GOP Establishment Reigns; Upstart Dems Shake Up Primaries

They call themselves the Tea Party, but for the loosely associated small-government groups that have upended Republican politics during the last five years, there was no cause for celebration when the results of Tuesday's primaries came in.  

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- who began this election cycle as a slow-moving target for grassroots conservatives -- highlighted the GOP establishment’s biggest round of victories yet during a primary season in which the Tea Party has repeatedly fallen short. 

McConnell’s win was expected, but his 60 percent-35 percent thrashing of challenger Matt Bevin in Kentucky was emblematic of the establishment’s resurgence within the party. 

Suffering anemic approval ratings and having to fend off millions of dollars in attack ads from outside spending groups, McConnell worked relentlessly to portray Bevin -- who created plenty of problems on his own -- in a negative light.  

After coasting to the nomination largely unscathed, McConnell will now build upon the conservative support he brought together in the heavily Republican state as takes on Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes in the general election.  

In the other marquee Republican matchup on Tuesday, establishment fears that a weak candidate would be nominated to run against Democrat Michelle Nunn in the Georgia Senate race proved unfounded.  

In a crowded contest that included a pair of marginal general election prospects, businessman David Perdue and U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston emerged as the top two contenders, who will square off against each other in a July runoff.  

Both men enjoy support from a broad range of Republicans in the state, and each is considered a strong opponent for Nunn, who has enjoyed surprisingly robust early poll numbers in hypothetical general election matchups.  

Via: Real Clear Politics

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The IRS Targeting Scandal, Lois Lerner and Contempt of Congress - The Truth Must Be Uncovered

On May 10, 2013, former top IRS official Lois Lerner appeared before a gathering of the American Bar Association. Responding to a question that she had planted in the audience, Lerner apologized for what she acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level rogue employees in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias.

Fast forward to today – on the eve of the one-year anniversary of that bombshell. Lois Lerner faces a vote in the full House of Representatives – a vote to hold her in contempt of Congress.

What a difference a year makes.

As we know, that’s exactly what happened in this case.

Under the direction of Lois Lerner, there was a coordinated nationwide effort – not the work of a few rogue agents – to target conservative and Tea Party groups that applied for tax-exempt status. Lerner and others (we still don’t know how high the involvement goes) employed a strategy to delay these applications – effectively silencing these conservative organizations – putting them on the sideline in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election.

Our federal lawsuit challenging this unlawful and unconstitutional action by the IRS is moving forward. We represent 41 organizations in 22 states. Eleven of our clients are still waiting for an answer – one group has been waiting for a response for nearly five years.

As if this deliberate targeting scheme was not enough, we now know that Lerner was truly a partisan bureaucrat – her politically-charged conduct outlined in a letter released recently by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Make no mistake about it. The actions of Lois Lerner, which I detailed in an earlier post, clearly reveal what can only be described as stunning political bias and manipulation.

Via: Fox News

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6 Arguments Only A Liberal Could Believe

"Arguing with liberals...it's like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it's victorious." -- Anonymous

"If you can somehow force a liberal into a point-counterpoint argument, his retorts will bear no relation to what you’ve said — unless you were in fact talking about your looks, your age, your weight, your personal obsessions, or whether you are a fascist. In the famous liberal two-step, they leap from one idiotic point to the next, so you can never nail them. It’s like arguing with someone with Attention Deficit Disorder." -- Ann Coulter

It's almost impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion with a liberal because while you're trying to come up with logical points to support your position, he’s trying to come up with new ways to convince people you're Hitler. Modern liberalism has turned into a willful embrace of stupidity. It's all about setting reason and intellect aside in order to take an emotionally-satisfying position that makes a liberal feel better about himself. This is how people who are undeniably intelligent can feel good about taking brainless positions that hurt a lot of people. While liberals have emotionally blinded themselves so totally that they believe they're taking compassionate, intellectual, well-crafted stands, this is how they sound to everyone who's not a liberal.

1) Everyone who disagrees with a liberal is racist! The Tea Party? Racist! Republicans? Racist! Fox News? Racist? Black conservatives? Racist! Barack Obama's grandma? Racist! Do I think Social Security is solvent? My position on that is that "You're a racist!" What do I think about flattening the tax code? Sarah Palin is a racist! Do I like potatoes? Well, Republicans eat potatoes sometimes; so potatoes are racist! Racist, racist, racist!

Via: Townhall
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Issa, Cummings clash at hearing after ex-IRS official Lerner takes 5th

A House hearing on the IRS targeting scandal rapidly broke down into a heated and deeply personal argument between a top Democrat and Republican, moments after former IRS official Lois Lerner once again invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify. 

Lerner, who last year refused to answer questions about her role in singling out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, was called back before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. Though Republicans argue she waived her Fifth Amendment right by giving a statement during the last hearing, Lerner continued to invoke that right on Wednesday. 

"On the advice of my counsel, I respectfully exercise my Fifth Amendment right and decline to answer that question," she said in response to several questions. 

But ranking Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., got into a heated argument with Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., after Issa tried to adjourn the hearing. 

Issa at first stood up and prepared to leave as Cummings said he wanted to ask a "procedural question." In seconds, tensions flared. 

"Mr. Chairman, you cannot run a committee like this," Cummings appealed. 

Cummings' microphone was then turned off, and then flipped back on again. Issa sat down momentarily, but then abruptly told Lerner she was "released" and said: "We're adjourned, close it down."

Via: Fox News

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Levin: Obama Has No ‘Constitutional Authority To Do Half of What He’s Doing’

(CNSNews.com) -- At a meeting of Tea Party conservatives in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin said President Barack Obama “doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do half of what he’s doing,” and added that the “Republican leadership” has not taken any steps to stop Obama's unconstitutional actions.

CNSNews.com asked Levin, “Do you believe Obama has the constitutional authority to address climate change or minimum wage without congressional approval?”

Levin said, “Of course not. He doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do half of what he’s doing.”

“But nobody appears to want to stop him,” said Levin.  “Has the Republican leadership taken any steps whatsoever? No."

"It’s about time when the Supreme Court gets a chance it steps up too," he said.  "But, so far it’s given him power he doesn’t have under the Constitution on the health care law; it’s given him power he doesn’t have under the immigration law; it’s given him power he doesn’t have under DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act]. So the Supreme Court looks like it’s willing to go along with this.”

Via: CNS News

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Bradley A. Smith: Connecting the Dots in the IRS Scandal

 Now consider the following events, all of which were either widely reported, publicly released by officeholders or revealed later in testimony to Congress. These are the dots the media refuse to connect:

• Jan. 27, 2010: President Obama criticizes Citizens United in his State of the Union address and asks Congress to "correct" the decision.

• Feb. 11, 2010: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) says he will introduce legislation known as the Disclose Act to place new restrictions on some political activity by corporations and force more public disclosure of contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations. Mr. Schumer says the bill is intended to "embarrass companies" out of exercising the rights recognized inCitizens United. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he said.

• Soon after, in March 2010, Mr. Obama publicly criticizes conservative 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in politics. In his Aug. 21 radio address, he warns Americans about "shadowy groups with harmless sounding names" and a "corporate takeover of our democracy."

• Sept. 28, 2010: Mr. Obama publicly accuses conservative 501(c)(4) organizations of "posing as not-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups." Max Baucus, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asks the IRS to investigate 501(c)(4)s, specifically citing Americans for Job Security, an advocacy group that says its role is to "put forth a pro-growth, pro-jobs message to the American people."

• Oct. 11, 2010: Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) asks the IRS to investigate the conservative 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS and "other organizations."

• April 2011: White House officials confirm that Mr. Obama is considering an executive order that would require all government contractors to disclose their donations to politically active organizations as part of their bids for government work. The proposal is later dropped amid opposition across the political spectrum.

• Feb. 16, 2012: Seven Democratic senators— Michael Bennet (Colo.), Al Franken (Minn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Mr. Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Tom Udall (N.M.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)—write to the IRS asking for an investigation of conservative 501(c)(4) organizations.

• March 12, 2012: The same seven Democrats write another letter asking for further investigation of conservative 501(c)(4)s, claiming abuse of their tax status.

• July 27, 2012: Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) writes one of several letters to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman seeking a probe of nine conservative groups, plus two liberal and one centrist organization. In 2013 testimony to the HouseOversight and Government Reform Committee, former IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller describes Sen. Levin as complaining "bitterly" to the IRS and demanding investigations.

• Aug. 31, 2012: In another letter to the IRS, Sen. Levin calls its failure to investigate and prosecute targeted organizations "unacceptable."

• Dec. 14, 2012: The liberal media outlet ProPublica receives Crossroads GPS's 2010 application for tax-exempt status from the IRS. Because the group's tax-exempt status had not been recognized, the application was confidential. ProPublica publishes the full application. It later reports that it received nine confidential pending applications from IRS agents, six of which it published. None of the applications was from a left-leaning organization.

• April 9, 2013: Sen. Whitehouse convenes the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism to examine nonprofits. He alleges that nonprofits are violating federal law by making false statements about their political activities and donors and using shell companies to donate to super PACs to hide donors' identities. He berates Patricia Haynes, then-deputy chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, for not prosecuting conservative nonprofits.

• May 10, 2013: Sen. Levin announces that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings on "the IRS's failure to enforce the law requiring that tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s be engaged exclusively in social welfare activities, not partisan politics." Three days later he postpones the hearings when Lois Lerner (then-director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division) reveals that the IRS had been targeting and delaying the applications of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

• Nov. 29, 2013: The IRS proposes new rules redefining "political activity" to include activities such as voter-registration drives and the production of nonpartisan legislative scorecards to restrict what the agency deems as excessive spending on campaigns by tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups. Even many liberal nonprofits argue that the rule goes too far in limiting their political activity—but the main target appears to be the conservative 501(c)(4)s that have so irritated Democrats.

• Feb. 13, 2014: The Hill newspaper reports that "Senate Democrats facing tough elections this year want the Internal Revenue Service to play a more aggressive role in regulating outside groups expected to spend millions of dollars on their races."

Via: Fox News

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IRS Says It Spent $7.9 Million on Congressional Probes

The Internal Revenue Service claims it has cost nearly $8 million to answer congressional investigations into the extra scrutiny it gave conservative political groups before the 2012 election.

A letter from IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to House Democrats Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Sandy Levin of Michigan says 255 employees have spent 97,542 hours responding to the investigations, USA Today reports. 

Koskinen claimed the accounting was a "conservative approach" that did not include figures for some support staff, the press office, or congressional liaisons. 

The expenditures include $259,849 for travel, and staff time billed at more than $79 an hour for workers.

Levin and other House Democrats say the cost of the investigations shows Republicans are "fixated" on punishing the IRS, and Republicans are "wasting millions of dollars in an attempt to reignite their partisan inquiry before the November elections."

But Republicans say they want to disclose the whole story of how the IRS targeted certain organizations as the race to re-elect President Barack Obama neared.

"This committee is working to restore accountability and trust into this broken agency," said Sarah Swinehart, spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich.

The Republican-controlled House is conducting two investigations, as is the Democratic-controlled Senate. In addition, a Treasury Department inspector general and the Department of Justice are investigating the IRS.

But the nearly $7.9 million in costs cited by Koskinen are just the beginning of the expenses the agency has absorbed since the 2012 scandal.

Via: Newsmax
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Tax Dodge: Panel Urges Public to Thwart IRS Effort to Torpedo Conservative Groups

The Internal Revenue Service has overstepped its legal boundaries and expertise to assault the free speech rights of nonprofit advocacy groups, but the public can put the IRS in its place by commenting in the next few days, campaign finance experts and journalists assembled at The Heritage Foundation said.

The IRS’s proposed rule changes to reclassify town hall meetings, legislative scorecards and other regular activities of such groups as “political,” the panel agreed, threaten the groups’ tax-exempt status and thus their existence.

“This is a scandal as bad as they get,” panelist Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journalsaid of IRS actions at one point. “This is an agency that has abused its power grievously against the American people.”

Speaking at the February 21 event, dubbed “Taxing the First Amendment,” were Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer representing conservative groups targeted by the IRS in a scandal that erupted last spring; Bradley A. Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a law professor who heads the Center for Competitive Politics in Alexandria, Va.; and two journalists who have covered the unfolding IRS story  – Eliana Johnson,  media editor for National Review, and Strassel, a Washington-based columnist and editorial writer for The Journal.

Mitchell said the secretly developed rule changes would stifle the free speech of organizations across the political spectrum, from the Sierra Club on the left to the National Rifle Association on the right. Johnson noted, however, that “Republicans have more to lose” because 20 of the 28 advocacy groups that recently spent more than $1 million lean to the right.

Via: The Foundry

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A Destructive President

President Barack Obama never admits to a mistake. Instead, egregious lawlessness is fluffed away as "not a smidgen of scandal" in relation to the IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups. Instead of being a great leader, Obama distances himself and lets his appointees hide behind the law or simply exempt themselves from total disclosure. Thus, Lois Lerner can refuse to answer any questions or testify when she is brought before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Cindy Thomas, who was in charge of the IRS's Exempt Organization office and who illegally released confidential information about nine conservative organizations, can be promoted.

How else does Obama evade taking responsibility for his actions? Even though the president claimed he had no knowledge of the gun running program known as Fast and Furious, he claimed executive privilege. But one cannot assert executive privilege over documents that one has allegedly never seen. This is just one in the litany of obfuscations by Obama. And instead of taking responsibility for Fast and Furious, Obama falsely attributes the program to President Bush. Operation Fast and Furious began in October 2009, nine months after Obama took office. In fact, under President Bush there was a program known as Operation Wide Receiver, an "entirely separate program that implemented tactics in a profoundly different way;" furthermore, Operation Wide Receiver ended in 2007.

Via: American Thinker
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