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Thursday, May 16, 2013
My entire childhood (almost) in one email...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
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The IRS Wants You
The scandal over politicized tax enforcement is growing.
President Obama famously joked in a college commencement address in 2009 that he could use the IRS to target political enemies but of course he never would. It appears that people at the Internal Revenue Service didn't think he was joking.
That's become clear since IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner admitted on Friday that the agency targeted conservatives for special tax-exempt scrutiny during the 2012 election season. The story has already blossomed into the latest abuse of government power, as documents show the IRS targeted tea party types and groups that specifically opposed the Obama Administration.
According to an appendix to a forthcoming Treasury Inspector General report obtained by the Journal, in June 2011 the IRS expanded its special attention to groups that met the following criteria:
"•'Tea Party,' 'Patriots,' or '9/12 Project' is referenced in the case file.
• Issues include Government spending, Government debt, or taxes.
• Education of the public via advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live.'
• Statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run."
Good to know our T-men are chasing down those nefarious folks who want to "make America a better place to live."
We've also learned that IRS officials knew about this earlier than they have let on. News reports suggest that Ms. Lerner knew about the targeting of conservatives in June 2011, and perhaps as early as 2010. That's a long time before IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman flatly denied any political targeting when he testified at a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing in March 2012.
IRS officials are still claiming that the questions weren't meant to intimidate these groups. But the evidence that the inquiries were political is already voluminous.
The IRS sent questionnaires to conservative groups that included requests for everything from the resumes of directors past and present to whether an employee or employee family member had plans to run for public office. Cincinnati Tea Party founder Justin Binik-Thomas wrote in the Washington Examiner recently that one nonprofit received a questionnaire that demanded that it "Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas."
According to the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents some of the IRS targets, the IRS letters did not come only from the Cincinnati office (as Ms. Lerner implied on Friday), but also from IRS offices in Laguna Niguel and El Monte in California as well as from Washington D.C. In addition to intrusive questionnaires, the groups were subjected to unusual delays in obtaining tax-exempt status. Of the law center's 27 clients, 15 were approved, two withdrew out of frustration and 10 are still pending.
Some Democrats took to the airwaves on the weekend to suggest that while the IRS shouldn't have been targeting conservatives, no one was harmed. Former senior White House official and chief Obama politico David Plouffe tweeted that what the IRS did was "dumb and wrong," but that it was "Impt to note GOP groups flourished last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $." In Mr. Plouffe's moral universe, all that matters is partisan advantage rather than the apolitical tax enforcement Americans expect of their government.
"Why raise your hand to draw attention to yourself or give them ammunition against you when you don't have to?" spokesman Carol Thorpe told the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Who knows how many others decided to sit out the 2012 campaign?
Asked about the IRS news on Monday, Mr. Obama said that "if in fact IRS personnel" targeted conservatives, that would be "outrageous" and those responsible would be held "accountable." That's nice to hear, but he was making conditional what the IRS has already admitted, which is not as bad as what we are learning it really did.
Our Kimberley Strassel reported last year that Idaho businessman and Mitt Romney donor Frank VanderSloot was first maligned publicly by an Obama campaign website as disreputable, and then was mysteriously targeted by the IRS and the Labor Department for audits. The press corps ignored that ugly coincidence and no one to our knowledge was punished.
Meanwhile, the National Organization for Marriage charged Monday that someone at the IRS leaked its confidential tax data to a gay rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign. In March 2012 the Huffington Post published the names of donors to the pro-marriage group contained in IRS Form 990 Schedule B from 2008. The Human Rights Campaign says it obtained the return from a "whistleblower," but leaking confidential tax information is a crime.
In other words, there is a pattern here. Oppose the Obama Administration or liberal priorities, and you too can become an IRS target. We're glad to see Congress mobilizing in response, including hearing plans by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and the House Ways and Means Committee that asked the IRS about this in 2012 and received denials. The subpoenas need to fly as thick as those IRS questionnaires.
A version of this article appeared May 14, 2013, on page A14 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The IRS Wants You.
Benghazi Disinformation Points
Jay Carney seems to have forgotten the meaning of the word 'edit.'
Friday's revelation that the Obama Administration's talking points on Benghazi were revised a dozen times adds another reason not to trust the official story line. It also gives Congress new cause to keep digging.
Jonathan Karl of ABC News disclosed that the talking points evolved over time to exclude references to terrorists who might have participated in the attacks that killed four Americans last September in Libya. The first iteration on Friday September 14 prepared by the CIA said that "we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."
After the twelfth edit a day later, the report merely said that "there are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations." This change had the effect of underplaying potential terror involvement and made it easier for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to pitch the line that the attacks resulted from reaction to a YouTube video.
Mr. Karl also reported that the editing included substantial input from the State Department and others in government. This certainly contradicts the assurance from White House spokesman Jay Carney on November 28, 2012 that, "Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened."
Mr. Carney added that, "The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two, of these two institutions were changing the word 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' because 'consulate' was inaccurate."
Strangely, Mr. Carney is sticking with that story, claiming now that everyone knows that talking points always get routine interagency scrutiny and editing. A former journalist, Mr. Carney may have been in politics so long that he has forgotten when public officials begin to sound ridiculous.
The upshot is that the Benghazi story has new legs, despite the best efforts of White House allies in the media to dismiss it. House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers said on Fox News Sunday that more "whistleblowers" with knowledge of what happened may come forward.
One issue worth more examination is which U.S. and NATO military assets were available in the region to respond to the attack, and why they didn't. The White House and Pentagon insist there was nothing within range that would have made a difference, but we also know that military officers respond to the political tone that civilian officials set at the top.
Did the well-known White House desire to retreat from Libya influence the ability and willingness of military officials to respond in real time? The lives of Americans around the world could hang on the answer.
A version of this article appeared May 13, 2013, on page A14 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Benghazi Disinformation Points.
Internal IRS Mandate: 'Be on the Lookout' for 'Organizations Involved In ... Educating on Constitution and Bill of Rights'
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