BUSTED: The Complete IRS Scandal Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

[Warph]

The Complete IRS Scandal Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

Reading this timeline, I have come to three conclusions:

  1. Steve Miller lied to Congress
  2. Lois Lerner lied to Congress
  3. Barack Obama lied to the American people

This scandal has the fingerprints of Axelrod, Jarrett and/or the Chicago Machine all over it.

This is fascism on the part of the IRS and the White House.  It is fascism, straight up.

We need a special prosecutor.  And we need one yesterday!

[Warph]

IRS Tyranny Included Pro-Life Groups, No Tax Exemption Unless Letter Sent Promising
to Not Protest Against Abortion-Giant Planned Parenthood (watch video)

Your taxpayer dollars hard at work... it's beyond deplorable to discover that the Internal Revenue Service has been such a vigilant, vicious watchdog for abortion-giant Planned Parenthood.

Add pro-lifers to the growing list of exposed IRS targets.

Those who still believe the lies purporting that the IRS scandal is limited to a few rogue "going off the reservation" low-level IRS employees in Cincinnati need to start paying attention.

(Unless those Ohio employees magically have the clout to try to suppress a pro-life organization in Iowa...)
IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

"In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent 'Ms. Richards' told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board's signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood," the Thomas More Society announced today. "Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved."


Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

It was a record-breaking year in 2012 for taxpayer-funded abortions and huge profits for Planned Parenthood. The organization not only has the iron-fisted protection of the IRS, but it received $542 million from American taxpayers.

From Radio Fox News, IRS Told Pro-Life Group Not to Picket Planned Parenthood:

The Internal Revenue Service allegedly told an Iowa pro-life group they had to sign documents promising not to protest or picket Planned Parenthood and they told a Texas pro-life organization they had to promote abortion, according to documents obtained by Fox News.

"The IRS was concerned about advocacy," said Sally Wagenmaker, special counsel to the Thomas More Society. "The (agent) said picketing and protesting is not allowed."

She said the IRS's role "should only be to determine whether organizations fit the section 501(c)(3) test for 'charitable, religious, or educational' qualification, not to inquire about the content of prayers, protests, and petitions."

It's high time that the IRS be called to account for its workers' potential to trample on our constitutional rights, through such ostensibly innocuous means," Wagenmaker said – hinting that this may only be the tip of the iceberg of IRS abuses.

An IRS spokesman said they would look into the cases.

Wagenmaker was representing Coalition for Life of Iowa and Christian Voices For Life of Fort Bend County, Texas. Both groups were seeking tax exempt status. Their requests were eventually granted but only after they sought legal help from the Thomas More Society.

In 2009 the Coalition for Life received correspondence from the IRS raising questions about their prayer activity – specifically outside Planned Parenthood clinics.

"You then asked ... to have all Coalition Board members sign a statement that the coalition will not 'picket' or 'protest' outside of Planned Parenthood or similar organizations and will not 'organize' others to do so," Wagenmaker wrote in a letter to an IRS representative known only as "Ms. Richards."

Wagenmaker said the IRS's demand was clearly a violation of the pro-life group's constitutional rights.

More on the IRS targeting from Hot Air:
Most have assumed that the obstructionism on the application from conservative groups came because the IRS assumed that they would get involved in politics, but the laws on 501(c)4s don't prohibit that, as Mary Katharine explained yesterday.  Their purpose and work has to be primarily for "social welfare," but that can take on any number of forms.

In this case, though, there wasn't even a pretense of suspicion about electioneering.  If this is true, then the IRS was actively attempting to intimidate a pro-life group into curtailing its perfectly legal activism. In fact, protests against Planned Parenthood by this group would be exactly the kind of "social welfare" protected by an exemption.  This not only infringed on the group's free-speech rights, but also its religious liberty, at least indirectly.

In another similar case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the group's involvement with "40 Days for Life" and "Life Chain" events. The Fort Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.[/i]

"The application of Christian Voices for Life clearly indicated that the organization qualified as a charitable organization under section 501(c)(3)," stated Sally Wagenmaker. She added, "The IRS seemed to be intent on denying or delaying tax-exempt status based upon the organization's pro-life message, rather than any legitimate exemption concern, through its exhaustive, cumbersome questioning. The implication that Christian Voices for Life somehow intended to engage in illegal activity was insulting."

This past week, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill, questioned the IRS about targeting pro-life and conservative groups. The IRS rep would not say that it's wrong for the government agency to demand records of members' prayers:

Last year, Michelle Malkin wrote a searing historical article about the racist roots of Planned Parenthood — here are the first few paragraphs posted at Townhall, 'To Stop the Multiplication of the Unfit':
If you aren't creeped out by the No Birth Control Left Behind rhetoric of the White House and Planned Parenthood, you aren't listening closely enough. The anesthetic of progressive benevolence always dulls the senses. Wake up.

When a bunch of wealthy white women and elite Washington bureaucrats defend the trampling of religious liberties in the name of "increased access" to "reproductive services" for "poor" women, the ghost of Margaret Sanger is cackling.

As she wrote in her autobiography, Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 "to stop the multiplication of the unfit." This, she boasted, would be "the most important and greatest step towards race betterment." While she oversaw the mass murder of black babies, Sanger cynically recruited minority activists to front her death racket. She conspired with eugenics financier and businessman Clarence Gamble to "hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities" to sell their genocidal policies as community health and welfare services.

Outright murder wouldn't sell. But wrapping it under the egalitarian cloak of "women's health" — and adorning it with the moral authority of black churches — would. Sanger and Gamble called their deadly campaign "The Negro Project."

In other writings, historian Mike Perry found, Sanger attacked programs that provided "medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers" because they "facilitate the function of maternity" when "the absolute necessity is to discourage it." In an essay included in her writing collection held by the Library of Congress, Sanger urged her abortion clinic colleagues to "breed a race of thoroughbreds." Nationwide "birth control bureaus" would propagate the proper "science of breeding" to stop impoverished, non-white women from "breeding like weeds."

[Teresa]

Been following it all and mad frustrated disgusted doesn't even come close to saying how I feel.

[Warph]

Been following it all and mad frustrated disgusted doesn't even come close to saying how I feel.

I'm about to make you madder, sugar-pop.... Checkout these next few posts.  Obuma is in it up to his little curly hairs.
Jeffery Lord is usually right-on with his articles but sometimes he gets diarrehea of the keyboard... doesn't know when to stop.
He's dead-on with this one.
Warph



Obama and the IRS: The Smoking Gun?
By Jeffrey Lord on 5.20.13 @ 6:11AM

President met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief the day before agency targeted Tea Party.

"For me, it's about collaboration." — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House

Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?

Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking gun?

The stunning questions are raised by the following set of new facts.
March 31, 2010.

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.

The White House lists the IRS union leader's visit this way:

Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30

In White House language, "POTUS" stands for "President of the United States."

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department's Inspector General's Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:

April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS "Determinations Unit Program agreed" to open a "Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases." As stated by the IG report.

The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union's PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates.

Putting IRS employees in the position of actively financing anti-Tea Party candidates themselves, while in their official positions in the IRS blocking, auditing, or intimidating Tea Party and conservative groups around the country.

The IG report contained a timeline prepared by examining internal IRS e-mails. The IG report did not examine White House Visitor Logs, e-mails, or phone records relating to the relationship between the IRS union, the IRS, and the White House.

In fact, this record in the White House Visitors Log of a 12:30 Wednesday, March 31, 2010 meeting between President Obama and the IRS union's Kelley was not unusual.

On yet another occasion, Kelley's presence at the White House was followed shortly afterwards by the President issuing Executive Order 13522. A presidential directive that gave the anti-Tea Party NTEU — the IRS union — a greater role in the day-to-day operation of the IRS than it had already — which was considerable.

Kelley is recorded as visiting the White House over a year earlier, listed in this fashion:

Kelley, Colleen Potus/Flotus 12/03/2009 18:30

The inclusion of "FLOTUS" — First Lady Michelle Obama — and the 6:30 pm time of the December event on this entry in the Visitors Log indicates this was the White House Christmas Party held that evening and written up here in the Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times focused on party guests from the President's home state of Illinois and did not mention Kelley. Notably, the Illinois guests, who are reported to have attended the same party as Kelley, included what the paper described as four labor "activists": Dennis Gannon of the Chicago Federation of Labor, Tom Balanoff of the Service Employees International Union, Henry Tamarin of UNITE, and Ron Powell of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Six days following Kelley's attendance at the White House Christmas party with labor activists like herself, the President issued Executive Order 13522 (text found here, with an explanation here). The Executive Order, titled: "Creating Labor-Management Forums To Improve Delivery of Government Services" applied across the federal government and included the IRS. The directive was designed to:

Allow employees and unions to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters....

However else this December 2009 Executive Order can be described, the directive was a serious grant of authority within the IRS to the powerful anti-Tea Party union. A union that by this time already had the clout to determine the rules for IRS employees, right down to who would be allowed a Blackberry or what size office the employee was entitled to. The same union that would shortly be doling out serious 2010 (and later 2012) campaign contributions to anti-Tea Party candidates with money supplied from IRS employees. The union, as noted last week here in this space, already has the authority to decide all manner of IRS matters, right down to who does and does not get a Blackberry.

It is the same union whose IRS employee-members were being urged in 2012 by Senate Democrats (Chuck Schumer, Al Franken, Max Baucus, and others) to target Tea Party and other conservative groups.

Which, as the IG records, they did.

Both Mr. Obama and the NTEU's Kelley have been by turns evasive and tight-lipped about their roles in the blossoming IRS scandal.

Kelley refused to open up to the Washington Post. In an article titled "IRS, union mum on employees held accountable in 'sin' of political targeting," the Post quoted the following:

"NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time," NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.

A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: "We've been directed by national office. We have no comment."

The President approached things in a more evasive manner.

Last Thursday at the President's press conference with the Turkish prime minister, Julianna Goldman of Bloomberg News asked the following question, bold print for emphasis:

"Mr. President, I want to ask you about the IRS. Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency's actions before your Counsel's Office found out on April 22nd? And when they did find out, do you think that you should have learned about it before you learned about it from news reports as you said last Friday? And also, are you opposed to there being a special counsel appointed to lead the Justice Department investigation?"

The President's response? (Again bold print emphasis.)

"But let me make sure that I answer your specific question. I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press."

Take note: Goldman's question was:

"Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency's actions before your Counsel's Office found out on April 22nd?"

The President evaded by answering:

"I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report....."

The question was not whether he knew about the IG report ahead of time. The question was whether he could "assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency's actions."

In response, the President ducked.

In other words, the IRS union chief went to the White House to meet personally with the president on March 31. The union already had Executive Order 13522 behind it, issued by the President barely three months earlier. An Executive Order directing that the IRS must "allow employees and unions to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters....".

The very next day after that March 31 meeting at the White House, the IRS, with the union involved in its decision-making, was setting up its "Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party."

Which raises the famous question from Watergate: What did the President know and when did he know it?

While potentially explosive now, in fact the Obama Administration hadn't been in office a month before Kelley was boasting of the IRS union's influence in the White House.

In a February 15, 2009  interview given to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh is Kelley's home town), there was this question from the PG reporter, with the now Washington-based Kelley boasting as below, key point in bold print:

Q: Has the Obama staff been receptive?

A: Yes. We have worked with the transition team, given them suggestions; and throughout the campaign, President Obama talked about working with the federal employees and unions. He's recognized the contributions federal employees make. I was just at the White House (Jan. 30) while he was signing some executive orders to undo some things the prior administration did.

Catch that?

The boast?

"I was just at the White House..."

Which is to say, the election of 2008, in which the union had endorsed Obama, was no sooner over than the head of the IRS union had "worked with the transition team" and "given them suggestions." Literally ten days after the Obama January 20 inaugural in 2009 — January 30 the article notes — Kelley was boasting that "I was just at the White House while he (the President) was signing some executive orders to undo some things the prior administration did."

And what did Kelley see as the IRS union's relationship with the White House she had already visited ten days into the President's first term?

Kelley responded candidly, again with the bold print added for emphasis:

"We are looking for a return to what we used to call partnership. I don't really care what it's called. For me, it's about collaboration."

Catch those words?

Collaboration. Partnership.

In addition to Kelley's three visits to see the President — in January of 2009, December of 2009, and March of 2010 — she is listed for three other visits, the contact names those of presidential aides:

"Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 11/04/2009 10:00"

"Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 12/01/2009 12:00"

"Kelley, Colleen Nelson, Greg 01/14/2010 13:40"

The obvious question instantly arises with the revelation that Kelley was meeting with the President personally — the day before the IRS kicked into high gear with its "Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party".

Were the President of the United States and the President of the NTEU meeting in the White House at 12:30 on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 — and engaged in "collaboration" and "partnership"? A "collaboration" and "partnership" that was all about targeting the Tea Party?

And did that collaboration and partnership result in the IRS letting loose the hounds on the Tea Party and conservative groups — the very next day after the Obama-Kelley meeting?

To add to the administration's IRS-NTEU woes is the fact that beyond the Inspector General, there is another IRS-connected agency in the Treasury Department: the IRS Oversight Board.

And on that board sits a presidential appointee named Robert M. Tobias. Tobias, oddly, was a Clinton appointee in 2005, confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. He is still there. He is the longtime NTEU general counsel and Kelley's predecessor as the union president. Here's the statement, from the IRS Oversight Board, on all of this. It is headed:

IRS Oversight Board Deeply Troubled by Breakdown in IRS Process in Reviewing Tax-Exempt Applications.

There was no reference to the influence of the anti-Tea Party NTEU in the statement. Why would there be when the union's ex-president sits on the Oversight Board itself?

Obama's problem here is considerable.

By not forthrightly answering Goldman's question, he seems to be evading the issue in the manner that brought so much trouble in the form of congressional investigations, special prosecutors, and impeachment threats to Presidents Nixon and Clinton, with Nixon being forced to resign the presidency and Clinton brought to a Senate trial.

The President's too-clever-by half evasion added to Kelley's silence leaves open the question of whether the union and the White House, not to mention the IRS Oversight Board, are collaborating — collaborating right now — on a cover-up.

Nixon looked the American people in the television eye and flatly lied about his personal involvement in the Watergate scandal, lies that came from a frantic attempt to conduct a cover-up.

Clinton looked the American people in the eye and famously wagged his finger as he lied that he "did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." In Clinton's case this extended to lying to a federal grand jury.

For a good long while, the American people in fact believed both Nixon and Clinton. The stories are now legion of Nixon cabinet and staff believing their man, and Clinton's cabinet and staff believing their man's protestations of innocence as well.

Finally, in both cases, the truth was out.

As Washington and the country have long since twice-learned the hard way, the parsing of presidential words in cases like this, not to mention looking into the cameras and boldly lying on the prayer of getting away with the lie, always bodes ill for presidents. It leads inevitably to that simple question famously uttered by then-Tennessee GOP Senator Howard Baker and posed of Nixon at the Senate Watergate hearings: "What did the President know and when did he know it?"

Twice in recent American history the answer to this question, once for Nixon and once for Clinton, has landed popular, powerful presidents in impeachment hot water. Ending Republican Nixon's presidency altogether and coming close to doing the same with Democrat Clinton. Leaving the legacy of each permanently scarred.

The notion that the players in the IRS scandal did what they did to get past the 2012 election will only add to an Obama presidential reputation as borrowing the Nixon playbook on skirting scandal in a presidential election year.

Ironically re-casting the image of America's first black president as the black Nixon.

With the examples of how Nixon and Clinton dodged, evaded, and lied, Obama's non-answer to Juliana Goldman's question at last week's press conference comes in for much more scrutiny. Matched to the silence of Kelley it begins raising obvious questions. Such as:

• Did the President himself ever discuss the Tea Party with Kelley?

• Did the President ever communicate his thoughts on the Tea Party to Kelley — in any fashion other than a face-to-face conversation such as e-mail, text, or by phone?

• What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010 meeting?

• Who was present at the Obama-Kelley March 31 meeting?

• Was the Tea Party or any other group opposing the President's agenda discussed at the March 31 meeting, or before or after that meeting?

• Is the White House going to release any e-mails, text, or phone records that detail Kelley's contacts with not only Mr. Obama but his staff?

• Will the IRS release all e-mail, text, or phone records between Kelley or any other leader of the NTEU with IRS employees?

• What role did Executive Order 13522 play in the IRS investigations of the Tea Party and all these other conservative groups?

Doubtless there are others, considerable others and the list of questions will grow.

Not to be lost sight of here is the role of the NTEU in raising money for Democrats in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles — the exact period when the IRS was busy going after the Tea Party and the others to curb any possible influence the groups could have in the elections of 2010 and 2012.

The NTEU, through its political action committee, raised $613,633 in the 2010 cycle, giving 98% of its contributions to anti-Tea Party Democrats. In 2012 the figure was $729,708, with 94% going to anti-Tea Party candidates. One NTEU candidate after another, as discussed last week in this space, campaigned vigorously against the Tea Party.

So the motivations here — defeating the Tea Party in 2010, and failing at that, making sure that the news of the metastasizing cancer in the IRS was kept quiet until after the 2012 presidential election was over — are clear.

What is particularly interesting here are the automatic assumptions of the mainstream media in all of this.

Like this "given" from the Washington Post's Dan Balz, bold print added for emphasis.

The most corrosive of the controversies is what happened at the IRS, which singled out tea party and other conservative groups for special scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. That Obama knew nothing about it does little to quell concerns that one of the most-feared units in government was operating out of control.

But if in fact the President did know about it?

Here's the Washington Post's "Journolist" Ezra Klein:

The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political repercussions....

If new information emerges showing a connection between the Determination Unit's decisions and the Obama campaign, or the Obama administration, it would crack this White House wide open. That would be a genuine scandal. But the IG report says that there's no evidence of that. And so it's hard to see where this one goes from here.

Exactly.

Which is why it will be a curious sight indeed to see the efforts the media will go to ignore/dismiss the tight, on-the-record connection between the President personally and a vociferously anti-Tea Party union. A union that has the literal run of the IRS — and whose union chief is recorded as having met with the President in the White House the day before the IRS launched "a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases." A decision with which, according to the IG report: "The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed." Check those words from Mr. Klein again:

If new information emerges showing a connection between the Determination Unit's decisions and the Obama campaign, or the Obama administration, it would crack this White House wide open. That would be a genuine scandal.

The question now is a simple one.

In 1974, "the smoking gun" was a tape recording that ended the Nixon presidency.

In 1998, the smoking gun was a blue dress — and it almost undid Bill Clinton's White House.

Now the all-too-familiar pattern of scandal and its day-by-day drip-drip-drip nature has begun to set in. Newsmax is now quoting Washington attorney and conservative activist Cleta Mitchell as saying:

"There were nearly 100 groups across the country that got the very egregious set of letters from the IRS that were almost identical and they came from offices all over the country, so I know of at least 85 to 90, maybe more, organizations."

Regular American all over the country are coming forward with their stories. Understanding the relationship between the Obama White House and the IRS union will be a must for congressional investigators.

President Obama is coming perilously closer to becoming the new Nixon. The next Bill Clinton.

And once again, as news of exactly what a president was doing in the Oval Office on a particular day and time goes public, yet again the old question becomes new.

What did the President know? And when did he know it?

[Warph]

White House knew of IRS scandal "weeks ago"

...Now the Wall Street Journal and NBC's Chuck Todd both report that the top lawyer in the White House did indeed know about the scandal for weeks before it broke publicly:

The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time.

President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president's statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority.

...How could the top White House lawyer sit on the knowledge that the IRS had targeted the President's political opponents without informing the President?  Answer: Either Ruemmler was incredibly incompetent or the White House is lying about when Obama knew of the scandal. We got a big hint in last week's press conference that it's the latter, when Obama changed the context of a question about his awareness of the scandal to his awareness of the IG report, which is pointedly not the same thing. 
LINK: http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/20/white-house-knew-of-irs-scandal-weeks-ago/

______________________________

NOW FOR THE POSSIBLE SMOKING GUN ON THE IRS SCANDAL:

According to White House visitor logs, President Barack Obama met with Colleen Kelley, leader of the IRS Employees Union on March 31st, 2010.

The Inspector General's report that uncovered the IRS abuse scandal indicated the following:

April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.

ONE DAY after meeting with Barack Obama in person at the White House, the IRS initiates an aggressive program to "report" on Tea Party cases – the very program that is now being proven to be a shocking and illegal abuse of power against conservative groups in America.

THIS is likely why Barack Obama refused to answer if he just learned of the IRS abuses – instead responding he had just learned of the IG report.  Obama not only KNEW of the IRS abuses – his own White House meetings record indicates he was very much a part of creating that abuse himself, attempting to use the IRS to intimidate conservative groups months before the 2010 Midterm Election

[Teresa]

Yep~~~ you are right!!! I'm mad all over again..
Thanks!~

[Warph]

Yep~~~ you are right!!! I'm mad all over again..
Thanks!~

Whoa, kiddo.... I'm just getting started. 

[Warph]

WaPo Poll: Majority Of Americans Think IRS Targeting Conservatives Was Intentional,
Only 31% Believe It Was An "Administrative Mistake"

(Including a majority who say what the IRS did is illegal)

Via The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/300895-poll-majority-believe-irs-targeting-of-tea-party-was-intentional

A new poll finds that a majority of Americans believe the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal was an intentional effort to harass conservative political groups.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday, 56 percent said the IRS use of higher scrutiny on Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status was a deliberate move, with 31 percent calling it an "administrative mistake."

A strong majority, 74 percent, said the IRS moves were inappropriate to 20 percent who said they were appropriate. Fifty-one percent also said they believe those actions were illegal to 44 who said they were inappropriate but not against the law.

A plurality also believe the administration is not being forthcoming about the targeting scandal. Forty-five percent said the administration is trying to cover up facts, with 42 percent saying the White House has honestly disclosed what they know.

The controversy over the IRS, the Justice Department's seizure of reporters' phone records and the administration's Benghazi talking points have kept the White House on the defensive this month.

The WP/ABC News poll, however, suggests the scandals have yet to damage the president's personal standing.

Obama holds a 51 percent approval rating to 44 percent negative.

Lawmakers though are pressing for answers on when senior officials at Treasury and the White House first learned about the political bias at the IRS and what steps they took to stop it.

On Monday, the White House acknowledged that senior officials were aware of an inspector general report into the improper targeting, but decided not to tell President Obama. White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler learned about the Treasury audit in April.

Press secretary Jay Carney defended the decision to not inform Obama, who has said he learned about the scandal when it became public on May 10. Carney said that informing the president could have led to charges that the administration was improperly trying to influence the investigation.

But the disclosure that the president's top lawyer knew about the scandal weeks before will likely intensify congressional scrutiny.

On Monday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking Republican Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called for the IRS to turn over more documents on the targeting scandal, broadening their investigation. Their panel will hold its first hearing on the IRS scandal on Tuesday.

The House Ways and Means Committee last week heard testimony from acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who offered his resignation after the scandal broke.

Calls also grew for a special investigator to probe the matter. On Sunday Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he believed a special counsel would be "necessary" to ensure a fair inquiry

The poll was conducted from May 16 to 19 and has a 3.5-point margin of error.

[Warph]

IRS Chief Tells Senate Committee:
"We Were Not Politically Motivated In Targeting Conservative Groups"

(So they rubber stamped liberal groups and made it nearly impossible for conservative groups to get non-profit status and that's not politically motivated?)

Via TPM: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gop-senator-to-irs-chief-you-lie

At a hearing Tuesday, Senate Finance Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) went after Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller for failing to recognize or admit that it had targeted conservative groups back when Republicans sent them letters asking as much last year.

"That's a lie by omission," Hatch said. "There's no question about that in my mind. It's a lie by omission. ... Why did you mislead me and my colleagues?"

"Mr. Hatch, I did not lie," Miller responded.

"Frankly," Miller said, "the concept of political motivation here — I did not agree with that in May. I do not agree with that now. We were not politically motivated in targeting conservative groups."

[Warph]

IRS went after 83-year-old Tea Party granny

(Now... aren't you proud of yourselves, IRS?)

News: New Mexico Watchdog
May 20, 2013 | 7:46 pm
Via Watchdog: http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-went-after-83-year-old-tea-party-granny/article/2530131

Eighty-three-year old great-grandmother Marianne Chiffelle of the Albuguerque Tea Party was a target of the IRS harassment of conservative political groups from 2010 through the 2012 presidential campaign.

Internal Revenue Service officials not only wanted a wide variety of information from the Albuquerque Tea Party's application for non-profit status, it also wanted to know what contacts it had with people from other political organizations too.

That included an 83-year-old great-grandmother who was once held in a World War II internment camp, New Mexico Watchdog has discovered.

"I've always paid my taxes and everything," Marianne Chiffelle told New Mexico Watchdog. "What I do think is, it doesn't surprise me...because of this government we have at the moment."

According to a review of documents conducted by the online news organization Politico, (in a story headlined "The IRS wants YOU -- to share everything"), the IRS asked the Albuquerque Tea Party about connections to other groups, including "Marianne Chiffelle's Breakfasts."

That prompted us to do some digging.

It took New Mexico Watchdog less than an hour to learn that "Marianne Chiffelle's Breakfasts" is not some restaurant chain, but a reference to the volunteer work of Chiffelle, a retiree who helps organize informal 9 a.m. meetings for members of the Bernalillo County Republican Party.

The group meets on Fridays at a Golden Corral restaurant. "We've had these meetings for a long time," Chiffelle said. "It's not a business."

Chiffelle is a naturalized American citizen who was born in what was then called the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. Her father was an executive for Shell Oil and when World War II broke out Chiffelle was sent to a Japanese internment camp where she spent four years, from age 12 to 16.

After the war, she moved to the Netherlands and in 1960 she and her late husband immigrated to the United States.

Since living in Albuquerque, Chiffelle has been active in GOP politics and conservative causes. She helped establish the Children's Freedom Scholarship Fund, which hands out patriotic coloring books to youngsters in the Albuquerque area.

"The kids don't have any idea, they think freedom is just there for the taking," Chiffelle said.

The book includes pictures of U.S. presidents and puzzles for kids to learn about U.S. history, as well as essays such as "What Does Freedom Mean to You?"

New Mexico Watchdog reviewed the coloring book and found nothing advocating for political parties or organizations.

Recent entries on Chiffelle's Facebook page include a link to a call for cuts in salaries to members of Congress, the vice president and president, as well as a petition to send a sympathy card to those affected by the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

While no fan of the Obama administration, Chiffelle says she is no pitchfork-wielding, anti-government type.

"The fact itself that you have to pay tax(es) to the government is okay," she said. "But the way they interpret it and how many rules there are, that's wrong."

The IRS is embroiled in a national scandal after revealing that it has targeted tea party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for non-profit, 501(c)4 status between 2010 and the 2012 presidential election. The Albuquerque Tea Party is one of the organizations that's been wrangling with the IRS since 2009.

"They (the IRS) have a job to do, I understand that," Albuquerque Tea Party President Rick Harbaugh told New Mexico Watchdog. "I think they overstepped that a lot."

The Politico story mentioned the IRS also wanted the Albuquerque Tea Party to supply more information about a group called Conspiracy Brews.

An Internet search revealed that Conspiracy Brews is a weekly meeting of Albuquerque political types that was founded by Janice Arnold-Jones -- a former Republican nominee for Congress, member of the state legislature and current Albuquerque City Council member.

"It's just a discussion group," Arnold-Jones said. "When the group named itself, it was done in the interests of a conspiracy for good government...it leans conservative but it's an interesting mix of people. Our only rule is, when people speak you have to listen."

"I attended just one meeting," Harbaugh said.

The website design for Conspiracy Brews is simple and New Mexico Watchdog found no anti-government rhetoric on the site.

Arnold-Jones said she does not lead the group and it's "not a taxable entity of any sort."

New Mexico Watchdog counted 25 attendees at the group's weekly Saturday meeting, including Chiffelle, who is a regular.

The Politico story mentioning Conspiracy Brews and Chiffelle prompted some jokes but also some serious discussion.

"The part I'm not delighted about," Arnold-Jones said, "is the fact that the IRS is picking and choosing (whom to investigate) ... I think this is an incredible erosion of trust."

As for Chiffelle, having her name mentioned as part of the IRS investigation has drawn more attention than she's accustomed to but she seemed genuinely unperturbed.

"Don't cut me short," Chiffelle said. "I was a prisoner of war in the Second World War. If the Japanese couldn't kill me, no one else can. That's my philosophy. If something is unfair, I will fight to the death...Nothing upsets me. But I'll do something about it."

Go here for more on this story.
http://watchdog.org/85591/heres-the-83-year-old-wwii-internment-camp-survivor-the-irs-asked-about/