Althouse: I thought of a clever argument that could be used to sell the story that some computer snafu ate all that Lois Lerner email.

June 17, 2014

I thought of a clever argument that could be used to sell the story that some computer snafu ate all that Lois Lerner email.

It seems as though no one — not even the administration's fans in the mainstream media — accepts the explanation, which demands that we believe that the IRS's approach to handling email was mind-bogglingly incompetent.

Here's my idea for an argument: Call attention to the big screw-up with the Obamacare website. You wouldn't have believed that a computer system that big, that important, and that well-funded would be so abysmally bad, but we know it was.

Think about it. If you hadn't yet seen that atrocious roll out of the Obamacare website, and you heard a prediction of what it would be like — and that prediction was what we now know happened — you would have said: That's ridiculous! It cannot be that bad.

It was that bad!

Okay. That's my free advice to IRS-scandal fighters. Go ahead and use it. And feel free to use the larger version of this argument whenever you get in trouble: We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent.

ADDED: Today, there are new claims that of computer crashes destroying more email from additional IRS investigation targets.

85 comments:

rhhardin said...: Backup unfortunately is an established art, unlike health care omnibus apps.; 6/17/14, 9:35 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: "We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent."

As long as you emphasize the "we". Remember:

The software at the VA hasn't been updated since 1985,...; 6/17/14, 9:36 AM
tim in vermont said...: In a criminal trial, intent doesn't matter if evidence is destroyed. Isn't that what "spoliation" is about. But this is a political trial, so it would be hard to take the worst possible interpretation of their negligence with this data.

But what we have is a woman who took the fifth destroying evidence, intentionally or not.

The media will do their best to avoid presenting this narrative, thus ensuring Rush a place in the hearts of so many Americans, because he will go there, like Fox News.; 6/17/14, 9:40 AM
Larry J said...: With the Obama administration, evil verses incompetent isn't an either-or proposition. They're both. To believe that a crash on Lerner's hard drive would wipe out all of her email messages for two years is to believe that the IRS was operating in open violation of federal law and regulations regarding the preservation of email. They use Microsoft Outlook for all of their email. Outlook Server doesn't store person emails on a local computer. It might be possible to configure it to save files to a local computer but that would violate the law. Why doesn't Congress call the IRS email administrators and get them to testify under oath as to whether Lerner's system was configured illegally or incompetently.; 6/17/14, 9:42 AM
jacksonjay said...: Some people seem unaware of the fact that Obama "won" the Obamacare website issue! They fixed the website and enrolled 8 million! It was in all the papers!

The IRS is not a scandal as long as the MSM, DOJ and DEMS say that it is not a scandal! Clever arguments are for lawyers, not lo info mofos!; 6/17/14, 9:50 AM
Luke Lea said...: Never attribute to a conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. I think Napoleon said that.; 6/17/14, 9:50 AM
Todd said...: We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent.

No reason they can't be both.; 6/17/14, 9:57 AM
MarkW said...: Backup unfortunately is an established art, unlike health care omnibus apps.

It is, but that doesn't mean that government agencies aren't woefully behind the curve. The claim is that backup tapes were recycled after 6 months. This practice is adequate for disaster recovery, but obviously not for preserving an historical archive--and this may be have been intentional. That way, the IRS would be unable to produce emails more than 6 months old. The private sector can't get away with destroying records after 6 months, but as we've seen, the IRS can get away with pretty much anything.; 6/17/14, 9:58 AM
tim in vermont said...: "The software at the VA hasn't been updated since 1985,.."

Right, I guess that would have been Reagan taking care of that problem. Obama claims a "special responsibility" to veterans and sat on the veteran affairs committee during his brief stay in the Senate. He was told about the problems at the VA by the Bush administration during the transition, yet it festered under his watch for years, while millions of dollars in bonuses were paid out.

But deflect away. Nobody could have expected somebody with as little experience and accomplishment as Obama to have done any better, yet we elected him, so I guess your excuses for him do carry some weight.; 6/17/14, 9:58 AM
Jason said...: Any other agency could make that argument. Not the IRS.; 6/17/14, 9:59 AM
Hagar said...: I do not think that will work. If the IRS followed the law, there should be multiple back-ups.

And if there are not, there is still all the recipients' e-mail back-ups, so there may now be a call for rooting through all the likely agencies' back-up systems.

Lois Lerner had better go under some very deep cover. It is not just Congress that will be looking for her scalp.; 6/17/14, 10:03 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent."

Both, actually.; 6/17/14, 10:08 AM
Lnelson said...: "We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent."

Not only is the IRS now shown to be as incompetent as several other agencies of the federal government, but using the IRS as a political tool to squelch speech during a contested election is pure evil.
Abolish the IRS and about 3 or 4 other Federal agencies.; 6/17/14, 10:08 AM
Jay Vogt said...: It would maybe, possibly, kinda be credulous to use the incompetence defense had this not occurred in front of the "I wish to assert my rights as afforded by the fifth amendment" backdrop.; 6/17/14, 10:10 AM
PoNyman said...: The fevered dreams of Althouse the morning after tornadoes.; 6/17/14, 10:11 AM
Nonapod said...: They certainly don't have to convince me that our government is incompetent. Our government has proven that it is capable of incompetence and idiocy on a grand and small scale.

Of course in this case I believe they are simply lying and stalling. They're doing everything they can to hide, destroy, and obfuscate evidence (which tells me that the actual full truth of all this is at least as bad as many cynical people think); 6/17/14, 10:13 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: I know nothing about how e-mails actually work, I'm no IT expert, I'm totally ignorant on the subject. All I know is, I stopped being a mac.com subscriber the day they lost all of my e-mails and swore up and down on a stack of whatever they swear on that my e-mails were totally and forever gone and unrecoverable.

Fortunately, I was leery about e-mail being remotely stored on a server (hey, I actually know one or two words!) and never used mac.com for anything really important. I guess the irony is that I trust local storage and backups more than servers, whereas in this case, servers are the only hope for finding all that stuff.; 6/17/14, 10:14 AM
Rae said...: To me, this is only an argument for disbanding the IRS and going to a flat tax.; 6/17/14, 10:17 AM
LCB said...: Email servers keep the email in a Database. So a hard drive crashing on your PC will not cause the loss of data.

AND...the servers have arrays of redundant hard drives. Depending on how big the array is, several hard drives can go bad and the data is still there, spread across the rest of the array.

AND...if an organization keeps ANY of its email they HAVE TO KEEP ALL OF IT. In other words, it would be ok to tell a judge, "We only keep email for 1 year. After that we delete it." The judge will accept that because that is your company’s standard.

But if you have email from before and after a certain period, but can't provide email for an intermediate period, you HAVE TO PROVE to a judge with much documentation how you lost the email for everybody for that time period.

In this case, if they only "lost" Lois Lerner's email, then they are legally in deep crap if it reaches the courts.

Ahhh, shoot. What am I saying. I keep forgetting that the laws of this land do not apply to the goobernment...Repubs and Dems alike. The law is whatever they say it is on any given day. And sadly...I'm serious. That's what I truly believe.

So...sorry...ignore what I just said.; 6/17/14, 10:18 AM
dbp said...: There are old people who are confused, young children who do not know how things work and people with mental deficiencies who cannot be expected to understand email.

The rest of us know that email lives (and is backed-up) from servers. We know this because we check our mail from our phone, home computer, work computer or friend's device all the time. How could we do that if the email lived on some PC that could even be powered-down?; 6/17/14, 10:21 AM
Joaquin said...: incompetent only when it's convenient.; 6/17/14, 10:22 AM
Rusty said...: Neither argument is exactly a ringing endorsment of their intelligence is it.; 6/17/14, 10:23 AM
Hagar said...: Or Lois Lerner had a separate computer that was not on the IRS system, which ought to be good for another 5 years, considering it would also be evidence of malicious intent.

But there still are all those recipients' files to go after....; 6/17/14, 10:23 AM
AustinRoth said...: I would have been shocked if the Obamacare website HAD worked at launch. The government's track record in large-scale IT development projects is perfect - 100% initial and catastrophic failure.

But they have been back up data since the 50's, even earlier. That they know how to do very, very well.; 6/17/14, 10:25 AM
khesanh0802 said...: Ann;
I think it's a great idea - and true!. Guaranteed to yield a Republican Senate Majority. Be sure you send your suggestion to those people who keep sending you Democratic fund raising appeals. They'll pass it on.; 6/17/14, 10:25 AM
Scott M said...: But, AA, that ruins the narrative that Big Government can handle Big Problems.

The larger the government, the less agile it is to deal with problem that crop up, and it ends up the hammer treating all problems like nails.

The more layers to the government, the more opportunity for graft, fraud, waste, and abuse.

The solution, smaller government, is simple, but simple poly-sci physics in the form of institutional inertia (ie, a department in growth mode tends to stay in growth mode) makes it extremely tough to implement.; 6/17/14, 10:26 AM
Drago said...: Crack: "The software at the VA hasn't been updated since 1985,.."

This is a lie.

And a hilariously obvious lie. See if you can figure out why.

But that's ok.

Software is racist.; 6/17/14, 10:27 AM
KLDAVIS said...: It takes two to email. If Lerner's copies are relevant, but lost, that should be reason enough to seek them where they presumably still exist (in the accounts of the senders/recipients at various governmental agencies). Who knows what else we might find while on that fishing expedition...too bad about Ms. Lerner's computer. I hope it feels better soon.; 6/17/14, 10:30 AM
Scott M said...: Or Lois Lerner had a separate computer that was not on the IRS system

It was a loaner from Hillary!, who had used it to manage the two wing, in-mansion laundry service for snobbish 1%-ers.; 6/17/14, 10:31 AM
Anonymous said...: No wonder the Republicans want smaller government.

Each and every time the government fails all we get is excuses. Which is why Paul Krugman has to say things like, "If done right" when recommending a program. When it doesn't work, it's because it wasn't done right!

And yet, the free market tends to be done right often enough to give us a lot of success.

Shrink the government. Then things will be done right.; 6/17/14, 10:37 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Maybe Edward Snowden has the emails.; 6/17/14, 10:39 AM
mikee said...: I refute your argument by noting that it is entirely possible to be as evil as possible, despite one's general incompetence.

Examples abound in government, but I leave you with a parody version from Blazing Saddles that also (Hi, Ho, Trigger! Alert!) uses the R-word in a joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryvljjccqL8&t=0m56s; 6/17/14, 10:51 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: A new angle came up this morning. Lerner's emails may be recoverable from other agencies that sent or received them, including the White House, but they are not constrained by Congress's subpoena, and don't have to cooperate. Running out the clock.; 6/17/14, 11:00 AM
tim in vermont said...: "subscriber the day they lost all of my e-mails and swore up and down on a stack of whatever they swear on that my e-mails were totally and forever gone and unrecoverable."

They didn't finish the sentence: "at a cost we were willing to bear for your free email."; 6/17/14, 11:02 AM
Gahrie said...: Now the IRS is saying it has lost the emails of six other employees involved in this scandal.......; 6/17/14, 11:09 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: They didn't finish the sentence: "at a cost we were willing to bear for your free email."

Technically - no, actually - it wasn't free. I had to subscribe, and it felt pretty good to say to the Apple person online, "No e-mail, no subscription."; 6/17/14, 11:28 AM
Matt Sablan said...: Apparently, the new defense is that they only let users keep X KB/MB/GB of mail. The rest you have to store on your desktop or something.

... Yeah, imagine someone telling that was company policy to the IRS.; 6/17/14, 11:30 AM
Big Mike said...: We're not evil. We're just terribly incompetent.

As people upthread have already suggested, this administration is both.; 6/17/14, 11:30 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "I know nothing about how e-mails actually work, I'm no IT expert, I'm totally ignorant on the subject."

-- The best part, is you really only need to know two things to get why this lie is terrible.

1. You can check your GMail at home and at the library, because the email isn't actually stored on EITHER computer.

2. Therefore, the email is stored somewhere else, so your computer crashing is immaterial to the recoverability of the emails.

If the IRS chose to not properly use back ups like they're required to, none of the recipients have any emails, and six other people's computers all happened to crash as well, then I think people are going to be mighty suspicious.

I think that if Obama wants us to believe this is true, he needs to fire the entire IRS IT department -- because they're incompetent.; 6/17/14, 11:34 AM
Kirk Parker said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/17/14, 11:35 AM
Kirk Parker said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/17/14, 11:35 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Althouse,

"You wouldn't have believed that a computer system that big, that important, and that well-funded would be so abysmally bad..."

Stop right there!

Only someone with literally ZERO knowledge of the history of large software development projects would make that assertion.

Anyone who knows about this arena knows about such gems as System/360, the FAA modernization, WA State DSHS system, etc. It's proverbial that such projects are late, over budget, fail to achieve their stated requirements, and sometimes don't even make it to Day One.; 6/17/14, 11:35 AM
tim in vermont said...: It is going to have to be pretty clever, since the same thing appears to have happened to other PCs with emails under subpoena.

I am sure that Eric Holder will be right on top of this wanton destruction of evidence, because we are a nation of laws, and not men, and Holder and Obama are of the highest character as shown, by Holder's work on the Marc Rich pardon, for example, and Obama's brilliant presidency.; 6/17/14, 11:45 AM
K in Texas said...: Gahrie beat me to it. Yes, not only did the IRS just happen to lose two years worth of Lerner's email, darn it, they lost the emails of six other implicated current and/or former IRS employees.

Of course, they used the same excuse of "computer crash". Even if this were true, there had to be backups. There are numerous statues and regulations that require these backups. How come anyone one of us can go to federal prison for giving slightly different answers on depositions held months apart (Scooter Libby, Martha Stewart), but federal employees get away with "oops, aren't we incompetent". Not for minute do I believe all these emails were accidentally lost. I think the main reason the IRS had not said a peep about this for a year, is that they needed the time to mess up the hard drives, and track down all of the backups as well.

Please, please dear G-d, I hope a Republican wins the White House in 2016 so we can see some prosecutions here. Oops, no I've done, I'm sure to be audited.; 6/17/14, 11:46 AM
paul a'barge said...: You wouldn't have believed that a computer system that big, that important, and that well-funded would be so abysmally bad

Yes, I would. I would have bet my home on it.

Think about it

If you're trying to be obtuse, wrong and annoying, you have succeeded. Do you really suppose that those of us in the IT industry have not been patiently running a stop watch on this monumental failure?

What planet are you from where you "think" that everyone thinks the way you do. Or don't, as it turns out.; 6/17/14, 11:47 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Drago,

"This is a lie."

If it is, I got it from a white guy,...; 6/17/14, 11:52 AM
traditionalguy said...: This is digital Age stonewalling. It's "firewalling."

But the guys who practice this new art can just as easily erase everybody elses' computer records.; 6/17/14, 11:53 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: If you guys are so sure everybody's lying to you, why are you into politics?

Your rampant paranoia is weird.

NSA. Benghazi. Now this. What's next?

It'll always be something - that's not there,...; 6/17/14, 11:55 AM
Mr. D said...: Tyrone Slothrop said...
A new angle came up this morning. Lerner's emails may be recoverable from other agencies that sent or received them, including the White House, but they are not constrained by Congress's subpoena, and don't have to cooperate. Running out the clock.

So Congress can issue more subpoenas. If Obama claims executive privilege, which he will, take it to the DC circuit and find out there's a modern day John Sirica. We need to know if there is one in any event.; 6/17/14, 12:00 PM
PackerBronco said...: Blogger Gahrie said...
Now the IRS is saying it has lost the emails of six other employees involved in this scandal.......

6/17/14, 11:09 AM

Let me guess: They ALL had their e-mails backed up ONLY on their hard drives and ALL of the HD's crashed and NONE of them could be recovered.; 6/17/14, 12:07 PM
Fernandinande said...: We're evil. We're terribly incompetent. And we're guilty.

jacksonjay said...
They fixed the website and enrolled 8 million!

300+ million people, perhaps 100 million families, so, he wondered, why doesn't 8 million indicate failure? Are 292 million people paying the fine?; 6/17/14, 12:19 PM
Fernandinande said...: Drago said...
Crack: "The software at the VA hasn't been updated since 1985,.."

This is a lie.

Given the source, it's either a lie or a fantasy.

Welcome to the VA Software Document Library! This web site has documentation on the various nationally released software applications created and/or used by the VA in its mission to provide the best service to our nation's veterans.

I browsed a couple at random - both released in 2013.; 6/17/14, 12:30 PM
Birkel said...: The Crack Emcee is ill-informed about the software at the VA. The VA in Nashville, Tennessee (for example) was brand new in the early 2000s.

It's a pleasure to watch a dupe of the Obama Administration's lies at work.; 6/17/14, 12:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Crack wrote;

"If you guys are so sure everybody's lying to you, why are you into politics?"

Not everybody.

Just Democrats who tried to use the IRS to shut up their political opponents.

Look up "straw man" to see what you did there. Lame attempt, try better next time.; 6/17/14, 12:54 PM
Original Mike said...: "I think the main reason the IRS had not said a peep about this for a year, is that they needed the time to mess up the hard drives, and track down all of the backups as well."

First thought that came to my mind when I heard they waited a year. People need to go to jail over this.; 6/17/14, 12:57 PM
Original Mike said...: Crack - You believe they really lost the emails?; 6/17/14, 1:03 PM
Boltforge said...: Crack said ... "The software at the VA hasn't been updated since 1985,.."

Fernandinande said ... "I browsed a couple at random - both released in 2013."

It looks like their patient information management system (what I'm assuming Crack is talking about) seems to be in-house software with updates, patches, and documentation updates from creation in 1993 till just this year.

This mess with the VA and IRS just points out the stupidity of Democrats. You want these back stabbing, ignorant, ass covering, lying admins making MORE decisions?! Really? Only in academics and govt can roaches like this not only survive but they thrive.; 6/17/14, 1:11 PM
MisterBuddwing said...: Well, as long as we're all in such a whimsical mood...

How about a scenario in which existing evidence makes Lois Lerner look bad, and then, suddenly, presto! Here's one of those missing e-mails, one that magically reappeared and that totally exculpates Ms. Lerner! (It's the only one we could find... ); 6/17/14, 1:13 PM
Original Mike said...: If they don't flood the air waves this fall with a call for smaller government, listing all of these fuckups/coverups as motivation, the Repubs don't deserve to win. (And yes, I know that many of the incumbents wouldn't recognize smaller government if they tripped over it); 6/17/14, 1:13 PM
DavidD said...: This is the best argument for limited government I've seen in a long time.

We're incompetent; don't trust us to do it right.; 6/17/14, 1:20 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "Stuff just happens."; 6/17/14, 1:32 PM
Birkel said...: Nobody, and I mean precisely zero people, with any understanding of E-mail whatsoever believes the E-mails were lost.

The lies the Administration must offer are unbelievable to the extent that even true believers know they are lies.

But that won't stop further lying for the cause.

The truth hasn't stopped any group of committed ideologues who have assumed power in memory. And Althouse voted for this bull shit.; 6/17/14, 1:40 PM
Drago said...: Crack: "If it is, I got it from a white guy,..."

Note to self: Crack believes lies from white people.

Interesting.; 6/17/14, 1:52 PM
Drago said...: Fernandinande: "Given the source, it's either a lie or a fantasy."

Make a note Fernan..dein.ddinaade..uh, er "faaaa..vvree..."

Document Repositories are racist.; 6/17/14, 1:53 PM
Drago said...: Birkel: "The Crack Emcee is ill-informed about the software at the VA."

You had me at "The Crack Emcee is ill-informed".

But it's not his fault.

White people told him stuff.

And he believed them.

Other white people told him other stuff.

But he didn't believe them.

Because they were white.

The wrong kind of white.

Not like the right kind of white.

Which is white.

Which is bad.

Except when it isn't.

'nuff said.; 6/17/14, 1:55 PM
Drago said...: The Crack Emcee said...
If you guys are so sure everybody's lying to you, why are you into politics?

I would be hard pressed to come up with a bigger non sequitor premised question than that.

But, of course, "non sequitor" is latin.

Which is racist.; 6/17/14, 1:56 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Drago,

"But, of course, 'non sequitor' is latin."

Now that you mention it, so is "non sequitur". :-)

But you're absolutely right about Crack's comment; I boggled at it too.; 6/17/14, 2:11 PM
Boltforge said...: From the Washington Post article ...
"[Lillie Wilburn] said the drive had been sent to a forensic lab for a final attempt, and a few days after that Ms. Wilburn delivered the fatal news: 'The sectors on your hard drive were bad which made your data unrecoverable.' Ms. Lerner replied with thanks, and her philosophical take that 'sometimes stuff just happens.'”

I've used hard drive recovery centers. Bad sectors are a common failure. But to not recover any data? No.

What they need is the recovery request (what data did she want off the drive?). And I wouldn't be surprised if the recovery center still has the drive. And the ability to get 99% of the data off it.; 6/17/14, 2:13 PM
Drago said...: Other Crack non sequitor questions:

If you guys are so convinced potato salad is fantastic, why do you work on your cars so much?

If you guys are so convinced that letting your wife determine kitchen decor is the way to go, why do you often times say "please" when you ask for the sweet and sour sauce?

There are some linkages so nonsensical that only someone as "special" as crack can make them.

Crack should reboot the "Connections" TV show.

Without the racist British accent though.

Actually, crack clearly has sufficient time on his hands, he could easily create a youtube "America from a Black Perspective Connections Show".

First episode topic suggestion: "Farrakhan and the strange, but wonderful ('cuz black) numerology connections that he makes"

http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-13769.html

"Provocative"

"Insightful"

Note to crack: recording video images of yourself will not mean you will have your soul stolen.

I'm a white man.

You can trust me on that.; 6/17/14, 2:16 PM
Anonymous said...: The IRS can, and does, audit you for up to 3 years, and can audit up to 6 years if they find substantial error in those 3, but I totally believe that they don't keep their own records for more than 2. Totally.; 6/17/14, 2:21 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Sometimes stuff just happens.; 6/17/14, 2:58 PM
Boltforge said...: Left Bank of the Charles said...
"Sometimes stuff just happens."

And happens, and happens, and happens, and happens again, and happens again, and happens one more time for good measure.

Terribly terribly unfortunate for seven people to lose those emails requested. So strange. So sad.

Such male bovine dung.; 6/17/14, 3:24 PM
Biff said...: As rhardin mentioned in the first comment, backup is an established, routine, elementary practice, especially in anything having to do with sensitive financial information, while delivering an IT system that would execute the revamping of a double-digit percentage of the economy is, to put it mildly, not.

I struggle for a suitable analogy. Boiling an egg versus preparing a multi-course meal in a Michelin rated restaurant? Pitching a tent versus building a city? Learning the ABCs vs a Faulkner novel?

Email backup is among the most elementary of enterprise IT tasks. Frankly, the argument works better the other way: if one of the most sensitive, important parts of the government cannot perform even the most routine, elementary--yet still critical--tasks, why should we believe that the government capable of doing anything well, especially running our healthcare system??; 6/17/14, 4:15 PM
damikesc said...: Why doesn't the GOP Congress just zero out the budget for employees for the IRS and earmark every penny to developing a usable computer system.

Then, next year, do the job in terms of hiring people to run it (the IRS, not the computer system).

I wonder how many people being audited will state that they believe the IRS lost emails in regards to this and demand them turn them over or dismiss the charges.

Remember, progressives want the government to run MORE shit. Seriously. They do. In spite of the sheer evidence that the government is amazingly inept at it.

Know why a private entity is better than the gov't? Because if a private company pulled this shit, people would go to jail quickly.

NOBODY will even be punished here. Hell, they will get bonuses.; 6/17/14, 4:53 PM
ALP said...: Maybe the NSA can find these lost emails?; 6/17/14, 6:33 PM
Unknown said...: The thing is, the entire enterprise of big government depends on the fiction that on the whole it is both benevolent and competent. That's the reason neither the Obama administration nor the IRS can use incompetence as a defense against malfeasance.
A libertarian-leaning candidate worth his salt would have a field day with it!; 6/17/14, 8:51 PM
tim in vermont said...: "If you guys are so sure everybody's lying to you, why are you into politics?" - Crack

I am sure Crack is right here. I am sure that seven separate computers "crashed" and completely lost their email files, including the personal computer of a person who asserted her fifth amendment right against self incrimination and one who was fired due to the improper targeting of Democrat enemies by the IRS.

This all seems like the kind of stuff that happens, and I am sure that were this a Republican administration losing evidence wanted by a Democrat Congress, Crack would afford them the same benefit of the doubt.

He is a stand up guy like that.; 6/17/14, 8:51 PM
rcommal said...: The secondary bottom line is that the IRS has managed to validate so many long-standing criticisms of and against the IRS, including those that [perhaps] used to be called cranky and/or paranoid, but--and let me emphasize this--entirely not limited to those.

The true bottom line is that the IRS is discreditable and corrupt and whatever *mere incompetence* may exist (and I question that notion) entirely serves the corruption that renders the IRS utterly without credit.

--

Make no mistake, we will continue paying our taxes as due on account of the fact that we must do as the law says we must. We do that, and will do that, as always we have done.

But our teeth are gritted more, and if ever there is a chance to legally cut the legs out from under that overweening institution known as the IRS, we will be in support of that effort.; 6/18/14, 4:54 AM
Rusty said...: Know why a private entity is better than the gov't? Because if a private company pulled this shit, people would go to jail quickly.

Now everybody who has a criminal trial for nonpayment of taxes has an out.Hell. Anybody who's being audited.; 6/18/14, 5:41 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Drago,

Birkel: "The Crack Emcee is ill-informed about the software at the VA."

"White people told him stuff."

WHITE PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID:

The official said the VA needs to update its scheduling software package, which the department has been using since 1985. “It predates the internet and Blockbuster’s rise and fall,” he said.; 6/18/14, 9:00 AM
Scott said...: No IT guru here, but I learned a few things about bureaucracy from my time in the USAF:

1) IF there were a crash, this would be extensively documented. Why? Because these are Important People (department heads, chief of staff to the commissioner, etc.), and they would want their crash to be fixed right now so they could keep doing Important Things. This means a paper trail would be generated post crash and they should be producing that on demand to the investigators to prove that this was an accident versus something more serious.

2) Since there is an investigation going on, and as noted the failure to keep archived backups is a federal crime, how this should be handled is to treat the IRS computer system as a crime scene. Call in the FBI, put the IT staff, the relevant users and everyone with administrator access under oath to find out what happened. Also, to regain public trust, do it in a transparent way and make it clear that if any misconduct is found it will be punished harshly. Jail time, firings for cause, and so on. The IRS must not only be non-political, but perceived as non-political to work, because int he end run it relies on public compliance and trust to the tax laws.; 6/18/14, 10:25 AM
Boltforge said...: The Crack Emcee said...
"WHITE PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID:"

... 'they' are if they let you 'reparation'-roll them.

You believe the color of skin is an indicator of stupidity. Or do you define 'white people' differently than skin color? Blood? Culture?

Also the VA admin you referenced was not being truthful. Their own tech support documentation (which is public) shows that their scheduling software was created in 1993 and has current updates as recent as this year.; 6/18/14, 10:45 AM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: Hey Crack, how was your father's day? Did you get to play catch or maybe go fishing with your old man?

I'm sure you spend lots of time with your father, who must have really loved you, and invested lots of his time and energy into your upbringing.; 6/18/14, 11:56 AM
jaque222 said...: All emails have a source and at least one destination. If Issa suspects that there are damaging emails in the ether he should have a good idea of what the destinations were. If he picks certain suspected receivers of the dodgy emails and asks to see copies then the receivers, if blameless, will send him copies and others, the guilty, will plead crashed hard drives. This could provide years of entertainment for people who think that Obama and his acolytes are the corruptest scumbags in the history of the world.; 6/18/14, 4:52 PM
rcommal said...: Know why a private entity is better than the gov't? Because if a private company pulled this shit, people would go to jail quickly.

Oh, nonsense. All sorts of private companies and people powerful in private companies get away with shit. Are you kidding?

Can't you name some, right off the top of your head?

---

I say this not because I'm advocating for bigger government as better (I do not so advocate, much less believe in the notion), but because it does no good to spout manifest bullshit of that sort.; 6/19/14, 10:47 PM