Tag Archives: IRS

national news, political news

Stop making me laugh, Mr. Speaker

John Boehner might be the most unintentionally funny politician in Washington, D.C.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, for instance, told conservative journalists that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Benghazi/e-mail kerfuffle just won’t go away.

Imagine that. They won’t vaporize. Become old news. They won’t be relegated to the back burner.

And why do you suppose that’s the case?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/boehner-on-hillary-emails-these-things-just-dont-go-away/article/2563850

It’s because Boehner and other Republicans won’t allow it.

That’s the short answer. Indeed, it’s the only answer I can figure at the moment.

The Benghazi matter will stay in the public eye for as long as Congress wants it to stay there. Boehner, according to the Washington Examiner, intends to keep the focus on Benghazi and the e-mails that have been called into question by the House Select Benghazi Committee chaired by Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.

Boehner said this: “They deleted all the (former IRS director) Lois Lerner e-mails, but they keep finding them. You know, these things just don’t go away. So I don’t know where the server is, I don’t know what condition it’s in, I have no idea, but the American people deserve the facts. That’s all. Just tell us what the facts are.”

So, the hunt will go on. Benghazi will remain in front of voters. Boehner wants the truth, by golly, no matter what.

I don’t know whether to dismiss Boehner’s ridiculous assertions about why these matters won’t fade into oblivion or whether to enjoy watching these fishing expeditions. On one hand, the Benghazi tragedy — in which four Americans were killed in that September 2012 fire fight launched by terrorists at the U.S. consulate in Libya — has been settled. Members of Congress, though, keep looking for more … and then more after that. They seem intent on finding something — anything — that’s going to derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

That, I submit, is why the Benghazi e-mail tempest will keep going.

Correct, Mr. Speaker?

 

national news, political news

Graham writes strategy for GOP failure

Lindsey Graham is saying things his fellow Republicans don’t want to hear.

But they should.

That is why the U.S. senator from South Carolina’s expected bid to become the next president of the United States is likely going to fail. He will be unable to persuade the fire-breathing GOP base that he’s tell them a harsh truth: You can’t govern if you’re angry.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/lindsey-graham-2016-ted-cruz-116372.html?hp=lc1_4

As Politico reports, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas vows to “repeal ‘every word’ of Obamacare and Common Core if he becomes president. He would ‘abolish’ the IRS, flatten the Tax Code so Americans can fill out their taxes on a postcard, and ‘finally, finally, finally’ secure the border.”

Graham is trying to talk some sense into his fellow Republicans by reminding them that governing is a shared responsibility. They need to work with Democrats, not against them, if they expect to get anything done.

My hunch is that his message is falling on mostly deaf ears.

Republicans are mad at Democrats for what they perceive has been a shutting-them-out of the governing process. The GOP response now that it has control of both legislative houses? Payback, man.

Graham said it won’t work.

Here’s how Politico profiles Graham: “Graham, who has served in Congress since 1995 and is an attorney in the Air Force Reserve, is not without a wide range of votes that add to his baggage headed into 2016. He voted for both of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees. He backs Loretta Lynch to be attorney general. He believes climate change is real and that the federal government should do something about it. He’s open to a Simpson-Bowles-type approach to rein in big deficits, something that would raise tax revenues. And he was an architect of the comprehensive immigration bill, something the right wing of his party despises.”

What in the world is so unreasonable about Graham’s approach to governing?

Everything, apparently, according to the far right wing of the Republican Party. Too bad.

 

national news

Sharpton owes how much to the IRS?

The New York Times — one of the conservative movement’s favorite targets — has done something that left-leaning activists might not have imagined.

The paper has reported on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s back tax bill, which according to the Times amounts to more than $4 million.

Four million bucks!

Wow! Let this one sink in for a moment.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/19/politics/al-sharpton-finance/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Sharpton is a noted MSNBC commentator. He also has become known as a civil-rights activist and a founder of the National Action Network, an organization dedicated to seeking justice on behalf of disadvantaged Americans.

Sharpton is an outspoken progressive firebrand who — and this is where the irony kicks in — regularly rails against wealthy tax cheats or those who use their wealth and standing to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Now comes this report that Sharpton himself has a serious issue with the Internal Revenue Service.

Sharpton has fought back. He says he has paid down the bill, that he doesn’t owe as much as the NYT says he does.

Let’s wait for this thing to play out.

My advice for MSNBC, though, would be to take Sharpton off the air while this matter gets sorted out. Any time he speaks out against wealthy tax cheats is going to produce nothing but laughter across the land.

 

Uncategorized

IRS controversy lives on … and on

The Internal Revenue Service controversy hasn’t yet blown up into a full-scale scandal, no matter how hard the right wing tries to make it so.

Now the talking heads and pols on the right are clamoring for a special counsel to investigate the matter. Recall, now, that it began with revelations that the IRS was vetting conservative political action groups’ requests for tax-exempt status. It does the same thing for liberal groups, too, but the conservative chattering class got all wound up over it and have raised a stink ever since.

Now there’s been further revelations about two years worth of emails that went missing from IRS honcho Lois Lerner’s computer. What the heck happened to them?

Republicans, not surprisingly, are trying to tie the IRS matter to the White House, even though no evidence has been uncovered that the IRS was doing anything under White House orders. They want to implicate the president — naturally! — for all this. So far they’ve come up empty.

A special prosecutor might be a good idea if Congress could limit the scope of his or her probe. The last notable special prosecutor hired was one Kenneth Starr, who was brought in to investigate the Whitewater real estate dealings involving President and Mrs. Clinton. Starr, though, went rogue and discovered the president had engaged in a tawdry relationship with a young White House intern.

The House of Reps impeached him because he lied to a federal grand jury about that relationship; the Senate acquitted the president at trial.

Is a special prosecutor needed in this case? I believe the GOP-led House of Representatives has looked thoroughly into this matter and has found zero evidence of White House complicity in anything involving the IRS.

That, of course, will not end the clamor.

Uncategorized

GOP getting unhappy over IRS probe

Might there be some restiveness brewing within Republican congressional ranks?

It appears, according to Politico.com, that some GOP members of Congress are getting a bit tired of the incessant probing, questioning and spending of taxpayer money over a controversy that seems to have run out of steam.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/darrell-issa-irs-tea-party-investigation-105119.html?hp=l7

You remember the Internal Revenue Service “scandal” that boiled up nearly a year ago when it was learned that the most loathed agency in the federal government was vetting conservative political action groups’ request for tax-exempt status? Remember when all that broke?

It was considered a big deal because some folks feared that the IRS got its marching orders from the White House, perhaps from within the Oval Office itself. Heck, maybe the president himself awoke in the wee hours one morning, picked up the phone and called the IRS himself and ordered the agency to stick it to those right-wingers, correct?

Well, none of that seems to have happened. Instead, the IRS acted apparently as it is charged to do — with liberal and conservative groups alike — and vetted tea party groups carefully to ensure that they didn’t violate federal tax status laws. Investigators have determined that all decisions reportedly were made by field office personnel; they were not mandated by White House directives.

None of that has satisfied House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who keeps beating the drum looking for something — anything! — that ties this controversy to President Obama’s shirt tail.

It turns out some of his GOP colleagues — not to mention Democratic House members — are getting weary of it.

“There is a perception that if your case is rock-solid, it doesn’t need months to sort it out,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who is considered a probable successor to Issa as chairman, given that Issa is being term-limited out of the chairman’s seat at the end of the current Congress.

The case has been far from rock-solid. In fact, it has been shown to be mushy soft and full of holes.

Let’s get off this one, Mr. Chairman, and get back to legislating — which is what we pay our lawmakers to do.

Uncategorized

Congressional dust-up ends with apology

That was a brief tempest on Capitol Hill.

What figured to be a festering sore on Congress has ended with an apology from the chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee to the panel’s ranking minority member.

Now, let’s all get along, shall we?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/200168-issa-apologizes-to-cummings-for-cutting-off-mic

Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had the turned the microphone off while ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had sought to “question” Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who had taken the Fifth while refusing to answer questions relating to the IRS political action committee investigation controversy that just won’t go away. Seems that congressional Republicans continue to smell blood in the water and want to make hay whenever possible.

Whatever.

Issa disrespected Cummings by turning off the mic and then walking out of the hearing room while Cummings was expressing his anger at the way he was being treated.

The House of Representatives the next day rejected a resolution to condemn Issa for his boorishness.

Issa then called Cummings and apologized. Issa said, “As chairman, I should have been much more sensitive to the mood of what was going on, and I take responsibility.” Cummings accepted the apology. Both men said they want to move on.

One way to put this issue behind them — and us — is to stop the incessant questioning of officials when they know they won’t get any answers to a controversy that’s been covered to the nth degree. Issa still appears to be looking for any White House involvement in what’s been determined to have been an IRS field office decision to probe conservative PACs closely in their request for tax-exempt status. Let’s also note that the IRS has done the same thing to liberal PACs.

Cummings was angry at the badgering.

Issa was gentleman enough to apologize.

So, guys, let’s get on with the business of governing.