IRS Targets Tea Party

On Thursday night, the major broadcast networks ignored a new development in the IRS scandal that the agency erased 422 backup tapes and in turn destroyed 24,000 e-mails of embattled former official Lois Lerner. With ABC, CBS, and NBC on the sidelines, the Fox News Channel’s Special Report offered a full report on Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing concerning the multi-year scandal.…

On Thursday The Washington Times reported that, according to investigators, “The IRS erased backup tapes with Lois G. Lerner emails even after the messages were subject to a congressional subpoena, likely permanently losing as many as 24,000 emails.” 

In the Wednesday edition of bias by omission, five of the English and Spanish network evening newscasts again refused to report on a troubling sign for the U.S. economy while all six omitted any mention of a new development in the IRS scandal. After completely ignoring the story all together Wednesday morning, the CBS Evening News stepped up to mention that the U.S. economy has screeched to a…

Despite a combined eight hours of air time on Wednesday, all three network morning shows ignored the revelation that 6,400 "lost" e-mails from ex-IRS official Lois Lerner have been found. On cable, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer alerted viewers, reminding, "The IRS claimed the emails were lost when learner's computer crashed three years ago. They will now be examined by the Senate Finance Committee…

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced it would not be seeking contempt charges against Lois Lerner for refusing to testify to Congress on the IRS targeting scandal. The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks, so far, have refused to report on this big development in the Obama IRS scandal that they apparently just don’t want to talk about any more.  

Today House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz issued more subpeonas for documents and hardware in the IRS scandal probe. Just last week, the IRS watchdog charged with investigating Lois Lerner’s missing emails said he is looking into the possibility of “potential criminal activity.” It was also reported that Lerner raked in “$129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013,” and there are at…

On Friday evening, the Big Three networks continued their blackouts on the Thursday revelation that the Treasury Department's deputy inspector general, Timothy Camus, is conducting an "active investigation" into the "potential criminal activity" at the IRS over Lois Lerner's supposedly missing e-mails. Instead, ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News all devoted full…

On Thursday night the IRS watchdog charged with investigating Lois Lerner’s missing emails told the House Oversight Committee that he is looking into the possibility of “potential criminal activity.” This latest development in the IRS-Tea Party scandal has yet to be reported on any of the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) evening or morning shows. 

Appearing on the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) Your World with Neil Cavuto on Wednesday, Media Reserach Center President Brent Bozell reacted to dual news stories surrounding ObamaCare and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as “business as usual” for an “out of control” administration ruling “government by fiat.” The first story came on February 20 that 800,000 ObamaCare enrollees had received…

Thursday on his Your World show, host Neil Cavuto went after the Obama administration's near obsession with the coverage it gets on Fox News. While Team Obama can count on the Big Three triumvirate of ABC, CBS and NBC to toe the line, promoting its points while generally avoiding damning information, Fox has generally remained fair and balanced, an approach which has clearly gotten under their…

Sunday's New York Times editorial page came once again to the defense of the Internal Revenue Service against the depredations of congressional conservatives, even suggesting the IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups amounted to nothing: "...payback demanded by House Republicans to penalize the I.R.S. for daring to scrutinize Tea Party operations that tried to claim exemptions under the tax code…

On Wednesday, ABC’s Good Morning America had a segment that promoted how, due to budget cuts, the IRS will be forced to “delay those refund checks,” “increase the risk of identity theft,” conduct “46,000 fewer audits,” and maintain an “IRS help line” that “is going to become much less helpful.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos lamented about “fewer audits means less revenue to the Treasury” to run…

Each of the network morning shows devoted some time on Wednesday to looking back at the biggest news stories of year and, while they certainly could not have included every story in the allotted time, they all failed to spend even a few seconds on topics such as Jonathan Gruber, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, President Obama’s unpopularity, and the Hobby Lobby case to name a few. In…

A new congressional report on the IRS persecution of conservative groups in the run-up to the 2012 election? Nothing to see here, the New York Times' headline blared. The paper set the bar sky-high for anti-Obama scandal, using the evident lack of a smoking gun linking IRS persecution to the White House as an excuse to completely dismiss the scandal. The Washington Post was little better.