Facing a possible firing, Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency’s tea party scandal, is retiring, the agency confirmed Monday. Taxpayers will remember her fondly as someone who, when asked for her help in uncovering potential IRS malfeasance against the president’s political enemies, clammed up and refused to cooperate for fear of incriminating herself.
Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012.
Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.She was placed on "administrative leave" four months ago to the day, with Chuck Grassley saying at the time he’d heard that the interim director of the IRS had asked for Lerner’s resignation — and that she refused.
Firing her was always an unlikely option, just because it’s hard to fire a federal employee under any circumstances, but I always assumed they placed her on leave initially with an eye to quietly reinstating her if/when the public storm over tea-party targeting finally blew over. (That’s what happened to the Benghazi Four. after all.)
Chances of that evaporated last week, though, when the ACLJ released previously unknown e-mails from Lerner during her IRS days, one of which mentioned the tea-party matter being “very dangerous” for fear that it could be used to extend the “Citizens United” ruling to tax-exempt orgs. Then came the release of IRS documents scrutinizing groups for “anti-Obama rhetoric,” and that was probably it.
Better for the agency to ease her out with some sort of retirement deal than keep her on and be dogged forever by questions about its impartiality. Politico, in fact, wondered last month if August would bring Lerner’s departure. Nope, evidently it took a few more black eyes for the IRS to make it happen.
Thankfully, she’ll no longer be in a position to affect policy as a government employee. Unfortunately, she’ll likely soon be back in a position to affect policy as a government lobbyist, making several times the salary she made before. Is this a great country, or what?
Laugh Lines: Father O'Malley rose from his bed. It was a fine spring day in his new Texas mission parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of the beautiful day outside. He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station.
A voice answered, "Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?" Father O'Malley said, "And the best of the day te yerself. This is Fadder O'Malley at St Brigid's. Dere's a jackass lyin dead on me front lawn. Would ye be so kind as to send a couple o' yer lads to take care of da matter?"
Sergeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit, replied with a smirk, "Well now father, it was always my impression that you people took care of last rites!"
There was dead silence on the line for a long moment. Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye, tis certainly true, but we are also obliged to notify the next of kin."
A man died in a horrible fire. The mortician thought it was George, but the body was so badly burned that somebody would need to make a positive identification. That task fell to George's two friends, Joe and Al.
After taking a look, Joe said, "He's burnt pretty bad, all right. Roll him over." Joe looked at the dead man's ass and said, "Nope, that ain't George." Thinking the incident strange, the mortician straightened up the body and said nothing.
He brought in Al and showed him the body. Al said, "Wow, he's burnt to a crisp. Roll him over." Al said, "Nope, that ain't George." The mortician asked, "How can you tell?" All answered, "George had two assholes." The mortician, "What? How could he have two assholes?"
Al said, "Everybody knew George had two assholes. Whenever the three of us would go into town, you'd hear people say, "Here comes George with those two assholes!"
That's it for now. More soon !
Stay Tuned !
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