Category Archives: Government

May 18, 2013

Strassel: The IRS Scandal Started at the Top

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service did exactly what the president said was the right and honorable thing to do.

Was the White House involved in the IRS’s targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was.

President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an “independent” agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

But that’s not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn’t need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he’d like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. “He put a target on our backs, and he’s now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?” asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Government, Law & Courts, Tax

‘Scandalous Hat Trick’: Sarah Palin Shreds Obama & His Scandal-Embroiled White House

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Mr. President, you said today that you have “complete confidence” in the Attorney General. America doesn’t. Eric Holder needs to appoint an unbiased Special Counsel to investigate the illegal political action of this administration. And then Eric Holder needs to resign.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a lengthy message to her Facebook wall Thursday criticizing the Obama administration for its handling the Benghazi, IRS, and Associated Press phone records scandals:

Scandalous Hat Trick

Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in the Rose Garden you dismissed the idea of a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS scandal. With that, your galling political hubris shined bright in the midst of today’s dark clouds.

Mr. President, how can we trust your Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation when there is a systemic violation of the Hatch Act throughout your administration?

Surely you are aware that the Hatch Act prevents certain federal employees from engaging in political activity. Specifically, it’s illegal for these federal employees to engage in action in support of or in opposition to a political party, a candidate for partisan political office, or a partisan political group.

Yet that is exactly what’s happened within the IRS, the Justice Department, and in the Benghazi cover-up. This scandalous hat trick is on your watch. It is not believable that you knew nothing about Obama administration actions in dealing with these scandals. And in regards to Benghazi, when you should have taken appropriate action to save American lives – for instance by calling in the Marines – you were AWOL. Just weeks before the election your team scrubbed the Benghazi talking points in 12 different versions, lied to the American people about some YouTube video being to blame for the deaths of brave Americans who put our country first, and you prove Michael Barone right when he writes, “What actually happened in Benghazi was out of sync with the Obama campaign line.” That’s why you all did what you did. Pure raw politics were at play during a horrific time of loss.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Government, Obama, Radicals, Sarah Palin

May 16, 2013

IRS Intimidation Forced Founder To Shut Down Tea Party Group

Posted on May 16, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The IRS scandal is growing by leaps and bounds in a way that must be terrifying to an Administration already dealing with fallout from the uncovering of their Libya lies and the knowledge that the Department of Justice seized the phone records of 20 Associated Press reporters. Tuesday morning, ABC News revealed what might have been the political motivation behind the IRS’s decision to target Tea party groups — to ensure they weren’t as effective in 2012 as they were in 2010.

In the 2010 midterms, even the media that despises the Tea Party will admit that the nationwide grassroots movement was a major factor behind record GOP electoral gains. By the time the smoke cleared, Obama had lost the House and his filibuster-proof majority in the United States Senate.

Is it just a coincidence that it was only after these 2010 victories that the IRS decided to single out Tea Party groups for special scrutiny? And not just scrutiny, but the kind of scrutiny that bogged these groups down with paperwork and restricted their political activities.

The Narrative some in the media, like JournOlist founder Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, are desperate to spin is that this was a single Midwest IRS office concerned with political groups abusing a new tax exempt status. The isolation of Tea Parties was merely “discriminatory.”

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Tax, Tea Parties

May 14, 2013

IRS Not Just After Tea Party … Megyn Kelly Exposes List of Targets (Video)

Posted on May 14, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

According to an inspector general’s report on the IRS, the practice of focusing on such groups began in early 2010 with the IRS looking into Tea Party and Patriot groups. By June of 2011, the list of those being targeted had drastically expanded and it included groups that focused on government spending, government debt and taxes.

On Monday’s America Live, Megyn Kelly probed the scandal surrounding the IRS targeting conservative groups.

According to an inspector general’s report on the IRS, the practice of focusing on such groups began in early 2010 with the IRS looking into Tea Party and Patriot groups. By June of 2011, the list of those being targeted had drastically expanded and it included groups that focused on government spending, government debt and taxes.

The IRS also wanted extra scrutiny on groups whose goals included limiting government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, anyone criticizing how the country was being run, and anyone lobbying to “make America a better place to live.”

Earlier Monday, President Obama addressed the reports, saying that if they are in fact true, they are outrageous and people will be held accountable. Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs reacted, saying, “This is an agency with an enemies list. This is Nixonian. This is a president whose inner Nixon is being revealed. This is a government that is out of control.”

[...]

Video and complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Tax, Tea Parties

City of Detroit is financially ‘insolvent’

Posted on May 14, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The Detroit city government is weeks away from running out of the cash it needs to operate, according to an initial report from the emergency manager overseeing its finances.


One of an estimated 78,000 vacant buildings in Detroit. Years of financial decline have left the city government insolvent, according to a report released Monday.

The report from Kevyn Orr, the bankruptcy attorney appointed by the state in March, lays out a bleak financial position for the city.

“The city has effectively exhausted its ability to borrow,” he writes in the report, adding that the city “is clearly insolvent.” To avoid running out of cash before the end of its fiscal year on June 30, it must “defer payments on its current obligations,” including more than $100 million in pension payments that are due.

“No one should underestimate the severity of the financial crisis,” Orr said in a statement. “The path Detroit has followed for more than 40 years is unsustainable and only a complete restructuring of the city’s finances and operations will allow Detroit to regain its footing.”

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Economy and Debt, Government

May 12, 2013

Tea Party Patriots Calls for Congress to Investigate IRS ‘Crimes’

Posted on May 12, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Breitbart News has learned that Tea Party Patriots is asking its members to pressure Congress to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative and Tea Party organizations.

The organization is calling on Congress to conduct “substantive” investigative hearings in the wake of recent reports that senior IRS officials knew in 2011 exactly what was going on, despite initial claims that local “low-level” employees were the only ones involved in targeting conservatives.

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said that on Friday “we learned that the IRS lied to Congress and the American citizens when Douglas Schulman said there was ‘absolutely no targeting’ of Tea Party groups who applied for nonprofit status.” Martin was referencing Schulman’s March 2012 Congressional testimony.

Today we are learning that the IRS lied when they said that only “low-level employees” were to blame for outrageous and egregious overreach and abuse of power. The AP is reporting in June 2011, IRS division head Lois Lerner instructed employees to change the criteria for “flagging groups ‘immediately’” and in August 2011 “the IRS” Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information.”

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Conservatism, Government, Law & Courts, Tea Parties

May 5, 2013

Karzai Says He Was Assured C.I.A. Would Continue Delivering Bags of Cash

Posted on May 5, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Current and former Afghan officials who spoke before last week said the payments had totaled tens of millions of dollars since they began a decade ago.


The Afghan leader Hamid Karzai told reporters Saturday that money delivered by the C.I.A. was “an easy source of petty cash.”

The C.I.A.’s station chief here met with President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, and the Afghan leader said he had been assured that the agency would continue dropping off stacks of cash at his office despite a storm of criticism that has erupted since the payments were disclosed.

The C.I.A. money, Mr. Karzai told reporters, was “an easy source of petty cash,” and some of it was used to pay off members of the political elite, a group dominated by warlords.

The use of the C.I.A. cash for payoffs has prompted criticism from many Afghans and some American and European officials, who complain that the agency, in its quest to maintain access and influence at the presidential palace, financed what is essentially a presidential slush fund. The practice, the officials say, effectively undercut a pillar of the American war strategy: the building of a clean and credible Afghan government to wean popular support from the Taliban.

Instead, corruption at the highest levels seems to have only worsened. The International Monetary Fund recently warned diplomats in Kabul that the Afghan government faced a potentially severe budget shortfall partly because of the increasing theft of customs duties and officially abetted tax evasion.

On Saturday, Mr. Karzai sought to dampen the furor over the payments, describing them as one facet of the billions of dollars in aid Afghanistan receives each year. “This is nothing unusual,” he said.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Middle East

May 1, 2013

Moreno Valley: Homes, business searched in political corruption probe

Posted on May 1, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Federal and local agents served search warrants throughout in Moreno Valley on Tuesday morning, April 30, raiding the homes of all five City Council members, a businessman with close political connections and the corporate offices of warehouse developer Highland Fairview.

Federal and local agents served search warrants on Tuesday, April 30, at the homes of Moreno Valley’s five City Council members, a real estate broker with political connections and the corporate office of Skechers warehouse developer Highland Fairview.

The raids, which began early in the morning, are part of “an ongoing political corruption investigation,” Riverside County District Attorney Chief Investigator Michael Moriarty said. Authorities declined to be more specific.

At least one former city councilman and a Moreno Valley resident have filed or said they would file complaints about relationships between Highland Fairview and its president and CEO Iddo Benzeevi and City Council members, who have defended Benzeevi and the corporation. Those inside city government who challenge Highland Fairview and Benzeevi have been punished, they say.

Some City Council members said they had nothing to hide, while Mayor Tom Owings urged Moreno Valley residents to be patient.

Michele Patterson, assistant to City Manager Henry Garcia, said no investigating agencies had contacted City Hall or city offices.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Fraud, Government, Law & Courts

April 29, 2013

Americans fear government more than terror

Posted on April 29, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Now, it would seem, the famous quote widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin – “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” – is holding more sway with Americans than it has in over a dozen years.

According to a pair of recent polls, for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, Americans are more fearful their government will abuse constitutional liberties than fail to keep its citizens safe.

Even in the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing – in which a pair of Islamic radicals are accused of planting explosives that took the lives of 3 and wounded over 280 – the polls suggest Americans are hesitant to give up any further freedoms in exchange for increased “security.”

A Fox News survey polling a random national sample of 619 registered voters the day after the bombing found despite the tragic event, those interviewed responded very differently than following 9/11.

For the first time since a similar question was asked in May 2001, more Americans answered “no” to the question, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?”

Of those surveyed on April 16, 2013, 45 percent answered no to the question, compared to 43 percent answering yes.

In May 2001, before 9/11, the balance was similar, with 40 percent answering no to 33 percent answering yes.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Terrorism

San Bernardino bankruptcy could spell the end of the city

Posted on April 29, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The inability to create effective public policy is also a result of the toxic and unhealthy relationship elected officials have with the public safety unions that have consistently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy elections, castrate elected officials to vote their way and threaten those who vote against their selfish interests.

Since the city of San Bernardino declared bankruptcy in July 2012, there have been many opinion pieces written with all sorts of different ideas about how the city got to where it is.

While the entire story really is comprised of lost industries, closed military bases, re-routed freeway systems, an influx of renters without the same financial interest in maintaining property values and neighborhoods, a sinking tax base and a county seat that is home to many of the social services needed by those resting upon society’s safety net, the crux of the issue resides with the system that dictates the operations of the city as a municipal corporation – the City Charter.

At the end of the day, we are where we are – and that is on the brink of insolvency, disincorporation, no longer being the city of San Bernardino, and losing the oldest historic city in the county.

The City Council is fundamentally unable to make the difficult decisions that are needed to pull the city back off the brink of the precipice. This is the result of a council that is bound by rules imposed by a charter that dictates to those decision-makers what to pay certain city employees (public safety) – a specific rate that is compared to cities throughout the state that share no commonalities with San Bernardino.

[...]

Complete text linked here.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in California Story, Economy and Debt, Government, Unions