36 thoughts on “The IRS Backup Service”

    1. Paranoid? Liar. The quotes are around them because he’s quoting the IRS. The IRS is lying, by the way, just in case you haven’t figured out that everyone knows they’re lying.

      1. You need to know, Jim, that your credibility is gone. Not just you personally, but the credibility of the mainstream media, the credibility of everyone on the (D) side of the house in Congress and in the Senate, and the credibility of the President himself. You might think you’re being clever, but every defense of the indefensible just digs the hole deeper.

        1. What about the credibility of, say, this blog? Rand blithely posts that Nicole Flax has “missing emails”; that isn’t the case. How about the credibility of the source Rand cited, which wrote “the IRS announced that they had similar two-year gaps for six more IRS officials connected to the targeting effort.”? The IRS made no such announcement. So where did that misinformation come from? An inaccurate GOP press release. As the IRS chief testified under oath:

          There’s been a question as to why I didn’t advise Congress earlier and my experience has been than we do better to have a rational discussion when you know all the facts. It’s shown by the fact that on Monday we were advised Monday morning that there were preliminary indications that there were difficulties with a handful of custodians. That information was passed onto the staff of this committee on Monday afternoon. Immediately thereafter rather than asking us for additional information a press release went out from this committee identifying Nicole Flax as a particularly interesting person to this committee and stating that Nicole Flax’s e-mails have been lost. Had the committee waited to issue that release until we knew further information which were continuing to provide, they would have discovered that Nicole Flax had two computers. Her office computer which she used during the day and she had a travel computer, a portable. It was the portable computer that crashed. It ran on the same e-mail system as her office system. So it turns out there is no indication that a single Nicole Flax e-mail has been lost, notwithstanding the press release and statements out of this committee. Those press releases with regard to Nicole Flax were inaccurate and misleading and it demonstrates why we’ll provide this committee a full report about the custodian review when it is completed. And we are not going to dribble out the information and have it played out in the press.

          If you reflexively believe the stuff that the GOP and its media allies have been putting out, then of course my comments don’t seem credible. But if you bother to look at the actual evidence, it’s the credibility of the GOP that’s truly in doubt.

          1. Really Jim, you are going to say the GOP overreacted, while you were quoting CREW for claiming Bush emails were missing. Emails that were not public record, and therefore never missing, but you, Jim, claimed they were missing anyway. As Ed says, your credibility is crap, Jim.

            After 4 months of stalling, the IRS told Congress information it should have known for 2 years, including that Nicole Flax had a hard drive crash, while claiming the crashes meant email was not recoverable. That the IRS Commissioner, who withheld bad information for months, releases new information that makes him look better within days seems like he was intentionally misleading. Considering he already is on record and under oath for claiming all the emails were on servers; I’d say his credibility is crap too.

            Since Sonosoft’s contract was in place when Lerner had her hard drive crash, and Lerner was investigating what she believed was criminal behavior; why was her emails not recovered as official documentation for the criminal investigation that she was leading?

          2. Do we have any specific information about what services were covered by the Sonosoft contract, or are we just assuming that they were backing up Lerner’s email?

          3. “we were advised Monday morning that there were preliminary indications that there were difficulties with a handful of custodians.”

            So the IRS testifies that there are problems with other people’s data. Then,

            “Had the committee waited to issue that release until we knew further information”

            All of these alleged crashes happened years ago. They should have already known their status and reported it to congress. Instead they said there were data retention issues and got angry at congresspeople for saying so. Then the next day,

            “So it turns out there is no indication that a single Nicole Flax e-mail has been lost,”

            Why is it one day there are or are not emails then the following day the IRS claims the opposite? Why all the stonewalling and misleading of congressional investigators?

          4. Why is it one day there are or are not emails then the following day the IRS claims the opposite?

            The IRS never told the House that Flax’s emails had been lost, just that she’d had a hard disk crash. It was the House that jumped to the incorrect conclusion that her emails had been lost, because they thought it helped their “coverup” story. And the GOP-aligned media bought it, hook, line and sinker.

          5. “The IRS never told the House that Flax’s emails had been lost, just that she’d had a hard disk crash.”

            The IRS claimed in testimony that they had Lerner’s emails and then in later testimony claimed they didn’t. And you want us to believe what they say about what is on missing HD’s?

  3. Utterly paranoid, Jim. Because if you can’t trust a gang of thugs, you must be paranoid.

  4. ”
    Captain Zaharie Shah, 53, was the main subject of the criminal inquiry
    Intelligence checks on everyone else on board the flight were cleared
    The captain had no future social or work plans, unlike the rest of the crew
    Evidence from his programmed flight simulator also allegedly showed him rehearsing landing on small runway in southern Indian Ocean
    The programme was deleted but later recovered by computer experts

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2664882/Captain-missing-MH370-flight-revealed-chief-suspect-Malaysias-official-police-investigation.html#ixzz35PHUzRq3
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook”

    Hmmmmmm!

  5. “The scare quotes around “computer crashes” are a nice paranoid touch.”

    You clearly misinterpret the use of the quotes here. Which is, of course, utterly necessary to create your straw man.

    At the risk of speaking for Rand, they aren’t scare quotes…….
    …..they are sarcasm quotes/air quotes/ quotes that say “yeah right computer crashes”.

    Because only a numbskull would believe the excuse that Lerner’s AND 6 other people – who were also under investigation – ALL had computer crashes which ALL erased the same two years and whose disk drives were ALL impossible to recover.

    Evidently, wise-ass, pathetic straw men like the above is all you have left.

    1. AND 6 other people – who were also under investigation – ALL had computer crashes which ALL erased the same two years and whose disk drives were ALL impossible to recover.

      The IRS hasn’t claimed that. In fact, the IRS director testified Friday that there’s no indication that Nicole Flax, for instance, lost any email. It’s the GOP that’s spreading the meant-to-sound-ridiculous story of seven simultaneous crashes erasing the same two years of emails. I wonder why they’d do that…

    2. Gregg said: “At the risk of speaking for Rand, they aren’t scare quotes…….
      …..they are sarcasm quotes”

      I thought the term “scare quotes” covered the use of quotes to indicate sarcasm, but your comment raised some doubt, and it prompted me to read this article:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
      It is a well-written article, and I recommend it. The short version: scare quotes can indicate sarcasm.

  6. ” The IRS hasn’t claimed that.”

    Let’s be clear – you are saying that thei IRS HAS NOT said that the emails from 6 people under investigation have also crashed and were unrecoverable.

    This is what you are saying?

    You are saying that ONLY Lerner’s disk drive failed?

    Ok Jim, go here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4DKvBaoEfE

    go to about the 1 minute makr. Ryan complains that NOW they learned that 6 more people’s hard drives crashed (people under invesitgation) and they weren’t told….

    Koskinen replies, “We told you on Monday.”

    Sorry Jim, you[ve done your credibility even more damage – if that was possible.

    IRS commissioner says it happened. Are we to believe him?

    Or you?

    And of course all this is in addition to the fact that by law the IRS was supposed to keep backups and they didn’t (allegedly).

    No Jim. You fail.

    1. First Koskinen said the emails were kept on the server, under oath.
      Then he says that emails from 6 users were lost for the same period, under oath.
      Then he says, but wait, Nicole had a second computer, so the GOP lied; but then Koskinen is not under oath.

      As Gregg says, Koskinen is liar and has no credibility. Neither does JIm.

      1. Then he says that emails from 6 users were lost for the same period, under oath.

        Cite? Or are you just making it up?

        Then he says, but wait, Nicole had a second computer, so the GOP lied; but then Koskinen is not under oath.

        That one actually was under oath, you can watch the video on the CSPAN site.

        1. Hey Gregg, and I’m making it up?

          In the meantime, since a cite was previously provided for my part; perhaps Jim can provide a credible source, other than CREW for his claim of Bush’s lost emails. CREW never had a valid case for obtaining the RNC emails that they complained about never getting. I know Jim is lying, but he could try harder to sound credible even when he isn’t actually credible.

          2. You should click the links Jim. You’ll find the whole Wikipedia article rests on the assertions made by CREW. Waxman made some comments, but all of those are again based on the assertions by CREW.

            In comparison, there is no questions Lerner’s emails that were destroyed are from her IRS account.

          3. Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman at the time, admitted that “the White House “screwed up” by not requiring e-mails from Republican Party and campaign accounts to be saved”.

            “Perino told reporters that the e-mails from those accounts should have been saved, but said policy has not kept pace with technology. She said computer experts were trying to retrieve any records that have been deleted.

            “We screwed up, and we’re trying to fix it,” she told reporters.”

    2. Let’s be clear – you are saying that thei IRS HAS NOT said that the emails from 6 people under investigation have also crashed and were unrecoverable.

      No, I’m saying that the IRS has not said that six employees under investigation had hard disk crashes that lost two years of email (which was your claim).

      You are saying that ONLY Lerner’s disk drive failed?

      No. See above. The IRS told the House GOP on Monday that six computers (besides Lerner’s) had had crashes. The GOP then issued a press release claiming that email from all six had been lost, something that the IRS had not told them. And then someone, I don’t know who, made up the idea that the lost email from those six computers was from the very same time period as the lost Lerner emails. And because this totally baseless idea fit your political preferences, you believed it.

      by law the IRS was supposed to keep backups

      And yet until May, 2013 the IRS had never kept permanent backups of email servers, and under Bush had kept backups for only 3 months. It isn’t at all clear that this policy was illegal, but if it was, it didn’t start with this administration.

      2. “It isn’t at all clear that this policy was illegal, but if it was, it didn’t start with this administration.”

        But the political persecution happened under Obama and not Bush.

        1. Circular reasoning. You are assuming the conclusion that you’re trying to prove.

          Obama is corrupt!
          How do you know?
          His IRS recycled email backup tapes!
          Bush’s IRS did the same thing
          But Obama is corrupt!

          1. No, you were saying that policies set in place under the previous administration were responsible for the IRS persecuting political dissidents. Somehow the Obama administration was fated to weaponize the IRS and other government agencies because Bush.

            Circular reasoning is what you were doing by claiming there would be emails if there was really a scandal.

          2. you were saying that policies set in place under the previous administration were responsible for the IRS persecuting political dissidents

            No, I was saying that recycling backup tapes was a policy practice by the previous administration. You were the one claiming there was something illegal about recycling tapes.

      3. “No, I’m saying that the IRS has not said that six employees under investigation had hard disk crashes that lost two years of email (which was your claim).”

        Yet Koskinen said exactly that to Paul Ryan and it’s on youtube and I gave you the URL.

        If you are too lazy to look at the evidence, then you can understand why you are considered a buffoon.

        1. Ok, I just watched the YouTube. At no point in that video does Koskinen say that any emails were lost due to the six hard disk crashes that they reported to House investigators last Monday (on top of Lerner’s, which was reported earlier). You should watch the video again. Koskinen hardly gets a word in as Ryan rants on and on, and he definitely does not claim that the other six hard disk crashes resulted in the loss of two years worth of email for each of those six employees.

          1. They asked for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Koskinen clearly replied to Ryan question in the affirmative. At that point, Ryan had every reason to believe Koskinen told the truth. Gotcha games like this with a judge would find someone in contempt, since the DoJ hasn’t taken the referral for Lerner, I’m sure Koskinen thinks he’s safe. Fortunately, TTV has a judge with bailiffs.

          2. Koskinen clearly replied to Ryan question in the affirmative.

            What question? Ryan wasn’t asking questions, he was berating Koskinen, the IRS and the DOJ. Koskinen never said that six IRS employees lost 2 years worth of emails to hard disk crashes; that claim is a GOP fabrication.

  7. Also, Jim, care to explain how the back up provider in question had their contract canceled two years into a six year contract and yet the IRS apparently only managed to recover 36 cents of the remaining money of the contract?

    Sonasoft’s fiscal year 2011 contract with the IRS ended on August 31, 2011. Eight days later, the IRS officially closed out its relationship with Sonasoft in accordance with the federal government’s contract close-out guidelines, which require agencies to fully audit their contracts and to get back any money that wasn’t used by the contractor. Curiously, the IRS de-allocated 36 cents when it closed out its contract with Sonasoft on September 8, 2011.

  8. Funny thing, credibility. Once it’s gone, people no longer believe you about anything, even if you’re telling the truth. This is something you ought to have learned in childhood. And that’s where you and Lois Lerner and Koskinen and Obama and the Clinton bookends are, too.

    1. Darn, I wish the comment system here had an Edit feature. That was directed at Jim.

      The whole missing email cover story is a lie so bold, they know that nobody believes it, and they lied on purpose. They may think they are taunting the American Right, but everyone in the world is watching. And we know what the Administration’s words are worth.

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