In a press conference just moments ago, President Obama announced:
“Today, Treasury Secretary Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS [Steven Miller].”
Let’s wait and see if other resignations will follow.
WAJ adds 7 p.m.–
I’m on one of my long drives between homes, but I had to pull over to weigh in on this.
I’m calling this the start of the political cover-up. Obama’s just doing damage control to turn this into a “nothing to see here, move along” narrative. Maybe OFA will spin off a new group, just Move On — oh wait, that’s taken.
The full statement, about how “this can be fixed,” is nonsense. This cannot be fixed. The IRS has a long history of political chicanery directed at conservatives. At bare minimum we need public hearings with witnesses under oath, a full document release, and an independent prosecutor with the obsessive determination and naked ambition Pat Fitzgerald showed towards Scooter Libby and Blago.
Then we need to do to the IRS what Chris Christie just did to his stomach — not just a nip and tuck, but a gastric band which restricts the insatiable hunger for power.
I now resume my previously scheduled driving.
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Comments
Some prison sentences would be nice too. Scooter Libby did time for much less.
To hell with resignations, I want people to go to jail.
[…] Big News Breaking: Obama fires a temp at the IRS. But… One scrawny sacrificial lamb won’t be enough for the hungry lions. Anyone seen tax […]
Scapegoat #1. Who’s next? Will the buck ever stop with those who really gave the orders? That’s a rhetorical question.
The mind is wandering a bit tonight – or maybe I started drinking earlier than usual – but I think I can make a point here:
Very few people ever have a positive interaction with the IRS. Taxpayers are presumed guilty and must prove their innocence. Even in a minor dispute with the IRS, you will still have invested significant time, energy and treasure in order to prove you innocence. And pretty often, even if you are innocent you can’t prove it to their satisfaction. So, the fallout here is that every person who has had a negative and intrusive experience with the IRS in recent years now has a very big soap box to claim they have been targeted for political reasons; and every word out of every agent’s mouth is now fair game for pinata practice.
Seems some enterprising attorneys could get some mileage out of disgruntled taxpayers……
LOL …. funny they canned the guy who wasn’t there
Yes Aggie, they did.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that he believes President Barack Obama owes the American public explanations for both the seizure of Associated Press phone records by the Department of Justice and the IRS targeting of conservative groups. “I don’t think anyone truly believes that the president has given us a sufficient answer for America, much less the press,” Rangel said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
When Rangel, a brother, leaves you in the dust …
Not enough. ALL Tea Parties and other organizations affected must file a massive lawsuit against the IRS.
The One thinks that letting the IRS Commish go will, ahem, “calm people down”, and make them “move on” to other things. But we must not let him. The damage done to these organizations and those associated with them is incalculable.
The major data mining.
The major invasion of privacy. (High school and college students tutored in Conservatism? What do they want to do to that info, really? To them?)
The major persecution, even against Jewish and Christian groups. (Franklin Graham?!?!? A Catholic sociologist?)
The major sharing of these organizations’ data with Leftist groups (I shall never again call them “Liberals”, because a “Liberal” has a degree of “tolerance.” The Left has none.)
The major hindrance of these organizations in an election year in which all their strength, muscle and time was needed the most!
(Now it should be very clear why the Census 2010 operations were moved to the White House: massive data mining for Election 2012.)
Sorry, Barry. The damage is done. It’s Too Late to Apologize.
I’ve seen multiple postings by IRS line employees who have said that they are told repeatedly that political messing at the their will not only get them fired, but sent to jail.
Everybody who directly harassed taxpayers should be fired, lose their pensions and go to jail.
Everybody who sat in a meeting and heard that this was doing on and did nothing should be shown the door and banned from federal employment.
Professor you are right. This is more smoke and mirrors by Obama and Crewe.
I just retweeted Ted Cruz’s tweet about the need to do away with the IRS and go to a postcard sized tax form.
I don’t want to encourage Prof J’s blogging and driving, but …
This smells of a monumental and fundamental legal challenge of citizens vs government that goes to the heart of the Union. The right to free speech, free association, to participate in the political process free of coercion are all at stake. While the behavior of the implementing agents is felonious, the corporate malfeasance goes beyond criminal. Cooperation in such actions should be punishable by decades in jail at the very least. The penalties and censure should be of such strength that no future administration would even dare to go there.
I think a few folks in the media have caught on, but not enough. This is tyranny. Mark Levin rightfully compared the IRS to the KGB.
IRS –
What books & magazines do you read ?
Applicant –
Blank .
Can we give Sarah Palin a big thumbs up?
To be fair, I’ve had some very good and helpful interactions with IRS agents over the last five or six years, including having them recalculate my taxes when I messed up, giving me an extra $1K refund.
But of course that was the lowest level agents, the poor schlubs who get to answer phones, and the like.
“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”
18 USC § 242
Who is going to prison, and when? If these IRS people resign and then get jobs at a Liberal nonprofit, that sure won’t stop the next person from doing it – they’ll just be more careful.
I am uplifted by the eloquent and heart-felt outrage expressed in these comments. Something big may result from all of this.
PJMedia and Ace are updating:
But in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.
Way to go Obama – fire the guy who was already leaving!
Confirmed here too:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/15/miller-claims-hes-only-leaving-the-irs-because-his-term-ends-in-june/
Rumor: holder to be replaced by MA governor
“The president will wait until the heat dies down — and a little time has passed beyond that — before he does anything to Holder because Holder is a close pal, and that’s a big deal in the White House,” said a top Dem source. “Holder is also a close buddy of Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett,” the source said. “Obama knows a change has to be made, but he wants Holder to leave with his reputation intact.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/20134635-452/obama-eyes-gov-deval-patrick-to-replace-eric-holder-at-justice.html
Holder may not do jail time (I smell a pardon if nothing else), but somehow at this point in time, I think trying to keep his “reputation intact” is closing the proverbial barn door after the horse has not only left, but been spirited off across county or even state lines.
Hannity did a good video with Mark Levin, who cuts through the pretext: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNg2NNIaXoU
Dr Ben Carson has the solution: God is satisfied with tithes. Eliminate the tax code and everybody pays the government 10% of income.
Didn’t the professor just do a series of Steven Miller music videos?
Heh. I suggest a video for the blog: Three Dog Night’s LIAR.
Every where tonight I am hearing that Obama fired, or maybe even threw that acting commissioner of the IRS [Steven Miller] under the bus. That is not what I heard.
I heard Mr Miller being absolved of any wrong doing. Obama said the only reason Miller was being asked to resign was because after all that has happened at the IRS a change in leadership is a good idea. How is that throwing someone under the bus? And now I hear that his stint as acting commissioner was over anyway.
“Today, Treasury Secretary Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS [Steven Miller].”
Resignation, smesignation … it won’t be effective immediately. I’d have it that Mr. Miller will show up for work at the IRS tomorrow and that he really won’t pull up stakes and actually move on until sometime in June … when he was originally planning to leave anyway.
This is classic cover-up behavior. They had to move up the presser and the document dump from the planned Friday event because the scandal is metastasizing too rapidly and they need to get in front somehow.
Steven Miller sent an email to employees noting he is leaving because his “acting chief” assignment is ending AS PLANNED in early June. So nobody “fired” anybody – even though the compliant and adoring media is reporting it that way now.
The Benghazi emails vindicate the reporting by Hayes and Atkinsson but more than eight months after the fact these people deserve no presumption of honesty. We at least need a special master to verify all the emails have been released, and any redactions noted, not just removed. It’s unpleasant, but Obama, Carney, and State have been lying their butts off consistently about this from Day One, we cannot assume they have suddenly reformed.
Time for mass resignations, firings, and then prison sentences.
Concurrently, impeach ‘Barack Obama’ (or whoever the hell he really is). If Biden doesn’t behave, impeach him, too.
Given Eric Holder’s behavior before Congress, I just hope everyone realizes how unhinged Obama and the people surrounding him truly are. Pathological arrogance of very dangerous overgrown children — at the highest levels of power in our government.
In all of this no on mentions the sinister Valerie Jarrett, a radical leftist who wields tremendous power in our government, and who is likely as responsible for the IRS, Benghazi and AP scandals as much as anyone.
Holder didn’t act on his own. You can be sure he did so after a White House roundtable meeting with the usual suspects.
What no one here seems to realize, is the IRS Comm’s term ends in June. His “resignation” is “effective in June.” It’s all smoke and mirrors. He’s not getting kicked out. He did what he was supposed to do…effectively remove the Tea Party movement from the 2012 elections. He did that. He’ll go to some VERY well paid private company as a consultant, and not have to do anything for the $$$ he gets there. Political pay off in spades.
? Six different posts above yours in this thread mention what you accuse no one of realizing.
IRS demanded list of High School and College students from conservative groups – WHY? – to keep them from getting student loans, scholarships, research grants later on? http://twitchy.com/2013/05/15/chilling-irs-reportedly-demanded-list-of-high-school-and-college-students-from-conservative-group/
Obamanism is (a combination of Chicago politics, Marxism, Black supremacy, Muslim totalitarianism combined with social and sexual activism, global green tax scam, and green energy money and multiple other forms of cronyism and money laundering) the perfect storm of political, fiscal and social corruption.
What a freaking stunt!
I want Bush back! at least he wasn’t a chicago THUG!