For four years, IRS supervisors were too dumb to notice that their own employee was embezzling money from the IRS
Wow! This shows just how incredibly stupid the supervisors at the IRS are. For four years, they were too stupid to notice the altered receipts that one of their employees was giving them when she used her IRS credit card to make personal purchases.
Anyone who is too stupid to notice that, should not be working as a supervisor at the IRS.
The Smoking Gun reports:
Entrusted with a government credit card, an Internal Revenue Service worker allegedly used the plastic for a years-long Amazon.com shopping spree that netted her hundreds of items, including a chocolate fondue fountain; Bollywood movies; Pampers; Harlequin romance novels; Omaha Steaks; Apple Bottoms skinny jeans; mango body wash; and a Ginsu knife set.
According to a court filing, Oseni was given a Citibank MasterCard for the “purchase of office supplies for her business unit.”
However, a probe by the Treasury Department’s inspector general determined that Oseni has made scores of unauthorized purchases since being provided the IRS credit card in mid-2009. Oseni “provided altered receipts to approving officials at the IRS to cover-up the unauthorized purchases,” prosecutors charge.
Some of Oseni’s more distinctive buys included:
* “2 Plus Size Trench Coats”
* “Hello Kitty Cosmetic Set and Dream Diary Kit”
* “MAC Haughty & Naughty Lash Mascara”
* “Nostalgia Electrics RSM-702 Retro Series Snow Cone Maker”
* “3lb Party Candy and Toy Pinata”
* “Lansinoh Lanolin Nursing Cream”
* “4 pairs of Leveret Children Pajamas (Choo Choo, Dreamboat, Tiger, Monkey)”
Oseni, who is free on a personal recognizance bond, faces a maximum of ten years in prison if convicted on the embezzlement count. She is scheduled for a June 12 hearing at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This went on for four years – four years of these purchases using her IRS credit card – and none of her supervisors – not one of them – noticed that she was submitting phony receipts.
For four years, none of her supervisors ever questioned why she was charging such huge sums of money on her IRS credit card.
This proves, beyond any doubt, that the people who work as IRS supervisors, are too stupid to be working as IRS supervisors.
Compilation of the IRS’s actions in its targeting of conservatives
In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had illegally targeted conservative groups for additional reviews. Organizations with the words “tea party” or “patriot” were singled out for harassment, such as requiring them to provide a list of donors, details about their internet postings on social networking websites, and information about their family members.
When this was first reported by the media in May 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that had conducted these illegal activities, claimed that only low level employees had known about it, and that no high level IRS officials had known about it. However, soon afterward, NPR reported that an Inspector General report showed that Lerner had been lying, and that she herself had actually been aware of it since June 29, 2011. Even worse, in March of 2012, Lerner herself had written such a letter to American Patriots Against Government Excess, a conservative group. Lerner’s letter can be read here.
The Washington Post reported that IRS officials at the IRS headquarters in Washington D.C. had sent such letters to conservatives groups. Reuters reported that higher level IRS officials had taken part in discussions about it as early as August 2011. However, 21 months later, on May 10, 2013, the Washington Post reported that President Obama had not done anything to investigate or fire the IRS employees who had engaged in this illegal harassment. As of May 14, 2013, none of the IRS employees who engaged in any of this illegal behavior had been disciplined, despite the fact that higher level IRS officials had known about their illegal behavior at least since August 2011.
On May 15, 2013, it was reported that Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, had resigned. However, it was also reported that his assignment would have ended in early June anyway. He resigned – Obama did not fire him.
The IRS gave out confidential information about conservative groups. ProPublica wrote:
“The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.”
“In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public.”
“No unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”
President Obama either lied about when he first knew about this – or was too busy playing golf and attending fundraisers to read the memos that were sent to him. The Daily Caller wrote:
“White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a press conference Tuesday that the White House was notified about the IRS targeting tea party groups ‘several weeks ago.’ This comes a day after President Obama said he found out about it from news reports on Friday of last week.”
“During a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday, President Obama was asked about the IRS scandal. He responded, ‘I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday.’ “
“However, Carney said Tuesday that first a report had to be compiled by the IRS’s inspector general and then when it was completed, it was passed on to the administration.”
“‘A notification is appropriate and routine and that is what happened and that happened several weeks ago,’ Carney said.”
When Media Trackers, a conservative organization, applied to the IRS for non-profit status, after waiting 16 months, it got no response. But when it reapplied with a liberal sounding name, it got approval in just three weeks. Yahoo wrote:
“In May 2011, Drew Ryun, a conservative activist and former Republican National Committee staffer, began filling out the Internal Revenue Service application to achieve nonprofit status for a new conservative watchdog group.”
“When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone nonprofit status, and he tried a new approach: He applied for permanent nonprofit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.”
“The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions’ request for permanent nonprofit status in three weeks.”
Regarding how the IRS treated one of President Obama’s relatives, the Dailer Caller wrote:
“Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.”
“According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.”
“Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.”
Politico reported:
“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.”
The IRS asked conservative groups what books they were reading.
Although the IRS went 18 months or longer without responding to conservative organizations’ applications, the IRS demanded that these same organizations answer the IRS’s intrusive questions within a few weeks.
After the Waco Tea Party sent an application to the IRS, the IRS waited 19 months to respond. In its response, the IRS asked for printouts of its web page and social networking sites, copies of all of its newsletters, bulletins and fliers, and copies of all stories written about it. The IRS also asked for transcripts of its radio interviews.
As one example of how the IRS treated conservative organizations differently from liberal ones, Politico reported:
“Chris Littleton, one of the co-founders of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, said the group got a grilling from the IRS when it submitted its application, in letters the group has posted on its website. The IRS also gave him so much grief when he tried to apply for tax-exempt status for another group, American Junto, that ‘we just gave up on it,’ he said.”
“But when he submitted an application for a third group — Ohioans for Health Care Freedom, now renamed Ohio Rising — ‘it went through just fine,’ Littleton said. ‘They never asked a single set of questions.’”
After the Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots sent in their application, it took two years for the IRS to respond. The IRS response included 35 questions. When the group’s cofounder called the IRS, the IRS agent claimed that he had their group’s file right in front of him. But when the group’s confounder asked the IRS agent a question, the IRS agent asked, “What’s your group’s name again?”
Tea Party groups who spoke with each other said they were all getting the same questions from the IRS.
The Washington Post reported that some IRS employees were “ignorant about tax laws, defiant of their supervisors, and blind to the appearance of impropriety.”
In 2012, the IRS leaked confidential information about Mitt Romney to the co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee.
For a 27 month period that began in February 2010, the IRS gave exactly zero approvals to Tea Party organizations that had sent in applications. During that same time period, numerous liberal organizations with names including words such as “progress” or “progressive” did get approval.
In May 2013, U.S. News & World Report wrote:
“Over the last three years, Democratic senators repeatedly and publicly pressured the IRS to engage in the very activities that they are only now condemning today. At the same time, Republicans repeatedly and publicly warned against this abuse of government power and pointed to a series of red flags that strongly suggested conservative political organizations were being targeted by the IRS. Those warnings were deliberately ignored by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress.”
“From Max Baucus to Chuck Schumer to Jeanne Shaheen, key Senate Democrats publicly pressured the IRS to target groups that held differing political views and who, in their view, had the temerity to engage in the political process. The IRS listened to them and acted.”
The IRS also treated conservative and liberal groups differently on the issue of abortion. The Washington Examiner reported:
IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.
“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”
The IRS also pressured another pro-life group about its religious activities. “The IRS withheld approval of an application for charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the group’s involvement with ’40 Days for Life’ and ‘Life Chain’ events,” according to the law firm. “The Fort Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.”
Jon Stewart said of this:
“Well, congratulations, President Barack Obama. Conspiracy theorists who generally can survive in anaerobic environments have just had an algae bloom dropped on their f***ing heads, thus removing the last arrow in your pro-governance quiver: skepticism about your opponents.”
During Congressional testimony that had taken place in March 2012, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman falsely said that the IRS had not targeted conservative groups.
Michael Macleod-Ball, chief of staff at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said of this:
“Even the appearance of playing partisan politics with the tax code is about as constitutionally troubling as it gets. With the recent push to grant federal agencies broad new powers to mandate donor disclosure for advocacy groups on both the left and the right, there must be clear checks in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Here are 176 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections.
(more…)
Here are 173 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds
http://tinyurl.com/173examples
Here are 173 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds.
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections.
(more…)
Bangladesh factory collapse kills more than 1,000 people
Recently a factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,000 people.
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EU considers requiring technology that would turn off refrigerators when windmills aren’t turning
The Telegraph reports:
Fridges could be switched off without owner’s consent to reduce strain on power stations
Fridges, washing machines and other electrical goods could be switched off automatically in British homes without the owners’ consent under EU proposals to help power stations meet demand for electricity.
White goods such as electric ovens would be affected by the proposals to fit all new appliances with sensors that could shut them down when the UK’s generators struggle to meet demand for power.
The measures proposed by the UK’s National Grid, along with its counterparts in 34 European countries, to install the controversial devices are backed by one of the European Union’s most influential energy bodies.
They are pushing for the move because green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations, increasing the risk of blackouts
The EU has set a target that 20 per cent of all electricity will be generated from green sources by 2012, but these are unreliable, making the task more difficult.
This would be a huge step backwards. The existence of electric refrigerators is one of the things that separates a first world country from a third world country. Nuclear power works even when the wind isn’t blowing, and is my personal preference for electricity generation. Giving the government the ability to turn people’s refrigerators off at will would be giving the government too much intrusion into people’s lives. It could also lead to spoilage and food poisoning.
Here are 167 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds
http://tinyurl.com/167examples
Here are 167 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds.
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections.
(more…)
Hypocrite unions that supported the passage of Obamacare three years ago are now complaining about its negative effects
Ha!
This is hilarious!
Some of the unions that backed passage of Obamacare three years ago are now saying they are worried about the negative effects that it will have on them.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Some Unions Grow Wary of Health Law They Backed
Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul when it was up for debate. Now that the law is rolling out, some are turning sour.
Union leaders say many of the law’s requirements will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.
Some 20 million Americans are covered by the health-care plans at issue
Top officers at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and other large labor groups plan to keep pressing the Obama administration to expand the federal subsidies to these jointly run plans, warning that unionized employers may otherwise drop coverage. A handful of unions say they already have examined whether it makes sense to shift workers off their current plans
“We are going back to the administration to say that this is not acceptable,” said Ken Hall, general secretary-treasurer for the Teamsters, which has 1.6 million members and dependents in health-care plans. Other unions involved in the push include the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Unite Here
Sheet Metal Workers Local 85 in Atlanta, which has about 1,900 members. Next year it must lift the $250,000 annual cap on the amount it will pay for medical claims. The law’s requirements will add between 50 cents to $1 an hour to the cost of members’ compensation package
These are the “low information” voters who backed Obamacare without knowing what was in it – and who chose to ignore the critics who pointed out these problems before the law was passed – the very same problems that the unions are now complaining about. The critics pointed out that these problems were timed so as to not take effect until after the 2012 election.
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode “Last Exit to Springfield” from season 4 where the union at the nuclear power plant agreed to give up their dental coverage in exchange for a keg of beer.
Chicago public school suspends teacher because he taught students how to use wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers
CNS News reports:
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a civil rights lawsuit against a Chicago public school district on behalf of a second-grade teacher who was suspended after he displayed garden-variety tools such as wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in his classroom as part of a “tool discussion” in his class.
Despite the fact that all potentially hazardous items were kept out of the students’ reach, school officials at Washington Irving Elementary School informed Doug Bartlett, a 17-year veteran in the classroom, that his use of the tools as visual aids endangered his students. Bartlett was subsequently penalized with a four-day suspension without pay – charged with possessing, carrying, storing or using a weapon.
“This school district’s gross overreaction to a simple teaching demonstration on basic tools such as wrenches and pliers underscores exactly what is wrong with our nation’s schools,” said Rutherford Institute Pres. John Whitehead.
None of the tools were made accessible to the students. When not in use, the tools were secured in a toolbox on a high shelf out of reach of the students. They were used to demonstrate the proper use of tools
We need more teachers like this. It’s too bad the idiot bureaucrats suspended him for teaching his students skills that are actually useful in the real world.
Here are 163 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds
http://tinyurl.com/163examples
Here are 163 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections.
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Argentina just set price controls on food – let’s see what happens as a result
Prices are not just random numbers that get picked out of thin air. Instead, prices communicate information about supply and demand. So when the supply and/or demand situation changes, it makes perfect sense that the price would change accordingly.
Economic theory predicts that when the government sets the price of something lower than the supply/demand equilibrium, the demand will exceed the supply, which is the definition of a shortage. More than 4,000 years of various examples of price controls from all over the world show this to be the case.
Today, the BBC reported:
Argentina pegs supermarket price rises for two months
February 4, 2013
The Argentine government has put a temporary price freeze on all products sold in the country’s main supermarket chains to try to fight inflation.
Argentina’s commerce ministry has asked consumers to monitor prices in the chains.
It wants them to keep receipts and has set up a hotline for shoppers to call if they spot any price rises.
The inflation that’s referred to in that article is caused by the government increasing the supply of money with nothing of real value to back it up. This makes the money worth less, and causes prices to rise. But that’s not a real price increase. So, as inflation devalues the currency, the government’s price freeze will actually force food sellers to lower their (real) prices.
If it really is a “temporary” measure for only two months, it’s possible that inflation might not be severe enough for the price controls to result in a substantial drop in (real) food prices.
But I am skeptical about these price controls being “temporary.” My guess is that the price controls will last a lot longer than two months, and as time goes on, inflation will devalue the real value of the currency enough so that the (real) prices will fall significantly, which will cause shortages. And then the government will wrongly blame the shortages on the supermarkets and farmers, and instead of getting rid of the price controls, the government will take action against the supermarkets and farmers, which will cause the situation to get even worse.
Of course, I could be wrong about all of this.
Anyway, let’s see what happens in Argentina as a result of these price controls.
For the record, here’s what happened after Venezuela set price caps on food a decade ago:
Since 2003, Hugo Chavez has been setting strict price controls on food, and these price controls have been causing shortages and hoarding.
In January 2008, Chavez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.
In February 2009, Chavez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.
In May 2010, Chavez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar.
In March 2009, Chavez set minimum production quotas for 12 basic foods that were subject to price controls, including white rice, cooking oil, coffee, sugar, powdered milk, cheese, and tomato sauce. Business leaders and food producers claimed that the government was forcing them to produce this food at a loss.
Chavez has nationalized many large farms. Chavez said of the farmland, “The land is not private. It is the property of the state.” Some of the farmland that had been productive while under private ownership is now idle under government ownership, and some of the farm equipment sits gathering dust. As a result, food production has fallen substantially. One farmer, referring to the government officials overseeing the land redistribution, stated, “These people know nothing about agriculture.”
Chavez has seized many supermarkets from their owners. Under government ownership, the shelves in these supermarkets are often empty.
In 2010, after the government nationalized the port at Puerto Cabello, more than 120,000 tons of food sat rotting at the port.
In May 2010, after price controls caused shortages of beef, at least 40 butchers were arrested, and some of them were held at a military base and later strip searched by police.
Here is video of Dianne Feinstein from “60 Minutes” in 1995, saying she wants guns confiscated
Here is video of Dianne Feinstein from “60 Minutes” in 1995, saying she wants guns confiscated. She stated:
“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them – Mr. and Mrs. America turn them all in - I would have done it. I could not do that – the votes weren’t here.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXkl9YVoHo
In 2004, when Barack Obama was an Illinois state Senator, he voted against allowing people in their own homes to use guns to protect themselves and their families from rapists and murderers.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Germany was considered to be one of the most civilized and most advanced countries in the world. At the time, no one thought that a genocide could have been possible in Germany. But then in 1938, Adolf Hitler confiscated all the guns from the Jews. He explained his actions with the following:
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”
Next we have the “Genocide Chart” from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. The chart doesn’t mean that banning guns always leads to genocide. However, it does suggest that allowing guns is a very effective way to prevent genocide. Click here and scroll down to see a larger version of the chart.
In India, it’s illegal for IKEA to sell the following products
In India, it’s illegal for IKEA to sell the following products:
- Home and office use products, solutions, fittings, furnishings and accessories including stationery
- Textile products including apparels and fabrics
- Consumer electronics and accessories
- Cleaning products and accessories
- Leather products
- Storage and sorting products and accessories
- Children’s products and accessories
- Safety-related products
- Travel-related products
- Cosmetics and accessories
- Recycling solutions and products
- Lifestyle products and accessories
- Decorative products
- Gift articles and accessories
- Food and beverages to be served at the IKEA restaurants and café to customers in the IKEA retail stores
- Beach products and accessories
Apparently, the Indian government would prefer to keep the country in the 19th century instead of the 21st.
