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Drudge editor and Washington Times staff writer has been tweeting since May 14th... "Drudge editor Joseph Curl: ‘CIA source says still one more shoe to drop’ for Obama admin" And again today via Red Flag News... "CIA: Fox News Scandal “Goes Much Deeper,” White House Sitting On Something that has Top Obama Aides “Terrified." And again via Fox News today... http://nation.foxnews.com/james-rosen/2013/05/20/you-must-read-tweet-joseph-curl

The timeline for when senior White House officials knew about the IRS scandal seems to be shifting. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the president’s counsel was told on April 24 about the preliminary findings of an IRS audit that showed tax officials unfairly targeted Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status. Carney had previously said that White House counsel did not have any details about the IRS probe and was given a generic heads up that one was being conducted. Senior legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told about the audit on April 24, Carney said Monday....

Liberals think crap like this is leadership, go figure.

The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago. Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department. Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had...

joseph curl�@josephcurl8m CIA source says Fox News scandal the "4th Shoe"; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on "something" that has top aides terrified.

The White House is circling the wagons as one of the most feverish periods of President Obama’s tenure enters its second week. Obama and his aides have taken a more aggressive stance in recent days after fumbling their initial response to headline-grabbing scandals at different government agencies. The administration’s strategy is centered on a simple defense: “Our basic thrust is that nobody, here, did anything wrong,” an Obama administration official told The Hill. “That’s why none of this is going to stick.”Even though there is no evidence yet of wrongdoing in the White House, it does not mean that Obama...

A group members of the U.S. House of Representatives have sent Secretary of the Department of Human and Health Services, Kathleen Sebelius, a letter questioning her reported actions of soliciting donations from non-profit organizations that are “directly implementing” Obamacare. Florida’s Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jeff Miller, Bill Posey and Trey Radel are among the 26 members of Congress who penned their signatures on the letter to Sebelius. The letter asks Secretary Sebelius if she indeed made the calls,how many did she make? In addition, Sebelius was asked if Department resources were used, and how much money was raised?

The IRS abused its power in targeting conservatives for harassment and probably leaking information to liberal groups during the presidential election cycle. But the IRS’s actions crossed a line from merely corrupt into sinister when it grilled an Iowa pro-life group about its religious views. During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Friday, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., asked outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about it. “Their question,” Schock said, “specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.’ Would that be an inappropriate question...

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley (in tan jacket) leads a protest earlier this month. About 250 Federal workers massed in Federal Plaza in Manhattan May 7 to protest the sequester cuts. (The Chief) This explains things… President Obama met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief Colleen Kelly in the White House the day before the agency targeted Tea Party. The Spectator reported: “For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?...

UNREAL!… IRS Shake Down of ‘True the Vote’ Involved Visits From FBI, OSHA and ATF – Who Checked Gun Safe (Video) Catherine Engelbrecht of True The Vote joined Governor Mike Huckabee to discuss the harassment and abuse she received from the Obama IRS since she applied for tax exempt status. Her group does not advocate for particular parties or candidates but just for fair elections at all levels. The group obviously is a huge threat to Barack Obama and Democrats. Engelbrecht reminded Governor Huckabee that in the last 18 months voter fraud cases have been prosecuted in 36 states. Engelbrecht...

The late columnist William Safire once said that a good clue that someone in Washington was engaged in “an artful dodge,” i.e., a cover-up, was that they used the phrase “mistakes were made.” Safire defined it as a “passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it.” The phrase became infamous when both Richard Nixon and Ron Ziegler, his press secretary, deployed it to explain away Watergate without explaining who did what and when or whether any ill motive was involved. AdvertisementAstonishingly, the Internal Revenue Service resurrected the Nixonian expression within hours of its clumsy revelation...

The Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner. Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk. Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post): American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes...

See the video of the exchange via the link DAN PFEIFFER, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: The point that our Chief of Staff is making is that this is the Republican playbook here which is try, when they don't have a positive agenda, try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings and false allegations. We're not going to let that distract us and the President from actually doing the people's work and fighting for the middle class. BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: You know, I don’t want to compare this in any way to Watergate. I do...

With so many White House scandals—and new ones popping up every day—how are average citizens supposed to keep track? Wouldn't it be nice if Obama went on ESPN and mapped them all on a bracket?Why wait for next year's March Madness when you can start May Madness today? Introducing the Obama Scandal Bracket! Click here for a full-size version and vote for the scandal you think will bring down the president.

There is so much to say about what happened in Benghazi and the aftermath that one almost does not know where to begin. It was certainly refreshing to watch the news conference the other day with the entire White House Press Corp all over Jay Carney for misleading them regarding the matter. The fact Benghazi is now a lead story in mainstream media outlets is very exciting. We must all look at some realities that remain regarding this whole affair. The biggest reality remains that the administration of Barack Obama seriously misled the American people. They did this knowingly and...

The American people have lost faith in U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and he must be replaced, a top GOP senator said Sunday. “I lost confidence in the attorney general a long time ago over his cover-up of the Fast and Furious investigation,” said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, referencing Mr. Holder’s role in the infamous gunrunning scheme that went awry and cost the life of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Calls for Mr. Holder’s ouster have grown louder since it was revealed the Justice Department gathered telephone records for at least 20 Associated Press editors and reporters...

The White House is standing behind the woman who led the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division while it targeted conservative groups — the same official who now runs the part of the agency charged with implementing “Obamacare.” “No one has suggested that she did anything wrong yet,” said White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, speaking on “Fox News Sunday.”Mr. Pfeiffer added that no one should jump to conclusions about whether Sarah Hall Ingram, given a promotion at the IRS as the agency’s singling out of tea party and conservative groups began to come to light, was directly involved in any...

Given the battering President Obama took this past week on a trio of political scandals, any public opinion survey results that aren’t dreadful probably are viewed with some relief at the White House. That may be the clearest message from a CNN/ORC poll released Sunday morning. According to the survey, which was conducted Friday and Saturday, 53 percent of Americans say they approve of the job the president is doing, with 45 percent saying they disapprove, CNN reports. That’s actually a tick better than the 51 percent approval rating Obama had in early April – but not enough to break...

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said that he feared the Internal Revenue Service scandal over political targeting of Tea Party groups would unfairly stigmatize other workers at the agency. “The biggest problem is that tens of thousands of IRS workers that work hard with all of this stigma being tax collectors, are getting a bad shake out of this,” said Rangel during a panel discussion on ABC’s “This Week.” The IRS acknowledgement that agents used higher scrutiny against conservative groups seeking tax exempt status has already claimed the job of acting director Steven Miller and has the White House...

With the White House slashing its way through the recent brush of controversy, the president is putting out the message that he's focused on the economy as the administration enters another week of hearings on Capitol Hill. "That’s why I like getting out of the Washington echo chamber whenever I can – because too often, our politics aren’t focused on the same things you are," he said Saturday in his weekly address, referring to his jobs tour that took him to Baltimore this week. "Working hard. Supporting your family and your community. Making sure your kids have every chance in...

Reading this timeline, I have come to three conclusions: --snip timeline-- 1. Steve Miller lied to Congress 2. Lois Lerner lied to Congress 3. Barack Obama lied to the American people This scandal has the fingerprints of Axelrod, Jarrett and/or the Chicago Machine all over it. This is fascism on the part of the IRS and the White House. It is fascism, straight up. Or, as I call the IRS: Organizing for Revenue.

Anne Hendershott, an eloquent opponent of the Obama administration, states that she has reason to believe she was targeted by the IRS for an audit following publications that were critical of President Obama and Catholics who supported him. Aleteia, a Catholic publication, reports that Hendershott, a Catholic scholar, sociology professor at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio, and columnist for the Wall St. Journal, may have been harassed by the IRS for specifically opposing the policies of the Obama administration. “I have no proof of it being a political audit,” Hendershott said. “Only the curious circumstance surrounding it. My husband...

WASHINGTON (KMOX) – Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO, issued a video statement Friday in response to reports that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative nonprofit groups. “I’m mad. It is un-American, it is wrong, and we have to make sure that this gets fixed,” Missouri’s senior senator said. “There’s a reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold in America. That is because in America, we don’t apply the law based on who you are, who you know, or what you believe. We apply the law equally.” McCaskill went on to say that the targeting of one group based on political beliefs...

President Obama continues to insist that he first became aware of his IRS targeting conservative groups a week ago Friday when the news first broke. This, despite the fact that his White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, had been informed of the probe on April 22. And despite the fact, as the New York Times reports, that officials in his Treasury Department knew in March that tea party groups had been targeted. President Obama continues to insist that he first became aware of his IRS targeting conservative groups a week ago Friday when the news first broke.This, despite the fact that...

More utter cluelessness from IRS employees, plus, as a bonus, some "Good German" excuses for why the targeting of conservative groups happened. Washington Post: As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don't necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they're engaged in partisan villainy. "We're not political,'' said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. "We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That's why...

The fallout from the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal is going to be felt in many other federal agencies and programs, including Obamacare and immigration reform, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says. "This episode is going to have a big effect … There are multiple, multiple issues that have to be addressed,'' Corker told "The Steve Malzberg Show'' on Newsmax TV. "This is a wakeup call for all of those who see our large government and the way people can be coerced … For instance, as we move to immigration reform, just being aware … of judgments that take place within...

Higher-than-expected premiums, combined with the scandal-ridden IRS, are putting a shadow over Obamacare, with House Republicans vowing to keep up the fight against President Barack Obama's key agenda item. On Thursday, the House voted once again to repeal Obamacare. This time around, two Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.)., sided with Republicans on the vote. All GOP members voted to repeal the health care issue. In Saturday's weekly GOP address, Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris vowed his party will keep up the fight, discussing a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that detailed how insurance...

WASHINGTON — Senior Treasury officials were made aware in June 2012 that investigators were looking into complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the Internal Revenue Service, a Treasury inspector general said, disclosing that Obama administration officials knew there was a probe during the heat of the presidential campaign. J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, testifying alongside ousted IRS head Steven Miller on Friday, said he had told the department's general counsel about his investigation on June 4, 2012, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin "shortly thereafter." But, George cautioned, those discussions...

Obama takes Cabinet secretaries out to play golf Associated Press – 30 mins ago WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has taken two Cabinet secretaries out for a round of golf — in the rain. The White House said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (seh-BEEL'-yuhs) and outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood joined the president Saturday at Andrews Air Force Base. LaHood is running the Transportation Department until the Senate confirms Obama's choice of Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx as successor. Reporters saw Sebelius climb into the president's SUV before the motorcade left the White House. She's overseeing the...

Berlusconi's Bunga-Bunga Strippers Dressed Up as Barack Obama, Says Bellydancer Ruby Silvio Berlusconi's infamous "bunga-bunga" parties featured strippers dressed as US President Obama as well as the more conventional fare of nuns and nurses, according to court testimony by the Moroccan woman at the centre of the scandal. Karima el-Mahroug, 20, was giving evidence at the trial of three former aides to Berlusconi who are accused of procuring her and other women for prostitution. El-Mahroug, a former bellydancer, said she attended about half a dozen parties, using her nickname Ruby. One each occasion, Berlusconi had handed her an envelope containing...

Rep. Paul Ryan said on Friday that the hearing with the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups made at least one thing clear to legislators. “The one answer we did get, though, is that the IRS withheld information from Congress,” the Wisconsin Republican told Jake Tapper on CNN. “We have many more questions that result from today’s hearing.” A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Ryan was among the many panel members from both parties who grilled Miller on the agency’s singling out of groups with the words “tea party”...

The IRS targeting Tea Party groups and other conservative-leaning political organizations has reignited calls for reform and the argument among Capitol Hill Republicans that the federal government has become too big and out of control. Among those leading the calls for reform is Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee, which held a hearing on the scandal five days after the targeting was made public and two days after the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. “This systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation,” Camp said at the start of the...

President Barack Obama is calling attention to his economic proposals and efforts to expand the middle class. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says the U.S. should focus on attracting good jobs, educating workers and ensuring workers get paid a decent living.

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

Some of the world's biggest oil companies may have a new mess on their hands. The European Commission raided the offices of Shell, BP and Norway's Statoil this week as part of an investigation into suspected attempts to manipulate global oil prices spanning more than a decade. None of the companies have been accused of wrongdoing, but the controversy has brought back memories of the Libor rate-rigging scandal that rocked the financial world last year.

On Wednesday the Obama White House dumped 100 pages of emails related to the Benghazi cover-up scandal. Even this cherry-picked selection of documents cast serious doubts on the official White House story line. The universal conclusion among commentators was that the emails, intended to stem the crisis, raised more questions than they answered.... Sadly the dumped emails do not help because the first of them was time-stamped 67 hours after the Benghazi attacks began. This 67 hour gap makes the 18 and a half minute gap in the Nixon tapes look like a hiccup. However, even if the White House...

I have a prediction about how the current scandals facing the Obama administration, from Benghazi, to the Associated Press intrusion, Barack Obamato the IRS harassment of right wing groups, will resolve themselves: President Obama will walk away from all of these scandals completely unscathed. The worst that might possibly happen is that Eric Holder will be forced to resign.

Former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who only took over in November and resigned this week at President Barack Obama's behest, will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday on his role in targeting Tea Party and conservative groups for audit or excessive review. Miller was the first senior IRS official to be disciplined in the scandal, though the problems began before he took over the IRS, and other senior officials were aware of the problem and appear to have misled Congress. Though Miller's resignation was reported as a decisive step by the president, his...

No, really, Jay Carney would like to know. Even though he only showed his face in the briefing room twice this week, and even though the White House press corps used him as a punching bag, Barack Obama’s press secretary wants you to know he’s really enjoyed having to address this avalanche of scandals. Wait — did we say scandals? We mean, er, opportunities:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals,” Carney said flatly, calling the controversy over Benghazi a “total concoction by Republicans,” and the IRS scandal merely “inappropriate behavior” by...

Scooped by Scooter Van Neuter at Big Hairy News

Sure, Obama probably didn’t order the IRS to discriminate. But he set the tone. By Jonah Goldberg Of course the president deserves some of the blame. Yes, it’s extremely unlikely he ordered the IRS to discriminate against tea-party, pro-life, or Jewish groups opposed to his agenda (though why anyone should take his word for it is beyond me). And his outrage now — however convenient — is appreciated. But when people he views as his “enemies” complained about a politicized IRS, what did he do? Nothing.

<p>How are they named here but in no other source??</p> <p>FOX19) - As we are continuing to look into the case surrounding the IRS and Cincinnati's connection there two big questions.</p> <p>Did the White House know about this scandal sooner than what they have claimed? Could criminal charges be filed against the local agents accused in the case?</p>

Documents and Multimedia Listen to Lois Lerner, head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division, discuss the agency’s audits during a meeting of the American Bar Association in Washington. See examples of questionnaires sent by the IRS to conservative advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status. A January, 2012 letter from the IRS to an unnamed organization. . A February, 2012 letter from the IRS to a conservative group in Oklahoma . An April, 2010 letter from the IRS to the Albuquerque Tea Party . A January, 2012 letter from the IRS to Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now . A February 2012...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid controversies hammering the White House, named a temporary chief for the scandal-marred Internal Revenue Service Thursday and pressed Congress to approve new security money to prevent another Benghazi-style terrorist attack.

IRS Rationale for Tea Party Scandal Is Debunked by Data By Doug Donovan Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010. In fact, applications were declining, data show. Top IRS officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” and “9/12.” Both Steven Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner until he stepped down...

At least 32 groups that filed applications to become tax-exempt charities could have sued the Internal Revenue Service last year for taking too long to make a decision, according to a Treasury Department audit released Tuesday that faulted the agency for mishandling applications from groups that could be politically oriented. “Potential political cases took significantly longer than average to process due to ineffective management oversight,” said the report, which found that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative organizations that had words like “Tea Party,” or “patriots” in their names or focused on issues like government spending or taxes. The...

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today **snip** High-ranking career federal civil servants like Ingram are eligible for recognition through citations known as Distinguished and...

On Sept. 12, 2012, President Barack Obama vowed to "bring to justice" the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 26, 2012, Obama said his "biggest priority" was bringing the "folks" in Libya responsible for murdering four Americans to "justice." Tick, tock, tick, tock. While White House press secretary Jay Carney sneers at the GOP's "obsession" with what went wrong at the besieged Libyan consulate, Obama continues to ply his emptiest talking point. On May 13, 2013, more than eight months after the bloody disaster, Obama snippily reminded reporters that he had told us all back in...

Like everything else the IRS has said about the tax scandal, its explanation for why it ended up targeting conservative groups turns out to be completely false. Which raises the question: Why are IRS officials trying so desperately to hide what really went on? Ever since the tax scandal broke, top IRS officials have insisted that the reason it started singling out conservative groups for extra review was because the agency was getting a flood of tax-exempt applications.

IRS was ill-equipped to handle the deluge of tax-exempt applications from 'social welfare' organizations and to police their political activities, experts say. In spring 2010, agents in the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service, which handles applications for tax-exempt status, faced a surge of filings by new advocacy groups, with little guidance on how to treat them. Their decision to deal with the problem by singling out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny has now triggered a criminal inquiry, congressional investigations, the departure of two top IRS officials and the naming of a new acting commissioner...