Free Republic

In response to a question about the IRS’s handling of Tea Party exemption applications, asked at the May 10 meeting of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association, Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations office, made the following response:  “We get about 60,000 applications for tax exemption every year, most of them are 501(c)(3) organizations. But between 2010 and 2012 we started seeing a very big uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications we were receiving and many of these organizations applying more than doubled, about 1500 in 2010 and over 3400...

Someone attempted to grill New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at a town hall again, and thanks to that brave (or some would say, attention-seeking) soul, the media has a new viral video of the Governor getting sassy with a constituent. This time, the town hall attendant asked whether the governor planted questions at town hall meetings, citing a situation where he saw someone ask a question at another event who claimed to be a friend of Christie’s. After scolding him for “wasting time,” Christie asked, “if I plant questions, why the hell did I call on you?”

Former early Google employee Doug Edwards had a message for President Obama today: Raise my taxes, please. Edwards, who was employee #59 at Google and is now not working, asked the question in Mountain View, Calif. at the Town Hall event today Obama held with LinkedIn to discuss job creation. “My question is would you please raise my taxes?” Edwards said from the audience during the question and answer period. “I would like very much for our country to continue to invest in things like Pell grants, infrastructure, job training–programs that made it possible for me to get to where...

Wealthy Man Asks Obama ‘Please Raise My Taxes’ President Obama took a break from his three-day campaign fundraising tour today to pitch his $447 billion jobs plan and defend his proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy to reduce the deficit, arguing that everyone is going to have to do their “fair share.” At the “Putting America Back to Work” LinkedIn town hall in Mountain View, Calif., Obama came face-to-face with his deficit-reduction proposal. “Would you please raise my taxes?” asked Doug Edwards a former director of consumer marketing and branding at Google, who described himself as “unemployed by choice.”...

Wow, what a shock. Doug Edwards, formerly an executive with Google. And now, as he says, retired, by choice. Guy seems to be willing to pay a lot of money to get his taxes raised. $10k to the Ohio Demo Partry in 2010 $7.5k to John Kerry in 2004 $500 to the DNC Services Corp in 2004 $2.3k to Michael Arcuri in 2007 $2.1k to Bob Casey in 2006 $250 to Hillary Clinton in 2007 $1k to John Courage in 2006 $5k to the DCCC in 2006 $700 to Kay Hagan in 2008 $1k to Ron Klein in 2006 $2,300...

IMHO....Totally planted and staged Question.

“Would you please raise my taxes?” said the man, who said he had “worked for a small startup down the street here” and had chosen to be unemployed. Techies on Twitter said that balding man with glasses is Doug Edwards, Google’s former marketing executive and author of “I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59.” Obama called on Edwards almost serendipitously — the president was prompted by the moderator, who had been choosing the questioners, to pick someone in the audience. After he said he was put “on the spot,” Obama called on “the man in the glasses.”

I contend that Obama's response that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" was not a mistake or poor judgement - I think it was calculated. Obama is desperately looking for something to steal the headlines from his disasterous healthcare plan and this kind of story his perfect. Obama's hope is that this will galvanize the media and "right wing critics" allowing Pelosi to push this plan through. I wouldn't be surprised if the White House actually planted that question. If you watched the presser you'll notice that the reporter almost didn't get to ask the questions - another reporter took her...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton had picked out the male questioner as she wrapped up a question-and-answer session at Butler University. It wasn't immediately clear what statement by the first lady...