Posted by Tina
My blog duties and a frustrating intermittent web connection did not allow me to watch the IRS hearings last night. I have barely been able to catch a few excerpts on the TV news, radio, and the web. Trey Gowdy is one fine legal mind, I do know that!
Since I am a bit behind the curve on recent revelations it was significant to me to find the above headline in the Washington Post.
Mr. Gerson pulled no punches in describing the evidence gathered thus far and declared the reason that all Americans should not only be interested in this case but demanding an official inquiry into what looks like a case of severe abuses of power:
Why does this matter deserve heightened scrutiny from the rest of us? Because crimes against democracy are particularly insidious. Representative government involves a type of trade. As citizens, we cede power to public officials for important purposes that require centralized power: defending the country, imposing order, collecting taxes to promote the common good. In exchange, we expect public institutions to be evenhanded and disinterested. When the stewards of power — biased judges or corrupt policemen or politically motivated IRS officials — act unfairly, it undermines trust in the whole system.
Please share your thoughts about last evenings testy hearings.
Meanwhile the IRS was delivered a much deserved slap when it was fined $50,000 to settle a case in which it admitted “the unlawful release” of “confidential information” to an activist group. This admission of guilt is another indication of a politically activist and abusive IRS.
Off topic —
Another actor-genius gone. God bless Eli Wallach. The earth darkens. All my heroes are dying. I am not a happy camper today.
A TIGA report shows the IRS destroyed computer equipment they continued to pay maintenance fees on.
IRS Prematurely ‘Retired’ Data Storage Devices:
“The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prematurely “retired” computer data storage devices worth millions of dollars and filed “disposal” documents for computer hardware that still existed, according to an internal inspector general report reviewed by The Daily Caller.
IRS commissioner John Koskinen testified before Congress that ex-official Lois Lerner’s emails were lost in a June 2011 computer crash and that her hard drive storing those emails was “recycled.”
The IRS also claimed that it lost emails from six other employees due to separate computer crashes. U.S. Archivist David Ferriero said that the IRS “did not follow the law,” which requires government agencies to keep email records, to print out emails in case there’s a computer crash, and to notify Ferriero’s office when records are lost or destroyed.
The IRS, which spent $44.1 million in information technology (IT) hardware maintenance in fiscal year 2011 and $47.8 million in fiscal year 2012, closed out its six-year business relationship with the email archiving-and-recovery company Sonasoft in September 2011. Meanwhile, sophisticated data storage devices were being thrown away in the agency’s national IT offices in Maryland, even though the IRS was still paying for maintenance on the devices.
The IRS prematurely “retired” data-storage devices and filled out “disposal” documents for hardware that still existed and was supposed to still be in use, according to a Sept. 24, 2013 Treasury Inspector General (TIGTA) report entitled “Increased Oversight of Information Technology Hardware Maintenance Contracts Is Necessary To Ensure Against Paying for Unnecessary Services.”
“In another [maintenance] contract, 22 of 54 storage devices had been retired prior to the end of the service contract or were migrated to a separate storage contract as part of the IRS’s efforts to consolidate data storage,” according to TIGTA.
“When the contract was originally awarded in December 2009, it covered 54 storage devices with an average annual hardware maintenance cost of about $2.5 million,” according to the TIGTA report. ”The current list, dated April 1, 2013, showed 32 storage devices requiring maintenance. The decrease in the number of storage devices is due to the retirement of those hardware assets or the migration to a separate storage contract as part of IRS’s efforts to consolidate and share storage across the IRS.”
The IRS also filled out disposal documentation for IT devices that still existed.
“In another contract reviewed, we compared the asset listing to the information technology asset inventory system and identified four retired assets,” the TIGTA report stated. “The IRS provided the disposal documentation for these four retired assets showing that these assets were ‘written off’ because they could not be located during the inventory. However, as a result of our subsequent inquiries, the IRS confirmed that the assets existed and took steps to correct the information technology asset inventory management system by placing the assets into an ‘in use’ status.”
(Two pages)
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/25/irs-prematurely-retired-data-storage-devices/#ixzz35fAP6Q4m
Fox News Poll: Voters think IRS emails were deliberately destroyed:
“The consensus is: it’s no accident. More than three-quarters of voters — 76 percent — think the emails missing from the account of Lois Lerner, the ex-IRS official at the center of the scandal over targeting of conservative groups, were deliberately destroyed.
That suspicion is shared across party lines, albeit to varying degrees. An overwhelming 90 percent of Republicans think the emails were intentionally destroyed, as do 74 percent of independents and 63 percent of Democrats.
Overall, just 12 percent of voters believe the emails were destroyed accidentally. Another 12 percent are unsure.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/24/fox-news-poll-voters-think-irs-emails-were-deliberately-destroyed/
Pie you’re right…a great loss. RIP
Peggy the monumental importance of this scandal can’t be highlighted enough. I applaud Michael Gerson for voicing the dire implications if this scandal is not fully understood.
To that end it is inexcusable that our media is handling this story so nonchalantly. Had this occurred under ANY Republican administration we would be hammered on an hourly basis about the deviousness of an evil administration…political party highlighted prominently throughout the story!
One of the big stories today is that Diane Sawyer is leaving her current talking head post. Pathetic!
I’ll tell you where you’re going wrong here. It is not a scandal of “monumental importance”. It is merely a political scandal.
See … you roar and you flail … and people go: “Oh, please. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, uncovering of political shenanigans in a government bureaucracy.”
And it has been uncovered. And some remediation has already occurred. Poor Lois lost her job. Everybody else has been reminded about ethical conduct. (We need to be reminded … regularly.)
Now, if you could quite screeching and yowling and generally bloviating … which just undermines your position … you could maybe get people to agree that an independent investigation into this “data loss” is warranted.
It probably is, but you’re going to have to be more reasonable and even-handed about the situation … non-partisan, if you can possibly manage it, before anybody will take you seriously.
And, if it turns out that this data loss was the product of poor infrastructure, or negligence, or incompetence … you are going to have to accept that … and not continue to screech and yowl for an ensuing five years.
We are getting really, really, really tired of it. And you will be … just … as a political matter … excluded and ignored.
On topic —
A special prosecutor should be appointed and committee member Elijah Cummings should indicted as a co-conspirator.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/04/09/new-emaisl-show-lois-lerner-fed-information-about-true-the-vote-to-democrat-elijah-cummings-n1822247
Blame The Victim Libby Clown: You reek with the smell of desperation.
First the IRS, now the EPA trumps The Onion —
EPA: Um, yeah, we totally had a hard drive crash that wiped out crucial emails, too
http://www.humanevents.com/2014/06/25/epa-um-yeah-we-totally-had-a-hard-drive-crash-that-wiped-out-crucial-emails-too/
Libby: “. It is merely a political scandal. ”
No Libby. a political scandal is a scandal in which one political person or party perpetrates a crime against its opposition party or candidate.
This is a party perpetrating federal crimes against individual citizens or groups in order to influence the outcome of an election. Big difference…HUGE!
Watergate was a prank; the only crime was in the coverup, Nixon and pals doing it to themselves.
IRS targeting of private citizens involves government officials abusing their power to harass and intimidate, and to obstruct justice by delaying and denying determination of status. Civil rights have been infringed upon and civil servants have abused their power.
Andrew McCarthy discusses the nature of the unconstitutional activity and the possibility that criminal charges might also apply:
No Libby we should not collectively shrug…as you would not were this a Republican administration’s scheme!
A timeline of events is available at Discover the Networks.
And by the way…since when is Libby, or any other liberal, reasonable and even-handed when Republicans are in charge?
Funny Libs…a real hoot!
Proof of the media’s bias with its overwhelming coverage of Christi’s “Bridgegate” and blackout reporting when it comes to the IRS.
O’Reilly: Liberal Media Is Subverting American Democracy:
“BILL O’REILLY: You may remember New Jersey Governor Chris Christie being pounded by the national media for a controversy on the George Washington Bridge. A grand jury is investigating whether members of Mr. Christie’s staff sabotaged traffic on the bridge to get revenge on a political opponent. The story is valid and the network news went wild with it, devoting 112 minutes to the situation in the first week, 112 minutes. But when the VA scandal story broke, there was no coverage on the nightly network news broadcast for almost two weeks. No coverage. When the lost IRS email story broke, just three and a half minutes. Combined on all the network newscasts. Unbelievable. That is a news blackout.
On the newspaper front, the big three liberal papers, “The New York Times,” “L.A. Times,” “Washington Post” printed 56 stories and commentaries about Governor Christie in the first week. 56. First week in the VA scandal, two stories. First week of the IRS scandal, three stories. You want media bias, there it is beyond a reasonable doubt. So if James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin were with us today they would be the lead guest on “The Factor” this evening. Because those men envisioned a fair press in America, a media that would inform the people. Giving them honest information. So they could make educated votes. But that’s not what we have today. And that corruption in the media is greatly harming this nation.
Again, there is no question about it. There is no question the major national media in America is trying to protect President Obama. And will promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. For informed Americans, the blatant partisanship doesn’t have much of effect. But for the 50 percent of us, who do not pay attention, who do not know very much about their country, media bias is devastating. Because once people think that a person is bad or good, that impression usually remains. For example, there are a whole lot of Americans who don’t like me. I know it’s unbelievable. They don’t like me. But when we asked them why, they don’t really know. They have heard things. Maybe Whoopi Goldberg said something negative. It’s the same thing with politicians. If a person doesn’t pay attention, he or she often bases their opinions on rumors, innuendo, idle chatter. The national media knows that. They know, if they bury stories like the VA debacle, the IRS, Benghazi, Putin, whatever, then a negative perception about the Obama administration might not be formed. One caveat.:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/06/26/oreilly_liberal_media_is_subverting_american_democracy.html
“No Libby we should not collectively shrug ….”
I didn’t say that. I said that an investigation into this “data loss” was called for.
And I also said that all this partisan rabidity does not help your cause. If this investigation fails to turn up your longed-for, inter-agency, heinous conspiracy, leading to Obama, personally (and you REALLY need to start rationing your Blaze exposure) … then you have to let it go.
No five years of screeching. Ok?
Libby: “then you have to let it go. No five years of screeching. Ok?”
Now that’s funny!! We’re still hearing, you, Obama and his minions “screeching” it’s Bush’s fault for the last six years and you’re telling Tina to shut up after five.
Re #13 Peggy :
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Slam dunk. Libby is such the classic, completely oblivious, blatantly non-self aware, non-self examining, and excruciatingly funny liberal hypocrite. She IS the cliché and doesn’t even know it. I can’t stop laughing. Thanks Peggy.
Libry I believe you did suggest we should just shrug this off or chill:
A. How was Nixon pushed to resign? (Bloviating, yowling, and screeching)
Convince us that coverage of the Clarence Thomas show trial in the court of public opinion was not “shrill”!
How about Oliver North…a bunch of bloviating?…shrill? YOU BET!
Go on, tell us all about how the Tea Party is racist rhetoric isn’t shrill.
B. Now prove to me how “ineffective” all of that shrillness and bloviating has been!
You are such a phony! You have witnessed this history and you have the nerve to say it wasn’t/isn’t effective…while pretending innocence. (UGH)
The fact that our nation thrives on controversy and hype isn’t anything I’m particularly proud to acknowledge. I am no longer willing to remain polite while you and your party pull such horrendous BS on the public without fighting back.
If showing my anger, if sharing how deeply I am offended, if exposing the damage that is being done to our nation and the people in the name of “helping” and “caring,” makes me a shreeker I will gladly wear the T-shirt. Sign me up!
Peggy, Pie, it is unbelievably funny
Pie, you’re welcome. Happy to give you a good laugh, at Libby’s expense of course.
Tina, we need cyber popcorn for Libby’s comments.
Well, we’re not going to let you re-write recent history. For as long as you try to do that, we’ll be getting after you.
You bubble-dwellers are big re-writers and contrivers and fantasists, generally. But you can count on me to keep you in the here and now.
P.S.:
Ollie IS a felon.
Dick IS all but a felon.
And Clarence IS a very great embarrassment.
We know you badly want your “Watergate”, but you’re just not going to get one. I will say this, though … the Benghazi/IRS blather is somewhat more rooted in reality that all that Birther BS.
Can we call that progress?
Libby I welcome any attempt of yours to “correct” what you call a rewrite of recent history. It gives me every opportunity to show you how wrong your perceptions are.
The idea that we live in a bubble (inferior people) and you don’t live in a bubble (member in good standing in the brilliant superior left) is absurd. You are among those who parrot the same set of beliefs and vote in lock step. You are the ones who divide people up into those who think like we do and those who are stupid. Your bubble is an echo chamber of political correctness. Nobody in that bubble ever questions the narrative or thinks for himself. Here and now? Sadly you live in a fantasy with caricature political/social enemies and lack even the basic curiosity it would require to gain wider understanding.
Clue: When you have to repeat the latest label (bubble-dwellers) to dismiss the anti-narrative you’re in a bubble.
And Regarding the screeching. Not only do you and your party still blame Bush…you continue to blame Reagan! That’s over twenty years of shreeking!
Liberal bubble is anyone who is wealthy and in the top 1% wealth holders and a Democrat (Clinton) can still relate to the poor and impoverished. And anyone who is wealthy and in the top 1% wealth holders and a Republican (Romney) can NOT relate to the poor and impoverished.
The world view of Democrats from within their bubble they expect everyone to live by.