Thursday, July 10, 2014

IRS scandal, day 427


Tax professor, Paul Caron, Pepperdine University School of Law has an unusually long list of links up today having to do with IRS cover up hiding emails from Congress, and asking about instant messaging being stored or searchable, Learner's reaction to the answer, about her advice to coworkers for the need of being cautious in emails, about Learner being worried of Congress asking for emails, about Congress reading them, discussions she had  her lawyer, and about her saving 'some' emails, her collusion, and her caution, and her fear of her own wrongdoing and her illegal activities being uncovered. 

The links go to all over, not just right wing sites, although it appears it is the right wing that is most interested in discussing these new findings, Washington Times, Washington Post, Washington Examiner (twice) Wall Street Journal (three links) Tribune Review, Politico, NPR, News Max, Market Watch, Main Justice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, American Center for law and Justice and the expected top right-o-sphere sites. Notably absent are the top left wing sites, apparently they prefer their readers be kept uninformed when not actually mal-informed. 

28 comments:

The Dude said...

Where did this post come from? Seems out of sequence.

Amartel said...

What has been discovered thus far implicates Lerner. The "lost" emails implicate Obama.

Shouting Thomas said...

I'm not at all excited about the furor that will be unleashed if we get to the point at which there is no recourse but to impeach Obama.

I believed when he was elected in 2008 that we were headed for a constitutional crisis.

I haven't changed my mind.

YoungHegelian said...

The reason the Democrats are trying to backstop this investigation is that, if the charges against the IRS turn out even to be partially true, they will be hoisted on their own historical petard.

That Nixon "tried" to use the IRS against his political enemies (he mostly failed, thanks to the then IRS commissioner) was number three in the articles of impeachment. If the Democrats were all for taking out the criminal Nixon then, why not the criminal Obama now?

I mean, every day it gets worse & worse. The IRS has already admitted guilt in court to releasing confidential records of an anti-SSM group to a gay activist organization. The IRS paid court fees & the lawyer bill of the plaintiff, but do you think they fired the asshole who did the leaking? C'mon, take a guess....

I have to agree with ST. We are heading for a constitutional crisis. I can believe that an administration can be this evil. I simply cannot believe that an administration, full of folks from many of our finest universities, can be this fucking stupid.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

What smoking gun?

Nothing to see here... move along Fox News.

What Inga might say if she were awake ;)

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

It is not just the guns that are smoking. The IRS's story stinks.

Chip Ahoy said...

Sixty, I had AM instead of PM. What a bummer. I'm such a dummkopf.

Thomas, I think we're in one now. The IRS stepping on the necks of grass root conservative activists, bad as that, is among the least of the constitutional distortions.

This morning I woke up to a black Congress woman speaking about scandal showing the urgency to pass Obama's emergency legislation.

Of course it does.

Imagine waking up with the thoughts "No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!"

Hell of a way to start a day. When am I going to learn to turn that thing off?

Create an emergency then demand billions in emergency expenditure to be used for something else entirely. That is the M.O. we've seen for ourselves repeatedly. from the very beginning. Even before O was president, before he was senator, while still a student he misused assets he is given.

He was given because of his color.

He was given a laptop to do writing in school. That, after provided an ivy-league education because of his color. Imagine that. Nobody ever gave me a laptop. And I did ask. I would have used it for its intended purpose, but no, DENIED! Get one yourself if you want it so badly, I was told. So I did.

He was given private money as community organizer for a specific purpose and he used it for his own campaigning.

As president he did the same thing with TARP, misallocated resources to benefit his party, not the country, used it counter to established principles, then claim those principles don't work anymore.

He misallocates State resources then when experiencing failure in critical places at critical times, declaims it is Republican budget cuts are the problem not his State's fiduciary irresponsibility, while billions in State funds are unaccounted for under Hillary Clinton's watch. He couldn't do the right thing with money if you beat him over the head with it.

As to the border, we have so many resources available at our disposal it's not even funny. We could guard the border as needed. We could airlift these people back ourselves without blinking an eye. Without even feeling it. Our combined services have more planes, more cargo planes, than you can shake a stick at. And these pilots fly missions just to rack up flight hours. They'll fly across country to pick up a few lobsters for dinner just to gain flight hours. Every single military pilot out there, in service and retired, will have such stories of unbelievable waste to relate. It amazes every single one of them, once they see it and experience it for themselves. It is quite incredible. This talk I read about buying illegal immigrants swarming our border all first class tickets being cheaper than what is demanded, well, the point is taken, but even that is not necessary. We can do it ourselves. And easily enough too. The demagoguing is incredible. Incredible in that it utterly lacks a trace of credibility.

And that our Congress feels itself stuck and unable to employ the mechanisms available to it for whatever political reasoning they provide, means we are experiencing Constitutional crisis right now. Because even this situation is taken care of constitutionally and by refusing to activate the controls in place, for the IRS crisis, for the border crisis, for the incompetent president crisis, for the corrupted attorney general crisis, means we are experiencing Constitutional crisis right now.

That is pinion, Opie, and I'm putting a stick in it.

KCFleming said...

Bring back Ted Koppel on Nightline:

"The Obama Crisis–America Held Hostage: Day 427"

Lydia said...

Unfortunately, the WSJ article linked to in Lem’s earlier post left something important out of the content of Lerner's “perfect” email -- the very last line of Lerner's correspondent's email, which was, in reference to the explanation about what happened to instant messaging stuff: "Make sense?"

That's the kind of thing the NY Times excels at doing. With that left in, it's pretty clear that Lerner's "perfect" is in response to that, as in yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Link to the Congressional document.

Lerner stinks, the IRS stinks, but I don’t think this holds up as a smoking gun.

Rabel said...

Lydia said:

"With that left in, it's pretty clear that Lerner's "perfect" is in response to that, as in yeah, it makes perfect sense."

No, it's not pretty clear and takes a very generous, forgiving and sympathetic reading to even come close to that interpretation.

Lydia said...

Really? Then why did the WSJ leave it out? Just two little words.

Leland said...

Really? Then why did the WSJ leave it out? Just two little words.

Why did you add three?

it makes perfect sense.

I think that is what Rabal means by being very generous.

ampersand said...

My dog ate my emails and the president ate my dog.

edutcher said...

What did the President know...

deborah said...

Rabel, rabel, set the table.

edutcher said...

This should put a few divots in the Choom Gang's next putt.

The House has just filed a resolution to have Lerner arrested for contempt of Congress.

Lydia said...

Not the House, just Rep. Steve Stockman, right? The House still has to pass on it.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

This is going to be interesting. Will Obama intervene on her behalf.

Chip Ahoy said...

Ace has a post up informing Steve Stockman filed a resolution directing Sergeant-At-Arms to arrest Lois Lerner for contempt.

So there's that. But, who knows what will come of it?

Rabel said...

Interesting also that the reply to Lerner used the phrase "OCS messages are not set to automatically save as the standard," rather than "as the default."

Microsoft says this:

"By default, Office Communicator 2007 [OCS] saves all incoming and outgoing IM conversations in an Outlook 2007 Conversation History folder in the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client mailbox, so you can review previous conversations."

That would mean that the system administrators at IRS had changed the default setting for OCS at installation or afterwards.

Seems that this, along with the absurd "print out hard copies" requirement and six month tape recycling practice, shows a deliberate effort at IRS to retain as little information as possible in direct violation of laws requiring them to make affirmative efforts to retain all official records.

That tells me that the IRS was and is corrupt at its core.

edutcher said...

Lydia said...

Not the House, just Rep. Steve Stockman, right? The House still has to pass on it.

Apparently. Here's a follow-up from (I know...) Politico.

Hopefully, he's trying to light a fire under the Whigs.

Shouting Thomas said...

That tells me that the IRS was and is corrupt at its core.

Well, yes, but the orders to do this quite obviously came from the White House.

deborah said...

Evi:
"Will Obama intervene on her behalf."

Indubitably. Executive privilege.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I am sure he will pardon a lot of people at the end, as a last minute thing just before he leaves office, but Obama is all about Obama. He will not stick his own neck out for others. At least not if there is political risk to him.

So this might be interesting.

deborah said...

Yes, but if the orders came from the white house it will be CYA time.

'Night!

Chip Ahoy said...

I posted this at 3 places and misspelled Lerner all three times. Der.

The Dude said...

You are a liver and a learner.

Icepick said...

My dog ate my emails and the president ate my dog.

Heheheh.