Random Politics & Religion #00

Eorzea Time
 
 
 
Language: JP EN FR DE
Version 3.1
New Items
users online
Forum » Everything Else » Politics and Religion » Random Politics & Religion #00
Random Politics & Religion #00
First Page 2 3 ... 174 175 176 ... 1375 1376 1377
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-20 00:26:37
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Bahamut.Ravael said: »
Asura.Refreshazure said: »
Bahamut.Ravael said: »
Maybe, but only because every time I sit through one of his documentaries I lose enough brain cells that one day I might actually believe his drivel.

take 30mins then and stop being so closed minded "he must be wrong because his name and is a liberal "

just jump 47mins in the video if your impatient

I may give it a look when I have the time, but I have my doubts that a seven-year-old movie with a number of fact-check errors will change my view on the world.
Don't forget that he pretty much jumps on any "hot topic" that is around at the time purely for profit. His "documentaries" are not only riddled with errors, but also more partisan than Congress.

And I had to sit and watch one of his documentaries during college. We had to write a paper about all of the errors made in that specific documentary and show evidence stating his gross misstatements.

The documentary for that year was "Roger & Me," which ended up being the most boring twoish hours of my life.
[+]
 Bismarck.Ihina
Offline
Server: Bismarck
Game: FFXI
user: Ihina
Posts: 3187
By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-12-20 20:38:57
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Thoughts on Delegate Morrissey's case?

To summarize, dude has sex with his 17 year old receptionist, bragged about it, got caught(surprise), sentenced to 12 months in jail (6 months suspended) and he got to leave jail to legislate for 12 hours in a day, 7 days in a week.
Offline
Posts: 42635
By Jetackuu 2014-12-21 06:21:27
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Read about that in the paper yesterday.

(it was sitting there, I was bored) apparently he's quitting and in the special election rerunning, as a publicity stunt.

Let's see how that goes, then we can laugh when he probably fails.
Offline
Posts: 42635
By Jetackuu 2014-12-21 06:21:52
Link | Quote | Reply
 
and something most of us can agree on: Moore's films are ***.
[+]
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-21 08:23:09
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Bismarck.Ihina said: »
Thoughts on Delegate Morrissey's case?

To summarize, dude has sex with his 17 year old receptionist, bragged about it, got caught(surprise), sentenced to 12 months in jail (6 months suspended) and he got to leave jail to legislate for 12 hours in a day, 7 days in a week.
After reading the case, some of the evidence was shown to be tampered with, so I don't know.

I'm guessing that the Virginian Legislation Code requires that he resigns himself, not be removed from office forcefully, unless he was arrested by Virginian laws. Since this was a federal case, he was allowed to keep his job because he was tried under a different system.
 Fenrir.Atheryn
Offline
Server: Fenrir
Game: FFXI
user: Temptaru
Posts: 1665
By Fenrir.Atheryn 2014-12-22 15:11:25
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Quote:
North Korea experiencing severe Internet outages

WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages extending into Monday, with one computer expert saying the country's online access is "totally down." The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible.

President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. government expected to respond to the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., which he described as an expensive act of "cyber vandalism" that he blamed on North Korea. Obama did not say how the U.S. might respond, and it was not immediately clear if the Internet connectivity problems represented the retribution. The U.S. government regards its offensive cyber operations as highly classified.

"We aren't going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in anyway except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

North Korea has forcefully denied it was responsible for hacking into Sony.

Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, a company that studies Internet connectivity, said the problems were discovered over the weekend and grew progressively worse to the point that "North Korea's totally down."

"They have left the global Internet and they are gone until they come back," he said.

He said one benign explanation for the problem was that a router suffered a software glitch, though a cyber-attack involving North Korea's Internet service was also a possibility.

Routing instabilities are not uncommon, but this particular outage has gone on for hours and was getting worse instead of better, Madory said.

"This doesn't fit that profile," of an ordinary routing problem, he said. "This shows something getting progressively worse over time."
Offline
Posts: 24505
By Ramyrez 2014-12-22 15:22:14
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Shale gas drilling operator penalized for landslide that diverted Greene County streams

Hurray! A six-figure fine that will probably somehow be appealed down to nothing or suspended for a company making that amount over expontentially.

Why protect or preserve the land by using proper procedures when you can do whatever you want and just pay a pathetic fine to get around it?

Meanwhile these companies pay (likely significantly more than this fine) to have commercials run during sporting events (NFL, NHL, MLB -- all of which are dominant viewership pulls in this market) telling us how safe their practices are.

What a *** crock of ***.
 Fenrir.Atheryn
Offline
Server: Fenrir
Game: FFXI
user: Temptaru
Posts: 1665
By Fenrir.Atheryn 2014-12-22 15:33:43
Link | Quote | Reply
 
I still think companies should be penalized based on a percentage of their annual profit rather than some figure plucked out of the air by a judge.
[+]
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-22 15:39:01
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
Quote:
North Korea experiencing severe Internet outages

WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages extending into Monday, with one computer expert saying the country's online access is "totally down." The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible.

President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. government expected to respond to the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., which he described as an expensive act of "cyber vandalism" that he blamed on North Korea. Obama did not say how the U.S. might respond, and it was not immediately clear if the Internet connectivity problems represented the retribution. The U.S. government regards its offensive cyber operations as highly classified.

"We aren't going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in anyway except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

North Korea has forcefully denied it was responsible for hacking into Sony.

Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, a company that studies Internet connectivity, said the problems were discovered over the weekend and grew progressively worse to the point that "North Korea's totally down."

"They have left the global Internet and they are gone until they come back," he said.

He said one benign explanation for the problem was that a router suffered a software glitch, though a cyber-attack involving North Korea's Internet service was also a possibility.

Routing instabilities are not uncommon, but this particular outage has gone on for hours and was getting worse instead of better, Madory said.

"This doesn't fit that profile," of an ordinary routing problem, he said. "This shows something getting progressively worse over time."
This is the one time that I hope the US federal government is involved in this.

We need to respond to NK's hacks by showing them that they shouldn't mess with us period.
[+]
By volkom 2014-12-22 15:39:07
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
I still think companies should be penalized based on a percentage of their annual profit rather than some figure plucked out of the air by a judge.

should be a figure that's fair based on the situation.
[+]
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-22 15:42:52
Link | Quote | Reply
 
volkom said: »
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
I still think companies should be penalized based on a percentage of their annual profit rather than some figure plucked out of the air by a judge.

should be a figure that's fair based on the situation.
And the infraction.

I wouldn't mind seeing a 10% penalty on the book value of the company for environmental violations, double (or triple) the amount if that violation was on purpose.

Before anyone can get nitpicky on this, a company rarely has income over their book value, so it would be a much stronger penalty to be placed on their book value instead of profits. And book values are easy to ***, whereas fair market values are subjective in nature.
[+]
Offline
Posts: 4027
By Blazed1979 2014-12-22 16:08:01
Link | Quote | Reply
 
God Smites Thieves:

2 Russians who stole from a church and fled were being chased by the Police when a dashboard camera caught a bolt of lightning strike their getaway car, obliterating it in an instant.

YouTube Video Placeholder





I don't believe in coincidences.
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-22 16:10:39
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Blazed1979 said: »
I don't believe in coincidences.
I do.

How many times this year has lightning struck a car while it was running from the cops in a high speed chase?

This decade?

This millennium?

In all of the history of mankind?

You can probably count it on your right hand.
By volkom 2014-12-22 16:15:53
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
volkom said: »
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
I still think companies should be penalized based on a percentage of their annual profit rather than some figure plucked out of the air by a judge.

should be a figure that's fair based on the situation.
And the infraction.

I wouldn't mind seeing a 10% penalty on the book value of the company for environmental violations, double (or triple) the amount if that violation was on purpose.

Before anyone can get nitpicky on this, a company rarely has income over their book value, so it would be a much stronger penalty to be placed on their book value instead of profits. And book values are easy to ***, whereas fair market values are subjective in nature.

Also % based penalties can be too little or too extreme
 Bahamut.Ravael
Offline
Server: Bahamut
Game: FFXI
user: Ravael
Posts: 13617
By Bahamut.Ravael 2014-12-22 16:35:53
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Blazed1979 said: »
I don't believe in coincidences.
I do.

How many times this year has lightning struck a car while it was running from the cops in a high speed chase?

This decade?

This millennium?

In all of the history of mankind?

You can probably count it on your right hand.

As cool as such a story would be, the point in arguing whether or not it was a coincidence is moot.

Snopes: Lightning Smite
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-22 16:39:57
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Bahamut.Ravael said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Blazed1979 said: »
I don't believe in coincidences.
I do.

How many times this year has lightning struck a car while it was running from the cops in a high speed chase?

This decade?

This millennium?

In all of the history of mankind?

You can probably count it on your right hand.

As cool as such a story would be, the point in arguing whether or not it was a coincidence is moot.

Snopes: Lightning Smite
Well, goes to show you how desperate people can be grasping for a higher power "smiting" us lower life forms.
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-22 16:40:54
Link | Quote | Reply
 
volkom said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
volkom said: »
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
I still think companies should be penalized based on a percentage of their annual profit rather than some figure plucked out of the air by a judge.

should be a figure that's fair based on the situation.
And the infraction.

I wouldn't mind seeing a 10% penalty on the book value of the company for environmental violations, double (or triple) the amount if that violation was on purpose.

Before anyone can get nitpicky on this, a company rarely has income over their book value, so it would be a much stronger penalty to be placed on their book value instead of profits. And book values are easy to ***, whereas fair market values are subjective in nature.

Also % based penalties can be too little or too extreme
True, it's also subjective to the judge in question.

But at least it gives a standard instead of allowing a judge to decide what is reasonable and what isn't.
[+]
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-23 09:27:03
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Fenrir.Atheryn said: »
Quote:
North Korea experiencing severe Internet outages

WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages extending into Monday, with one computer expert saying the country's online access is "totally down." The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible.

President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. government expected to respond to the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., which he described as an expensive act of "cyber vandalism" that he blamed on North Korea. Obama did not say how the U.S. might respond, and it was not immediately clear if the Internet connectivity problems represented the retribution. The U.S. government regards its offensive cyber operations as highly classified.

"We aren't going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in anyway except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

North Korea has forcefully denied it was responsible for hacking into Sony.

Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, a company that studies Internet connectivity, said the problems were discovered over the weekend and grew progressively worse to the point that "North Korea's totally down."

"They have left the global Internet and they are gone until they come back," he said.

He said one benign explanation for the problem was that a router suffered a software glitch, though a cyber-attack involving North Korea's Internet service was also a possibility.

Routing instabilities are not uncommon, but this particular outage has gone on for hours and was getting worse instead of better, Madory said.

"This doesn't fit that profile," of an ordinary routing problem, he said. "This shows something getting progressively worse over time."
This is the one time that I hope the US federal government is involved in this.

We need to respond to NK's hacks by showing them that they shouldn't mess with us period.
Washington Post reports that the hacks were more likely from Anonymous and not the US government:

Source

Quote:
North Korea’s fledgling Internet access went dark Monday, days after President Obama promised a “proportional response” to the nation’s alleged hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The question of who pulled the plug immediately became the stuff of a global cyber-mystery.

Was it a shadowy crew of guerrilla hackers, under the flag of Anonymous? A retaliatory strike from the United States? A betrayal from China, North Korea’s top ally and its Web gatekeeper? Or just a technical glitch or defensive maneuver from the Hermit Kingdom itself?

On Monday, a State Department official issued a somewhat coy non-denial when asked about U.S. involvement in North Korea’s blackout. The official wouldn’t comment on how the government plans to avenge North Korea’s alleged attack on Sony but added, “As we implement our responses, some will be seen, some will not be seen.”

The mystery behind North Korea’s 9 1/2 -hour outage highlights a paradox of modern cyberwarfare: As attacks become more prominent, the combatants — and their motives — are becoming harder to identify.

“This is the standard for espionage: Things are murky. It’s not like the movies, where in the last scene someone ties it all together with one long soliloquy,” said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

North Korea continues to deny that it was responsible for the hack that hobbled Sony, exposed intimate e-mails from top executives and posted online copies of unreleased films — all efforts in an apparent revenge scheme for “The Interview,” a comedy about two goofballs told to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. After Obama accused the country last week and promised retaliation, North Korean officials at first offered to hold a joint investigation with the United States to find the source of the attack.

Then Pyongyang warned through its state-owned news agency that it would fight any retaliation with “our toughest counteraction­ . . . against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole U.S. mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the ‘symmetric counteraction’ declared by Obama.”

On Thursday, researchers began to notice an uptick in attacks against North Korea’s Internet infrastructure. Designed to overload servers and Web sites with a flood of fake traffic, such “denial-of-service” attacks can render entire networks inoperable.

The next day, a Twitter account affiliated with Anonymous — the collective behind numerous high-profile hacks — announced that a counterattack against North Korean hackers had begun.

“Operation RIP North Korea, engaged. #OpRIPNK,” tweeted the account known as @theanonmessage. (That account was suspended by Twitter on Monday over separate threats it had made to release a sex tape belonging to rapper Iggy Azalea.)

On Monday, a separate group, also claiming links to Anonymous, sought credit for the outages.

The timing of the two tweets was consistent with statistics tracked by the security research firm Arbor Networks. On Thursday, the company recorded two denial-of-service attacks. The next day it saw four. The wave peaked Saturday and Sunday with 5.97 gigabits of data inundating North Korea’s pipes every second.

Late Monday, Dyn Research said North Korea’s Internet access was restored after a nine-hour, 31-minute outage.

While it is unclear whether Anonymous played a role in North Korea’s downtime, at least six of the observed ­denial-of-service attacks originated from the United States, Arbor Networks said.

But other security experts said hostile code can be adapted from other attacks and filtered covertly through foreign servers. Even basic cyberattacks can use decoys or distractions, including hosts of “zombie” computers or falsified location data, to shake pursuers off the trail.

“The actual work of evidence-gathering and prosecution is so much more difficult in the digital world than in the biological world,” said Alec Ross, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Unlike a bullet, something ‘shot’ as a cyberweapon can be reused and repurposed. Obfuscation is much easier, and it’s much easier to distribute an attack.”

...
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-23 09:38:34
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Also in news:

Top IRS official considered admitting that conservative groups were targeted during the 2012 elections, but didn't come out until June 2014

Quote:
A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee.

Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning groups.

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4,” Miller told his chief of staff, Nikole Flax, in a June 2012 email obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Miller ultimately testified at the July 25 hearing but never revealed his knowledge of the misconduct.

“Because he did not, he did a great disservice to the American taxpayers,” the House oversight committee report states.

The detail is one of many findings and allegations in the 226-page Republican-authored report, obtained by Fox News in advance of its release on Tuesday. The report highlights numerous examples of what House Republicans say is agency officials misleading congressional investigators and trying to slow their investigations.

Miller testified before Congress on at least six occasions as deputy commissioner and later as acting commissioner, from May 2012 until May 2013, when he was forced to resign.

During a final hearing, Miller apologized for the agency’s “poor service” but maintained the targeting was not motivated by politics.

The report states: “Though Miller was never asked as directly as [Commissioner Doug] Shulman about the targeting … Miller likewise never told Congress about the IRS misconduct. Miller’s multiple missed opportunities to tell Congress about the targeting continued the IRS’s pattern of failing to inform Congress.”

Now-retired IRS official Lois Lerner, in charge of the agency’s tax-exempt division during the 2010-2012 targeting, eventually revealed the scandal at an American Bar Association event in May 2013 -- roughly six months after President Obama won re-election and just days before an inspector general report on the allegations was scheduled for release.

“They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title,” she said at the time. “That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive and inappropriate.”

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, on Monday accused the authors of the GOP-generated report of taking information out of context and selectively releasing information.

“It is revealing that the Republicans -- yet again -- are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first,” he said in a statement. “By leaking information to reporters on condition that they not disclose it to Democrats, Republicans are intentionally bypassing the normal congressional vetting process designed to distinguish fact from fiction.”

The report follows a recent congressional budget agreement for fiscal 2015 that cuts IRS funding to roughly fiscal 2000 levels, which agency officials argue will make oversight and other jobs even more difficult.

Other conclusions in the report, including several already made public, are that the Obama administration appears so far to have done an incomplete investigation and at times has been uncooperative.

“Only a month after Attorney General (Eric) Holder announced the administration’s investigation, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was unable to answer basic questions about the status,” the report states. “Even as recently as July 2014, after the IRS informed Congress that it had destroyed two years of Lerner’s e-mails, the FBI continued its refusal to provide any information about its investigation.”

In addition, the Justice Department at one point was willing to pursue criminal prosecutions against the tax-exempt groups, based on information obtained by the IRS, according to documents obtained by House GOP investigators.

And the IRS failed to provide sufficient internal oversight, the report concludes.

“Congress created administrative oversight entities within the Executive Branch to ensure the IRS carries out its mission efficiently and responsibly,” the report states. “These entities -- specifically, the IRS Oversight Board and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- exist to ensure that IRS misconduct does not occur and, if it does, to identify and address it immediately. In the case of the IRS’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants, these administrative oversight entities failed in their missions."

I'm sure that our faithful liberals will just say that this is a non-issue, as it doesn't negatively affect them...now.
Offline
Posts: 35422
By fonewear 2014-12-23 09:41:06
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Also in news:

Top IRS official considered admitting that conservative groups were targeted during the 2012 elections, but didn't come out until June 2014

Quote:
A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee.

Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning groups.

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4,” Miller told his chief of staff, Nikole Flax, in a June 2012 email obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Miller ultimately testified at the July 25 hearing but never revealed his knowledge of the misconduct.

“Because he did not, he did a great disservice to the American taxpayers,” the House oversight committee report states.

The detail is one of many findings and allegations in the 226-page Republican-authored report, obtained by Fox News in advance of its release on Tuesday. The report highlights numerous examples of what House Republicans say is agency officials misleading congressional investigators and trying to slow their investigations.

Miller testified before Congress on at least six occasions as deputy commissioner and later as acting commissioner, from May 2012 until May 2013, when he was forced to resign.

During a final hearing, Miller apologized for the agency’s “poor service” but maintained the targeting was not motivated by politics.

The report states: “Though Miller was never asked as directly as [Commissioner Doug] Shulman about the targeting … Miller likewise never told Congress about the IRS misconduct. Miller’s multiple missed opportunities to tell Congress about the targeting continued the IRS’s pattern of failing to inform Congress.”

Now-retired IRS official Lois Lerner, in charge of the agency’s tax-exempt division during the 2010-2012 targeting, eventually revealed the scandal at an American Bar Association event in May 2013 -- roughly six months after President Obama won re-election and just days before an inspector general report on the allegations was scheduled for release.

“They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title,” she said at the time. “That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive and inappropriate.”

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, on Monday accused the authors of the GOP-generated report of taking information out of context and selectively releasing information.

“It is revealing that the Republicans -- yet again -- are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first,” he said in a statement. “By leaking information to reporters on condition that they not disclose it to Democrats, Republicans are intentionally bypassing the normal congressional vetting process designed to distinguish fact from fiction.”

The report follows a recent congressional budget agreement for fiscal 2015 that cuts IRS funding to roughly fiscal 2000 levels, which agency officials argue will make oversight and other jobs even more difficult.

Other conclusions in the report, including several already made public, are that the Obama administration appears so far to have done an incomplete investigation and at times has been uncooperative.

“Only a month after Attorney General (Eric) Holder announced the administration’s investigation, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was unable to answer basic questions about the status,” the report states. “Even as recently as July 2014, after the IRS informed Congress that it had destroyed two years of Lerner’s e-mails, the FBI continued its refusal to provide any information about its investigation.”

In addition, the Justice Department at one point was willing to pursue criminal prosecutions against the tax-exempt groups, based on information obtained by the IRS, according to documents obtained by House GOP investigators.

And the IRS failed to provide sufficient internal oversight, the report concludes.

“Congress created administrative oversight entities within the Executive Branch to ensure the IRS carries out its mission efficiently and responsibly,” the report states. “These entities -- specifically, the IRS Oversight Board and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- exist to ensure that IRS misconduct does not occur and, if it does, to identify and address it immediately. In the case of the IRS’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants, these administrative oversight entities failed in their missions."

I'm sure that our faithful liberals will just say that this is a non-issue, as it doesn't negatively affect them...now.

YouTube Video Placeholder
 Odin.Jassik
VIP
Offline
Server: Odin
Game: FFXI
user: Jassik
Posts: 9534
By Odin.Jassik 2014-12-23 09:47:19
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Also in news:

Top IRS official considered admitting that conservative groups were targeted during the 2012 elections, but didn't come out until June 2014

Quote:
A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee.

Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning groups.

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4,” Miller told his chief of staff, Nikole Flax, in a June 2012 email obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Miller ultimately testified at the July 25 hearing but never revealed his knowledge of the misconduct.

“Because he did not, he did a great disservice to the American taxpayers,” the House oversight committee report states.

The detail is one of many findings and allegations in the 226-page Republican-authored report, obtained by Fox News in advance of its release on Tuesday. The report highlights numerous examples of what House Republicans say is agency officials misleading congressional investigators and trying to slow their investigations.

Miller testified before Congress on at least six occasions as deputy commissioner and later as acting commissioner, from May 2012 until May 2013, when he was forced to resign.

During a final hearing, Miller apologized for the agency’s “poor service” but maintained the targeting was not motivated by politics.

The report states: “Though Miller was never asked as directly as [Commissioner Doug] Shulman about the targeting … Miller likewise never told Congress about the IRS misconduct. Miller’s multiple missed opportunities to tell Congress about the targeting continued the IRS’s pattern of failing to inform Congress.”

Now-retired IRS official Lois Lerner, in charge of the agency’s tax-exempt division during the 2010-2012 targeting, eventually revealed the scandal at an American Bar Association event in May 2013 -- roughly six months after President Obama won re-election and just days before an inspector general report on the allegations was scheduled for release.

“They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title,” she said at the time. “That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive and inappropriate.”

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, on Monday accused the authors of the GOP-generated report of taking information out of context and selectively releasing information.

“It is revealing that the Republicans -- yet again -- are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first,” he said in a statement. “By leaking information to reporters on condition that they not disclose it to Democrats, Republicans are intentionally bypassing the normal congressional vetting process designed to distinguish fact from fiction.”

The report follows a recent congressional budget agreement for fiscal 2015 that cuts IRS funding to roughly fiscal 2000 levels, which agency officials argue will make oversight and other jobs even more difficult.

Other conclusions in the report, including several already made public, are that the Obama administration appears so far to have done an incomplete investigation and at times has been uncooperative.

“Only a month after Attorney General (Eric) Holder announced the administration’s investigation, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was unable to answer basic questions about the status,” the report states. “Even as recently as July 2014, after the IRS informed Congress that it had destroyed two years of Lerner’s e-mails, the FBI continued its refusal to provide any information about its investigation.”

In addition, the Justice Department at one point was willing to pursue criminal prosecutions against the tax-exempt groups, based on information obtained by the IRS, according to documents obtained by House GOP investigators.

And the IRS failed to provide sufficient internal oversight, the report concludes.

“Congress created administrative oversight entities within the Executive Branch to ensure the IRS carries out its mission efficiently and responsibly,” the report states. “These entities -- specifically, the IRS Oversight Board and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- exist to ensure that IRS misconduct does not occur and, if it does, to identify and address it immediately. In the case of the IRS’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants, these administrative oversight entities failed in their missions."

I'm sure that our faithful liberals will just say that this is a non-issue, as it doesn't negatively affect them...now.

It isn't s non-issue, but it isn't a top-down scandal like you wish it was.
 Ragnarok.Nausi
Offline
Server: Ragnarok
Game: FFXI
user: Nausi
Posts: 6709
By Ragnarok.Nausi 2014-12-23 09:47:28
Link | Quote | Reply
 
New anti gun ad:

Hey kids take your parents gun to school and turn it in.

Yes yes turn it in to the same kinds of people who susspend kids for biting their pop tarts into guns.

What could go wrong?
 
Offline
Posts:
By 2014-12-23 09:52:32
 Undelete | Link | Quote | Reply
 
Post deleted by User.
Offline
Posts: 24505
By Ramyrez 2014-12-23 09:58:59
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Yeah, because a child walking into school with their parent's gun couldn't possibly have any sort of misinterpreted down side (complete with potentially disatrous response) in this day and age of school shootings...
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-23 09:59:23
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Odin.Jassik said: »
It isn't s non-issue, but it isn't a top-down scandal like you wish it was.
A taxing authority who, by federal law, is not supposed to discriminate against a specific group, gets called on discriminating against a specific group, and you think that this isn't a huge issue?

Caitsith.Shiroi said: »
That's pretty much how politics works right now, using properly timed shady tactics. It's a shame, but everyone does it in every country.
Who's accusing people for playing politics? If this can be attributed to Obama, this is a treasonous offence. But nobody's pointing the finger at Obama, nor will they. He has too much political baggage with him to justify an impeachment, along with his VP being 10x worse than he is.

The real issue is a governmental agency who, by law, is supposed to be impartial, instead discriminating against a group of people. If they get a free pass, like our liberals want to give them, then what's to stop them from doing it again?
 
Offline
Posts:
By 2014-12-23 10:07:48
 Undelete | Link | Quote | Reply
 
Post deleted by User.
 Odin.Jassik
VIP
Offline
Server: Odin
Game: FFXI
user: Jassik
Posts: 9534
By Odin.Jassik 2014-12-23 10:11:15
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Odin.Jassik said: »
It isn't s non-issue, but it isn't a top-down scandal like you wish it was.
A taxing authority who, by federal law, is not supposed to discriminate against a specific group, gets called on discriminating against a specific group, and you think that this isn't a huge issue?

You seem to be having trouble with words, let me help... When a small group within a government agency targets groups with anti-government incendiary rhetoric for extra scrutiny when they apply for tax exempt status, it's a problem. But, it isn't a scandal, and certainly not a top-down scandal, wasn't ordered by Obama, etc.
 Asura.Kingnobody
Bug Hunter
Offline
Server: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 34187
By Asura.Kingnobody 2014-12-23 10:32:10
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Odin.Jassik said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Odin.Jassik said: »
It isn't s non-issue, but it isn't a top-down scandal like you wish it was.
A taxing authority who, by federal law, is not supposed to discriminate against a specific group, gets called on discriminating against a specific group, and you think that this isn't a huge issue?

You seem to be having trouble with words, let me help... When a small group within a government agency targets groups with anti-government incendiary rhetoric for extra scrutiny when they apply for tax exempt status, it's a problem. But, it isn't a scandal, and certainly not a top-down scandal, wasn't ordered by Obama, etc.
Classic liberal response.

So, it's ok to discriminate against a group who doesn't agree with you, even if the discrimination is illegal, it is perfectly ok as long as a liberal does it, got it.
 
Offline
Posts:
By 2014-12-23 10:36:25
 Undelete | Link | Quote | Reply
 
Post deleted by User.
[+]
 Ragnarok.Nausi
Offline
Server: Ragnarok
Game: FFXI
user: Nausi
Posts: 6709
By Ragnarok.Nausi 2014-12-23 10:37:03
Link | Quote | Reply
 
Odin.Jassik said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Odin.Jassik said: »
It isn't s non-issue, but it isn't a top-down scandal like you wish it was.
A taxing authority who, by federal law, is not supposed to discriminate against a specific group, gets called on discriminating against a specific group, and you think that this isn't a huge issue?

You seem to be having trouble with words, let me help... When a small group within a government agency targets groups with anti-government incendiary rhetoric for extra scrutiny when they apply for tax exempt status, it's a problem. But, it isn't a scandal, and certainly not a top-down scandal, wasn't ordered by Obama, etc.
Of course not, we can totally trust obama right? It's not like he's dishonest or something.

#ifyoulikeyourplanyoucankeepyourplan
First Page 2 3 ... 174 175 176 ... 1375 1376 1377