The Associated Press is now claiming that the IRS targeted liberal groups. The article begins:
Democrats are unhappy that newly revealed Internal Revenue Service documents show the agency screened for progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status, not just the tea party organizations for which the IRS was already under fire.
Democrats also want to know why the Treasury Department inspector general who investigated IRS targeting of conservative groups didn’t mention that terms like “Progressives” and “Healthcare legislation” were on the same lists agency workers used to find applications to review closely.
“The Inspector General seriously erred in not making clear in both the audit report and his testimony on this matter that ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Progressives’ were included” in the lists IRS workers used to screen applications, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., wrote Monday in a memo his aides distributed. Levin is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Despite continuing for an additional 22 paragraphs, the article does not name even one liberal group that was allegedly targeted. The article does not cite even one specific example of a liberal group being treated badly by the IRS. The article does not quote even one person from one liberal group claiming to have been treated unfairly. (more…)
Six teenage boys aged 15 to 17 were convicted on Friday after raping a 15-year-old girl in a north-western suburb of Stockholm in March.
Five of the boys have been sentenced to over 100 hours of community service each, and have been ordered to pay 55,000 kronor ($8,500) each in damages to the victim.
This is despicable.
For all practical purposes, rape is now legal in Sweden.
For a country that has a reputation of being one of the best in the world when it comes to protecting women’s rights, this suggests that the reputation is not deserved.
Because Geroge Zimmerman is the one on trial, the law gives him the presumption of innocence. It is up to the prosecutor to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman is guilty.
Because Trayvon Martin is not on trial, he does not have the benefit of the presumtion of innocence.
A medical report compiled by the family physician of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
The record shows that Zimmerman also suffered bruising in the upper lip and cheek and lower back pain. The two lacerations on the back of his head, one of them nearly an inch long, the other about a quarter-inch long, were first revealed in photos obtained exclusively by ABC News last month.
WFTV has confirmed that autopsy results show 17-year-old Trayvon Martin had injuries to his knuckles when he died.
WFTV has learned that the medical examiner found two injuries on Martin’s body: The fatal gunshot wound and broken skin on his knuckles.
This is sufficient to create reasonable doubt.
That’s not enough to prove that Martin was the aggressor. But it is enough to create reasonable doubt that Zimmerman was the aggressor. And it’s Zimmerman who is on trial here, not Martin.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of people have taken sides based on things other than the actual evidence. On both sides, there seem to be people who have based their decision on race, instead of on the actual evidence. And that’s a real shame. The law is supposed to be about evidence, not race.
I’m a vegetarian. I view it as a personal choice, and I never tell anyone else what to eat or not eat.
When I see a live bird, I don’t think of it as being food. A dog or a cat does see it as food, which is why they they chase them, kill them, and eat them.
But cows – I always thought cows were vegetarians. And I still think they are. But I guess the label isn’t always 100% accurate.
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.
On June 19, while giving a speech at the National Press Club, Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of Associated Presssaid of President Obama’s seizure of AP’s phone records
“Some longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking with us… In some cases, government employees we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone. Others are reluctant to meet in person … This chilling effect on newsgathering is not just limited to AP…Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me that it has intimidated both official and nonofficial sources from speaking to them as well.”
This terrifies me – but it doesn’t surprise me. This is who Obama is. This is what he does. He’s a control freak who has no interest in or respect for the principles of limited government.
The only reason even a plurality of Americans still trusts President Obama is that for six years the establishment press has drowned out any meaningful attempt to call him out when he has lied and brazenly broken his promises. The list of lies and broken promises is incredibly long.
See that link in there? That’s to my blog entry on Barack Obama!
The National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization, claims that it has forensic evidence which proves that its donors’ private information was illegally leaked by the IRS. The Blaze reports:
John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, accused the IRS of intentionally leaking confidential donor information to groups hostile to his organization.
“This just smells and I hope this committee gets to the bottom of it,” he said, adding that his group had “identified that [the leaked information] came from within the IRS.”
The National Organization for Marriage’s “forensic” specialists were able to strip layers from the document and discovered that “the original document that was posted had originated from within the IRS,” Eastman said.
He also said the document has “internal IRS stamps,” which “only exist within the IRS.”
“You can imagine our shock and disgust over this,” he added. “We jealously guard our donors.”
The Wall St. Journal says that if this is true, the IRS employee who illegally leaked this private information could get five years in prison.
If all of these claims are true, then this would be a great chance for President Obama to prove that he was serious, and not just saying empty words, when he said he was upset at the IRS. Is Obama willing to push for this person to get five years in prison? I doubt it. Hopefully, Obama will prove me wrong.
Considering how the IRS wasted all that money on luxury hotel rooms and worthless speeches, Werfel really has some nerve asking Congress for more money.
By proposing to reward wasteful spending with a budget increase, Werfel has already proven that he is incompetent to head the IRS.
The fact that Obama would nominate such an incompetent person does not surprise me one bit.
Now I have some new information. Politico reports:
Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel is placing two officials — including a top staffer implementing the health care law — on administrative leave for violating government ethics rules at a 2010 conference.
“When I came to IRS, part of my job was to hold people accountable,” Werfel said in a statement Wednesday. “There was clearly inappropriate behavior in this situation and immediate action is needed.”
Werfel didn’t specify which staff members he disciplined but congressional sources tell POLITICO one official is Fred Schindler, the director of implementation oversight at the IRS Affordable Care Act office. The other is Donald Toda, a California-based employee.
The staffers received $1,100 in free food and other items at the conference, the sources said.
Suspended employees are often paid during suspension
So for their bad behavior, they get a paid vacation.
By comparison, President Reagan fired 11,359 air-traffic controllers who had been illegally striking.
His agency under relentless fire, the new head of the Internal Revenue Service acknowledged to Congress on Monday that American taxpayers no longer trust the IRS amid a growing number of scandals — from the targeting of conservative political groups to lavish spending on employee conferences.
But Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel declared he was “committed to restoring that trust.” He said he has installed new leadership at the agency and is conducting a thorough review of what went wrong and how to fix it.
Werfel’s comment that taxpayers “no longer” trust the IRS is bogus. The truth is that taxpayers never trusted the IRS in the first place.
The article continues:
Werfel went to Capitol Hill to ask for a big budget increase.
“I’m prepared to defend the increase that we’re asking for,” he said.
Werfel’s asking Congress for more money for the IRS is absurd. The problem with the IRS is not lack of money. The problem is lack of morals – which is something that money cannot buy.
The article also reports on a conferences that the IRS had:
Some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about “leadership through art,” the committee said.
Considering how the IRS wasted all that money on luxury hotel rooms and worthless speeches, Werfel really has some nerve asking Congress for more money.
By proposing to reward wasteful spending with a budget increase, Werfel has already proven that he is incompetent to head the IRS.
The fact that Obama would nominate such an incompetent person does not surprise me one bit.
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…)
A 2011 USA Today article on federal employees states:
“The federal government fired 0.55% of its workers in the budget year that ended Sept. 30 — 11,668 employees in its 2.1 million workforce.”
“White-collar federal workers have almost total job security after a few years on the job. Last year, the government fired none of its 3,000 meteorologists, 2,500 health insurance administrators, 1,000 optometrists, 800 historians or 500 industrial property managers.”
Wow! Those must be excellent workers, right?
Actually, no. The article also says:
“San Francisco State University management professor John Sullivan, an expert on employee turnover, says the low departure rates show a failure to release poor performers and those with obsolete skills. ‘Rather than indicating something positive, rates below 1% in the firing and layoff components would indicate a serious management problem,’ he says.”
A serious management problem?
So who exactly is the highest ranking manager of the federal government?
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 