[speechlesstx]

In the next election will the IRS again target conservative groups for intrusive scrutiny?

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

"Oops, we're sorry the most feared government agency in the country harassed you inappropriately during an election, we didn't know anything about it."

[smoothy]

Want to bet not one person got fired over that? If anyone targeted the left wing groups you know they would have been calling for heads to roll.

[speechlesstx]

Karen Tumulty with WaPo has already tweeted that there will be no disciplinary action. .

[tomder55]

Wasn't that one of the articles of impeachment for Nixon ? I think it was.

[smoothy]

Watergate Articles Of Impeachment

Read article 2... most of the stuff Nizxon was Impeached for Obama openly engages in doing...

Including using the IRS to get even with his opponents...

Also notice the Similarities in Filegate Hillary was the center of.

Article 2

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.

This conduct has included one or more of the following:
1.He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

2.He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.

3.He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.

4.He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President.

5.In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Adopted 28-10 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

[speechlesstx]

wasn't that one of the articles of impeachment for Nixon ? I think it was.

I think that's a yes.

[talaniman]

Wake up from your right wing fantasy.

[smoothy]

Obama isn't a god.. and he's not above the laws of man... and he certainly isn't better or superior to Nixon... in fact Nixon was a far better President and man and did far more and far better things than Obama ever has and ever will.

In fact Hitler had far more Positive accomplishments than Obama has.

After all nobody died in Watergate... in Benghazigate 4 people died... if people got impeached and went to jail over something as minor as Watrergate was... there should be mass exicutions for Benghazigate.

[speechlesstx]

Wake up from your right wing fantasy.

Yeah, if the IRS was targeting leftist groups you'd have a much different tone. Doesn't matter how corrupt this administration is, you don't give a crap.

[talaniman]

To be accurate I don't give crap about your conspiracy crap! From the link supplied,

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

The IRS statement said that once applications were chosen for review, they all "received the same, even-handed treatment."

Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.

"Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale," the IRS said in a statement. "We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system."

At least spare us the crying until the investigations are done.

[paraclete]

Your paranoia knows no bounds

[speechlesstx]

Tal, take the blinders off. It's sad watching you defend such obvious corruption.

[smoothy]

your paranoia knows no bounds

Its not paranoia when they (the IRS) came out and publicly admitted they were targeting Conservatives specifically for harassment themselves.

That makes it a proven fact it was happening..

[paraclete]

So there are no democrats in the IRS?

[tomder55]

To be accurate I don't give crap about your conspiracy crap! From the link supplied,



At least spare us the crying until the investigations are done.

Ummm... if they weren't intentionally targeting conservative groups ,there would've been no need for an apology when they got caught. This is at the very beginning of the probe now that the rock has been over-turned and the roaches are scattering . Time for demands for FOIA releases of internal documents and e-mails to find out the extent of this conspiracy to persecute Tea Party groups for their political views. I'm specifically interested in determining if this was just a group of over zealous functionaries ,or if they got direction further up the food chain. I suspect the later .

[speechlesstx]

You should take a look at the scope of overreach in the info demanded of these groups. Issa highlighted 16 areas.

http://media.aclj.org/pdf/issa-jorda...tionnaires.pdf

[talaniman]

According to your link, conservative groups were targeted one of four out of 300. Do you have facts that show the Tparty was exclusively picked out?

You should take a look at the scope of overreach in the info demanded of these groups. Issa highlighted 16 areas.

http://media.aclj.org/pdf/issa-jorda...tionnaires.pdf

Looks like standard house investigation instructions to me.

[speechlesstx]

Uh, according to my first link the IRS ADMITTED to targeting "about 75 groups." Get your head out of the sand.

[paraclete]

Where do you think they are going to look? They are going to target the rich guys because they are the tax evaders, so they happen to be republicans, go figure, some one has to be at the head of the list. You think it is a lottery?

[smoothy]

Where do you think they are going to look? they are going to target the rich guys because they are the tax evaders, so they happen to be republicans, go figure, some one has to be at the head of the list. You think it is a lottery?

They weren't targeting George Soros and left wing organizations... they weren't targeting Hollywood... they weren't targeting Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry... or Barrak Obama...

LOTS of money in those places. Lots of socialists there so those should be at the TOP of the list.