http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Obamacare Sun, 19 May 2013 19:48:48 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Obamacare Thu, 16 May 2013 15:43:57 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a3_1368733316 dcmfox Sahil Kapur May 15, 2013, 11:11 AM 3643 Two days after President Obama's commanding reelection victory, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) solemnly declared Obamacare the " law of the land " - apparently signaling that it was time to move beyond the GOP's now-hopeless quest for repeal. The conservative pushback was swift and brutal. Immediately, Boehner's office was forced to clarify that he remained committed to repealing the law. And so House Republicans will vote on Thursday - yet again - to wipe out the Affordable Care Act. By their own count, it'll mark the 37th time they've voted to fully repeal or partially dismantle the President's signature achievement. "Albert Einstein defined insanity as, 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' If that's true, the House Republicans have truly lost their minds," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Wednesday, calling the Obamacare repeal vote "political kabuki" and highlight the cost of the GOP's dead-end effort. Conscious that the vote may be perceived as a futile partisan exercise, Boehner's office is working the referees to aggressively prebut that characterization and frame his party's ongoing repeal effort as responsible. A memo his office sent to reporters Tuesday noted that only two of the previous 36 votes were for full repeal and that a few of them, which rescinded funds for smaller pieces of Obamacare, were signed into law. GOP leaders weren't eager to hold this vote. Last month, led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), they tried a different strategy by bringing up a bill to transfer funds from one progressive piece of Obamacare to the law's underfunded high-risk pool which covers preexisting conditions. But conservatives revolted, grumbling that it shores up part of Obamacare and muddles their message. Cantor and GOP leaders were forced to pull the bill at the last minute, depriving them of a talking point about helping sick people. Behind the scenes, some conservative health wonks who supported Cantor's bill fretted that the GOP lacks credibility on health care policy. But new Republican members complained that they had not yet had the change to vote to repeal Obamacare. The vote was announced shortly after. "If you're a freshman - the guys who've been up here the last year, we can go home and say listen, we voted 36 different times to repeal or replace Obamacare. Tell me what the new guys are supposed to say," Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) said at the time. "We haven't had a repeal or replace vote this year." The vote comes as the rate of growth of national health care spending is slowing significantly and perhaps permanently, complicating GOP predictions that Obamacare would raise costs. Not surprisingly, some supporters of Obamacare have been quick to use those figures to credit Obamacare with driving down costs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that it will not score the legislation due to time constraints. In a letter to Republicans, CBO's director pointed to its most recent Obamacare repeal score, in July 2012, which said getting rid of the law would increase budget deficits by $109 billion over the next decade. Meanwhile, Republicans are hammering Obamacare from all sides: they're investigating the administration 's decision to ask health industry executives for help financing implementation of the law, and they're using an unfolding IRS scandal to undermine it . The repeal vote is expected to pass on a party-line vote. What happens next is less clear. It remains to be seen whether Republicans will be able to close that chapter after this and move on to more serious health care legislation, or whether they'll remain trapped in a hopeless battle that they've lost in Congress, the Supreme Court and at the ballot box. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a3_1368733316 dcmfox House GOP To Hold Yet Another <span class="highlight">Obamacare</span> Repeal Vote - Jobs, Jobs house, votes, repeal, obamacare, 37th, time Fri, 17 May 2013 23:59:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb5_1368848763 Detroit Iron May 16, 2013 8:20 pm Mark Tapscott Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today . Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period. The 2010, 2011 and 2012 bonuses were awarded during the period when IRS harassment of the conservative groups was most intense. The newspaper obtained the data via a Freedom of Information Act request. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., described the Ingram awards as "stunning, just stunning." Bonuses as large as those awarded to Ingram typically require presidential approval, according to federal personnel regulations. High-ranking career federal civil servants like Ingram are eligible for recognition through citations known as Distinguished and Merit Service awards that can carry with them cash bonuses of anywhere from five to 35 percent of their base salary. The largest of such awards, however, require presidential approval, according to the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal civil service workforce. "If the recommended award is over $25,000, the Director of OPM reviews the nomination and forwards his/her recommendation to the President for approval," according to the OPM guidance. A key point on OPM's "checklist" for federal bosses considering an employee for such a bonus is making sure that "the proposed award recipient has not been involved in any action or activity that could cause the President embarrassment ..." Ingram has some history as a government lawyer receiving controversial bonuses. According to The Washington Post , she received a $47,900 bonus for distinguished service in 2004 from President George W. Bush. Earlier Thursday , The Washington Examiner reported that the IRS paid out more than $92 million in bonuses during the four-year period of Ingram's awards to her and nearly 17,000 other agency employees. Those bonuses averaged more than $5,500 per employee. Go here for a spreadsheet of the salary and bonus data for IRS employees getting bonuses between 2009 and 2012. Mark Tapscott is executive editor of The Washington Examiner. If you open the link, and scroll to the bottom, you'll see a huge table of those IRS agents who have "received" bonuses http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-tax-exemptionobamacare-exec-got-100390-in-bonuses/article/2529899 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb5_1368848763 Detroit Iron UPDATED: IRS tax exemption/<span class="highlight">Obamacare</span> exec got $103,390 in bonuses; Did Obama OK them? IRS, Sarah Hall Ingram, obama Fri, 17 May 2013 11:13:36 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9f0_1368803314 cajunmojo Well, this can't be good. It appears that the official who oversaw the Internal Revenue Service office responsible for targeting conservative groups has moved on from that post and now heads the agency's Obamacare division. 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 said Thursday he would resign as commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division on June 3, TheBlaze reported. He was appointed to the post just eight days ago. Here's a May 8 press release announcing his extremely short-lived promotion: Grant, Kay Named to IRS Leadership Posts IR-2013-47, May 8, 2013WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service today announced the selection of Joseph H. Grantas commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division and Sheldon Kay as Chief of Appea ls. "Joseph and Shelly are strong leaders who will provide strong leadership and continuity in thesecritical parts of the IRS," said Steven T. Miller, Acting IRS Commissioner.Grant has served as the TE/GE Deputy Director since 2007. As TE/GE Commissioner, Grant willoversee the administ ration of tax law rela ting to employee plans, tax-exempt orga nizations and various government entities. TE/GE serves approximately 3 million organizations.Grant originally joined the IRS in August 2005 as director of the Employee Plans Rulings &amp; Agreements division. Before that, he was Chief Operating Officer and a Deputy Executive Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Grant also served on the staff of the Oversightand Social Security subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee.In Appeals, Kay will serve as the Chief after serving as the Deputy Chief of Appeals since his returnto the IRS in May 2011.Kay was formerly a member of the Sutherland's Tax Practice Group, focusing on tax controversyissues, including IRS procedures, dispute resolutions and tax litigation matters. He also served asthe IRS District Counsel for the Georgia District where he was the primary legal representative for theDistrict Director, the Director of the Atlanta Service Center, and the Chiefs of Appeals, Collection,Criminal Investigation and Examination Divisions.The mission of the IRS Appeals organization is to resolve tax controversies, without litigation, on abasis which is fair and impartial to both the government and the taxpayer. Appeals handles andresolves more than 100,000 taxpayer cases a year But here's something http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9f0_1368803314 cajunmojo OFFICIAL IN CHARGE OF IRS OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONSERVATIVE TARGETING NOW HEADS AGENCY'S <span class="highlight">OBAMACARE</span> OFFICE IRS, Obamcare, democrats, liberals Sat, 18 May 2013 07:52:37 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e93_1368877628 dfaugust matthews On Obama: All Scandals Ultimately His Responsibility http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/05/15/Matthews-On-Obama-The-Steering-Wheel-Doesnt-Control-the-Car-All-Ultimately-His-Responsibility http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e93_1368877628 dfaugust Has chrissie &quot;tingles&quot; matthews turned racist? chris matthews, barak hussein obama, hillary clinton, democRATs, bengahzi, AP, obamacare, hillarycare, IRS, scandals Sat, 18 May 2013 07:50:42 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=342_1368877693 ConspiracyTardLL This video review of Obama highlights some of the most important lies from Obama http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=342_1368877693 ConspiracyTardLL Four Years of Lies in one Video Barack Obama, Lies, Obamacare, Benghazi, IRS Wed, 15 May 2013 19:19:36 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=650_1368659795 ConspiracyTardLL OK Sen. Tom Coburn weighs in. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=650_1368659795 ConspiracyTardLL Health Care Law Under Scrutiny Amid Widening IRS Probe Obamacare, IRS, Scandal Sat, 18 May 2013 08:07:27 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cfb_1368878466 Detroit Iron Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life, a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious. By Mark Steyn Speaking at Ohio State University earlier this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who "incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity." Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he "learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this." Like you, all he knows is what he reads in the papers. Which is odd, because his Justice Department is bugging those same papers, so you'd think he'd at least get a bit of a heads-up. But no doubt the fact that he's wiretapping the Associated Press was also entirely unknown to him until he read about it in the Associated Press. There is a "president of the United States" and a "government of the United States," but, despite a certain superficial similarity in their names, they are entirely unrelated, like Beyonc'e Knowles and Admiral Sir Charles Knowles. One golfs, reads the prompter, parties with Jay-Z, and guests on the Pimp with a Limp show, and the other audits you, bugs your telephone line, and leaks your confidential tax records. But they're two completely separate sinister entities. So it's preposterous to describe Obama as Nixonian: Beyonc'e wouldn't have given Nixon the time of day.If you believe this, there's a shovel-ready infrastructure project in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. In April last year, the Obama campaign identified by name eight Romney donors as "a group of wealthy individuals with less than reputable records. Quite a few have been on the wrong side of the law, others have made profits at the expense of so many Americans, and still others are donating to help ensure Romney puts beneficial policies in place for them." That week, Kimberley Strassel began her Wall Street Journal column thus: Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check. Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. . . . The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money. Miss Strassel wrote that on April 26, 2012. Five weeks later, one of the named individuals, Frank VanderSloot, was informed by the IRS that he and his wife were being audited. In July, he was told by the Department of Labor of an additional audit over the guest workers on his cattle ranch in Idaho. In September, he was notified that one of his other businesses was to be audited. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never previously been audited, attracted three in the four months after being publicly named by el Presidente . More to the point he attracted that triple audit even though Miss Strassel explicitly predicted in America's biggest-selling newspaper that this was exactly what the Obama enforcers were going to do. The "separate, sinister entity" of the government of the United States went ahead anyway. What do they care? If some lippy broad in the papers won't quit her yapping about it, they can always audit her, too - as they did to Miss Strassel's sometime colleague Anne Hendershott, a sociology professor who got rather too interested in Obamacare and wrote about it in the Journal and various small Catholic publications. The IRS summoned Professor Hendershott to account for herself, and forbade her husband from accompanying her, even though they filed jointly. She ceased her political writing. A year after he was named to the Obama Dishonor Roll, the feds have found nothing on Mr. VanderSloot, but they have caused him to rack up 80 grand in legal bills. This is what IRS defenders (of whom there are more than there ought to be) mean when they assure us that the system worked: Yes, some rich guy had to blow through the best part of six figures fending off the bureaucrats, but it's not like his body was found in a trunk at the airport or anything, if you know what I mean, Kimmy baby. Mr. VanderSloot is big enough, just about, to see off the most powerful government on the planet. Most of those who've caught the eye of the IRS share nothing in common with him other than his political preferences. They're nobodies - ordinary American citizens guilty of no crime except that of disagreeing with the ruling party. Yet they were asked, under "penalty of perjury," to disclose the names of books they were reading and provide the names and addresses of relatives who might be planning to run for public office - a kind of pre-enemies list. Is that banana-republic enough for you yet? Not apparently for Juan Williams, fired from NPR for thought crime a couple of years ago, but who was nevertheless energetically defending the IRS exertions on Fox News on Thursday evening. Left-wing groups had their 501(c)(4) applications approved in weeks, right-wing groups were delayed for months and years and ordered to cough up everything from donor lists to Facebook posts, and those right-wing groups that were approved had their IRS files leaked to left-wing groups like ProPublica. The agency's commissioner, a slippery weasel called Steven Miller, conceded before Congress that this was "horrible customer service" - which it was in the sense that your call is important to him and may be monitored by George Soros for quality control.A civil "civil service" requires small government. Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious. The U.S. tax code ought to be an abomination to any free society, but the American people have become reconciled to it because of a complex web of so-called exemptions that massively empower the vast shadow state of the permanent bureaucracy. Under a simple tax system, your income is a legitimate tax issue. Under the IRS, everything is a legitimate tax issue: The books you read, the friends you recommend them to. There are no correct answers, only approved answers. Drew Ryun applied for permanent non-profit status for a group called "Media Trackers" in July 2011. Fifteen months later, he'd heard nothing. So he applied again under the eco-friendly name of "Greenhouse Solutions," and was approved in three weeks. The president and the IRS commissioner are unable to name any individual who took the decision to target only conservative groups. It just kinda sorta happened, and, once it had, it growed like Topsy. But the lady who headed that office, Sarah Hall Ingram, is now in charge of the IRS office for Obamacare. Many countries around the world have introduced government health systems since 1945, but, as I wrote here last year, "only in America does 'health' 'care' 'reform' begin with the hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents tasked with determining whether your insurance policy merits a fine." So now not only are your books and Facebook posts legitimate tax issues but so is your hernia, and your prostate, and your erectile dysfunction. Next time round, the IRS will be able to leak your incontinence pads to George Soros. Big Government is erecting a panopticon state - one that sees everything, and regulates everything. It's great "customer service," except that you can never get out of the store. - Mark Steyn , a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon . (c) 2013 Mark Steyn http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348687/autocrat-accountants-mark-steyn/page/0/1 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cfb_1368878466 Detroit Iron The Autocrat Accountants Barack Obama, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Justice Department, SEC Fri, 17 May 2013 12:27:12 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=48f_1368806567 Brockk Democratic Party Marches in Washington DC 1928 Fear And IntimidationThe apple does not fall far from the tree Remember your roots Representative Paul Ryan was my guest Thursday and we covered a lot of ground. The transcript will be posted ASAP below. On the question of DOJ's snooping of the House press gallery, Representative Ryan replied to my question about it: "Of course I'm troubled. Are you kidding?" Most of the MSM hasn't figured out yet that if the DOJ can grab the press phone records originating from the House, they can grab any phone record coming out of the Hill. Ryan also comments on the impact on the election of the manipulation of the Benghazi attack by the White House and on the IRS scandal. For additional background on the IRS scandal, read this post and this post by Carol Platt Liebau, and this post by National Review's Kevin Williamson, for background on Benghazi this post by Powerline's John Hinderaker, and for the impact of all the scandals on the president this important column by Peggy Noonan. Transcript of the Paul Ryan interview: HH: Joining me, a member of the Ways And Means Committee, and of course, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan. Congressman, welcome back, good to talk to you. PR: Hey, Hugh, how have you been? Good to see you, or good to be with you, excuse me. I guess I can't see you. Good to hear you. HH: Thank you. I want to begin with what my colleague, Carol Platt Liebau at Townhall.com has pinned as the key thing thus far in the IRS scandal. On August 4th, 2011, Obama appointee Williams Wilkins, who is chief counsel of the IRS, was briefed on the political targeting of conservative groups. Now he's a well-trained lawyer. PR: Right. HH: Could he possibly have learned of this and not informed the White House, in your view, Paul Ryan? PR: We're going to find out. You know, I don't know the answer to the question, but I can tell you this, we're going to find out the answer to these questions. The reason we know about this already is because of the Ways And Means Committee and the oversight and research we've been doing, which prompted the Inspector General report. We had hearings last year in the Ways And Means Committee where we asked the commissioner about this, and they just denied it. And so they have had a couple of opportunities since that moment you just, you know, since then, to affirm, confirm or deny with Congress whether this happened or not. They denied it. So there's a lot we have left to learn. They can try and have disciplinary action, they can call for resignations. Those things are necessary. But they're not enough. And Hugh, this goes much bigger than this. And this is unfortunately the kind of thing you have with a big government and a really bad tax code. And you know, we have a government that's working for itself, not for the people. And the IRS is fishing around people's private lives, it's approving the groups it likes and harassing the groups it doesn't. That's not who we are. HH: Congressman, Peggy Noonan, in a piece that went online minutes ago, and will be in the paper tomorrow, writes we are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. And she writes, as it always comes down to trust, do you trust the President's answers when he's pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not. And it goes on to say look, these are his agencies. The IRS and the Justice Department answer to him. Does he set the tone? PR: Of course he sets the tone. This isn't just about incompetence, though. This is about an overreach. This is about a government that has gone beyond its scope, and this also speaks to the philosophy of government that's at play here in Washington. And if you want to have a government that does everything for you, they've got to know everything about you. If you want to have a government that should be in the position of picking winners and losers, well then, they will pick winners and losers. And so it's not a story just about incompetence. It's about overreach. You know, big government is bad in theory, but it's much worse in practice. And effective government, that is good government that's limited, focuses in on our core duties. So this speaks to more than just, you know, did they do this to conservative groups before an election to try and give themselves an advantage? It also goes beyond that to, you know, bureaucrats are making decisions for us on behalf of government, not on behalf of the people. And so... HH: Now Congressman, I've heard... PR: That's, to me, a bigger, the bigger issue here. HH: I have heard from people that the SEC has targeted Romney/Ryan supporters. I have heard, and I know for a fact about the EPA scandals and the fake ID's, and the selective FOIA requests. I was told by Rob Portman yesterday about the HHS Obamacare fundraising scandal. PR: Right. HH: It's everywhere. How vast is this culture of intimidation and corruption? PR: I get the sense that we're just at the tip of the iceberg here. And this is why we're going to do this methodically, we're going to do this the right way, we're not going to be passioned or partisan. We're going to do our jobs as the representatives of the people, you know, the legislative branch of government doing our Constitutional duty of conducting oversight of the executive branch. The executive branch has clearly overreached. This seems more like a pattern than a couple of one-off events that a couple of rogue people in Cincinnati. It clearly goes bigger than that. And we're going to painstakingly go through this system and find out just how deep this is. But I would say at the core of the system is a government that is spending beyond its reach. HH: Now many hearings have you set aside? And how far into the summer are they scheduled? PR: Well, we're in the middle of planning all of that. And so we're just trying to collect as much information as we can right now in the Ways And Means Committee. There's a lot of people we've got to talk to, a lot of people that have to be deposed, and a lot of evidence that has to be gathered. And so just like a good investigation, you go where the evidence shows you. And here's the point we're trying to get at. We need to restore accountability, trust and transparency to government. And that means you have to get answers. That's what Benghazi is all about, getting to the actual answers so things like this do not happen again. HH: Speaking of Benghazi... PR: Tomorrow, we're holding a hearing in the Ways and Means, we're going to hold the IRS accountable, we're going to ask tough questions, but we're going to keep going. And we also need to ask deeper questions. I hope we don't lose the moment to ask deeper questions. What is the government's role? What should it be doing? And what shouldn't it be doing? We can get this right, and people deserve a government that supports them. Families deserve real security. They deserve a government that treats them equally, and that's not what we're getting right now. HH: Now Congressman, speaking of Benghazi, John Hinkeraker of Powerline is coming up after this, and he's gone through the emails. They're a MacGuffin. They reveal that they intended at the White House to mislead Congress in the election narrative, but they don't tell us where this, the video narrative came from. You were living in the middle of that campaign. As you look back at this, how great a degree of deception was being practiced and organized at Team Obama concerning Benghazi? PR: Well, I mean, now what I know, I didn't know this then, of course, but what I know now is that there was clearly an attempt to dissuade the country from thinking this was terrorism. The question is who made the decision to tell our U.N. ambassador to go on the Sunday shows and say this was just some spontaneous mob, there's nothing to see here, don't worry about it, it's not terrorism. And then there are the issues, the even bigger issues, which is what could have been done to save these lives that evening, especially the two guys who were killed later on, and what wasn't done, and why were those decisions made. And then who's decision was it to basically put out information that they knew not to be true? We heard that from the campaign. I don't want to sound like some sore loser about the campaign, but I don't want my government, as an American citizen, telling me things that they know aren't true. I don't want my government picking winners and losers for IRS oversight to harass people because of their political views. That's what a banana republic does. That's not what the United States of America should be doing. And so if we want to make sure that this kind of banana republic thuggish behavior doesn't continue, then we in the Congress are going to do our jobs and hold people accountable. HH: I'm not asking you to be sour grapes here, and I heard you say that. But do you believe the manipulation of the Benghazi story resulted, impacted the election outcome? PR: Well, I think, of course, I think it had impacts. I can't say whether this was, I don't know that anybody could say that it was the factor. I don't think that you could say that. But if people knew all of these facts that we now know, and there's more to find out, then, if we knew then what we know now, do I think that could have changed some opinion? Do I think that would have changed the direction of public opinion? Sure. Of course. But I can't, I have no idea whether it would have changed the outcome or not. HH: Your colleague, Devin Nunes, was on the program yesterday, and brought to my attention what I had not realized, which is the extent of this snooping on AP reached the House of Representatives. PR: Yeah. HH: And he used the wrong term. He said wiretapping. He meant snooping, because they just swept up the phone records. Does that shock you that the DOJ without a court order and on their own initiative, swept up the phone records of the House of Representatives? PR: Well, it's the Cloak Room, excuse me, it's not the Cloak room where members of Congress used the phones. They call it the Press Gallery, which is not far from the Cloak Room. It's in the same House floor, it's off the House floor. But my understanding is they took the records of the House Press Gallery AP. Members of Congress use the phones in what we call the Cloak Room. I don't think they took those records. So I don't think you could say they swept up the records of members of Congress' phone calls. They took the records of AP reporters in the House Gallery who were doing, were reporting on Congress. HH: But if they can do that, if they can go into the House, can't... PR: Yeah, look, I'm not making an excuse. I'm just trying to make sure that we're accurate here. HH: Does it trouble you? PR: Of course it troubles me. Are you kidding me? Look, this is why, again, the point I'm trying to make here is let's not think of this as just, oh gosh, some bad people at the IRS did those dumb things, and then oh, some overzealous prosecutor at the Justice Department did that, and oh, gosh, you know, some low level person at the State Department did this. We should not be thinking like that. We should be thinking this is what you get with big government in practice. This is what you get when you have a government that just has gone beyond its moorings, that has gone beyond its scope, and this is the kind of government you get with progressive politics. And that's just not in keeping with our Constitution. That's not what we deserve. We want equality under the law, and that's not what we're getting, whether we're a reporter, a taxpayer, or a citizen. HH: Congressman Paul Ryan, we will be watching the Ways And Means Committee hearing tomorrow with great, great interest. Thanks for joining us. End of interview. http://www.hughhewitt.com/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=48f_1368806567 Brockk Democratic Party Marches in Washington DC 1928 Fear,Intimidation Thu, 16 May 2013 10:26:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c6a_1368712645 Luke 22 36 AlfonZo Rachel addresses the developing scandal at Obama's IRS. Is it time to find sources of revenue other than income taxes? Find out. ----------------------- Books, Media Interviews, and Phone Calls: Tea Party Groups Describe to Us the Detailed Information Demanded by the IRS http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/16/books-media-interviews-and-phone-calls-tea-party-groups-describe-the-detailed-information-demanded-by-the-irs/ --------------------------------------------------------- Story of Anchor Who Claimed IRS Intimidation Has Taken a Weird Twist http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/story-of-anchor-who-claimed-irs-intimidation-has-taken-a-weird-twist/ ------------------------------------------------------------- See Some of the Outrageous Requests the IRS Made to Tea Party Groups http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/see-some-of-the-outrageous-requests-the-irs-made-to-tea-party-groups/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'No Trust': How Does the IRS 'Inquisition' Impact ObamaCare? http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/no-trust-how-does-the-irs-inquisition-impact-obamacare/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Which Prominent Faith Leader Is Now Claiming to Have Been Targeted by the IRS? http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/un-american-prominent-christian-leader-claims-his-organizations-were-also-targeted-by-the-irs/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's the Much-Anticipated IG Report on the IRS' Political Targeting http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/heres-the-much-anticipated-ig-report-on-the-irs-political-targeting/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IRS Released Confidential Info About Conservative Groups to Media Last Year http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/irs-released-confidential-info-about-conservative-groups-to-media-last-year/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Local News Reporter: IRS Started 'Hammering' Me After Tough Obama Interview http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/local-news-reporter-irs-started-hammering-me-after-tough-obama-interview/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- How High Up Does This Go? New Report Implicates Washington Officials in IRS Scandal http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/how-high-up-does-this-go-new-report-implicates-washington-officials-in-irs-scandal/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Revealed: Read the Letter the IRS Sent to One Local Tea Party and the Detailed Demands It Made http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/revealed-see-the-letter-the-irs-sent-to-one-local-tea-party-and-the-detailed-demands-it-made/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tea Party Attorney: IRS Questions Are 'Far Left Wish List'...Scandal Is 'Ongoing' http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/tea-party-attorney-irs-questions-are-far-left-wish-list-scandal-is-ongoing/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Was The White House Caught in a Lie About IRS Shakedown of Conservative Groups? http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/was-the-white-house-caught-in-a-lie-about-irs-shakedown-of-conservative-groups/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Real News' and 'Wilkow' IRS Scandal Coverage Highlights http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/real-news-and-wilkow-irs-scandal-coverage-highlights/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Sinister' and 'Chilling': MSNBC Host Takes Aim at DOJ's Secretive Seizure of AP Phone Records http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/sinister-and-chilling-msnbc-host-takes-aim-at-dojs-secretive-seizure-of-ap-phone-records/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 'No Possible Justification': Associated Press Livid After DOJ Secretly Obtains 2 Months of Its Phone Records http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/no-possible-justification-associated-press-livid-after-doj-secretly-obtains-2-months-of-its-phone-records/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c6a_1368712645 Luke 22 36 AlfonZo Rachel: Obama IRS Scandal Uncovers the Ugly Side of Income Taxes AlfonZo Rachel, Obama, Tax, IRS, Tyranny. Wed, 15 May 2013 22:07:59 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6b6_1368669678 Detroit Iron Posted 06:49 PM ET Tyranny: Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the president's parade of scandals is that just days before they broke, he mocked as paranoid those concerned about government excesses. On May 5, while giving the commencement address at Ohio State University, President Obama advised graduates to put all their trust in government and reject those shrill "voices" that say it's the source of our problems. Ignore these limited-government types, he told the class of 2013, who warn "tyranny lurks just around the corner." Only, Obama himself has proved our fears are well-founded. Government, particularly governance by this rogue regime, needs more checks, not fewer; more skepticism, not less. Tyranny isn't lurking around the corner. It's now upon us, manifest in the pattern of misuse and abuse of government power by this presidency, as revealed in its: o Siccing the IRS on its political enemies. o Seizing the home phone records of journalists. o Opening more criminal investigations of press leaks than all previous presidents combined. o Intimidating and silencing government whistle-blowers. o Doctoring CIA intelligence reports to cover up national security failures. o Framing private lenders and other businesses for civil-rights violations. o Funneling settlement funds from banks to Democrat nonprofit groups who weren't even party to cases, including those that exist solely to shake down banks for risky loans and payola. o Interfering in and sabotaging Supreme Court cases to protect unconstitutional prosecutorial weapons used against financial institutions. o Running guns to foreign druglords and covering up their link to a federal agent's death. It's no coincidence that the political timelines of the IRS and Justice Department fishing expeditions, as well as the Benghazi cover-up, all line up with Democrat political campaigns. This is the government we have trusted to be the custodian of our personal medical records? This is the government we have trusted to police every consumer credit transaction? It is imperative that Republicans now move legislation to repeal ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, while immediately blocking further funding to enforce and implement new health and financial regulations. As we have warned over and over again in the last four years, this is an exceedingly power-hungry president who has no respect for the Constitution or rule of law. He will continue to run roughshod over our individual rights and economic freedoms - if we continue to let him. Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/051513-656191-obama-scandals-show-pattern-of-power-abuse.htm#ixzz2TPwQOOui Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6b6_1368669678 Detroit Iron A Pattern Of Power Abuse President Obama, Tue, 14 May 2013 09:12:14 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9f6_1368536416 Detroit Iron The White House spokesman founders in front of a newly curious press corps. MAY 14, 2013 4:00 AM By Charles C. W. Cooke Thank you for that question," White House spokesman Jay Carney said feebly when, early in Friday's press conference, the issue of Benghazi was raised. And then he reflexively tried to recruit the questioner to his side. Look, Carney insisted, those darned Republicans are involved in an "ongoing attempt to politicize a tragedy that took four American lives." We're not going to fall into their trap and ask questions of the administration, are we? We're not like those other outlets that are engaged in a "pattern of spreading misinformation." Right, guys?Evidently, Carney had not yet realized that things had changed. What had been a fringe story had by now gone mainstream: The New Yorker had written that new evidence "seriously undermines the White House's credibility on this issue"; ABC News's Jonathan Karl had averred that developments "directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said . . . in November"; Thursday's Morning Joe panel had agreed that the news was troubling for the White House; and George Will was gearing up to go onto the Sunday shows and complain that the nation had been "systematically misled." Newly intrigued, the assembled press corps ignored Carney's ploy; so, too, his flippant, Obamaesque insistence that "efforts to re-fight the political battles of the past are not looked on kindly by the American people." Benghazi might well have "happened a long time ago," as Carney hilariously assured the media on May 1, but the fourth estate was now interested.Cutting short the dismissal, Jim Acosta of CNN inquired of Carney why the State Department had removed Anshar al-Sharia's name from the CIA's story, and what the discovery of this edit has done to the credibility of the White House. "References to that group are removed from the conversation and don't make their way into the talking points," Acosta argued. "That is not a stylistic edit. That is not a single adjustment as you said back in November. That is a major, dramatic change to the information." "I appreciate the question and the opportunity," Carney said, twitching slightly and starting to go red. But apparently he didn't appreciate it enough to answer it. Nor to take the opportunity to admit that his prior claim that "the CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted" them - and that only "stylistic and non-substantive" changes were made from outside - was demonstrably false. At the fork in the road, Carney once again chose the well-worn low way. Acosta was visibly unimpressed. Here it became clear that we were in it for the long haul. "Let me just follow up on this once and for all," he eventually asked. "Do you promise once and for all?" pleaded Carney. "Maybe not ," Acosta shot back. "You are comfortable with the way you characterized this back in November? That this was a single adjustment?" "I do. I do stand by it," Carney replied. "Jay, you told us that the only changes were stylistic," asserted ABC's Jonathan Karl, who earlier in the day had mainstreamed the yeoman's work of The Weekly Standard 's Stephen F. Hayes. (Hayes had blown the lid off the talking-points deception almost a week before, to little public thanks.) "Is it a 'stylistic' change to take out all references to previous terror threats in Benghazi?" Karl asked. "I appreciate the question again ," Carney answered, closing his eyes and twitching a little. "I accept that 'stylistic' might not precisely describe a change of one word to another . . . " Bristling, Karl interrupted, observing that the original talking points referred to al-Qaeda and to Anshar al-Sharia and had "extensive discussion of the previous threats of terrorist attacks in Benghazi." A new set of talking points, "based on input from the State department" was written, Karl added. It featured none of those things. "Do you deny that?" he jabbed. "I've answered this question several times now," Carney pretended. "I'm happy to answer it again if you'll let me?" he continued. Looking anything but happy to answer it, Carney started to list the branches of government involved in the draft. Then he moved back to blaming Republicans for creating a "distraction." Frequently, Carney attempted to assure the press that the government's talking points had been carefully put together in order to make "concretely for sure" that no mistakes were made. After all, he insisted, we weren't sure who did it, so the aim was "limiting the talking points to what we knew, as opposed to speculation about what may or may not have been, in the end, relevant to what happened in Benghazi." The message: Better "not include things we could not be sure of." Like blaming protests on a YouTube video, perhaps? The only thing that was inaccurate about his previous assertions, Carney insisted, was his claim that there were anti-video demonstrations outside the Benghazi compound on September 11 last year. Besides, he continued, Republicans are wrong to accuse the White House of "playing down an act of terror and an attack on the embassy," because "the president himself" took to the Rose Garden on September 12 and told the country that the attack was an "act of terror."This was quite an astonishing thing for Carney to repeat, not just because the CBS transcript is available to anyone who cares to look it up but also because Carney himself claimed on September 14 that the attack "was a response to a YouTube video." Worse, five days after that, he told the press: Our belief based on the information we have is it was the video that caused the unrest in Cairo, and the video and the unrest in Cairo that helped - that precipitated some of the unrest in Benghazi and elsewhere. What other factors were involved is a matter of investigation. This line was repeated at least once by Hillary Clinton, many times by Susan Rice, and, on September 26, by President Obama in his speech to the United Nations. We are thus supposed to believe that the government was so " about the integrity of the investigation," to use Carney's peculiar words, that it removed all the suspects from public discussion while simultaneously blaming the attack on a video. Among their many claimed sins, Republicans also drew Carney's ire for "leaking" information "for political reasons." "That's their prerogative," he sniffed. But this disgust at leaks struck a false note, given that the White House had held a secret meeting just a few minutes earlier in which it passed - "for political reasons"? - unattributable information to reporters. Just a few minutes before Carney's on-air press conference, Politico 's Dylan Byers reported : The White House held a "deep background" briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon to discuss recent revelations about the Benghazi investigation, sources familiar with the meeting tell POLITICO. . . . I asked Earnest to explain the meaning of "deep background," as defined by the White House, for my readers. He emails: "Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can't be quoted." At times, Carney veered into abject nonsense: The effort is always to, in that circumstance, and with an ongoing investigation and a lot of information, some of it accurate, some of it not, about what had happened and who was responsible, to provide information for members of Congress and others in the administration, for example, who might speak publicly about it that was based on only what the intelligence community could say for sure it thought it knew. Glad we got that cleared up, then. Until those damnable journalists got involved, May 10 had been billed by the White House as "Health Care Day" - a happy occasion on which the virtues of Obamacare were to be extolled. It was not to be. Six months late, curiosity about Benghazi finally intruded on the president's parade. "A throne," Napoleon held, "is only a bench covered with velvet." If the president is to ride this one out, Jay Carney is going to have to start nailing that velvet back down. - Charles C. W. Cooke is an editorial associate at National Review . http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348217/jay-carney%E2%80%99s-waterloo/page/0/1 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9f6_1368536416 Detroit Iron Jay Carney's Waterloo ojay carney Mon, 13 May 2013 23:41:55 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d25_1368502690 Detroit Iron By Juliet Eilperin and Zachary A. Goldfarb , Updated: Monday, May 13, 8:09 PMInternal 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. IRS officials at the agency's Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show. IRS employees in Cincinnati told conservatives seeking the status of "social welfare" groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists. Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters Friday that the "absolutely inappropriate" actions were undertaken by "front-line people" working in Cincinnati to target groups with "tea party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names. In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed a lawyer representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application was under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in Washington and California sent conservative groups detailed questionnaires about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents. "For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false," saidCleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firmFoley &amp; Lardner who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote. Moreover, details of the IRS's efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -(TIGTA) on the details of their reviews. Then-Commissioner Douglas Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who stepped down in November, received a briefing from the TIGTA about what was happening in the Cincinnati office in May 2012, the aides said. His deputy and the agency's current acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, also learned about the matter that month, the aides said. The officials did not share details with Republican lawmakers who had been demanding to know whether the IRS was targeting conservative groups, Republicans said. "I wrote to the IRS three times last year after hearing concerns that conservative groups were being targeted," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Monday. "In response to the first letter I sent with some of my colleagues, Steven Miller, the current Acting IRS Commissioner, responded that these groups weren't being targeted." "Knowing what we know now," he added, "the IRS was at best being far from forth coming, or at worst, being deliberately dishonest with Congress." As new details emerged Monday, Democrats and Republicans alike decried the agency's actions as an unacceptable abuse of power. In a news conference Monday, President Obama said he learned of the investigating in media reports on Friday and has "no patience with it." "If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous," Obama said. "And there's no place for it. And they have to be held fully accountable." White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday that the White House counsel's office learned of an upcoming IRS inspector general's report on April 22 as part of a routine notification but had not received access to the report. On Capitol Hill, two Senate panels - the Finance Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - announced Monday that they will investigate. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Ways and Means Committee have been looking into reports of IRS attempts to single out organizations on the right for heightened scrutiny. Ways and Means has called IRS officials to testify Friday. "These actions by the IRS are an outrageous abuse of power and a breach of the public's trust," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). "The IRS will now be the ones put under additional scrutiny." Separately, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) introducedcompanion bills Monday that would require the IRS to fire any employee found "willfully" violating "the constitutional rights of a taxpayer," according to statements by both lawmakers. The bills also would make them criminally liable for their actions. Even as Obama vowed that his administration "will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this," however, the IRS offered no new information on how it selected which groups to single out for scrutiny. The White House is legally barred from contacting the IRS about a tax matter, under a prohibition adopted after the Watergate scandal. And although it can contact the Treasury Department about tax issues, neither Treasury nor the IRS can disclose specific taxpayer information. The IRS can release information about a petition for tax- exempt status only after it has been approved. Obama is not in a position to remove Lerner, a career official who can be terminated for cause only under normal civil service proceedings. The IRS has two political appointees: the commissioner, who serves a five-year term, and the chief counsel. As the IRS came under broader political attack Monday, more details surfaced on how the exempt-organizations division struggled to determine which nonprofits should receive "social welfare" status after the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling. That decision, which allowed corporations and unions to raise and spend un-limited amounts of money on elections, opened the door for groups to accept undisclosed contributions as long as their "primary purpose" was not politics. In a Jan. 9, 2012, letter to the Richmond Tea Party, IRS specialist Stephen Seok asked questions including "the names of the donors, contributors and grantors," as well as the size of the contributions and grants, and when they were given. Richmond Tea Party President Larry Nordvig, whose group applied for tax-exempt status in December 2009 and received it in July 2012, said the extended inquiry had "a very chilling effect" on how much money the group could raise because its donors preferred anonymity. The Wetumpka Tea Party of Alabama experienced a two-year delay after submitting its initial application. Becky Gerritson, a 44-year-old stay-at-home mother and the group's president, said the IRS sent a questionnaire asking for the names of all volunteers, donor identification and contribution amounts, the names of any legislators its members had communicated with directly or indirectly, and the contents of all speeches its members had made, among a long list of other details. "I was outraged," Gerritson said. "Being an election year, I felt like it was intimidation." The group did not provide the information. Approval came only after the group sought help from the American Center for Law and Justice, which threatened a lawsuit against the IRS, Gerritson said. Although some of the groups were explicitly labeled "tea party" or "patriot," others that came under intense scrutiny were focused on challenging the Affordable Care Act - known by many as Obamacare - or the integrity of federal elections. In a June 3, 2011, letter to the IRS, Mitchell questioned the agency's motivations for delaying recognition of one of her clients who had filed nearly two years earlier, writing, "Is the opposition to Obamacare and the takeover of America's healthcare system by the government the reason that this application has been held up and not approved?" Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the Houston-based True the Vote, first filed for tax-exempt status in July 2010. At one point, Engelbrecht - who is still awaiting a determination from the IRS regarding her voting rights organization and a separate tea party group, King Street Patriots - said an IRS employee informed her: "I'm just doing what Washington is telling me to do. I'm just asking what they want me to ask." The IRS did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Josh Hicks and Julie Tate contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-denounces-reported-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/2013/05/13/a0185644-bbdf-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story_2.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d25_1368502690 Detroit Iron IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups IRS, Obama