Saturday, November 22, 2014

IRS Finds 30,000 Lois Lerner Emails, Enraging Conservatives

By Todd Beamon / NEWSMAX

Five months after the Internal Revenue Service deemed that emails sent by former official Lois Lerner had been lost forever, the Treasury Department's inspector general told Congress on Friday that as many as 30,000 might have been found — and conservatives were outraged.

"Nothing they do surprises me," Washington attorney Cleta Mitchell told Newsmax of the latest development in the agency's targeting scandal of tea party groups. "Nothing they fail to do surprises me.

"I have no reason to think that this is everything," she added. "Now, what I would like to see them do is for the IRS to actually respond to all the subpoenas that have been issued to them by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the last year and a half.

"That would be the best thing they could do: just go ahead and answer all the subpoenas and do what you're supposed to do," Mitchell said.

Two top members of the Senate Finance Committee, Democratic Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon and ranking Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, said on Friday that the Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration told them that it had had located data that might have included the Lerner emails.

The inspector general "has been able to recover some forensic data which may include documents the IRS believed were missing," they said in a statement. "This data may include emails to and/or from Lois Lerner which could be material to the investigation."

A Republican congressional aide told The Washington Examiner that the recovered data included as many as 30,000 emails that Lerner sent or received between 2009 and 2011.

The emails were found among hundreds of "disaster recovery tapes" used to back up the IRS' email system, according to the Examiner. The tapes contain at least 250 million emails.

"They just said it took them several weeks and some forensic effort to get these emails off these tapes," the aide told the newspaper.

Lerner, who retired in September 2013 because of the scandal, headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status from the groups. She was held in contempt for refusing to testify before Congress about the debacle.

In June, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified to Congress that the agency could not locate many of Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer had crashed that summer. They probably were lost for good because the disaster recovery tapes store data for only six months, he said.

Koskinen testified that they could only find 24,000 Lerner emails from 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency had pieced together those emails from the computers of 83 other workers, he said.

Emails of others Lerner supervised during that period also were lost, Koskinen said — and in a July federal court deposition, the IRS said that Lerner's hard drive was destroyed and recycled three years ago.

That ended any chance of retrieving the lost emails, officials said.

Today, November 22nd on RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on CPR Worldwide Media, Craig and Diane will hold NOTHING back on Obama's EO amnesty for ILLEGALS while still refusing to seal our borders. And they'll also discuss the latest developments out of Ferguson.

Hope you can join us....http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio
And chat with us at...https://www.facebook.com/groups/cprworldwidemedia/

Losing Streak: WH Admits Improperly Inflating Obamacare Enrollment Figures

Guy Benson / Townhall Columnist

Last spring, Obamacare supporters were ebullient when the Obama administration announced a milestone "victory:" Despite a truly disastrous roll-out, they'd enrolled eight million Americans in the program. The Obamacare debate, the president said, was officially over. We expressed skepticism over the White House's stats almost immediately, noting that the official numbers didn't account for duplicates, non-paying "customers," and consumer attrition -- not to mention the high percentage of "new" enrollees who previously had insurance, but were forced to use Obamacare's exchanges to obtain plans after their existing arrangements were cancelled under the new law.

The last two weeks have witnessed two more blows for the "it's working!" crowd. First came the sharply revised 2015 enrollment projections

Fewer than 10 million people are expected to enroll in "Obamacare 2.0" for 2015, the Obama administration said Monday. That's a significant drop from the original goal. The Congressional Budget Office had projected 13 million, but officials said they expect the ramp up to be slower than the CBO originally thought. The revised goal is 9 to 9.9 million. It raises questions about whether Obamacare enrollment will reach projections down the road. The CBO had projected enrollment would hit 25 million by 2017, but now the administration says it will probably take at least one or two more years to reach that threshold. Officials are realizing it will find it tougher to convince the remaining uninsured to enroll. Many who opted not to sign up this year said the cost was too high.

It's almost as if many people aren't too excited about purchasing less-than-affordable coverage that saddles them with high out-of-pocket costs and sparse provider networks. One thing the administration has going for it this year is that the individual mandate tax designed to punish shirkers is rising considerably, although those penalties are still much lower than the costs associated with buying Obamacare health plans. Now we have this embarrassing admission from administration officials, who've been forced to reveal how Team Obama inflated its top line enrollment figure:

What Should The GOP Do About Obamacare?

John C. Goodman / Townhall Columnist

It should come as no surprise to Townhall readers that the new Republican congress has no plan to deal intelligently with Obamacare. That’s unfortunate. The worst thing that can happen over the next two years is for president Obama to appear to take the high road – insuring the uninsured and fighting the mean insurance companies – while Republicans rail about the small and trivial parts of health reform.

And the worst thing that can happen is the very thing that is about to happen. So here is some unsolicited advice.

To begin with, Republicans in Congress have created their own internal gridlock on Obamacare. Even if the Democrats all abstained and let Republican legislators do whatever they wanted, the Republicans still could not agree on what to do next.

From the base there is the incessant cry for “repeal.” But as just about every Republican candidate in this last election acknowledged, there can be no “repeal” without “replace.” Otherwise, from 10 to 15 million people will lose their health insurance. However, “repeal and replace” means transitioning from Obamacare to a new system. And no matter how radically different the new system is, it will run the risk of being called “Obamacare lite.”

In fact, there isn’t a single Republican replace plan that hasn’t already been called “Obamacare lite.”

And that’s before any negotiation with the other side takes place. Any repeal and replace agreement that has been negotiated with Democrats in Congress and with the White House will almost certainly be viewed with suspicious mistrust by the Republican rank and file.

Fortunately, there is a way out. In going forward, the GOP needs to make clear to its own base and to the Democrats that in any negotiation they will follow five simple rules.

Rule 1: No deviation from a simple vision. The Republican objective for the voting public should be: Keep your job; keep your health insurance; and keep your doctor. The most direct way to get rid of all the anti-job of Obamacare is to repeal the employer mandate. The most direct way to insure that people can keep insurance they like is to repeal the individual mandate. And the most direct way of insuring people can keep their doctor is to deregulate and denationalize the health insurance exchanges.

The Truth About Obama's "Temporary" Ebola Amnesty

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

When it rains, it pours. Just before unveiling his colossal administrative amnesty for millions of "undocumented" aliens and foreign tech workers on Thursday, President Obama separately ordered up to 8,000 more executive pardons and special work passes for Liberians, Sierra Leoneans and Guineans illegally in this country.

Strange, isn't it? The same administration that refused to enact travel bans from Ebola-plagued West African nations to protect Americans is now granting "temporary protected status" (TPS) to West Africans on American soil so they don't have to go back.

It's not really about public health, of course. It's about political pandering and electoral engineering.

Here's the dirty open secret: There's nothing "temporary" about TPS benefits. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the program has become an endless, interminable residency plan for unlawful border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation evaders from around the world.

TPS golden ticket holders live here, work here, travel freely and are immune from detention or deportation. They are eligible to apply for an "adjustment of status," which puts them on the path to green cards and eventual citizenship.

In theory, TPS is a short-term humanitarian program built on good intentions. The secretary of homeland security "may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately." Those conditions include hurricanes, environmental catastrophes, civil war, epidemics and other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."

Boehner: Obama Has Cemented His Legacy of Lawlessness

Katie Pavlich / Townhall Tipsheet

House Speaker John Boehner, who warned after the recent midterm elections that executive action on immigration reform would "poison the well," has issued a statement in response to President Obama's announcement and decision to move forward with changes in immigration law without Congress, saying Obama has "cemented his legacy of lawlessness."

“The American people want both parties to focus on solving problems together; they don’t support unilateral action from a president who is more interested in partisan politics than working with the people’s elected representatives. That is not how American democracy works. Not long ago,

President Obama said the unilateral action he just announced was ‘not an option’ and claimed he’d already ‘done everything that I can on my own.’ He said it would lead to a ‘surge in more illegal immigration.’ He said he was ‘not a king’ and ‘not the emperor’ and that he was ‘bound by the Constitution.’ He said an action like this would exceed his authority and be ‘difficult to justify legally.’ He may have changed his position, but that doesn’t change the Constitution," Boehner said.

“By ignoring the will of the American people, President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left. His ‘my way or the highway’ approach makes it harder to build the trust with the American people that is necessary to get things done on behalf of the country.

Republicans are left with the serious responsibility of upholding our oath of office. We will not shrink from this duty, because our allegiance lies with the American people. We will listen to them, work with our members, and protect the Constitution."

Iran nuclear talks stuck, Obama will extend deadline

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Stuck? The only player watching the clock and the deadline is the Obama administration. Did anyone really think the mullahs gave a hangman’s noose about some Western imposed deadline? The only reason Iran talks is for time. Talk for time — time to build their nuclear weapons. They are arming Hamas and Hezb’allah to — among other things — keep Israel busy with other things.

Report: Iran Secretly Continuing Nuclear Weapons Work: Research, construction of nuke never stopped, expert report says

Of course Obama is going to move the deadline, so he can keep on talking and playing with himself.