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Scandal is the worst thing that can befall a president. Yet as debilitating as scandals always are, the ones Obama now faces are particularly so. They intimately and simultaneously strike at his public persona, which has been his strongest asset, while seemingly verifying his critics' worst accusations. Scandals leave a president weaker for four reasons. First, they are decidedly negative issues. No president, or politician for that matter, seeks out negative issues. All go after the overwhelmingly popular, which is why politicians so quickly and frequently embrace symbolic ones. When pressed, a president takes on "tough" substantive issues, which are...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - IRS Scandal Follows Old Obama Illinois PatternPosted By Tom Thurlow On May 24, 2013 @ 12:06 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Boy, it sure makes a primary or election contest easier when your opponent pulls out, don’t you think?  Barack Obama has been managing to do that since he won the Democratic nomination for state senator in Illinois in 1996, and it helps explain the IRS harassment of conservatives and Tea Party groups since 2010.  Whereas once Obama targeted candidates to get them to pull out, from 2010 onward, he had the...

The Internal Revenue Service unit under fire for its reviews of conservative organizations has a long history of targeting groups with extra scrutiny, including foreclosure-assistance charities, credit-counseling services and New York Jewish charities, interviews with current and former employees show. The scrutiny has included such tactics as listening to telephone calls between groups and their clients, according to one group's lawyer. In the case of tea-party organizations, IRS officials studied social-media postings to gauge political activity. Sometimes the tactic of extra scrutiny for particular kinds of groups seeking tax exemptions helped manage a flood of entities in areas where abuse...

What’s so bad about the IRS investigating nonprofit applications? That’s their job. The real scandal is that the ensuing hubbub will discourage them from doing it again, writes Ken Stern. Over the last week, commentators have expressed great outrage over the handling by the IRS of applications by Tea Party groups and others for 501(c)(4) status. In the haste to trigger the next administration-crippling “gate,” these analyses have largely ignored one of the most surprising aspects of this entire episode—that the IRS was actually trying to do its job. A little context is warranted. There are more than 1.5 million...

<p>Reading the commentary on the IRS hearings, it’s clear that the overriding rule in Washington opinion circles is that the moment someone says they have done nothing wrong is when the presumption of guilt hardens into an incontrovertible fact of guilt, with only the punishment left to be decided.</p>

Barack Obama appointed Tuesday to help lead the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Robert F. Bauer, said during the 2012 election that voter ID laws are a Republican tactic to suppress lawful votes. During the 2012 election, the Obama team tapped Bauer to lead the legal teams for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Among his initiatives: fighting voter ID laws enacted by a number of states in an effort to combat voter fraud. During his time as the team’s organizer, Bauer told the Associated Press that he believes that the GOP is enlisting these new laws to impede...

Seeking to dampen criticism of his handling of the War on Terror and the Internal Revenue Service's selective intrusion into the views of his political opponents, President Obama announced that the detention center at Guantanamo would be closed and it's inmates “redistributed as seems most appropriate.” While it is expected that a majority of the detainees will be repatriated to the Middle Eastern Hell-holes from whence they came, those with exemplary skills are likely to be transferred to positions within the IRS. “The fact that people are openly criticizing the IRS is the best evidence we have that it has...

John Andrews’ book, The Power to Destroy (Chicago, 2002), recounts the long history of politicians using the IRS as a weapon against their political enemies. According to Nixon’s aide John Dean, the idea was to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” (Andrews, 202) Using the IRS against political enemies may be shocking, but it is not new. What may be new is the way we think about it. “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” That is a truism known to every high government official, every tax collector, every accountant, every lawyer and anyone...

I don’t want to come right out and say that BO is losing it. Butt for a guy who has been regaled for his rhetorical gifts, has raised over $1 billion in campaign funds, and ran a political organization the envy of Tammany Hall, how else do you explain all these things? Tell me, how can someone like Big Guy surround himself with so many incompetent people heading up so many agencies that keep coming up with such “suboptimal outcomes?” For starters: an IRS staffed with senior management who either know nothing, or are unwilling to tell us what they...

<p>Abuse Of Power: Any scandal investigation that expects a "Eureka!" moment, a White House e-mail, or Oval Office smoking gun will be misguided. In fact, the dots are already connected directly to the president.</p> <p>Barack Obama is not foolish enough to have a tape recording system hidden in his desk. And his administration staff are not careless enough to send one another incriminating e-mails.</p>

On Wednesday, House hearings on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) political targeting of conservative groups uncovered a startling revelation about the interview process used to construct the Inspector General’s report: Obama donor-turned-IRS director of tax exempt organizations Holly Paz sat in on 36 of 41 interviews with IRS employees. “Why was Holly Paz... in almost all of the interviews you conducted?” asked Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). “Why would you have someone from the IRS in those meetings? Is that proper protocol?” “I am unaware of it,” said Inspector General J. Russell George. “This is the first I’ve heard this.” George...

http://www.fox19.com/story/22380127/reality-check-exclusive-cincinnati-agent-giving-orders-in-irs-scandal CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart. The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including "patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12" in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards. But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday's congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less...

John Rich ✔ @johnrich Instead of paying taxes next year I'm going to not pay and #pleadthe5th then say "I don't recall what happened" just like they're doing. 3:18 PM - 23 May 2013 291 Retweets 131 favorites Of all the scandals the Obama administration is currently juggling, some theorize that the IRS’ targeting of its political enemies could do the most damage. After all, no other organization seems to have such unchecked power to intimidate and harass the average American, not to mention the arrogance to match. So if the IRS can plead ignorance and get away with it,...

Unreal. In an explosive new bombshell report, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza claims that the Obama administration deliberately kept Fox News reporter James Rosen in the dark about the warrant to search through his personal emails. Some new info in the leak case that targeted Fox's James Rosen coming shortly...— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 24, 2013

Earlier this week, I wrote about the dirty tricks campaign against journalist Amir Taheri following his revelation that, in a private meeting in Iraq last July with Iraqi leaders, Barack Obama tried to persuade them to delay the agreement being hammered out with the US government on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to this account, which quoted Iraq’s foreign minister Hoshya Zebari (pictured), Obama had thus privately sought to undermine an American government foreign policy initiative – an explosive revelation. Taheri subsequently dismissed as tendentious Camp Obama’s response which he said deliberately confused two separate agreements under...

Not to fear, America -- she's been placed on "administrative leave," a terribly severe form of discipline that's effectively tantamount to paid vacation. At this week's House Oversight Committee hearing, Lerner (sort of) invoked her fifth amendment rights and refused to answer any questions. She claimed she's done "nothing wrong," which explains why she's reportedly refusing to resign. Question, though: Might Lerner be a relatively innocent patsy in all of this (a la the Benghazi scapegoat)? Er, probably not, via National Review: A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting...

“Horrible customer service.” That’s what the newly fired IRS commissioner averred was the agency’s only sin in singling out conservative political groups for discriminatory treatment. In such grim proceedings one should be grateful for unintended humor. Horrible customer service is when every patron in a restaurant finds a fly in his soup. But when the maitre d’ screens patrons for their politics and only conservatives find flies paddlewheeling through their consomme, the problem is not poor service. It is harassment and invidious discrimination. And yet two IRS chiefs (Steven Miller and Douglas Shulman) insisted that the singling-out of groups according...

Shocking Obama Admin admission: The government is too big to manage!! Well, yes it is. And this is a self-evident truth. Too big, too corrupt, too abusive, out of control, unmanageable, unconstitutional. And this is a primary reason the Founders established the constitution restricting the size and scope of the central government. They did not want, and we the people did not want an all powerful central government. Another self-evident truth is that MOST of the programs currently installed by our federal government are NOT authorized by the constitution. There are actually very few functions enumerated and delegated to the...

Add another item to the list of red flags that may get you audited: Adopting a child. The Internal Revenue Service mishandled tax returns of adoptive families, flagging for further review 90% of those who claimed the adoption tax credit for the 2012 filing season. And a report by the federal agency’s Taxpayer Advocate Service also found that nearly 70% of adoptive families — more than 35,000 — had at least a partial audit of their tax return. By contrast, just one percent of all returns are audited.

The Internal Revenue Service, charged with implementing the biggest change in tax laws in 20 years due to Obamacare, has created eight offices and special "teams" to handle the chore, way more than initially revealed. Besides the top office headed by the woman in the middle of the IRS-Tea Party scandal, there are seven others and a special enforcement team that make up an organization chart that mirrors the organization of the IRS itself, according to a Treasury Inspector General's report. The June report focused on concerns that the IRS, which is filling the Obamacare offices with 2,137 agents and...

MARK LEVIN (transcript): "So why didn't Chairman Issa hold an investigative hearing a year ago? Why didn't Chairman Camp, all Republicans, hold an investigative hearing a year ago, and all the other tripping over themselves right now? "I'll tell you why. Because the establishment Republicans, the RINO Republicans, despise the Tea Party. They despise the conservative movement. "We exist to be managed, to be shuttled to the polling place, to vote for their candidates. The Karl Roves of the world, and all the rest of them. They fight us in the primaries, they fight us at the grassroots. We're a...

It was only when they put the cuffs on her and led her out of the Cincinnati Federal Office Building that she finally realized how much trouble she was in. . .

Lerner signed IRS cover letters to conservative groups demanding intrusive tax-exemption info — after she learned what was going on posted at 11:21 am on May 24, 2013 by Allahpundit Via Andrew Stiles, no wonder the IRS wants her out.Now that she’s gone quiet, we can’t know what her defense would be to the ACLJ’s charges. But I can guess. We now know through her own testimony and from the Inspector General’s report that Lerner was briefed about this unlawful targeting scheme in June 2011. But nine months later, beginning in March 2012, she sent cover letters to many...

This does not bode well for my future as MOTUS (Mirror Of The United States): That’s right; simply by peering into the mirror, we have met the enemy and, shockingly, he is us. “We are the enemy we have been waiting for” As always, the people responsible for this travesty will be held accountable, so I expect to receive my notice of (paid) administrative leave shortly. Butt wait! I think I’ve found an IRS approved loophole! You can’t really blame an empty chair can you? Good work MOTUS! - if I do say so myself. With a h/t to Clint...

IRS Scandal: The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies. On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in...

[snip]After the May 17, 2013 hearing conducted by the House Ways and Means Committee, at which Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller testified, Mitchell decided to release a memorandum she compiled, “to place into context the manner in which the IRS processed applications for exempt status prior to 2010, what has transpired during this terrible targeting period, and some reactions to the statements and misstatements and misrepresentations of Acting Commissioner Miller last week.” (Emphasis is ours)

The White House insists President Obama is "outraged" by the "inappropriate" targeting and harassment of conservative groups. If true, it's a remarkable turnaround for a man who helped pioneer those tactics. On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign and supporters were furious, and they pressured TV stations to pull the ad—a common-enough tactic in such ad spats. What came next was not common. Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on...

It seems like only yesterday that IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner was claiming she knew nothing about the dastardly work of those shadowy "low-level employees in the Cincinnati office" - who somehow remain shadowy to this day, despite having been blamed for the worst abuse-of-power scandal in living memory. The Incompetence Defense beloved of this administration, and so effective with a media that would never accept it from a Republican official, was deployed with gusto. Lerner was shocked, shocked, to discover gambling against Tea Party groups going on at Rick's Tax Exempt Organizations Cafe American. But now National...

A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity. Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS...

The Internal Revenue Service is in the news because of a growing scandal where it admitted targeting conservative non-profit groups and generally making their lives difficult. That led me to think about my own experiences trying to start a conservative non-profit in which the IRS delayed approving my application. I was dismayed because I had been given several examples of approved non-profit applications that I used as a template. And yet, I still got a letter with 18 questions that needed to be answered before the IRS would even consider my application. The IRS questioned how much I had reported...

In the latest news rising out of the ashes of what once were the pristine halls of the IRS, a secretary has been arrested and charged with a felony for using an IRS issued credit card for personal items. Yetunde Oseni, 37 started working as a secretary in the Lanham, Maryland office of the IRS in 2000. In 2009, she was issued a Citibank MasterCard to be used for the purchasing of office supplies. It appears that Oseni decided that she could use her IRS MasterCard to purchase personal items off the internet, mostly at Amazon.com. When asked for the...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's the full text of the First Amendment. But (with apologies to the old Far Side comic), this is what many in the press, academia and government would hear if you read it aloud: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, blah blah blah, or abridging the freedom of the press, blah...

Coming out of the weekend, after a brutal week for their president, the media held tight to a little lifeboat in an ocean of bad news: Polls from CNN and The Washington Post had Obama's approval rating at 53% and 50%, respectively. But Monday was a lifetime and countless revelations ago, and today, four newer polls all show Obama's approval rating sinking below 50%. Fox News has Obama upside down with 45% approving of the president and 51% disapproving. Rasmussen shows a similar trend with 46% - 53%; as does The Economist, 45% - 51%. Gallup sits at 49% -...

The IRS's leaders refuse to account for the agency's corruption and abuse. "I don't know." "I don't remember." "I'm not familiar with that detail." "It's not my precise area." "I'm not familiar with that letter." These are quotes from the Internal Revenue Service officials who testified this week before the House and Senate. That is the authentic sound of stonewalling, and from the kind of people who run Washington in the modern age—smooth, highly credentialed and unaccountable. They're surrounded by legal and employment protections, they know how to parse a careful response, they know how to blur the essential point...

IRS Tyrant Lois Lerner was former FEC Tyrant Terrorizing Conservative and Christian Groups while Refusing to Pursue Obama's Illegal and Foreign Contributions Obama's campaign contributions from Gaza Did you ever wonder why the FEC (Federal Election Commission) never took any action on all the charges about Obama's eligibility and foreign campaign donations? Longtime Atlas readers remember the blockbuster stories I broke during the early summer 2008 on illegal contributions, foreign contributions, contributions from Hamas-controlled areas in Gaza, and non-existent donors (scroll here). I documented it all in my book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Adminstration's War on America. Good article...

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...

IRS Scandal: The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies. On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in...

Story highlights: Lois Lerner, the embattled director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS, served as head of the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) enforcement division from 1986 until 2001. While there, the FEC sued the Christian Coalition for allegedly conspiring with political candidates. During the case, representatives for the FEC asked intrusive questions on religion of several people involved, including Lt. Col. Oliver North. At one point, a representative demanded to know details regarding Pat Roberstson praying for North after reading a letter from North to Robertson indicating as much. The group’s attorney also noted that during the investigation third parties...

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) was using such a circuitous "serpentine" walking pattern in an effort to avoid TRN's Jason Mattera's tough question that he inadvertently body checked one of his own staffers in the process. The absurd weaving to avoid the tough inquiry even brought the senator to laughter at one point as the beleaguered staffer tried to run interference for Franken by claiming that he doesn't talk to national press.

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave, according to a source in the agency’s Cincinnati office. Lerner on Thursday afternoon sent an e-mail to employees in the exempt organizations division she oversees stating, “Due to the events of recent days, I am on administrative leave starting today. An announcement will be made shortly informing you who will be acting while I am on administrative leave. I know all of you will continue to support EO’s mission during these difficult times.” She concluded, “I thank you for all your hard work and...

Lois Lerner didn’t just take the Fifth. She gave a little speech first saying she had done nothing wrong. That certainly opens her up to some questions, although the extent to which it does is debatable. Imagine the following sequence of questions: 1) Did you do anything wrong? 2) Do you think that it would be wrong to target conservative groups because of their ideology? 3) Did you target conservative groups because of their ideology? Given that Lois Lerner gave an opening statement in which she said that she had not done anything wrong, it would be interesting to see...

Every day brings new revelations about who knew what about the IRS targeting conservative groups during President Obama's re-election campaign, but the overall impression is of a vast federal bureaucracy run amok. While the White House continues to peddle the story of a driverless train wreck, taxpayers are being treated to a demonstration of the dangers of an unwieldy and unaccountable administrative state. Look, Ma, no hands! In his press events, Mr. Obama has said that while he learned about the Cincinnati rogues on the news, he plans to "hold accountable those who have taken these outrageous actions." But the...

When the Ottawa County Patriots tried to register as a non-profit a few years ago, the Internal Revenue Service dragged its feet for over a year-and-a-half. The Michigan group now joins the ranks of those across the nation that were singled out for additional scrutiny because of their politics, said the group's leader. Jim Chiodo is the head of the organization out of the Holland-Zeeland area. The group worked with the company Biz Central USA, which helps people file as 501c(3) or 501c(4) non-profit organizations. Registering as a non-profit ensures a more formal structure and makes it easier to collect...

Starting in the fall of 2010, ten leading Democrats - including Max Baucus, Chuck Schumer, and Al Franken - wrote the IRS demanding that the agency crack down on conservative groups. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status while at the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications. Now these same top Democrats are feigning outrage.

On “Fox News Sunday” last weekend, White House aide Dan Pfeiffer was asked about President Barack Obama’s whereabouts the night of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi. This was the night when we lost our first ambassador in 30 years, and when three other Americans were killed in an attack that lasted all night long at multiple locations within the eastern Libyan city. Since the president is commander in chief, one would think where he was and what he did during such an event would be of obvious public concern. Not according to Pfeiffer. He deemed the president’s location, and...

RBPundit pointed out this press release earlier today on Twitter. It’s a March 2011 missive from the president of the National Treasury Employees’ Union, which represents, among others, IRS employees:

Col. Allen West on the Melody Burns Show at 4:05 pm Eastern.

H/t to YoungCons for the original idea.

There was a news report that the President of the Treasury Union met with Obama at the White House on a May 31 and then next day met with IRS officials. I also remember reading that months before this, the union had won the right to inject themselves in office practices. I suppose there could be a link there to show how Obama got the word out to target the Tea Party, but I would take it further: were the five agents involved in this mess members of that union? I know not all employees belong, but were only union...