IRS/Lois Lerner's email lost

[carlfense]

Heads I win, tails you lose. Question the basis for all this outrage, as a few Democrats on the Hill have, and you'll be tarred for siding with the IRS over taxpayers. There's no way out of this trap on the other end, either. I, too, would like to know what's in those emails; and I, too, would like to know if the IRS' archiving protocols were compliant with federal law; and I, too, would like to see all federal agencies equipped to handle simple IT challenges, like archiving emails, and more complex ones, like procuring an e-commerce website for health insurance plans. At the end of his oversight hearing on Tuesday, Darrell Issa (of all people) identified the government's IT mess as a key contributor to the missing email problem. Yet I'm 100 percent confident that if the IRS or another government agency were to rescue the Lerner emails a week from now, and provide them to Congress, the same people who are currently treating their absence as proof of a coverup would cast their reappearance as a conveniently-timed distraction from some other scandal.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118393/irs-scandal-conspiracy-theorists-fall-logical-trap

 

A thousand times, this.

[TGHusker]

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

 

[LukeinNE]

There needs to be some sort of independent investigator into this. Two reasons:

 

1. The IRS is an enormously important body, its objectivity, both in reality and perception can't be in doubt. Resignations, payment of damages, disappearing emails, and officials hiding behind the 5th amendment while others insist everything's fine is a very bad look.

 

2. The impeachment-happy Republican House Oversight Committee can't be counted on to do this without turning it into a politicized mess (and even if they did play it straight, Democrats will point to past politicized investigations to turn this one into a politicized mess). In short, everything Congress touches these days turns to poo.

[carlfense]

Good news! Sounds like some of the lost e-mails might be recoverable after all.

[BigRedBuster]

Good news! Sounds like some of the lost e-mails might be recoverable after all.

Is this like Hillary finding the long lost folder on the hall way table?

[carlfense]

 

Good news! Sounds like some of the lost e-mails might be recoverable after all.

Is this like Hillary finding the long lost folder on the hall way table?

 

I don't know but I have little doubt that post #76 will prove accurate. Even if the emails prove relatively innocuous this will be spun as part of the conspiracy.

 

"Oh sure . . . NOW they find these emails. Isn't that convenient?" (Wait a second . . . didn't you want those emails? )

[carlfense]

And it ends with a whimper. Shocked, I tell you.

WASHINGTON — An 18-month congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s mistreatment of conservative political groups seeking tax exemptions failed to show coordination between agency officials and political operatives in the White House, according to a report released on Tuesday.

 

. . .

 

Republican lawmakers, dismissing the Obama administration’s denials, have suggested that the delays were not only politically motivated but also orchestrated by the White House.

 

. . .

 

“It is revealing that the Republicans — yet again — are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative,” Mr. Cummings said, “without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/us/house-irs-inquiry-shows-no-connections-to-white-house.html

 

The GOP is getting pretty used to these pre-holiday news dumps where they quietly admit that they were totally wrong, aren't they?

[Junior]

And it ends with a whimper. Shocked, I tell you.

WASHINGTON — An 18-month congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s mistreatment of conservative political groups seeking tax exemptions failed to show coordination between agency officials and political operatives in the White House, according to a report released on Tuesday.

 

. . .

 

Republican lawmakers, dismissing the Obama administration’s denials, have suggested that the delays were not only politically motivated but also orchestrated by the White House.

 

. . .

 

“It is revealing that the Republicans — yet again — are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative,” Mr. Cummings said, “without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/us/house-irs-inquiry-shows-no-connections-to-white-house.html

 

The GOP is getting pretty used to these pre-holiday news dumps where they quietly admit that they were totally wrong, aren't they?

 

 

But... but... BENGHAZI!!!

[carlfense]

But... but... BENGHAZI!!!

Right. Just move on to the next fake scandal. Don't question it . . . just remain outraged.

 

You can just come back to the IRS in a few months when people have forgotten about this embarrassing bit.

[Junior]

 

But... but... BENGHAZI!!!

Right. Just move on to the next fake scandal. Don't question it . . . just remain outraged.

 

 

The most irritating thing is that the GOP still won. The amount of people that unquestioningly think that the IRS, directed by Obama, was targeting conservative super PACs is maddening. No one looks at the evidence or the results of the numerous investigations. They already read the Fox News headline. As Colbert said, they know the truth because they feel it from the gut. Truthiness.

[Abdullah the Butcher]

Not sure what you're gloating about, the IRS already admitted it, if you're happy that there wasn't a clear tie to the White House then yay for you I guess.

 

 

 

The IRS has admitted it was too intrusive in its questions, but argues it is no longer targeting or asking improper questions of groups that apply. Still, some groups are awaiting approval for applications submitted four or five years ago.

 

And last week, one of the groups that waited years for its approval announced it was filing an appeal asking a federal circuit court to ban the agency from targeting in the future. A lower court had thrown that request out, accepting the IRS’s claim that it has halted the practice.

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/23/irs-employees-biased-against-conservatives-report/?page=2#ixzz3MpapzjJ9

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

[carlfense]

Not sure what you're gloating about, the IRS already admitted it, if you're happy that there wasn't a clear tie to the White House then yay for you I guess.

The IRS has admitted it was too intrusive in its questions, but argues it is no longer targeting or asking improper questions of groups that apply. Still, some groups are awaiting approval for applications submitted four or five years ago.

 

And last week, one of the groups that waited years for its approval announced it was filing an appeal asking a federal circuit court to ban the agency from targeting in the future. A lower court had thrown that request out, accepting the IRS’s claim that it has halted the practice.

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/23/irs-employees-biased-against-conservatives-report/?page=2#ixzz3MpapzjJ9

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

 

Wait a second . . . the IRS "admitted" the bold . . . and you're going to try to pretend like that confirms and validates the fantastical claims made by the GOP about IRS targeting?

 

Unless Issa chose to only release the least relevant facts that's going to be a tough hill to climb.

 

 

[Mavric]

Backup tapes? Who would have thought to look there?

 

After the Internal Revenue Service’s inspector general recovered some 80,000 emails to and from former agency executive Lois Lerner, lawmakers began asking why the IRS had previously claimed most of those emails were permanently lost.

In a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson demanded details about the agency’s attempts to produce the emails before its watchdog, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, succeeded in doing so.

The Wisconsin Republican cited a November report from the Washington Examiner that revealed TIGTA’s discovery of an estimated 30,000 emails on disaster recovery tapes.

But TIGTA officials informed Johnson’s staff last week that it had ultimately extracted 80,000 from the tapes, raising questions about whether the IRS truly went to “great lengths” and made “extraordinary efforts” to find the lost emails, as Koskinen testified last year.

 

Link

[TGHusker]

 

1. How about addressing the 23 claims that I referenced above? 2. I won't waste my time trying to document them (its already been, ad nauseam in the media) and 3. you'll just poo poo them away, anyway. That's another tactic you Progessives use a lot but I ain't bitin'. 4. Why don't you just admit that your idol is a total failure as POTUS and call it done?

 

5. I'm curious, would you ever vote for anybody other than a Democrat?

 

 

1. Again: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens; some of the claims I have heard, others I've not. So... source your claims and I can begin to decide which ones have merit and which don't. I don't believe everything my father sends in me in chain emails about Obama and I don't believe everything some random dude posts on a message board without any links.

 

2. Google translate: "I don't have sources and I haven't bothered to look for any."

 

3. Who was it that had a problem with my links to Huffington Post and the Washington Post again? Oh, wait that was you whining that I linked to those "liberal rags". Right....

 

4. My idol? I didn't realize Springsteen was POTUS. In reality, I actually quite dislike Obama and have quite a few bones to pick with him. However, that tends to get ignored amongst the "OBAMA IS A FECKLESS, TYRANNICAL, COMMUNIST, MUSLIM FROM KENYA" nonsense from the far right. However, you'll have to define "total failure" before I can agree to that. Obamacare actually seems to be working quite well. Now if the right had a brain in their collective head, they would claim their own healthcare plan as a success story for themselves. However, they don't and won't.

 

5. I voted Bush in 2000, unfortunately. Was never a Gore fan, though in retrospect I wish I had voted Gore. I would have voted for 2000 McCain in 2008, rather than 2008 McCain. But he had to pander to the base to win the primary and lost all of his marbles in picking Palin. Also, I actually quite like Jon Huntsman, and wish he had a snowball's chance in hell of winning his primary.

 

JR this is my 2nd for you today. Just seeing your perspective and balance is a good thing. Sometimes I think many of us are more moderate than some of us appear to be just because we voice a different opinion our image may appear in some far right or left camp. For example, I agree with some of the principles of the Tea Party (limited govt, control spending) but I cannot agree with the way it is presented by many of it's cheerleaders (Ted Cruz, Palin, etc - who take it too far) Yes, while I lean Walker this time around (who is conservative but I don't see as a far rightTea Party conservative), I'm more open to a moderate Republican. I wrongfully assumed you were more to the left than this post suggests. I too liked the 2000 McCain more than the 2008. Huntsman had some good things he brought to the debate the last time around. ACA may in the end surprise me as being workable. Since the Repub have never put forward a realistic more efficient plan yet (maybe they will do so now - just to get the presidential veto), I have to hope that it will be tweaked as needed to become more cost effective.