O'Reilly: Grilling the IRS

Rubio: White House creating 'culture of intimidation'

Obama says he didn't 'know anything' about IRS targeting of conservative groups

Fox News

President Obama insisted Thursday that he knew nothing about the internal investigation into the IRS' practice of singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny before it was made public, a day after he sought to tamp down the controversy by announcing the resignation of the IRS chief. 

"I certainly did not know anything about the (inspector general) report" beforehand, Obama said Thursday, during a press conference alongside the Turkish prime minister. 

He reiterated that he found the agency's actions "unacceptable" and sought to fix the problem "the minute" he found out about it. 

Lawmakers were inquiring about the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS more than a year ago, but the White House claims they were not in the loop on the practice. Obama, seeking to swiftly address the controversy, announced Wednesday that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign -- though Miller was apparently set to step down anyway. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/obama-to-meet-with-treasury-officials-over-irs-scandal/#ixzz2TTtFDOOl

In wake of scandal, Obama ousts IRS chief -- who was leaving anyway

Fox News

President Obama announced Wednesday that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign in the wake of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were targeted -- though Miller was apparently set to step down anyway. 

An official close to Miller told Fox News, shortly after Obama's brief announcement, that the IRS chief was "set to resign the position of acting commission as of early June." He was planning to leave the IRS entirely a "couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy," the source said. 

These details were not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning. Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew  and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.

Obama said Lew asked for the resignation and Miller agreed, after being on the job since November 2012.

“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Obama said from the White House. The president is expected to name a new acting commissioner later this week. 

Republicans, who along with Democrats have slammed the IRS for the practice, welcomed the resignation Wednesday but made clear they would continue to investigate and press for accountability. 

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said the resignation "is a necessary first step but more heads need to roll." 

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., reacting to the claim that Miller was leaving anyway, said it seemed like he was a "perfect scapegoat" for the administration. 

Miller’s resignation was part of three-step plan Obama outlined to fix the problem.

The other steps are to put in place the safeguards recommended in the IG report and to work with Congress as it investigates. 

“The good news is we can fix this,” Obama said. 

Miller became acting commissioner after Commissioner Douglas Shulman completed his five-year term. Shulman had been appointed by President George W. Bush.

The president has proceeded cautiously since the IRS controversy was made public Friday. While he initially said the accusations were "outrageous," he also said he wanted to wait until the report was released before addressing what should be done to hold accountable those responsible.

Obama said he would hold a press conference Thursday.

The report lays much of the blame on IRS supervisors in Washington who oversaw a group of specialists in Cincinnati who screened applications for tax-exempt status. It does not indicate that Washington initiated the targeting of conservative groups, but it does say a top supervisor in Washington did not adequately supervise agents in the field even after she learned the agents were acting improperly.

The Justice Department is also investigating the IRS targeting, as are three congressional committees.

Sources told Fox News that Miller will remain on the job "for a couple of weeks." 

The House Ways and Means Committee said after the announcement of Miller's resignation that he still will attend a hearing Friday.

And the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs sent a letter Wednesday afternoon to the IRS  requesting five employees named in the IG audit be made available for transcribed interviews by committee staff.

The Republican-led committee wants to start the interviews Monday.

The names and titles of the IRS employees requested are Holly Paz, a director; John Shafer, a manager; Gary Muthert, a screener; Liz Hofacre, a case coordinator; and Joseph Herr, a manager.

"The resignation of Steven Miller is a positive and important step as this agency struggles to try to regain the public’s trust," said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. "A clean slate at the IRS with new leadership is imperative to fix this egregious encroachment on the lives of honest, hard-working Americans whose only sin was that they want to express their beliefs."

Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney sidestepped a question about whether Obama still had confidence in Miller, saying he wouldn't discuss personnel matters. He said Obama has expressed his overall view that IRS personnel had acted inappropriately. 

"He wants to see that the actions taken, as revealed by the Treasury report, that are inappropriate, are met with consequences," Carney said. "He will make clear to Treasury Department leaders that he expects action." 

Carney said Obama wants the public to "understand and believe that the IRS applies our tax laws in a neutral and fair way to everyone."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/obama-to-meet-with-treasury-officials-over-irs-scandal/#ixzz2TTPQ7aqM

5 unanswered questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups

usnews

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

Outrage intensified in Washington on Monday over the disclosure that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

President Barack Obama, at a White House appearance with the British prime minister, said that he wanted all the facts but used strong terms to condemn the reported conduct.

“I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it,” he said. “And we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this.”

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration will release an audit report later this week. In the meantime, here are five big unanswered questions looming over the IRS.

How did this start and why?

In January 2010, a Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United touched off a flood of political spending, much of it classified under a section of tax law known as 501(c)4 that entitles certain “social welfare” groups to tax exemption.

Two months later, a special unit of the IRS in Cincinnati assigned to screen applications for 501(c)4 status began searching for groups with descriptions that included “Tea Party” and “Patriots,” according to a partial draft of the inspector general’s report obtained by NBC News.

Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division on tax-exempt organizations, said Friday that the targeting of conservative groups was “inappropriate” but “absolutely not” influenced by the White House. She also said that none of the targeted groups was denied tax-exempt status.

What has not been spelled out is who in the Cincinnati office decided to search for conservative groups and why.

At least one Tea Party group called on the administration Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter, which it called “un-American and Nixonesque.” One of the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon accused him of targeting political opponents for tax audits.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are determined to investigate.

“I just don’t buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Sunday on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Who knew what, and when, higher in the IRS?

Lerner learned in June 2011 that agents had targeted groups with names including “Tea Party” and “Patriots,” according to the draft obtained by NBC News.

She “instructed that the criteria immediately be revised,” according to the draft. Ten months later, in March 2012, the IRS commissioner at the time, Douglas Shulman, testified to Congress that the IRS was not targeting tax-exempt groups based on their politics.

The IRS said over the weekend that senior executives were not aware of the targeting, but it remains unclear who knew what and when. Shulman, who left the agency last fall, has not spoken publicly about the scandal and did not answer a request for comment Monday from NBC News.

Members of Congress had sent letters to Shulman as early as June 2011 asking specifically about targeting of conservative groups, according to a House Ways and Means Committee summary obtained by NBC News.

The IRS responded at least six times but made no mention of targeting conservatives, according to the committee’s summary.

Will anyone be fired?

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Monday demanded the resignation of the head of the IRS. That is Steven Miller, who is serving as acting commissioner until Obama nominates a replacement.

The last commissioner was Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008, left the agency in November and has taken a position as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, told MSNBC on Monday that Obama should say “he’s going to fire everybody he can legally fire who’s been involved with this.”

How will the White House contain the political damage?

The IRS scandal presents a daunting political challenge for the White House, which is already being forced to defend its handling of the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

The furor over the IRS has come from both parties. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Monday the agency had committed an “outrageous abuse of power” and pledged a grilling.

“The IRS will now be the ones put under additional scrutiny,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia called it inexcusable, and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said the president “must immediately condemn this attack on our values and find those individuals in his administration who are responsible and fire them.”

How can this be prevented in the future?

Rubio, in his letter calling for the resignation of the IRS chief, called the behavior “seemingly unconstitutional and potentially criminal.”

But under existing law, the worst that can happen to an IRS agent who discriminates against taxpayers is getting fired, said Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who sits on the House Oversight Committee.

Turner introduced a bill Monday to increase the toughest penalty to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

“This is about protecting the rights of all Americans and their ability to freely express their political thoughts,” he said.

-------------------

Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News contributed to this report. Reuters and The Associated Press also contributed.

SCANDAL WIDENS: IRS Targeting Went Beyond Tea Party, Conservatives

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House Republicans swiftly announce hearing on IRS targeting conservative groups

Fox News

The IRS acknowledging that it targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season has sparked bipartisan calls for investigation -- with House Republicans already saying they will hold a hearing on the issue.

House Majority Speaker Eric Cantor said Friday the Republican-led chamber would investigate the tax-collecting agency for flagging the groups for additional review to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status.

“The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs,” the Virginia Republican said.

Cantor’s comments were followed within minutes by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp saying he would hold a hearing.

The IRS on Friday apologized for targeting groups, but Camp, R-Mich., argued the agency had “repeatedly denied” such activity.

“The admission by the agency that it targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both shocking and disappointing,” he said.

The committee has jurisdiction over IRS, but it remains unclear whether other House committees also will investigate the issue, in which roughly 300 groups were flagged.

Republicans were joined by a leading Senate Democrat in the call for congressional investigations.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said members have already been looking into the IRS's failure to make sure tax-exempt groups engage only in social welfare activities -- not partisan politics.

“Today’s announcement by the IRS raises a second issue: whether the IRS, to the extent it has enforced its rules, has been impartial in doing so,” Levin said Friday. “Both issues require investigation.”

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said that organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate," Lerner said. "The IRS would like to apologize for that."

Republican lawmakers appeared vindicated in part by the announcement, after complaining about the suspected harassment more than a year ago.

A dozen Republican senators wrote to the IRS in March 2012 expressing concerns about various accounts that the agency inquiries were "perceived to be excessive."

However, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the agency was not targeting groups based on their political views.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, he told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Among Capitol Hill Republicans already raising further concerns or calls for investigations are California Rep. Darrell Issa, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky; Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“The IRS’s political targeting of select groups based on their political leanings is reprehensible, and it should trouble every American to know that a federal government agency could abuse its power so outrageously,” Rubio said. “We need immediate congressional hearings.”

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. She said no high-level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

The IRS has put out a written statement saying protocol was changed at the Cincinnati office in response to the rising number of applications for so-called 501(c)(4) groups. This classification grants tax-exempt status to social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare.

The agents tried to "centralize work" in response to the applications, the IRS said, leading to problems the agency claims have since been fixed.  Lerner said the number of groups filing for the tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in the office in Cincinnati. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity, Lerner said.

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about one-fourth were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

Conservatives, Liberals and Government - Study

BrighterLife.ca

Fundamental to our understanding of democratic politics across the developed world is that conservative parties stand for relatively low levels of government spending, while those on the left of the political spectrum are prone to higher spending. A new study, released yesterday by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), blows a hole through that conventional wisdom.

“When you look at the behaviours of various parties over long periods of time in different governments, the pattern is that there is no pattern,” said MEI’s president and chief executive officer, Michel Kelly-Gagnon in an interview with me yesterday. “The parties that are supposed to be more in favour of big government end up spending less than we might expect. And the parties that are supposed to be fiscally conservative sometimes end up being spendthrifts.”

MEI’s study examined government spending in Canada, Quebec and the U.S., dating back to the Pierre Trudeau, Robert Bourassa and Richard Nixon administrations respectively. “In all three cases,” reads the report, “it is actually left-wing governments that most reduced the relative size of government.”

MEI reports government size as the ratio of public spending to gross domestic product.

Under Liberal Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, that ratio fell by 32.5%. The current government, under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, drove the ratio up after the financial crisis. It has since reduced the size of government to roughly where it was when the Conservatives took office in 2006.

In the U.S., Republican President George Bush grew the ratio more than any other, by 39%. Democratic President Bill Clinton shrank it by 14.3%.

Is this simply a matter of parties running for office from the left or right, as the cliché goes, and then governing from the centre? Partly, said Kelly-Gagnon. “Parties, when they form governments, regardless of their declared ideology, have to be responsive to the economic environment.”

Context matters, Kelly-Gagnon told me. Clinton’s numbers look great because he enjoyed strong gross domestic product growth during his presidency. Harper had a financial crisis to deal with, and he therefore had to implement a level of stimulus spending that ran contrary to his party’s small government plans.

The report draws two conclusions. First, our perceptions about left- and right-wing political ideology don’t reflect the realities of the last four decades. The data tell a far more nuanced story. Second, we’re far better positioned to debate the role (and size) of government in a non-partisan fashion than we might have expected. The fact that actual decision-making hasn’t been as tied down by ideology as we may have thought means we can be more pragmatic about, for example, the austerity-stimulus debate that continues to rage around the developed world.

It’s worth a try, anyway.

Col. Allen West on Ronald Reagan and American Entrepreneurship

Pajamasmedia

Margaret Thatcher, UK's 'Iron Lady,' dies

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Legend Thomas Sowell On The Occupy Cry Babies

Bob Rae Liberals look for money from public to save them from Big Bad Tories

CFP/ Judi McLeod 

Little did the Obama Team’s Director of Communications Jason Rosenbaum know when he passed along Number 7041885, falsely naming Canada Free Press (CFP) as a ‘Friend’ and ‘Supporter’  to Canadian Liberals,  that it would shine the light on the direct link that exists between the Obama Democrats and the Canadian Liberals.

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau included CFP on a nation-wide call for donations in an email yesterday.  Trudeau (yes, the son of late Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the same one that eliminated property rights in the repatriated Canadian Constitution)  lists CFP as ‘Friend’ and ‘Supporter—just like Rosenbaum.

Number 7041885 is getting tired of hits for money we would never send the Lib/Left.

When it comes to both fundraising technique and computer software, the Obama Dems and Canadian Liberals are playing ‘toesies’ in the same plumped up feather bed.

The Obama Team pesters ‘supporters’ for “just $5” from lists shared by representatives and senators to save them from yet another fundraising deadline.  The Canadian Liberals pare it down to $4.

And get this for blatant Canadian Liberal hypocrisy: “With just 12 hours left on the clock and $53,613 needed to reach our $200,000 goal—it’s time to decide if you will stand up to the Republican-style attacks that are cheapening Canada’s politics.” (See below).

That’s the opening of the email Justin Trudeau sent Monday.

“2,667 Liberals—more than half first-time donors—have already made their choice, and they’re hoping you, too, will stand with them against these poisonous politics.”

It’s “cheapening Canadian politics” and “poisonous politics” alright when the Liberals expect the Canadian public to pay for attack ads for Liberals just to get even with Conservatives.

When the going gets tough, the Liberals run to the public at large to pay for the challenging business of being in politics.  At the departure of failed Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, successor Bob Rae went on line asking the public to pay for the Liberal website.  That was back in early January.  Now the Liberals want public funds to pay for television ads responding to the Conservative ones reminding people that Liberal Leader Bob Rae and the Socialist Premier who left a legacy of high deficits in Ontario are one and the same.

Even after a lifetime in politics, Rae, who once turned over control of Ontario Hydro to UN Poster Boy Maurice Strong, who in turn wanted Ontario to invest in Costa Rican rain forests, does not seem to know that he should pay his own way.

“The federal Liberals are vowing to “fight fire with fire” in response to a new Conservative ad attacking interim Liberal leader Bob Rae that will hit television screens this week.” (thestar.com, March 19, 2012). “The ad, posted to YouTube on Monday, criticizes Rae’s record when he was premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995—a period marked by high deficits and one of the worst recessionary periods in the province’s history.” 

“If he couldn’t run a province, why does he think he can run Canada?” says the announcer in the ad, which also claims that Rae turned Ontario into the “welfare capital of Canada”.

“Liberal spokesperson Daniel Lauzon said in an email that his party will be asking Canadians to contribute financially to its response to the Tory ad—a notable departure from previous policy that saw former party leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion largely ignore such attacks.”

If the idea that sees the Liberals running to Canadian taxpayers to cover their “fight fire with fire” battle against the Tories is ludicrous, their being caught red-handed in using Obama Team fundraising tactics and software is high comedy.   More >>