They would “confuse regulated entities” and “seriously undermine the First Amendment rights and protections of the Constitution.” Bizarrely, some of the language proposed by the IRS is “almost identical to a provision of federal campaign finance law that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional” in Citizens United.

 

 

 

more at the link:

[IDBillzFan]

Lerner pleads the fifth again and Issa shuts down the inquiry.

 

You'd think she's be more forthcoming since there is not a smidgen of corruption at the IRS.

Edited March 5, 2014 by LABillzFan

[3rdnlng]

Lerner pleads the fifth again and Issa shuts down the inquiry.

 

You'd think she's be more forthcoming since there is not a smidgen of corruption at the IRS.

 

Obviously it's contempt of congress. Jail her ass.

[B-Man]

Lerner pleads the fifth again and Issa shuts down the inquiry.

 

You'd think she's be more forthcoming since there is not a smidgen of corruption at the IRS.

 

It will be interesting to see what Rep. Issa does next.

 

Not too surprisingly, the media is putting the emphasis of their reporting on the Rep. Cummings (squirrel) outburst, rather than Ms. Lerner.

[meazza]

http://www.nationalj...he-irs-20140306

 

Issa didn't answer. "He's taking the Fifth, Elijah," Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly joked, a reference to the committee's reluctant witness, former IRS official Lois Lerner, who refused again to explain the agency's actions, citing her constitutional right not to self-incriminate. Partisans rejoice!

• Conservatives are applauding Issa for shutting down a Democrat. Without evidence, the Right has convicted Lerner, the IRS, the White House, and President Obama of abuse of power.
  

• Liberals are applauding Cummings for standing up to Issa. Without evidence, the Left exonerated everybody. The fact that liberal nonprofits also were targeted is relevant, but not conclusive.
  

Edited March 6, 2014 by meazza

[IDBillzFan]

http://www.nationalj...he-irs-20140306

 

And people try to argue that Fournier is a conservative.

 

First of all, the Millbank article citing Fluke is wrong, and if Fournier cared, he'd know this. Issa didn't permit Fluke to speak because she didn't meet the bare-bones authoritative requirements to speak on the subject in that particular setting. Both parties have agreed to this simple truth.

 

Second, you can't argue that the IRS did nothing wrong, then simultaneously say they were also doing something wrong to liberal groups, too! That's the kind of logic the gatorman's of the world sop up, but not thinking humans.

 

The IRS admitted that they singled out conservative groups to silence them. Lerner won't speak? Off to jail until she does. Just that simple.

 

If the roles were reversed here...and we had a Republican president, Fournier and Millbank would be heating the tar and plucking the feathers instead of writing this garbage.

[B-Man]

LOL.......................just as I predicted (and as Rep. Cummings hoped for) instead of discussing Ms. Lerner taking the 5th again

 

the media wants the story to be Rep. Issa "unprecedented" behavior

 

Its as if they think we have no memory whatsoever.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhvK9CkjL9g

 

 

 

 

Call me crazy, but threatening to have someone “physically removed” during a hearing seems a bit more offensive than cutting off a mic after a hearing has ended.

 

 

 

 

.

[OCinBuffalo]

Dumb move on Issa's part.

 

Just leave. It's a much better image for the clown to left there, talking to no one, looking like the crazy dude you see in the park.

[keepthefaith]

Just waterboard her and get this over with. Enough already.

[B-Man]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Tax Analysts: More Arrogance and Secrecy From the IRS.

 

I am not an IRS basher or hater. As I have said countless times, taking the heat for it every time (and that’s fair game, by the way), I know many fine people who have worked or work for that agency. But we are in litigation with the IRS in an attempt to get information on how it trained people to handle applications from groups seeking to be recognized as social welfare organizations. That litigation has been an incredibly frustrating process.

 

I don’t know if these apparent political decisions were made by Lerner or others either inside or outside the IRS, because trying to get information out of that agency is like trying to get sweat out of a rock. Over the years, it has fought the silliest things. I’m only half kidding when I say that if you asked the IRS to see the kind of staplers it’s using, it would tell you it doesn’t have staplers.

 

The IRS will go to great lengths not to be scrutinized. And that breeds an atmosphere of no accountability — which leads to arrogance. We have seen that arrogance consistently throughout the congressional investigations of several IRS officials. And where will it lead us? Not to a good place, especially for those of us getting ready to file our yearly income tax returns. A tax collector that treats its “customers” as guilty until proven innocent is a tax collector out of control. That is precisely what the national taxpayer advocate has been warning about. If IRS officials don’t believe they are accountable to Congress, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.

 

We really need a tax system that doesn’t give the tax collector so much discretionary power. Also, an end to governmental immunity. IRS employees should be personally liable for misconduct.

 

 

 

 

The IRS’s behavior taxes credulity

By George Will

 

What’s been said of confession — that it is good for one’s soul but bad for one’s reputation — can also be true of testifying to Congress, so Lois Lerner has chosen to stay silent. Hers, however, is an eloquent silence.

 

The most intrusive and potentially most punitive federal agency has been politicized; the IRS has become an appendage of Barack Obama’s party. Furthermore, congruent with exhortations from some congressional Democrats, it is intensifying its efforts to suffocate groups critical of progressives, by delaying what once was the swift, routine granting of tax-exempt status.

 

So, the IRS, far from repenting of its abusive behavior, is trying to codify the abuses. It hopes to nullify with new rules the existing legal right of 501©(4) groups, many of which are conservative, to participate in politics. The proposed rules have drawn more than 140,000 comments, most of them complaints, some from liberals wary of IRS attempts to broadly define “candidate-related political activity” and to narrow the permissible amount of this.

 

 

 

IRS caves on Lois Lerner documents, will provide Congress with ALL of her emails since tea party targeting scheme began.

 

 

.

Edited March 8, 2014 by B-Man

[keepthefaith]

So now Lerner's emails will be turned over to Congress and we're supposed to believe that the IRS hasn't misplaced some of them or that she may have used more than one email address?

Edited March 8, 2014 by keepthefaith

[DC Tom]

So now Lerner's emails will be turned over to Congress and we're supposed to believe that the IRS hasn't misplaced some of them or that she may have used more than one email address?

 

I highly doubt any of the official business from before the story broke was handled through non-government email accounts. Doesn't mean they won't "lose" a few - it's very tough to do in government (my archiving requirements are pretty crazy, and regularly audited), but not impossible.

 

After she broke the news...anything's possible.

[keepthefaith]

I highly doubt any of the official business from before the story broke was handled through non-government email accounts. Doesn't mean they won't "lose" a few - it's very tough to do in government (my archiving requirements are pretty crazy, and regularly audited), but not impossible.

 

After she broke the news...anything's possible.

 

I'm sure you're accurate but given the nature of her email and the risk that info could pose for the administration, I can''t be convinced that the content won't be "adjusted" as needed to prevent exposing the naked truth.

[Azalin]

We really need a tax system that doesn’t give the tax collector so much discretionary power. Also, an end to governmental immunity. IRS employees should be personally liable for misconduct.

 

the best way is to do away with the IRS by going to a single flat tax or a national consumption tax. no IRS, no corrupt IRS officials.

 

 

file that away under fantasy pipe-dreams.

[B-Man]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Slow Lerner.

 

Lois Lerner refuses to answer questions from Congress, but she is talking to the Justice Department. The issue is, what part of the Justice Department is she talking to? An issue like this would normally be handled by the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice. It's always been done that way. She is not talking to them. She is talking to the Civil Rights Division, which is run by Barbara Bosserman, who is an Obama partisan. That makes you wonder, what is the point of her talking to the Department of Justice?

 

I think what is going on here is that the Obama people understand they are on very thin ice with this IRS investigation because abuse of power is not merely a political expression. It's a federal felony. You start pulling on that string and finding other people who conspired to impede a federal investigation, a lot of individuals are going to have very significant legal and political exposure. Lois Lerner is the one they are all hanging on to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the IRS cracks down on the T.E.A. Party for “ANTI-OBAMA RHETORIC,” we get this:

 

‘Game the system’? Nonprofits, including Farrakhan-tied group, enjoy windfall from farm subsidies.

[OCinBuffalo]

We really need a tax system that doesn’t give the tax collector so much discretionary power. Also, an end to governmental immunity. IRS employees should be personally liable for misconduct

Whoa! Hold your horses.

 

If the IRS loses power, then somebody else gets it. DC is a zero-sum place.....which....is why they come up with batshit retarded "solutions" like Obamacare. Somebody has to lose, so that somebody else can win. Which, is how the lazy/untalented/corrupt see the world. DC: home of the lazy and untalented and definitely the corrupt.

 

Somebody else will take that set of power. The full set of "we have the pristine, moral authority here, so yeah, we can take your house" pieces of power, along with the "we are the only government agency besides some units of the military and law enforcement, that are actually, truly respected and feared by all = you actually have to posess a college degree in something both useful and relatively difficult to work here" upgrade?

 

That's a power collector's dream.

 

Now, who should we say gets that collection of power? Congress? You want to see Congress directing Tax enforcement policy from a commitee hearing? And you thought the Issa thing was bad? You've seen nothing.

 

The courts? Yeah, let's never EVER have enforcement policy changes or judgements on competence, not until 10 years from now, and only if they will listen? There's a reason why the court system isn't responsible for execution of laws.....they'd argue forever, and bill us all by the hour while doing it, and never give us a real answer to anything.....

 

....like whether Obamacare is a F'ing tax.

 

So who's left? The president/WH? RUFKM? We already know what the problem there is, don't we? Answer: whoever is in office will be "shredding the Constitution", but, only when it's their turn, and depending upon which media outlet is doing the "reporting".

 

You want to see even worse incompetence/corruption/assclownery? Let any of the above make personal hiring/firing/design and execution decisions.

 

 

ONCE AGAIN: (and this is for a specific poster) when you concentrate this much power in one city, things are bound to go sideways. (Again, for a specific poster: It's not that hard, just place the shovel gently at your feet, and climb out)

ONCE AGAIN: when you give this much power to incompetents/influence traders...they will sell it. The former will do it for job security, and the latter will do it because that's their business.

ONCE AGAIN: If you want to fix the central government? De-F'ing-Centralize it, you unmitigated morons!.

 

The entire internet, and, the entire business models of highly prodcutive, and happy employee, companies all have one thing in common, that they don't share with the failing organizations: They've been decentralizing for the last 10 years. I can cite more examples than you want to hear.

 

And, of course, I don't expect the reality I've just placed under the noses here....to be accepted as the reality it so obviously is.

Edited March 11, 2014 by OCinBuffalo