Part I: Rally at Fountain Square, downtown Cincinnati, OH, today at noon:
Hat tip Sons of Liberty Riders via Jules Arnold
I’ll be posting photos from the rally/march later today, so check back.
UPDATE: Part II: Ann Becker of the West Chester (Cincinnati) Tea Party addresses protestors outside the Federal Building in downtown Cincinnati today, then takes a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter signed by protest participants into the Federal Building:
–Becca
0
Image: commons.wikimedia.org
https://twitter.com/MarchForInnov/status/335398235751452674
Oh, boy! Celebrity and former California GOP governator Arnold Schwarzenegger is for innovation and action and–
https://twitter.com/OFA_CA/status/336611089510957056
Oh, hmmm….
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/336595406777630720
The links take you to a countdown splash page, then the homepage (not linking to it) states:
Join the Virtual March for Immigration Reform
We’re planning a virtual march on Washington this spring to push for smart, comprehensive immigration reform to attract and keep the best and brightest to fuel innovation and American jobs.
Because a real march might be less effective? No way to know, really.
–Becca Lower
0
I hate to say something nice about Lanny Davis. But credit where credit is due, in light of this revelation on the IRS scandal from White House spokes-mouthpiece Jay Carney today:
Carney said it was the White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s judgment that the matter should not be told to the president, and that she conveyed this sentiment to senior staff.
Carney defended the decision, saying conclusions often change in the final stages of inspector general reports, and that it would’ve been inappropriate for the White House to involve itself in an ongoing investigation.
If there were a pop song representing the scandals of this Administration, that last bit would surely be the chorus.
Davis, a special counsel to former President Bill Clinton, recently wrote this (worth quoting in full):
I’ve been told today by several reporters that President Obama’s White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, knew for several days — perhaps weeks —that some Internal Revenue Service officials were engaging in political targeting of conservative groups, and that she did not tell the president as soon as she knew even partial reports about the story.
With all due respect to someone who has impeccable legal credentials, if she did have such foreknowledge and didn’t inform the president immediately, I respectfully suggest Ms. Ruemmler is in the wrong job and that she should resign.
The White House counsel to the president, one of the two or three most important positions on the White House staff, must be more than a great lawyer, which Ms. Ruemmler reportedly is. The White House counsel must also have a sensitive political and media ear — in other words, must be a first-rate crisis manager who understands the fundamental need to get the president out in front of the facts, and not be reactive or overly legalistic in determining crisis management strategy.
If Ms. Ruemmler did know about this IRS story and didn’t inform the president immediately, then, respectfully, that must mean she didn’t appreciate fully the mammoth legal and political implications for the U.S. government as well as the American people of a story involving IRS officials abusing power and possibly violating criminal laws.
It is also hard to understand why some people in the media who apparently knew about this foreknowledge by the White House counsel and her failure to tell the president missed this story and its significance.
I hope these reports are wrong. But we need to know — and so does the president. If they are true, again with all due respect, I suggest she should immediately resign and be replaced by a counsel who is expert at the trio of disciplines required for that job — law, media and politics.
0
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY-1) spoke this morning on the floor of the House of Representatives. In his alloted five minutes, Whitfield mentioned three concerns he has over “a pattern of conduct in which this administration rewards its friends and punishes its opponents.” The first two issues were the IRS targeting conservative groups, and the EPA rejecting waiver of fees requests from conservative groups and individuals for FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. The third issue relates to something else that smacks of hypocrisy and disregard for equal protection under the law.
I want to give you another example that came about yesterday. More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country’s wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles. Now nearly all the birds being killed are being protected under the federal environmental laws which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars of fines and settlements from businesses including oil and gas companies, electricity generators over the past five years.
As a matter of fact, BP Oil Company was fined $100 million for killing and harming migratory birds during the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. And PacifiCorp., which operates coal plants in Wyoming, paid more than $10.5 million in 2009 for electrocuting a number of eagles along power lines in its substations.
And yet this administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret. So there is clearly a double standard in this administration: if you kill an eagle and you happen to be a private business or you’re a power generator or you’re an oil company or a chemical company, you’re gonna be fined. But if you’re a wind energy company, even though the bird you killed may be protected under the Endangered Species Act, you’re gonna be protected.
America will not stand for a government that rewards its friends and punishes its opponents in a discriminatory fashion.
UPDATE:
You have to wonder if the Administration also didn’t like this investigation by the AP:
It’s a double standard that some Republicans in Congress said Tuesday they would examine after an Associated Press investigation revealed that the Obama administration has shielded the wind power industry from liability and helped keep the scope of the deaths secret.
“We obviously don’t want to see indiscriminate killing of birds from any sort of energy production, yet the administration’s ridiculous inconsistencies begs questioning and clarity- clarity on why wind energy producers are let off the hook,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
The House Natural Resources Committee, which was at the beginning stages of an investigation, vowed to dig deeper Tuesday.
“There are serious concerns that the Obama administration is not implementing this law fairly and equally,” said Jill Strait, a spokeswoman for the committee’s chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.
Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s energy plan. His administration has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term….
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House.
The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry, would allow companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or golden eagles. Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year permits.
–Becca
0Barring some unforeseen thing, Weiner is running, for those (including myself) who still had questions about that notion.
— maggie haberman (@maggiepolitico) May 13, 2013
–Becca
0I wrote extensively about the IRS and conservative non-profit groups yesterday. Now there’s this disturbing update.
Kevin Williamson of National Review Online reports this from the Jewish Press:
Along with targeting tea-party groups, the IRS may also have given extra-special attention to the tax-exempt status of some Jewish groups for political reason.
You’ll want to read the entire piece at NRO, but this stuck out, for me:
… And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
Hat tip David Burge
0As reported by The Lid (worth quoting at length):
There is that old line about paranoia..sometimes they really are after you. Such is the case with the IRS who in a just released story by the Associated Press admits to targeting conservative organizations’ tax exempt status during the 2012 Presidential election period.
[AP:]
Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.
Lerner said the practice, initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati, was wrong and she apologized while speaking at a conference in Washington.
Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They said the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.
About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.…And they are sorry…does that make YOU feel better? (me neither).
Here’s local reaction, with some eye-opening accusations:
The Tea Party responded by releasing it’s [sic] own statements on the apology. Tom Zawistowski, Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party and recent Past President of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, which first refused to comply with the IRS demands for information in February of 2012, said “We will accept Ms. Lerner’s apology as being appropriate, because what the IRS did was wrong and we proved it was wrong. However, we can not accept her statement that this attack on our organizations and our liberty was orchestrated by low-level IRS employees in the Cincinnati office. We have proof that the same questions were being asked of groups from Virginia to Hawaii. We have further proof that agents admitted that they were being told by “higher ups” not to process applications from “TEA Party Groups”. Our legal representatives, the American Center for Law and Justice, has information from groups all over the nation that substantiate this pattern of abuse.”
Eric Wilson, President of the Kentucky 912 and National 912 Co-Chair added, “There are many more questions that need to be asked of the IRS concerning the purpose of this IRS effort. The information they were demanding of us included membership list, lists of speakers, lists of politicians who spoke to our groups. Clearly this was politically motivated. Some liberty groups were actually forced to stop operating because of these attacks. Today’s apology is a victory for Free Speech and Liberty.”
Zawistowski, added “We had Senator Rob Portman and Congressman Jim Jordan write to the IRS about this issues as it developed and we believe that they will have many more questions for the IRS about the purpose of this targeting and who was given the information that was provided by groups. The IRS employees involved in this need to loose [sic] their jobs and there may be criminal charges as well. Groups spent thousands of dollars trying to meet the IRS demands and we may also be entitled to compensation.”
Expect this story to be updated…
UPDATE:
Senator Scott Statement on IRS Targeting Conservative Groups
Washington–U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) released the following statement regarding the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) announcement that the agency applied special scrutiny to conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
“The partisan politics of the Obama administration reached a new level today, with the IRS admitting they singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny last year.
Targeting private citizens on the basis of their political views is completely unacceptable. The White House must not only hold those responsible accountable for their actions, but also assure the American people that these practices are not being employed at other departments and agencies.”
The IRS admitted today that groups with “patriot” or “tea party” in their name received special scrutiny during 2012, an election year.
Hat tip William Neil Johnson
Update:
IRS targeting Conservative groups in Obama reelect yr demands Full accounting. Violates 1st amendment. Admission stunning&2 little 2 late.
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) May 10, 2013
Hat tip Joe Brenneman
UPDATE: Hearing, Investigation promised by Washington in IRS scandal:
via Reuters:
The admission by the IRS drew immediate responses from many Republicans and at least one powerful Democrat.
House of Representatives Republican Leader Eric Cantor vowed a House investigation would follow. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called for a White House review….
Representative Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee that oversees the IRS, said he will hold a hearing. “The IRS absolutely must be non-partisan in its enforcement of our tax laws,” Camp said.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said his panel has been looking into the IRS’s “failure” to enforce a law that requires tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups be engaged exclusively in social welfare activities and not partisan politics.
He said the latest development “raises a second issue: whether the IRS, to the extent it has enforced its rules, has been impartial in doing so. Both issues require investigation.”
H/T Andrea Tantaros
UPDATE: News stories… everywhere, including MSM. The deluge begins.
Taxprof via Instapundit
Ben Shapiro at Breitbart quotes a prescient Glenn Reynolds from 2009:
Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it’s hard to see the humor. Surely he’s aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system.
The tip jar on this blog needs your attention.
–Becca Lower
0Amazing archival footage of the late comedian Andy Kaufman: around 11 minutes of interview, then a performance from the start of his career:
If you find these interesting, search for Kaufman’s first appearance on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.” It’s beautiful.
0
Video: Heritage Analyst Argued Blacks, Hispanics Have Lowest IQ buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynsk… via @buzzfeedandrew
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) May 9, 2013
It may not surprise you that BuzzFeed Andrew’s smear piece against The Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine links to yesterday’s Washington Post smear piece. Or that Andrew failed to note the organization’s comment denouncing Richwine’s previous writings. (WaPo, to their credit, added it later.)
But it was surprising to learn something else. When I brought up these stories to a friend, they shared the fact that Rush Limbaugh had covered on his show today similar attacks by other Republicans. (emphasis mine):
RUSH: There’s also a move out there — understandably in the Democrat Party, but within certain elements of the Republican Party — to go after, discredit, and basically blow up the Heritage Foundation study on immigration and the cost of amnesty….
So the entire Heritage report on immigration that disagreed with the Senate Gang of Eight plan is under assault now, because one of the authors in his doctoral dissertation wrote that immigrants have lower IQs than native Americans ….
Richwine was one of two co-authors in a report released Monday by the Heritage Foundation that predicted a $6.3 trillion economic loss for the U.S. if a Senate immigration bill that would legalize the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants and bring in more foreigners on work visas becomes law. On Thursday, the Heritage Foundation said Richwine’s doctoral thesis did not factor into it’s report and emphasized that the data used in the study is sound.”
Very clear Republicans supporting immigration reform are willing to burn down every conservative and institution on the right in opposition.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) May 9, 2013
As Michelle Malkin puts it (also, emphasis mine):
The smug dismissal of Richwine’s credentials and scholarship is to be expected by liberal hacks and clown operatives. But a reckless and cowardly pile-up of knee-jerk dilettantes on the Right — including former McCain campaign co-chair Ana Navarro and conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin – have joined the character assassins of the Soros-sphere, MSNBC, and Mother Jones in deeming Richwine a “racist.”….
UPDATE: Slate’s Dave Weigel reports that Jason Richwine has resigned.The Heritage Foundation statement:
Jason Richwine let us know he’s decided to resign from his position. He’s no longer employed by Heritage.
It is our long-standing policy not to discuss internal personnel matters.
UPDATE: Here’s coverage at The Washington Examiner.
–Becca Lower
0