Posts Tagged ‘barack obama’
President Obama Demands Justice For “Intolerable And Inexcusable” IRS Behavior
Tuesday, 14 May 2013 22:04
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We can picture the scene of abject horror at the revelations the President read about the actions undertaken by what must surely have been a rogue element in the IRS. However, as the AP (ironically) reports, Obama believes some IRS employees failed to apply the law fairly and impartially. The blame, it would seem, is being laid at “lax managers‘” feet for allowing this practice to continue for 18 months. Jack Lew has been asked to hold those renegades responsible and to ensure it never happens again – or else. Where’s Fabrice Tourre when you need him? (Read more…)

 

White House Statement:

The White House

 

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
May 14, 2013
Statement by the President

 

I have now had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its investigation of IRS personnel who improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.  And the report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable.  The federal government must conduct itself in a way that’s worthy of the public’s trust, and that’s especially true for the IRS.  The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity.  This report shows that some of its employees failed that test.

 

I’ve directed Secretary Lew to hold those responsible for these failures accountable, and to make sure that each of the Inspector General’s recommendations are implemented quickly, so that such conduct never happens again.  But regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong.  Public service is a solemn privilege.  I expect everyone who serves in the federal government to hold themselves to the highest ethical and moral standards.  So do the American people.  And as President, I intend to make sure our public servants live up to those standards every day.

Via AP,

President Barack Obama says a government watchdog’s report shows intolerable and inexcusable behavior by the Internal Revenue Service in targeting tea party groups.

 

Obama says in a statement that some IRS employees failed to apply the law fairly and impartially.

 

Obama says he’s asked Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to hold accountable those responsible and to ensure it never happens again. He says regardless of how it happened, it was wrong.

 

The report from the Treasury inspector general for tax administration blames ineffective IRS management for allowing agents to improperly target tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status. It says lax managers allowed the practice to continue for 18 months.

 

The IRS apologized for the practice Friday. The Justice Department is also investigating.

    



 
Guest Post: A Brief History Of Cycles And Time, Part 2
Tuesday, 14 May 2013 13:31
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Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Part 2 of the guest essay by Eric A.: "Because it's time."

I am honored to publish a deeply insightful two-part essay by longtime contributor Eric A. (Read more…) on long-term cycles, and how they shape our spectrum of responses in periods of crisis and transformation. This essay has profound implications for our individual choices in the years ahead, and I believe it helps explain my own political/ financial philosophy outlined in my books:
Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It
Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change
An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times
Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation

Here is Part 2 of Eric's essay.
 

Let me ask you something: Do you really think your ancestors didn’t see the Depression coming in 1921 or in 1929? Of course they did. The Balloon Option-ARM mortgage had just been invented, creating a housing boom larger and even more groundless as our own, immortalized by the Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuts. They warned the world then just as we do now, and no one listened then, just as they don’t now. Why? It wasn’t time.

Likewise, do you think Hoover and Roosevelt didn’t do everything they could, whether legal or illegal to stop the endless economic decline after 1929? Of course they did. Roosevelt confiscated the entire money supply, packed the Supreme Court, and took control of the entire US economy to no avail. Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary, admitted,

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work… We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot."

And the media failing to report? I’ll show you just three graphics:

1. "We will not have any more crashes in our time." – John Maynard Keynes in 1927 (1)

2. "I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool’s paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future." – E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange, January 12, 1928

"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity." – Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928 (2)

3. "No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment…and the highest record of years of prosperity. In the foreign field there is peace, the goodwill which comes from mutual understanding." – Calvin Coolidge December 4, 1928 (3)

4. "There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash." – Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist , New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929 (4)

5. "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months." – Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929

"This crash is not going to have much effect on business." – Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929

"There will be no repetition of the break of yesterday… I have no fear of another comparable decline." – Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929

"We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices." – Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929 (5)

6. "This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan… that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years." – R. W. McNeel, market analyst, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

"Buying of sound, seasoned issues now will not be regretted." – E. A. Pearce market letter quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

"Some pretty intelligent people are now buying stocks… Unless we are to have a panic — which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom." – R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929 (6)

7. "The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services… America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin." – Stuart Chase (American economist and author), NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929

"Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street.” – The Times of London, November 2, 1929

"The Wall Street crash doesn’t mean that there will be any general or serious business depression… For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game… Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before." – Business Week, November 2, 1929

"…despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation…" – Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929 (7)

8. "…a serious depression seems improbable; [we expect] recovery of business next spring, with further improvement in the fall."- HES, November 10, 1929

"The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most." – Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929

"In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect." – Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929

"Financial storm definitely passed." – Bernard Baruch, cablegram to Winston Churchill, November 15, 1929 (8)

9. "I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism… I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress." – Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929

"I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence." – Herbert Hoover, December 1929

"[1930 will be] a splendid employment year." – U.S. Dept. of Labor, New Year’s Forecast, December 1929 (9)

10. “For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright.” – Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in Economics, in early 1930 (10)

11. "…there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over…" – Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930 (11)

12. "There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about." – Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930 (12)

13. "The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern… American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity." – Julius Barnes, head of Hoover’s National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930

"…the outlook continues favorable…" – HES Mar 29, 1930 (13)

14. "…the outlook is favorable…" – HES Apr 19, 1930 (14)

15. "While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst — and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us." – Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930

"…by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent…" – HES May 17, 1930

"Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." – Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930 (15)

16. "…irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery…" – HES June 28, 1930 (16)

17. "…the present depression has about spent its force…" – HES, Aug 30, 1930 (17)

18. "We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression." – HES Nov 15, 1930 (18)

19. “Stabilization at [present] levels is clearly possible.” – HES Oct 31, 1931 (19)

20. "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed… and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S." – President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933 (20)

Source: Colin J. Seymour, June 2001

                Man of the Year, 1938                                     Man of the Year, 1939

Poor enough reporting for ya? I’m sure you’d find the same reporting in the Great Depressions of 1837 and 1870, while many of you personally remember the W.I.N. buttons and pro-American quotes in the Depression of 1968-1979.

History never changes. Or, at least it changes very slowly indeed.

So here we are, like those before us, warning of our own Great Depression, of our own World War, or of even larger cycles like the fall of the English, Spanish, or Roman empires. And so far as we can tell, few listen and nothing changes. Why?

Because it isn’t time.

You think they didn’t see the rise of Fascism and WWII in the 30’s? What was the Lincoln Brigade about? You think the people of 1930 didn’t also inform each other, stall and delay the day of reckoning, and struggle to prepare? Of course they did. Just as much as we ourselves and our present government have. The delay due to their ability and willingness to intervene is already factored into the cycle.

So why didn’t war break out in 1932, 1936, or for the U.S., in 1940? It wasn’t as if people didn’t see it coming, just as we see our own war and challenges now.

Because it wasn’t time. What I mean by that is, no matter how far seeing, History, as Hari Seldon would say, is made up of the aggregate, not the individual. No individual– not even Churchill chafing under Chamberlain in 1938—could change it.

It only happens slowly, when one by one the great mass of the population have changed their minds and their behavior. Only then can history unfold. You, me, even Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, or George Soros cannot push the great Wheel of History around because it is made of all 6 Billion of us, the whole planet, the whole market, and the sum of human understanding.

To me, this the cardinal sin of the blogosphere, or indeed of the times: that we know what is best for everyone, as writers, pundits, politicians. That we need to make the other guy "wake up." We need to make them see as we do, act as ourselves, obey our will. Isn’t this the very defect we attribute to our enemies? That they’re always galumping around telling everybody what to do and how to live?

"They"—your family, your neighbors, your country–need to wake up? Let me ask you: "How did YOU wake up?" I can answer that without knowing you: a little at first, then all at once, in your own time. Neither is the journey for any of our "waking up" complete.

Telling people what is going on is one thing, it’s free speech, expressing our opinions on where we are and how the world works. Forcing others to believe something, become something, act in a way we believe they should is the first step to violence. If you believe in and value Liberty and the free exchange of ideas as I do, don’t do it. Changing the other guy is not your job.

Given that we can’t change history, and it’s reprehensible to force yourself on others, one might ask what good is it to talk about it? Screw the other guy if he won’t learn. Ride the stock market up for every dollar. "Eat, Drink, and be Merry, for tomorrow we die." To which I would respond as Dorothy Parker, "But alas, we never do." We may not be able to change the world or the course of history, but we can prepare on our own, individual level. And that’s the key, the individual level.

Markets, governments, wars, they are aggregations that will only change on schedule after some series of remarkable events forces them to respond and adjust.

This is part of Charles Hugh Smith’s discussions of fiefdoms, feedback, and the status quo: by definition the status quo can’t change, because if it could it wouldn’t be a status quo mired in internecine wrangling; it would be smoothly evolving into a new stable system. The system as we know it can’t change, but YOU can.

And as this is the only effort that’s going to effect any change in your life vs. the tide of history, it’s also the only one you have control over and the only one that’s going to do you any good. Dmitry Orlov has mentioned this many times regarding the collapse of governments and empires, in his case, the Soviet Union.

Did the U.S.S.R. disappear overnight? No. It took time, the exact amount of time for people to recognize, test, explore, and adjust their behavior. For some slower, and others more quickly. That is to say it took years, each piece unfolding one person at a time, one personal realization and event at a time in their own order. Once the nation collapsed, did it suddenly reform into the functional and rising state Russia enjoys now?

No. Again, it took time, decades of unfolding from 1991 until 2013, another whole generation, one "turning." Not until those who carried the template of the old ways passed away and new, younger people with new thinking replaced them. Not one of them could have stopped it or hurried it along although many tried, no different than any other time in history. As for the other guy, it’s always been clear that we’re all in this together. If your neighbors have a problem, then you have a problem whether down the street or in the world. This is why we all help each other best we can according to our abilities, in our own time.

What we as bloggers and far-seers have been trying to do is to change the aggregate, which cannot be done. The aggregate WILL change, but it can only change in its own schedule. We can continue to tell the truth, but after decades of status quo, we should not expect our words to change the world, our nation, or to some extent even our community. The only thing we can realistically change is ourselves with our own actions, and that is where all real change comes from, one person: one action at a time. 6 billion tiny events, tiny tipping points, changing minds who realize themselves one by one.

So what revolutionary act can you make today? If you read OfTwoMinds.com, PeakProsperity.com or similar sites, you already know the direction of history and what may be needed by you and the nation in the years ahead. What can you do to fill those gaps and prepare in your own life? Because the Wheels of History, although grinding exceeding slow, do get there in the end, made up of the decisions of billions of human actors. You may not be able to change your nation or the desperate situation we find ourselves in, but each of you can change yourself. You can make your own lifeboat in the midst of our own national challenge or "collapse." Only through that individual preparation could we find a million safety nets which prevent collapse.

And if that is all that’s asked of you, it’s good, for that’s all that’s possible.

Start today. It’s time.

by Eric A.

    



 
IRS Conservative Witchhunt Started In 2011 With High-Level Officials Involved
Saturday, 11 May 2013 18:21
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The IRS conservative targeting scandal is going from bad to worse.

Following the Friday revelations that despite all prior appeals to the contrary, the IRS did in fact apply political bias and prejudice in targeting conservative groups who had applied for exempt status (and who knows what other prejudice when targeting non-liberals entities – perhaps it is time to do an analysis of what the ratio of conservatives to liberals audited each year is?), culminating with the farcical response by an IRS official during the Friday press meeting…

(Read more…)


… this may be just the beginning of a major political scandal which in addition to tangential fallout crushing the alleged “impartiality” of the Obama administration, additionally validates many of the heretofore right-wing “conspiracy theories.” And as Zero Hedge has shown time and again, it is not a conspiracy theory if it is a conspiracy fact.

What makes things worse for the IRS, the US Treasury, its then-head Tim Geithner, and of course, Barack Obama, is that according to a draft report prepared by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, expected to be released this week, and seen by AP, is that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as the spring/summer of 2011, well before the 2012 election as we announced before. What makes matters worse, is that it was not only “low-level” employees as the IRS tried to justify its prejudice on Friday, but high level personnel, among which at least one head of division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, and likely  all the way to the very top, that were well aware of the witch hunt.

From AP:

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

 

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” ”Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says. The 9-12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.

 

Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups “immediately,” the report says.

Attempts by the IRS to contain the fallout to lower level employees will become very complicated once it becomes public knowledge, that “on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”“

So everyone knew about it.

But this is a very sticky problem because at a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who had previously stated on the record that no groups had been targeted, testified under oath as follows: “There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.”

Oops.

Of course, the IRS is scrambling to contain the fallout in the only way it (and JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs, and every other organization caught with its pants down) knows – the news never got to the top:

“IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the March 2012 hearing,” the statement said. “The timeline does not contradict the commissioner’s testimony. While exempt organizations officials knew of the situation earlier, the timeline reflects that IRS senior leadership did not have this level of detail.”

 

Lerner’s position is three levels below the commissioner.

 

“The timeline supports what the IRS acknowledged on Friday that mistakes were made,” the statement continued. “There were not partisan reasons behind this.”

What makes it even worse is that it was not just some radical conservative groups that had been targeted.

On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.

So, by implication those who still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are if not enemies of the US, then certainly subject to far more scrutiny by the country’s tax collectors?

Needless to say, the fury among republicans in Congress is palpable:

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s oversight subcommittee, said the report “raises serious questions as to who at IRS, Treasury and in the administration knew about this, why this practice was allowed to continue for as long as it did, and how widespread it was.”

 

“This timeline reveals at least two extremely unethical actions by the IRS. One, as early as 2010, they targeted groups for political purposes. Two, they willfully and knowingly lied to Congress for years despite being aware that Congress was investigating this practice,” Boustany said.

 

“This is an outrageous abuse of power. Going after organizations for referencing the Bill of Rights or expressing the intent to make this country a better place is repugnant,” Boustany added. “There is no excuse for this behavior.”

The White House, which would not want to touch this issue with a three trillion foot pole has logically distanced itself as far as possible:

On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration expected the inspector general to conduct a thorough investigation, but he brushed aside calls for the White House itself to investigate.

However, one can be certain that with the ascendent GOP, smarting after a year of political debacles and strategic disasters, and feeling emboldened in the aftermath of the Benghazi scandal coverup which in itself is another slap in the face of the “most transparent administration” in history, that the scandal will not be contained to some low-level, Fabrice Tourre-wannabe. Unless of course both the right and the left were in on it. After all, Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November.

Which, of course, would mean that for all the theatrics and optics, both the right and the left are, indeed, one.