Free Republic

See for yourself. Issa’s committee was told last year that the report would be ready in September, two months before the election. Eight months later, the bomb finally dropped. Why? Did the IG initially underestimate the volume of malfeasance and how long it would take to dig it up? Or are there other, more cynical reasons?Even if the report wasn’t ready, Issa claims the IG had a statutory obligation to keep Congress updated on its findings as they were made. He didn’t. Why not? Issa is referring to part of the Inspector General Act that requires watchdogs to report serious...

The fateful question came from a tax lawyer, in a room filled with dozens of them. It came at the end of a Friday morning panel, on the second day of the American Bar Association tax section’s big annual meeting at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington D.C. The moderator had announced that it would be the panel’s last question. “Lois, a few months ago there were some concerns about the IRS’s review of 501(c)(4) organizations, of applications from tea party organizations,” Celia Roady, a veteran tax lawyer, asked Lois Lerner, head of the IRS’ tax-exempt organizations division, a few...

“The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.” — President Obama, remarks at a news conference, May 13, 2013 Once again, it appears that we must parse a few presidential words. We went through this question at length during the 2012 election, but perhaps a refresher course is in order. Notably, during a debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney, President Obama said that he immediately told the American people that the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya “was an act of terror.” But now he says he called it...

With each passing hour, it becomes more and more clear that the truth was concealed from the American public prior to the election about two major Obama administration scandals. Benghazi was very much in the news prior to the election. The concealment went to the culpability of the Obama administration in failing to heed warnings about security at the Benghazi consulate, the nature of the pre-planned al-Qaeda attack, the scrubbing of the talking points used by Susan Rice, the failure to go to the aid of Americans in trouble, and the claim that the attack was a result of a...

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former...

The worst possible outcome of the IRS scandal would see it growing large enough to call the legitimacy of the 2012 election into question. Some people reading this might think it’s already reached that point. Others would say it could never reach that point. There is a case to be made that the American system would resist such an outcome, in a much broader sense than merely partisan Democrats in Washington and the media protecting Obama. Among other questions that would give us all pause: what would we do? Hold another election on short notice? Hand the Administration over to...

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election. “In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s...

It’s becoming quite clear that there’s a new McCarthyism ruling in America. If you’re a conservative or oppose Obama, you can face scrutiny by the IRS or have your information given to George Soros-funded political groups. It’s all meant to keep you in line. In 2012, Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Al Franken, D-Minn., and five other Democrats signed a letter demanding the IRS target conservative groups or face legislation forcing them to do so...

Responding to a flurry of complaints from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday it made "mistakes" in the last few years while trying to process those requests. Multiple tea party groups reported significant delays and excessive questioning from IRS officials while trying to obtain 501(c)(4) status. ,,,, Asked when the IRS began looking into complaints, Lerner said she could not give a time frame. Pressed further on when senior IRS officials became aware of the situation, Lerner said she "did not feel comfortable answering."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would have won the presidency if the white and black turnout rates had stayed at their 2004 levels, according to a new analysis of 2012 election. “The battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same,” according to The Associated Press’s summary of research by William Frey, an expert at the Brookings Institution. Overall turnout declined from 62 percent in 2008 to 58 percent in 2012, Frey reported. The drop-off reduced the overall turnout by...

Originally Published 11/14/2012 -- Posted to Free Republic in response to a very kind request from a fellow FREEPER. My wife, Kasia, told me the story from her family’s history this morning. I already knew that her grandmother, after surviving the devastating hardships of World War II in Eastern Poland with two small children, being forcibly repatriated to a small village near Glogow, Poland (ethnically cleansed in today’s lexicon), and surviving to the see the return of her husband from Stalin’s Gulags (she had thought he was executed along with her two brothers by the NKVD/KGB ),and the loss of...

The FBI briefed the Senate yesterday and today on the progress in the Boston Marathon bombing case, but more questions than answers may have arisen from it. The Boston Globe quotes multiple sources from within the briefing that the FBI didn’t just get one warning from Russia about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, they got warned repeatedly — including after the FBI’s initial investigation of the now-deceased bomber: Russian authorities contacted the US government with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev not once but “multiple’’ times, including an alert it sent after he was first investigated by FBI agents in Boston, raising new questions about...

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned. State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to...

(CNSNews.com) – Although no group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, a leading al-Qaeda ideologue last year recommended that jihadists in America include sporting events in their list of prospective terror targets.

Today, the President released his 2012 federal income tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax returns jointly and reported adjusted gross income of $608,611. The Obamas paid $112,214 in total tax.

Ed Morrisseyflagged this Politico piece earlier but I want to pay special attention to Huck's comments. Gabe Malor called BS on them on Twitter this morning. I think he's right. Huckabee's latest shot across the party establishment's bow: “The last two presidential elections, we had more moderate candidates, so if anything a lot of conservatives went to the polls reluctantly or just didn’t go at all,” said Huckabee in a separate interview. “If all of the evangelicals had showed up, it may have made a difference.”…Huckabee, like Santorum, was a bit incredulous at the attempt to fault social conservatives when...

Nebraska and Maine distribute their electoral votes by district, I believe...with the "popular vote" winner in the state getting the TWO votes that represent the Senate delegation. So what if every state had this kind of distribution? What if electoral vote distribution was awarded to each candidate by how they did in each DISTRICT, with the winner of the popular vote in each state getting the two "senate" votes? How would Romney have fared then? I am betting he still would have lost, but by a thinner margin.

Federal investigators are probing allegations that Rep. Michele Bachmann, or members of her staff, inappropriately used money raised during her presidential campaign, her lawyer and former campaign staffers said today. Bachmann has not been formally accused of any wrong doing, but staffers said they had been questioned by federal authorities. The investigators are working on behalf of the Office of Congressional Ethics. Bachmann's attorney confirmed to ABC News.com that Bachmann was being probed by the OCE, but denied any wrongdoing. "There are no allegations that the congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing," campaign lawyer William McGinley told ABCNews.com in a statement....

For as long as he’s been president, Barack Obama, has been the top target for attack at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. D.C. But this year, there may have been a close second: the Republican political-consultant class, which many CPAC attendees blame for the party’s poor 2012 showing. Newt Gingrich bashed them for being “out of step,” Sarah Palin called on activists to “furlough the consultants,” pollster Kellyanne Conway railed against a “staff infection,” and Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center, told me that “the last thing we want is for the anti-conservative professional class...

Melowese Richardson voted a reported six times for President Obama in November of 2012. Twice she used her real name, then another four using the names of her relatives. If convicted she faces a maximum of 12 years in prison. More disturbing is that Richardson is a long time poll worker and has worked for the Board of Elections in Hamilton County, Ohio since 1998. People like her were watching the polls when President Obama won by close margins, often with "odd" voting totals, in November. Richardson Among these statistical anomalies occurred in Pennsylvania, when President Obama received over 99%...