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*VIDEO* IRS Targeting Of Conservatives: Entire House Ways & Means Committee Hearing – 05/17/13
17 May
Michigan Federal Judge Allows Muslim Violence Against Christians; Dearborn Stoning Caught On Video
15 May.
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A severe blow for the freedom of speech, and victory for the advance of Sharia blasphemy laws here. “Michigan Federal Judge Allows Muslim Violence to Suppress Christian Speech; Immediate Appeal Filed,” from the American Freedom Law Center, May 14:
A Michigan federal judge today dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by several Christian evangelists who were violently assaulted by a hostile Muslim mob while preaching at an Arab festival last year in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Muslim population in the United States. Video of the Muslim assault went viral on YouTube.
The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed the lawsuit against Wayne County, the Wayne County Sheriff, and two Wayne County Deputy Chiefs for refusing to protect the Christians from the attack and threatening to arrest the Christians for disorderly conduct if they did not halt their speech activity and immediately leave the festival area.
Judge Patrick J. Duggan, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, granted Wayne County’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing the lawsuit. The judge also denied AFLC’s motion requesting that the court issue an order preventing the Wayne County Sheriff and his deputies from restricting the Christian evangelists from displaying their banners and signs on the public sidewalks outside of this year’s Arab Festival, which will be held in June. In the ruling, the judge stated the following: “The Court finds that the actual demonstration of violence here provided the requisite justification for [the Wayne County sheriffs’] intervention, even if the officials acted as they did because of the effect the speech had on the crowd.”
Robert Muise, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, commented: “The First Amendment was dealt a severe blow today as a result of this ruling. Indeed, this ruling effectively empowers Muslims to silence Christian speech that they deem offensive by engaging in violence. And pursuant to this ruling, the Christian speakers are now subject to arrest for engaging in disorderly conduct on account of the Muslim hecklers’ violent response to their speech. In short, this ruling turns the First Amendment on its head.”
David Yerushalmi, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, added: “This fight for our fundamental right to freedom of speech does not stop here. We have filed an immediate appeal of this ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. While Judge Duggan may have been the first judge to rule on this issue, he won’t be the last. Indeed, we are prepared to take this case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary because it is imperative that our free speech rights not be subject to mob rule. This is the United States, not Benghazi.”
At least for now.
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Your Daley Gator IRS Scandal Roundup For Wednesday
15 MayIRS Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Theft Of 60 Million Medical Records – Healthcare IT News
The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
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According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.
“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.
According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, “it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter,” the complaint read.
The class action lawsuit against the IRS seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages “per violation per individual” in addition to punitive damages for constitutional violations. Thus, compensatory damages could start at a minimum of $250 billion.
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IRS Told Pro-Life Group It Must Promote Abortion – Gateway Pundit
It’s an Obama world…
The IRS told a pro-life group that it had to promote abortion or they wouldn’t qualify for nonprofit status.
World Net Daily reported:
The Internal Revenue Service already has confessed to targeting and trying to injure tea party, Constitution and patriot organizations, by demanding answers to arbitrary questions and delaying their applications for a tax status so they could operate.
Now WND has learned that the IRS also put an organization in its bull’s-eye that wanted to do nothing more than share its pro-life message with churches.
Cherish Life Ministries was created to be a non-profit under the IRS 501(c)3 provision so that churches would feel comfortable working together…
…Shinn said the IRS contacted him regarding his application for nonprofit status, and was told he didn’t qualify.
“The representative was telling me I had to provide information on all aspects of abortion, I couldn’t just educate the church from the pro-life perspective,” he said. “Every time I pressed her on this issue and asked her to clarify her position, she would state that it wasn’t what she was saying, and then, she would repeat it almost the same way.”
The IRS agent did not respond to a WND request for comment on the ministry’s position.
But Shinn said he was accused of setting up a political organization.
“I asked her why she said we were political organization and she said it was because we had said in our application that we did less than 5 percent political activity. I explained to her that this was what was stated in the application and all we were doing was acknowledging that we were doing less than 5 percent political activity,” he said.
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When a Tennessee lawyer asked the IRS for tax-exempt status for a mentoring group that trained high school and college students about conservative political philosophy, the agency responded with a list of 95 questions in 31 parts, including an ultimatum for a list of everyone the group had trained, or planned to train.
‘Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide,’ the IRS demanded. ‘Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.’
That question was part of the tax collection agency’s February 14, 2012 letter to Kevin Kookogey. founder of the group Linchpins of Liberty. He had submitted his application 13 months earlier.
‘Can you imagine my responsibility to parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?’ he asked MailOnline.
It’s ‘an impossible question to answer fully and truthfully,’ he said, ‘without disclosing the names of anyone I ever taught, or would ever teach, including students.’
Like the leaders of many tea party-affiliated groups whose tax-exemption applications have become the subject of angry complaints, Kookogey called the IRS’s inquisition an overreach, ‘especially considering that my organization mentors high school and college students.’
It ‘should send chills through your spine,’ he told MailOnline, ‘that the government would ask me to identify those I teach, and to provide details of what I teach them.’
The 13-month delay, while burdensome, was far shorter than those some other groups endured. According to a report released late Tuesday by the IRS’s Office of Inspector General, the average delay at one point was 574 days.
But Kookogey said a $30,000 grant was canceled as a result of the IRS’s months-long radio silence, when he couldn’t tell his donor that Linchpins had earned its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
That money would have made a significant difference to the group, judging from its public filings in Tennessee. In 2011, Linchpins of Liberty reported collecting just $3,460 in contributions, and spending $7,328 on its programs.
The group’s online materials refer to it as ‘an American leadership development enterprise.’ Its stated purpose is to mentor high school and college students, placing an emphasis on Western civilization and an old-style core curriculum – what previous generations called the ‘great books.’
‘Our ideas are opposed to the Obama administration, but we’re not tea party,’ Kookogey told The Tennessean.
It’s that lack of a tea party connection, he said, that makes his predicament so maddening.
He told MailOnline that nothing about his group – ‘not our name or our description or our website, or anything’ – should have placed it among the organizations the IRS chose to scrutinize closely by using key words like ‘tea party,’ ’9/12,’ and ‘patriots’ as qualifiers.
‘I’m not a Tea Party group. I’m not a Patriot group by name’ he told NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.
‘We mentor high school and college students in conservative political philosophy. It’s a one on one relationship.’
Kookogey summed it up in an interview with MailOnline as ‘unethical, unconstitutional, and unfair,’ later asserting in an email that ‘[w]e were targeted by the IRS based on our political beliefs and the content of our speech.’
The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 27 conservative groups including Linchpins of Liberty, is planning to file suit against the IRS.
Jay Sekulow, that organization’s chief counsel, wrote on Tuesday that ‘the IRS abuse is ongoing.’
‘Even though the IRS admitted wrongdoing,’ Sekulow wrote in an essay for FoxNews.com, even though the Inspector General’s report indicates that wrongdoing was widespread, the IRS still hasn’t withdrawn its overbroad and unconstitutional questions, and it still hasn’t granted the exemptions it should grant, despite the fact that some applications have been pending for more than two years.’
The Inspector General’s report includes a list of ‘the seven questions’ the IRS asked right-wing groups that were later ‘identified as being unnecessary.’
Its request for the list of students trained by Linchpins of Liberty was not among them.
The report also largely exonerates political appointees in the Treasury Department and at the top of the IRS, instead blaming mid-level bureaucrats for providing ‘ineffective management’ and using ‘inappropriate criteria’ to red-flag conservative groups.
It makes no mention of anyone in the White House directing the IRS to play political favorites. But The Washington Post has reported that ‘senior IRS officials’ in Washington, D.C. were notified of the practice in 2011.
In December of that year, Kookogey says, he called the IRS’s nonprofit evaluation arm in Cincinnati, Ohio, to find out why his group’s application had taken so long.
The agent on the other end of the line, he said, told him, ‘We are waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your organization and similar organizations.’
Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he ordered the FBI to initiate a criminal probe on Friday, when he learned about the IRS’s practices.
The IRS’s actions, he said, were, ‘certainly outrageous and unacceptable, but we are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations.’
Holder is expected to testify in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday in Washington. On Friday the House Ways and Means Committee will hear testimony from acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio has called for Miller to lose his job.
‘At a bare minimum, those involved with this deeply offensive use of government power have committed a violation of the public trust that has already had a profoundly chilling effect on free speech,’ Rubio wrote Monday in a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. ‘Such behavior cannot be excused with a simple apology.’
‘It is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence under the current leadership,’ Rubio continued. ‘Therefore, I strongly urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner’s resignation, effective immediately.’
On Friday, Sekulow demanded that the IRS immediately approve the tax-exempt status applications of his organization’s 10 legal clients, including Linchpins of Liberty, that are still waiting. He issued the agency an ultimatum: Grant the requests by noon on May 17, or prepare to fight in court.
‘We are demanding that the IRS grant our remaining clients tax-exempt status immediately,’ Sekulow said in a statement. ‘If that does not occur by Friday, we will advise our clients of their right to sue the IRS for the redress of their grievances.’
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By all accounts she did a splendid job targeting anti-Obama groups.
Via Beltway Confidential:
Lois Lerner, the senior executive in charge of the IRS tax exemption department and the person at the center of the exploding scandal over the IRS targeting conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel non-profits, has been given $42,531 in bonuses since 2009.
That figure was included in data provided by the IRS in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Examiner. Lerner is director of the IRS exempt organizations division, which processes and approves or denies applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Lerner received $17,220 for 2009, $24,691 for 2010 and $10,620 for 2011, the most recent year for which the I(RS said data was available.
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10 Of 12 IRS Offices Implicated In Scandal Are In Washington – Washington Examiner
The Treasury Inspector General’s damaging report on the IRS-Tea Party scandal has destroyed the administration’s claim that low-level workers in a Cincinnati, Ohio office are to blame, revealing that 10 of 12 agency offices referenced in the affair are in Washington.
The report repeatedly references actions taken by the Washington-based Exempt Organizations unit and guidance specialists also in Washington. What’s more, the report was researched in the Exempt Organizations offices and the Cincinnati-based Determinations Units, which has received the blame for targeting Tea Party groups.
The audit, for example, probes into how the Cincinnati-based Determinations Unit developed its plan to pay attention to groups with the words “Tea Party,” “Patriot,” and other phrases used by anti-Obama groups during the 2010 election.
Washington-based offices denied involvement, but did change the “criteria” for groups to target in July 2011. Instead of looking for “Tea Party” groups seeking tax exempt status to investigate, the criteria was broadened to “political, lobbying or [general] advocacy.”
However, “the team of specialists subsequently changed the criteria in January 2012″ back, apparently without telling their bosses. “Specialists” are both Washington- and Ohio- based.
Popular talk radio host Mark Levin, one of the first to post the IG report online, suggested that the House committees investigating the scandal use the IG’s “High-Level Organization Chart of Offices Referenced in this Report” on page 29 in picking who should testify. He suggested that the heads of all 12 be called to testify.
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In the midst of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal, individuals and groups, alike, are continuing to come forward with ever-startling allegations. On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively told TheBlaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s targets.
According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”
It all started with a phone call she received at her home in May of that year – a call during which Hendershott was told she would be audited. A letter that followed on May 19, 2010 solidified the IRS’s request to meet her in person two months later in July. While IRS investigations are certainly not uncommon occurrences, the professor believes that the situation surrounding hers was more-than-curious.
“The IRS calls my house and says… ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to be auditing your business’ and I said ‘My businesses?’ and he said, ‘You know the expenses you take off for writing,” the academic recalls.
Hendershott was surprised she was being audited on business grounds considering she does not operate an entrepreneurial endeavor in the traditional sense. In addition to her academic work, she told TheBlaze that she occasionally freelances for Catholic outlets and for the Wall Street Journal. But can this really be considered “business” activity?
“I don’t make a lot of money from writing. In fact most years I don’t show a profit,” she told TheBlaze.
Hendershott said some of the outlets and organizations she has written for haven’t paid her a cent.
But the circumstances surrounding the irregular nature of the experience don’t end there. Hendershott noted it was particularly surprising that she, alone, was audited. Her husband, who brings in the vast majority of the family’s income, was not included in the IRS’s inquiry – even though the Hendershotts always files jointly.
So when the agent explained that she would need to come alone and in person to discuss her “business” activity in July of 2010, the professor was perplexed.
“[The IRS agent] didn’t even let me decide when it would be good for me… He didn’t want my husband to come,” she said of the meeting, which was held at an IRS office in New Haven, Connecticut.
The process was a grueling one, including many questions that Hendershott felt were political in nature. Numerous records were requested before the in-person meeting, as well as during and after.
“Every question had to do with bank deposits we made. Every single question,” she said. “What is this money? And I didn’t know a lot of it. We had to go to our bank and get deposits back. We had to get records showing where the money came from.”
While asking about the deposits, the agent wanted to know if the monies came from groups and, if so, what the organizations’ politics were.
The mention of groups, Hendershott notes, is particularly interesting, as she had been writing for numerous Catholic outlets and organizations at the time. In addition to Catholic World Report and the Catholic Advocate, she also penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. Many of these writings were critical of President Barack Obama and his policies.
And the plot thickens. Among the organizations she targeted in her writings were progressive groups highly supportive of Democratic causes, including: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Catholics United, and Catholic Democrats.
At the time, one of the founders of Catholics United, Chris Korzen, had become a target of her work, as she exposed, in her view, his true leftist agenda and some of the complicated theological stances the left-of-center organizations he associated with were taking. Plus, there were alleged financial ties with billionaire liberal George Soros. Here’s just two paragraphs from an article she wrote in March 2010, just months before her meeting with IRS officials:
On its website, Catholics United describes itself as a 501(c) (4) non-profit organization – eligible to accept donations. But, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good emerged in 2005 as a kind of sister organization to Catholics United. A 501(c) (3) organization, donors can claim a deduction against personal income tax when they donate money to Catholics in Alliance. Reviewing the 2007 IRS 990 forms for both Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United raises some questions, because Chris Korzen is listed as having received $84,821 in compensation for 40 hours per week from Catholics in Alliance on the group’s 990 Form – even though the Catholics United website claimed he was the director there during the same time period. [...]
Despite their inability to engage in extensive lobbying, Catholics in Alliance has been extremely successful in attracting large donors. Never a friend to the Catholic Church, George Soros, one of the earliest donors, contributed $50,000 to Catholics in Alliance in 2005 and another $100,000 in 2006 through his Open Society Institute. Likewise, Smith Bagley, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser, whose wife, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, is Chairman of the Board of Catholics in Alliance, came close to matching Soros with grants from his family’s Arca Foundation. With a long history of supporting progressive organizations like ACORN, the Gamaliel Foundation, People for the American Way, and Planned Parenthood, Arca contributed $50,000 to Catholics in Alliance in 2007 and another $75,000 in 2008.
Hendershott can’t help but wonder if her writings against progressive groups played a role in her audit. It’s obvious that before she was notified by the IRS she was commenting regularly about matters of faith and politics and, in particular, Obamacare. While she doesn’t have proof that the IRS investigation was political in nature, she has strong suspicions that it was.
“I started writing articles like crazy saying these are fake Catholic groups,” she said of the aforementioned organizations, noting that Korzen would often target her work and rail against her assertions.
Hendershott noted that the progressive leader once called into a radio show she appeared on to challenge her contention that he had accepted Soros money.
“I had the tax return in front of me and read off the amounts that Chris Korzen was getting paid from Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good – a Soros supported fake Catholic group,” she told TheBlaze, noting that, through Catholics in Alliance, he had received $85,000.
While Korzen denied this on the air, Hendershott read from the 990 form in an effort to prove he wasn’t telling the truth. This, she believes, may have sparked – or played a role – in spawning the IRS audit.
“He was getting paid by one organization and working for another,” the professor said of Korzen. ”The IRS should have gone after them.”
Her writings for the Catholic Advocate soon ceased because, Hendershott admits, the IRS audit silenced her. If her suspicions are true, this may have been its chilling intention.
“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared,” she said (records show her last article for the organization was on July 10, 2010 – the same month the IRS audit unfolded).
So far, she has only shared her story with friends and those close to her, but in light of the recent IRS scandal, she has decided to speak out.
“It was clear they didn’t like me criticizing the people who helped pass Obamacare,” she said of the audit,” later adding, ”The IRS is very frightening.”
In addition to creating stress and fear, Hendershott said that the experience came at a great emotional and financial expense for the family, noting that even after the audit the government sought more information from her.
“It was like they just couldn’t find what they wanted because they wanted more and more and more,” she said.
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Flashback 2012: Democrat Senators Demand IRS Scrutinize Tea Party Groups – Gateway Pundit
In March of 2012 Democratic Senators sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service demanding that Tea Party groups get extra scrutiny (harassment). The Democrats even threatened legislative action if the IRS did not act.
From Sen. Chuck Schumer’s website:
A group of seven Senate Democrats urged the Internal Revenue Service on Monday to impose a strict cap on the amount of political spending by tax-exempt, nonprofit groups.
The senators said the lack of clarity in the IRS rules has allowed political groups to improperly claim 501(c)4 status and may even be allowing donors to these groups to wrongly claim tax deductions for their contributions. The senators promised legislation if the IRS failed to act to fix these problems.
“We urge the IRS to take these steps immediately to prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities. But if the IRS is unable to issue administrative guidance in this area then we plan to introduce legislation to accomplish these important changes,” the senators wrote.
The letter was signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken. It follows an earlier letter, sent to the IRS by the same of group of senators last month, that also urged the IRS to better enforce rules pertaining to 501(c)4 organizations.
A copy of the letter is here.
This week Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana vowed congressional hearings and called the IRS actions “an outrageous abuse of power.” But, over the last three years, Democratic senators repeatedly and publicly pressured the IRS to engage in the very activities that they are only now condemning today.
UPDATE: Inspector General: The IRS targeted EVERY group with Tea Party in its name.
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*LIVE STREAMING* AP Phone Records Scandal: House Judiciary Committee On DOJ Oversight Hearing – 05/15/13 (1:15 PM ET)
15 May
NOTE: LIVE STREAMING OF THIS EVENT HAS ENDED
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Click HERE to watch the entire hearing on video.
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…………………….Click on image above to watch stream.
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White Family Attacked, Knocked Unconscious At Gas Station For Being In “Wrong Neighborhood”
14 MayImagine for a second if two white men and a white woman at a gas station/convenience store in Louisiana told a black family that they were in the wrong neighborhood and that they weren’t going to make it out. Then each of the white suspects proceeds to knock unconscious the father, the mother, and the teenage daughter by hitting each of them in the face.
Then image that only one of the three suspects was charged with 2nd degree battery and arrested while the other two were released on simple battery changes even though they each rendered a person unconscious by striking them in the face.
This would be a national story and the country would be OUTRAGED on multiple levels at this incident, with everyone from movie actors to government leaders decrying the racist actions of these white individuals. We would be told there is still racism alive an well in America by people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton while they give speeches and rile the people up in this Louisiana town. And the police, oh they would be hamstrung for being racist because they only arrested one of the suspects and let two of them go.
The president would then weigh in on it and say the police acted stupidly after having someone in the press ask him about it so he could claim moral high ground and call it a teaching moment for the country.
And that would be the story running on all the major news outlets and evening news shows so that everyone in the country would know about it within a matter of hours.
But this story below, which is almost exactly the picture I painted for you above except that I switched the races of the suspects and the victims, won’t be given much attention at all if any. And it certainly won’t be called ‘racist’. It will just be the work of some deviant individuals but it won’t reflect on the country as a whole nor on the state of Louisiana.
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WAFB – He was in the “wrong neighborhood” is just one reason a man gave as to why he was punched in the face. His wife and daughter were also hit.
Police arrested one man and ticketed two others. They are all accused of punching the family.
At the corner of Plank Road and Scenic Highway in Baton Rouge sits a Chevron gas station. It’s off I-110 near Memorial Stadium. A family stopped there to get gas Sunday around 10 p.m.
“Upon our arrival, we located three victims who were attacked in the parking lot,” said Cpl. Tommy Stubbs, spokesperson for the Baton Rouge Police Department.
The owners of the gas station did not want to comment on camera, but said there’s a wide variety of customers in and out of the store in the daytime. At night, though, it’s not the safest of places, especially with the area having some of the highest crime in the city.
“It was a small scene but it got to be a big scene after the fight broke out and it was a big scene when the police came,” said Keisha Henderson, a witness.
Stubbs said a man wearing a pink shirt was in line trying to pay for gas when Donald Dickerson, 41, started making fun of him, leading to an argument.
“The defendant (Dickerson) approached the white male victim,” the police report stated.
It went on to read, “the defendant told him he was in the wrong neighborhood and he was not going to make it out.” The victim said that’s when he “was punched and knocked to the ground.”
At this time, his wife got out of the car and ran to help her husband. The victim said, “he continued to struggle with the defendant and was eventually knocked unconscious, which later he awoke in the hospital.”
His wife told police, “after running to help her husband, she remembers falling to the ground and (being) knocked unconscious.”
According to a close family friend, that’s when the couple’s teenage daughter got out of the car to check on her parents and, “observed a female punch her mother in the face, when her mother then fell to the concrete, hitting her head on the surface.”
The daughter was also punched in the face.
“There were only three suspects but there were multiple people in the parking lot,” said Stubbs.
Of those three, Dickerson was arrested and charged with second-degree battery. The other two suspects, Devin Bessye, 24, and Ashley Simmons, 22, were released on site after police wrote them each a summons for simple battery.
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Benghazi’s Smoking Guns (Jonah Goldberg)
14 MayBenghazi’s Smoking Guns – Jonah Goldberg
President Obama was asked about the metastasizing Benghazi scandal in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday. Referring to the Americans who died in Benghazi, the president said, “We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus.” He added that “the whole issue of talking points, throughout this process, frankly, has been a sideshow… There’s no there there.”
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He’s half right. The talking points drafted by the State Department, the CIA and the White House and given to congressional Republicans and, most famously, to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are not the center of this story.
I think there was a lot of mischief behind those talking points, which we now know were sanitized, folded, spindled and mutilated to fit a political agenda.
But it’s worth remembering that Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t get their information from the talking points. They got their information earlier and from much higher authorities, like then-CIA Director David H. Petraeus. The CIA believed the attacks were terrorist-driven early on. According to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, when Petraeus saw the talking points, he thought they were useless.
More central are the talking points – written or unwritten – that Obama and Clinton used for weeks after the attacks. The president said Monday that he immediately referred to the Benghazi attacks as “terrorism.” This is at best a brutal bending of the truth. He used the word “terror” generically in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12. And then for the next two weeks, he went on a media blitz blaming a video, including in an interview recorded that day with “60 Minutes.” In a segment that “60 Minutes” helpfully sat on for almost two months, Obama told Steve Kroft that “it’s too early to know” whether the attack was terrorism. He then went on “The View,” Univision and David Letterman pushing the idea that it was all about a video. At the United Nations, he condemned a “crude and disgusting” video but didn’t mention terrorism.
Clinton followed suit. She told grieving family members of the fallen that the U.S. would track down the makers of the video. And, so far, the only person connected with the whole incident who has been punished is the filmmaker, who continues to languish in jail, admittedly on unrelated charges.
If you assume they knew the truth about the nature of the attack, how are those statements not proof of a coverup? The talking points are incidental.
But in a very serious way, so is the coverup.
As Washington Examiner columnist Byron York notes, the Republican obsession with the smoking gun stems from the fact that “they are captive to the Washington mind-set that the coverup is always worse than the crime.”
This Washington cliche isn’t an iron law of the universe. The media like it, I think, because the coverup invariably involves them. When the story is about how the media have been misled, the media can always be counted on to perk up, as we saw last Friday when White House spokesman Jay Carney was eaten alive on C-SPAN.
But the true core of this story has nothing to do with media vanity or talking points – or a political circus. The real issue is that for reasons yet to be determined – politics? ideology? incompetence? all three? – the administration was unprepared for an attack on Sept. 11, of all dates. When the attack came, they essentially did nothing as our own people were begging for help – other than to tell those begging to help that they must “stand down.”
Again, there’s an arsenal worth of smoking guns, from uncontested sworn testimony at the Benghazi hearings to the State Department’s flawed internal review to the four dead Americans, including a U.S. ambassador sent to Benghazi on Clinton’s orders. That’s the there there — regardless of what happened with the talking points. There is, from what we know so far, at best circumstantial evidence pointing to why they pushed this video story so hard. Though, as Thoreau once said, “some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
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Washington Post Factchecker Destroys Obama’s Claim He Called Libya ‘Terrorism’ – Big Journalism
Monday, during his appearance before the media with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was again caught lying to coverup his lying and covering-up in the aftermath of a successful terror attack in Libya that cost four American lives. Obama actually claimed before the world that, “The day after [Libya] happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”
That is a bald-faced lie. In fact it is such a bald-faced lie that Washington Post factchecker Glenn Kessler awarded the President the full-boat of four Pinnochios:
[T]he president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.
Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time – and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.
[T]he president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.
Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time – and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.
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More IRS Scandal Stuff For Tuesday, May 14, 2013
14 MayDems Vow: ‘Hell To Pay’ If IRS Allegations Ring True – Boston Herald
Outraged Bay State Democrats are blasting President Obama for exhibiting a Nixonian abuse of power after the stunning news that the Department of Justice secretly obtained Associated Press phone records and the IRS targeted conservative groups – new scandals emerging against the backdrop of heightened Benghazi criticism.
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“There’s no way in the world I’m going to defend that. Hell, I spent my youth vilifying the Nixon administration for doing the same thing. If they did that, there should be hell to pay,” U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Somerville) said about the IRS scandal. “Not only is it bad government and bad to society, it is horrendous politics. The worst thing you can do is give your opponent an easy hammer with which to hit you.”
“It doesn’t seem to be a couple rogue employees. This appeared to be a systemic issue,” said U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-South Boston), who wants to investigate the matter as a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee already has scheduled a hearing on the issue for this week, Lynch said, adding, “No American should find themselves the target of the IRS or any other federal organization because of their political beliefs.”
Both U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden) and the GOP’s Gabriel Gomez, rivals in the Senate special election, slammed the administration’s actions, as new reports emerged yesterday that the Department of Justice seized two months’ worth of phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors. Gomez called it “another troubling example of overzealous federal agencies restricting our First Amendment rights.”
Markey said in a statement: “The Justice Department has many questions it now must answer as to why this sweeping request for information was ever necessary. As we work to prevent terrorist attacks against our country, we must continue to respect our laws and uphold our constitutional rights, including freedom of the press.”
Obama yesterday called the IRS actions “outrageous” if true, saying those responsible must be held “fully accountable.”
“I’ve got no patience with it,” he added. “I will not tolerate it, and we will find out exactly what happened.”
The Treasury Department apologized Friday for “inappropriate” targeting of groups seeking tax-exempt status with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their names, and others that stated their purpose was to question government spending or power. The IRS initially blamed low-level employees, but emails have since shown top officials knew as early as 2011.
“I’m old enough to remember Watergate, and I’m not saying this is another Watergate, but when the IRS is involved, it really hits home,” said U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). The references to the Nixon administration recalled the massive abuse of power scandals such as the bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Nixon aides also directed so-called “plumbers” to plug leaks – operatives digging up dirt on people such as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Nixon’s aides maintained a so-called “enemies list,” with the intent of turning the IRS on them. A congressional investigation later found undue IRS audits were not carried out under Nixon.
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Baucus, Now Investigating IRS, Urged IRS To Target Conservative Groups In 2010 – Daily Caller
Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus is leading an investigation into why the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny despite the fact that Baucus once wrote a letter urging the IRS to do exactly that.
Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will head the committee’s investigation into the IRS, which apologized Friday for targeting groups with the terms “Tea Party” and “Patriot” in their titles for extra scrutiny of their nonprofit status as early as 2011.
However, Baucus once wrote a letter requesting that the IRS engage in that very conduct.
Baucus wrote a letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman dated September 28, 2010 urging the IRS to investigate nonprofit conservative groups during the Tea Party-dominated 2010 midterm elections.
“With hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in election contests by tax-exempt entities, it is time to take a fresh look at current practices and how they comport with the Internal Revenue Code’s rules for nonprofits,” Baucus wrote in the letter.
“I request that you and your agency survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations involved in political campaign activity to examine whether they are operated for the organization’s intended tax exempt purpose and to ensure that political campaign activity is not the organization’s primary activity,” Baucus wrote in the letter.
“The tax exemption given to non-profit organizations comes with a responsibility to serve the public interest and Congress has an obligation to exercise the vigorous oversight necessary to ensure they do,” Baucus said in a 2010 statement accompanying his letter.
Though Baucus identified 501 (c) (5) groups – or labor unions – as worthy of investigation, the only organizations cited in his request were conservative, pro-Republican groups.
Baucus specifically named Americans for Job Security, which is described as a “pro-Republican organization,” as a specific target for the IRS to investigate.
Crossroads GPS, co-founded by Karl Rove, and American Action Network, chaired by former Republican senator Norm Coleman, were also cited in press coverage related to Baucus’ letter as pro-Republican groups helping to elect GOP congressional candidates in 2010.
Those organizations appeared in a September 16, 2010 TIME article by writer Michael Crowley titled, “The New GOP Money Stampede.” Baucus cited that piece in his letter to the IRS.
Whatever the fallout might be from such a conflict of interest, Baucus won’t be around too much longer to deal with it.
He’s already announced his retirement from the Senate, and won’t run for re-election in 2014.
A Baucus spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Flashback: Obama Wanted The Names Of Donors – Sweetness & Light
From the White House near the height of the mid-term campaign in 2010:
Remarks by the President at a DNC Finance Event in Austin, Texas
August 09, 2010
Four Seasons Hotel, Austin, Texas
THE PRESIDENT: …Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank. You don’t know if it’s a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people.
A Supreme Court decision [Citizens United] allowed this to happen. And we tried to fix it, just by saying disclose what’s going on, and making sure that foreign companies can’t influence our elections. Seemed pretty straightforward. The other side said no.
This is the same blatant lie that Supreme Court Justice Alito shook his head about and said ‘no,’ during Obama’s State Of The Union address in January 2010. Citizens United does not allow foreigners to contribute to campaigns.
They don’t want you to know who the Americans for Prosperity are, because they’re thinking about the next election. But we’ve got to think about future generations. We’ve got to make sure that we’re fighting for reform. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t have a corporate takeover of our democracy…
This is nothing short of Obama’s ‘dog-whistle’ to his his supporters at the IRS. After all, Obama doesn’t need to give his bureaucrats a direct, written (and therefore traceable) order.
He merely has to express his displeasure with some group and his lackeys will know what they have to do. And we now know how much these ‘low level workers’ have done for his administration over the years. (Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the releasing of illegal alien criminals.)
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But now we fast forward to yesterday, where Obama expressed outrage that the IRS would be seeking the names of donors to conservative groups. In fact, Obama even denied knowing that the IRS was even interested in such things until he read about it in the papers back on Friday. A claim even his spokes-flack, Jay Carney, undercut.
From The Hill:
Carney: White House lawyers knew of IRS investigation in April
By Justin Sink | May 13, 2013
Press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged Monday that the White House was informed in April that the Treasury Department’s Inspector General was investigating the IRS’s Cincinnati field office, which is accused of targeting conservative political groups for extra scrutiny.
“My understanding is that the White House Counsel’s Office was alerted in the week of April 22 of this year, only about the fact that the IG was finishing a review about matters involving the office in Cincinnati,” Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One…
President Obama said earlier in the day that he first heard about the allegations that the IRS had specifically targeted Tea Party groups last week. “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday,” Obama told reporters at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
While Carney insisted that nobody in the White House knew of the specific allegations of improper targeting, the news nevertheless drew fresh questions from Republican critics.
Why only Republican critics? Doesn’t the news media object to be lied to? (This is a rhetorical question.)
“Who else in the White House knew about the IRS scandal but didn’t tell the president?” tweeted Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)…
In his press conference Monday, the president pledged to hold accountable those responsible. “I can tell you that if you’ve got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and non-partisan way, then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions,” Obama said.
So is he going to hold himself accountable? (This is another rhetorical question.)
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IRS Intimidation Forced Founder To Shut Down Tea Party Group – Big Government
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.”
Already this morning, though, Klein’s spin is falling apart. Chris Good of ABC News reports that Jennifer Stefano of Philadelphia was so intimidate by the IRS that she closed her Tea Party down:
“In the documents that were sent to me, if you did not tell the whole truth by not putting all your personal information out there by Facebook, by Twitter, of your personal relationship with candidates and parties… it could be considered perjury and perjury carried jail time,” Stefano, 39, told ABC News.
“That was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”
Tom Zawistowski, former president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, told ABC News that, “The reason for this attack by the IRS on the tea party was to make sure we were not as effective in 2012 as we were in 2010, and that’s what they did[.]“
Zawistowski also believes that the ridiculous amount of information and documents requested by the IRS was “opposition research,” having nothing to do with whether or not a group would qualify as tax exempt.
The IRS asked another Ohio tea party organization, the Liberty Township Tea Party, about its political views and relationships with an individual and another group.
“Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization. Indicate your position regarding each issue,” the IRS commanded in a letter with 35 questions, many including between three and six bullet-pointed subquestions.
ABC News adds:
In letters obtained by ABC News, the Internal Revenue Service asked detailed questions of local tea party groups from 2010 to 2012.
Other Tea Party groups interviewed complained of getting bogged down by the paperwork. One group claims that “500 pages of stuff” went “back and forth” between them and the IRS:
There was kind of a cloud over us… It did curtail the things we could do. We could not go outside the IRS rules. Tax-exempt status allows you to do certain things, and we did not go outside them.
These groups say they didn’t hear from the IRS until after their 2010 victories. Then, before they could recreate that success against Obama in 2012, all of a sudden they are intimidated, restricted from certain political activities, and bogged down in a bureaucratic nightmare – all at the hands of the IRS.
Sorry, Ezra Klein, that doesn’t sound “discriminatory” to me – that sounds like a political tactic. Moreover, if it was a political tactic, we already know that it was not one confined to a single office in the Midwest. Klein’s own Post reports Tuesday that…
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
We now know that the IRS targeted Obama’s political enemies, and either by accident or design, made them less effective during his reelection campaign in 2012. W also now know that Administration officials are lying about what they knew about this scandal and when they knew it.
The only question that matters now is whether or not anyone in the Obama re-election campaign is in any way tied to this. And at this point, that is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
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President Obama knows he’s in trouble when Andrea Mitchell – Andrea Mitchell! – proclaims the IRS and AP scandals to be among “the most outrageous excesses I’ve seen” in all her years in journalism [which pre-date Watergate]. The strength of Mitchell’s statement drew gasps from Scarborough and Brzezinski. Then Ron Fournier, former AP editor now with the National Journal, darkly described the White House being “consumed” if it turns out someone there or in the Obama campaign had been aware of the IRS targeting of conservative groups. It happened on Morning Joe today.
But hey, President Obama still has his hangers-on. Take good old Carl Bernstein. As we reported, on yesterday’s Morning Joe Bernstein blathered that he “can’t imagine” that President Obama coudl be involved in the IRS mess. And there was Bernstein again today. When Fournier spoke of consequences of White House or Obama campaign knowledge of the IRS targeting, Bernstein quickly burped out that “we have no evidence of that whatsoever.” Joe Scarborough had to remind the former Watergate reporter: “that’s why you have investigations. You know that.” View the video after the jump.
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…………………….Click on image above to watch video.
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Watch the clouds gather over the White House. And when among your few umbrellas are the likes of Carl Bernstein…
Note: The screencap brings Hollywood Squares to mind. PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’ll take the joker in the upper left-hand corner for the block!
ANDREA MITCHELL: Yes, they did have to look and see whether some of these groups were political rather than pro bono. But not in any kind of non-neutral way. The test had to be neutral. The fact they went after the Tea Party here as David said earlier feeds the Republican critics -
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It really does.
MITCHELL: And this is one of the most outrageous excesses that I’ve seen in all my years in journalism.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh my gosh.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Wow.
MITCHELL: We knew about the past national security probes, but I think this Associated Press investigation just rises to that standard, as well. The press is not popular, we are not popular. But this is, I think, an outrageous invasion of constitutional rights.
SCARBOROUGH: Andrea, it’s remarkable. As long as you’ve been a reporter at the top of your game, to say that a scandal that broke on Friday is one of the most outrageous excesses, the IRS scandal, and then for us to talk about what happened yesterday that most reporters agree with Ron and you, it rises to that level as well. To have two of these falling in two successive business days is going to require a dramatic reset inside the White House, is it not?
MITCHELL: And I don’t see why they don’t get that yet.
RON FOURNIER: The IRS thing, to me, I think that’s the one that has the most chance to be a game changer. If we find out in these hearings that somebody in the White House, especially in the political shop, or somebody in the campaign knew about this political targeting of conservative groups, I think that could be something that could consume the White House for the rest of his second term.
SCARBOROUGH: I agree. That is the key.
FOURNIER: I’m not pleased to say that.
CARL BERNSTEIN: We have no evidence of that whatsoever.
SCARBOROUGH: How could we, Carl? Of course we don’t have any evidence of that, but that’s why you have investigations. You know that. I know that.
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10 Crazy Things The IRS Asked Tea Party Groups
11 May10 Crazy Things The IRS Asked Tea Party Groups – Hot Air
The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to improperly targeting conservative groups for aggressive applications processes for tax exempt status in 2012, using the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot” as flags. Here are some of the things they wanted to know about those groups.
1. We’re gonna need all your direct and indirect communication. “‘Direct and indirect communications’ is profoundly chilling of First Amendment rights, ” said David French, senior counsel for American Center for Law & Justice, which has been representing 27 conservative organizations met with IRS inquisitions. “It’s so vague as to be impossible to comply with.”
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2. What do we need to know about your members? Nothing much. Just ALL THE THINGS!
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3. Your present and past employees and their relationships, please.
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4. No, family members of past and present board members and employees are not exempt, nor are their activities with other groups. Why do you ask?
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5. If someone in this country’s free press has ever interacted with you in any way shape or form about your free speech activities, we’re going to need documentation of that.
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6. By the way, all the insane, intrusive information we’re asking for is understood to be public once you’ve given it to us, so please include only the most flattering possible photos of your children and pets.
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7. There are very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information we’re asking for. Does it feel like you’re running hurdles yet, Lolo?
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8. Don’t forget to read the continued very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information.
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9. If you do not comply with these very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive application, you will go directly back to Start, you will not pass Go, and let’s face it, we will probably collect $200.
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10. Please predict the future reliably. Thank you for your time.
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All of the examples above are taken from actual IRS correspondence received by ACLJ’s 27 clients. There were many versions of the in-depth questionnaire sent to different organizations, suggesting there was more than one agent or one office involved. Though IRS officials blamed “low-level” employees in the Cincinnati office, which is the central IRS office in charge of tax exemptions, French said the abuse was far more widespread. ACLJ’s clients dealt with inquiries from IRS offices from “coast to coast.” Of ACLJ’s 27 clients, 15 finally had their status approved after 6-7 months with legal help. There are 12 groups whose status remains in limbo.
Update: I meant to add that a 2011 letter from Rep. Darrell Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan laid out 16 areas of the Tea Party questionnaires that seemed to overreach. Here they are.
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Obama’s Abuse Of The IRS… This Isn’t The First Time – Powerline
Today’s big news story was the IRS’s admission that it had targeted conservative organizations – specifically, Tea Party groups – for audits. Not to be overlooked is the further admission that the IRS improperly demanded donor lists from some of these organizations, presumably so that conservative donors, too, could be harassed.
This is a shocking news story – one that would be a major scandal in a Republican administration – but it is not the first time the Obama administration has abused the IRS. In August 2010, Austin Goolsbee, who directed Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and later chaired his Council of Economic Advisers, gave a press briefing in which he discussed corporate income taxes. In that briefing, he suggested that he had access to confidential IRS data, and falsely accused the administration’s beta noire, Koch Industries, of not paying corporate income taxes:
So in this country we have partnerships, we have S corps, we have LLCs, we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax. Some of which are really giant firms, you know Koch Industries is a multibillion dollar businesses. So that creates a narrower base because we’ve literally got something like 50 percent of the business income in the U.S. is going to businesses that don’t pay any corporate income tax.
How would an Obama administration official have access to records showing how much a particular company pays in taxes? Unless the administration has some good explanation, such access would be illegal. As it happens, the claim that Koch doesn’t pay taxes (much like the equally absurd assertion that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes) is false. But that doesn’t excuse the Obama administration for misrepresenting confidential tax information to smear a political enemy.
After Goolsbee’s smear became public, Koch asked whether its tax returns had been improperly accessed by members of the Obama administration. As always, the administration stonewalled and refused to answer. The administration’s experience has been that it can endlessly abuse its powers, break the law with impunity, and if caught, brazen it out. Thus, in the absence of an independent mass news media, are habits developed which culminate in the scandals in which the administration is now engulfed.
UPDATE: Also, let’s not forget Obama’s joke, during the first days of his presidency, in a speech at Arizona State University:
I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets… President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.
At the time, most people thought he was kidding. But as Glenn Reynolds pointed out at the time, jokes about presidential abuse of power are not funny when they come from the president. With hindsight, more attention should have been paid.
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The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight has thrown down an investigative gauntlet to the Internal Revenue Service, demanding that the agency hand over by next Wednesday every communication in its records that includes the words “tea party,” “patriot” or “conservative.”
The committee is also demanding of the IRS that by next Wednesday it provide the committee with the names and titles of all individuals who were involved in targeting conservative non-profit groups for more intensive review of their applications for non-profit status.
The request follows a report from the Associated Press that Lois Lerner, director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, said at an American Bar Association conference that the IRS had targeted for special review applications of non-profit groups that included the words “tea party” or “patriot.”
“That was wrong,” the AP quoted Lerner as saying. “That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review.”
“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” Lerner said.
Lerner’s statement at the ABA conference, however, seems to contradict testimony that then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman made in the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight on March 22, 2012.
At that hearing, Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany (R.-La.) specifically asked Shulman about allegations that the IRS had been targeting Tea Party groups.
“I’ve gotten a number of letters,” Boustany said at that hearing. “Just recently, we’ve seen some recent press allegations that the IRS is targeting certain Tea Party groups across the country requesting what have been described as owner’s document requests, delaying approval for tax-exempt status, and that kind of thing. Can you elaborate on what’s going on with that? I mean, can you give us assurances that the IRS is not targeting particular groups based on political leanings?”
“Yes,” said Shulman. “No, thanks for bringing this up, because I think there’s been a lot of press about this and a lot of moving information. So, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. First, let me start by saying, yes, I can give you assurances.”
“And so, what’s been happening has been the normal back-and-forth that happens with the IRS,” Shulman testified. “None of the alleged taxpayers and obviously, I can’t talk about individual taxpayers, and I’m not involved in these, are in examination process. They’re in an application process which they moved into, voluntarily. And so, there’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back-and-forth that happens when people apply for 501(c)(4) status.”
Shulman was nominated as IRS commissioner by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate on March 14, 2008. He left the position on Nov. 9, 2012, and was replaced by acting Commissioner Steve Miller.
After the Associated Press story about Lerner’s statement to the IRS broke on Friday, Chairman Boustany sent a letter to IRS Acting Commissioner Miller pointing out that the Ways and Means Committee had been investigating this matter for more than a year, citing Lerner’s “apology” at the ABA conference, and demanding that the IRS produce certain communications and names by next Wednesday.
“As you know, for more than a year, the Committee on the Ways and Means has been pursuing an active investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exempt status,” Boustany wrote. “To help the committee fully understand the extent of the agency’s practices, provide the following information by no later than Wednesday, May 15, 2013: 1) Provide all communications containing the words ‘tea party’ ‘patriot’ or ‘conservative.’ 2) Provide names and titles of all individuals involved in this discrimination.”
As reported by the Associated Press, Lerner told the ABA conference that the targeting of groups that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications had been started by low-level IRS workers in Cincinnati. The AP said that after her talk Lerner told the news agency that high level IRS officials had not known about this targeting.
Back on March 23, 2010, the day after Shulman testified, Mark Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, wrote to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration calling for an investigation of IRS misconduct in its treatment of Tea Party organizations.
“Recent media reports indicate that the EO Division is using inappropriate and intimidating investigation tactics in the administration of applications for exempt status submitted by organizations associated with the Tea Party movement,” Levin wrote to the IG.
“Landmark Legal Foundation respectfully requests an immediate and thorough investigation to determine whether IRS employees are acting improperly in the evaluation of exempt status applications,” wrote Levin. “This investigation also must determine whether the relevant IRS employees are acting at the direction of politically motivated superiors.”
Three months after Landmark Legal requested the IG investigation, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) and Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs Chairman Jim Jordan (R.-Ohio) sent a letter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration also requesting an investigation.
Today, Issa released a July 11, 2012 letter from the inspector general stating that his office “recently began work on the issue.” An IG audit is currently underway.
On Friday afternoon, CNSNews.com asked the IRS if it intended to comply with the Ways and Means Committee’s request for the names and titles of people involved in discriminating against Tea Party or conservative organizations and all communications containing the words “tea party” “patriot” or “conservative.” A spokesman said he would check. As this story was posted – only a little more than an hour after the question was first posed – the IRS had not yet responded.
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WOW… Just, WOW
11 MayMovie Theater Publicity Stunt Triggers Officers To Respond To Active Shooter Situation – KMIZ
Management at the Goodrich Capital 8 Theaters is defending what it calls a publicity stunt at the movie theaters this past weekend.
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During the opening weekend of the latest ‘Iron Man’ movie, a man walked into the theater in full tactical gear and carrying a fake gun.
Jefferson City police and witnesses, however, are not pleased with the stunt and are questioning the theater’s logic after recent shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn.
John Molock is a retired Army war veteran and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He told ABC 17 News this most recent trip to the movies triggered memories he never wanted to relive.
“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3,” said Morlock. “We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M-4 and 9 mm on his side.”
Morlock did not call police, but several other moviegoers did.
“We received a series of 911 calls stating that a man dressed in all black and body armor and a rifle was walking into Capital 8 Theaters,” said Capt. Doug Shoemaker.
Officers thought they were responding to an active shooter investigation.
“Everything was in place, it’s the opening night of a superhero movie, it’s somebody walking in all-dark clothes, everything pointed to bad things about to happen,” said Shoemaker. “There’s really no good that can come of this.”
Instead, it was all part of a publicity stunt for the movie opening. The man in tactical gear was an actor carrying a fake gun.
Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins told ABC 17 News this was planned months in advance and only a few people were upset, but hundreds were entertained.
When asked if management took into consideration what happened in the the mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater, Wilkins responded, “Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.”
ABC 17 News asked Wilkins if he had any regrets for allowing the publicity stunt and he said, “No, my job is to entertain people.”
Social media backlash followed ABC 17’s initial report Thursday.
Goodrich Capital 8 posted a Facebook apology Friday around noon, saying:
“We apologize and are sympathetic to those who felt they were in harm’s way with our character promotion for Iron Man 3. This was not a publicity stunt. We have worked with the Cosplacon group on many movies to dress up and help entertain our customers. We have had many complaints about the members dressed specifically as S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives carrying fake guns. We didn’t clearly tell our customers and some people didn’t realize it was for entertainment purposes only. We apologize that police were called to come out to our theater. We have a wonderful working relationship with the Jefferson City Police Department. Going forward we will take the necessary steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Security and safety for our customers is our number one priority.”
Still, some moviegoers and law enforcement do not believe the stunt was a good idea.
“That’s just unbelievable,” said Morlock. “The whole country is talking about gun control because of shootings in theaters and schools.”
“It’s an unfortunate lack of wisdom in this particular judgement that hopefully will never occur again,” said Shoemaker.
Shoemaker added it’s a good thing an off-duty officer wasn’t at the theater because it’s likely the officer would have engaged the actor. Had the actor not complied, the situation could have turned out much worse.
Jefferson City police say the department has a good relationship with the theater and ironically, the SWAT team held an active shooter training there just a couple months ago.After After social media backlash
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Leftards Caught On Tape: NJ Democrats Chatter About Guns, “Confiscate. Confiscate. Confiscate” (Video)
11 MayCaught On Tape: NJ Democrats On Guns, “Confiscate. Confiscate. Confiscate” (Video) – Gateway Pundit
Democrats are too afraid to admit it in public. But they want your guns.
…And they’ll admit it when they think the cameras are off.
New Jersey Democrats were caught on tape recently after a session on guns, “Confiscate. Confiscate. Confiscate!”
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Guns Saves Lives has the transcript:
BREAKING: NJ State Senators Caught on Open Mic Saying They Need a Bill to CONFISCATE Guns.. You will need to turn speakers way up around the 0:15 mark to hear as they aren’t speaking directly into the mic. In the above vido we hear remarks by several NJ State Senators talking about guns after a session had ended.
We can assume they didn’t know the mic was still recording.
The discussion is as follows:
“We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.”
“They [gun owners] want to keep the guns out of the hands of the bad guys, but they don’t have any regulations to do it.”
“They don’t care about the bad guys. All they want to do is have their little guns and do whatever they want with them.”
“That’s the line they’ve developed.”
These same Democrats passed 22 gun control bills on Thursday.
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*VIDEO* Bill Whittle: New Coke – RNC Making Same Rebranding Mistake Coca-Cola Did In The ’80s
10 May
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Benghazi Talking Points Changed 12 Times By Obama Regime, Scrubbed Of Terror References
10 MayThe talking points used by Amb. Susan Rice on the Sunday shows on the weekend after the 9/11/12 terror attack in Benghazi underwent at least 12 edits – including revisions by the Obama administration’s State Department – new emails obtained by ABC News show. Those revisions included scrubbing all references to an Al Qaeda-affiliated group and all references to previous CIA warnings about a terror threat.
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From ABC:
When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.
ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.
White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.
ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl said on Friday morning that the talking points were “dramatically edited by the administration” and that State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland played a major role in them.
From the report:
State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:
“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”
In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned…”
Karl explained the new information:
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In a addition, a new report by the Weekly Standard says then-CIA director David Petraeus “was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15″:
Before circulating the talking points to administration policymakers in the early evening of Friday, September 14, CIA officials changed “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda” to simply “Islamic extremists.” But elsewhere, they added new contextual references to radical Islamists. They noted that initial press reports pointed to Ansar al Sharia involvement and added a bullet point highlighting the fact that the agency had warned about another potential attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the region. “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the [Cairo] Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.” All told, the draft of the CIA talking points that was sent to top Obama administration officials that Friday evening included more than a half-dozen references to the enemy – al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists, and so on.
The version Petraeus received in his inbox Saturday, however, had none. The only remaining allusion to the bad guys noted that “extremists” might have participated in “violent demonstrations.”
In an email at 2:44 p.m. to Chip Walter, head of the CIA’s legislative affairs office, Petraeus expressed frustration at the new, scrubbed talking points, noting that they had been stripped of much of the content his agency had provided. Petraeus noted with evident disappointment that the policymakers had even taken out the line about the CIA’s warning on Cairo. The CIA director, long regarded as a team player, declined to pick a fight with the White House and seemed resigned to the propagation of the administration’s preferred narrative. The final decisions about what to tell the American people rest with the national security staff, he reminded Walter, and not with the CIA.
All of the information doesn’t seem to bode well for Press Secretary Jay Carney, who said back in November that only a “single adjustment” had been made.
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“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney said on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”
Still, Carney is standing by the remarks, and now seems to be carefully clarifying the difference between the White House and the “administration” and noting the CIA still signed off on them.
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney told ABC. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”
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Obama Regime Allowed Radical Cleric To Curse U.S. Navy SEAL Heroes At Funeral Services (Video)
9 May.
This combo shows the 30 troops killed in a helicopter downing in Afghanistan on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011. The Pentagon on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011 identified the Americans as 17 members of the elite Navy SEALs, five Naval Special Warfare personnel who support the SEALs, three Air Force Special Operations personnel and an Army helicopter crew of five. (AP Photo)
Today three families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, appeared at a press conference to disclose never before revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others died in a fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011. This was just months after the successful raid on the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan.
At the press conference today the families released video on how military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes. This cleric disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” was shown this morning with a certified translation.
This will break your heart.
From the funeral services at Bagram Air Force Base
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Here is the radical cleric’s curse on our fallen SEALs.
Amen. I shelter in Allah from the devil who has been cast with stones.
In the name of Allah the merciful forgiver.
The companions of “THE FIRE”
(The sinners and infidels who are fodder for the hell fire)
ARE NOT EQUAL WITH the companions of heaven.
The companions of heaven (Muslims) are the WINNERS.
Had he sent this Koran to the mountain, you would have seen the mountain prostrated in fear of Allah.
(Mocking the GOD of Moses)
Such examples are what we present to the people, so that they would think.
(repent and convert to Islam)
Blessings are to your God (Allah) the God of glory and what they describe.
And peace be upon the messengers (prophets) and thanks be to Allah the lord of both universes (mankind and Jinn).
For the record – Political correctness killed these heroes.
Are there any courageous Christians left in this country?
Are there any Christians willing to stand up for their faith?
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darcprynce
Dave C
Gatordoug
