2012 Presidential Election News

The Internal Revenue Service's watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president's re-election campaign.

Editor's note: Paul Butler is a law professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of "Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice." That is how President Obama should begin one of the most significant speeches of his presidency: the commencement address at Morehouse College this Sunday.

The nation's tax agency has admitted to inappropriately scrutinizing smaller tea party organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, and senior Treasury Department officials were notified in the midst of the 2012 presidential election season that an internal investigation was underway.

I had the good fortune to be trained in Rudy Giuliani's U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan.

Tim Walz that explicitly banned insider trading by congressional members and government employees was hailed by watchdog groups as one of the most significant congressional reforms in more than a decade.

The congressman leading the Republican investigation into last year's terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on Friday ordered retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering to submit to questioning behind closed doors next week over an internal State Department review Pickering helped lead into the attacks.

A group of researchers from the Floating Sheep project - who also mapped racist tweets surrounding President Barack Obama's re-election - have geotagged racist and homophobic tweets in the United States and plotted them on an interactive map.

Republican attempts to turn the row over the IRS into a scandal engulfing the White House fizzled on Friday when the ousted head of the agency delivered a public apology at a congressional heading into the affair.

He's appointing a new boss at the tax agency and Friday the ex-boss will face tough questions on Capitol Hill, CBS 2's Marcia Kramer reported.

But President Obama may not prove to be the only one hurt by the eruption of controversies around the Benghazi attack, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records.

The candidates have spent a record amount of money. They've stumped hard in a city that isn't easy to campaign in - 470 square miles sliced up into neighborhoods divided by a web of freeways.

Our president is one cool customer, careful to stay a little distant from his Scandal of the Day, sidestepping any embarrassing questions rather than confronting them, analyzing his critics rather than answering them, looking down on the political circus even as he stars in it.

More than a year before she's on the next ballot, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann will begin running TV ads for her 2014 re-election campaign.

John is Senior Editor for High Gear Media. In addition to news coverage and new car reviews, John creates and oversees all editorial for High Gear's... More The stock of the Silicon Valley startup electric-car maker has soared in recent days after Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] announced its first-ever profitable quarter and plans to build and sell ... (more)

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER made a visit to Harrisburg recently. He visited members of the Philadelphia Senate delegation.

On Monday, the Associated Press revealed that the Department of Justice used subpoenas to obtain phone records of its editors and reporters from April and May 2012.

The FBI's criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service could include potential civil rights violations, false statements and potential violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some partisan political activities, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.

Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House.

The son of the Rev. Billy Graham as well as leaders of Z Street, a conservative Jewish organization, have said they believe they were pressed by the IRS for more information because they advocated for conservative causes.

Not only did the Internal Revenue Service make it next to impossible for conservative groups to obtain tax-free status, but it also gave a leg up to President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.