Oversight Committee Blasts IRS Commissioner Koskinen in GIF-Filled Press Release

The House Oversight Committee has just issued a press release: “How IRS Commissioner Koskinen Has Failed in 12 GIFs.” Using GIFs - animated images from films and television - the release outlines the case against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who has been under fire for his response to investigations into the IRS treatment of conservative non-profit groups.

Koskinen, the press release says, failed to: comply with a congressional subpoena; preserve and produce Lois Lerner’s emails; implement internal preservation as ordered by the IRS Chief Technology Officer; ensure that documents were properly preserved; produce thousands of emails that are relevant to the case; acknowledge missing emails; testify truthfully. 

Next to each item is an appropriate GIF: Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” tossing papers in the air, George Costanza winking, Rachel Maddow crying FAIL!, Ryan Gosling shrugging.

“The GIFs convey that wrongdoing was done but clearly they don’t care,” M.J. Henshaw, the Press Secretary for House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), told CNS News. “No one’s going to read a bunch of text, but they will read something with a picture of Ryan Gosling. This is a cohesive, simple and easy to understand way for people who may not fully understand all the details. Our biggest challenge is to take these hugely complicated investigations and dwindling them down so that people who may not be as involved can understand them.”

In July Rep. Chaffetz called for Koskinen to be fired. 

Via: CNS News

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Dems start to face reality: Hillary is a terrible candidate

We’ve been pointing that out for months, but Democrats can be forgiven for not taking our word for it. They may not be forgiven for putting all of their eggs in Hillary Clinton’s basket, though, after months of watching the presumed nominee proving that her fumble of a certain nomination in 2008 was no fluke. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza hears from Democratsthat they’ve begun to see Hillary as an albatross, but with no other options on the horizon, they’re lost as to how to handle it:

Increasingly, Democrats — privately, of course — have begun to wonder whether the problem is not the campaign but the candidate.

“She has always been awkward and uninspiring on the stump,” said one senior Democratic consultant granted anonymity to candidly assess Clinton’s candidacy. “Hillary has Bill’s baggage and now her own as secretary of state — without Bill’s personality, eloquence or warmth.”

That same consultant added that he expected Clinton to easily win the Democratic nomination despite her weaknesses. “None of her primary opponents this time are Obama,” the consultant said. “Each lacks the skills, message and charisma to derail this train unless she implodes.”

But. “The general [election] is another question.”

The latest round of hand-wringing got an adrenaline-panic boost after Democrats watchedHillary’s attempt at stand-up comedy in Iowa. Making cracks about disappearing messages turned out not to be a winner, not even among the cheering sections:

That sentiment was echoed repeatedly in a series of conversations I had over the past few days with Democratic strategists and consultants not aligned with Clinton or her campaign. And it’s evident anecdotally as well. Clinton’s decision to make light of her e-mail problems — she joked that she liked Snapchat because the messages disappear automatically — during a speech at a Democratic event in Iowa over the weekend rubbed lots of people in the party the wrong way.

“The combination of messy facts, messy campaign operation and an awkward candidate reading terrible lines or worse jokes from a prompter is very scary,” admitted one unaligned senior Democratic operative. 

Apparently, none of the Democrats interviewed by Cillizza see Bernie Sanders as a viable option. Why not? He’s pulling massive crowds, not too dissimilar to Barack Obama eight years ago when Hillary tried this the first time. Presumably, they see the dangers of offering a declared socialist as the party’s standard-bearer without any of the mitigating rhetorical and demographic advantages that Obama brought to the party in 2007-8. Sanders might be drawing crowds now, but those crowds are not likely to change election outcomes — and Sanders’ hard-Left ideology will almost certainly lose voters in the middle.

That leaves Democrats with few options, but they’d better not look to Obama administration officials for a rescue. The latest developments from the State Department on Philippe Reines’ e-mails makes it clear that Hillary is not the alpha and omega of cover-ups in this administration,as I argue in my column today for The Week:

This is a really big deal. Until now, the transparency and honesty issue has focused solely on Hillary Clinton. However, by early 2013, Clinton had left the State Department. John Kerry had taken over as secretary of state. If the lack of transparency was limited to the State Department under Hillary Clinton’s direction, then why did it continue under Kerry — and in such an obviously clumsy way?

It is entirely possible, and frankly likely, that the lack of transparency didn’t start and end with Hillary Clinton, although she may have pushed it to the point of damaging national security. Though liberals are loathe to admit it, the Obama administration has too often suppressed transparency, be it the Department of Justice in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal or the IRS or now the State Department.

And because of that, Clinton’s scandal could stick to the two men getting the most mention as possible emergency replacements for her in the Democratic primary. John Kerry’s State Department seemed perfectly willing to hide Clinton’s potential issues from public oversight. How could he take the 2016 mantle from her? And if Joe Biden ran for president, the argument for his candidacy would explicitly rest on continuity from the Obama years — years in which those in power tried to manipulate courts and avoid legitimate oversight.

If this scandal gets any worse, Democrats may have no one left to rescue them from a disaster of their own making.

After the release of the video from this exchange with Black Lives Matter activists, expect that panic to increase exponentially.

Via: Hot Air

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[VIDEO] CBS and NBC Fail to Cover IRS Data Breach, Feds Approving Drilling in the Arctic

In Monday evening’s edition of network bias by omission, CBS and NBC neglected to stories concerning a data breach of American taxpayers at the scandal-ridden IRS and the Obama administration finally giving approval for a major oil company to begin oil drilling in the Arctic off Alaska’s coast. Surprisingly, ABC’s World News Tonight picked up the pieces and provided their viewers with coverage of a full segment on the IRS breach and a brief on the future of drilling in the Arctic. 

On the subject of the IRS, anchor David Muir described the information as “a troubling new development in the case of computer hacking at the IRS” as “far more taxpayers’ documents could have been compromised than we first knew.” 

Speaking with Muir, senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas reported that “three times as many taxpayers [were] affected” as “[t]he number jump[ed] from 114,000 identified in May to roughly 334,000 possibly targeted.”

Thomas further explained in the time remaining how the information that the IRS has on Americans includes their salary, address, and date of birth to name a few that all could easily enable thieves to “assume your identity” and make hundreds of thousands of people victims of identity theft.

While Telemundo kept their viewers in the dark on this story, Univision’s Noticiero Univision had an 18-second news brief from co-anchor Jorge Ramos on the data breach and the growing number of Americans potentially affected.

Concerning the oil drilling, Muir dedicated a 14-second brief to the long-awaited decision by the Obama administration: 

Tonight, oil drilling set to begin again in the Arctic Ocean. The U.S. government giving Royal Dutch Shell the final permit to drill off Alaska’s northwest coast. The first drilling there in more two decades. Shell bringing in special equipment to comply with environmental regulations.

On the Spanish-language network front, Telemundo and Univision ignored it while the PBS NewsHour and FNC’s Special Report joined ABC in covering this development regarding the future of drilling in the Arctic.

Instead of mentioning either one of these stories, CBS Evening News fill-in anchor Charlie Rose promoted viral video of a dump truck driver in Saudi Arabia driving with the container up when it crashed into a highway sign.

Via: Newsbusters

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IRS says more than 300,000 may have been hit by cyberattacks

WASHINGTON--The Internal Revenue Service said identity thieves' penetration of one of its computer databases was much more extensive than previously reported, with more than 300,000 taxpayer accounts potentially affected and more than 600,000 breaches attempted.

The IRS reported in May that cyber crooks used stolen Social Security numbers and other data acquired elsewhere to try to gain unauthorized access to prior-year tax return information for about 225,000 U.S. households. That included about 114,000 successful attempts and 111,000 unsuccessful ones.

On Monday, the agency said its review showed that an additional 390,000 taxpayers were potentially affected. That includes about 220,000 additional households "where there were instances of possible or potential access" to prior-year return data, the IRS said in a statement. It also includes about 170,000 additional instances of "suspected attempts that failed to clear the authentication processes," it added.

As before, the IRS said it would move immediately to notify affected taxpayers and take other steps, including offering free credit protection and special identification numbers to reduce instances of tax-refund fraud.

The breaches occurred in an online application called "Get Transcript" that allowed taxpayers to obtain prior-year return information. The system was shut down when the problems came to light.

"The IRS takes the security of taxpayer data extremely seriously, and we are working to continue to strengthen security for `Get Transcript,' including by enhancing taxpayer-identity authentication protocols," the agency said.

Via: Morning Star

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[VIDEO] STEVE KING: IT’S NOT PERFECT, BUT TRUMP IMMIGRATION DOCUMENT ‘BOLD,’ STRONG,’ ‘POSITIVE’

Representative Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

77%

 argued that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s position paper on immigration is “bold,” “strong,” and “positive,” although he added, “I’d like to plug a couple more things in there” on Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day.”

King said, “Well, when I read through that document, in the end, I thought it’s a very, very positive document. It’s bold. It’s strong. It’s broad. It covers most of the things that you’d want to cover. I’d like to plug a couple more things in there.”

He continued, “But with regard to birthright citizenship, for example, it is — has constitutional underpinnings, yes, but the way you start that is, as you pass the legislation that puts an end to birthright citizenship, I happen to be the author of that legislation. And then it will be litigated, there isn’t any doubt about it, but there’s a clause in there thatsays, ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ ‘All persons born [or naturalized] in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ are American citizens, and — or are United States citizens, to be more technically correct. So, we have to start the legislation, I think it’s constitutionally sound to pass the legislation, and end birthright citizenship. There aren’t very many countries in the world that have that policy. But I was curious, for some time, about how Donald Trump would get Mexico to pay for the wall. As you know, I’ve advocated for a long time for a fence — a wall and a fence on the southern border. I’m optimistic about this. I think the tactics that he uses are legitimate, and he’ll use more leverage in that. … I think that he can get to that place, but whether they do or whether they don’t pay for the wall, as he says in his document, the cost of that wall pales in comparison to the cost of not building it.”

King was then asked why he isn’t pushing for criminal sanctions for employers who hire illegal immigrants. He answered, “I’m supportive of doing those things. The reason we haven’t pushed this harder in the last six and a half years is because, there’s no way that one can imagine that this administration is going to enforce any of that. I mean, they’ve gone to court to block local jurisdictions from even mirroring federal immigration law, let alone…how they’re accepting sanctuary cities, which I’m grateful that Donald Trump has in his document, he’s going to end that.” And “if you’re going to punish and fine employers, you have to have a Justice Department and an Obama [administration] — a presidential administration that’ll follow through. I would do that. But I think I have a better idea, and I was hopeful that it would be in this document. There’s room for it within the language that’s there, it’s not specified, it’s called the New IDEA Act. And that’s a piece of legislation that I offered, several cycles ago, that does this. It brings the IRS into play, and it tell — and it says this, ‘If you’re an employer, and you use E-Verify, you get safe harbor for those that you hire. But, you cannot be left the wages and benefits paid to illegals under this legislation.’ And so, the IRS would go through, under a normal audit of a business, and they would run the Social Security numbers of the employees through. If E-Verify kicks them out, and says, ‘Sorry, they can’t work in the United States,’ then the employer would lose his business deduction. So, your $10 an hour illegal, after there’s interest, penalty, and taxes charged on that, becomes a $16 an hour illegal. And we would — and there’s a six year statute of limitations on it. So, we would clean up this workforce, and we’d do so with the IRS. And we require the IRS to cooperate with the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security. I know that’s within the — I’ll say within the list of things that Donald Trump would be looking at to support, but I don’t — but it’s not in the document. So, that’s what I would do. I think it’s actually — it enhances our revenue stream. It’s a — it would score out a plus by billions of dollars, and clean up our workforce.”

King concluded, “There’s something he’s tapped into here, and we — nobody knows how long this’ll last. We’ve never seen anything like this before, but he has tapped into the discontent in America, the malaise within America, the people who are fed up. They’re fed up with political correctness, they’re fed up with the disrespect for the rule of law, they’re fed up with the dilution of Americanism, and they want cultural continuity, they want English as the official language, they want free enterprise to be something we can proud of again, and they want to be done with an administration that’s been punishing big business. It’s important for all business to be profitable. That’s the engine that drives the freedom that we have. And there’s a robust America there, that needs to be tapped into. And that’s why I think he’s got the support he has, and why that helicopter landed a little ways away from me the other day.”

Via: Breitbart

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Kamala Harris, Dem Rising Star, Goes for the Jugular on Conservative Nonprofits

The Supreme Court is being asked to determine whether California’s ambitious Attorney General and candidate for U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris, has violated the First Amendment and federal law protecting confidential tax return information.

Harris is California’s top charity regulator, and has been delegated broad, unbridled discretion to tell charities and nonprofit advocacy groups what they must file to obtain a license to speak with potential and existing donors.

Nonprofit organizations are some of the most effective critics of government, other powerful institutions -- and ambitious politicians -- making them especially vulnerable to the desire to bully and censor them. The Lois Lerner/IRS scandal is a good example.

Harris decided to push the limits by telling charities that they may not solicit contributions unless they first file a list of their top donors, which is an extortionate prior restraint on speech. Those donors are found on a confidential “Schedule B” to the tax returns filed by nonprofits with the IRS. 

Federal law protects confidential tax return information, and even provides civil and criminal penalties against federal and state officials who violate the confidentiality law.  The IRS was ordered to pay the National Organization for Marriage for disclosing that organization’s Schedule B donor information to hostile blogs.

As or even more importantly, what Harris is doing flies in the face of the 1958 landmark Supreme Court decision in NAACP v. Alabama. That case held that membership lists are protected by the First Amendment from demands of states and their attorneys general.

The petition for the court to hear this case filed by the Center for Competitive Politics will be supported by an amicus brief filed by the Free Speech Coalition of Virginia, along with dozens of policy advocacy groups, and even charities such as animal sanctuaries. 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations may still add their name to the amicus brief in what may be a landmark case protecting privacy and rights of private association.

Here is a clip from the amicus brief to be filed explaining the collaboration between Lois Lerner and state charity officials:

A bipartisan report of the Senate Finance Committee about the Internal Revenue Service’s treatment of nonprofit organizations, issued August 5, 2015, references various unlawful disclosures of confidential tax information by the IRS, including the Form 990 Schedule B information of the National Organization of Marriage.[1]

Recent publicized violations of disclosure of confidential tax return information by the IRS -- and of course what is publicized is based only on the times that the IRS was caught -- demonstrate that even the federal service with its supposedly sophisticated guards of confidentiality is untrustworthy.  It defies logic to believe that state attorneys general, a partisan elected position subject to the temptations and whims of partisan politics no matter how dedicated and professional, would have better safeguards of such confidential tax return information.

Via: American Thinker

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LOIS LERNER’S IRS GRANTED ONLY ONE CONSERVATIVE GROUP NON-PROFIT STATUS IN THREE YEARS

Lois Lerner’s political beliefs led to tea party and conservative groups receiving disparate and unfair treatment when applying for non-profit status, according to a detailed report compiled by the Senate Finance Committee.

Because of Lerner’s bias, only one conservative political advocacy organization was granted tax exempt status over a period of more than three years:

“Due to the circuitous process implemented by Lerner, only one conservative political advocacy organization was granted tax-exempt status between February 2009 and May 2012. Lerner’s bias against these applicants unquestionably led to these delays, and is particularly evident when compared to the IRS’s treatment of other applications, discussed immediately below.”

As the report notes, Lois Lerner became aware in April or May of 2010 that the IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) division had begun receiving a high number of applications from Tea Party organizations. But as the backlog of applicants increased, Lerner added “more layers of review and raised hurdles for applicants to clear.”

This “rigid and unorthodox process” meant that over the three year period, tea party and conservative groups waited a total of 621 years for the IRS to make a decision about their applications for tax-exempt status. As the report notes, many of these applications could have been decided far earlier, but were not due to decisions by Lerner. As the report notes:

“The unfortunate consequence of imposing this highly rigid and unorthodox process on EO Determinations was that many Tea Party applications that could have been decided in 2010 were not. Rather, those Tea Party applications unnecessarily languished for several more years, while the IRS mismanaged its way through a series of failed initiatives designed to bring the applications to decision.”

In contrast, progressive or non-affiliated applicants faced a timely review process. Indeed, the IRS was willing and able to quickly approve high profile non-tea party applicants:

“Although applications from the Tea Party and conservative organizations languished at the IRS, this was not the case for all groups that applied. In cases where the IRS wanted to act quickly, it did – particularly for other high-profile applications that attracted political attention.”

As the Finance Committee concludes, the process by which EO approved applications for tax-exempt status was clearly based on how closely an organization aligned with Lerner’s liberal views:

“The IRS’s treatment of these organizations was almost universally consistent with Lerner’s personal political views – this is, supporting Democratic candidates and opposing conservative tax-exempt organizations that engaged in political speech. Conservative organizations that sought to participate in the nation’s political discourse, such as the Tea Party, drew the strongest ire from Lerner.”

Via: Infowars

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Tax issue dogs Democrat Melissa Gilbert in new bid for Congress - owes IRS $360,000

Howell — Actress Melissa Gilbert, the "Little House on the Prairie" star whose move to Howell two years ago brought a dash of Hollywood glamour to Livingston County, is more than a half pint short on her federal taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service recently accused her of failing to pay more than $360,000 in federal income taxes, a debt that is emerging one week after Gilbert announced she and her family are moving out of their rented home near downtown Howell.

Gilbert, 51, blamed the tax debt on a stalled acting career, the economy and divorce.

"Like so many people across the nation, the recession hit me hard," Gilbert said in a statement to The Detroit News. "That, plus a divorce and a dearth of acting opportunities the last few years, created a perfect storm of financial difficulty for me."

Gilbert, along with husband and fellow actor Timothy Busfield and two younger boys, are moving into a log house in an unspecified part of Livingston County, or as she wrote in a tweet last week "our own Little House in the Big Woods."

Her husband said the move from Howell is unrelated to the tax debt.

"(The debt) has more to do with the housing crash and divorce in the past," Busfield told The News. "It's a product of what happened with the economy. It's unfortunate and it's been happening a lot. It's not a big deal."

Gilbert said she has negotiated a payment plan with the IRS.

"I've set up an installment plan to fully pay off my debt and will continue to work as hard as I can to erase this debt and dig myself out of this hole," she said. "I am absolutely positive that I can do it."

Gilbert and East Lansing native Busfield — known for television roles in "thirtysomething" and "West Wing" and in the films "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Field of Dreams" — moved to Michigan about three months after they were married in April 2013.

Gilbert has a history of tax problems that followed her from California to Michigan. The state of California has filed $112,527 worth of tax liens against her since 2013.

A tax lien gives the government a legal claim to all of Gilbert's property, everything from vehicles to homes and income.

The IRS filed a $360,551 tax lien against Gilbert on Feb. 3. She owes federal income taxes from 2011, 2012 and 2013, according to the lien, which is filed with the Livingston County Register of Deeds.

According to the IRS, Gilbert owes $219,989 in income taxes from 2011. She owes $99,405 from 2012 — the year she appeared on "Dancing With the Stars" — and $41,157 in taxes from 2013, according to the tax lien.

Gilbert went through a period of change during the three years covered by the tax lien. She filed for divorce from Bruce Boxleitner in 2011 and competed on "Dancing With the Stars" the next year.

Since she and Busfield arrived in Michigan, they have rented a three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot Victorian home built in 1890 and located two blocks from downtown Howell.

"Oh, my God, they're great," landlord and property owner Brenda Korth said. "It's been fine. It's been fun."

Korth rented the home to Gilbert, thinking the Hollywood couple would stay for one year.

"It turned into two years and that was fine but I'm really ready to move home," the General Motors environmental engineer told The News.

"If they've been having financial problems, that's not known to me," she added. "The rent's always been paid on time. They've been great tenants."

Gilbert and her husband are kind, she said, and have been welcomed by people in Howell.

"I'm so glad they're in town; everybody has been excited about it," Korth said.

Gilbert did not explain what prompted the pending move out of Howell.

"We are moving but we are not leaving," Gilbert tweeted Friday in response to a well-wisher. "We will be around. We love Howell. We love Livingston Co."

While in Michigan, Gilbert has written a cookbook called "My Prairie Cookbook," inspired by the voracious but picky eating habits of her sons. She has done at least one book signing in Livingston County.

The couple also has continued to pursue acting and directing careers. The couple guest starred on a late April episode of the NBC series "The Night Shift" that Busfield also directed.

In January, Gilbert participated in a charity fundraiser in Howell for Yatooma's Foundation For the Kids, a charity that raises money for children who have lost a parent.

"We're thrilled she's here," Bloomfield Hills lawyer Norman Yatooma said. "She's every bit the class act in person that her fans have come to love from the comfort of their couches."

rsnell@detroitnews.com

Via: The Detroit News

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Are liberal city centers dying off politically?

It’s a given in American politics that urban centers are essentially Democrat strongholds. There is no point in Republicans or conservatives competing there because you’re simply not going to gain any votes or find any agreement on key policy points. This can be attributed to both economic and demographic factors. The low income urban communities are predominantly composed of minority voters and they stand with the Democrats in numbers which are too daunting to contemplate. The majority of the wealthy tend toward the limosene liberal crowd who can afford destructive taxes and have the leisure time available to dictate proper life choices to others no matter how they live their own lives. (Be sure to take a limo or a private jet to your next climate change conference.)

But is this changing? Joel Kotkin at Real Clear Politics looks at the numbers and finds that while urban population centers are still large, they are not growing in relation to the exurbs and rural areas, and they’re also not turning out to vote in the same numbers as they did in the heyday of the Democrats.

This urban economy has created many of the most unequal places  in the country. At the top are the rich and super-affluent who have rediscovered the blessings of urbanity, followed by a large cadre of young and middle-aged professionals, many of them childless. Often ignored, except after sensationalized police shootings, is a vast impoverished class that has become ever-more concentrated in particular neighborhoods. During the first decade of the current millennium, neighborhoods with entrenchedurban poverty actually grew, increasing in numbers from 1,100 to 3,100. In population, they grew from 2 million to 4 million.Some 80 percent of all population growth in American cities, since 2000, notes demographerWendell Cox, came from these poorer people, many of them recent immigrants.

Such social imbalances are not, as is the favored term among the trendy, sustainable. We appear to be creating the conditions for a new wave of violent crime on a scale not seen since the early 1990s. Along with poverty,public disorderliness, gang activity, homelessness and homicides are on the rise in many American core cities, including Baltimore,  Milwaukee, Los Angeles and New York. Racial tensions, particularly with the police, have worsened. So even as left-leaning politicians try to rein in police, recent IRS data in Chicago reveals, the middle class appears to once again be leaving for suburban and other locales.

When Democrats begin looking at these types of numbers in a serious fashion they must be asking a question which conservatives have been pondering for some time. Who has been running things in the cities for decades now? The Democrats. And how’s that working out for you? Crime rates in the cities have been – and remain – epic. You can try to blame vast social conflict on the police if you like, but the fact is that the police go where the crime is. The social infrastructure in so many large cities has simply collapsed and it’s all taken place on the watch of the liberal Democrats who rule the roost. They whip up their voters into a frenzy every election cycle, warning of the dangers of the Republicans who hold no power over their lives, but it is under their leadership that you saw the current mess develop.

On the upper end of the scale, particularly in places like New York City, there is a jarring contrast which is hard for the Democrat base to ignore. How do you talk about income inequality and the evils of the fat cats when it’s those same fat cats financing the election of the same Democrats over and over again? Isn’t there a bit of a disconnect there?

Looking at the numbers in that article I have have to wonder if Barack Obama – by virtue of being able to generate racial empathy – might be the last Democrat who will turn out large numbers of voters in the cities. What does Hillary have to offer them which is any different than the policies which have seen New York’s murder rate skyrocket once again and Baltimore going up in flames?

Via: Hot Air

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IRS's Lois Lerner called conservatives 'a--holes' in emails

Lois Lerner emails obtained from the House Ways and Means Committee are displayed in Washington, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. (AP Photo) 

A trove of IRS emails show top official Lois Lerner had a deep commitment to the Democratic Party and a significant dislike for the new conservative grassroots groups that formed under the Tea Party banner and sought tax-exempt status from the agency.

"Crazies" and "a--holes," were the blunt terms Lerner used to describe conservatives, who, with a Supreme Court decision striking down the campaign finance reform law, were bringing about "an end to America," she wrote.

The emails are included in a bipartisan report issued Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee, which cited "gross mismanagement" and also "personal politics" as the root cause of the IRS mishandling of tax-exempt applications from Tea Party organizations.

Democrats on the panel emphasized the mismanagement, declaring there was no evidence the groups were singled out because they were conservative. They cited lack of training, lack of oversight and ineptitude as the main culprits in the mishandling of hundreds of tax-exempt applicants that were subjected to extra scrutiny and delays.

"The results of this in-depth, bipartisan investigation showcase pure bureaucratic mismanagement without any evidence of political interference," said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the finance panel.

But Lerner, the former top official who oversaw tax-exempt groups, showed a true dislike for conservative-leaning organizations, according to her email conversations with her husband and associates.

"Well, you should hear the whacko wing of the GOP," her husband, Michael Miles, wrote to Lerner in November 2012.

"The US is through; too many foreigners sucking the teat; time to hunker down, buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end. The right wing radio shows are scary to listen to."

Lerner responds, "Great. Maybe we are through if there are that many a--holes."

Via: Washington Post

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[EDITORIAL] Jailtime For IRS' Political Hacks

IRS Scandal: When Are These People Going to Jail? 

Corruption: After a year's stalling by the IRS, the Senate Finance Committee has released its bipartisan report, denouncing the tax-collection agency's partisanship and incompetence. When are these people going to jail?

S

The Senate report wasn't entirely satisfactory, given that its criticism was primarily in the compromise language of "gross mismanagement" to describe the agency's targeting of Tea Party dissident groups.

Using legal technicalities to silence and repress political dissent under the color of the nation's most feared enforcement agency isn't mismanagement. It's a crime.

It's incompatible with democracy and it shatters public confidence in the rule of law. It's the very crime the State Department is now condemning in Venezuela: the use of legal technicalities to halt popular opposition candidates from running for office. Until now, this kind of activity has had no precedent in our country, and it must be stopped before it becomes the standard.

This is far from mere incompetence or gross mismanagement. It was a highly competent operation to silence dissent. Yet no one has been sanctioned or punished, despite there being laws on the books dating back to the beginning of a professional civil service, that forbid and punish partisan motives in what should be impartial law. Already some observers believe the IRS swung the last election for the Democrats with these activities.

Not only did the IRS target Tea Party groups with unconscionable delays and intrusive questions, it went for their families, too. Young Bristol Palin learned yesterday that just being the daughter of former Alaska Gov. and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin put her in the IRS' sights. Sarah Palin's father was targeted, too.

The agency also obstructed justice, first falsely claiming that its illegal targeting was only the work of rogue agents in its Cincinnati office. Then, as that lie fell apart, IRS moved to destroy evidence in the thousands of missing emails on IRS tax exempt organizations chief Lois Lerner's computer. Conveniently for them, it was declared lost forever in a hard drive crash — until it wasn't.

Now it's relying on its allies in the Senate and among anti-Tea Party Democrats in the House for cover, having them declare it incompetence, not a crime.

Allies? Yes. IRS top executive John Koskinen is a major financial contributor to Democrat campaigns, having donated nearly $100,000 to Democrats since 1979. And the National Treasury Employees Union, the IRS agents' union, is an even more notable donor to Democrats, with 94% of its members donating to leftists, and the 150,000-strong union itself endorsing Obama for president both in 2008 and 2012.

Lerner herself called Tea Party members "crazies" and spewed other anti-GOP insults in her emails.

To say that the IRS didn't have an interest in repressing dissent and was just unwittingly incompetent is ridiculous. IRS bureaucrats saw an illicit advantage for their Democrat friends — and wrongly took it.

That's illegal, and it demands a strong response from the law if the agency ever expects to recover public confidence. If it doesn't care enough about that, well, then what difference is there between the U.S. and a lawless banana republic?

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Via: Investors

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IRS mismanaged Tea Party groups, Senate report finds

The IRS severely mismanaged the applications of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status, a long-awaited and bipartisan Senate report said Wednesday.

But Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee couldn't find common ground on perhaps the central IRS issues of the last 27 months: whether the agency intentionally targeted conservative groups because of their politics, and whether there was White House or Treasury involvement.

The new report did find that Lois Lerner, the central figure in the controversy, "failed to adequately manage" her staff that were processing the tax-exempt applications. 

More broadly, the committee, led by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), found that the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt groups showed little to no regard for the groups who in some cases faced years of delay on their applications. 

"Not only did those organizations have to withstand delays measured in years, but many also were forced to bear a withering barrage of burdensome and inappropriate 'development letters' aimed at extracting information the IRS wrongly concluded was necessary to properly process the applications," the report said.

Lerner launched the IRS controversy in May 2013, by apologizing for the IRS's treatment of Tea Party groups through a planted question at a law conference. A Treasury inspector general subsequently found the IRS had selected groups with “Tea Party” and “patriots” in their name for extra scrutiny.

Republicans and Democrats have long agreed that Lerner and her division mishandled Tea Party groups' applications, but have quarreled from almost the start over whether conservative groups were singled out intentionally.

The controversy intensified last year after the IRS said it couldn't find an untold number of Lerner's emails because of a computer crash, something that also delayed the Senate Finance report. A Treasury inspector general only recently concluded an inquiry that found that the IRS lost as many as 24,000 of Lerner’s emails.

Hatch said Wednesday that "the administration’s political agenda guided the IRS’s actions with respect to their treatment of conservative groups," and that Lerner's own personal views "impacted how the IRS conducted its business."

Wyden, on the other hand, told reporters that "my judgment is this report points to vast bureaucratic bumbling."

"There is not a single shred of political interference," he added.

The Finance Committee's findings are unlikely to relieve any of the partisan tensions surrounding the IRS, which has seen its budget slashed even further in the wake of the congressional investigations.

House Republicans have raised the specter of impeaching the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, over his handling of the missing Lerner emails. Koskinen himself has said that it was up to the Finance panel to decide whether the IRS singled out conservative groups for political reasons. 

In a statement, the IRS said that it appreciated the Finance Committee's efforts and that the agency would study the report's recommendations.

"The IRS is fully committed to making further improvements, and we want to do everything we can to help taxpayers have confidence in the fairness and integrity of the tax system," the statement added.

Koskinen has also said the IRS will hold off on releasing new proposed rules that would more clearly define political activity for the 501(c)(4) groups at the center of the controversy, to keep from overly influencing the 2016 campaign.

Democrats have said confusion between tax law and current IRS rules helped fuel the improper scrutiny of tax-exempt applications, an idea dismissed by Republicans.

The findings and recommendations that the Republicans and Democrats agreed upon in the new bipartisan report are broad and, in many cases, likely noncontroversial.

The report, for instance, notes that the extra scrutiny given to tax-exempt applicants reduced taxpayer trust in the IRS, that the exempt organizations unit needed a more centralized command structure and that many staffers in that division didn’t have enough training to do their jobs correctly.

Its recommendations include that the IRS do a better job managing the backlog of tax-exempt cases.

But in their own section, Republicans said the IRS did not hold up liberal groups just because of their name, as some Democrats have said.

GOP senators also criticized what they called an overly political culture within the IRS, in which an employee union has so much influence that it “makes it difficult for the agency to remain apolitical.”

And Republicans blasted not only Lerner but the agency’s senior-most officials — including former Commissioner Doug Shulman and former interim Commissioner Steven Miller — for concealing what they knew from Congress for months.

“The report clearly shows that conservative groups were singled out because of their political beliefs, and gross mismanagement at the IRS allowed this practice to continue for years,” Hatch said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

But Wyden said that wasn’t so in his own floor speech Wednesday. The Oregon Democrat said the Finance panel found no documents showing any link between the improper scrutiny and either the White House or Treasury.

On top of that, Wyden said none of the IRS staffers interviewed by the committee talked of any political bias, and that Republicans were unfairly hyping Lerner’s own political views to make their case that the agency targeted Tea Party groups.

Democrats, Wyden said, found no proof that Lerner’s liberal views influenced how she did her job.

“So, Ms. Lerner’s husband voted for socialists, she is a Democrat, she supports same-sex marriage, and she apparently doesn’t have a lot of Republican supporters among her family or friends,” Wyden said. “What is all of this supposed to prove?”

Via: The Hill

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