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The Library => The SGA => Topic started by: WiregrassTiger on May 10, 2013, 04:32:27 PM
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http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/05/irs_says_it_singled_out_tea_pa.html#incart_river_default
I.R.S. says it singled out Tea Party filers, apologizes
By Alex Walsh | awalsh@al.com
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on May 10, 2013 at 2:58 PM, updated May 10, 2013
The Associated Press
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service says it unfairly targeted conservative groups, including those affiliated with the so-called Tea Party, when determining whether a non-profit organization deserved its exemption, according to the New York Times.
“We made some mistakes; some people didn’t use good judgment,†I.R.S. divisional director Lois Lerner said in a conference call. “For that we’re apologetic.â€
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When was the last time government used good judgment?
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If Bush were our President now, the backlash would be 10 times what we see. Benghazi cover up should be worse than Watergate was for Nixon.
Covering up Benghazi helped decide an election. It's not the fact that people were killed, it's the fact that the reason and response was spun to influence the election.
The IRS harassment and the intrusion into the AP are the icing on the cake. This president has lost control. We can only judge a leader by results and he has failed. It's time for him to go. And I don't mean ride off into the sunset at the end of his term and go back to the speaking circuit and community organizing. I mean impeachment.
If these atrocities aren't addressed by congress and corrected, we are a short slide away from becoming Russia.
Alabama tea party groups targeted by IRS (updated)
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/05/alabama_tea_party_groups_targe.html#incart_m-rpt-2
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By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com
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on May 13, 2013 at 1:14 PM, updated May 13, 2013 at 8:52 PM
At least two Alabama tea party groups said they were singled out by the Internal Revenue Service over their applications for tax-exempt status.
Both the Common Sense Campaign, a Mobile-based tea party group, and the Wetumpka Tea Party said they were targeted by the IRS, which apologized Friday for what it called “inappropriate†reviews of conservative political groups.
Pete Riehm, a co-founder of the Common Sense Campaign, said the IRS blocked his group’s application to be recognized as a 501c4 non-profit organization.
“We were never audited, but we were certainly harassed,†Riehm said today.
A House bill introduced today would make it a crime punishable by jail time if IRS agents are found guilty of discriminating against political groups.
Riehm said his tea party group submitted its initial application to the IRS in the summer of 2009, along with an $850 filing fee. He said the campaign spent nearly two years and at least $2,000 in legal costs dealing with the IRS’ questions about the application.
Riehm said the group faced repeated delays and was told on at least two occasions that its application had been lost, forcing Common Sense organizers to restart the application process.
Riehm said his group was asked to provide a list of its donors – a violation of IRS policy. He said the agency additionally asked for information about people who posted comments on the campaign’s web site.
The group’s efforts to comply with the IRS only brought new rounds of requests from the tax agency, he said.
Riehm said his concerns peaked in early 2011, when the IRS asked the campaign to identify the employers of its campaign donors and board members.
"They were definitely trying to scare us." - Pete Riehm, a co-founder of the Common Sense Campaign
“That’s when I knew we were being targeted. It had a chilling effect on our ability to raise money,†he said. “They were definitely trying to scare us.â€
Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka Tea Party, said her group faced similar delays after applying for tax exempt status in October 2010. After months without any response from the IRS, she said the group received an 8-page letter in February 2012 requesting extensive details about its activities.
"They wanted copies of any communications with legislators. They wanted the names of our volunteers and anyone who'd spoken at our events. They even wanted actual copies of the speeches," Gerritson said. "It was very disorienting."
Gerritson said her group declined to provide the information based on legal advice from the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based law firm that represents about 30 tea party organizations.
The IRS informed the group in July 2012 that its application had been approved, Gerritson said.
Riehm said the Common Sense Campaign, frustrated by mounting legal costs, chose to drop its application in 2011.
“We decided to just pay the tax and quit fighting the bureaucracy,†he said. “It was obvious they weren’t going to recognize us†as a tax-exempt organization.
Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said Friday that about 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.
The agency — led at the time by a Bush administration appointee — blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.
That explanation wasn’t good enough for members of the Wetumpka Tea Party.
“Our group was targeted by the IRS,†the group said in a message posted on its Facebook page. “ We have a hard time believing this was an ‘accident’ by low level IRS people.â€
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Bush set the precedence for current spying.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/barack-trek--into-darkness
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Bush set the precedence for current spying.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/barack-trek--into-darkness
Fucking wrong, wrong, wrong. FDR set it, then it just carried on. LBJ tapes anyone? I hated Bush, but he did nothing more than what others had done before him. They just happened to be the media's darlings and it wasn't talked about.
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fudgeing wrong, wrong, wrong. FDR set it, then it just carried on. LBJ tapes anyone? I hated Bush, but he did nothing more than what others had done before him. They just happened to be the media's darlings and it wasn't talked about.
I think things get a little out of whack when you are the guy in charge and the country is attacked. Esp when you don't know where the enemy is. The fear is that they are already in your country. Everywhere. That would make me do some things that I wouldn't normally consider allowable in a democratic republic.
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Fucking wrong, wrong, wrong. FDR set it, then it just carried on. LBJ tapes anyone? I hated Bush, but he did nothing more than what others had done before him. They just happened to be the media's darlings and it wasn't talked about.
Careful. He has sources who know the illuminati and international banking cartels.
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Careful. He has sources who know the illuminati and international banking cartels.
Mutherfucker I am the illuminati. Recognize.
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I think things get a little out of whack when you are the guy in charge and the country is attacked. Esp when you don't know where the enemy is. The fear is that they are already in your country. Everywhere. That would make me do some things that I wouldn't normally consider allowable in a democratic republic.
I would like to think that I wouldn't trample all over someones constitutional rights. It has been done since FDR and it will always happen.
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I would like to think that I wouldn't trample all over someones constitutional rights. It has been done since FDR and it will always happen.
C'mon man. You work in IT, that's part of the job description. You creepin' voyeuristic assholes.
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I would like to think that I wouldn't trample all over someones constitutional rights. It has been done since FDR and it will always happen.
Woodrow Wilson. Federal Reserve. Stock market margin (see roaring 20s and ensuing collapse in 29). End of story. Bad precedents were set with both.
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C'mon man. You work in IT, that's part of the job description. You creepin' voyeuristic assholes.
No no no, I am not IT. Systems Administration and Information Security is what I do. I work on clusters, not desktops. Although at my first job I was also the IT guy since we were offsite. I never looked at anyones stuff, but I damn sure would remotely reboot their machine or hide their network drive info at random times. :)
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Woodrow Wilson. Federal Reserve. Stock market margin (see roaring 20s and ensuing collapse in 29). End of story. Bad precedents were set with both.
True. I don't know if Woodrow tapped any phones or not, I am sure he did. I more alluding to BF's post saying that Bush set the precedent on spying. How quickly we forget that FDR was tapping phones and rounding up people against their will and throwing them into makeshift concentration camps. All you see in history books now is how his New Deal rescued us from the Great Depression and he won WWII.
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True. I don't know if Woodrow tapped any phones or not, I am sure he did. I more alluding to BF's post saying that Bush set the precedent on spying. How quickly we forget that FDR was tapping phones and rounding up people against their will and throwing them into makeshift concentration camps. All you see in history books now is how his New Deal rescued us from the Great Depression and he won WWII.
Guess I was just meaning govt meddling and growth in general.
I have a book called "FDRs Folly" about the myth that Fdr saved us. In fact his policies prolonged the depression. Sound familiar?
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Right. Impeach Obama. Make Joe Biden the President.
That'll help.
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Right. Impeach Obama. Make Joe Biden the President.
That'll help.
LOLz!
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Right. Impeach Obama. Make Joe Biden the President.
That'll help.
Does that mean there will be government subsidies for shotguns?
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Right. Impeach Obama. Make Joe Biden the President.
That'll help.
It would make it funnier.
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Does that mean there will be government subsidies for shotguns?
I need a new shotgun anyway, so I'm for it.
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IRS chief says it was two rogue workers.
Two people did all that damage without being noticed.
Oh and I loved how Obama heard about it on the news. Didn't know it was happening. Jon Stewart had a great bit on his comments last night. He brought up four different clips of Obama claiming that he only heard about scandals from the news. Fast and Furious, Jeremiah Wright, some other one, and now the IRS.
What a joke.
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IRS chief says it was two rogue workers.
Two people did all that damage without being noticed.
Oh and I loved how Obama heard about it on the news. Didn't know it was happening. Jon Stewart had a great bit on his comments last night. He brought up four different clips of Obama claiming that he only heard about scandals from the news. Fast and Furious, Jeremiah Wright, some other one, and now the IRS.
What a joke.
If he gets out of this unscathed, then the guy is pure Teflon. The scapegoating and blame game stuff, as a means of blatantly sidestepping blame, is getting old.
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IRS chief says it was two rogue workers.
Two people did all that damage without being noticed.
Oh and I loved how Obama heard about it on the news. Didn't know it was happening. Jon Stewart had a great bit on his comments last night. He brought up four different clips of Obama claiming that he only heard about scandals from the news. Fast and Furious, Jeremiah Wright, some other one, and now the IRS.
What a joke.
I seriously doubt it was just two workers, but you'd be surprised how easily just a handful of I.R.S. employees in upper level management could do something like this. Just because it affected X number of taxpayers does not mean that it was an official agency-wide policy that was distributed to employees.
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If he gets out of this unscathed, then the guy is pure Teflon. The scapegoating and blame game stuff, as a means of blatantly sidestepping blame, is getting old.
Situations like these are where I believe that we tend to be a true democracy rather than a republic--which is very dangerous. Country 51% pro Obama? Nothing happens. Even the Supreme court would go in his favor. Majority rules, regardless of how despicable the ruling is.
Or, maybe I'm just too fed up with the gimme, gimme crowd to have any faith.
What pisses me off the most is knowing what the reaction WOULD have been were it Bush in office. There would be damn riots in the streets.
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If he gets out of this unscathed, then the guy is pure Teflon. The scapegoating and blame game stuff, as a means of blatantly sidestepping blame, is getting old.
Nobody in the MSM is really calling him out on any of it, you would think after what they did to AP they would see, but yet to question him would still be racists.
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http://youtu.be/urkBqOoL3n4
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IRS chief says it was two rogue workers.
Two people did all that damage without being noticed.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKUptzMCcAAaqSw.jpg:large)
Oh and I loved how Obama heard about it on the news. Didn't know it was happening.
He heard about it from the press...while listening in on their phone conversations.
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Joe Biden=Foster Brooks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzAXb7qCCAo
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http://youtu.be/urkBqOoL3n4
Pretty much everything she says here is true and damning indeed.
It would be more effective if she didn't come off as such a spiteful mommy part in her presentation.
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Nobody in the MSM is really calling him out on any of it, you would think after what they did to AP they would see, but yet to question him would still be racists.
We have rampant rights violations BY the fed gov't, a definitive gov't cover up (imo) and American citizens being attacked on our home turf by Muslim extremists and this administration is worried about the tea party, gay marriage and gun control. :facepalm:
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It would be more effective if she didn't come off as such a spiteful mommy part in her presentation.
How many women do you know that are not "spiteful mommy parts"?
Gary Johnson
Where is all this outrage when the rights of ordinary citizens are trampled? And how many of the outraged "Lawmakers" voted for the Patriot Act, which legalized that trampling?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/15/us-usa-justice-ap-idUSBRE94C0ZW20130515
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Obama angry, shit rolls downhill. IRS Chief resigned.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/15/18279340-obama-irs-flap-inexcusable-announces-resignation-of-acting-irs-chief?lite
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Acting IRS chief claims he was NOT fired, that his contract was up on June 1 anyway.
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
:rolleyes:
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Pretty much everything she says here is true and damning indeed.
It would be more effective if she didn't come off as such a spiteful mommy part in her presentation.
Everyone on here seems to universally agree on this issue. Say it ain't so. Doesnt happen often!
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Acting IRS chief claims he was NOT fired, that his contract was up on June 1 anyway.
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
:rolleyes:
Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?
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Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?
See the fjords! Make sweet, sweet, painful love to a hornet nest!
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKUptzMCcAAaqSw.jpg:large)
He heard about it from the press...while listening in on their phone conversations.
I wonder what ever came about on that court order for the milk data?
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http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/jun/25/gops-much-beloved-irs-scandal-descends-farce/
GOP's much-beloved IRS scandal descends into farce
AP/Wallenda
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully negotiates a death-defying chasm of logic and evidence. OK, not really.
By Jay Bookman
Well isn't that interesting....
The very first "BOLO" list -- Be On the LOokout -- compiled by IRS workers three years ago seeking to identify tax-exempt applications for further scrutiny also warned agents to look out for applications containing words such as "progressive," "occupy" and even "blue." In addition, it turns out that such groups remained on the BOLO lists even after "Tea Party" was removed in light of the controversy it had caused.
For example, the very first BOLO list, compiled in August 2010, stated:
"Progressives": Political activities. Common thread is the word “progressive.†Activities appear to lean toward a new political party. Activities are partisan and appear anti-Republican. You see references to “blue†as being “progressive.†Applicants submit 1023. Their “progressive†activities appear to show that (c)(3) may not be appropriate."
Others on the IRS watchlist included groups pressing for adoption of medical marijuana laws, those promoting ObamaCare, and those that mention "Paying National Debt" and "Green Energy Organizations." Somehow, none of that had been publicly mentioned by House Republicans conducting a supposedly thorough investigation of IRS practices.
Also on Monday, acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel released the results of an internal investigation. Like an investigation by the IRS inspector general, it concluded that “We have not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone in the IRS or involvement in these matters by anyone outside the IRS.†Instead, the probe found that "several key leaders, including some in the commissioner's office, failed in multiple capacities to meet their managerial responsibilities at various points during the course of these events." As a result, five people in IRS managerial positions have been replaced.
House Republicans had previously praised Werfel for his aggressiveness in dealing with the problem, but that praise has now ceased. According to U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, "This culture of political discrimination and intimidation goes far beyond basic management failure and personnel changes alone won't fix a broken IRS."
Camp's claim of "a culture of political discrimination and intimidation" reflects the new GOP talking points. They have no evidence whatsoever of any involvement by Obama political appointees, and no evidence whatsoever of partisan intent, yet they still somehow claim the existence of a "culture of intimidation."
We saw that same framing last week in a speech by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to the American Enterprise Institute. McConnell conceded that Republicans have no evidence tying the Obama administration to the IRS scandal, and that no such evidence would be forthcoming. As he put it, "There might be some folks out there waiting for a hand-signed memo from President Obama to Lois Lerner to turn up. Do not hold your breath."
Yet McConnell nonetheless claimed a pattern of behavior in which the Obama administration has turned the power of government against its enemies. In a separate interview with the Daily Caller, he claimed that “This IRS investigation is certainly about the IRS, but it’s about the broader issue of the administration’s abuse of power and efforts to silence the critics of the administration.â€
As you may have noticed, McConnell is the Nik Wallenda of politics, able to walk fearlessly across huge chasms of logic and evidence perched on the most slender of threads. Somehow, the absence of any evidence tying the administration to the IRS scandal is transformed into a broad, administration-wide effort to punish people. Do not attempt this at home.
A pattern of behavior would require multiple examples of this alleged behavior. The Republicans have none, as in zero. They profess to see a pattern on a blank sheet of paper, and insist that the rest of America see it as well.
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http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/jun/25/gops-much-beloved-irs-scandal-descends-farce/
I don't give a shoot in shinola what any investigation finds in this. This is Obama's baby and a part of his legacy. Every bit as much as the Iran contra affair is a part of my favorite president's legacy. They prob won't ever find his fingerprints and even if they were found, he's innocent to his sheep.