Obama’s IRS Admits It Targeted Conservatives For Extra Scrutiny During 2012 Election

IRS Admits, Apologizes For Targeting Conservatives During 2012 Election – Zero Hedge

Just because you are a conservative and paranoid, doesn’t mean the IRS is not after you. And, assuming the AP was not hacked again, this is precisely what happened. In a stunning disclosure, the supposedly impartial Internal Revenue Service has admitted and apologized for flagging and subjecting to extra reviews, conservative political groups – those that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” – during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. No such privilege was apparently afforded to groups identifying themselves as “liberal.”

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From AP:

The Internal Revenue Service is apologizing for inappropriately flagging conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.

Lerner said the practice, initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati, was wrong and she apologized while speaking at a conference in Washington.

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They said the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status.

Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.

It does make one wonder, just how far the IRS goes to make the lives of conservatives a living hell: will all 2012 tax audits be those who on their facebook profile admit to liking Ron Paul? And just how far does the IRS invade personal privacy to determine how any one tax filer is indeed, a “conservative?” But don’t worry – aside from the obvious persecutions, America is a free country for one and all.

One wonders: how long until “conservatives” engage in “tax-avoiding” blowback and really give the IRS reason to persecute them. Alternatively, one wonders the IRS is simply limited by logistical considerations, due to the notional difference in number of actual tax filings submitted by “conservatives” vs “liberals” and the prepondrance of one group over the other…

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Flashback: Mark Levin Asks IG To Probe Possible IRS Misconduct In Dealing With Tea Party – CNS

March 23, 2012

Landmark Legal Foundation sent a letter on Friday to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration requesting an investigation to determine whether officials with the Internal Revenue Service have engaged in misconduct in dealing with applications from Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

“Landmark Legal Foundation requests an immediate investigation into possible misconduct by the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organization (EO) Divisoin that calls into question the integrity of federal tax administration and IRS programs,” said the letter signed by Landmark President Mark Levin.

“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.

As CNSNews.com reported earlier this month, the American Center for Law and Justice, which says it represents nearly 20 Tea Party organizations nationwide, put out a statement on March 7 complaining about what it perceived to be improper treatment of Tea Party groups by the IRS.

“This appears to be a coordinated attempt to intimidate Tea Party organizations by demanding information that is outside the scope of legitimate inquiry and violates the First Amendment,” ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said in a statement.

“These organizations have followed the law and applied for tax exempt status for their activities as Americans have done for decades,” Sekulow said. “The problem here is the IRS has gone beyond legitimate inquiries and is demanding that these organizations answer questions that actually violate the First Amendment rights of our clients.”

“This intimidation campaign is as onerous as what the IRS did to the NAACP in the 1950′s and is simply unacceptable,” said Sekulow. “We will aggressively defend our clients and are prepared to take the IRS to court if necessary.”

In his letter to the inspector general, Landmark’s Levin said that the types of inquiries the IRS was making of Tea Party groups were inappropriate.

“The information demanded in many cases goes far beyond the appropriate level of inquiry regarding the religious, charitable and/or educational activities of a tax exempt entity,” said Levin.

“The inquiries are not relevant to these permitted activities,” Levin wrote. “Inquiries extend to organizational policy positions and priorities, personal and poltiical affiliations, and associations of staff, board members and even family members of staff and board members.”

“Finally,” said Levin, “reports that Tea Party-related organizations are being singled out for the IRS’s intrusive inquries raises serious questions about the propriety of the personnel involved in the evaluation of tax exemption applications.”

Landmark Legal Foundation also asked the inspector general to “determine whether the relevant IRS employees are acting at the direction of politically motivated superiors.”

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration provides “independent oversight of IRS activities.”

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Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter – Wall Street Journal

Barack Obama owes his presidency in no small part to the power of rhetoric. It’s too bad he doesn’t appreciate the damage that loose talk can do to America’s tax system, even as exploding federal deficits make revenues more important than ever.

At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU’s point by remarking, “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.”

Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it’s hard to see the humor. Surely he’s aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system.

Our income-tax system is based on voluntary compliance and honest reporting by citizens. It couldn’t possibly function if most people decided to cheat. Sure, the system is backed up by the dreaded IRS audit. But the threat is, while not exactly hollow, limited: The IRS can’t audit more than a tiny fraction of taxpayers. If Americans started acting like Italians, who famously see tax evasion as a national pastime, the system would collapse.

One reason why Americans don’t act like Italians is that they see the income-tax system as basically fair in execution. A tax audit or a tax-fraud prosecution is still seen, usually, as evidence that someone has done something wrong. If it comes instead to be seen as “just politics” then the moral component of the system will be gone. For the system to work, people have to believe that it is fundamentally fair.

This is why the IRS is so strict with its own employees. Paul Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who writes the TaxProf blog, noted in response to Mr. Obama’s remarks that the law calls for the termination of IRS employees who make audit threats for illegitimate reasons. He suggested that Mr. Obama’s “joke” might be grounds for firing if he were an IRS employee.

He’s not, of course, but as the president his words carry much more weight and he should be much more careful. That’s particularly true given that people still haven’t forgotten about the Obama administration’s other tax issues – the appointment of Tim Geithner as Treasury secretary despite an inexcusable failure to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund, and the scandals involving Tom Daschle and others whose appointments failed. (When the Geithner issue came up, news reports indicated that IRS employees were very upset. They can be fired over a simple late filing or a failure to report a mere $500 in income, making Mr. Geithner’s “pass” on much more serious questions quite demoralizing.)

The notion that people who are audited are probably just “enemies of the regime,” coupled with the idea that big shots get a pass – that, as Leona Helmsley is reputed to have said, “taxes are for the little people” – is a recipe for widespread tax evasion. That’s how things work in Italy, and in many other countries around the world. But do we want things to work that way here?

Mr. Obama has been accused of not appreciating the importance of financial capital to the proper functioning of the economy. But ill-chosen remarks like his ASU audit threat suggest that he also doesn’t appreciate the role of moral capital. That, too, is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. As he looks for ways to pay for the spending campaign he’s already embarked upon, he’d be well-advised to avoid comments that undercut the very tax system he’ll be depending on.

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Governor Cuomo Admits That A Knee-Jerk Gun Restriction He Signed Into Law Is Utterly Unworkable

Cuomo: That Gun Law I Signed Turned Out To Be Utterly Unworkable, Huh? – Hot Air

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If Andrew Cuomo has truly had an epiphany about his approach to gun regulation, it’s not really evident from this admission. The New York Times reports that Cuomo will now try to rush some changes into his banner gun-control legislation that forced New York gun owners to use magazines that no one manufactures, with even the one exception to the rule found to be unworkable (via Legal Insurrection):

In the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pushed through the State Legislature gun control measures that included not only a tougher assault weapons ban but also a tighter restriction on the maximum legal capacity of gun magazines.

But after weeks of criticism from gun owners, Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would seek to ease the restriction, which he said had proved unworkable even before it was scheduled to take effect on April 15.

The gun-control law, approved in January, banned the sale of magazines that hold more than seven rounds of ammunition. But, Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday, seven-round magazines are not widely manufactured. And, although the new gun law provided an exemption for the use of 10-round magazines at firing ranges and competitions, it did not provide a legal way for gun owners to purchase such magazines.

Now, one might think that after having been embarrassed by his own ignorance – and in the face of a number of critics who pointed these issues out from the beginning – Cuomo would advise the legislature to repeal the bill and start over again. One would be… wrong. This New York governor has decided to correct one idiocy with another:

As a result, he said, he and legislative leaders were negotiating language that would continue to allow the sale of magazines holding up to 10 rounds, but still forbid New Yorkers from loading more than 7 rounds into those magazines.

Er, what? Will the police be around to check how many bullets are loaded into each magazine? And, by the way, will criminals be deterred from loading rounds 8, 9, and 10 into the magazine? The whole idea of magazine limits is to limit those with criminal intent from firing too many bullets without having to reload, at which point the law expects the disarmed to rush the criminal rather than shoot back and hope he’s worse at reloading than they will be at beating someone into submission. How will Cuomo’s latest idea deter criminals, who will have zero fear of having a gun inspection before committing their crimes?

“Hey, let’s go rob that bank. Get your guns ready, and – oh yeah, don’t load more than seven bullets into each magazine.”

Furthermore, if that kind of restriction was at all useful, then why pass a law forbidding 15-round or 30-round magazines at all? Just pass a law that says no one can load more than seven bullets into the magazine, and voila! Problem solved, right?

William Jacobson calls this new idea “irrational and arbitrary.” It’s also dumber than a box of rocks, and anyone with a hint of self-awareness would have realized it before the press release went out.

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DHS Admits It Does Not Track Immigrants Who Become Welfare Dependent, Pursued Zero Cases Last Year

DHS Admits It Does Not Track Immigrants Who Become Welfare Dependent, Pursued Zero Cases Last Year – Daily Caller

In a response letter to four top Republican lawmakers, the Department of Homeland Security revealed it initiated only one case against an immigrant for becoming a “public charge,” or being primarily dependent upon the government, in fiscal year 2012. The case was later withdrawn.

While the department’s response to Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Pat Roberts’ August oversight request offered an overview of the centuries-old federal public-charge restrictions, it noticeably avoided several of the senators’ direct questions and demonstrated potentially significant inadequacies in record-keeping by immigration officials, who legally should be enforcing public-charge rules for immigrants both inside and outside of the country.

The response, for example, failed to explain why immigrants are only assessed for their potential reliance on just two of the more than 80 federal means-tested welfare programs when the government determines if they are “public charges” prior to their entry into the U.S. – meaning that they are likely to become primarily dependent on federal aid for subsistence after arriving.

The DHS letter, penned by Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Nelson Peacock, further failed to respond to the four Republican senators’ data requests pertaining to the the total number of visa applicants from 2001-2011 that were denied on public-charge grounds, or numbers on those who were granted visas despite a public-charge finding.

DHS also did not reveal how many immigrants from 2001-2011 became public charges after obtaining a visa or entering the country.

The department did, however, admit it does not have the data on immigrants who become public charges after gaining entry or a visa – despite, as Peacock writes in his letter, the fact that aliens “may also be found deportable on public charge grounds in accordance [immigration law], but only if they became public charges within the first five years after entry for causes that have not been affirmatively shown to have arisen since entry.”

Peacock explained that “historical data responsive for the number of aliens issued visas or otherwise admitted into the United States from 2001 to 2011 who became public charges and who were later issued Notices to Appear is unavailable,” because of “data entry quality and system changes that did not account for statistical tracking at this level.”

A case-by-case review of fiscal year 2012 data shows that only a single case that was brought up because an immigrant allegedly became a public charge after gaining a visa or entry to the country. Peacock noted, however, that the charge was later withdrawn.

Deportations of immigrants for being public charges after their arrival in the U.S. are relatively rare, according to the Federal Register, due to additional exemptions for certain classes of immigrants and legal burdens on the government. It is typically easier for the government to deny entry to immigrants on public-charge grounds prior to their entry into the country.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a single American who believes a whole year went by without a single alien violating the public-charge law,” one Republican aide said in reaction to Peacock’s admission. “This revelation from DHS is beyond disturbing. It is inexcusable. Surely this must give pause to fiscal conservatives considering the cost to American taxpayers of various comprehensive immigration reform proposals being discussed.”

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is currently addressing these data tracking issues and intends to capture such data in a reliable manner in the future,” Peacock said.

dditionally Peacock provided data pertaining to the number of applicants from 2005 to Aug. 9, 2012 who were denied entry on public-charge grounds through the Visa Waiver Program: 9,796 applicants, or .0084 percent of approved VWP applicants in that seven-year period.

Last fall, TheDC reported that just .068 percent of the 10.37 million immigration applicants the State Department processed were found to be ineligible on public-charge grounds.

A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of Census Bureau data last August revealed that in 2010, 36 percent of immigrant-headed households were on at least one major welfare program, compared to 23 percent of native-headed households.

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*VIDEO* Obama Admits He’s Irresponsible And Unpatriotic

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Leftist Radio Host Ed Schultz Admits Using ‘Fake Callers’ Coached By Congressional Democrats

Leftist Radio Host Ed Schultz Admits Using ‘Fake Callers’ Coached By Congressional Democrats – The Blaze

In trying to get his progressive talk radio show off the ground at the start, host Ed Schultz candidly admitted Wednesday to using fake callers to fill air time. In addition, Schultz admits congressional Democrats coached callers on what to say:

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Schultz’s shocking admissions comes as a George Soros-funded publication baselessly accuses conservative radio titans Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck of the same practice. As we reported Tuesday, all three hosts flatly deny the accusations.

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