IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Does Not Think an Apology is Owed to Congress or We the People

The height of contempt and arrogance … IRS Commissioner John Koskinen does not think that an apology is owed for the lost Lois Lerner emails and the stonewalling by the IRS.  Koskinen said he didn’t inform Congress immediately because he wanted to find out the full scope of the situation before reporting to them. But some how the Treasury Department and White House were notified in advance of Congress and the American people.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen said Friday that he does not owe an apology for computer crashes that resulted in the loss of emails connected to an ongoing probe.

“I don’t think an apology is owed,” Koskinen said during a tense hearing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “Not a single email has been lost since the start of this investigation.”

Last week, the IRS acknowledged that the computer of Lois Lerner, the IRS employee at the center of the probe, experienced a hard drive crash in 2011, making some of her emails inaccessible for the investigation. Koskinen said the IRS is taking measures to restore the emails and noted that the loss took place before the investigation began.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) says during Friday’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS scandal of targeting conservative non-profit organizations and the convenient IRS losing of Lois Lerners’s emails … “This is unbelievable. The apology that ought to be given is to the American tax payer, not to a government agency that is abusing it’s power.

Audiance Gasps at House Ways and Means Committee Hearing When IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Admits Lois Lerner’s Missing Hard Drive Was Recycled & Destroyed

House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp  said in his opening statement, “We are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. How convenient for the IRS and the administration.”

During Friday’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS conservative targeting scandal, audible gasps could be heard in the room from the audience as IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was recycled and destroyed. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), House Ways and Means Committee Chair questioned IRS Commissioner Koskinen on the condition and location of Lois Lerner’s hard drive. When asked by Camp whether the IRS Commissioner knew where Lerner’s hard drive was Koskinen responded, “after it was determined that it was dysfunctional and that with experts no emails could be retrieved was recycled and destroyed.” When further pressed as to where the hard drive was Koskinen responded, “I have no idea what the recycler does with it. This was three years ago.”

Imagine saying the same to an IRS agent during an audit, I have no idea where the data was, that was 7 years ago.

Transcript of discussion between US Representative and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI):

Rep. Camp: Do you know where the actual hard drive is that crashed in 2011?

IRS Commissioner Koskinen: I am advised that the actual hard drive after it was determined that it was dysfunctional and that with experts no emails could be retrieved was recycled and destroyed in the normal process.”

GASPS from the audiance

Rep. Camp: So was it physically destroyed?

IRS Commissioner Koskinen: That is my understanding.

Rep. Camp: So was it melted down do you know?

IRS Commissioner Koskinen: I have no idea what the recycler does with it. This was three years ago.

Rep. Paul Ryan Says to Arrogant IRS Commissioner John Koskinen … “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!”

ONCE AGAIN THE IRS SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR WE THE PEOPLE AND DISPLAY THEY THINK THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW …

US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ripped into IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during yesterday’s Ways and Means Committee Hearing on the investigation of the IRS targeting conservative non-profit groups and more specifically, the sudden revelation that former IRS head Lois Lerner’s emails disappeared due to a convenient hard drive crash. Ryan said to the arrogant and defiant  IRS Commissioner, “I don’t Believe You”.

It’s about time some one put the IRS in its place and defended the American people against this rogue agency.

“You are the Internal Revenue Service. You can reach into the lives of hardworking tax payers and with a phone call, an email or letter you can turn their lives upside down. You ask tax payers to hang on to 7 years of their person tax information in case they are ever audited and you cant keep 6 months worth of employee emails? And now that we are seeing this investigation you don’t have the emails, hard drives crashed. You learned about this months ago and you just told us and we had to ask you on Monday. This is not being forthcoming, this is being misleading again. This is a pattern of abuse, a pattern that does not give us any confidence that this agency is being impartial. I don’t believe you.”

VIDEO Hat Tip: The Gateway Pundit

The Politico:

A defiant IRS Commissioner on Friday refused to apologize for the loss of ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails, and said the agency produced what they could, at a combative hearing marked by accusations by Republicans of IRS deceit.

The meeting comes a week after the agency revealed that two years worth of emails to and from Lerner, the ex-official at the center of the tea party targeting controversy, were lost when her hard drive crashed in 2011.

“I don’t think an apology is owed,” chief John Koskinen told Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp after the Republican lawmaker asked for one at the first hearing on the email issue.

But of course the IRS claims they did not conceal anything and did not mislead the committee yet, as discussed at Hot Air, the White House notified of missing IRS e-mail 6 weeks before Congress?

Remember when IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform on March 26, 2014 and told Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) during the hearing that former IRS employee Lois Lerner’s emails were archived and not just necessarily in her sent box in Outlook. Koskinen said it would take a long time even as he argued whether he would would would not comply with the House subpoena.

Chaffetz asks IRS Commissioner: “Are you going to comply with subpoena?”

Watergate IRS-gate is a long way from over and the rate this is going with the Obama administration and their cronies attempting to stonewall and have the American people believe the improbable and the impossible, it is going to come to a head right around the 2016 elections.

United States Patent & Trademark Office Cancels the Washington Redskins Trademark Registration … Says Football Team’s Name “Disparaging to Native Americans”

JUST CURIOUS, HOW WAS THE NAME “REDSKINS” CONSIDERED OK FOR 82 YEARS?

Don’t ask for things, you might just open Pandora’s box … The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins’ trademark stating that Federal trademark law does not permit registration of trademarks that “may disparage” individuals or groups. However, the action does not prevent the NFL’s Washington Redskins from using the name, with no patent protection, the team could lose revenue from preventing others to produce and sell merchandise using the same name.

But of course it is only a coincidence that this issue has grown with the presence of a community agitator as president.

 The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins’ trademark registration on Wednesday, a move that won’t force the NFL team to change its name but fuels the intense fight by opponents to eliminate what they view as a racial slur against Native Americans.

The 99-page decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said the team’s name and logo are disparaging. It dilutes the Redskins’ legal protection against infringement and hinders the team’s ability to block counterfeit merchandise from entering the country.

But its effect is largely symbolic. The ruling cannot stop the team from selling T-shirts, beer glasses and license-plate holders with the moniker or keep the team from trying to defend itself against others who try to profit from the logo.

From Eugene Volokh at the WAPO: 2-to-1 decision, Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc. (USPTO TTAB June 18, 2014). A quick excerpt:

[T]hese registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered, in violation of Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act of 1946, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a) [which bars, in relevant part, registrations of marks that "may disparage ... persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute"]. This decision concerns only the statutory right to registration under Section 2(a). We lack statutory authority to issue rulings concerning the right to use trademarks.

Hmm, so who is next, the Cleveland Indians? And those of you at Atlanta Brave games doing the “tomahawk chop” will be arrested and cited for a hate crime.

Legal Insurrection opines, if the “Redskins” trademark is cancelled by USPTO as “disparaging,” are  “Negro” and “Colored” next? So does that mean the United Negro College Fund and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People should have their trademarks revoked?

Other names up for consideration, the Washington Scandals, Washington Tyranny, Washington PC’s, or my personal favorite the Washington Waste.

Gallup Poll: Obama’s Job Appoval Falls to 40% Approval and 55% Disapproval Amid Disasterous Domestic & Foreign Policy Failures and Scandals

Could this be the true beginning of the end for Barack Obama’s job approval ratings?

The most recent Gallup 3-day rolling average of Barack Obama’s job approval numbers have him at a disastrous 40% approval and 55% disapproval, or -15%.  Have the Obama failures in foreign and domestic policy final caught up with him? The US still has an anemic job recovery and now Americans are seeing the Middle East fall apart as ISIS takes more and more cities in Syria and now Iraq.  Add the all too numerous scandals, including the recent Friday revelation that the IRS lost Lois Lerner’s emails, of the Obama administration and we have an Obama administration that is as toxic as ever. Let us not forget the VA scandal.

Look for Obama’s numbers to crater even more as the lost Lerner emails are looking way too much like the lost 18 1/2 minutes of the Nixon tapes.

Real Clear Politics average job approval polling has Obama’s approval at 42.3% and disapproval at 54.0% or -11.7%.