Last night during his interview with Chris Matthews, Barack Obama denied there was a so-called IRS scandal and said it was just something sensationalized by the media.
“If on the other hand, you’ve got an office in Cincinnati, an IRS office, that I think for bureaucratic reasons, is trying to sreamline a difficult law to begin with, and interpret whether a non-profit is a political organization, deserves a tax exempt agenc, ant they’ve got a list. Suddenly, everyone’s outraged… And, I’ll point out that there are some so-called progressives and perceived to be liberal commentators during that week that were just outraged at the possibility that these folks had in some way been discriminated against. And, that is what gets news.”
When news of the scandal broke Obama promised to get to the bottom of it. IRS investigators have still not interviewed one single Tea Party group. There is evidencethe White House and IRS exchanged confidential taxpayer information.
USA Today reported on Wednesday that the IRS has admitted that it flagged political groups for 'anti-Obama rhetoric' (Hat Tip: Carl and Bad Blue). And the big 3 of US network television refuses to report it.
ABC, CBS and NBC have so far refused to report the latest bombshell in the IRS scandal - a newly released list from the agency that showed it flagged political groups for “anti-Obama rhetoric.” On September 18 the USA Today, in a front page story, reported the following: “Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about ‘anti-Obama rhetoric,’ inflammatory language and ‘emotional’ statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status.”
Not only have ABC, CBS and NBC not reported this story they’ve flat out stopped covering the IRS scandal on their evening and morning shows. It’s been 85 days since ABC last touched the story on June 26. NBC hasn’t done a report for 84 days and CBS last mentioned the IRS scandal 56 days ago on July 24.
The article by Gregory Korte went on to report: “The internal 2011 documents, obtained by USA TODAY, list 162 groups by name, with comments by Internal Revenue Service lawyers in Washington raising issues about their political, lobbying and advocacy activities. In 21 cases, those activities were characterized as ‘propaganda.’ The list provides the most specific public accounting to date of which groups were targeted for extra scrutiny and why. The IRS has not publicly identified the groups, repeatedly citing a provision of the tax code prohibiting it from releasing tax return information.”
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has been sitting in a US federal prison in Texas since his photographed midnight arrest by half a dozen deputy sheriffs at his home in California for violating the terms of his parole. As many reporters have noted, the parole violation in question would not generally lead to anything more than a court hearing.
But in Nakoula's case, it led to a year in a federal penitentiary. Because he wasn't really arrested for violating the terms of his parole.
Nakoula was arrested for producing an anti- Islam film that the Obama administration was falsely blaming for the al-Qaida assault on the US Consulate in Benghazi and the brutal murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on September 11, 2012. Obama and his associates falsely blamed Nakoula's film - and scapegoated Nakoula - for inciting the al-Qaida attack in Benghazi because they needed a fall guy to pin their cover-up of the actual circumstances of the premeditated, eminently foreseeable attack, which took place at the height of the presidential election campaign.
With the flood of scandals now inundating the White House, many are wondering if there is a connection between the cover-up of Benghazi, the IRS's prejudicial treatment of non-leftist nonprofit organizations and political donors, the Environmental Protection Agency's prejudicial treatment of non-liberal organizations, and the Justice Department's subpoenaing of phone records of up to a hundred reporters and editors from the Associated Press.t
Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z Street who filed a lawsuit against the IRS, notes that “the very first hearing in Z STREET v IRS was recently scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, July 2, [2013] in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia.” If Marcus were not a lawyer herself and very persistent, there would be no appeal for Z Street. And need I point out that justice delayed is justice denied?
I don’t know what official reasons were given by the IRS to Tea-Party related organizations — as well, ironically, as those with the word ‘patriot’ in their names — for holding up their applications, but Z Street’s lawsuit claims that
21. [IRS] Agent [Diane] Gentry also informed Z STREET’s counsel that the IRS is carefully scrutinizing organizations that are in any way connected with Israel.
22. Agent Gentry further stated to counsel for Z STREET: “these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”
a. The application indicated that Z Street could be providing resources to organizations within Israel or facilitating the provision of resources to organizations within the state of Israel;
b. Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a “higher risk of terrorism.” (LR.M. 7.20.6.7.5.2(1). See also http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122433.htm); and
c. A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism.
This is like saying that we shouldn’t support the Boston Marathon, because terrorism happens there! And it is reminiscent of the US refusal to give refuge to Jewish victims of the Nazis because, as Germans, they were enemy nationals.
Marcus notes that the Z Street charter specifically condemns terrorism, and that Z Street has never provided funds or ‘resources’ to anyone in Israel or anywhere else. And she adds that Z Street is not the only Jewish organization to receive ‘special treatment’ from the IRS:
And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
Three years ago, long before this week's scandal broke, (Carl) reported that the IRS was holding up the registration of the pro-Israel group Z Street as a tax-exempt organization. Z Street sued the IRS, and in court it introduced a letter from the IRS asking whether it supported Israel. The next court date in that case is July 2, but in the meantime the IRS is facing a much larger scandal in which pro-Israel organizations may only be a small part (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
In a conference call with reporters last week, the IRS official responsible for granting tax-exempt status said that it was a mistake to subject Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny based solely on the organization's name. But she said ideology played no part in the process.
"The selection of these cases where they used the names was not a partisan selection," said Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations. She said progressive groups were also selected for greater scrutiny based on their names, but did not provide details. "I don't have them off the top of my head," she said.
The IRS did not respond to follow-up questions Tuesday.
Congressional critics say the IRS's actions suggest a political motives: "This administration seems to have a culture of politics above all else," said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas. "A lot of the actions they take have a political side first, and put government second."
Flores complained to the IRS last year after the Waco Tea Party's tax-exempt application was mired in red tape. The IRS asked the group for information that was "overreaching and impossible to comply with," Flores said: Transcripts of radio interviews, copies of social media posts and details on "close relationships" with political candidates.
When Flores complained last year -- asking pointed questions about the IRS treatment of Tea Party groups -- the IRS response didn't acknowledge that it had treated conservative groups differently. "They did more than sidestep the issue," he said. "They flipped me the finger."
Before the IRS started separating out Tea Party applications, getting tax-exempt status was routine -- even for conservative groups. The Champaign Tea Party's treasurer, Karen Olsen, said the process was smooth, with no follow-up questions from the IRS.
The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.
The trouble for the Israel-focused groups seems to have had different origins than that experienced by conservative groups, but at times the effort seems to have been equally ham-handed.
...
Legal filings show that the problems for Z Street — and apparently for other Israel-related groups — stemmed from an obscure unit in the Cincinnati IRS office: the “Touch and Go Group.” One of the so-called TAG Group’s duties was to weed out applications that might be coming from organizations which might be used to fund terrorism.
In response to Z Street’s lawsuit, an IRS manager acknowledged that applications mentioning Israel were getting special attention.
“Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” wrote Jon Waddell, manager of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Determinations Group. “A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism.”
However, Z Street and other groups reported getting unusual inquiries from the IRS. A Z Street lawyer was contacted by a Jewish religious group, which detailed inquiries from the IRS that the group’s leaders thought had treaded too far.
“Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel? Describe your organization’s religious belief system towards the land of Israel,” the IRS asked in a letter sent to the religious group, which asked not to be named.
“If they’re asking that of that group, what else are they asking?” Lowenthal Marcus asked.
She said basing the review for terrorism on where an organization did business was strange and ineffective.
“If their policy was to look at any organization that had anything to do with a country where terrorism exists, I don’t see how that limits anything,” Lowenthal Marcus said. “There’s been terrorism in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Malaysia….and in Boston. Is that now going to be on the list?”
In court filings in the Z Street case, the Obama administration has denied that the IRS is discriminating against groups that disagree with Obama administration policies.
In court papers, the IRS denied that its personnel ever told Z Street that there was a special review for groups that might be at odds with Obama administration policy. The tax agency contended that the issue was whether the groups might violate “public policy” — a legal term of art for the notion that the government shouldn’t bestow a benefit on an individual or organization engaged in illegal activity like terrorism, or in an officially disfavored activity such as racial discrimination.
“The application was not transferred to TAG because of an ‘Israel special policy’ or because Z Street’s views on Israel contradict the Obama administration’s views on Israel,” the Justice Department wrote in a brief seeking dismissal of Z Street’s lawsuit.
TAG was originally set up by the Bush administration in 2005 to target terror funding. The Obama administration vowed to change TAG in 2009, but of course, Muslim groups are still claiming that it targets them as well.
Can you imagine Obama creating awareness to MIA’s or POW’s on a motorcycle?...yes...I can imagine Obama on a motorcycle...I can imagine him in a Gay Biker bar too. ...not a Palin hater... just want to get that out, but what was with the guy screa ming to people to get out of here? bit rude... and not professional... further he doesn't have a right to do what he did. Palin's support of Israel is great, though she should never of backed a hater like Rand Paul... and that is the source of the problem. She is a person I really want to like, but she surrounds herself with people like this biker guy who needs to be taught a lesson about the Constitution. ...she had better start talking about her relationship with the Paul people and why she sold Israel out for a few nasty Paultard Tea Party trash. Rolling Thunder” 2011, Black Leather, “loves the smell of emissions" via The Mad Jewess
Alex Jones acts like it is a conspiracy
why a pervert would want to
get it on with Meg here... I mean come on!
Isn't it obvious.
Alex Jones and pals have a gal that had a little problem at the airport, but she has a history of doing outlandish media stunts.... and frankly... I can see why some dude in an airport would get his rocks off by a little lock up... ok but seriously.... oh noes! Bid on her tattoo auction here!
Some US scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners now being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.
The TSA chose Meg McLain for special screening. They wanted her to go through the new porno-scanners. When she opted out, TSA agents raised an enormous ruckus. When she asked some question about what they planned to do to her, they flipped out. TSA agents yelled at her, handcuffed her to a chair, ripped up her ticket, called in 12 local Miami cops and finally escorted her out of the airport.
Don't make this another election where claims are left unchecked. Even if you vote Democrat you should have this information available. We really don't want to see more voter fraud because we are afraid to question the powers that be. You should also know that the Tea Party was started by many Hillary Clinton leaning Democrats during the primary in 2008. I know because I got into frictions with the early Tea Party movement on twitter... which was also very Anti-Israel and centered a lot of their energy towards cutting off aid to Israel. Do not confuse the Tea Party with Dick Cheney. The Republicans did not move into the movement till after they lost the election. The early Tea Party was against the war. The Tea Party was very against Bush who ran up a debt of 3 trillion as compared to Obama's 8 trillion. What is depicted in this video is disingenuous at best and probably an orchestrated lie.
(1) most of the Ron Paul people voted for Obama and felt betrayed. they are not Neo Conservative.
(2) just because a government is hostile to oil drilling doesn't mean the government doesn't use those same oil company failures to extract money for the government. We have seen that with BP. this argument against oil is part of the problem here. people against so called global warming DO realize the claims being made and understand the small changes in temperature are not drastic changes. that denies a correlative that those small changes were fraudulent data and we have not seen any new data to convince us otherwise.
(3) most tea party people I met were lesbians. this is a fraudulent portrayal of them. one Tea Party person I had to block was @MayorSam on twitter. she is also on facebook. this leftist somehow fuses two unlike people. What is even stranger is the way the dog seems to do the majority of talking. In the conservative version the feminist leftist does more talking. how is that? how is it that both the leftists xtranormal and the conservative xtranormal http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=164771506885970&ref=mf both allow the leftist to dominate and do the majority of the talking? how is that?
(4) The Tea Party movement is not hostile to Islam. that is the biggest lie here. In fact their leaders are Hezbollah financiers. Jack Abramoff's friend Grover Norquist is case in point. or should I mention Jihad Darrel Issa who is a major leader of the Tea Party and a defender of Lebanon because.... da dum! he is Lebanese? Islam is not hostile to the Tea Party... and vice versa. There is a reason I have been attacking the Tea Party all year.
People are saying, "I was at the Tea Party Movement since the beginning". I'm glad I wasn't an early adopter. I see the problem with taxes. I get the theory. I hate Obama and didn't vote for him just because of the color of his skin like a "White Liberal", but I wasn't going to jump in with the Anti-Semites. Now they are going to have a Tea Party in Israel. Not surprised (the movement is full of public relations pros), but I want all the other Jews here to know that the Tea Party is full of Israel bashers. The early adopters were scum. I support much of their tax claims, but there is a reason I didn't give this movement support. I wasn't brainwashed by MSNBC either. I was on twitter talking to actual Tea Party leaders, much as I was talking to early Obama people. They were Israel bashers.
I'm just reminding myself about the dangers of the Tea Party and catering to politics that works merely in economic theory. These types of charades are just asking for wolves in sheep skin. While I prefer small government, there is no doubt that corruption often comes in small government packaging.
Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist: 1/2 of the Islamo-Sleazebag-a-Palooza Goes to Prison. The Other Half is in the Tea Party.
I’m talking about Grover Norquist, whose Americans for Tax Reform is a major sponsor of the Tea Party launch event, Tea Party Patriots’ manifesto, at today’s start of CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference). Norquist bragged to Politico that he is behind the tea party activists’ presence at CPAC. That’s braggadocio the tea party people would run away from if they truly abhor anti-Semitism, anti-Israel activism, and Muslim extremism. But they aren’t running the other way. They are embracing Norquist. And Norquist isn’t just embraced by Tea Partiers in Washington or in town for CPAC, but by key Tea Party leaders, organizers, and activists in every state, whom he’s traveled to meet and who also embrace him and ask him for guidance.
Many in the know refer to his organization as “Arabs for Tax Reform,” for good reason. Even Norquist’s ATR business cards are bilingual, with everything in Arabic on the flip side (or perhaps the main, with English on the flip side).
Norquist, a founder and board member of the Islamic Institute (which operated out of his offices), was on the take from Gulf state emirates and laundered money for his buddy Jack Abramoff. At Islamic Institute (which operated out of Abramoff’s Americans for Tax Reform offices), he employed Khalid Saffuri, an admitted funder of “the martyrs”–he adopted HAMAS homicide bombers’ families and funded them. And Norquist and Islamic Institute accepted cash from several “charities” which laundered money for the Saudi government to Al-Qaeda. Norquist got a top Bush White House job for Suhail Khan, whose father, Mahboob Khan, twice brought Al-Qaeda biggie Ayman Al-Zawahiri into the country to raise money for Al-Qaeda at the elder Khan’s mosque. The younger Khan proceeded to invite extremist Muslim clerics, such as one who described Jews as a “dirty little tribe,” to hang out with President Bush.
And then there is my own experience with the Islamic McCarthyism that is the Norquist brand:
Norquist got the spineless Heritage Foundation (and its Islamic lobbyist chief, Edwin Feulner, whom he took on a trip to meet the emir of Qatar) and the Town Hall site, which Heritage then owned, to remove my columns, because he was upset that I wrote about Republican Congressman Darrell Issa’s embrace of Hezbollah, terrorist state Syria, and anti-profiling laws for Arabs and Muslims. Norquist, a National Rifle Association board member, who got the NRA to revoke a written invitation to me to speak at its annual national convention because he was upset that I wrote about his close friend, Sami Al-Arian’s founding, involvement in, and terrorist fundraising for Islamic Jihad (a bombing he funded murdered New Jersey college student, Alisa Flatow, a friend of my sister’s). The NRA revoked the dis-invitation only when I was about to discuss their behavior on the Howard Stern syndicated radio show.
Yes, this is the man the conservative movement embraces, and whom Karl Rove shielded from Justice Department prosecution, even though he laundered money for Jack Abramoff through Americans for Tax Reform and defrauded U.S. taxpayers who gave up the taxes on the millions Norquist laundered through his tax-deductible organization for Indian Tribes Abramoff represented and who wanted to protect their gambling fiefdom. There is no difference between ACORN’s tax fraud and misuse of its tax deductible status and that of Norquist and his ATR. Yet conservatives continue to embrace him, and Norquist brags to Politico about how he got away with it:
Norquist said he’s worked to bring on board tea party activists and hasn’t faced any backlash from those who see him as part of the establishment or who hold against him his involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal.
Yup, Grover Norquist one of the not-so-know, same-old-establishment faces of the Tea Party movement.
yes this is old news, but before any Conservative is supported we need to know what his connections were to Norquist.
Sami al-Arian. [Source: Chris O'Meara]In 1995, investigators raid two groups in Tampa, Florida, associated with Sami al-Arian, a university professor who some claim has been a supporter of terrorist groups. These raids alert investigators to a group of Muslim charities in Herndon, Virginia, known as the SAAR network (see July 29, 1983). An investigation into that network’s alleged terrorism financing begins. In 1998, National Security Council aides in the Clinton White House push the FBI to intensify the SAAR investigation. However, the FBI declines, claiming that an aggressive probe would be seen as ethnic profiling. The SAAR network will not be raided until early 2002 (see March 20, 2002). [Washington Post, 10/7/2002] Al-Arian will not be arrested until 2003, largely on the basis of activities from 1995 and before. He will eventually be sentenced to almost five years in prison and will admit to aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (see December 6, 2005), which the US has officially designated as a terrorist group.
