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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (65096)	5/19/2013 8:13:31 PM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

Put Jack Lew Under Oath Carol Platt Liebau Posted: 5/19/2013 2:41:47 PM EST In an interview with Al Hunt, Jack Lew -- now Treasury Secretary and President Obama's Chief of Staff from January 2012 until this spring -- indicated that he knew about the IRS investigation last autumn (i.e., before the election). JACK LEW: Al, I learned the substance of this report last Friday when it became a matter of public knowledge. Before that, in mid March, I had had a conversation, just a getting-to-know-you conversation, with the inspector general right after I started, and he went through a number of items that were matters they were working on. And the topic of a project on the 501c3 issue was one of the things he briefed me was ongoing. I didn’t know any of the details of it until last Friday. When I learned about it — from the moment I learned about it, I was outraged. The Secretary of the Treasury, as a citizen, it is a matter of the highest priority that the IRS be beyond suspicion in terms of its (inaudible). AL HUNT: Did Tim Geithner or Neal Wolin or the general counsel know about it before him? JACK LEW: I think that there was — the heads-up that I got was something that was a matter of public knowledge. It was posted on the IG’s website in the Fall of 2012. I believe that other is typically the practice that an inspector general notify the agencies when matters are opened. I was not aware of any details. My deputy was not aware of any details until it became a matter of public knowledge. The questions ask themselves: (1) What was the "public knowledge" that was allegedly posted on the website in 2012 -- how did Lew see it but so many members of the MSM (and the public) didn't? (2) Exactly what did Neal Wolin tell him -- and when? (3) When he received this "heads up" about the possibility of partisan abuse at the IRS, did he inform the President? (4) If so, what was the President's reaction? If not, why not? Was it deemed insufficiently important? (5) If so, what was the President's response? Remember, Lew was President Obama's chief of staff. Are we really to believe that he heard this news and never communicated it either to the President or to his campaign -- even knowing the political cataclysm it would cause if this explosive information became public before the election? It's sad to say, but no honest answers will be forthcoming unless Jack Lew is put under oath. townhall.com

To: FJB who wrote (65096)	6/14/2013 7:42:39 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB greatplains_guy Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

FOIA: 201 IRS employees work full-time on union business In a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Americans for Limited Government, the Internal Revenue Service revealed this month that 201 of its employees work full-time on union activities. “A lot of people are not aware that under federal law, a federal agency is allowed to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with a union that has provisions where employees of the agency, in this case the IRS, are allowed to do union work on the taxpayer’s time and get paid for it,” ALG president and Nathan Mehrens explained in an interview with The Daily Caller. As Office of Personnel Management documents explain, the performance of union duties instead of official government business is allowed, as it is a part of the government’s collective bargaining system. “‘Official time,’ authorized by 5 U.S.C. 7131, is a core component of the federal government’s carefully crafted collective bargaining system,” OPM explains in its most recent “Official Time Usage in the Federal Government” report. “Official time is time spent by Federal employees performing representational work for a bargaining unit in lieu of their regularly assigned work. It allows unions to satisfy their duty of fair representation to members and non-members alike.” “In our opinion it is something that shouldn’t be allowed,” Mehrens, a former Department of Labor attorney under President George W. Bush, said. “It is a subsidy to a private entity to do the private entity’s job,” he added. “Why should we as taxpayers be paying for this? It is not as if taxpayers are paying to subsidize my organization.” The redacted list of 201 IRS employees, whose names have been blacked out, features only those employees who are entirely engaged in union work. The list does not include employees who spend part of their time on government work and other portions on union work, according to ALG. The list of 201 employees offers job titles, salary information, and some location information. The job titles appear innocuous and make the work appear to be focused on agency business rather than union business. Titles include “Internal Revenue Agent,” “Revenue Officer,” “Tax Specialist,” “Rev Officer,” “Clerk,” “Contact Representative,” “Case Advocate,” and the like. Some boast six-figure salaries, with the highest paid employee on the list earning $138,092. Mehrens explained that in many cases employees are hired for a certain job classification but end up doing union work. “This person was hired to file things,” Mehrens said of one of the employees listed on the documents under the job title “File Clerk.” ”But instead of filing things this person is doing union work. So somebody else presumably has to pick up the slack and handle that. There is not a job classification for ‘union steward’… so they are in these positions and instead of actually doing the work that would fit the job classification they are basically excused from doing that job in order to work on behalf of the union.” dailycaller.com