It Depends On What The Definition Of ‘Smidgen’ Is
[guest post by Dana]
Lately, it appears that scandal and the IRS are attached at the hip.
Now, due to yet another issue of corruption, a consent decree orders the agency to pay out a $50,000 settlement to the National Organization for Marriage. The IRS admitted to releasing the group’s confidential tax information to the gay rights group, Human Rights Campaign.
In February 2012, the Human Rights Campaign posted on its web site NOM’s 2008 tax return and the names and contact information of the marriage group’s major donors, including soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. That information then was published by the Huffington Post and other liberal-leaning news sites.
HRC’s president at the time, Joe Solmonese, was tapped that same month as a national co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
Not surprisingly:
In May 2012, NOM Chairman John D. Eastman and NOM President Brian Brown asked the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute the case. Eastman appeared last June before the House Committee on Ways and Means to testify about the illegal disclosure o the marriage group’s donors.
Unauthorized disclosure of confidential tax information is a felony offense that can result in five years in prison, but the Department of Justice did not bring criminal charges.
Here’s a little reminder President Obama’s reassurances to the American people:
–Dana
$50,000 is ridiculous
that slutty little whore Mr. Thad Cochran from Mississippi should immediately offer a bill what calls for real penalties for when the IRS leaks confidential information I think
after he finishes his sippy cup
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:02 amI agree, happyfeet. However, given how this administration denies any corruption within the IRS, one might believe the only reason they admitted to the breach in the first place was to shut the whiny Republicans up.
Dana (fe2228) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:12 amthe fascists don’t understand what it means when people don’t have any faith in the tax collection agency because they see the IRS as a police unit what targets criminals
the fascists see the EPA as a police unit what targets criminals
the fascists see the FDA as a police unit what targets criminals
the fascists see the National Park Service as a police unit what targets criminals
the fascists see the BLM as a police unit what targets criminals
This is America.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:17 am$50K isn’t even ‘coffee change’ in DC, but it is a marker indicating that there is something there, unlike Oakland.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:19 amLying. Sack. Of. S#!t.
© Sponge (8110ec) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:31 amThe IRS should not be paying fines to anyone. That’s TAX money being used. That’s the Owebama “redistribution of wealth” wet dream.
The guilty party needs to be identified and pay the fine accordingly. NOT the TAXPayer. They’re not at fault here.
© Sponge (8110ec) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:33 amYes we aware!
askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:34 amWe are collectively guilty for electing this POS twice.
askeptic, I didn’t vote for the Empty Chair either time.
Would there have been criminal charges if a left-wing group’s info had been leaked? Mr. Holder, would you care to comment on that?
htom (412a17) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:38 amhtom, neither did I, but in our system, he’s our President – whether we like it or not.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:41 amOne more reason why both Obama and Holder should be impeached.
Colonel Haiku (833791) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:51 amIt would be hard to require workers at the IRS to pay this fine out of pocket, but the principle that IRS workers should bear the brunt of their mendacity is a good one. Perhaps the money for this and any other judgement against the IRS should come directly out of the pool that would otherwise go to performance-based bonuses. If the money paid out exceeds the performance bonus pool, then additional funds should be borrowed against next year’s bonus pool.
And I think Republicans should introduce a bill that essentially says that if the IRS demands any documents from a taxpayer during an investigation of the tax years 2011-2013, the taxpayer should have the right to say that the documents were accidentally destroyed and the IRS must take the taxpayer at its word that the information submitted is accurate without any corroboration. It could be called The Lerner-Koskinen ‘Take Our Word for It’ Act of 2014.
JVW (feb406) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:55 amOT
nobody tells me anything
this is a thing?
and Hitler is involved?
whaaa?
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:58 amSo, are they suing HRC as well, for posting this stolen and confidential info?
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/25/2014 @ 12:03 pmAnother bill that House Republicans should introduce should dictate that neither the Internal Revenue Service nor the Veterans Administration can issue performance bonuses to without Congressional authorization and approval for the next five years. There will never be a better opportunity to try and tame the federal beast, starting with these two departments.
JVW (feb406) — 6/25/2014 @ 12:04 pmaskeptic — I know the Empty Chair is my president. I am not responsible for his being elected, is what I meant. (Well, living here in Minnesota, there wasn’t much I could do about it.)
htom (412a17) — 6/25/2014 @ 2:47 pmGreetings:
Still living as I do, in the San Francisco Bay area, several soviets south of what the “locals” (who mostly seem to have been born elsewhere) don’t like you to refer to as “Frisco”, I’ve had a kind of catbird seat on the rise of what I refer to as the “New Jim Crow”. Basically, it refers to my assessment that activists/agitators of a Progressive bent are permitted to violate any number of laws or regualtions due to the hesitancy of ideologically aligned governments to hold them to legal or civil standards of behavior.
Demonstrators have been allowed to become disruptors whose ideology and/or feelings are routinely given precedence over the rights of their fellow non-believing/non-feeling citizens. What has much puzzled me is why those negatively effected by such dispensations don’t pursue civil remedies more often. In the case above, I would hope that the “Human” (short for Homosex ???) Rights Campaign would shortly find itself in civil court along with its otherwise employed but ideologically aligned fellow travelers. I may be guessing, but I’m believing that those “Rights” people/folks/confused may have a pile of bucks sitting around in an endowment somewhere.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 6/25/2014 @ 3:11 pmLet’s face it – the United States is a police state. The entire system is designed to feed the government and fact government sector employees. Cops are out their to write tickets, courts issue fines based on tickets – the tax man taxes. It’s all design to make us zombie slaves.
Romeo Foxtrot (092219) — 6/25/2014 @ 3:38 pmLerner’s emails are now showing she went after conservative Senator Grassley as well!
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=385938
OldSarg (e5ec38) — 6/25/2014 @ 4:01 pmDear America,
The reason there’s not a smidgen of evidence is because we destroyed the evidence. Duh.
Love,Signed,
Barack
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/25/2014 @ 4:07 pmRep. Steve Stockman has proposed “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” which allows taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS to validly use the same claims for lack of documents as this administration.
Under Stockman’s bill, taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS can claim one of the following reasons:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts
Tanny O'Haley (137712) — 6/25/2014 @ 10:35 pm2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction
3. Traded documents for five terrorists
4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon
5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room
6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car
7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords
8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar
9. Was short on toilet paper while camping
10. At this point, what difference does it make?
On what grounds? The HRC did nothing illegal. They’re no different from a newspaper that receives a leak and publishes it; the leaker can be prosecuted if caught, but the newspaper has done nothing wrong.
Milhouse (b95258) — 6/25/2014 @ 10:53 pmNo, he’s not our president. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the president elected under Article 2 is the Personal SaviorPresident of all Americans. Elizabeth is the queen of all her subjects, and they owe her personal fealty. 0bama is not a king, and has no subjects; nobody swears an oath of loyalty to him. He merely holds an office in the corporate entity called the United States of America. Its executive power is vested in him, and he’s commander in chief of its armed forces. That doesn’t make him my president, any more than the president of my synagogue, or of my building’s board, or of the company I work for, is therefore “my” president.
Milhouse (b95258) — 6/25/2014 @ 11:06 pm