Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Be careful how you say quotes now.... lol
Did you read the letter the person sent to Obama and Bloomingidiot?
It basically said "You can't have my guns and if you come for them I'll shoot you in the head" or words to that effect.
Not a threat at all. It's like "I have a right, don't screw with it, or suffer the consequences" and yet they are calling the letters a threat. If I opened a letter and it was covered with greasy crap I wouldn't touch it. lol
The only threat the letter posed was to someone stupid enough to lick the letter....
The words weren't a threat.
But even quoting the Second Amendment now is appearing to be "a threat" to some people./.... geez.
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
this shit isn't stopping with the Tea party, now they are going after GOOGLE TOO?
Justice Department tries to force Google to hand over user data
Secret lawsuit in Manhattan filed last month asks judge to force Google to cough up user data without a search warrant. A different court has already ruled that the process is unconstitutional. by Declan McCullagh Follow @declanm
The Department of Justice has asked a Manhattan judge to grant its "petition to enforce" a warrantless legal demand the FBI sent Google. FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder, right, in this file photograph.
(Credit: Getty Images)
A new lawsuit in Manhattan pitting the U.S. Department of Justice against Google offers a rare glimpse of how determined prosecutors are to defend a process that allows federal agents to gain warrantless access to user records, and how committed the Mountain View, Calif., company is to defending its customers' privacy rights against what it views as illegal requests.
The Justice Department's lawsuit, filed April 22 and not disclosed until this article, was sparked by Google's decision to rebuff the FBI's legal demands for confidential user data. It centers on the bureau's controversial use of so-called National Security Letters (NSL), a secret electronic data-gathering technique that does not need a judge's approval and recently was declared unconstitutional in an unrelated court case.
U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan has been assigned the New York case, which has taken place under seal, but as of last week has not made a final ruling. A law clerk for Sullivan did not immediately respond to queries from CNET this morning.
The use of NSLs is controversial because they gag the recipient: If you receive one, it's illegal to tell anyone. They're only supposed to be used in national security investigations, not routine criminal probes, and there's no upper limit on the amount of data a single NSL can demand.
An inspector general's report (PDF) found that the FBI made 50,000 NSL requests in 2006, and 97 percent of those included mandatory gag orders. NSLs can demand user profile information, but the law does not permit them to be used to obtain the text of e-mail messages or most log files. (Even if NSLs are eventually ruled unconstitutional, the FBI would still have a formidable array of investigative tools including subpoenas, court orders, search warrants, wiretap orders, pen registers, sneak and peek warrants, and surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.)
Court documents hint that the FBI has become vexed by Google's legal stand.
Immediately after the FBI's New York field office sent an NSL on April 22, the bureau filed a "petition to enforce" in Manhattan federal court on the same day, an abrupt and arguably undiplomatic move that Google says did not give it a chance to either comply or exercise its legal right to seek judicial review.
Because Google already had been challenging NSLs in a lawsuit filed weeks earlier in California, it asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco to toss out the New York NSL. Illston declined, saying that issue "is more squarely raised" in the New York litigation, but adding that she would revisit the topic if necessary.
Neither the FBI nor Google responded to requests for comment. (The case before Illston is largely under seal, with Google's identity redacted. But, citing initial filings, Bloomberg disclosed last month that it was Google that had initiated the legal challenge.)
Nick Merrill, who challenged an NSL in court, says FBI agents tend to overreach and demand data they have no right to access.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)
Why is Google fighting?
It's not entirely clear why Google has chosen to face off against the Justice Department in court.
"My instinct tells me that Google doesn't pick a fight with the government easily," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has filed its own lawsuit challenging NSLs on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company. "There's probably something going on here that's different from a run-of-the-mill NSL."
Google's history shows it prefers to resolve disputes with government agencies amicably. In 2011, rather than litigate, it paid $500 million to settle Justice Department claims relating to Canadian pharmacies. It settled allegations over Safari ad tracking. It settled complaints over Google Buzz. It settled with the Federal Trade Commission over concerns about its business practices and competition. A 2006 case in which Google resisted the Justice Department's request for search logs -- and mostly won -- was a rare exception.
One possibility is that Google has simply concluded that the FBI's demands are illegal. An NSL (PDF) that the FBI sent Nicholas Merrill, who ran a New York-based Internet service provider, asked for "electronic communication transactional records" -- language that would sweep in Internet addresses and e-mail and Web browsing logs -- including "all e-mail header information."
Merrill's NSL, signed by then-FBI national security attorney Marion Bowman, requested more than federal law permitted. The law, 18 USC 2709, says the FBI may use an NSL to obtain only a user's "name, address, length of service, and local and long-distance toll billing records."
Merrill, who founded the Calyx Institute and is raising funds to launch a privacy-protective Internet provider, said:
The FBI has been abusing its power and the letters have sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. So the combination of free reign for FBI to write its own warrants without judicial review, combined with the never-ending gag orders are the ingredients of a perfect storm of abuse potential.
Google effectively put the FBI on notice on March 5 that it would only divulge what the law requires. In a statement on its Web site at the time, the company said that "the FBI can't use NSLs to obtain anything else from Google, such as Gmail content, search queries, YouTube videos, or user IP addresses."
The litigation over NSLs began three weeks later.
Another possibility, said EFF's Cohn, is that Google is "fighting to give notice" to their subscribers. That would mean arguing that the NSL gag orders are unconstitutional, which the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said was the case in a mixed ruling (PDF).
A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit took an odd approach: The judges agreed "that the challenged statutes do not comply with the First Amendment," but went on to rewrite the statute on their own to make it more constitutional. They drafted new requirements, including that FBI officials may levy a gag order only when they claim an "enumerated harm" to an investigation related to international terrorism or intelligence will result.
EFF is hoping to convince the Ninth Circuit to reach a different result, which would be near-guaranteed to result in review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The civil liberties group won a preliminary victory in March, when Judge Illston in San Francisco ruled the gag order "violates the First Amendment."
Illston, who is stepping down from her post in July, noted that "there is no evidence" that the FBI has adopted policies or regulations to comply with the Second Circuit's requirements.
She gave the Obama administration 90 days to appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which it did on May 6.
While the FBI's authority to levy NSL demands predates the Patriot Act, it was that controversial 2001 law that dramatically expanded NSLs by broadening their use beyond espionage-related investigations. The Patriot Act also authorized FBI officials across the country, instead of only in Washington, D.C., to send NSLs.
Last edited by American Patriot; May 31st, 2013 at 18:04.
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Criticism of IRS grows amid allegations of targeting beyond Tea Party
Published May 31, 2013
FoxNews.com
What started as a scandal over the IRS's targeting of conservative groups has broadened, with lawmakers and other critics now questioning whether other kinds of organizations were unfairly flagged for additional scrutiny.
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., chairman of the House Small Business Committee, wrote a letter to Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel on Friday asking a series of questions about the agency's audit practices for small businesses.
He made no specific allegation, but said that lawmakers' investigations to date prompted the letter.
"(Congressional) investigations have only raised more questions as to the extent these practices may have extended beyond conservative groups," Graves wrote.
Indeed, the scope of the IRS' heavy auditing and scrutiny appears to go beyond Tea Party groups.
A report by the IRS' Taxpayer Advocate Service found the IRS improperly targeted adoptive families -- flagging for further review 90 percent of those who claimed the adoption tax credit in 2012. Further, nearly 70 percent of them endured at least a partial audit of their returns.
By contrast, just one percent of all returns are audited.
The report fueled concerns that the IRS is unfairly lumping categories of filers together for additional review, in turn scrutinizing small-fry individuals and groups while ignoring bigger and richer organizations.
The allegations have been cascading in from across the country as Congress investigates. First, religious groups claimed they had been subjected to additional scrutiny as well. In one high-profile letter from a Christian leader, Franklin Graham alleged that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and one other group had been flagged in 2012 for additional review. Graham claimed the reviews were not "justifiable."
The Washington Free Beacon also reported Thursday that at least five pro-Israel organizations were audited by the IRS following a campaign by White House-aligned group to challenge their tax-exempt status.
Those pro-Israel groups came under criticism after they challenged the administration's stance against Israeli settlement construction.
The Hill also reported on Friday that aid groups trying to help those caught in the Syrian civil war are facing long delays in their applications for tax-exempt status.
This is similar to the problem faced by Tea Party and other groups, who had their applications tied up for a roughly 18-month stretch.
Current and former IRS officials have said that while the practice of subjecting those groups to additional scrutiny was inappropriate, it was not politically motivated. Rather, they say the criteria were developed to deal with an influx of cases. Others have suggested it is up to Congress to clarify the rules for the IRS.
An IRS official last week defended the scrutiny of adoptive families, arguing that the agency is obligated to make sure claims are accurate.
"The IRS implemented the adoption credit program with an approach that balanced the objective of paying legitimate credits in a timely manner with that of ensuring that claims were accurate," IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "Our experiences and lessons learned from other refundable credits taught us that high dollar credits have high risk and the potential for fraud. We must ensure delivery of the credit to those entitled while protecting the government's interest in minimizing exposure to fraud."
In 2011, more than 51,000 taxpayers claimed $668 million from the adoption tax credit. This was after the health care law increased the maximum credit per child.
However, the extra audits only found $11 million in improper claims from the 2011 year.
The taxpayer advocate report said the practice "caused significant harm to thousands of families who are selflessly trying to improve the lives of vulnerable children."
The IRS will be in the hot seat once again next week to answer questions on its targeting practices, as Congress plans at least two upcoming hearings on the scandal. Meanwhile, a recent poll showed Americans overwhelming want an outside investigator to be assigned to examine the IRS. The Justice Department already has launched its own probe.
There's no chance President Barack Obama knew nothing of the IRS targeting conservative groups, says political pundit Dick Morris. Why else would IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman have visited the White House at least once a week?
"The incredible frequency of the White House visits — essentially weekly — indicate that Obama must have been deeply involved with the inner workings of the audits and harassment of conservative groups," Morris writes on his website, DickMorris.com.
Morris asks what other reason would have brought Schulman to the White House 157 times during the period that groups with "tea party," "patriot" and other conservative buzzwords in their names were being targeted for extra scrutiny.
"Not ObamaCare. Not without having (Health and Human Services) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in attendance, you wouldn’t," Morris says. "About Treasury issues? Deficit reduction? Not without Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner."
The reason, Morris says, is that Obama was following the IRS actions with an "obsessive, personal involvement."
The Citizens United ruling galvanized Obama into action, Morris says, and "tapped so deeply into his psyche that he was determined personally to supervise the castration of the wealthy people and groups whose access to the political system was opened wide by the (U.S. Supreme) Court."
Schulman held a subordinate, non-policy making position, Morris said, so to have seen him 157 times, Obama had to have been "a president on a mission."
The scandal is not one of a rogue agency, Morris says, but one of a rogue president using the agency for his personal purposes. "An instrument of vengeance, or self-defense, and of political influence."
President Richard Nixon was doomed, Morris says, when the public realized that his own paranoia had infected his entire administration.
"When Chuck Colson led the plumbers unit to investigate leaks and to use the IRS to terrify and intimidate his enemies, we realized that he was operating as Nixon’s man doing Nixon’s bidding based on the needs of Nixon’s psyche," he writes.
The public now realizes that the IRS harassment went deeper than was initally admitted, he said.
"This scandal will destroy him."
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
WASHINGTON — Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service’s division on tax-exempt organizations, was put on administrative leave Thursday, a day after she invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to testify before a House committee investigating her division’s targeting of conservative groups.
Enlarge This Image Drew Angerer for The New York Times
Lois Lerner of the Internal Revenue Service leaving a House hearing on Wednesday on the agency’s focus on conservative groups.
Lawmakers from both parties said Thursday that senior I.R.S. officials had requested Ms. Lerner’s resignation but that she refused, forcing them to put her on leave instead. Whether her suspension will lead to dismissal was unclear, given Civil Service rules that govern federal employment.
“The I.R.S. owes it to taxpayers to resolve her situation quickly,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. “She shouldn’t be in limbo indefinitely on the taxpayers’ dime.”
The move to put Ms. Lerner on leave came minutes after Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, released a letter to the new acting I.R.S. commissioner, Daniel I. Werfel, demanding her immediate suspension for what they said was her failure to disclose information to their Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“Given the serious failure by Ms. Lerner to disclose to this subcommittee key information on topics that the subcommittee was investigating, we have lost confidence in her ability to fulfill her duties as director of exempt organizations at the I.R.S.,” wrote Mr. Levin and Mr. McCain.
If Ms. Lerner is dismissed, she will be the third senior I.R.S. official to lose his or her job in the scandal. The acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, was dismissed, and Ms. Lerner’s supervisor, Joseph H. Grant, director of the tax-exempt and government entities division, is retiring.
On May 10, Ms. Lerner delivered an awkward apology to Tea Party and other conservative groups whose applications for tax exemptions had been singled out for special scrutiny. At that time, she said she had learned of the targeting in 2012, when Tea Party groups publicly accused the I.R.S. of mistreatment.
But days later, a Treasury inspector general’s audit appeared to make it clear that she had known of the effort before then and had tried to reshape it. Lawmakers accused her of lying.
On Wednesday, appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Ms. Lerner gave an opening statement in which she said she had not lied to Congress and had done nothing wrong. She then invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination and declined to testify.
But Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, the committee’s chairman, said that with her opening statement, Ms. Lerner had lost the right not to testify. He said he was considering calling her back.
“Everything she said under oath is subject to perjury,” Mr. Issa said. “This is not one of those things where you can put the genie back in the bottle.”
Ken Corbin, a deputy director in the I.R.S.’s wage and investment division, was named acting director of Ms. Lerner’s division.
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
IRS employee: Washington, D.C. gave orders to target Tea Party
Government Topics
June 2, 2013
By: Joe Newby
On Sunday's edition of CNN's "State of The Union," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., revealed new testimony from IRS employees that indicate they were directed to target Tea Party groups from higher-ups in their Washington, D.C. headquarters, Fox News reported.
"As late as last week," Issa said, "the [Obama] administration was still trying to say the [IRS targeting scandal] was from a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, when in fact the indication is that they were directly being ordered from Washington."
The UK Daily Mail said a spokesman with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee provided partial transcripts of two interviews with unnamed IRS employees about the agency's actions in early 2010.
Breitbart.com posted the excerpts provided by the committee as shown below.
Q: In early 2010, was there a time when you became aware of applications that referenced Tea Party or other conservative groups?
A: In March of 2010, I was made aware.
******
Q: Okay. Now, was there a point around this time period when [your supervisor] asked you to do a search for similar applications?
A: Yes.
Q: To the best of your recollection, when was this request made?
A: Sometime in early March of 2010.
******
Q: Did [your supervisor] give you any indication of the need for the search, any more context?
A: He told me that Washington, D.C., wanted some cases.
******
Q: So as of April 2010, these 40 cases were held at that moment in your group; is that right?
A: Some were.
Q: How many were held there?
A: Less than 40. Some went to Washington, D.C.
Q: Okay. How many went to Washington, D.C.?
A: I sent seven.
******
Q: So you prepared seven hard copy versions of the applications to go to Washington, D.C.?
A: Correct.
******
Q: Did he give you any sort of indication as to why he requested you to do that?
[…]
A: He said Washington, D.C. wanted seven. Because at one point I believe I heard they were thinking 10, but it came down to seven. I said okay, seven.
Q: How did you decide which seven were sent?
A: Just the first seven.
Q: The first seven to come into the system?
A: Yes.
*****
Q: Did anyone else ever make a request that you send any cases to Washington?
A: [Different IRS employee] wanted to have two cases that she couldn't -- Washington, D.C. wanted them, but she couldn't find the paper. So she requested me, through an email, to find these cases for her and to send them to Washington, D.C.
Q: When was this, what time frame?
A: I don't recall the time frame, maybe May of 2010.
******
Q: But just to be clear, she told you the specific names of these applicants.
A: Yes.
Q: And she told you that Washington, D.C. had requested these two specific applications be sent to D.C.
A: Yes, or parts of them.
******
Q: Okay. So she asked you to send particular parts of these applications.
A: Mm-hmm.
Q: And that was unusual. Did you say that?
A: Yes.
Q: And she indicated that Washington had requested these specific parts of these specific applications; is that right?
A: Correct.
******
Q: So what do you think about this, that allegation has been made, I think as you have seen in lots of press reports, that there were two rogue agents in Cincinnati that are sort of responsible for all of the issues that we have been talking about today. What do you think about those allegations?
[…]
A: It's impossible. As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen.
******
Q: And you've heard, I'm sure, news reports about individuals here in Washington saying this is a problem that was originated in and contained in the Cincinnati office, and that it was the Cincinnati office that was at fault. What is your reaction to those types of stories?
[…]
A: Well, it's hard to answer the question because in my mind I still hear people saying we were low-level employees, so we were lower than dirt, according to people in D.C. So, take it for what it is. They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.
******
Q: So is it your perspective that ultimately the responsible parties for the decisions that were reported by the IG are not in the Cincinnati office?
A: I don't know how to answer that question. I mean, from an agent standpoint, we didn't do anything wrong. We followed directions based on other people telling us what to do.
Q: And you ultimately followed directions from Washington; is that correct?
A: If direction had come down from Washington, yes.
Q: But with respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to Tea Party applications, those directions emanated from Washington; is that right?
A: I believe so.
A more senior IRS employee in Cincinnati complained about micromanagement from Washington, Breitbart said.
Q: But you specifically recall that the BOLO terms included "Tea Party?"
A: Yes, I do.
Q: And it was your understanding -- was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify Tea Party groups?
A: That is correct.
Q: Was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify conservative groups?
A: Yes, it was.
Q: Was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify Republican groups?
A: Yes, it was.
******
Q: Earlier I believe you informed us that the primary reason for applying for another job in July [2010] was because of the micromanagement from [Washington, DC, IRS Attorney], is that correct?
A: Right. It was the whole Tea Party. It was the whole picture. I mean, it was the micromanagement. The fact that the subject area was extremely sensitive and it was something that I didn't want to be associated with.
Q: Why didn't you want to be associated with it?
A: For what happened now. I mean, rogue agent? Even though I was taking all my direction from EO Technical [Washington, D.C], I didn't want my name in the paper for being this rogue agent for a project I had no control over.
Q: Did you think there was something inappropriate about what was happening in 2010?
A: Yes. The inappropriateness was not processing these applications fairly and timely.
******
Q: You have stated you had concerns with the fairness and the timeliness of the application process. Did you have concerns with just the fact that these cases were grouped together and you were the only one handling them?
A: I was the only one handling the Tea Party's, that is correct.
Q: Did that specifically cause you concern?
A: Yes, it did. And I was the only person handling them.
Q: Were you concerned that you didn't have the capacity to process all of the applications in a timely manner?
A: That is correct. And it is just -- I mean, like you brought up, the micromanagement, the fact that the topic was just weirdly handled was a huge concern to me.
******
NBC News reported that twenty five conservative and Tea Party organizations have filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, Attorney General Eric Holder and top IRS officials, alleging they were targeted because of their political point of view.
“The IRS and the federal government are not going to get away with this unlawful targeting of conservative groups,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice.
Video of Issa's comments on CNN can be seen here.
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Former what? LOL, STFU Gibbs.
Gibbs: Issa charges against IRS ‘shameful,’ owes agency apology
By Jonathan Easley - 06/03/13 07:43 AM ET
Tweet
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday pushed back at House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) claims that top officials from the IRS’s Washington, D.C. office directed the targeting of conservative groups, calling the allegations unsubstantiated and “shameful.”
“Republicans are on the verge of overplaying their hand publicly and the American people will quickly lose interest on their side in this,” Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “They want to see the IRS cleaned up, but they understand that Darrell Issa is doing nothing more than politicizing this event. To throw around the words ‘liar’ and ‘perjury’ as easily as he did is shameful.”
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Issa said his panel had conducted interview with IRS workers in the Cincinnati office that revealed “they were being directly ordered from Washington.”
“This is a problem that was coordinated, in all likelihood, right out of Washington headquarters. We have subpoenaed documents that would support that,” Issa said.
On Monday, Gibbs shot back, saying that Issa should make the interviews public if they exist, or apologize to the IRS staffers for his charges.
“If he’s got information that these people lied, he should put it out there today,” Gibbs said. “If he doesn’t have information that they lied, then he should call each of them up personally and apologize, because this kind of discourse is why people lose confidence in their institutions.”
“This is why people tune out from the back and forth in Washington because people throw around terms like this and then in the next sentence they can’t even say with 100 percent authority that what they said the minute before or 10 seconds before is actually true,” he added.
The House Oversight Committee is interviewing employees from the Cincinnati office, which was in charge of reviewing applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status. Last month, the IRS apologized after it disclosed that some workers in that office had applied more rigorous standards to applications from conservative groups.
Gibbs’s comments echo those made by Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, over the weekend.
“So far, no witnesses who have appeared before the Committee have identified any IRS official in Washington DC who directed employees in Cincinnati to use ‘tea party’ or similar terms to screen applicants for extra scrutiny,” Cummings said in a statement. “Chairman Issa’s reckless statements today are inconsistent with the findings of the Inspector General, who spent more than a year conducting his investigation.”
Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Rep. Issa claims IRS targeting scandal originated in D.C.
6:08 AM, Jun 3, 2013
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. holds up a document as he speaks to IRS official Lois Lerner on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, during the committee's hearing to investigate the extra scrutiny IRS gave to Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. / AP PHOTO
(CBSNews.com) - House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., citing the testimony of IRS employees who spoke to his committee behind closed doors, argued Sunday that the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups was not the result of a few "rogue agents" in the Cincinnati field office, as the IRS and the Obama administration have insisted, but the product of a direct order from IRS headquarters in Washington.
"As late as last week, the administration's still trying to say there's a few rogue agents in Cincinnati," Issa said on CNN. "When in fact the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington."
As evidence, Issa pointed to the testimony of IRS employees from the Cincinnati office who spoke to his committee and indicated that IRS headquarters in Washington requested a sample of applications from conservative groups for tax exempt status.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House oversight panel, slammed Issa's "reckless" statements to CNN in a press release, arguing that no definitive link has yet been established between IRS headquarters in Washington and the targeting practices that were carried out at the Cincinnati field office.
"So far, no witnesses who have appeared before the Committee have identified any IRS official in Washington DC who directed employees in Cincinnati to use 'tea party' or similar terms to screen applicants for extra scrutiny," Cummings stated. "Chairman Issa's reckless statements today are inconsistent with the findings of the Inspector General, who spent more than a year conducting his investigation. Rather than lobbing unsubstantiated conclusions on national television for political reasons, we need to work in a bipartisan way to follow the facts where they lead and ensure that the IG's recommendations are fully implemented."
Still, according to Issa, one employee said seven such applications were sent to Washington after a request from IRS headquarters. An employee also rebuffed the charge that the additional scrutiny paid to conservative groups was the product of a decision made locally the Cincinnati office. "It's impossible," the employee explained. "As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen."
The interrogator followed up, asking, "With respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to Tea Party applications, those directions emanated from Washington, is that right?"
"I believe so," replied the IRS employee.
When CNN's Candy Crowley pointed out that Issa released only excerpts of the testimony, and that the link the excerpts establish between the targeting scandal and IRS headquarters is "totally not definitive," Issa promised more disclosure to come.
"The whole transcript will be put out," he said.
Issa lit into the White House for its shifting account of the targeting scandal, calling White House press secretary Jay Carney a "paid liar" who is "making up things and "saying whatever is convenient at the time."
"This is a problem that was coordinated, in all likelihood, right out of Washington headquarters and we're getting to proving it," he promised.
And if the ongoing targeting scandal plaguing the IRS were not enough of a headache, another controversy - this time over excessive IRS spending on conferences - began gathering steam on Sunday, with Issa's committee flagging a watchdog report, due to be released in full this week, that found that the IRS spent $50 million on 220 conferences between 2010 and 2012.
Perhaps the most conspicuous expenditure was an August 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif., for which event planners did not negotiate lower hotel room rates, although they were buying in bulk, opting instead to pay the full price and obtain perks for IRS employees, like drink vouchers and ballgame tickets. A taxpayer-funded video released on Friday by the IRS also documented employees learning how to dance as part of the preparation for the conference.
The total cost of the Anaheim conference: $4 million.
Issa, reacting to the watchdog report, said "one might just call it leadership through entertainment," adding that it was emblematic of a problem within the "culture" of the federal workforce.
The report will be the subject of yet another hearing of Issa's oversight committee, scheduled for Thursday, which the chairman, in a press release, said will focus on the "excessive IRS conference spending and abuses of taxpayer dollars."
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Best lines of the day:
"The government has forgotten it's place..."
and the other line... I wish I could have recorded what she said exactly. I'll try to get it later.
Paraphrased, she basically stated that "This was done not by bad people, but by those who thought they were doing the right thing in a strange government culture".
(I'll find that quote when some news org puts it out).
She is right and however she stated it is better than I can. Essentially saying that people are caught up in the "Government can do what it wants, when it wants to whom it wants with no consequences."
This is something I've been fighting for years. It's a losing battle on my part and it's why I'm tapping out.
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Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Dunno if you can see the video.... still looking for the important part.
PoliticsVIDEO – Tea Party leader tears up at IRS hearing: ‘I want to protect and preserve the America that I grew up in’
June 4, 2013 | 11:06 am 0 Comments During her opening statement in front of the House Ways and Means Committee this morning, Alabama Tea Party President Becky Gerritson teared up as she concluded her remarks, reminding the panel that she was not looking to score political points.
Gerritson said that the government targeting of her Tea Party group was “un-American” and a “willful act of intimidation.”
“I’m not interested in scoring political points,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I want to protect and preserve the America that I grew up in, the America that people cross oceans and risk their lives to be come a part of and I’m terrified that it is slipping away.”
Her speech was welcomed with applause in the Congressional chamber.
Libertatem Prius!
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A tea party witness from Alabama launched into emotional testimony Tuesday as she described her group’s political abuse at the hands of the Internal Revenue Service.
“We peacefully assemble. We petition our government. We exercise the right to free speech. And we don’t understand why the government tried to stop us,” Wetumpka Tea Party President Becky Gerritson said during her opening statement before the House Ways and Means Committee.
“I’m not here at as a serf or a vassal,” she went on, beginning to choke up. “I’m not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born-free American woman, wife, mother and citizen.”
“And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered,” Gerritson said.
Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
Got it:
Congressman Camp and members of the committee, this was not an accident. This is a willful act of intimidation intended to discourage a point of view.
What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama is un American. This isn’t a matter of firing or arresting a few individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens.
Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our masters. And they are mistaken.
I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to protect and preserve the America I grew up in, the America that people across oceans and risk their lives to become a part of. And I’m terrified that it’s slipping away.
Libertatem Prius!
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President Barack Obama hugs HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after signing the Obamacare law on March 23, 2010. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
(CNSNews.com)– In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.
The IRS's assumption that the cheapest plan for family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.
'Would blow them out of the water if this became public knowledge'
Published: 2 hours ago
byJack MinorEmail | ArchiveJack Minor is a journalist and researcher who served in the United States Marine Corps under President Reagan. Also a former pastor, he has written hundreds of articles and been interviewed about his work on many TV and radio outlets.More ↓Less ↑
Amid an unusual spotlight on IRS conduct, a Colorado businessman contends his case is one the government particularly wants to keep hidden, because it could cause the whole federal agency to self-destruct.
Jeff Maehr, a Colorado chiropractor who has engaged in a number of business ventures, including PureHealthSystems.com, admits he has refused to file federal income tax returns since 2002, but he says the IRS is afraid to press criminal charges against him.
“They don’t want this to go to court, because there is so much information there that would blow them out of the water if this became public knowledge,” Maehr claimed.
“They are scared to death to bring this in front of a jury and give it a public hearing,” he said. “Instead, they know the IRS goes through administrative processes and ignorant judges and courts who all play this little game.”
Maehr insists he is not a “tax protester.”
“It’s not that I’m unwilling to pay my taxes. In fact, I acknowledge the principle of taxes is constitutional,” Maehr said. “However, I only want to pay the taxes that I owe.”
As WND previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed a case by Maehr in which he contended that while the government has constitutional authority to tax, the IRS has engaged in “unlawful, unconstitutional, unfair and biased” practices to declare salaries and wages to be income without any legal basis. Earlier this month, however, the high court declined to hear his case.
Maehr said there are questions he has asked the IRS that the agency has yet to answer.
“I am not talking about the answer given on their website, I am talking about a specific law or statute that defines income as wages,” he said. “They apparently cannot produce it, or they would’ve done so already.”
Maehr said that in 2007, the IRS attempted to gather the information from various sources such as PayPal and his mortgage company to prepare a $280,000 assessment it determined he owed for 2003 to 2006.
However, despite its claims, the IRS has made no apparent effort to hold Maehr accountable for refusing to pay.
Additionally, the agency has not attempted to go after Maehr for income from 2007 to 2011.
Maehr noted that the federal government’s unwillingness to prosecute him is particularly noteworthy because it has had no problem pressing charges against high-profile people such as actor Wesley Snipes.
Snipes was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for failing to file tax returns for 1999 to 2001. The three years are a fraction of the time Maehr has refused to file.
However, Maehr says he has a paper trail that has prevented the IRS from going after him as it did Snipes.
“There are certain parameters they have to follow when attempting to prosecute somebody for willful failure to file,” Maehr said. “They have to be able to prove that I knew I had a duty to file and I didn’t file.
“However, my paper trail clearly shows that I do not believe I had a duty to file and the reasons for my believing that – and here’s where I have asked the questions, and I want them to answer and show me where that duty is in the law in the Internal Revenue Code.”
Maehr insisted that for the IRS to prosecute him, it would have to answer his questions in court.
“They would need to prove their case in court that wages are income and they can’t possibly make the case,” he said.
Circular logic?
Maehr asserts the courts and IRS are engaging in circular logic.
“The IRS attempts to argue in court cases that my argument is frivolous. However, in each of these instances there has never been any evidence entered into court,” he said. “They then turned around and cited previous rulings as to why my case is frivolous. Essentially they are saying it is frivolous simply because they say so.”
He said, for example, courts say his case is frivolous “because everybody knows that when you get some finances for working from somebody that’s income and that’s all profit.”
“However, they don’t want to look at the original intent of the law. They don’t want to look at the Constitution, indirect or direct taxation or any of the facts. Instead they simply ignore it all,” he said.
Maehr began researching the issue in 2002 and discovered legal cases indicating that the definition of income excludes wages and salaries.
Asking for help to clear up his confusion, Maehr asked the IRS to provide the statutory authority that wages were, in fact, income. Instead, he says the IRS simply pointed to its own statements to back up its assertions.
“I started writing some letters to the IRS and asking them some very basic questions,” Maehr explained. “I told them there appears to be this question and I would honestly like an answer since a particular law would say something, while on the other hand, they were saying something completely different.
“I simply asked them to please clarify their statements. However, it was always non-answers coming back, and finally they sent me a letter saying they were not going to respond to any of my questions anymore, and if I wanted to find an answer I would have to find it in the courts.”
So that is exactly what Maehr did.
However, he soon discovered that the courts were unwilling to address his claims, despite his clearly having standing.
A copy of a ruling from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, before judges Michael Murphy, Bobby Baldock and Harris Hartz, was included in Maehr’s filing. The ruling appears to support Maehr’s argument, because the judges, without responding to his questions and challenges to the constitutionality of the issue, dismissed the claims as “frivolous” and ruled, without support its argument, that Maehr’s petition “contains no valid challenges.”
In his petition, Maehr cites a wide range of historical court and congressional statements that back up his assertions regarding taxes. For instance, Black’s Law Dictionary defines income tax as being “a tax on the yearly profits arising from property, professions, trades and offices.”
Maehr argues based on this and other references that wages are not “profits” but are instead the simple exchange of labor for money. To bolster his assertion, he notes that while businesses frequently pay taxes on their profits, they do not pay taxes on their expenses.
Likewise, the labor of an individual is the “expense” required to obtain the money, therefore it is not “profit,” and to declare otherwise would subject corporations such as Sears to “income taxes” on 100 percent of their cash register receipts, he argues.
The U.S. Supreme Court itself said an 1883 case, “It has been well said that, the property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.”
In 1969, the high court ruled: “Whatever may constitute income, therefore, must have the essential feature of gain to the recipient. This was true when the 16th amendment became effective. … If there is no gain, there is no income. … [Income] is not synonymous with receipts.”
And a 1946 case stated, “Reasonable compensation for labor or services rendered is not profit.”
Despite these references and the refusal of other courts to consider the merits of his case, the Supreme Court likewise turned down his petition.
Maehr said while he understands that the Supreme Court typically refuses to hear about 95 percent of the cases it receives, he believes his case met the criteria established because it involves an important issue of interpretation of the Constitution and federal law that directly affects every American.
“Based on their own criteria this is exactly the type of case that they should hear. It involves a constitutional issue and addresses a large segment of the population. A lot of their previous cases over the years and decades have always focused on constitutional law issues and due process.”
“With them refusing to hear this case and considering all the facts, they have basically stated I don’t get due process rights through the courts and I am not allowed to defend myself against the IRS. They will not hear it, none of the courts are willing to hear the case and adjudicate it.”
Maehr says while the news is focused on the IRS targeting of conservative groups, critics of the agency are missing a golden opportunity.
“The recent scandals coming out about the IRS shows the whole agency is corrupt, and what’s amazing is issues such as mine are not being jumped on,” he said. “What they have done with the targeting of the conservative groups pales in insignificance when compared to forcing every man, woman and child to pay a tax that they are not legally and constitutionally liable for.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)
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