IRSgate: Nobody Knows Anything (Open Thread)

© Miri WTPOTUS May 22, 2013

The outrage at the IRS continues.  By now, nearly everyone knows that Tea Party, 9/12, “patriot”, and other conservative groups, including religious groups, were specifically targeted by the IRS, after Obama and his party were “shellacked” (by the Tea Party) in the 2010 election and after the Supreme Court issued the Citizens United decision, affirming that such groups have free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution. 

Because of the “inappropriate” targeting, conservative groups were sidelined during the election of 2012.  Some groups continue to be sidelined, because their applications for tax exempt status remain in limbo.

Lois Lerner today took the Fifth and refused to testify to a House Committee.

Douglas Shulman, who led the IRS during most of the time that the targeting took place, seems to know little and “remembers” even less.

Hearings continue.  Will Congress will ever get to the bottom of this scandal?   Representative Darrell Issa intends to keep up his dogged investigation until the truth comes out.

The Obama administration, if we’re to believe what we’re told, is like an asylum in which the inmates run amok.  Although there ARE managers, administrators, secretaries, and CEOs, they seem to do nothing, although all warm seats and collect big salaries.

These “leaders” seem to know nothing; they supervise nothing; they investigate nothing; they see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

Why are We the People paying them, if these agencies run themselves? Our country has a $17 trillion debt.  Budgets are running deficits. Why are we wasting millions, if not billions, on supervisory administrators who seem to do nothing and know nothing?

In the Obamanation, nobody is responsible for anything. The buck stops nowhere.  Responsibility is diffused.  All that Obama’s appointees, acolytes, and employees will do is to express regret, “dismay”, and sadness about their failures, as if they have no responsibility for anything.  “Foolish mistakes were made.”  But no named person made them.

Somebody created that “be on the lookout” list (BOLO)–the now-infamous list of “keywords” that IRS employees used to stymie applications of groups that opposed Obama’s policies.

Obama’s administration is doing its best to stymie the investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups.  Today we learned that the IRS will not cough up communications between the IRS and the White House [emphasis added]:

What did the White House know about the IRS targeting conservative groups and when did it know it?

Crucial evidence needed to develop an accurate answer to that question would include the records of any communications that went back and forth between the IRS and the White House on the topic.

In a May 14 letter signed by Chairman Dave Camp and Ranking Member Sander Levin, the House Ways and Means Committee demanded precisely those records from the IRS. In the same letter, the committee also demanded the records of any communications between IRS and the Treasury on the matter, plus other information and records that would help the committee understand the facts about IRS actions that subjected to heightened scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin gave the IRS a deadline of Tuesday, May 21 to comply with their committee’s demand for the information and records.

The IRS–which requires working Americans to file their tax returns by an April 15 deadline each year or else face penalties–did not comply with this deadline imposed by the congressional committee that has oversight over its activities.

This issue finally seems to be uniting Democrats and Republicans, in the sense that at least some Democrats in the House seemed outraged by the lack of cooperation and stonewalling that they see coming out of the Obama administration.   Congress needs to exert its position as first among the three co-equal branches of this government. It’s about time that all the representatives of the people actually represent We the People.

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