Free Republic

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is currently claiming that seven different IRS officials experienced computer crashes that erased their emails and made it impossible for the IRS to cooperate with congressional investigations into the IRS targeting matter. The wave of computer crashes apparently struck both Washington, D.C. — where Lois Lerner oversaw the agency’s Exempt Organizations division — and also Cincinnati, Ohio — where agents processed tax-exempt applications. The Federal Records Act requires IRS employees to save all of their emails pertaining to agency business and to also print those emails out in case they have a computer crash.

A key House GOP lawmaker says the Internal Revenue Service continued to target conservative political groups even after approving their applications for tax exempt status. … Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana said Wednesday that conservative groups were also subjected to special scrutiny even after their applications were approved. …

It certainly does, and not without good reason. Politically speaking, the need to put the IRS in an enforcement position for ObamaCare was already a weakness for Democrats; few people enjoy working with the IRS, and that was before the organization targeted applicants and filers on the basis of their politics.  ABC News notes that the expanding IRS scandal gives Republicans a new and potent argument for rethinking the entire mess: Conservative groups are preparing to use the deepening public distrust of the Internal Revenue Service to discredit the Affordable Care Act, and the Democrats who support it, in the 2014...

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...