Wow, that is so hardcore, dude. :rolleyes:
OK, so they apologized after the fact when it was overwhelmingly clear that their craven cowardice was a public embarrassment. Their first reaction was STILL to throw her under the bus. Just like the first reaction to the IRS scandal was to fire the IRS commissioner for something that happened two IRS commissioners ago. It would be like impeaching Carter for Watergate if we didn’t find out about watergate until the Carter administration and if watergate turned out to be a manufactured scandal (and to be fair the IRS commissioner in charge at the time was not partisan and as a Bush appointee certainly wasn’t a left wing partisan).
“Underbussed” is my new favorite word. Darrell Issa is a mensch for providing you with this lexical opportunity.
As a native of Waco, Texas, I am very familiar with Yiddish terminology*, and by no stretch of the imagination is Darryl Issa a mensch. It has been my pleasure to know maybe half a dozen men who, in my opinion, deserve such honor, and I’ve been quite lucky.
Oh, and thanks.
*Yes, there were quite a few Jews in Waco, though, mostly, they were in Temple.
Nope, wrong again.
You were saying?
Should be, yet weren’t. 100% of Tea Party applications went to this group, only 30% of progressive applications did, and those can be written off as being confused for conservative groups.
The targeting happened, the IRS admitted it happened.
You have more information than citation. We await. Prove it, or disable pie intake orifice.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Treasury Department inspector general says the Internal Revenue Service screened only a few progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status for possible political activity, as a clash escalated between that investigator and congressional Democrats who called his probe of the agency misleading.
In a letter to lawmakers released Thursday, J. Russell George said his investigation found “progressives” was not among the inappropriate terms IRS screeners used to decide if groups merited close scrutiny for political work. Too much political activity can disqualify an applicant for a tax-exempt designation.
Nonetheless, George wrote that “additional research” by his investigators found that of 298 applicants for tax-exempt status that the IRS flagged for possible political involvement between 2010 and 2012, six had “progress” or “progressive” in their names. Another 14 cases with “progress” or “progressive” in the group’s name were not sidetracked for additional examination, he wrote.
Thirty percent of such groups got special attention because of possible political work, George wrote.
“In comparison, our audit found that 100% of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots or 9/12 in their names were processed” for potential political activity, he said.
http://www.wfsb.com/story/22699690/congress-to-grill-irs-chief-on-political-groups
Here’s a tip: when a government agency already admits wrongdoing, don’t put too much faith in partisans trying to dodge blame by de-scandalizing it.
So, once again, is the Tea Party primarily engaged in political activity, or needlepoint?
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
See, that’s what’s funny. All it took to get on a BOLO list was “educating about the Constitution”.
If they had actually improperly targeted progressive groups, that would be evidence of incompetence. Since they did not, it’s evidence of malice.
The President sure has malice towards these Tea Party groups. “Will no one rid me of this turbulent Tea party?”
See, the reason why this is stupid is that the IRS is not a hive Mind controlled by the current Administration. It’s people. People who are both Democrats and Republicans, in almost exactly the same % as the general public. Now if The Prez ordered the Commissioner (who was a staunch Republican, mind you) to do crap like this, then the Commish would pass it down to an Assist Comm, who’d pass it down further who pass it down to a Group manager, who’d ordr her Employees to do that- and one of them would blow the whistle. Those dudes aren’t military they aren’t even technically Law Enforcement, they are simply time serving bureaucrats waiting for the retirement.
Oh, yeah, sure, you bet! When I first heard about the Tea Party, it was all about educating people on what they thought the Constitution said. After a couple of years, it began to leak out that their politics were somewhat rightward.
Who are you kidding, here? The Tea Party was totally political from Day One!
That’s just the thing, someone did order the targeting. Shulman said exactly that at his hearing when this whole thing started. Then when asked who did it, he said, “I was given the name, but I don’t recall.”
So we know this happened below Shulman, so it’s just a matter of finding out the name of the mid-level person who ordered the targeting. And ask that person why they did it.
Sure it is. But you’re focusing on the technical aspect of the law, when the reality is that political groups have always gotten a pass from the IRS. Mainly because, most political groups up until 2010 were progressive advocacy groups.
One of the real scandals is that the IRS didn’t try to do its job until the Tea Party arrived on the scene. Prior to that, it was a wink and a nod for the alphabet soup of liberal orgs applying for tax exempt status under various designations.
Back to the malice issue, you know what is undoubtedly malice? The constant shifting stories, each of which is designed to settle the controversy. First it was just rogue employees in Cincinnati. When that turned out to be a lie, they shifted to “Yeah, it happened in DC, but they targeted progressive groups too!”
Eagerly awaiting the next version of the story which supposedly will close out the investigation.
Nothing of the sort. What was agreed was that the EO division was using just keywords to " target ".
That’s just cutting corners to handle a huge pile of work without enough staff or funds.
Not exactly proper mind you.
Well, they did do some requests. I know, one non profit I was a member of got audited for this very reason, way back in the 1980 s.
And the constant shifting stories is because the IRS is barred by law from telling what actually happened, with names, dates, etc. of course, Congress could give immunity, but they don’t want to hear the truth. Nor do you.
That was an excuse, one of the many shifting excuses, which was debunked early on. They were not overworked or underfunded, and the easiest way to cut corners would simply be to let the applications sail through as most of the liberal applications did.
The BOLO list was legit. What was not legit was requesting that Tea Party applications go to DC for extra scrutiny. What was also not legit is that when these applications went to DC, they more often than not never came out, and no one could get any updates on what the hold up was.
That’s malice.
Shifting stories is not what an agency does when they have to keep information secret. That’s what “We can’t reveal this information at this time” is for.
The shifting stories are an effort by the administration and its supporters to prematurely shut down the investigation.