Posted on 05/22/2013 4:44:41 AM PDT by LD Jackson
Remember Lois Lerner? She's the IRS official who requested a reporter to ask a planted question at a news conference, ostensibly so she could answer said question with a prepared statement, revealing publicly that the IRS had indeed, targeted certain conservative groups for more intense scrutiny. That came as no surprise to those of us who have paid attention. I actually wrote about this issue in February 2012. We know this happened. It is not here say or rumor. It is a fact.
Now that Congress is getting into the act of asking the IRS to account for its actions, they are holding hearings on the issue. Several IRS officials have been asked to testify and they have done so. Lois Lerner is scheduled to testify to Congress today, but her lawyer has informed Darrell Issa that she will be pleading the Fifth Amendment and will answer no questions. For an individual and organization that is still claiming they have done nothing wrong, pleading the Fifth Amendment seems like a strange move. That's on the surface. Underneath, there is an entire host of reasons why she wouldn't want to be faced with giving truthful answers to the questions Darrell Issa and his committee may be throwing in her direction. When I say this woman has a history, that's the understatement of the year.
The Weekly Standard - Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct.If anyone is guilty of conducting a politically motivated witch hunt, it is Lois Lerner. Considering she is now the head of the IRS division charged with implementing Obamacare, the plot gets even thicker. You'll have to excuse me if I am not exactly enamored with the idea of Lois Lerner implementing Obamacare. That's more than a little scary.Still, Lerner has her defenders in the government and the media. Shortly after the scandal broke, The Daily Beast published an article headlined "IRS Scandal’s Central Figure, Lois Lerner, Described as ‘Apolitical.’" Insisting Lerner, and the IRS more broadly, were not not politically motivated has been a central contention of those trying to minimize the impact of the scandal.
The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the IRS, Lerner's tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC's enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
Victory Girls - Lerner is the very same woman, mind you, who received a big fat bonus for a job well done, and then promoted to head of the ObamaCare division in charge of implementing all the hidden taxes stuffed within it. If that doesn’t that make your skin crawl, and your heart skip, I don’t know what does…but surely she has nothing to hide, right? There’s no “there, there,” right? She’s just keeping mum for the fun of it all. Not because she knows where the bodies are buried. And certainly not to protect her own cowardly hide…or someone else’s. Maybe she’s waiting for Susan Rice to help deliver her testimony.Are we really supposed to believe Lois Lerner and the IRS has nothing to hide? I, for one, believe no such thing. From the beginning of this scandal, they have been less than forthcoming. They have repeatedly made the claim that political motivation had nothing to do with the IRS targeting some of the groups that were most vocal in their opposition to the liberal and progressive agenda. I refer you back to the article from The Weekly Standard to point out just how doggedly Lois Lerner went after the Christian Coalition. Read the transcript of the deposition the FEC conducted of Lt. Col. Oliver North. He was asked, again and again, about his relationship with Pat Robertson and that he had asked Robertson to pray for him. Tell me again how that investigation was innocuous. What business is it of the FEC or the IRS who is praying for whom?
Plainly, Lois Lerner is running scared of the questions Darrell Issa and his committee may ask her. Given that she appears to be up to her eyeballs in this scandal, I suppose I can't blame her for pleading the Fifth Amendment. She clearly has plenty to hide and she plans to do just that.
Totally off topic but the more they show these women on tv, I bet the Obama Girls can field one hell of a softball team. Throw in big sis, Kagen, Sotomayor....
This is just a way of doing business for Obama...create another forum....that will keep you off subject.
We need to win the House, Senate and Whitehouse for the next 20 years to straighten out this mess.
You can get a good start at building an Org Chart by reading this article from Fox19:
Reality Check Exclusive: Cincinnati agent giving orders in IRS scandal?
Here is the first paragraph of the article just to give you a flavor of what you'll find:
"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."
If you read the whole article you will find that these people ultimately report to a Cindy Thomas. Reading on you will read that:
... consider this chain of command since the story broke.
Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires
Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities... retires.
Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.
Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.
All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C.
Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to... yet.
Can I plead the fifth on my tax return?
Huh? She ASKED a reporter to bring this up?
wtf is going on here?
If thisis a redherring, what are we missing?
(oh, and there is that whole DEAD AMBASSADOR thing...)
(p.s. Was that a real story yesterday that Obama was doing ‘inapt’ activities the night our Ambassador was being killed?)
THE IRS SCANDALS NEED A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
“Can I plead the fifth on my tax return?”
It’s been tried. Just don’t spill the fifth on it.
The fifth amendment is used when testimony will incriminate one in a CRIME. Not to avoid telling facts one does not want to speak about. If Ms. Lerner takes the fifth, she is saying CRIMES were committed.
Laws are irrelevant to Democrats.
THE IRS NEEDS TO BE ABOLISHED!
The problem is that the only civil path to a solution is through some government entity somewhere and ALL government is dependent upon tax revenue. No matter what any republican tells you, government needs taxes and the taxing authority is THE teat they all seek.
The IRS scandal is one of the many reasons we have second amendment rights. The circular foodchain of government now serves only it’s own ends. So-called civil servants are neither servants nor civil.
She’s not the whistle blower; she’s outing this info to get ahead of whoever the whistle blower is. They never admit to this sort of stuff unless forced to.
However, the only sane response to testifying before congress is to take the fifth each and every time. Congresscritters lie to us with impunity but if you slip up in front of them they'll go after you for perjury or contempt.
Congress is too corrupt to trust with your freedom, take the fifth.
“...we’ll feed you enough cigarettes to keep bribing the guards until the Pardon List comes out on January 19, 2017”
“Obama used his IRS to rig the election.”
The RNC rigged the election by running a corporatist statist former governor of the second most left wing state in the nation. Romney had no credibility with the voters because he changed his positions on almost every key issue in order to win the nomination and his lack of belief the supposed principles his campaign endorsed was apparent. When given a choice between an avoid hard core socialist president running for reelection and a socialist light candidate running as a moderate conservative the people chose the real thing instead of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The electorate knew who Obama was and it also knew Romney was whatever his handlers decided he needed to be on any given day.
Romney absolutely blew the election when he allowed Obama and Candy Crowley to slap him in the face on national television during a debate. Instead of standing up for himself and going on the attack he folded like the cheap suit he was. Strong leaders don’t cave in pressure situations.
Do I believe Obama used the IRS to harass conservative organizations and thereby minimize their impact on the election? Yes I do. Do I believe the organizations allied with the Democrat party in 2008 and 2012 committed voter fraud? Yes I do. The system is totally corrupt. Look at American history. Voter fraud and intimidation have been part of the process since the early days of the republic. It is a given and a winning candidate must find ways to overcome the dirty tricks of the opposition.
It is time for us to stop blaming the other side for our failings. When we run corporate statist light socialists such as George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney against committed socialists we are going to lose 9 out of 10 times. When the American people learned George H.W. Bush wasn’t going to continue Reagan’s conservative policies (taxes for example the Souter nomination for example) they replaced him with Clinton. George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, becoming president only due to the Electoral College and less than 1000 voters in Florida. Given a choice between “passionate conservatism” (G.W. Bush) and real socialism (Gore), the electorate in 2000 chose the real thing (Gore). If the Democrats had run a better candidate than Kerry in 2004 (Hillary for example) Bush would likely have lost.
As Reagan demonstrated twice, the Republican House victory with the Contract for America demonstrated in 1994, and the Tea Party demonstrated in the 2010 House elections, real conservatives promoting real conservative principles with conviction can win elections with large margins.
The problem with conservatives winning elections is not conservatism, the media, voter fraud, or IRS intimidation. The reason conservatives lose at the ballot box is because there is no conservative party. The Republican Party is a moderate socialist corporatist statist secular organization, not a vehicle for promoting individual liberty and American values. The party leaders have no interest promoting the conservative agenda in the legislature. They care only about the votes they can collect on election day by telling conservative voters its candidates aren’t as bad as the other choice. Unfortunately, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football Lucy is about to snatch out of the way, we conservatives enable the party by believing we have no other choice than “least bad”.
To rebuild country, conservatives are either going to have to take over the power structure in the Republican Party, like the Marxists did the Democrat Party, or form a new party. Without wresting control of the power structure from the Bush family, Karl Rove, Romney, Boehner, McConnell, McCain, Graham etc, etc. there will be no real conservatives at the top of the Republican ticket, nor will there be aggressive action in Congress to pass legislation to end deficit spending. As good as Reagan was he was not able to push the corporatists out of the power structure. He was forced to name G.H.W. Bush as his VP and as soon as Reagan was out of office, Bush dumped the conservatives.
Given the history of the Republican Party since Reagan, it does not appear the party can be transformed from within. The people with the money don’t want it to change. Therefore, if conservatives want a real voice in national politics they are going to have to break from the Republican Party and form their own party.
That's all bs ,You're from the south ? Compare a state run by Republicans like Texas , or Counties or Parishes run by Republicans to states like California, Detroit, New Orleans ,detroit, chicago run by democrats and you see the difference between the parties. many of you on here constantly campaign against republicans . that helps democrats destroy all opposition to democrats. it's what the liberal mainstream media does all the time . how does if feel to be on the same side and doing the same thing as the liberal news media?
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