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And the data - is it in question? It comes from the IRS data itself, and has been published by the Tax Foundation for years and years. If it was in error, wouldn't someone have caught it by now?

Yes, it's in error, and yes, the Tax Foundation has been "caught" more than once.

http://economistsview.typepad....

http://www.cbpp.org/archives/t...

http://www.nj.com/opinion/inde...

http://mathbabe.org/2014/02/14...

http://angrybearblog.com/2012/...

http://www.citizensforethics.o...

The Tax Foundation is as phony as a three dollar bill.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-filings/entry/crew-petition-fcc-deny-renewal-news-corp-fox-broadcast-licenses-murdoch

Washington, D.C. – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), asking the agency to deny renewal of three broadcast licenses held by Fox television stations. Because their licenses are set to expire in October, two Fox stations in Washington, D.C. and one in Baltimore – which are wholly owned subsidiaries of News Corp. – filed to renew the licenses this past June.

CREW is objecting to the renewals because under U.S. law, broadcast frequencies may be used only by people of good “character,” who will serve “the public interest,” and speak with “candor.” Significant character deficiencies may warrant disqualification from holding a license.

Anyone else feel like it's all a show nowadays? Remember those millions of missing Bush emails the federal courts wanted? Obama is siding with Bush on getting the suit dismissed. Now that's change I can believe in!

With the two party system being virtually identical, 3rd parties getting no real attention, it gets hard to be upset by who gets elected by a buggy machine. Apathy has set in, people won't get upset until they can't watch the next staged "reality show".

Not all of them. Bush didn't. He let the attorneys that worked for Clinton keep their jobs. Later, he realized that some of them were a mistake and let them go. Clinton didn't give Bush41's attorney's that chance. He fired them because they worked for an R and he had his own cronies to move in. Not that I'm saying that's wrong. A Prez should have whatever attorneys he wants in there. But don't try to make up some bullshit about how Bush is an asshole because he didn't fire his attorney's quickly enough.

Also not true. From the article...

"Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years."

George W. Bush kept ONE more appointment than Clinton did. Looks to me like ALL presidents replace the US attorneys at the start of their administration... but again, no administrations, aside from the current president, remove attorneys halfway through their term in office for "no reason".

Truth is stranger than fiction. THE FACTS BEHIND THE WHITE HOUSE EMAIL SCANDALS" states,

"Even though DOJ sent White House a preservation request for records related to CIA leak investigation in September 2003, RNC continued to purge all emails every 30 days until August 2004"

Here's the complete fact sheet as of today.

There are two separate email scandals:

- Top White House officials use of RNC email accounts and RNC destruction of those emails
- Five million EOP emails missing from White House (EOP) server from period 3/03 to 10/05

1. RNC Email Scandal:

- Top White House officials, including Karl Rove, used RNC and other outside email accounts to conduct White House business

- Those officials took no steps to ensure that the emails were preserved, as the Presidential Records Act requires

- Emails show that officials were aware that if they used outside email accounts, their email messages would not be preserved

- Even though DOJ sent White House a preservation request for records related to CIA leak investigation in September 2003, RNC continued to purge all emails every 30 days until August 2004

2. White House Email Scandal:

- In late 2001 or early 2002, Bush administration discontinued automatic email archiving/preservation system put in place by Clinton administration (ARMS)

- Bush administration failed to put another system in place that would appropriately and effectively save email records in a records management system

- Instead, Bush administration extracts email messages from the EOP server and stores them in files on a file server

- There are no effective internal controls on this system to ensure complete set of messages; messages can be modified or deleted

- In October 2005, White House discovered emails were missing from this system, briefing White House Counsel (Harriet Miers) on the problem as well as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgeralds staff

- EOPs Office of Administration (OA) did independent analysis to determine extent of missing email problem found hundreds of days of email missing between March 2003 and October 2005, for a rough total estimate of five million missing emails

- White House Counsel was briefed on this and given plan of action to recover missing emails

- White House never implemented plan to recover missing emails (even in face of preservation order from DOJ)

- White House has still not put effective email archiving system in place, even though it knows current system is not effective and has led to at least five million missing emails

Bush administration is still not telling the truth:

- Dana Perino has said problem with EOP server occurred when White House switched from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook this is untrue; emails are missing for a 2½ year period starting in March 2003 and ending in October 2005

- Dana Perino has said no intentional loss of any document but by October 2005, White House knew system wasnt working and knowingly and willfully refused to implement plan to recover five million emails missing from EOP server, instead leaving in place a system that does not work

- Dana Perino has said system set up to comply with Presidential Records Act by automatically preserving EOP emails but White House is using system that doesnt effectively preserve email and that doesnt comply with archiving standards (see 36 C.F.R. Part 1234 guidance for preserving email under Federal Records Act) and doesnt work (e.g. five million missing emails)

Maybe someone could've told them that erasing (shredding) files and unused disk space can grind the system to a halt.

If anyone said something like this five years ago, I'd accuse them of being a tin-hat wearing paranoid fool. But times have changed.

There are too many things, such as the unprecedented use of signing statements, abuse of the Patriot Act, death of investigative journalism (replaced by partisan pundits disguised as reporters), Valerie Plame's outing, and unchecked kleptocracy going on that turns trusting people into cynics.

When hearing about lost e-mails on TV, I think "e-mails get lost all the time" but when I read detailed reports, the facts clearly show that it could not have been an accident. For example, this report shows facts about the lost e-mails that should be unacceptable to Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike:

WITHOUT A TRACE: THE MISSING WHITE HOUSE EMAILS AND THE VIOLATIONS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/27607

If you read the report and know that people in Washington use Blackberries, how could you not wonder if the recent outage was caused by attempts to destroy evidence?

Congress would have to be completely blind if they don't immediately contact RIM and have them confirm under oath that no evidence was destroyed.

Given that Karl Rove is known to be a Blackberry user, Congress would have to be incompetent to ignore this incident. Please give them a clue by contacting your representative by e-mail or fax or phone!

Washington, DC - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal. ... In a startling new revelation, CREW has also learned through two confidential sources that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel's office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.

Check out this story at TPMmuckraker - according to a report from CREW there were actually more like FIVE MILLION emails deleted. The scale of this is just stunning.

Check out this story at TPMmuckraker - according to a report from CREW there were actually more like FIVE MILLION emails deleted. The scale of this is just stunning.

Is that so? Interesting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Those are, in order, donations to a scam charity, skyboxes, and airplane tickets. There is, indeed, no money there. Except the donations to a 'charity' that doesn't do anything.

Here's some actual money. Hey, look! Campaign contributions to the tune of 4000 by a tribe. And to the tune of 17,000 by Abramoff's own firm.

That is the pattern. Democrats got campaign contributes from random groups trying to make their case like they always did. As did Republicans. Some of these groups were serious about influencing people, so they hired various lobbists. Sometimes the lobbist they picked was Abramoff.

Republicans also got free unreported trips, free unreported flights, free unreported skyboxes, and reported money directly from Abramoff. Democrats did not. It is those things that, for example, Ney is indeed under investigation for.

And, yes, it is because none of those things were declared. I don't understand why you understand that, but then somehow think that reported campaign contributions have anything to do with this. The fact that Abramoff and anyone who's ever hired him, and any money they spent, have become incredibly trainted in DC doesn't mean there is any actual wrongdoing associated with those reported and, as far as we know, legal campaign contributions.

Which, incidentally, means half the Republicans linked to this scandal probably don't belong there either. But none of the Democrats do.

And, just to be through, I will explicitly answer the two questions:

If there is not even the hint of a crime in taking money from Mr. Abramoff's clients and then voting in the way he asked you to, why are politicians of both parties falling over each other to give back the money?

Because the media, at the prompting of the GOP, has made the legal campaign contributions the issue instead of the illegal bribes. Because if they try to spin it as legal contributions, well, everyone gets those.

And there's not the slightest bit of evidence that any legal campaign contribution has swayed the vote for any Democrat, or even any Republican, although there is at least one Republican vote-change that looks fishy. However, now that Abramoff has cut a deal, we shall soon see.

And, well, you want the real answer? Because Democrats are fucking morons who refuse to stand together with any sort of message. Oh no! The GOP is lying about us! We better immediately cave in instead of putting out some sort of counter to their RP!

A number of clients paid Mr. Abramoff a whole lot of money to tell them which politicians (of both parties, as I've demonstrated) to give money to in order to get votes. What were they paying for if, in fact, they had (as you claim) no expectation of getting votes in return for the outlandishly large donations Mr. Abramoff directed them to give?

So you're arguing that not only are campaign contributions evidence of wrongdoing, but hiring a lobbist is? Um, no.

You hire lobbists because the lobbists are the middlemen between you and politicians. They know the politicians, just as importantly they know thir cheif of staff, they know who's on what committee, they know who the enemies are, they know how present arguments that are likely to work, etc.

Not that I like the damn system, bu

Is that so? Interesting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Those are, in order, donations to a scam charity, skyboxes, and airplane tickets. There is, indeed, no money there. Except the donations to a 'charity' that doesn't do anything.

Here's some actual money. Hey, look! Campaign contributions to the tune of 4000 by a tribe. And to the tune of 17,000 by Abramoff's own firm.

That is the pattern. Democrats got campaign contributes from random groups trying to make their case like they always did. As did Republicans. Some of these groups were serious about influencing people, so they hired various lobbists. Sometimes the lobbist they picked was Abramoff.

Republicans also got free unreported trips, free unreported flights, free unreported skyboxes, and reported money directly from Abramoff. Democrats did not. It is those things that, for example, Ney is indeed under investigation for.

And, yes, it is because none of those things were declared. I don't understand why you understand that, but then somehow think that reported campaign contributions have anything to do with this. The fact that Abramoff and anyone who's ever hired him, and any money they spent, have become incredibly trainted in DC doesn't mean there is any actual wrongdoing associated with those reported and, as far as we know, legal campaign contributions.

Which, incidentally, means half the Republicans linked to this scandal probably don't belong there either. But none of the Democrats do.

And, just to be through, I will explicitly answer the two questions:

If there is not even the hint of a crime in taking money from Mr. Abramoff's clients and then voting in the way he asked you to, why are politicians of both parties falling over each other to give back the money?

Because the media, at the prompting of the GOP, has made the legal campaign contributions the issue instead of the illegal bribes. Because if they try to spin it as legal contributions, well, everyone gets those.

And there's not the slightest bit of evidence that any legal campaign contribution has swayed the vote for any Democrat, or even any Republican, although there is at least one Republican vote-change that looks fishy. However, now that Abramoff has cut a deal, we shall soon see.

And, well, you want the real answer? Because Democrats are fucking morons who refuse to stand together with any sort of message. Oh no! The GOP is lying about us! We better immediately cave in instead of putting out some sort of counter to their RP!

A number of clients paid Mr. Abramoff a whole lot of money to tell them which politicians (of both parties, as I've demonstrated) to give money to in order to get votes. What were they paying for if, in fact, they had (as you claim) no expectation of getting votes in return for the outlandishly large donations Mr. Abramoff directed them to give?

So you're arguing that not only are campaign contributions evidence of wrongdoing, but hiring a lobbist is? Um, no.

You hire lobbists because the lobbists are the middlemen between you and politicians. They know the politicians, just as importantly they know thir cheif of staff, they know who's on what committee, they know who the enemies are, they know how present arguments that are likely to work, etc.

Not that I like the damn system, bu

The same people who aren't fit to vote in a democracy aren't fit to vote for elected officials.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease .php?view=79

...containing files that no person had authorized him to access, and which as a lawyer he was ethically obligated to NOT examine, but rather report the appropriate authorities-- to wit, the opposition.

Were the Democrats mindbogglingly stupid? Yes. Should the Democratic sysadmin be summarily fired? Yes-- and probably even fired from a cannon into a brick wall. Was an initial discovery of this open share possibly accidentally? Absolutely. Was this a "hack" doable by the average seven-year old? Very likely.

Was the conduct of the Republicans ethical? In no way, shape, or form. Was it criminal? Possibly; a judge and/or jury needs to sort out the meaning of "authorized" in this context. Computer intrusion law may stretch to cover Mr. Miranda, but not his bosses-- although conspiracy might stretch that far.

Is this the sort of person you want representing you? Speaking for myself: no, to both the idiot Democrats and the unethical Republicans. What the Republicans should have done was made sure the Democrats knew to fix it, and then made sure the press knew that the Democrats had been stupid, and the Republicans had been "gentlemenly" about it and not taken advantage of those poor bumpkins.