Free Republic

After running an errand at the Courthouse, I decided to pop into the Barrister Bar and Bistro for a quick bite. The place was packed and Charlie, the maitre d', shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "There's a huge party here this afternoon, but I can seat you at the bar if you don't mind." I didn't mind and was happy to see that my favorite bartender, Joe, was at work, I pulled out USA Today and read until he was free: "After February 2010, the IRS didn't approve a single Tea Party tax-exempt application until spring 2012, although it approved dozens...

WASHINGTON (KMOX) – Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO, issued a video statement Friday in response to reports that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative nonprofit groups. “I’m mad. It is un-American, it is wrong, and we have to make sure that this gets fixed,” Missouri’s senior senator said. “There’s a reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold in America. That is because in America, we don’t apply the law based on who you are, who you know, or what you believe. We apply the law equally.” McCaskill went on to say that the targeting of one group based on political beliefs...

More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million). President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual's overall taxation at 50 percent of income. The...

Lawsuit: EPA Conducted Gas Chamber-like Experiments on Elderly, Infirm at University of North Carolina [T]he EPA has been conducting human experiments on people by piping diesel fumes from a running truck mixed with air into their lungs at a North Carolina university. The agency has ginned up yet another green crusade — the lethal dangers of diesel fumes. They even had a gas chamber set up to accommodate the environmental research project that shockingly recalls the death camps in Poland. Read more: http://joemiller.us/2012/10/lawsuit-epa-conducted-gas-chamber-like-experiments-on-elderly-infirm-at-university-of-north-carolina/#ixzz2ThSWxmIY

The shoe drops. This mug shot of Democratic state Treasurer Martha Shoffner appeared on the Pulaski County sheriff's office jail intake page late this afternoon. (She looked a little distracted when I saw her looking over the cottage cheese in a case at Kroger's earlier this week.) Sorry: I originally called her auditor incorrectly. I have many calls out for more information. Shoffner has been under scrutiny for a variety of issues including charges of favoritism in handling of state investments with a securities firm and also in sloppy reporting and spending of state campaign finance money. She's been subject,...

The fallout from the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal is going to be felt in many other federal agencies and programs, including Obamacare and immigration reform, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says. "This episode is going to have a big effect … There are multiple, multiple issues that have to be addressed,'' Corker told "The Steve Malzberg Show'' on Newsmax TV. "This is a wakeup call for all of those who see our large government and the way people can be coerced … For instance, as we move to immigration reform, just being aware … of judgments that take place within...

Higher-than-expected premiums, combined with the scandal-ridden IRS, are putting a shadow over Obamacare, with House Republicans vowing to keep up the fight against President Barack Obama's key agenda item. On Thursday, the House voted once again to repeal Obamacare. This time around, two Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.)., sided with Republicans on the vote. All GOP members voted to repeal the health care issue. In Saturday's weekly GOP address, Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris vowed his party will keep up the fight, discussing a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that detailed how insurance...

WASHINGTON — Senior Treasury officials were made aware in June 2012 that investigators were looking into complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the Internal Revenue Service, a Treasury inspector general said, disclosing that Obama administration officials knew there was a probe during the heat of the presidential campaign. J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, testifying alongside ousted IRS head Steven Miller on Friday, said he had told the department's general counsel about his investigation on June 4, 2012, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin "shortly thereafter." But, George cautioned, those discussions...

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker says he is awaiting an explanation from the White House over reports that the United States has made millions of dollars in secret cash payments to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Corker told "The Steve Malzberg Show'' on Newsmax TV that a letter he wrote to the Obama administration was first answered with officials telling him it wasn't his business, but added they have since softened their stance. "I want to know why we're doing it. I understand when we go into conflict areas in the very beginning, there's no doubt we deal with cash,'' Corker,...

Rep. Paul Ryan said on Friday that the hearing with the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups made at least one thing clear to legislators. “The one answer we did get, though, is that the IRS withheld information from Congress,” the Wisconsin Republican told Jake Tapper on CNN. “We have many more questions that result from today’s hearing.” A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Ryan was among the many panel members from both parties who grilled Miller on the agency’s singling out of groups with the words “tea party”...

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in Hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Rom 8 20-21 It looks like the messiah’s army has become war weary. After so many years of fighting this war it is difficult to continue to rally the troops and it looks like the troops are thinking, nuclear. Just like LBJ’s “heavy heart" speech it simply appears the enemy has rallied from...

Republican lawmakers are launching an investigation into claims that the Environmental Protection Agency, while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups, made it harder for conservative groups to obtain government records. “According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily granted FOIA fee waivers for environmental allies, effectively subsidizing them, while denying fee waivers and making the FOIA process more difficult for states and conservative groups,” wrote Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Darrell Issa and Sens. David Vitter, Chuck Grassley and Jim Inhofe in a letter to the EPA. Citing a report by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Republicans are asking the...

Obama, IG Report refuse to touch powerful Treasury Employees Union headed by ex-IRS agent. “My question is who is going to jail?” — House Speaker John Boehner on the IRS Scandal The President couldn’t even bring himself to breathe a word of the truth. He could fire some hapless Acting Commissioner, but last night Mr. Obama never came close to discussing that which must never be discussed. The IRS? It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed...

Former White House Counsel during the Clinton Administration, Lanny Davis, is calling for the resignation of Obama White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler. ... the White House counsel's office reportedly knew about the Inspector General's investigation into harassment ofdconservative groups, since April. Davis contends that if this is true and Ms. Ruemmler chose not to inform President Obama of the investigation and the possible legal and political ramifications, she should step down. ...

<p>Long before the Internal Revenue Service revealed it had improperly targeted conservative 501(c)(4) groups, a group of Democratic senators led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer urged the IRS to do just that.</p> <p>The IRS’s admission last Friday that it had singled out tea party and other groups for extra audits and delays has raised concerns that President Barack Obama’s administration quietly attempted to stymy opponents through intimidation. But many prominent Democrats — including Montana Sen. Max Baucus, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the New York Times editorial board — had been publicly calling for tighter restrictions on 501(c)(4) groups affiliated with the tea party and conservatives.</p>

Among the criticisms leveled at the new Senate immigration bill is the secretive manner in which it was written. And given the details, it's hardly any wonder that the eight senators overseeing the proceedings - the "Gang of Eight" - refused to hold hearings or debate until after the bill's release. Tucked away in the measure are two sections that would route a combined $150 million or more to "public or private, non-profit organizations" that are "community, faith-based or other immigrant-serving." Recipient groups could use funds to aid potentially tens of millions of illegal immigrants and family members to obtain...

If President Obama were to stand before the magic mirror and chant, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, whose is the most jobless recovery of them all?” the mirror would answer, “Yours is, Master.” We are now 46 months into our third jobless recovery since 1991, and this one is the most jobless by far. But wait! First quarter GDP growth was up from 4Q2012, and the stock market is hitting new highs almost every day. Doesn’t that mean that there is finally hope for the labor market? No, it does not. With current economic policies, the employment picture is not...

**Welcome Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion readers! Thanks Prof. Jacobson for making this your ‘post of the day’!** **Updated–see below** The IRS scandal is a very tangled web and I think it will be a while before we realize the depths of the issue. Just how many IRS officials are involved and how many organizations were targeted? The President is feigning ignorance while Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, resigned earlier this week. For critics of this administration, this means little, as Miller was apparently resigning next month anyway. Today we learned of a second resignation. An internal IRS memo says Joseph Grant,...

Former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who only took over in November and resigned this week at President Barack Obama's behest, will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday on his role in targeting Tea Party and conservative groups for audit or excessive review. Miller was the first senior IRS official to be disciplined in the scandal, though the problems began before he took over the IRS, and other senior officials were aware of the problem and appear to have misled Congress. Though Miller's resignation was reported as a decisive step by the president, his...

More than $92 million in bonuses averaging $5,500 per employee have been handed out by IRS executives to thousands of the tax agency’s employees since 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner. The average annual salary of the employees receiving at least one bonus during the four-year period between 2009 and 2012 was slightly less than $94,000, indicating that the extra tax dollars mostly went to managers and executives eligible for performance-based incentives. The IRS’s overall workforce includes more than 97,000 employees. According to the data, which the agency provided in response to the newspaper’s Freedom of Information...

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today **snip** High-ranking career federal civil servants like Ingram are eligible for recognition through citations known as Distinguished and...

An idea so crazy it just might … Opponents and supporters of “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e. amnesty) agree it doesn’t do well on the front burner of public debate. Excessive attention exposes flaws and contradictions in the legislation and focuses the anger of opponents. Back in March, I didn’t see how the Obama team, however brilliant, was going to protect its amnesty bill from this threat of publicity, given that the mainstream press was “commmitted to overcovering this issue.” Now we know the answer! In its most fiendish strategem yet, Team Obama has launched a series of not-quite-devastating but press-obsessing...

Now that everyone is paying attention to the scandal stories Republicans have been pushing for months against President Obama, they have a bit of stage fright. They're trying really, really hard to be cool and not let the trio of scandals slip away like they did during Bill Clinton's second term, when a congressman shot a melon to prove the death of a White House lawyer was murder, not suicide.

The woman who ran the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt organizations division has been promoted, and now heads the agency's health-care office, ABC News reported. Sarah Hall Ingram was commissioner of the embattled IRS office from 2009 to 2012, roughly the period that the agency is accused of singling out Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, based on nothing but their political bent. As a firestorm grows around the IRS, Ms. Ingram quietly left the tax-exempt office and was made director of IRS Affordable Care Act Division...

NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election:

Senior Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who recently slapped Obamacare as a "train wreck," believes that the IRS scandal is just beginning and that "a lot more" damaging information will be revealed, likely at congressional hearings. "I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly," Baucus, whose pending retirement seems to have freed him up to speak bluntly, told Bloomberg Government's " Capitol Gains " TV show. "It's broader than the current focus. And I think it's important that we have the hearings, and I think that will encourage other information to come out that has...

I’ve been told today by several reporters that President Obama’s White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, knew for several days — perhaps weeks —that some Internal Revenue Service officials were engaging in political targeting of conservative groups, and that she did not tell the president as soon as she knew even partial reports about the story. With all due respect to someone who has impeccable legal credentials, if she did have such foreknowledge and didn’t inform the president immediately, I respectfully suggest Ms. Ruemmler is in the wrong job and that she should resign.

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today. Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part...

So how do you feel about turning over access to sensitive healthcare information to the Internal Revenue Service? In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn. Under Obamacare, responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry “qualifying” health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) falls principally to the IRS. The IRS was given expansive, new powers to execute these goals. That includes more authority to share your personal information — not only about your income,...

ABC News is reporting that the woman who was the head of the tax-exempt organizations division of the IRS during the time conservative groups were targeted is now director of the IRS' ObamaCare office . You can't make this stuff up. So who is Sarah Hall Ingram? Well, she was appointed as Commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entitles Division of the IRS in 2009 . Before that, she was the deputy commissioner, and before that, she was Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel for that division. She began her career with the IRS in 1982, in the Tax Litigation Division. She...

Radio host Dennis Miller and National Review columnist Mark Steyn considered Thursday the possible outcomes if the United States continues down the path of socialism. If socialism became the prevailing governing philosophy, Miller speculated, escaping it wouldn’t require a move to the Australian outback. Instead he suggested heading for the state of Texas, because it would be the first place to push back against it. “If I ever do flee, don’t think fleeing has to involve you going over to Alice Springs or something,” Miller said. “I’m going to Texas because that’ll be the first place that pushes back. They’re...

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone. Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed. As always it comes down to...

Over the last few days, I’ve heard the word “impeachment” from more of my sources on Capitol Hill than in the last six years combined. One member of Congress told me to look at the Richard M. Nixon articles of impeachment and just change the name to Barack Obama. That member believes that many of the arguments about the Watergate cover-up apply to the current Benghazi cover-up scandal, the IRS Tea Party scandal, and the AP telephone records scandal. Here’s how article one against Nixon laid out the charges: making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and...

The bill, the Personalized Handgun Safety Act of 2013, mandates within two years that newly manufactured handguns be equipped with the technology that allows the guns to only work in the hands of their owners or other authorized users. Manufacturers that do not meet the standards could be held liable. And individuals or businesses selling older handguns must have them retrofitted with personalization technology within three years after the bill is enacted, at the expense of the federal government. Acknowledging the difficult political climate for new gun legislation, Tierney remained optimistic, calling his bill a “common sense” reform to save...

Maryland citizens had their Second Amendments rights infringed on Thursday when Gov. Martin O’Malley signed more gun control into law. Mr. O’Malley became the third liberal governor this year — after New York and Connecticut — to ram through pointless laws that will do nothing to reduce crime by exploiting the Newtown tragedy. However, Mr. O’Malley’s scheme was secretly watered down a little before it became law. The governor was fixated on banning “assault weapons,” even though only two people were murdered by rifles of any type in Maryland in 2011. However, O’Malley’s “assault weapons” is less stringent than the...

With Soros funding, anything is possible. The growing scandal where the IRS unfairly targeted politically-conservative groups can be traced back to a lobbying effort begun by George Soros-funded liberal groups in 2010, after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

ATLANTA - A federal grand jury has indicted state Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta) on charges that he misappropriated almost $1 million in charitable funds. Brooks, 67, was charged by a federal grand jury in a 30-count indictment that includes charges of mail, wire and tax fraud. The indictment charges that Brooks misappropriated charitable funds from Universal Humanities, a charity he founded in 1990, and the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, according to a release from U.S. attorney Sally Yates. "Mr. Brooks exploited two charitable organizations for his own personal financial gain which came at the expense of the intended...

The IRS? It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but a union whose current president, Colleen Kelly, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and Obama administration appointee (of which more in a moment). It’s about 94% of NTEU union contributions going to Democrats in the Senate and House in 2012 — candidates who campaigned as vociferous opponents of the Tea Party. And the recently released...

The problems with the IRS extend beyond playing politics with conservative groups seeking a tax-exempt status. I have never made this public before, but given the heightened interest in the way the IRS has conducted itself, the time has come to disclose what happened. Just weeks after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I was notified by the IRS that the Catholic League was under investigation for violating the IRS Code on political activities as it relates to 501(c)(3) organizations. What the IRS did not know was that I had proof who contacted them to launch the investigation: Catholics...

Saw it last night. Couldn't make sense of certain aspects of it until I realized they're telling the 9/11 truther plot that Bush planned everything. (Spoilers ahead with plot details revealed)

Franklin Graham calls IRS probe of ministry finances ‘un-American’ Adelle M. Banks | May 15, 2013 (RNS) Evangelist Franklin Graham blasted the Internal Revenue Service probe of conservative nonprofit groups as “un-American,” saying both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the relief group Samaritan’s Purse were audited by the IRS. In a Tuesday (May 14) letter to President Obama, Graham said the two organizations he leads were notified last September that the IRS would review their records for the 2010 tax year. The IRS inquiry, he noted, occurred months after the BGEA ran ads in April 2012 supporting a North...

Thursday, May 16, 2013 May 16, 2013 Another IRS scandal: agents illegally seized 60 million medical records Image009And as if there's not already an abundance of problems at the IRS, another one erupts, involving 60 million private medical records of 10 million patients - including all California state judges - from Healthcare IT News: The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in...

Who is on your list of corrupt officials that deserve jail time and why?

President Obama says he discussed the IRS scandal with Treasury secretary Jack Lew. The thing is, it's a Jewish holiday, Shavout, and Lew is an observant Jew. As Obama said this evening in his statement about the IRS scandal: THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. I just finished speaking with Secretary Lew and senior officials at the Treasury Department to discuss the investigation into IRS personnel who improperly screened conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And I look forward to taking some questions at tomorrow’s press conference, but today, I wanted to make sure to get out to all of you...

California congressman David Nunes made the claim yesterday that the Justice Department wiretapped telephones in the House of Representative's Cloak Room, an exclusive part of the Capitol where members are able to privately interact with one another. Nunes made the claim on Hugh Hewitt's radio show. "I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this," said Hewitt, referring to the subpoenas the Justice Department to obtain the Associated Press's phone records. "Do you, Congressman Nunes?" "No, I absolutely do not, especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right...

The director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determinatons of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations. An inspector general’s report released yesterday concluded that the IRS improperly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups for undue scrutiny, and Paz heads the office in which the wrongdoing is said to have occurred. National Review Online reported earlier today that agency officials are currently copying the hard drives of every employee on Paz’s watch. That data...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Newsmax TV that the current scandal facing the Internal Revenue Service proves that the agency cannot be trusted to implement Obamacare. "I don’t think so," the Kentucky Republican says in an exclusive interview. "I don’t think we ought to have Obamacare. We ought to pull it out root and branch, if we possibly can. "And, certainly, the IRS part of administering Obamacare, particularly in the wake of this IRS scandal with regard to suppressing the views of Americans who were critical of the IRS, raises further suspicions about their involvement in the administration of...

Wednesday's Poll Do you blame President Barack Obama for the current IRS scandal? Yes No

Tyranny: Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the president's parade of scandals is that just days before they broke, he mocked as paranoid those concerned about government excesses. On May 5, while giving the commencement address at Ohio State University, President Obama advised graduates to put all their trust in government and reject those shrill "voices" that say it's the source of our problems. Ignore these limited-government types, he told the class of 2013, who warn "tyranny lurks just around the corner." Only, Obama himself has proved our fears are well-founded. Government, particularly governance by this rogue regime, needs more...

<p>President Obama may think the dispute over his handling of Benghazi is a “sideshow,” but his remarks Monday at the joint press briefing with British Prime Minister Cameron are evidence that his administration misled the American people and is trying to do so even today.</p>