I have no idea what game you’re playing here.
26 USC § 6033(a)(1):
Is there some reason you’re demanding code cites for an everyone-knows proposition?
Perhaps I’m not describing their actions correctly. What exactly did they do to the selected groups, and would they be authorized to do so to any random group?
They asked the groups in question for additional information that they said was necessary to verify that group’s eligibility to claim 501(c)(4) status, and held up granting such eligibility pending the receipt of that information.
As a somewhat tortured analogy, imagine a group of police officers who observe that most crime in their area comes young black males. In response, they adopt a protocol of carefully questioning the occupants of cars stopped for traffic violations when the occupants of the car are young black males, and not doing so in other cases where the factual predicates for the car stops were otherwise similar.
That’s not illegal, in and of itself. But police departments generally have guidelines that prohibit the exercise of officer discretion in that way.
There is nothing to disagree about regarding acting Commissioner Steven miller’s testimmony. He said the original targeting was absolutely partisan. The directive was changed twice and the last version was problematic. quote:
BURR: Mr. Miller, let me just ask you. Has this practice stopped?
MILLER: What practice, sir?
BURR: The practice of how they process the consideration of these applications – keywords “conservative,” “tea party,” “patriot”?
MILLER: I believe that that did happen. The names stopped when – last in – when Lois Lerner first learned of it. The second listing, by the way, if you take a look at that, in the Treasury inspector general’s report, is still problematic because it talks about policy positions, but it actually is not particularly partisan in how it talks about policy positions.
BURR: So it was partisan – it was partisan before, though.
MILLER: Yes, it absolutely was.
I think we can improve this analogy if we take race out of it. Race, unlike political activity, is an immutable characteristic. Let’s make it gang colors.
Let’s say the police notice that most crime in their area comes from guys wearing, I dunno, purple paisley hoodies with gold fringe. In response, they adopt a protocol of carefully questioning the occupants of cars stopped for traffic violations when the occupants of the car are so dressed, and not doing so in other cases where the factual predicates for the car stops were otherwise similar.
Now we’ve got a better analogy, since we’re looking at behavior, not immutable characteristics. Honest question: do police departments have guidelines that prohibit the exercise of officer discretion in that way?
If I may suggest a further refinement, let us say a new law is on the books where activity X is legal but nearly-identical activity Y is not, and a plausible argument exists that gangs that wear purple paisley hoodies with gold fringe are vocal about burying the distinction between X and Y, i.e. they eagerly embrace X while talking a lot about Y.
Of course, the more verbose the analogy gets, the more I get the sense of manufactured (or at best reflexive) outrage.
Yes. Although gang colors are often permitted reasons for increased scrutiny, typically this is allowed only after a specialized unit has determined that a particular set of gang colors is problematic – in other words, the officer on the street typically would NOT be permitted to decide to apply increased scrutiny for a particular set of colors.
On the spectrum running from “specialized unit” to “officer on the street”, where is Lois Lerner?
Good to know, thanks!
It seems like in this case, the specialized unit and the officer on the street were one and the same–that is, the folks determining what merited increased scrutiny were the folks who were applying that standard. What’s more, it sounds like they had terrible training and unclear guidelines. I’ve seen no indication (although I could be wrong) that they were flouting the direct and unambiguous commands of their superiors; rather, they were doing their incompetent best to make do with muddled leadership.
Is this your reading of the situation?
They might still have been motivated by partisanship, but the mess they got in doesn’t require a charge of partisanship to explain. It does require a charge of incompetence (because even if they were being partisan, they were totally incompetent at it, given the complete lack of real-world consequences of their decisions).
No, not quite. In this case, the specialized unit DID exist; what happened was the officer on the street failed to refer his inquiries to that specialized unit and instead decided on his own to apply a particular standard for increased scrutiny.
Now, with respect to terrible training and unclear guidelines – I suspect you’re right.
But at the same time, I think that they knew what they were doing was not appropriate. Whether they believed it to be illegal – and whether it in fact WAS illegal – are unsettled questions. But I don’t get the sense that these folks were convinced they were operating cleanly.
She’d be the lieutenant who gets shot, two days from retirement.
Seriously – she’d be the the lieutenant in charge of the officers on the street.
I’m not sure what we are arguing about here. The IG report states, and the head of the IRS admitted, targeting conservative and tea party organizations. The IRS has apologized for “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups. The IRS chief has admitted that they planted a question in a Q & A to expose the targeting. The question is not whether or not there was inappropriate targeting but, rather, who is responsible.
As for your question…I have no idea. My guess is that since the IRS admits to inappropriately targeting conservative groups, then there must be an appropriate way to select groups for scrutiny other than political leanings. Regardless, at this point trying to argue that that this was not inappropriate targeting seems meaningless.
I’m sure it does, since that “inappropriate” is the core of your argument, so hearing you say so is something unsurprising. Well, what would be “appropriate”? If you want to bust them for doing something inappropriate, shouldn’t you have some clear definition thereof?
By what stretch of the imagination is the Tea Party a “social welfare” group rather than a political entity? And if they claim special tax exemptions which are in place for social welfare groups but are not, how is any enforcement “inappropriate”? Certainly, exclusive enforcement for “one side” would be wrong, have you proven that such is the case?
And, by the way, does anyone have that list yet, the list of Tea Party groups crushed beneath the nail-studded Birkenstocks of the liberal establishment? Or is this whole scandal a matter of “woulda coulda”?
Actually, the question is the reason for the inappropriate targeting: was it for partisan purposes, or was it an ill-conceived shorthand?
Go back to my gold lame and purple paisley. If I target folks wearing these clothes because I think they commit more crime, I might be incompetent, but I’m not a bigot. If I target these folks because I think that’s what orthodox Jews wear and I hate orthodox Jews, then I’m a bigot breaking the law.
If orthodox Jews really wear these clothes, then in either case I’ve targeted them inappropriately. But it’s only in the latter case in which I’ve probably committed a crime in targeting them.
I’m just using the word the IRS chief used in his testimony. You can keep attempting to split hairs if you want but you are just arguing with the very organization that has admitted to doing the exact thing that you are trying to defend them from.
And if he’s wrong? Does his position confer some unarguable authority? You realize there is some considerable ambiguity about “appropriate” going on here, yes?
No, I don’t. Everyone on both sides in DC seem to agree that “inappropriate” is the correct word. Now they are trying to figure out who knew what and when.
First, the “targeting” was for additional information such that the IRS might better understand the application. It wasn’t a refusal or an interference. I’ve had to answer just such queries from IRS myself. They once “suggested” changes to a Bylaws that they believed would make the application more in line with the regulations. We “adopted” the changes and, in due time, IRS approved the application. Use of the word “targeting” though conveys a sense of some destructive or at least inhibitory action. I have not seen anything to indicate that such a characterization is accurate.
Secondly, I can see some light between “targeting conservative and tea party organizations” and “requesting additional documentation and/or information from applicants having names identical to well known political organizations in order to make an informed decision about that applicant’s compliance with the rules”. The former would certainly be a partisan effort. The later though has considerably more ambiguity.
Partisan ill will is not necessary to explain something that could easily have been a result of simple stupidity. The stupidity, and the inappropriateness, relate to how easily a ‘name recognition test’ could be viewed as a partisan machination. That doesn’t make it one, nor does it imply a trail up to the White House, but it clearly gives the screamers something to scream about.
Political cowardice is the one bi-partisan truth. Who wants to ride into battle to defend the IRS? It solid gold for Pubbies, and as a bonus, it offers an explanation for their tepid showing of late, its a conspiracy, its the liberal lying media and the IRS! Pubbie’d rather feel persecuted and conspired against than free money.
Right and or wrong doesn’t enter into it, they are scared of the TP. Its not surprising that they rushed to defend the TP, what’s surprising is that no one was trampled in the stampede!
As for Dems, again, who the fuck wants a reputation of defending the IRS? Taking the TP’s side is like preferring gonorrhea to smallpox, but such decisions are the craven life of a politician. The TP will never like them, but who needs to be hated by them. For the IRS?
Because you don’t seem to be able to cite it. Where is the requirement that donors be disclosed?