Newly released IRS emails show that Obama adm targeted people who donated to conservative groups

Well, now we can see why the Obama administration has fought so hard against releasing the IRS emails.  The Daily Caller correctly describes this as a "bombshell" admission.

. . . The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch, show that Obama’s IRS conspired to revive the “gift tax” — a tax on 501(c)(4) donors that had not been enforced since 1982 following a Supreme Court ruling that effectively invalidated it. Emails between IRS officials show that the agency referred to Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS while discussing how to enforce their new gift tax on donors.  

On April 20, 2011, IRS lawyer Lorraine Garder emailed a donor list for a nonprofit group to James Hogan, a manager in the IRS’ Chief Counsel’s office. Judicial Watch noted that the disclosure of the redacted group’s donor list occurred during the period in which officials were discussing Crossroads GPS. 

“Does Bob have information about any of the donors [to the group in question]?” Gardner wrote in an email to IRS Estate Gift and Policy Manager Lisa Piehl. 

Weeks later, on May 13, 2011 an IRS official whose name was redacted in the documents released to Judicial Watch emailed Gardner and made one of the most stunning admissions of the existence of the IRS conservative targeting program.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a 501(c)(6) organization and may find itself under high scrutiny,” the official wrote. “One can only hope.” . . .

Obama administration is making it very difficult to get the most basic data out of the federal government

From the Washington Post:

Stacey Singer, a health reporter for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, was perusing a medical journal in 2012 when she came across something startling: a federal epidemiologist’s report about a tuberculosis outbreak in the Jacksonville area. Singer promptly began pursuing the story. 

But when she started seeking official comment about the little-reported outbreak, the doors began closing. County health officials referred her to the state health department. State officials referred her to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though the CDC’s own expert had written the investigative report, the agency’s press office declined to let Singer speak with him. A spokesman told her it was a local matter and sent her back to the state office in Tallahassee. 

Through public records requests, Singer eventually was able to piece together the story of a contagion that had caused 13 deaths and 99 illnesses — the worst the CDC had found in 20 years. . . .

In case you thought that Obama was already dramatically breaking his promise to be transparent, it is getting much worse

The Associate Press article is available here.

New York Times' Jill Abramson says that Obama administration "the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with"

From AL Jazeera:

Let me move on to another topic in the Obama administration. How would you grade this administration, compared to others, when it comes to its relationship with the media?Well, I would slightly like to interpret the question as "How secretive is this White House?" which I think is the most important question. I would say it is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush's first term.
I dealt directly with the Bush White House when they had concerns that stories we were about to run put the national security under threat. But, you know, they were not pursuing criminal leak investigations. The Obama administration has had seven criminal leak investigations. That is more than twice the number of any previous administration in our history. It's on a scale never seen before. This is the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with. . . .

Shocking how the government uses taxpayer funds to buy support from private entities

Given how much money the government has access to, they could buy support for Obamacare from almost anyone.  For an administration claims to have high standards of transparency, it is astounding that the Obama administration wouldn't make clearly public that they are making these bribes.   From the Washington Times:

Two months before enrollment began in the Obamacare exchanges, the administration’s top health care official heaped praise on WebMD for launching an online resource to help Americans navigate the complex law. 

The consumer health care site had the occasional nice thing to say about Obamacare, too. In one article, it predicted doctors might pick up more patients and crowed in an article titled “7 Surprising Things About the Affordable Care Act” that many consumers already had received insurance refunds under the law. 

But what neither Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius nor WebMD mentioned at the time was that the company, which millions of Americans regularly read for health news, also stood to earn millions of dollars from a federal contract to teach doctors about Obamacare. 

The contract documents, reviewed by The Washington Times, reward WebMD handsomely. For instance, the fee schedule offers dozens of products, including: 

 • As much as $126,826 for a single 5,000-word review article on scientific advances in a clinical topic. 

• Up to $68,916 for a four-minute video from an opinion specialist. 

• More than $140,000 for an eight-question online quiz. . . .

So why does the Obama administration think that they can effectively threaten a journalist's job if the journalist says anything critical?

From Mediaite:

On Wednesday morning, CNN Newsroom anchor Carol Costello made a rather stunning, if cryptic, revelation. In discussing the firing of national security official Jofi Joseph, Costello agreed with panelist Jason Johnson that the Obama administration can be thin-skinned, and said that “President Obama’s people can be quite nasty. They don’t like you to say anything bad about their boss, and they’re not afraid to use whatever means they have at hand to stop you from doing that, including threatening your job.” . . . 

Another similar comment was made by Bob Beckel, who ran Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign:

The Five co-host Bob Beckel revealed this week that after he spoke out in favor of delaying Obamacare, he received a call from someone connected to the White House who “absolutely bludgeoned” him over the phone for daring to suggest a delay to the health care law. . . . 

Obama administration pressing insurance companies not to release exchange signup numbers

There has already been plenty of news regarding Obama administration pressure on companies.  Previously they were pressuring companies not to talk about the data errors in the system.  Now comes word of more pressure on companies not to release the number of people signing up for the program.  From INFORUM:

The Obama administration asked North Dakota’s largest health insurer not to publicize how many people have signed up for health insurance through a new online exchange, a company official says. 

During a Monday forum in Fargo for people interested in signing up for coverage via the exchange, James Nichol of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota told the crowd his company received the request from the federal government earlier Monday. Nichol is a consumer sales manager for the company. 

Still, a spokeswoman from Blue Cross Blue Shield says about 14 North Dakotans have signed up for coverage since the federal exchange went live Oct. 1. That brings total statewide enrollment to 20 – less than one a day. . . . 

An official from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, one of the main the federal agencies handling the federal marketplace, would not directly address questions about the request made of Blue Cross Blue Shield, including whether other insurers were also asked to keep quiet about enrollment. . . .

Obama intimidation of companies they regulate, thuggish behavior and corruption

Who knows what these insurance companies really believe.  Everyone is upset about IRSgate, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.  It is also an argument for why government shouldn't have this much power because that power will be abused.  From the Wall Street Journal:  

Health-department officials have pressured insurers to refrain from commenting publicly about the problems, according to executives at four health plans, who asked not to be named. . . . .

Two weeks ago I was talking to a fairly prominent person in the health care industry and he told me that Kathleen Sebelius was again pressuring health care companies that her department regulates to make donations to help out Obamacare.  The above quote was actually in reference to companies not 

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans. 

The flaws could do lasting damage to the law if customers are deterred from signing up or mistakenly believe they have obtained coverage. 

"The longer this takes to resolve…the harder it will be to get people to [come back and] sign up," said Aetna Inc. Chief Executive Mark Bertolini. "It's not off to a great start," he said, though he believes the marketplaces are "here to stay." . . .

If companies can't comment publicly about what they really believe about Obamacare, what else can they not comment on?

From CBS News:

More on former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson bypassing FOIA requests

Horner has almost no chance of winning this case, but it shows the lengths she probably has gone to to hide information.  From Politico:

A conservative gadfly who has made a crusade of uncovering embarrassing emails at the Environmental Protection Agency wants to tap a new potential evidence trove: the National Security Agency’s electronic snooping program.
Attorney Chris Horner has filed a Freedom of Information Act request, asking the NSA to turn over any information it might have gleaned from former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s personal Verizon email account. The data could buttress critics’ accusations that Jackson and other top environmental regulators have routinely used private channels to discuss public business. . . .
Horner’s transparency crusade has already created some uncomfortable moments for the EPA, most notably by revealing the existence of a secondary EPA email account in which Jackson used the name “Richard Windsor.” Top Republican lawmakers have seized on Horner’s results to back up their own accusations that EPA leaders systematically bypass FOIA’s requirements by using unpublicized or private email accounts to discuss policy with political friends and environmentalists. . . .

Even the New York Times says that the Obama administration is hiding what it is doing on surveilling Americans

Even the New York Times attacks the Obama administration for hiding information on what it is doing.

The public has a right to know the government’s policies on these matters. There is very good reason to be concerned about the government’s interpretation of its police powers, especially given the Obama administration’s insensitivity to privacy in its mass collection of phone data in the national security sphere. 

When the A.C.L.U. filed a request for the memos under the Freedom of Information Act, the Justice Department responded by handing over copies with the text nearly entirely blanked out, prompting the lawsuit. . . . 

It is distressing that the administration, which claims to welcome a debate over the government’s surveillance practices, time and again refuses to be transparent about those practices. Instead of awaiting a court order, the administration should release the tracking memos on its own.

More on the most open administration in history, Obama administration refuses to costs of global traveling

It seems that the Obama administration can't even keep its transparency promises on even the small things.  From Bloomberg:

. . . Bloomberg News last year asked for the details of out-of-town trips for the heads of 57 major departments in fiscal 2011, a test of President Barack Obama’s pledge to run the most open government in history. As of July 12, about one-fifth of those surveyed hadn’t responded. 

The State Department is one of five Cabinet offices that have yet to fully comply with requests under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the details and expenses of official travel more than a year after they were filed. 

“These are exactly the kinds of records Cabinet offices should have at their fingertips,” said Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a Washington-based open-information advocacy group. “You should not even have to ask for these records. They should be online already.” 

The Justice Department, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with the open-government law, took more than one year to comply even though Attorney General Eric Holder has called swift responses to public records petitions an “essential component” of government transparency. Following repeated queries, the agency provided travel vouchers and then the costs of the trips last week. . . .

Obama administration made it very difficult for media to get info on the IRS

Remember Obama's promise in 2009 to have the most transparent administration ever?  Well, from using secret email accounts to evade reporting requirements to now adding new rules to make it harder to get public records for documents, the Obama administration is doing what it can to hide information. From Fox News:

Even as the freshly minted Obama administration was pledging a "new era of open government" in 2009, officials were quietly adding new rules that had the potential to slow down public requests for documents. 

Those rules, detailed in memos reviewed by FoxNews.com, could even trip up present-day efforts to dig into the IRS' practice of targeting conservative groups. The rules detailed in the memos largely emanated from the Treasury Department and, specifically, the IRS.
"It would seem to repudiate this notion that this is going to be the most transparent government in history," said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, the group that first obtained the memos. 

The memos follow reports about the administration's use of private email accounts, and coincide with ongoing debate about government transparency -- particularly with recent disclosures about widespread surveillance programs. . . .

Obama's whistleblower problem

Or this from the NY Post:

The US diplomat who was second in command in Libya during the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate fought back tears yesterday when he told lawmakers about his colleagues’ final moments — and said he was “stunned” by administration claims it was sparked by a spontaneous protest. 

Gregory Hicks, the first person to testify to Congress who was on the ground in Libya during the fateful night of the Sept. 11, 2012 siege, told a House committee that he was incredulous just five days later when UN Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sunday talk shows that the assault was not a terrorist attack. 

“My jaw dropped,” Hicks said. “I was embarrassed.” . . .

After listening to the testimony above or reading reports such as in the New York Post, please tell me how that is consistent with this administration claim.  From an earlier report on ABC News:

On Tuesday, both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry addressed claims being made by House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committee leaders that the administration is impeding the Congressional testimony of State Department and CIA employees who survived the attack. 

“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying,” said the president. “What I’ve been very clear about from the start is that our job with respect to Benghazi has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies, not just in the Middle East but around the world, are safe and secure and to bring those who carried it out to justice.” . . .

Instead it looks like Chaffetz was the one who was correct regarding the Benghazi whistleblowers.

“Absolutely, and more than one,” Chaffetz said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked if the Obama administration had blocked potential witnesses. “There are people who want to testify that have been suppressed. …They’re scared to death of what the State Department is doing with them.” . . .

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had this summary:

Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya the night Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, was to be the star witness for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the man leading the probe of the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  But despite Issa’s incautious promise that the hearing’s revelations would be “damaging” to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state Wednesday. . . . 

Suppose that we take everything that Milbank says about the facts are correct, that no direct evidence implicated Clinton.  You still have the problem that Clinton's number 2 person was direct implicated.  If this was a Republican administration, would Milbank not be asking for further investigation to see how high things actually run?

But the problem goes beyond Benghazi.  See for example this article on Politico:

The watchdog who tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild Afghanistan says government officials have tried to silence him because they think he's embarrassing the White House and Afghan President Hamid Karzai by pointing out the waste and fraud. 

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, used a speech at the New America Foundation on Wednesday to blast government “bureaucrats”' who have told him to stop publicizing damning audits that detail case after case of waste, corruption and mismanagement of rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Some government officials have even complained that they aren't allowed to pre-screen or edit his reports, he said.  

“Since my appointment by the president last summer, I have been surprised to learn how many people both in and out of the government do not understand the role of an independent inspector general,” Sopko said. . . .

UPDATE: As David Limbaugh correctly notes, another example is Gerald Walpin (see here).

Judge Andrew Napolitano: "Lying to Congress carries the same criminal liability and the same punishment as lying under oath to Congress. I'm not suggesting that Mrs. Clinton lied, but I'm saying that a case could be made out, either legally in a courtroom if a prosecutor wanted to, and certainly politically in a public sphere should she decide to seek higher office."

White House stonewalling on not letting Benghazi whistleblowers to speak out

So much for the much promised Obama transparency.  The video is available here.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson resigns over apparent content of emails written under pseudonym

Apparently, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson as well as the Obama administration has not admitted that the reason for her leaving the administration has anything to do with the emails that she sent out using a pseudonym.  What may have caused her concern is not the fact that she sent out these emails using a pseudonym but apparently the content of the emails.  Obama praised Jackson, but did not criticize her in anyway for her email activity.  Her use of these emails would at least seem to break Obama's promise of transparency, and that promise appears to have been further broken by Obama not admitting that the emails served as the reason for her leaving.  From Fox News:

A Washington attorney suing the Obama administration for access to alias emails sent by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that a recent decision by the Justice Department to release thousands of those emails next month contributed to her resigning Thursday.
Jackson, in a brief written statement, said Thursday she is leaving the EPA after four years on the job, for "new challenges, time with my family and new opportunities to make a difference."
The agency did not offer an explanation. But Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the scrutiny over the alias emails is clearly a factor.
"Life's full of coincidences, but this is too many," he told FoxNews.com. "She had no choice."
Horner and CEI earlier this year had sued the EPA for documents pertaining to Jackson's use of alias email accounts. She was said to operate under the name "Richard Windsor" -- the use of those accounts has since drawn the scrutiny of Republican members of Congress, as well as triggered an audit by the EPA inspector general. . . .

Use of false email address "triggered an inadvertent ruckus" for head of EPA

Does this sound like Politico is running interference for the Obama administration?  Could the Obama administration please explain how this fits in with his pledge of transparency?

EPA officials say the agency wasn’t trying to hide anything by giving Administrator Lisa Jackson a secondary email address to use when corresponding with other government officials. 

But the name she chose to use — “Richard Windsor” — has triggered an inadvertent ruckus for an agency already under fire from conservatives. 

The name came from that of a family dog when Jackson lived in East Windsor Township, N.J., an EPA official said Tuesday. 

The seemingly cryptic name has spawned a host of accusatory news reports and questions from lawmakers in recent days, all of them implying that Jackson was trying to dodge congressional oversight and public records laws by using a “private” email account under a fake name. . . .

A related story is available from The Hill newspaper here:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) accused the Obama administration on Tuesday of shielding possible discussions on a carbon tax from the public. 

Vitter, a top Republican on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner alleging the administration is hammering out details for a carbon tax proposal. 

Vitter questioned Treasury’s denial of a Freedom of Information Act request from the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank. The think tank sued Treasury last week for not releasing emails from the agency’s Office of Energy and Environment that contained the word “carbon.” . . . 

Did Obama EPA department hide information by using private email accounts?

Could it be used to legally challenge the regulations that are issued if it implies that the proper process wasn't used to implement regulations?  So will the Obama administration speak out on whether they disapprove of this activity?  From The Hill:

Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee have launched a probe into whether Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson has been conducting official business using secret email accounts.The lawmakers said the practice may violate transparency and record-keeping laws. . . .
"The use of these accounts could seriously impair records collection, preservation, and access, therefore compromising transparency and oversight," the Republicans wrote in a letter to Jackson.
The lawmakers demanded that Jackson turn over all records related to "Richard Windsor" and all other aliases used by senior EPA officials. . . .

Food Stamp data showing large increase delayed until after election?

If it is actually true that these data aren't released after the second day of the month, it would be hard to come up with a benign explanation for why it was released on the 9th this time.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released their most recent data on U.S. participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as 'food stamps.'
While the report is ordinarily released at either the end of the month, or no later than the first or second day of the following month, the Obama administration waited until November 9, a full three days after the election to announce the number of Americans currently receiving food stamps.
After seeing the data, it is not surprising why the administration delayed the report...
By the end of August 2012 (the most recent data), there were 47.1 million Americans on food stamps, a new all-time record high.
Another 420,947 Americans were added to the food stamp rolls from the previous month of July, representing the largest monthly increase in a year. . . .

One could write a book on everything that the Obama administration seems to be hiding from the public.

EPA chief used ‘aliases’ to hide correspondence from FOIA requests

If Obama values transparency, will he hold EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to account?

The name Richard Windsor may sound innocuous, but it is allegedly one of the secret “alias” email accounts used by Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. 

“That is the name — sorry, one of the alias names — used by Obama’s radical EPA chief to keep her email from those who ask for it,” Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of the new book “The Liberal War on on Transparency,” told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an email. 

In his book, Horner revealed the existence of “alias” email accounts used by EPA administrators. The first such transparency dodge, he writes, came from Carol Browner, former director of the Obama White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and Bill Clinton’s EPA administrator. 

“You remember Ms. Browner, the lady who suddenly ordered her computer hard drive reformatted and backup tapes erased, hours after a federal court issued a ‘preserve’ order … that her lawyers at the Clinton Justice Department insisted they hadn’t yet told her about?” Horner told TheDC News Foundation. “The one who said it’s all good because she didn’t use her computer for email anyway? That one.” . . . .

Donald Trump offers Obama $5 million for a charity of his choice if he releases college and passport records

"If Barack Obama opens up and gives his colleges records and applications, and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give to the charity of his choice — inner city children in Chicago, American Cancer Society, AIDS research, anything he wants — a check immediately for $5 million.  The check will be given within one hour after he releases all of the records so stated. He will be doing a great service for the country if he does this."

It has always been interesting that the media hasn't pressed Obama to release his college records. On the other hand, the request regarding the passport photos seems to be a play on the nutty Birther discussion.  Personally, I wish that Trump would have limited himself to just the school records.  Why someone who claims to be all for transparency would not allow his university records to be released should raise questions.  Possibly because of the passport request, I assume that the press will just ignore this.