IRS Spent Millions on Conferences, Employees Stayed in $3500 per Night Hotel Suites (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

The Internal Revenue Service is playing defense on a new front: excess spending on conferences.

The IRS spent close to $50 million on 225 conferences between 2010 and 2012, according to briefings given to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

TIGTA will release an audit Tuesday that details surplus spending at a conference in 2010 for 2,700 people in the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed division.

At a House oversight committee hearing on the issue next week, lawmakers will focus on the August 2010 conference held in Anaheim, California, at a cost of $4 million. Several IRS employees stayed in presidential suites at hotels, the committee learned. Such suites currently cost between $1,500 to $3,500 per night.

“The culture of the federal workforce is one where I don’t think you can underestimate that if you don’t keep reminding the voters – but also the federal workers – that we’re watching, this will happen again,” Rep. Darrell Issa said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Field Agent: Orders to Investigate Tea Party Came from DC; They’re “Throwing Us Underneath the Bus” (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: US News

Interviews with an IRS field agent involved in the agency targeting Tea Party groups for additional vetting appear to contradict the White House assertion that rogue agents, not the administration, were behind the effort, according to partial transcripts released Sunday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The agent in the Cincinnati office, in which the targeting took place, told congressional investigators that he or she was told in March 2010 by a supervisor to search for Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status and that “Washington, D.C., wanted some cases”…

When asked by congressional investigators about allegations and press reports about two agents in Cincinnati essentially being responsible for the targeting, the agent responded: “It’s impossible. As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen. … They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DNA Tests Reveal Nevada Man Falsely ID’d as Baby Kidnapped in 1964 (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Facebook

A Nevada man ID’d by the FBI as the baby who disappeared from a Chicago hospital in 1964 has learned that he wasn’t the kidnapped child and is now on a mission to learn his real name and to find out who his birth parents are…

“I don’t know why, but it really started consuming my thoughts, like ‘who am I?’” he told the station. “. . . it really started consuming my thoughts, like ‘who am I?’”

The story begins in Chicago in 1964, when someone reportedly dressed as a nurse walked out the back door of Michael Reese Hospital with a baby boy named Paul Joseph Fronczak. The FBI looked at 10,000 children during a nationwide manhunt to find the child, the station reported.

More than two years later, a baby was found abandoned in a stroller in Newark, N.J. That child was taken to an orphanage and given the name Scott McKinley.
Later, the FBI decided that the McKinley baby was really the Fronczak child taken in Chicago…

A series of DNA tests revealed that he is not the Fronczak baby who was kidnapped in Chicago, and now Paul Fronczak hopes to find the truth about who he really is, including who his biological parents are.

Read more from this story HERE.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: IRS Turns Over Idiotic Line Dance, Star Trek and Gilligan Island Videos to Congress

/8 Comments/in , /by

By Fox News. In the wake of the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, the embattled agency has provided lawmakers with a video featuring about a dozen of its employees line dancing on a stage.

The video of the IRS workers practicing their dance moves, which lasts just under three minutes, comes weeks after it was revealed that agency workers produced two other videos parodying the “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island” TV shows.

All three videos were given to Congress on Friday in response to a request issued by Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, after learning that the videos were recorded at IRS offices in New Carrollton, Md., outside Washington, D.C.

The latest recording cost about $1,600 and was produced to be shown at the end of a 2010 training and leadership conference held in Anaheim, Calif., said IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge. Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________

GOP says report will expose lavish spending at 2010 IRS conference

By Bernie Becker. The House Oversight Committee is holding another hearing on the IRS — but not one dealing with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

The panel, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), will hear on Thursday from Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration about “excessive spending” at IRS conferences.

“The IRS is an agency in crisis,” Issa said in a statement. “The American people expect that their tax-dollars will be used responsibly and not for financing lavish hotel suites and entertainment for government employees. The Oversight Committee will examine these egregious abuses of the public trust and an IRS culture that shuns accountability.” Read more from this story HERE.

Obama an Athlete? Another Media Fiction (+video)

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Nearly two months after shooting 2-for-22 on the basketball court during the White House Easter Egg Roll, Obama made five attempts Tuesday to throw a football through a suspended tire — and missed every one.

Adding insult to injury, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made good on his first throw…

Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. Louie Gohmert: Without John McCain, Benghazi Wouldn’t Have Happened (+video)

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mediaite

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert has unearthed a new culprit in the Benghazi saga: fellow Republican John McCain.

“If it had not been for Senator John McCain and President Obama being for what we knew at the time included Al Qaida anti-rebel forces, then we would still have a U.S. ambassador and three others alive today, because Benghazi would not have happened.”

View his statement here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Joe Miller: Abolish the IRS (+video)

/11 Comments/in , /by

Photo credit: saturnism

In his first national television interview since filing for a 2014 U.S. Senate run, Alaska Republican activist Joe Miller criticized the IRS targeting of conservative tea party groups, calling for the tax agency’s abolishment.

“I think there’s a major opportunity, given the scandal at the IRS, to really get at trying to abolish that agency,” Miller told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto on Thursday in an exclusive interview. “I think Americans are now more open to that than ever before”…

Cavuto also asked how the tea party-backed conservative felt about the administration strong-arming his constituency.

“It’s been a fundamental value of Americans to push back against that type of invasion,” Miller responded. “What the IRS has done is a confirmation of what the tea party has been saying for years. Now you even have the Left … basically singing our tune.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Megyn Kelly, Greta Van Susteren Slam Erick Erickson and Lou Dobbs for their Comments About Women (+video)

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube

[Erick Erickson and Lou Dobbs commented on] a study which showed that more women than ever were the sole or primary breadwinners in their households. They agreed that it signaled a terrible new trend for civilization itself. Erickson even brought the animal kingdom up, saying, “When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society, and other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.”

When critics, including Fox News’ own Greta Van Susteren, pounced, Erickson doubled down on his radio show and in a blog post on Red State.

Kelly was loaded for bear when Dobbs and Erickson joined her on her Friday show..:

Video Shows Boston Bombing Suspects at Gym 72 Hours Before Attack (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Three days before the Boston Marathon bombings, suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were working out together at a Boston gym.

Security cameras captured footage of the brothers arriving at the Wai Kru mixed martial arts center with a friend just before 2:45 p.m. April 12.

The manager at Wai Kru, who wanted to be identified only as Michael, noticed a distinct change in the older brother’s appearance.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s full, bushy religious beard, which he had for about two years, was gone.

Read more from this story HERE.

Louisiana Democratic Party Chief Says ObamaCare Critics Motivated by Race (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube

The head of the Louisiana Democratic Party said on the floor of the state Senate this week that opponents of the federal health care overhaul are motivated by President Obama’s race — a remark that drew the scorn of state Republicans who now want her to apologize.

State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who is also chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, repeatedly invoked race as she railed against ObamaCare critics.

Read more from this story HERE.