Schumer The Schemer!

Skidaway Island Republican Club

Presents:

True Perspectives

The Middle East and the Iranian Nuclear pact

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015

Plantation Club

Cocktails : 4:30 PM

Presentation : 5:00 PM

Sustaining members – Free

Regular members - $5

Non-Members - $10

All Welcome

​​Most of you are following the debate regarding our attempt to control Iran’s nuclear ambitions through sanctions and a treaty. Is our national media telling us the whole story?

In very timely fashion, SIRC is proud to present an expert to define the pros and cons and the potential effects on our allies in the Middle East.

Dr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.​ 

Please join your friends and neighbors for this meaningful session.

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For reservations:

Russ Peterson

598-9845 (russp16@aol.com)

or

Dick Mille

The press and media folks have largely ignored the IRS investigation and have  posted more stories about complaints by House committee members of the Black Caucus to Sen Reid, who have claimed it is all a Republican witch hunt, in other words another Right Wing Conspiracy that still haunts Hillarious.

The same was said about Hitler's Gestapo.

When an agency like the IRS can threaten you with unwarranted audits and withhold your Constitutional Rights to protest and restrict your free speech the logical next step is simply more bricks down the yellow brick  road of totalitarianism.

This is what the Obama Administration has been all about.  Make a list of enemies, still their voice and never investigate yourself when legitimate evidence is uncovered of nefarious and illegal acts, ie. selling guns to criminals, Benghazi, IRS and many more extra illegal violations not only of our laws,and Constitution but acts that are immoral and then cover them with an overlay of lies from the Oval Office on down through loyal bureaucrat appointees.

When the American people, any peoples,  no longer demand truth and are willing to embrace and substitute "what difference does it make" rest assured their nation is doomed. You decide! (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Morgenthau speaks out against Obama's Iran Deal because he knows Obama is engaged in a fraudulent claim.

Sen. Schumer still has his finger in the air and his head somewhere else. (See 2 below.)
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The Great Gowdy!!!!

The burden falls on the media who have not done anything to investigate this.    

   

              Click Here

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Dick
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1)Judicial Watch: New Documents Show IRS Used Donor Lists to Target Audits

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that confirm that the IRS used donor lists to tax-exempt organizations to target those donors for audits.  The documents also show IRS officials specifically highlighted how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may come under “high scrutiny” from the IRS.  The IRS produced the records in a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking documents about selection of individuals for audit-based application information on donor lists submitted by Tea Party and other 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:15-cv-00220)).

A letter dated September 28, 2010, then-Democrat Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) informs then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman: “   I request that you and your agency survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations …”  In reply, in a letter dated February 17, 2011, Shulman writes: “In the work plan of the Exempt Organizations Division, we announced that beginning in FY2011, we are increasing our focus on section 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) organizations.”

In 2010, after receiving Baucus’s letter, the IRS considered the issue of auditing donors to 501(c)(4) organizations, alleging that a 35 percent gift tax would be due on donations in excess of $13,000.  The documents show that the IRS wanted to cross-check donor lists from 501(c)(4) organizations against gift tax filings and commence audits against taxpayers based on this information.

A gift tax on contributions to 501(c)(4)’s was considered by most to be a dead letter since the IRS had never enforced the rule after the Supreme Court ruled that such taxes violated the First Amendment.  The documents show that the IRS had not enforced the gift tax since 1982.

But then, in February 2011, at least five donors of an unnamed organization were audited.

The documents show that Crossroads GPS, associated with Republican Karl Rove, was specifically referenced by IRS officials in the context of applying the gift tax.  Seemingly in response to the Crossroads focus, on April 20, IRS attorney Lorraine Gardner emails a 501(c)(4) donor list to former Branch Chief in the IRS’ Office of the Chief Counsel James Hogan. Later, this information is apparently shared with IRS Estate Gift and Policy Manager Lisa Piehl while Gardner seeks “information about any of the donors.”

Emails to and from Lorraine Gardner also suggested bias against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  An IRS official (whose name is redacted) emails Gardner on May 13, 2011, a blog post responding to the IRS targeting of political and other activities of 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) organizations:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a 501(c)(6) organization and may find itself under high scrutiny.  One can only hope.

The subject line of the email highlights this anti-Chamber of Commerce comment:  “we are making headlines notice the end regarding 501(c)(6) applicability enjoy.”  This critical comment is forwarded to other IRS officials and shows up attached to another Gardner IRS email chain with the subject line “re: 501(c)(4)” that discusses a pending decision about a tax-exempt entity.

In early May, once the media began reporting on the IRS audits of donors, IRS officials reacted quickly.  One official acknowledges the issue “is abiggy” when a reporter from The New York Times contacts the IRS on May 9.

On May 13, 2011, former IRS Director of Legislative Affairs Floyd Williams discusses compliance with “interest” from Capitol Hill: “Not surprisingly, interest on the hill is picking up on this issue … with Majority Leader Reid’s office, has suggested the possibility of a briefing for the Senate Finance Committee staff on general issues related to section 501(c)(4) organizations I think we should do it as interest is likely to grow as we get closer to elections.”

Later that day, then-Director of the Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner weighs in with an email that confirms that she supported the gift tax audits.  Lerner acknowledges that “the courts have said specifically that contributions to 527 political organizations are not subject to the gift tax–nothing that I’m aware of that about contributions to organizations that are not political organizations.” Section 501(c)(4) organizations are not “political organizations.”  [Emphasis in original]

Lerner’s involvement and support for the new gift tax contradicts the IRS statement to the media at the time that audits were not part of a “broader effort looking at donations 501(c)(4)’s.”  In July 2011, the IRS retreated and soon-to-be Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller directed that “examination resources should not be expended on this issue” and that all audits of taxpayers “relating to the application of gift taxes” to 501(c)(4) organizations “should be closed.”

“These documents that we had to force out of the IRS prove that the agency used donor lists to audit supporters of organizations engaged in First Amendment-protected lawful political speech,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “And the snarky comments about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the obsession with Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS show that the IRS was targeting critics of the Obama administration.  President Obama may want to continue to lie about his IRS scandal.  These documents tell the truth – his IRS hated conservatives and was willing to illegally tax and audit citizens to shut down opposition to Barack Obama’s policies and reelection.”

Judicial Watch had filed a separate lawsuit for records about targeting of individuals for audit in November 2013.  In that litigation, the IRS had refused to search any email systems, including Lerner’s records. A federal court ruled the IRS’ search was sufficient and dismissed the lawsuit earlier this month.

In September 2014, another Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit forced the release of documents detailing that the IRS sought, obtained and maintained the names of donors to Tea Party and other conservative groups. IRS officials acknowledged in these documents that “such information was not needed.” The documents also show that the donor names were being used for a “secret research project.”

The House Ways and Means Committee announced at a May 7, 2014, hearing that, after scores of conservative groups provided donor information “to the IRS, nearly one in ten donors were subject to audit.”  In 2011, as many as five donors to the conservative 501(c)(4) organization Freedom’s Watch were audited, according to the Wall Street Journal. Bradley Blakeman, Freedom’s Watch’s former president, also alleges he was “personally targeted” by the IRS.

In February 2014, then-Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) detailed improper IRS targeting of existing conservative groups:

Additionally, we now know that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that were already operating as 501(c)(4)s.  At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information.  Of these groups, 83 percent were right-leaning.  And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100 percent were right-leaning.

1a)

Into the Fray: The Iran deal – moronic, myopic, malevolent, mendacious By MARTIN SHERMAN The most disingenuous & infuriating contentions made by supporters of the ignominious Iran “deal” is that its opponents offered no better alternative

Our goal is to get Iran to recognize it needs to give up its nuclear program and abide by the UN resolutions that have been in place...the deal we’ll accept is: They end their nuclear program. It’s very straightforward. – Barack Hussein Obama, October 2012, presidential election debate I don’t think that any of us thought we were just imposing these sanctions for the sake of imposing them. We did it because we knew that it would hopefully help Iran dismantle its nuclear program. That was the whole point of the [sanctions] regime. – John Kerry, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, December 2013  As details emerge on the deal concluded with Iran last week in Vienna, the full extent of its calamitous significance is coming to light. Indeed, it appears that when, shortly after the announcement of the agreement, Benjamin Netanyahu described it as a “stunning, historic mistake,” he was grossly understating the case.   (Forlorn) hope & (disastrous) change What took place in the Austrian capital was nothing less than a catastrophic failure of strategic resolve on the part of the US-led West. It was a craven capitulation on a calamitous scale, which, as time passes, looks less like an unintended mistake and more like an act of deliberate design. After all, there was an enormous disparity of power and wealth between the protagonists, between the economically emaciated Iran, on the one hand, and the wealthy industrial powers on the other. Yet the side that desperately needed the deal, Iran, prevailed over the side that didn’t, but which desperately wanted it, the P5+1. The result was an appalling document without a single redeeming feature. It will not accomplish any of the goals that it purports to achieve. Likewise, it will not preclude any of perils it purports to prevent. As such it might be seen as grotesque perversion of the slogan “Hope and Change” that swept Obama to power: For while its success is predicated on forlorn hopes of Iranian compliance, it ushers in the virtual certainty of disastrous change in Iranian capabilities. ‘... you’re going to hear a lot of dishonest arguments’ During his July 18 address to the American nation, Obama extolled the alleged merits of the Iran deal, alerting viewers: “... still, you’re going to hear a lot of overheated and often dishonest arguments about it.” He is, of course, quite right. However, many – if not most – the “dishonest arguments” come from him – and his sycophantic minions, who, with almost Pavlovian reflexes, endorse any claptrap the White House might happen to claim. Indeed, Obama and his administration’s officials have violated virtually every principle that they laid out in the past as to the nature of any acceptable agreement, and have grossly misrepresented the “achievements” of the one eventually conceded. As the opening excerpts demonstrate, barely a year-and-half ago, the unequivocal goal of the Obama administration was the termination of the Iranian nuclear program and the dismantling of its nuclear facilities – as specified in six preceding UN resolutions. Yet today, these goals are dismissed by the very people who set them, as mere “fantasy.” Thus, in his July 14 statement in Vienna to announce the deal, Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed the goals he himself stipulated before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in December 2013, as “not achievable outside a world of fantasy.” More ‘…dishonest arguments’  Just how gravely the White House has misled the public is starkly reflected in Obama’s July 18 address. He proclaimed: “This week the United States and our international partners finally achieved what decades of animosity has not, a deal that will prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon.” This is patently untrue. It will not prevent Tehran’s theocratic tyranny from attaining weaponized nuclear capability, even if it deigns to adhere to the unverifiable and unenforceable inspection agreement, which it is ideo-religiously sanctioned – even, mandated – to violate, because it was concluded with “infidels.” Even by the administration’s own admission it will merely delay Iran. Thus in a April 7 PBS interview, Obama conceded that the deal, even if adhered to, will pave, rather than prevent, Iran’s way to weaponized nuclear capability, baldly admitting that in barely a decade “the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.” Flying in the face of fact and reason, Obama, with breathtaking disregard for the truth, claimed that a deal, which provided up to $150 billion to the largest state sponsor of terrorism and sets an end to embargoes on conventional arms and ballistic missile technology on it “will make America and the world safer and more secure...” Yet more dishonesty… Disturbingly, it was none other than Obama who in an April 2 White House statement pledged that, notwithstanding impending sanction relief on the nuclear issues, “other American sanctions on Iran [including] for its ballistic missile program will continue to be fully enforced...” But they weren’t. On this very issue, immediately prior to the announcement of the deal, The New York Times reported that “Obama’s secretary of defense, Ashton B. Carter... told Congress that part of the ban, on technology for ballistic missiles, was critical to America’s own security.” (July 10) Testifying alongside Carter before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, expressed grave concern over the ballistic missile and conventional arms issue. He was adamant that “Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking...” Yet to cut a deal with Tehran, Obama backpedaled, and in blatant contradiction to his own pledge, and to the unequivocal positions of the most senior figures in his security establishment, set deadlines for ending the sanctions on both conventional arms and ballistic missiles – all in an endeavor to “make America and the world safer and more secure.” Sanctions: So much for ‘snap’ In an effort to convince skeptics of the merits of his approach, Obama has frequently contended that “If Iran violates the deal sanctions can be snapped back into place.” Yet he warned that “Without a deal, the international sanctions regime will unravel, with little ability to reimpose them.” Hmmm. The ease with which the administration’s claim that sanctions could be “snapped back” is difficult to reconcile with the claim that the very same sanctions could not be maintained if America held out for a more demanding agreement that was in fact consistent with the objectives for which the sanctions were initially imposed – i.e. termination of Iran’s nuclear program and dismantlement of its nuclear facilities. But be that as it may, as numerous pundits have pointed out, this “snap back” claim is as deceptive as it is detached from the realities on the ground. Last week I cited former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, who warned of the dangers of being lulled into complacency by “theoretical models of inspection,” which take no account of the daunting difficulties entailed in “[e]nforcing compliance, week after week” over long periods and across vast tracts of territory; and of eliciting international agreement as to the significance of any act deemed to be an alleged violation. Strongly corroborating the Kissinger-Shultz caveat is an article published days after the announcement of the Vienna deal by Olli Heinonen, senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and former deputy director-general for safeguards at IAEA, and Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute. Stridently titled, “There’s a huge problem with Obama’s claims about Iranian nuclear breakout under a final deal,” the article warns, “Even without hidden facilities, establishing most any Iranian violation of the agreement would likely take several months. First, the IAEA and respective agencies in Washington would have to come to that technical judgment; toward that end, inspectors would need timely access anywhere at any time to confirm such findings. The next step would be to get the political leadership to accept that judgment, then sell the conclusion to the international community.” So much for “snap.” Distrust of allies, disdain of adversaries  Yet another ludicrous claim is made in Obama’s July 15 press conference: “Without [this] deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East, and other countries in the Middle East would feel compelled to develop their own nuclear weapons.” Nothing could be further from the truth. For indeed, the deep distrust that this deal has fostered in US allies and the equally deep disdain it has fermented in US adversaries will virtually guarantee a spiraling arms race across the region – both conventional and unconventional. After all, as manifest US flaccidity erodes the confidence of allies in American resolve to safeguard their security and emboldens adversaries to undertake aggression with relative impunity – or at least, at bearable cost – friend and foe will rush to arm themselves. As countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and the Gulf states see the US presenting the lenient Vienna deal, with its far-reaching concessions to Iran, as “the best possible alternative,” there will be little to deter them from embarking on the own quest for similar capabilities – and much to induce them to do so, especially in light of their dwindling confidence in the US. Unless one believes that, on having its uncompromising stance vindicated by the US-led P5+1 abandoning one redline after another, the ayatollahs will suddenly embrace a softer more humane approach, there is only one plausible working assumption to adopt: By generously replenishing the coffers of the current regime, the deal will assure that much of these resources will be channeled to enhance Iran’s military capabilities and those of its violent anti- US proxies across the region, forcing their adversaries to respond in kind. I can see how readers might have a tough time understanding just how all this will, as Obama claims, “make America and the world safer and more secure.” The worst whopper: ‘No better alternative’  Obama’s alleged ace-in-the-hole is the baseless baloney that opponents of the deal have offered no better alternative. It is a claim that is, at once, infuriating and disingenuous. It is disingenuous because it was none other than Obama who laid out the alternative to the current deal – which assures Iran’s weaponized nuclear capability, provides funds to propagate terrorism and to destabilize pro-US regimes. Indeed, it was Obama himself who proclaimed that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” So it is not that there was no alternative – it was merely that Obama was so eager to reach an agreement he was ready to accept almost any deal. It is not that opponents of the deal did not offer cogent alternatives. It was that the proponents deemed that anything that Iran did not agree to was impractical/unfeasible. Clearly, if the underlying assumption is that the only practical outcome is a consensual one rather that a coercive one – say of intensified sanctions, backed by a credible threat of military action – then the proponents might be right that there was no available alternative. But they are cutting the ground from under their own feet. For if the US and its allies cannot confront Tehran with a credible specter of punitive, coercive action, there is no inducement for it to adhere to the deal – making its future abrogation inevitable. Making regime change more remoteOf course if one wishes to see a durable, non-militarized solution to the Iranian crisis, perhaps the only conceivable avenue is regime change and installation of a more moderate, Western-oriented government. But by greatly empowering and enriching the incumbent theocracy, the deal cut last week makes such a prospect incalculably more remote. In the words of Saba Farzan, a German-Iranian journalist and director of a Berlin think tank, published in The Jerusalem Post: “The Vienna deal bears a very grave danger for Iran’s civil society. Not only won’t we see their economic situation improve, but the regime will also have an incentive to abuse human rights more severely. A flood of cash is going into the pockets of this leadership. It will be used to tighten their grip [on power] and to further imprison, torture and kill innocent Iranians.” She is, of course, right – and that is one of the greatest tragedies of the travesty concocted in Vienna last week.

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2)-ANOTHER MORGENTHAU

CHALLENGES A PRESIDENT

by Rafael Medoff 

(Dr. Rafael Medoff is the founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and coeditor of the Online Encyclopedia of America's Response to the Holocaust.)

           The participation by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau as one of the keynote speakers at this week's rally against the Iran deal was significant in more ways than one.

           For decades, he has been one of New York's most prominent Democrats--as district attorney for thirty-four years and, before that, as his party's nominee for governor. That alone makes his stand against Iran noteworthy, since the battle over Congressional approval of the agreement now revolves largely around whether Democrats will feel that party loyalty requires them to support the Iran agreement.

           What also makes Morgenthau's stance noteworthy is that his view is based in part on his actual experience with Iran's terror ties. One of the last major cases he pursued as district attorney involved banks that were laundering billions of dollars for Iran. Tehran was funneling some of that money to the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. When Morgenthau warns that the Iran deal will enable Tehran to increase its support of terror, he is speaking from first hand experience.

           Morgenthau's position also brims with historical significance. In a sense, he is reprising his father's role of speaking truth to power.

            In late 1943, three senior aides to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.--all of them non-Jews--presented him with evidence that the State Department had been suppressing news of the mass murder of European Jewry and blocking opportunities to rescue Jewish refugees. They pleaded with him to bring the information directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

           Secretary Morgenthau hesitated. In a postwar interview with filmmaker Martin Ostrow, Morgenthau's daughter, Joan (Robert's sister), explained the source of her father's reluctance: "My father's relationship with the President was…one of the most important things to him in his life [and] he didn't want to push things too far…as a Jew he felt that he needed almost to be extra careful to be sure that he was speaking first as an American and only secondly as a Jew…he didn't want to push it as a Jew."

           But the constant reports about the mass murder of Europe's Jews weighed heavily on Morgenthau, and the pressure from his staff was relentless. In January 1944, he went to the president. Just at that moment, the activists known as the Bergson Group were sponsoring newspaper ads, holding rallies, and lobbying Congress for action to save the Jews. 

           In his plea to FDR, Morgenthau pointed to the protests and the growing clamor on Capitol Hill. He urged FDR to create a new government agency rescue refugees, warning the president that if he failed to act, Congress would embarrass him by publicizing his indifference. It was an election year. Roosevelt got the message; he established the War Refugee Board. The board went on to help rescue more than 200,000 refugees in the final 15 months of the war.

           Interestingly, there is a connection between Robert Morgenthau, the Iran debate, and President Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust.

           In the past, Morgenthau has argued that Roosevelt did the best he could to help the Jews during the Holocaust. In fact, in a 2011 op-ed, he went so far as argue that since the Allies' victory in North Africa spared Palestine from being conquered by the Nazis, Roosevelt should be credited with "rescuing" the 500,000 Jewish residents of the Holy Land. (According to that logic, one might say Josef Stalin "rescued" the Jews of Moscow because he defeated the Germans at Stalingrad.)

           Professors Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman liked Morgenthau's argument so much that they repeated it --even using some of his language (although without attribution)-- in their recent book FDR and the Jews, which strongly defended Roosevelt's Holocaust record. 

            Little did they imagine that Morgenthau, of all people, would end up pulling the rug out from under them. Here's what happened. After FDR and the Jews came under criticism from a number of scholars, Lichtman and another historian told the Jerusalem Post that the real motive of their critics in questioning FDR, is to say, "Look, we can't trust America! Look how it abandoned the Jews in their hour of greatest need. We should go ahead and attack Iran."

           That was hitting below the belt. Historians should engage other scholars' arguments and ideas. Speculating --without evidence-- on their motives is an attempt to question someone else's credibility because you've run out of legitimate arguments.

           Democrats are not obliged to defend every single thing Franklin Roosevelt ever did. George McGovern, for one, took a more nuanced approach. The 1972 Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. senator once remarked, in a discussion about the U.S. failure to bomb Auschwitz, that “Franklin Roosevelt was a great man and he was my political hero--but I think he made two great mistakes in World War Two.” One was the internment of Japanese-Americans; the other was the decision “not to go after Auschwitz...God forgive us for that tragic miscalculation.”  

            Robert Morgenthau, too, is saying that Democrats are not obliged to support every single position taken by a Democratic president. Sometimes, a person must voice his conscience and speak truth to power, regardless of party loyalties. That was true in 1944; it is just as true today.

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