Photo Credit: Irish Central It’s getting pretty crowded under the Obama bus, but it looks like there might be room for one more.
In an Ominous sign for embattled Attorney General Eric Holder, longtime Obama confidante and senior campaign advisor David Axelrod, zeroed in on Holders handling of security leak investigations.
Axelrod, a shrewd political operative, would never openly call into question President Obamas closest cabinet appointee without prior approval from the President himself.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Axelrod criticized the Attorney Generals Justice Department’s probe involving a Fox News reporter and said it raises some “very disturbing questions” about the department’s policies on leak investigations.
Axelrod said he was troubled by a search warrant that labeled Fox News reporter, James Rosen, a “co-conspirator” in a case involving national security leaks. “The notion of naming a journalist a co-conspirator is something I find disturbing,”
This is a signal that Holder is a liability for the Obama Presidency and might have to be sacrificed.
Holder was already tainted by being the first Attorney General in history to be censured by the House of Representatives. He had brazenly refused to turn over thousands of key documents to Congress in their investigation into the gun running scandal known as Fast and Furious.
But the Obama administration is now under the pall of three new major scandals, each one getting messier as the days go by. From IRS abuses, to press phone taps, to the explosive Benghazi scandal that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.
In all of these scandals President Obama has expressed outrage and has asserted any malfeasance or wrongdoing was done without his knowledge…..Yet no one has really been fired. This leads many observers to believe Presidents Obamas outrage is of the faux variety.
With new revelations that Attorney General Holder may have lied to Congress while he was under oath while being questioned about press surveillance, President Obama may have to show the country he is taking these scandals seriously and fire someone.
The Attorney General seems to be the likely candidate.
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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-29 04:03:582016-04-11 11:20:06Is Attorney General Eric Holder About to be Thrown Under the Obama Bus?
Photo Credit: WNDCountry-music legend Charlie Daniels isn’t buying the White House line that President Obama simply “didn’t know” about the scandalous actions plaguing his administration.
From the gun-running “Fast & Furious” debacle of 2011 to recent revelations the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting tea-party groups, Obama has denied knowledge of his underlings’ actions, even stating he only discovered the improprieties after the evening news reported them.
But in an exclusive interview with WND, the ever-outspoken Daniels blasted the president’s “excuses.”
“If I had a drunk bus driver, for instance, and I told everybody, ‘Don’t tell me about that, I don’t want to know about it,’ and that way if we get sued I can say, ‘I didn’t know it,’ basically that’s got to be what’s happened,” Daniels said. “[But] when you hide behind plausible deniability, that is not leadership. That is cowardice. You’re not leading the country, you’re misleading the country.”
Daniels further charged the blame-shifting is “pervasive” throughout the Obama administration.
Photo Credit: scott*ericThe IRS official who refused to testify this week — while claiming she had done nothing wrong — signed letters to Tea Party groups a year ago that asked them to turn over everything from printouts of their Facebook pages to the credentials of speakers who participated in their events.
A group representing more than a dozen Tea Party groups now suing the IRS released a sample of one of the letters overnight, after the official Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave. According to one lawmaker, she was only placed on leave after she refused to resign.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice, said the March 2012 letters show a “paper trail” that reveals her “direct involvement in sending intrusive and harassing questionnaires.”
“It appears Lerner did nothing to stop the abusive conduct. And our evidence suggests she was actively participating in the improper targeting in March 2012,” he said in a statement.
It was no secret that Lerner, as head of the exempt organizations division, was aware of the program that had developed in the Cincinnati office under her watch. A timeline provided in the inspector general’s report on the practice showed she was first briefed in June 2011.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-25 04:00:192016-04-11 11:20:26IRS Official Who Refused to Resign or Testify before Congress, Signed Orwellian Tea Party Letters in 2012
Photo Credit: WNDRep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, says he needs to know who has been ordering the Internal Revenue Service attacks on conservative organizations.
“The main point here is this: Someone is giving out marching orders for these agencies and these employees to do these things. The question is, who is giving out the marching orders?’ Poe said in an interview with WND.
The head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt organizations office, Lois Lerner, appeared before a U.S. House committee Wednesday but refused to answer questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Poe is particularly concerned about IRS targeting of the King Street Patriots, a tea party group founded in Houston by Catherine Engelbrecht.
The congressman compared the IRS scandal to the Fast and Furious gun-tracing scandal: “Who is the person who decided to smuggle guns to Mexico? We still don’t know.”
Photo Credit: APBy Kate Grise. Tea party members gathered outside the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C. Tuesday to protest the targeting of conservative groups that had identified themselves as “tea party” or “patriots” on applications for tax-exempt status.
Led in a chant by a man dressed as George Washington, about 75 protesters expressed their discontent with the Internal Revenue Service and the current administration with shouts of “Audit the IRS” and “Indict Obama”…
The flash rally was a part of a larger group of more than 100 nationwide protests organized by Tea Party Patriots. Read more from this story HERE.
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Top IRS official to invoke 5th Amendment, decline to testify at House hearing
By Barnini Chakraborty. Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division that singled out conservative groups, is expected to invoke the Fifth Amendment Wednesday when she appears before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Fox News has learned.
That means Lerner, head of the exempt organizations division, probably won’t answer any questions on what she knew about IRS agents going after Tea Party-related groups. That also means she probably won’t say why she sat on the information for so long before it became public.
Lerner’s attorney William Taylor III asked committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., in a letter if she could skip Wednesday’s hearing since she would be pleading the Fifth. Read more from this story HERE.
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Video: Former IRS Chief Refuses to Apologize
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“The IRS Thing, It’s Not America, We’re Sick of It”
By Dionne Searcey. About 300 people gathered Tuesday for a short, angry rally outside the federal building here that houses the unit of the IRS embroiled in a scandal over workers improperly scrutinizing the charity applications of politically conservative groups.
Holding signs that said “Internal Rigging Service” and “Tyranny” and shouting chants of “You work for us!” and “IRS! KGB!” the group included many members of the local Tea Party organization who demanded punishment for those who were involved.
“Heads have to roll here,” said one protester, Kevin Tinsley, who works in advertising sales and said everyone from President Barack Obama down to the lowest level workers in the IRS determinations unit must be held accountable for the targeting of tea party groups.
“The IRS thing, it’s not America, and we’re sick of it,” Mr. Tinsley said before letting loose with a string of swear words. Read more from this story HERE.
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Why Were DHS Agents Seemingly Monitoring Multiple Tea Party IRS Protests Across the Country on Tuesday?
By Jason Howerton. There were multiple reported sightings of agents with the Department of Homeland Security at several Tea Party-led IRS protests in states like Missouri, Florida, Illinois and Indiana. The rallies that occurred across the country on Tuesday were sparked by the IRS’ unfair targeting of conservative groups — one of the several scandals the Obama administration is dealing with.
What is unclear though is why federal officials felt the Tea Party presence required more than the attention of local law enforcement.
These photos, one showing “armed” DHS guards, were reportedly taken at the St. Louis IRS protest:
Read more from this story HERE.
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For Tea Party Groups, Shades of 2010
By Trip Gabriel. They are getting the band back together.
In the well-burnished legend of its founding, the Tea Party movement sprang to life at grass-roots rallies, a spontaneous protest against government overreaching that grew and grew until it stunned Democrats and many moderate Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections.
On Tuesday, rallies across the country to protest the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status recalled those glory days, drawing colorful crowds in three-cornered hats, with members singing patriotic songs and waving provocative signs like “Fire the Liars” and “I.R.S.S.” — the last two letters drawn like the lightning bolts of the Nazi SS.
Leaders of the Tea Party movement hope outrage over the I.R.S. inquiry will rekindle grass-roots activism that in many places went dormant after big Republican electoral defeats of November 2012. They aim to link the current scandal to other government programs they consider overweening — principally the rollout of the health care overhaul law — and generate a Republican wave in the 2014 midterm elections reminiscent of 2010’s. Read more from this story HERE.
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Christians Claim IRS Harassment in Election
By Jerome R. Corsi. During the 2012 election year, the Internal Revenue Service delayed the application of a conservative Christian group in Ohio that was seeking 501(c)3 tax-exempt status to register Christians to vote and to oppose the ACLU in court in First Amendment cases.
“We have suspicion that the IRS delayed our application for nearly 13 months due to the selective targeting of Ohio conservative groups that Congress is now investigating in both the House and Senate,” stated Chris Long, president of the Ohio Christian Alliance, told WND.
Long said his group’s original application made it clear that the new organization would go into Christian congregations with a non-partisan effort to register voters in the battleground state of Ohio during the 2012 presidential election.
“The IRS knew we would be registering conservative church-goers and weighing in on the 2012 presidential election,” he said.
Long pointed out that the non-partisan Ohio Christian Alliance Educational Fund, operating as a 501(c)3 organization, would have registered both Democrats and Republicans. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-22 02:48:172016-04-11 11:20:35IRS Protests, IRS Refuses to Apologize, IRS Official Claims the 5th, and Other Developments (+video)
Photo Credit: YouTubeSen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., scolded Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for acting like a “dictator” by demanding that Senate Democrats promise not to raise the debt limit during conference meetings with House Republicans.
“We don’t have kings anymore,” Landrieu said in response to Lee on the Senate floor this afternoon. “We don’t have dictators anymore. We don’t have people with special powers . . . not anyone in this chamber is entitled to write the budget exactly the way they want it.”
Lee took to the floor to oppose moving to a budget conference between House and Senate lawmakers that could be used to raise the debt ceiling.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-22 02:38:032016-04-11 11:20:36Senate Dem Tells Sen. Mike Lee That He’s Acting Like a ‘Dictator’ (+video)
The fog of scandal hangs over a boxy, modernist, 10-story building that looks like a monument to paperwork. Shrubs and chain smokers flank its front entrance here on Main Street, in the heart of downtown. Every day, 2,000 employees go to work at various federal agencies in this John F. Kennedy-era structure, whose chief tenant is the Internal Revenue Service — which is having just about the worst week an agency can have…
People in this Cincinnati unit have been accused of using “inappropriate” and “politically sensitive” criteria to scrutinize conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.
As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they’re engaged in partisan villainy.
“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”
The staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias…
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-20 03:04:032016-04-11 11:20:48Cincinnati IRS Office: The Tea Party Directive Came ‘from the Top’
Photo Credit: FREEDOMWORKSJay Devereaux hadn’t paid much attention to the daily drumbeat of partisan politics in D.C. He wasn’t a Washington nerd, and didn’t know who said what during congressional hearings — nor did he care.
But when news broke that the government was using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks, he started paying attention and didn’t like what he was hearing.
So the Florida father and information technology specialist decided to form a group, Unite in Action, to educate people in his area about the issues, he said. It was originally formed as a corporation before Devereaux decided to apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS.
That was two years ago. It was never approved.
“It’s all but killed us,” Devereaux told FoxNews.com. “We could lose everything. Today, it’s me and my organization, but tomorrow it could be you.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-19 03:00:422016-04-11 11:20:55‘We Could Lose Everything’: Tea Party Groups Prepare to Sue IRS
Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy John Parkinson and Steven Portnoy. The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer. Read more from this story HERE.
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IRS Grilled Tea Party Groups on Relationship to True the Vote
By Brandon Darby. At least two Texas Tea Party groups have reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) questioned them on their relationship to the election integrity organization True the Vote and its parent group, the King Street Patriots Tea Party.
True the Vote was created by the Houston-based King Street Patriots Tea Party group, and both groups were founded and led by Catherine Engelbrecht.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Robert Gonzalez of the Houston, TX area Clear Lake Tea Party revealed that he and his wife Lisa received the same type of probing and scrutinizing questions as other Tea Party and conservative groups, but theirs came with a specific question about one of Engelbrecht’s groups.
“The IRS wanted to know what our relationship was to ‘King City Patriots,’ but it was clear they meant Catherine Engelbrecht’s ‘King Street Patriots,’” said Gonzalez. “My wife Lisa founded this Tea Party, and of course we knew Catherine; everyone does. But to be specifically questioned by the federal government about her? If we had not previously known her, we would have thought she was of questionable character or something by them asking that,” he added.
Julie McCarty, president of the NE Tarrant Tea Party, another Tea Party leader from the Dallas, TX area, said she was also probed by the IRS about one of Engelbrecht’s efforts. “In the probing questions we received from the IRS, there was a question specifically asking us about our relationship to one of Catherine’s and True the Vote’s efforts named Verify the Recall,” said McCarty. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-17 03:12:092016-04-11 11:21:05IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
Photo Credit: Fibonacci BlueAs Congressional Democrats scurry for cover in the wake of the growing scandal surrounding IRS harassment of tea party and conservative groups, President Obama announced on Wednesday that acting IRS chief, Steven T. Miller would resign. As with Benghazi and seemingly everything else these days, Obama claims to have known nothing about it. Too much time at the golf course no doubt.
But the dam is bursting on this story. Every day the number of affected groups grows as more and more is uncovered. Today it was revealed for example that the decades-old Leadership Institute was audited in 2011. To defend itself, the institute had to shell out over $50,000 in legal fees. Run by stalwart Reagan friend Morton Blackwell, the LI has an impeccable reputation. Of course the IRS found nothing.
During the recall of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker in 2012, a group called “Verify the Recall” hastily formed to check the 1 million recall petitions turned in at the last minute by union organizers. Working with True the Vote, this organization evaluated every one of those petitions in little more than a month. Other groups, including this writer, publicized their herculean efforts.
The IRS apparently didn’t like this. The North East Tarrant Texas Tea Party (NETTTP) never told the IRS they were working on the recall, yet IRS questioned them about their relationship with VTR. True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrect said, “There is no explaining this away. It is a reprehensible abuse of power by the IRS to ask one organization for information about the activities of a separate organization while holding their non-profit status hostage.”
Similarly, in 2010, the IRS demanded that an Ohio group, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law explain in detail its “involvement with the Tea Party.” The Center provides legal counsel to Ohioans whose constitutional rights have been aggrieved, including tea party organizations and individuals. While it ultimately received its tax-exempt status, the Center said that, “IRS harassment of liberty-oriented groups, and intent to root out “tea party” activities, even through non-tea party sources such as 1851, has been in full force for a minimum of three years.”
