Judge Issues New Order to IRS: Your Excuse For "Lost" Emails is Invalid

Katie Pavlich/ Townhall Tipsheet

 

After listening to excuses from IRS officials about why they cannot produce "lost" emails requested through a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the IRS to come up with a better explanation as to why the agency cannot produce valid documentation. He's also asking for details about IRS hard drive destruction policy and wants verification from an outside source that IRS hard drives in question were in fact destroyed as officials have claimed.

"In an extraordinary step, U. S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan has launched an independent inquiry into the issue of the missing emails associated with former IRS official Lois Lerner," President of Judicial Watch John Fitton said in a statement. "Previously, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to produce sworn declarations about the IRS email issue by August 11. Today’s order confirms Judicial Watch’s read of this week’s IRS’ filings that treated as a joke Judge Sullivan’s order."

From Judge Sullivan's order:

In light of [26] the Declarations filed by the IRS, the IRS is hereby ORDERED to file a sworn Declaration, by an official with the authority to speak under oath for the Agency, by no later than August 22, 2014. In this Declaration, the IRS must: (1) provide information about its efforts, if any, to recover missing Lois Lerner emails from alternate sources (i.e., Blackberry, iPhone, iPad); (2) provide additional information explaining the IRS's policy of tracking inventory through use of bar code property tags, including whether component parts, such as hard drives, receive a bar code tag when serviced. If individual components do not receive a bar code tag, provide information on how the IRS tracks component parts, such as hard drives, when being serviced; (3) provide information about the IRS's policy to degauss hard drives, including whether the IRS records whose hard drive is degaussed, either by tracking the employee's name or the particular machine with which the hard drive was associated; and (4) provide information about the outside vendor who can verify the IRS's destruction policies concerning hard drives.

The IRS has one week to come up with some answers.

Blame the Racism-of-Liberals for Ferguson, Missouri

Michael Schaus /Townhall Columnist

 

If liberals truly cared about the plight of today’s black community, they wouldn’t be “standing in solidarity” with a bunch of outraged looters in Ferguson, Missouri… They would be denouncing the party of the KKK, Jim Crow, and segregation. They would be burning the homes of gang members. They would be fighting for the single black mother who is facing up to three years in prison for deciding to defend her life with a firearm.

 

In short… They would be rampaging against the morally bankrupt hustlers of victimhood and dependency. Or, to put it another way, they would be voting Republican.

I mean, let’s face it: The riots, rallies, and violence in Ferguson are not about empowerment, justice or even indignation. Heck, where are the rallies for the more than 400 people killed in Chicago last year? Where is the outrage over governments systematically making it impossible for poverty-stricken inner cities to defend themselves?

Yet, there is a left-wing groundswell of support for the lawlessness that has followed a questionable police shooting just outside of St Louis. The truth is, this story isn’t really about racism, police brutality, or even tragedy… This story is about the failure of Liberalism. It is an indictment of the liberal culture of victimhood, and oppression. The riots, the violence, and the anti-police actions of the Black Panthers, "Anonymous", and average thugs in Ferguson is the result of being told for years that victimhood is a permanent state of being; rather than a temporary state of mind.

It is a tactic that the left has imposed on minority groups for half a century. To the American left, African Americans are in a perpetual position of subjugation. After all, heroes are only found when they are perceived to be needed, right? … Without a class of victims to champion, Sharpton/ Holder & Company would be exposed as the quixotic hustlers they truly are. These hollow heroes of the modern “Civil Rights” movement are, essentially, portraying themselves as the emancipators from a truly fictitious reality.

After more than a century of civil liberty battles and triumphs, African Americans have flocked to the Party that opposed every measurable Civil Rights initiative since the Emancipation Proclamation. It should stun historians that the party of the Ku Klux Klan and segregation now has an undeniable stranglehold on black America.

Today’s Party of Barack Obama and Eric Holder, willfully ignore FDR’s history of opposing anti-lynching laws. They ignore John F Kennedy’s vote, as a Senator, against the 1950’s era Civil Rights laws. They even ignore the egregious violence and lawlessness that plague some of America’s most Democrat cities. (Such as Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC and Los Angeles.)

In a raging display that resembles the clinical definition of “denial”, the American left claims that Republicans have abandoned their civil-rights-minded past. They assert that the right wing of America is nothing more than racist, backward thinking rednecks who “cling to their guns, religion, and an antipathy toward people not like them.” But nothing could be further from the truth.

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

And yet we live instead in a nation where the liberally-inclined media uses the term “white-police-officer” in their racially sensationalized news coverage of Ferguson. We also live in a nation where dozens of black children are shot every week in the war zone of Chicago without so much as a whisper on the nightly national news, or from the first black (and half white) President in American history.

Most of America has a dream as well. It is the same Dream that King articulated so emotionally 50 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And the progressive brand of Obama’s Democrat Party has spent the last fifty years suffocating this dream under empty promises and government programs. Just like the plantation owners of the pre-war south, the Modern Democrat Party promises black America a roof, food, and protection from the risks of freedom. . . And the brave few who dare to champion the forgotten cause of individualism are ridiculed among the Left; called traitors to their race; and are said to not know their proper place – as voters in the Democrat plantation.

This suffocation of empowerment has been perpetuated by leftist “heroes” who have sold the idea of permanent victimhood to minorities in America. The progressive message has infected the African American community with a sense of hopelessness and despair, not hope and empowerment. And what we’re seeing in Ferguson is the exact thing that can be expected from people who have no faith in the dream of American equality.

The Left’s message that African Americans are incapable, hopeless, and persecuted – without a heavy-handed government of benevolent masters – is more than tragic… As we see in Ferguson, it’s also dangerous.

Devout Muslim terrorists screaming “Allahu akbar” abduct schoolboys in Nigeria
Pamela Geller Atlas Shrugs

Muslim paradise has boys for the righteous Muslims: “And the forerunners, the forerunners, those are the ones brought near in the Gardens of Pleasure, a large company of the former peoples, and a few of the later peoples, on thrones woven, reclining on them, there will circulate among them young boys made eternal, with vessels, pitchers and a cup of wine from a flowing spring, no headache will they have therefrom, nor will they be intoxicated, and fruit of what they select and the meat of fowl, from whatever they desire. (quran 56:10-21)

“Muslim terrorists are abducting schoolboys in Nigeria,” Reuters, August 15, 2014:

Suspected Islamist Boko Haram fighters have abducted dozens of boys and men in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria, loading them onto trucks and driving them off, witnesses who fled the violence said Friday.

The kidnappings come four months after Boko Haram, which is fighting to reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria, abducted more than 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok.

Several witnesses who fled after Sunday’s raid on Doron Baga, a sandy fishing village near Lake Chad, said the militants had burned several houses and that as many as 97 people were unaccounted for.

“They left no men or boys in the place; only young children, girls and women,” said Halima Adamu, sobbing softly and looking exhausted after a 110-mile road trip on the back of a truck to the northern city of Maiduguri.
...

Read the whole entry »

     

• Email to a friend • Article Search •

Most top Islamic State jihadis were once held by U.S.

Robert Spencer  / Jihad Watch

 

But “incarceration was a school for jihad, and they emerged tougher, better connected and more dedicated” — so why were there no effort made during their incarceration to challenge their jihadist beliefs? Because to have done that would have been “Islamophobic.” And why were they released at all, since any fool would have known that they would return to the jihad?

“The Islamic State’s potential weakness,” by David Ignatius, Washington Post, August 14, 2014 (thanks to Ou Tis):

The Obama administration’s Iraq policy seems premised on the idea that the terrorist Islamic State is so toxic that it will be self-limiting and ultimately self-defeating. But that’s not the view of U.S. intelligence officials.

In a briefing for journalists Thursday, a panel of five U.S. intelligence officials summed up their assessment of an organization that has shown a remarkable durability because it is “patient,” “well-organized,” “opportunistic” and “flexible.” Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group has rebounded from about 1,500 fighters in 2010 to more than 10,000 today — becoming a global jihadist organization that communicates in many languages.

“We don’t assess this as something that will collapse on its own,” said one of the officials, who commented based on an agreement that their remarks would not be attributed. “But with pressure and alternatives [that might draw away its Sunni supporters], it could collapse over time.” The intelligence experts cautioned that counterterrorist tools, such as drone strikes and other air attacks, wouldn’t be sufficient “to defeat it rather than just ratchet it back.”

The officials expressed skepticism that Baghdadi could be deterred from striking the United States by the threat of pulverizing attacks. “We assess that the group sees conflict with the U.S. as inevitable,” said one official. Although the group is preoccupied with its battles in Iraq and Syria, another official noted a chilling Internet statement several months ago: “America, we have not turned our gaze away from you.”

The briefing was a rare example of intelligence officials sharing information about a problem that policymakers are still debating. The group skirted direct policy questions but not their context. Asked, for example, whether the Islamic State can be contained if its bases in Syria aren’t bombed, one official said that such cross-border havens have been “a perennial challenge” in fighting insurgencies since 1945.

The portrait of Baghdadi and his Islamic State was chilling. Under its original name, al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group ferociously battled U.S. forces. Most of its leading fighters were imprisoned by U.S. occupation troops, but incarceration was a school for jihad, and they emerged tougher, better connected and more dedicated….

Op-ed:
They have a home but it ain't here
By: Diane Sori

They're coming to a school near you...and they're coming without needing the required immunizations all our kids need...and the 'they' of which I speak are the ILLEGAL children flooding our borders by the thousands...the ILLEGAL children being dispersed all over OUR country who will now spread their diseases to our children who in turn will spread them to us...diseases we long thought had been eradicated in OUR country.

And Barack HUSSEIN Obama knows this and just does NOT care.

Now to be fair it must be known that there is NO federal law concerning children entering the public school system that mandates vaccine exemptions that could prevent certain diseases, but all 50 states have a medical exemption for certain vaccines where a child might have had a serious adverse reaction. In fact, when they were young both my children had an immediate anaphylactic reaction to the 'P' (pertussis) part of the DPT shot...meaning if they were given a second dose they could die. Now of course they did NOT get the 'P' part again and were granted a medical exemption from that component in the DPT shot, but they were required to get all the other mandated series of shots needed to attend public school.

But these ILLEGAL children who will enter OUR schools this fall do NOT need a medical exemption nor any other accepted exemption...and get this...the fact is they do NOT have to have any immunizations at all. This mean they will be bringing into our public schools diseases that could actually kill some of our children...children like mine who could NOT get a certain immunizations to protect them from a specific disease. But thankfully they stood little if any chance of contracting...in their case pertussis (whooping cough)...because the other children in their school were immunized against it...were immunized so they could NOT be carriers of it. And children like mine are NOT unique...there are millions of LEGAL American children currently facing the same situation as mine did.

And Obama knows this and still does NOT care because most of our children are NOT future Democratic voters with their hands out unlike the current crop of ILLEGAL children are...and to that affect these ILLEGAL pint-size criminals...remember they came here breaking OUR country's laws...will now thanks to Obama be classified as 'homeless' which allows them the ability to avoid any and ALL required school documentation...including legal status, immigration status, guardianship status, and most importantly of all medical status...and that puts our children, their teachers, and us in possible serious medical danger.

And it's NOT just the medical aspect of this 'homeless' designation that is disturbing... that should raise your ire.

To date it's estimated that about 50,000 ILLEGAL children are being dispersed to states without the states knowledge or consent...states that NEVER before faced an influx of ILLEGALS. And these now-called 'homeless' children...many of whom do indeed carry communicable diseases...are entitled...YES entitled...to a free public education because Obama gave them that designation as' homeless.' In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plyler vs. Doe (457 U.S. 202 (1982)) that undocumented (meaning ILLEGAL) children and young adults have the same right to attend public primary and secondary schools as U.S. citizens and permanent residents do. 

Nice huh...now and add into the mix the fact that with these ILLEGAL children arriving here without their families NO one knows the educational background of these children or even if they've ever attended school...or if they did what grade they had reached. Also, let's NOT forget the language barrier they face as the vast majority of these children know NOT a word of English.

And with school districts receiving funding through the property taxes 'We the People' pay who live within a given school's municipality, and with school districts receiving all-important federal funding under the 'No Child Left Behind Act'...these children with little or NO English proficiency will now be sitting alongside our children who will be forced by circumstances to take a step backwards in their education because those NOT speaking English will force a slowdown in curriculum. 

And once again Obama doesn't care.

So while the states themselves can set aside additional monies for districts facing what's called a 'significant increase' in the number of ILLEGAL students entering their schools, the monies allotted can in NO way cover the numbers who will need special services including health screenings, social services, and psychological services where warranted. But above all else even when the dollars are put aside and overcrowding issues are addressed, the most serious obstacle still remains...the health threat these ILLEGAL children bring to OUR country...bring to our schools...bring to our children... for the diseases that are endemic to their home countries are NOT the same ones we face here in the U.S...serious diseases like antibiotic resistant TB and other assorted 'nasties.' 

Just imagine if your child came home with a note saying they had been exposed to an ILLEGAL classmate who had TB...drug resistant TB. Now imagine your reaction...your anger...and your overwhelming sense of frustration at both your child possibly facing a serious illness as well as being screwed yet again by a president whose every decision is fueled on by his goal of increasing the Democratic voting rolls...and being done so at the expense of both your child's health and well-being and yours as well.

 

And with that the bottom line is that these ILLEGAL children...these disease carrying children...coming from what amounts to Third World countries...are getting a free ride on the backs of 'We the People' and our taxpayer dollars as they rape and plunder our welfare, health care, and educational systems...as well as making us and our children sick. And that's NOT prejudice by any means but is simple fact for the children's parents know they are sending them here in violation of our laws and yet they send them anyway...and why...because it's common knowledge in their home countries that those currently in power in OUR country refuse to enforce the very laws which would prevent them from coming here in the first place. 

And all that's left to do is sigh...and try to get that long overdue border fence built like right now.