geojanes wrote:So the investigation will find the truth, but whenever you have two choices: a vast conspiracy involving otherwise law-abiding people, or incompetence, the latter is almost always true.

GMTom wrote:Umm, George, you seem to be forgetting one very important part of this...
The IRS admitted to this, they admitted wrong doing and heads have started to roll. Making excuses based on what you want to believe does not fall in line with reality.

GMTom wrote: Making excuses based on what you want to believe does not fall in line with reality.

The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

Lerner acknowledged it was wrong for the agency to target groups based on political affiliation.

"That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

geojanes wrote:What did they admit to? That IRS agents intended to favor one political party over another for the political gain of another? Or did they admit to targeting right-wing groups over other groups as a result of their investigations? The difference between those is HUGE. One is a criminal conspiracy where you jail people The other is incompetence that you fix. I don't think anyone has admitted there is a criminal conspiracy.

Journalists show that the IRS are targeting political groups seeking 501c4 status, not because they are right wing, but because this is not the proper category for any political organization

Doctor Fate wrote:The whole story is falling apart and it will get worse.

http://www.fox19.com/story/22380127/rea ... rs-scandal

geojanes wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:The whole story is falling apart and it will get worse.

http://www.fox19.com/story/22380127/rea ... rs-scandal

Well, that's a third explanation: not incompetence, not conspiracy, but a half squad of agents acting on orders of one of their superiors. All you have to do is interview the agents and find out the truth, which I expect will be happening very, very soon. .

freeman3 wrote:At the end of the day, Benghazi was a made-up scandal.

The IRS scandal is only significant if some one from the White House told the IRS to target conservative groups because they are abusing 503(c)(4) classification (no evidence of that) . . .

Her brief statement of innocence has opened a legal Pandora's Box, according to Dershowitz.

"You can't simply make statements about a subject and then plead the Fifth in response to questions about the very same subject," the renowned Harvard Law professor said.

"Once you open the door to an area of inquiry, you have waived your Fifth Amendment right . . . you've waived your self-incrimination right on that subject matter."

He said the fact that Lerner went ahead with her proclamation of could be considered malpractice on the part of her attorney — although it's possible she overruled the advice she received.

"It should never have been allowed. She should have been told by her attorney that the law is clear, that once you open up an area of inquiry for interrogation, you have to respond," he said.

"Now she may have made a political decision that it's worth it to take the risk . . . That's just not the way the law works. It may be the way politics works . . . but she can't invoke the Fifth."

. . . and the AP story just shows the overreach if the Patriot Act. The Republicans did the same thing during Clinton's presidency (remember Ken Starr) All the Republicans are doing is hurting the country with all of these investigations. Meanwhile, the deficit is dropping, unemployment is down, and Wall Street is booming...I wonder why the Republicans would want the country distracted from that?

The links between a nonprofit promoting President Obama’s healthcare law and the White House have created an “air of expectation” that insurers will contribute to the group, according to an insurance industry official.

Current and former administration officials have taken on leadership and fundraising roles for Enroll America, a nonprofit aiming to make sure people sign up for new coverage options. As the ties grow deeper, the organization has come to feel like “just an arm of the administration,” said one official who works closely with insurers.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has already come under fire from congressional Republicans because she has raised money for the organization.

They say it puts inappropriate pressure on insurers, who will need the department’s approval to sell their products through a federally run insurance exchange in more than half the country.

“Companies and organizations should never be pressured for money because it sends the message that contributions are necessary to secure favorable regulatory decisions — creating a ‘pay to play’ environment — or to avoid regulatory reprisals,” Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee said in a recent letter to Sebelius.

The White House and the Health Department have defended Sebelius, saying her fundraising is legal and consistent with the George W. Bush administration’s effort to publicize Medicare’s prescription drug benefit when it came into effect in 2006.

“We are aggressively engaging in a wide range of stakeholder conversations about the president’s healthcare law, as was done ... in previous administrations implementing Medicare Part D and the children’s health insurance program,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday