no charges in IRS investigation?

[DC Tom]

Understand the difference between administrative and technical data retention policies. But you would think that an organization like the IRS, who expects taxpayers to keep their documents on file for years:

http://www.irs.gov/B...-I-keep-records

 

Would implement their internal administrative DRP in line with what they enforce on taxpayers

 

I would have expected that before I started government contracting.

 

No amount of incompetence surprises me anymore.

[Oxrock]

 

 

Not exactly, but close enough

 

Outlook (and by Outlook everyone really means Microsoft Exchange) stores email on the server. If your computer crashes and you get a new hard drive, the first time you start Outlook it pulls a copy of your store to the local hard drive. If you walk into the next cubicle and log into your coworkers computer, same deal.

 

If the IRS lost all of Lois Lerner's email during a set period of time, then they lost the email for everybody on the same Exchange store.

 

And even if the Exchange store crashed, an IT Enterprise the size of the IRS is going to have a system in place to backup email and file servers.

 

Another factor to consider in the crashed hard drive, is that an IT Enterprise the size of the IRS is going to have a large IT support team. They won't just call up Geek Squad when they have a problem. Any large IT Enterprise will have a phone Help Desk, field techs, server admins, etc all working off a ticketing system. So where is the documentation that the hard drive crashed?

Yes. There has to be a help desk involved somewhere. Great clarification. Thank.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Where's the PPP board from 2003?

 

:-)

[Koko78]

Where's the PPP board from 2003?

 

:-)

 

Tom was being investigated and the server crashed and the dog ate it.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

I would have expected that before I started government contracting.

 

No amount of incompetence surprises me anymore.

 

True to an extent... From what I see, contracting is the problem. In-house, we can do everything cheaper, better.

 

That is why there should be a move back to in-house personnel. Everybody wants to be "Mr./Ms. Project Manager." From where I am @, It is the contracting process that is screwing things up. Don't even get me started w/the mega money flowing into the Asian carp boondoggle. They all got their mucky little hands in the pie. Of course the gov't is huge and nobody wants to do the work, they just want to manage somebody else to do the work.

 

I never thought I would see the day they move away from contract personnel... But they are doing it @ least where I am @. The Chicago lock downtown was under contract personnel for over 40 years. The Fed went right to contract operators when the took it over from the water district back in the 1970's.... They are finally getting their heads out of their butts and going to in-house ops. They finally realize they can get more work out of gov't employees than a contractor. Gee... After 40 years? You think? With job descriptions like: "All duties as assigned" being cheaper in the long run. The contractor would just sit on their asses and say: "That's not written into the contract." Then... We'd have to do it anyway or correct the screw up.

 

Anyway... Next week we train the incoming gov't hires... LoL... Ain't that going to be special.

 

 

 

Tom was being investigated and the server crashed and the dog ate it.

 

LoL

 

Close though.

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

[B-Man]

IT’S ALL A COINCIDENCE, H8ERS!

 

IRS Official Whose Emails Were “Lost” Visited White House More Than 30 Times.

 

 

 

 

Kim Strassel and the WSJ on the Lost IRS Emails.

 

 

 

 

 

OUCH: Paul Ryan to IRS Chief: “Nobody believes you.”

 

.

[Cinga]

The "missing" email crisis would be easy to solve by Executive Order if the POTUS really believes it is all honest and forthright...

 

Tell the NSA to provide it all....

 

:-)

[3rdnlng]

The "missing" email crisis would be easy to solve by Executive Order if the POTUS really believes it is all honest and forthright...

 

Tell the NSA to provide it all....

 

:-)

 

Now that is worthy of my 12000th post.

[meazza]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/06/paul_ryan_yells_at_irs_commissioner_john_koskinen_the_hypocrisy_angers_most.html

 

“You are the Internal Revenue Service. You can reach into the lives of hard-working taxpayers and with a phone call, an email, or a letter you can turn their lives upside-down. You ask taxpayers to hang on to seven years of their personal tax information in case they are ever audited, and you can’t keep six months’ worth of employee emails?”

 

...

 

One of the big complaints I hear from voters, particularly conservative voters, is that the government exempts itself from the burdens it puts on everyday people. So members of Congress are treated differently under the Affordable Care Act than regular citizens, President Obama can decide which laws he wants to follow and which ones he doesn’t, and the IRS doesn’t have to be as circumspect as the rest of us. Sometimes there are good explanations, like the congressional “exemption” from the ACA, but since the IRS is stingy with its benefit-of-the-doubt powers, it has a high bar with the public.

[B-Man]

On Friday, the IRS Dropped the Pretense: It’s Not Sorry

by David French

 

On Friday, the IRS commissioner showed the agency’s true colors. Forget the apologies. Forget humility. Forget about the targeting of conservative groups with unconstitutional questions, the selective audits, the unlawful disclosures of confidential information, the collusion with the FBI and FEC to manufacture criminal cases out of whole cloth, the lost emails, or the multiple additional computer crashes. The real outrage was that conservatives are actually upset about all this. Watch the exchange between Congressman Ryan and Commissioner Koskinen again:(video at the link)

 

Note well the commissioner’s anger. Note well his defiance. This is the true face of the IRS as applied to this nation’s conservative and pro-life citizens. To the IRS and millions of American progressives — including key members of Congress — when the IRS targeted the Tea Party and then covered up the evidence it was, quite simply, doing its job.

 

The IRS knows — and conservatives now know — that it is now wholly and completely an arm of the political Left, and it now depends on the political Left for its continued viability. A future conservative administration and a future conservative attorney general will not be appointing significant progressive donors to “investigate” the agency. With the agency’s autonomy and perhaps even existence at stake in the coming elections, the only things standing between conservatives and redoubled targeting — particularly in the 2016 election cycle — are constant vigilance, mass public awareness, and a further barrage of litigation when the IRS lashes out once again.

 

The IRS is not — and has never been — sorry for its actions. It’s just sorry it got caught.

 

 

 

.

[Nanker]

The most transparent administration in history is certainly living up to its billing.

[B-Man]

How Did an IRS Official Know with Certainty that the Obama Campaign Would Continue One of Its Attacks?

 

COORDINATION

 

 

“In the email, IRS tax-exempt official Sarah Hall Ingram tells her cohorts, including Lois Lerner, about a coordinated media campaign against the Citizens United decision. Ingram praises that campaign, and demonstrates foreknowledge of what is to come.” The emails that came out are bad enough that the ones that were destroyed must have been really, really incriminating.

[IDBillzFan]

How Did an IRS Official Know with Certainty that the Obama Campaign Would Continue One of Its Attacks?

 

COORDINATION

 

 

“In the email, IRS tax-exempt official Sarah Hall Ingram tells her cohorts, including Lois Lerner, about a coordinated media campaign against the Citizens United decision. Ingram praises that campaign, and demonstrates foreknowledge of what is to come.” The emails that came out are bad enough that the ones that were destroyed must have been really, really incriminating.

 

Does anyone else get the sense that this, of all the Obama scandals, is going to be the one that cuts it at the knees? When the American people have full proof that the WH used the IRS to target dissenting voices, it's almost impossible to determine the full extent of left-wing meltdown that will ensue.

 

But somehow, remarkably, this has become one of the those "not if, but when" items.

[DC Tom]

Does anyone else get the sense that this, of all the Obama scandals, is going to be the one that cuts it at the knees?

 

No. They're just trying to silence opposition, which is obstructionist and not "right thinking," therefore there's a "moral imperative" that they be silenced.

 

[/virtually every Democrat alive]

[GG]

Does anyone else get the sense that this, of all the Obama scandals, is going to be the one that cuts it at the knees? When the American people have full proof that the WH used the IRS to target dissenting voices, it's almost impossible to determine the full extent of left-wing meltdown that will ensue.

 

But somehow, remarkably, this has become one of the those "not if, but when" items.

 

This was THE story from day one. But Americans won't care until most journalists remember why they took to their calling. Recall, there's far bigger outrage over a rush hour bridge lane closure.

 

Linky thingy - Peggy Noonan

And what is amazing—not surprising, but amazing—is that if my experience of normal human conversation the past few days is any guide, very few people are talking about it and almost no one cares.

 

.......

 

But the IRS scandal is a scandal, and if you can’t see the relation between a strangely destroyed key piece of evidence in an ongoing scandal and what happened 41 years ago with a strangely destroyed key piece of evidence in an ongoing scandal, something is wrong not with the story but with your news judgment.

[keepthefaith]

Does anyone else get the sense that this, of all the Obama scandals, is going to be the one that cuts it at the knees? When the American people have full proof that the WH used the IRS to target dissenting voices, it's almost impossible to determine the full extent of left-wing meltdown that will ensue.

 

But somehow, remarkably, this has become one of the those "not if, but when" items.

 

You should be correct but I don't think there are enough voters that are aware of this or the several other horrendous acts coming out of this white house. Probably about 40% of the population will support Obama and Democrats no matter what he or they do and they simply feel that the end justifies the means. Of the remaining 60% probably only a third of those are actually paying attention to news and since there is little coverage except from Fox, these issues are probably only getting through to 20% of the public. Many of them are loyal Republicans so the numbers that are swayed is pretty small IMO.

Edited June 23, 2014 by keepthefaith

[IDBillzFan]

You should be correct but I don't think there are enough voters that are aware of this or the several other horrendous acts coming out of this white house. Probably about 40% of the population will support Obama and Democrats no matter what he or they do and they simply feel that the end justifies the means. Of the remaining 60% probably only a third of those are actually paying attention to news and since there is little coverage except from Fox, these issues are probably only getting through to 20% of the public. Many of them are loyal Republicans so the numbers that are swayed is pretty small IMO.

 

The voters don't give a crap about this, and it won't be the voters who bring him down. It will be the media.

 

There will be a moment when evidence is so clear tying Obama to this, that a majority of the media simply will not be able to remain silent. And like most things, once the media cares, then America will have to care, whether it wants to or not.

[keepthefaith]

The voters don't give a crap about this, and it won't be the voters who bring him down. It will be the media.

 

There will be a moment when evidence is so clear tying Obama to this, that a majority of the media simply will not be able to remain silent. And like most things, once the media cares, then America will have to care, whether it wants to or not.

 

Gosh, you'd think we were there now, at the point the media would drop an avalanche on him. They've got a lot of material to work with right now on not only the IRS thing but so many other issues. As much bad policy and practice as I can ever recall in my lifetime yet the majority of the media remains silent. I think Obama would have to be involved in a sex scandal before the media would bring him down. Not because that's any worse than what's going on now but because it would sell.

[3rdnlng]

http://nypost.com/2014/06/21/why-are-obama-and-the-irs-getting-away-with-a-blatant-coverup/

To understand the latest outrage in the IRS scandal, mull over what might happen if regulators found significant evidence to implicate Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in an insider trading scheme.

Let’s say Blankfein asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to answer any questions. Say Goldman was subpoenaed to provide all of Blankfein’s emails. Goldman replied that, instead of complying with the subpoena, it was itself reviewing the emails in question and was considering which ones to release.

Now imagine that, nearly a year later, Goldman admitted that it had not, in fact, reviewed the emails in question, because they had been lost in a computer crash two months before it claimed to be reviewing them. Imagine Goldman also said copies of the emails were lost, because while under subpoena, it had destroyed the “backup tapes” (whatever those are) that held them and that it had also thrown away Blankfein’s actual hard drive.

The thing about dogs eating homework is, it could actually happen. This can’t.

This is “The dog ate my hard drive, broke into another building, ate the backup of the hard drive, then broke into six other top officials’ offices and ate their hard drives also.”

Read more at the link above. Check out the picture.

[IDBillzFan]

Gosh, you'd think we were there now, at the point the media would drop an avalanche on him. They've got a lot of material to work with right now on not only the IRS thing but so many other issues. As much bad policy and practice as I can ever recall in my lifetime yet the majority of the media remains silent. I think Obama would have to be involved in a sex scandal before the media would bring him down. Not because that's any worse than what's going on now but because it would sell.

 

You don't need a sex scandal. You just need the mid-terms to pass.

 

Case in point, here's our president, focused like a laser on the things that matter to Americans.

[3rdnlng]

You don't need a sex scandal. You just need the mid-terms to pass.

 

Case in point, here's our president, focused like a laser on the things that matter to Americans.

 

I wonder what the unintended consequences are of forcing companies to give paid maternity leave? Seems like just more of Obama's war on women thingy.

[Doc]

I've heard libs liken this to the Bush White House e-mail controversy, therefore it's turnabout.

[IDBillzFan]

Ouch. Man vs. Child.

 

http://m.youtube.com...h?v=Avfm2urqdHM

[/dev/null]

Ouch. Man vs. Child.

 

http://m.youtube.com...h?v=Avfm2urqdHM

 

#TimeForAnotherDistraction

[B-Man]

BYRON YORK: Three Key Moments From Last Night’s IRS Hearings.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Halperin: If We Had A Republican President, The IRS Scandal Would Be A National Obsession.

[1billsfan]

From Obama, to Carney, to Miller, to Lerner, to Koskinen...they all have that smirk as if they to say "Are you kidding? You can't touch me. We have the police and the media bought off so go run along now before you hurt yourself kid."

 

When you have a situation in which IRS employees are in a federal union and would therefore obviously be beholden and loyal soldiers to keeping democrats in power to protect their interests, and then you add in 6 years of a chicago-style, anything goes, corrupt administration... this is what you get. I read somewhere that the BOLO came out the day after the head of the IRS union visited the White House. Oh geez, would you look at that, another one of those silly coincidences.

 

I just hope that one day one of these smug people gets the smirk wiped off their face. Ironically, it will probably come from the testimony of one of the little guys who have no stake in the battle of left vs right.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Little guys don't have money. What's the IRS taking up the practice of getting blood out of turnip.

 

Don't worry people, you got nothing to worry about... Move along to the next scandal.

[4merper4mer]

Little guys don't have money. What's the IRS taking up the practice of getting blood out of turnip.

 

Don't worry people, you got nothing to worry about... Move along to the next scandal.

 

I don't get it.

[IDBillzFan]

I don't get it.

 

Exiled is like your batschit crazy Uncle Joe Biden, sleeping snoringly on the old mustard-colored Barco lounger, only to occasionally pop his head up, yell something incoherent like "Mommy eats the peas on Monday!" before passing out again.

[GG]

 

 

I don't get it.

 

Try the triple crown thread. You may find the EiI decoder ring in that beauty.

 

[OCinBuffalo]

From Obama, to Carney, to Miller, to Lerner, to Koskinen...they all have that smirk as if they to say "Are you kidding? You can't touch me. We have the police and the media bought off so go run along now before you hurt yourself kid."

 

When you have a situation in which IRS employees are in a federal union and would therefore obviously be beholden and loyal soldiers to keeping democrats in power to protect their interests, and then you add in 6 years of a chicago-style, anything goes, corrupt administration... this is what you get. I read somewhere that the BOLO came out the day after the head of the IRS union visited the White House. Oh geez, would you look at that, another one of those silly coincidences.

 

I just hope that one day one of these smug people gets the smirk wiped off their face. Ironically, it will probably come from the testimony of one of the little guys who have no stake in the battle of left vs right.

Um...you may want to scroll up about 3 posts from yours above, and watch the "Man Vs. Child" video. I'd say the IRS chief got the smirk slapped off his face. And, more than a few people would classify Gowdy as literally: "One of the little guys who has no stake in the battle of left vs. right".

 

Trey Gowdy is building credibility as fast as Hillary is losing it this week.

 

Also, I didn't see this posted IRS Archivist: IRS didn't follow law with lost emails.

 

Relevant quotes:

"Any agency is required to notify us when they realize they have a problem," David Ferriero, archivist of the U.S. during a House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing.

 

"Federal agencies are responsible for preventing the unauthorized disposition of federal records, including their unlawful or accidental destruction, deletion, alteration, or removal from federal custody," he said. "When an agency becomes aware of an incident of unauthorized destruction, they must report the incident to us."

 

The National Archives and Records Administration did not learn about the lost records until earlier this month, Ferriero said.

 

Last time I checked: "not following the law" is cause for the IRS to take whatever shovel it wants to a taxpayer.

 

Thus, it's not even close to being inflammatory to ask: which shovel shall we take the IRS?

 

I would argue that it's time to haul out the Fair Tax concept. The best punishment for the IRS is making them irrelevant with the Fair Tax. This is the umteenth time the IRS has proven that it has too much power and abuses it routinely, and the excuse is always the complicated tax code.

 

Thus, the answer is simple: Remove the complicated tax code.

Edited June 25, 2014 by OCinBuffalo

[keepthefaith]

 

 

I would argue that it's time to haul out the Fair Tax concept. The best punishment for the IRS is making them irrelevant with the Fair Tax. This is the umteenth time the IRS has proven that it has too much power and abuses it routinely, and the excuse is always the complicated tax code.

 

 

 

I've often said we should have a flatter tax code and actually charge people for the government they have (collect what you spend and that includes SS and Medicare) and then we'll have taxpayers take a greater interest in gov't spending and agencies such as the IRS.

[Azalin]

I would argue that it's time to haul out the Fair Tax concept. The best punishment for the IRS is making them irrelevant with the Fair Tax. This is the umteenth time the IRS has proven that it has too much power and abuses it routinely, and the excuse is always the complicated tax code.

 

now that the IRS has those 16,000 additional agents to handle Obamacare, the IRS will be even more difficult to do away with, though I imagine that a national sales tax would completely eliminate the need for collectors and auditors. the IRS isn't doing themselves any PR favors in the current hearings, and being the bully insitution that they are, public sentiment for doing away with the agency is likely at an all-time high.

[OCinBuffalo]

I've often said we should have a flatter tax code and actually charge people for the government they have (collect what you spend and that includes SS and Medicare) and then we'll have taxpayers take a greater interest in gov't spending and agencies such as the IRS.

The worst is: you're in the majority. Tons of people have often said the same as you. If we put this to poll, without any media build up prior? You're probably looking at 60-65% of Americans who support the Fair Tax concept. Of course, that poll also shows the same 15% who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, and yeah once again, the same 20% of the country who labors under the delusion that they are entitled to tell the other 80% how to live.

 

The trouble is you run into resistance from both sides of the aisle in Congress, due to a logical progression that only an unmitigated moron can't understand:

 

1. Congress has a lot to sell, when it has a complicated tax code.

2. Since they have something to sell, that can value in the billions depending on who you are, corporations, unions, trade associations, and everybody else that can afford a lobbyist, will line up to buy.

3. A Fair Tax takes away most of what Congress has to sell.

4. Thus, Congress will resist a Fair Tax, because they like having things to sell. Great way to raise campaign $.

5. If one wants to reduce corporate influence on politics(or government union influence, or Wall Street influence, or trial lawyer influence....because unless they are an ignorant assclown who doesn't get it, or, a hypocrite, they want ALL of these influences thrown out), then they MUST support the Fair Tax. Or, accept the now self-proven fact that they are a fascist hack. They aren't looking for better government for all. Rather, they are looking for selective, better government for them. That's not social justice. That's by-the-book fascism.

6. Forcing the Fair Tax upon the government, is the will of the vast majority of Ameicans, because it takes so much of what Congress has to sell: away.

7. Thus, if we are serious about undue influence in government, if we want to be known as a serious person, who wants better government and is tired of Big Something rigging the game, the only rational course forward is some variation of the Fair Tax.

 

See? A 7th grader can follow this logic, and probably has already had most of these words as spelling words.

 

The trouble? Unmitigated morons of course!

Edited June 25, 2014 by OCinBuffalo

[B-Man]

IRS Admits Wrongdoing, To Pay $50,000 in Leaking of Marriage Group's Tax Return

 

Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit. The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM’s chief political rival.

 

 

 

Original Article

 

Orange jumpsuits all around.

[DC Tom]

IRS Admits Wrongdoing, To Pay $50,000 in Leaking of Marriage Group's Tax Return

 

Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit. The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM’s chief political rival.

 

 

 

Original Article

 

Orange jumpsuits all around.

 

The Daily Signal is seeking comment on the settlement from the IRS and Justice Department.

 

Update: At 5:28 p.m, IRS spokesman Bruce I. Friedland emailed: “Privacy law, specifically Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, prohibits us from commenting.”

 

Yeah, well, privacy law prohibited you from releasing confidential information to begin with. Why let it stop you now?

[Nanker]

Nothing to see here...

[B-Man]

David Burge‏@iowahawkblog

 

Apparently, the leading cause of hard drive failures is subpoenas.

 

 

 

.

 

David Burge‏@iowahawkblog

 

"I have documents that prove I'm not an arsonist, but they were destroyed in tomorrow's night's fire." - my audition for a government job

 

 

 

........

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

Try the triple crown thread. You may find the EiI decoder ring in that beauty.

 

Ha! Good one... EiL Decoder Ring.... LoL

 

Unfortunately, one doesn't exist so you can't take the lazy way out. I am trying to get Wham-O to make one, but my Asian supply chain is not all there. You are a money man, think I can keep the price point below $19.95? God forbid the unwashed masses get priced out of the market, I'd have to communicate with them myself. LoL a pretty complicated device no doubt!

 

:-P

Edited June 25, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois