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Which scandal is the worst

Which obama scandal is the worst

  • Benghazi

    Votes: 6 24.0%

  • IRS

    Votes: 9 36.0%

  • AP

    Votes: 5 20.0%

  • fast and furious

    Votes: 5 20.0%
  • Total voters
    25
FreedomFromAll said:
The one involving the Democrats and the Republicans using our government as a final goal to be obtained exclusively..
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This is a good one, enabled by Citizens United and a now forever politicized SCOTUS CORRUPTUS.
 
Are we back to seeping playing word games with the word recess? Intercession or intrasession, right? Another reason to stall the orderly operation of what the people voted for in a POTUS. Bring it to a grinding halt. Oops, your team has done that since 2009. Repubs. IN session are more childish than grade schoolers.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
There are three recent obama scandals and one older one so you have four choices here. I am going with Benghazi because of the deaths and the desperation those people must have felt when they called for help and our president was asleep at the wheel. Then there is the cover up involved in this event and the subsequent lies to the American people.
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You're damn right. Obamy should have told those Republicans not to be lyin' 'bout Genghazi and such, but old habits is hard to break. He just likes to watch 'em waller, don't ya' think?
 
cpwill said:
Benghazi is an abuse of trust.
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Benghazi exposed dereliction of duty by Barack Obama as Cn'C.

The IRS being politicized by the Obama administration is an extremely serious matter.

Both are about how Obama was reelected and to continue to sodomise the Constitution for another four more years.
 
I chose Fast and Furious. The US Government coerced legitimate gun dealers with federal firearms licenses to sell to straw buyers knowing full well the firearms would cross an international border and end up in the possession of drug cartels, killing people. Not only that, but they blamed Americans for the violence they perpetrated.

Now they have the balls to try to implement more gun control and deprive Americans their 2nd Amendment rights.

What bastards.
 
MaggieD said:
That, my dear Boo Radley, is not the point. And you damned well know it.
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Some people are defending the IRS more than the IRS is defending the IRS.
 
Geeze. It's a freaking smorgasbord. Benghazi. The country owes them better than the fate they were left to, and the murderers still run free.
 
MaggieD said:
That, my dear Boo Radley, is not the point. And you damned well know it.
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I didn't say it was the entire point. I thought I made that clear in what came before the question. However, targeting a group, say like Bush with the Amish is one thing, going beyond that another. I'm not excusing the act, but asking if it went beyond implied pressure?
 
Peter Grimm said:
Obama stole this election. He's not a legitimate president.
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Right, he stole an election in which he ran essentially unopposed.

Given that our electorate is sufficiently polarized that every candidate starts with a 47% base and Obama won 51.1 to 47.2, Obama received more than 2/3 of the available vote while Romney received (on a relative basis) almost no votes. I would say the Republicans simply finished what they started: they started the year with a bazooka aimed at their feet and they pulled the trigger.

Sorry that you have yet to come to grips with the reality of the 2012 election, but its probably time to try.
 
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Boo Radley said:
I didn't say it was the entire point. I thought I made that clear in what came before the question. However, targeting a group, say like Bush with the Amish is one thing, going beyond that another. I'm not excusing the act, but asking if it went beyond implied pressure?
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How do you think the IRS would "imply pressure"? Bush targetting the Amish? You mean wooing their vote? I don't see a connection with the IRS at all. What??

Although Lerner said about 300 groups were originally targeted, [Lerner is with the IRS.] news reports suggest that 500 may be a better estimate. According to a timeline of IRS actions released by ABC News, the criteria for targeting changed multiple times, from things like tea party groups to things like "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement."
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Here are some of the weirdest and most notable questions and requests that ABC found in roughly half a dozen IRS questionnaires sent to tea party groups from 2010 to 2012:

  • “Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization. Indicate your position regarding each issue.”
  • “Please explain in detail the derivation of your organization’s name.” (in a letter to the Ohio-based 1851 Center for Constitutional Law)
  • “Please explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”
  • “Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas.” (a Cincinnati-area Tea-Party activist)
  • “Provide information regarding the Butler County Teen Age Republicans and your relationship.”
  • “Submit the following information relating to your past and present directors, officers, and key employees: a) Provide a resume for each.”
  • “The names of the donors, contributors, and grantors. … The amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.”
  • “The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they spent on the event or program.” (for events)
  • “Provide copies of the handbills you distributed at your monthly meetings.”
  • “Fully describe your youth outreach program with the local school.”
  • “Please provide copies of all your current web pages, including your Blog posts. Please provide copies of all of your newsletters, bulletins, flyers, newsletters or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others. Please provide copies of stories and articles that have been published about you.”
  • “Are you on Facebook or other social networking sites? If yes, provide copies of these pages.”
  • “Provide copies of the agendas and minutes of your Board meetings and, if applicable, members ship meetings, including a description of legislative and electoral issues discussed, and whether candidates for political office were invited to address the meeting.”
  • “Do your issue-related advocacy communications compare to the positions of candidates or slates of candidates on these issues with your positions? Provide copies of these communications. What percentage do these constitute of your issue-related advocacy communications?”
  • “Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for political office or political party? If so describe fully the nature of that relationship.”
  • “Apart from your responses to the preceding, estimate the percentage of your time and what percentage of your resources you will devote to activities in the 2012 election cycle, in which you will explicitly or implicitly support or oppose a candidate, candidates or slates of candidates, for public office.”
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Weirdest IRS Questions for the Tea Party: Views, Donors, and Etymology - ABC News
 
MaggieD said:
How do you think the IRS would "imply pressure"? Bush targetting the Amish? You mean wooing their vote? I don't see a connection with the IRS at all. What??




Weirdest IRS Questions for the Tea Party: Views, Donors, and Etymology - ABC News
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It not a close relationship with the IRS, but abuse of power. Bush's people spying on the Quakers (not Amish, my mistake) or other such abuses are all part of the same problem we face today, regardless of party.

WASHINGTON — A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

Is the Pentagon spying on Americans? - NBCNightlyNews - NBC News Investigates | NBC News


In September of 2006, under the very politicized Bush administration, the IRS investigated a liberal California church because of an antiwar sermon delivered by its former rector. The sermon in question was delivered on Oct. 31, 2004 by Rev. George F. Regas, who prefaced his indictment of the Iraq war and the Bush policies that increased the chasm between the rich and the poor with the statement that he was not urging the congregation to vote one way or another.

Under Bush the IRS Targeted a Liberal Church for an Anti War Sermon

THE SCANDAL unfolding around the firing of eight U.S. attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest.

Bush's long history of tilting Justice - latimes.com



Anyway, you never did answer my question, and I think you may have missed my point. Most of my original post was on how this type of thing has been a problem for awhile. We need to see it always and not only when it's the other party. I repeat for the third time I do not excuse Obama or his administration. I was seeking information in the question. Any possible distinction would be based on what the actual information was or wasn't.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Obama stole this election. He's not a legitimate president.
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You can't steal an election unless you tampered with votes.

No amount of misinformation can constitute stealing an election, even if (as in the case oh so many Italian politicians) you literally own the media. People voting for someone despite being misinformed is them being comfortable with misinformation to the extent that it doesn't affect their vote. In that sense, it reflects the will of the people.

Even before the Information Age, there were ways of acquiring insight into the true functioning of government. After the Information Age, there is basically no excuse. People only don't see through misinformation because they don't want to or because it doesn't matter to them.
 
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Boo Radley said:
Anyway, you never did answer my question, and I think you may have missed my point. Most of my original post was on how this type of thing has been a problem for awhile. We need to see it always and not only when it's the other party. I repeat for the third time I do not excuse Obama or his administration. I was seeking information in the question. Any possible distinction would be based on what the actual information was or wasn't.
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I don't know the answer to your question as to whether or not penalties were assessed. But, I repeat, it's hardly the point.

I'll tell you what. I'm sick and tired of people (who would claim to be impartial and bipartisan) saying, "Bush did it too, and he did it worse." The fact that the IRS carefully let out the information that it had improperly targeted conservative groups and apologized for it, says it all.

This is huge. I don't care who the president is. I care that an all-powerful governmental agency is partisan. There is no more powerful arm of government than the IRS. They can destroy people. The IRS can cost them tens of thousands...hundreds of thousands...of dollars defending themselves against accusations of tax fraud; threaten them with revoking their charitable designation...seize their assets.

I'm not 'attacking you.' Every American should be outraged.

And we are such sheep that we can't see what's happening. Coincidentally, President Obama went on tour about jobs with all that implies. You know, reporters on Air Force One, schmoozing the news, "Look over there!!" diversions. Obama said, paraphrased, "If this is happening it is an outrage." We know it happened. The IRS admitted it happened. Where is his outrage? Where is assurance to the American people that this corruption will be stopped? Where is the president demanding accountability? He's using his bully pulpit to divert us from the IRS' abuse of power instead of showing us his outrage.

"What difference does it make??" The new mantra.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
There are three recent obama scandals and one older one so you have four choices here. I am going with Benghazi because of the deaths and the desperation those people must have felt when they called for help and our president was asleep at the wheel. Then there is the cover up involved in this event and the subsequent lies to the American people.
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I voted for AP. Because of the perception of it being the only "real" scandal that the media can talk about. The rest are considered GOP Witch Hunts. And I feel like there is more to the AP Scandal than meets the eye. I think Fox News needs to stop hiding and just come out already with some type of evidence that they were targeted as well. We all know Obama doesn't approve of Fox reporters being at his press conferences, and we know of the monitoring of Republican cloak rooms. Though, it's weird that the IRS was also targeting conservative groups. However, it's kinda hypocritical that they were asking for tax exemptions in the first place.
 
Cardinal said:
The policies and practices that led to the financial meltdown in 2008.
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That would be the Policies of Clinton, who in 1995 through Executive Order lowered long held Standards on the GSEs for Capital Requirements AND placed them under HUD regulatory control to purchase an increasing number of sub-prime loans.

In 1997 Fannie Mae securitized its first sub-prime loan.

From 1993 - 1998 Clinton replaced all of the executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac including the Democrat Criminal Franklin Raines who mis-reported billions in profit to meet executuve bonus targets AND who created a corrupt partnership with the CEO of CountryWide to purchase over 70% of their crap loans.

The 1995 Homeownership Stratrgy also increased pressure on lenders to lower their standards and comply with CRA "test" .

In 2000 Andrew Cuomo, the Secretary of HUD pledged 2 TRILLION for the purchase of " affordable mortgages"....the idiot Lib Bush blamers have him a Govenorship for his corruption.

By 2008 Fannie and Freddie held over 5 TRILLION in Sub-Prime, Alt-A and low down payment loans or held MBSs that were backed bu Sub-Prime Loans.

Fannie Held 1.7 Tlion in CRA loans.....it's now sitting on the books of our Treasury as toxic debt.

Bush from 2001 - 2007 tried to reign in the ever increasing corrupt GSEs with the Democrats fighting him with letters, obfuscation and charges of racism.

Fannie's Regulator in 2004 warned Democrats of their massive size and low Capital Requirement. The Democrats ignored them and continuedbto fight off any new regulation that would dlow them down.

In 2005 a Bill was sent to through Comittee that would have walked back the collapse, and placed Fannie and Freddie under a strict regulatory board.

The Republicand had 55 votes in the Senate and the Democrats threatened to Fillibuster it so, it never got a vote.

It was re-introduced in 2007 in a Democrat chaired comittee but of-course,never left comittee.

So yes, what the Democrats did to this Country was almost criminal, claiming " discrimination " and " redlining " and bullying lending institutions into lowering standards that had been in place for decades, that prevented a Sub-Prime bubble.

Clinton appointing criminals to run the GSEs like Franklin Raines, and Jamie Gorelick, who in 2000 at a banking Conference asked banks to sell Fannie their toxic loans.

" We want to buy your CRA loans because it helps us meet our HomeOwnership Goals " ....HUD Quota for Fannie in 2000 was 50% of all loans purchased had to be sub-prime....." We will buy them from your portfolios and turn them into Securities."

Fannie poisoned the market with toxic securities long before they were created and traded by private banks. In 2004 Freddie OWNED 40% of all Private MBSs.

If " redlining " was about denying people loans based soley on the color of their skin, why did they have to lower lending standards to fight it ?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
There are three recent obama scandals and one older one so you have four choices here. I am going with Benghazi because of the deaths and the desperation those people must have felt when they called for help and our president was asleep at the wheel. Then there is the cover up involved in this event and the subsequent lies to the American people.
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AP, for a couple reasons.

The first reason is that IRS and Benghazi just don't really surprise me. They seem like political par for the course, honestly. Fast and Furious I consider worse than those two, but it's basically just a large-scale version of what we see all over the place. Again, not surprising.

The second reason is that as yellow as journalism may be this days, freedom of the press was one of the few liberties that was still relatively intact, at least in theory.

It symbolizes the expansion of one of the most dangerous things no one is looking at in America right now: increased surveillance with practically no controls.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
AP, for a couple reasons.

The first reason is that IRS and Benghazi just don't really surprise me. They seem like political par for the course, honestly. Fast and Furious I consider worse than those two, but it's basically just a large-scale version of what we see all over the place. Again, not surprising.

The second reason is that as yellow as journalism may be this days, freedom of the press was one of the few liberties that was still relatively intact, at least in theory.

It symbolizes the expansion of one of the most dangerous things no one is looking at in America right now: increased surveillance with practically no controls.
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Honest answer, thank you.
 
MaggieD said:
I don't know the answer to your question as to whether or not penalties were assessed. But, I repeat, it's hardly the point.

I'll tell you what. I'm sick and tired of people (who would claim to be impartial and bipartisan) saying, "Bush did it too, and he did it worse." The fact that the IRS carefully let out the information that it had improperly targeted conservative groups and apologized for it, says it all.

This is huge. I don't care who the president is. I care that an all-powerful governmental agency is partisan. There is no more powerful arm of government than the IRS. They can destroy people. The IRS can cost them tens of thousands...hundreds of thousands...of dollars defending themselves against accusations of tax fraud; threaten them with revoking their charitable designation...seize their assets.

I'm not 'attacking you.' Every American should be outraged.

And we are such sheep that we can't see what's happening. Coincidentally, President Obama went on tour about jobs with all that implies. You know, reporters on Air Force One, schmoozing the news, "Look over there!!" diversions. Obama said, paraphrased, "If this is happening it is an outrage." We know it happened. The IRS admitted it happened. Where is his outrage? Where is assurance to the American people that this corruption will be stopped? Where is the president demanding accountability? He's using his bully pulpit to divert us from the IRS' abuse of power instead of showing us his outrage.

"What difference does it make??" The new mantra.
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I out would accept outrage if it was consistent. Made some logical sense, following some logical reasoning. Yes, this seems like an abuse of power. One of many that we have allowed for a longtime, with each group making excuses for their side. But this snt an Obama problem, or a Bush problem, or a democrat problem, or a republican problem, or a media problem. It's a problem of the American people who have lost the ability to reason through these issues and see sides instead of problems. There is no problem with these groups being checked. None. Where the problem lies is in being selective based on politics or party.

Now, we don't really know everything yet, and ths may grow into something major. But right now we should be asking questions and assuming answers. And we should exercise our vote properly when the time comes. No change of any significance will ever come without us full engaged.
 
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