IRS Scandal explodes. "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."

[Jhhnn]

New Emails: Democratic Senator Pressured IRS To Target Groups

As the election got closer Levin's requests got more urgent and he made suggestions to the IRS deputy commissioner as to how they could get the job done.

So, the IRS investigation ramps up. We are discovering who the key players are. Our government, which decided the best course of action was to conceal information, not provide documents and tell various lies to cover their asses is being exposed by lawsuits for document releases under the FOIA.

And this is not the only investigation underway in which they have followed the same course of action. Benghazi is ongoing and the VA investigation is just starting.

This administration of incompetent malcontents, hell bent on fundamentally transforming the nation can barely tie their shoes. They have got the government tied up investigating the actions of the government.

What's the good in the middle of all this bad? The good is that we have a government that still will release documents when they are sued. For transparency to be in effect, a lawsuit must first be filed. Will there come a point when the lawsuits are ignored? Stay tuned. 981 days to go.

Spin it for the feebs! Even the linked article doesn't say what you claim it does, and I suspect that the emails in their entirety would reveal the depths of conspiracy theory leading to your conclusions.

 

[Bowfinger]

[ ... ]
Instead, why not use public funds to pay for campaigns, once the candidate reaches a certain level of legitimacy? We need to get money out of politics all together, not just make donations public IMO. ...

I'm with you 100% on that. Yes, it raises its own set of issues, but if we are to have a healthy democracy we must scrap our current system where our elected "representatives" are sold to the highest bidders.

We need one man, one vote ... not one dollar, one vote.

 

[werepossum]

I made no such comment, but I suppose when you cannot support your own argument you put on a brave face and start putting words in others mouths. Maybe you can get Werepossum to show you how to invent claims the Obama administration didn't make while you're at it.

And then you could "dispute" his claims using the exact same words. That's always a hoot.

Awww. Don't cry, sweetie. Try some Preparation H. That butt-hurt must be painful.

Could be worse. I've no idea how Obama stands having your entire head lodged up his rectum 24/7.

 

[Bowfinger]

And then you could "dispute" his claims using the exact same words. That's always a hoot. ...

/facepalm. Are you truly that dumb, or simply shamelessly dishonest? Never mind, it's a false dichotomy. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I used your own words because you were refuting yourself. Your claim, once again:

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."
​

Yet everything you said or cited refuted this. The same applies to the TIGTA report. You cited it, implying it supported your claim. I also cited it because it said the opposite of what you claimed. In short, your words and links were backwards from your claim quoted above.

In fairness, I do understand part of why your response was such a train wreck. You whined a couple of times about my comments making things "worse for the administration." This reveals your own motivation -- attacking the Obama administration -- and suggests you could not conceive of me not having a similar partisan motivation. But you're wrong. My motivation was simply trying to determine whether your claim was accurate, which is I why kept asking you to support it (in vain, as it turns out). So no, I wasn't trying to make things better for Obama. I was trying to get to the truth. You should try it.

 

[Jhhnn]

/facepalm. Are you truly that dumb, or simply shamelessly dishonest?

Obviously the latter. Given his persistence in pursuing lies, I strongly suspect he's a paid propagandist rather than somebody expressing their own viewpoint, not just here but in a variety of venues.

 

[werepossum]

/facepalm. Are you truly that dumb, or simply shamelessly dishonest? Never mind, it's a false dichotomy. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I used your own words because you were refuting yourself. Your claim, once again:

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."
​

Yet everything you said or cited refuted this. The same applies to the TIGTA report. You cited it, implying it supported your claim. I also cited it because it said the opposite of what you claimed. In short, your words and links were backwards from your claim quoted above.

In fairness, I do understand part of why your response was such a train wreck. You whined a couple of times about my comments making things "worse for the administration." This reveals your own motivation -- attacking the Obama administration -- and suggests you could not conceive of me not having a similar partisan motivation. But you're wrong. My motivation was simply trying to determine whether your claim was accurate, which is I why kept asking you to support it (in vain, as it turns out). So no, I wasn't trying to make things better for Obama. I was trying to get to the truth. You should try it.

Ahem. My post:

Yes, you quoted me verbatim. I wasn't dodging and weaving and waving my hands, your challenge made absolutely no sense because what I posted is the administration position - that only 32% of the challenged groups are conservative. You're demanding that I post "a credible source" - I quoted the fucking IRS report. Again, this is BEST CASE for the administration, which is why I made the point that although this is the claim, no backup has been provided to show that it is only 32%.

Are you honestly this stupid? Are you truly unable to read what you quote? This isn't semantics, nor is it an allegation. It's the official report, and again, this is the BEST CASE for the administration, showing that only a minority of groups targeted were conservative. The absolute minimum number is 32% due to the overall number and the groups already identified; you're challenging me on a number that could only get worse for the administration. If I was wrong, the malfeasance would be worse, not less, with MORE conservative groups out of the same overall number. Sheesh.

If there's someone here who is fluent in moron and can explain this to Bowfinger in a way he can understand, I'd be much obliged.

And your post:

Wow! I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are one profoundly confused person. It would probably help if you stopped listening to Fox and its ilk, and actually learned to read and think for yourself. This has been explained many times before here. I even addressed it directly in this thread, responding to you about your ridiculous claim:

"There is literally nothing in the IG report to support your claim that, 'The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted (of which we've seen three) were not conservative groups.' Not. One. Word. The Inspector General explicitly refused to make any characterization whatsoever of the political leanings of the other ~200 groups targeted. This fact has been documented here many, many times."

Can you comprehend those words? Perhaps you can find "someone fluent in moron" to explain it to you.

The TIGTA (IG) report does NOT state that there were 96 conservative groups at most. You have that 100% backwards. There were a minimum of 96 conservative groups in the set of applications pulled for additional scrutiny. Those 96 were picked because they had "Tea Party" in their names, or one of the other keywords on the single BOLO list the IG included in his investigation.

The other 201 groups were selected using other techniques. We don't know how they were selected because the IG report doesn't explain. The IG did state, however, that the majority of the groups warranted additional scrutiny due to potential political activity. In other words, the majority were political groups. We do not know the political mix of those groups because, as has been pointed out again and again and again, the IG stated that making such subjective assessments would compromise his role as an objective fact finder. He could identify the 96 because he used an objective criterion: did each group's name match a phrase on the "Tea Party" BOLO. That's it, black and white.

The other 201 groups are presumably some mix of conservative and liberal. Many wing-nut sources insist they were all, or at least almost all conservative groups (based on nothing but their emotional biases). To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the "Obama administration" -- including the IRS -- has offered any information about the political mix of those groups. Therefore, if you based this:

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted (of which we've seen three) were not conservative groups."

on that IG report, you are absolutely and unarguably wrong. You have been badly duped about what that report states.

I specifically said: "The absolute minimum number is 32% due to the overall number and the groups already identified". Note that this is the set of 96 conservative groups. Note that I said "minimum".

You then responded: "The TIGTA (IG) report does NOT state that there were 96 conservative groups at most. You have that 100% backwards. There were a minimum of 96 conservative groups in the set of applications pulled for additional scrutiny."

You are literally "correcting" me by using the exact same word I used. I've grown somewhat used to proggies insisting that words mean something radically different from their traditional meanings, but this is the first time I've seen one apparently arguing that the exact same word means the exact opposite when I type it.

At this point I have to give up; I have confused Elmer Fudd to the point that I'm feeling guilty about it. Please continue arguing that the abuse was worse that what has now been documented. Likely you are correct.

Do you honestly believe that since you're so much smarter than everyone else and you can't read, no one else can read either? Surely at some point even you will begin to wonder how you can be so much smarter than everyone else and yet you're the only one who has to wear a helmet when playing outside.
__________________
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know,
72 degrees at all times and -- whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the
tundra, and then just expect that every other country is going to say, okay, you know you
guys go ahead and keep on using 25% of the world's energy - Barack Hussein Obama

 

[PokerGuy]

PokerGuy can sit at his keyboard, go to a town hall meeting, stand on a street corner, etc., and exercise your free speech rights in anonymity all you want.

So if I use my money to print out flyers to hand out, does that count as "using money to corrupt government" you so frequently tout? What about if I pay for a megaphone to shout my message? In the modern age, a TV spot is the equivalent of a megaphone.

You seem to have this idea that spending money on political things is a bad or corrupting thing. Other organizations (like for example, the major news media) have tremendous impact on elections, with equal opportunity to corrupt. How do you account for that influence, or do you just ignore it because it isn't in the form of a monetary donation?

But if you want to use your money to influence campaigns, We, the People, should have the right to know who's buying.

No, the people have no right to know how anyone chooses to spend their money. That's their business, not yours.

I don't seem to remember Republicans taking that stance when Chinese interests reportedly contributed to the Obama campaign.

I think Fern already pointed this out to you, but you seem to miss the point: these non-profit organizations cannot contribute to a campaign. They can spend on issues and spread their own message, but they can't contribute to a campaign.

Anonymity, which must include the ability to use money to express your opinion, is critical to democracy. Trying to isolate money from speech is silly. Without money there is no vehicle to express your views, and thus no speech. Pretending influence created by using donated money is somehow evil while influence based on other factors (the media, churches, corporations etc) is a-ok is also silly. Influence is influence.

 

[Jhhnn]

So if I use my money to print out flyers to hand out, does that count as "using money to corrupt government" you so frequently tout? What about if I pay for a megaphone to shout my message? In the modern age, a TV spot is the equivalent of a megaphone.

You seem to have this idea that spending money on political things is a bad or corrupting thing. Other organizations (like for example, the major news media) have tremendous impact on elections, with equal opportunity to corrupt. How do you account for that influence, or do you just ignore it because it isn't in the form of a monetary donation?



No, the people have no right to know how anyone chooses to spend their money. That's their business, not yours.



I think Fern already pointed this out to you, but you seem to miss the point: these non-profit organizations cannot contribute to a campaign. They can spend on issues and spread their own message, but they can't contribute to a campaign.

Anonymity, which must include the ability to use money to express your opinion, is critical to democracy. Trying to isolate money from speech is silly. Without money there is no vehicle to express your views, and thus no speech. Pretending influence created by using donated money is somehow evil while influence based on other factors (the media, churches, corporations etc) is a-ok is also silly. Influence is influence.

Hogwash.

Anonymity is essential to voting, not to any other aspect of democracy.

So far as the Media is concerned,they are directly responsible for their content, whether that's Faux, CNN, or whomever. With highly political 501c4 groups, that's not true at all because they're just temporary conduits of convenience for astroturfed opinion- paid shills, camouflage. They pop up like stinkhorns every election & disappear just as quickly like 527's & the rest. They have no stake, nothing to lose, no reason to exist beyond that. They spend 51% of their money on overhead & salaries, all to the right people, of course, & 49% on propagandizing the feebs. Between elections, they might as well not exist.

The difference between contributing to a campaign & running your own campaign on behalf of a candidate is almost non-existent on the Right. When the ad says call Udall to tell him to vote for the XL pipeline, it's basically the same thing as saying vote for Gardner because he supports it. The actual distinction is trivial, other than in the well exploited election rules of today.

 

[Fern]

-snip-
They spend 51% of their money on overhead & salaries, all to the right people, of course, & 49% on propagandizing the feebs. Between elections, they might as well not exist.

With every post you make it more clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

What you describe above shouldn't pass muster as a 501(c)(4). Administration expenses do not figure in to program expenses. The org you describe is 100% political.

Fern

 

[Fern]

Conflating foreign contributions (Chinese) with anonymous contributions of US person is assinine.

Fern

 

[Bowfinger]

Do you honestly believe that since you're so much smarter than everyone else and you can't read, no one else can read either? Surely at some point even you will begin to wonder how you can be so much smarter than everyone else and yet you're the only one who has to wear a helmet when playing outside.

You are a sad little thing. Your insults get ever more childish, your compulsion to duhvert attention from your lies ever more desperate. All that huffing and puffing just to evade accountability for yet another tall tale. ("Secret" BLS changes, anyone?)

I acknowledged the 32% conservatives as a minimum clear back in post 196. You continue to flog this non-point only because it's the only card you have. I used it against you because you were refuting yourself. Your assertion, yet again:

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."
​

Yet everything you said or cited refuted this claim, including the TIGTA report. You cited it, insinuating it supported your claim. I cited it too because it said the opposite of what you claimed. In short, your words and links were backwards from your claim quoted above. Which is what I said.

So, the only question is, do you have the integrity, are you man enough, to either support your bogus claim or admit you made it up? Or, are you going to continue to be a weasel, trying to change the subject to anything and everything else? Anyone want to give odds?

 

[Bowfinger]

Conflating foreign contributions (Chinese) with anonymous contributions of US person is assinine.

Fern

And deliberating missing someone's point to attack them is dishonest. The point is that if money sources are anonymous, we cannot tell where they come from. Republicans recognized that issue when you thought Democrats were benefiting, but suddenly staunchly defend it now that dirty money is gushing into your coffers.

 

[Bowfinger]

So if I use my money to print out flyers to hand out, does that count as "using money to corrupt government" you so frequently tout? What about if I pay for a megaphone to shout my message? In the modern age, a TV spot is the equivalent of a megaphone.

You seem to have this idea that spending money on political things is a bad or corrupting thing. Other organizations (like for example, the major news media) have tremendous impact on elections, with equal opportunity to corrupt. How do you account for that influence, or do you just ignore it because it isn't in the form of a monetary donation?

You continue to try to shift the goal posts into a different argument. The issues are anonymity in general, and anonymity when contributing to IRS-approved "social welfare" organizations specifically. You are perfectly free to print flyers, buy megaphones, etc., for political purposes ... but not anonymously.

And for the record, I'm perfectly fine with handling this pragmatically. It seems reasonable to me to set a limit, e.g., $500 or $1000, before we start tracking contributions.

No, the people have no right to know how anyone chooses to spend their money. That's their business, not yours.

If they're buying guns or cars or porn or whatever, I agree. If they're buying political influence, We, the People absolutely have a right to know.

I think Fern already pointed this out to you, but you seem to miss the point: these non-profit organizations cannot contribute to a campaign. They can spend on issues and spread their own message, but they can't contribute to a campaign.

And as I already pointed out to Fern, that's not what I said. I said "influence political campaigns", not contribute to them. Those words were chosen for a reason.

Anonymity, which must include the ability to use money to express your opinion, is critical to democracy. Trying to isolate money from speech is silly. Without money there is no vehicle to express your views, and thus no speech. Pretending influence created by using donated money is somehow evil while influence based on other factors (the media, churches, corporations etc) is a-ok is also silly. Influence is influence.

There's a whole lot of straw and goal-post moving in there. And no, not all influence is created equal.

 

[Jhhnn]

With every post you make it more clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

What you describe above shouldn't pass muster as a 501(c)(4). Administration expenses do not figure in to program expenses. The org you describe is 100% political.

Fern

Heh. The example I used above is not considered political, but rather advocacy. If a 501c4 gathers signatures on a petition to support school prayer & members hand deliver it to their rep in Washington, that's advocacy, as are all their expenses. If they sponsor a seminar on political organizing, that's advocacy, so long as it's open not just to members of one party. The Tea Party has its own national organization separate from Repubs, so there you are.

Yeh, you're right, such an organization is 100% political & shouldn't be considered otherwise, but they are.

Perhaps you'd care to give examples of various 501c4 Tea group activities that are not political in some way or another & how they added up to more than 50% of their financial activity.

 

[werepossum]

You are a sad little thing. Your insults get ever more childish, your compulsion to duhvert attention from your lies ever more desperate. All that huffing and puffing just to evade accountability for yet another tall tale. ("Secret" BLS changes, anyone?)

I acknowledged the 32% conservatives as a minimum clear back in post 196. You continue to flog this non-point only because it's the only card you have. I used it against you because you were refuting yourself. Your assertion, yet again:

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."
​

Yet everything you said or cited refuted this claim, including the TIGTA report. You cited it, insinuating it supported your claim. I cited it too because it said the opposite of what you claimed. In short, your words and links were backwards from your claim quoted above. Which is what I said.

So, the only question is, do you have the integrity, are you man enough, to either support your bogus claim or admit you made it up? Or, are you going to continue to be a weasel, trying to change the subject to anything and everything else? Anyone want to give odds?

The official administration position is the TIGTA report that shows sixty-eight percent of the targeted groups were not conservative groups. My original point was that while this is the absolute best case for the administration, the IRS has released absolutely nothing to support this assertion. We know that seven progressive groups are supposedly in the delayed group; we do NOT know that all except seven were not conservative groups. You're hysterically demanding that I support the absolute best case for the administration even knowing that this is the official line.

Either you're just reflexively opposing everything I post in your defense of Obama, or you believe that it will come out that the actual percentage of conservative groups is much higher so you're attempting to do a pre-emptive strike so you can claim that the administration never claimed the TIGTA report.

Or - and I include this only for completeness - you're arguing that stating that 32% of targeted groups were conservative does not equate to stating or implying that only 32% of targeted groups were conservative. In that case, the TIGTA report would literally mean nothing more than "this is what you caught us doing" as we already knew that. Even so, the only way you could claim anything positive from that report is to assume that only 32% of targeted groups were conservative. Otherwise you're in the same boat as normal people, assuming that all the groups so targeted are conservative unless we see believable evidence to the contrary.

EDIT: I'll add one more point here. Many people are using 501(c)(3) BOLOs specifying "Progressive" to justify the 501(c)(4) BOLOs specifying conservative terms. 501(c)(3) covers charitable organizations which are allowed NO political activity whatsoever. 501(c)(4) covers social welfare organizations which are allowed up to 40% of their time and expenditures for political activity. 501(c)(3) donations are tax deductible. 501(c)(4) donations are not tax deductible. Huge difference.

 

[werepossum]

Acting IRS commissioner Steven T. Miller in a House : Only 70 of the 300 organizations were Tea Party organizations.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4451984/rep-peter-roskam-shuts

 

[Bowfinger]

The official administration position is the TIGTA report that shows sixty-eight percent of the targeted groups were not conservative groups. ...

No. It is not their position. It is not what the TIGTA report claims.

As I've pointed out to you again and again, the official administration position (i.e., the TIGTA report) offers not one fricking word about the ideology of the 68% of groups that did NOT have one of the Tea Party keywords in its name. You continue to dishonestly insinuate that "not known" means "not conservative". That is absolutely false.

In fact, the TIGTA report doesn't even state those 32% are conservative. That would require a subjective conclusion, something he explicitly declined to offer. Instead, he offered the objective information that those are the 32% of applications that matched the Tea Party BOLO. We all simply presume they are conservative due to their names. That's another fact I've explained to you several times, once again including way back in post #196.

If you spent less time huffing and puffing and more time learning you wouldn't keep repeating such asinine claims.

Or - and I include this only for completeness - you're arguing that stating that 32% of targeted groups were conservative does not equate to stating or implying that only 32% of targeted groups were conservative. In that case, the TIGTA report would literally mean nothing more than "this is what you caught us doing" as we already knew that. Even so, the only way you could claim anything positive from that report is to assume that only 32% of targeted groups were conservative. Otherwise you're in the same boat as normal people, assuming that all the groups so targeted are conservative unless we see believable evidence to the contrary.

And yet again, I don't give a rat's ass about spinning facts to make the administration look good. I'm sorry that "Just the facts, ma'am" is such an inconceivable concept for you. I think such blind partisanship is a waste of human intellect.

I've said many times I expect most of the groups selected were right-leaning, if only because there were reportedly far more righty applications than lefties. We still don't know for sure, however, because we don't know anything about the other ~200 groups, not even how they were picked. Most "normal people" assume they are a mix of right- and left-wing groups. It's the Fox faithful who assume they're all conservative.

No matter how much righties don't like it, there is nothing wrong with the IRS targeting political groups to assure compliance with restrictions on their activities. That is their job. The question that will determine whether this is actually a scandal is and has always been whether there was partisan intent when targeting political groups. No partisan intent, no scandal. Poor judgment? Yes. Scandal? No.

But that remains to be seen. I'm confident the FBI investigation will make that determination honestly, unlike Issa and his ilk, and unlike all the Obama haters who so desperately need to make it scandal.

 

[Bowfinger]

Acting IRS commissioner Steven T. Miller in a House : Only 70 of the 300 organizations were Tea Party organizations.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4451984/rep-peter-roskam-shuts

So what? Is Rove's American Crossroads a conservative organization? Of course, yet it would not have been counted as one of the Tea Party organizations because it doesn't have "Tea Party" in its name. It could be part of the 300, but not one of the 70. This is not rocket science.

 

[werepossum]

So what? Is Rove's American Crossroads a conservative organization? Of course, yet it would not have been counted as one of the Tea Party organizations because it doesn't have "Tea Party" in its name. It could be part of the 300, but not one of the 70. This is not rocket science.

That was my original point. Miller is specifically denying partisanship in selecting groups to stop processing by arguing that only 70 of 300 groups targeted were Tea Party groups, yet the IRS has stonewalled telling us anything about the other organizations. Again, this is the absolute best case for the administration and you admit it's almost certainly not true.

As far as Holder's "investigation", that's already in the bag. Obama pre-election: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/obama-looks-to-do-damage-control-on-irs-benghazi-doj-seizures/

To catch you up on the last 24 hours in politics: President Barack Obama canned the man at the helm of the Internal Revenue Service, released 100 pages of emails between intelligence analysts and State Department officials following the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and asked a Senate Democrat to reintroduce a bill to help reporters protect the identity of their sources.

In other words: a whole lotta damage control.

“Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a four-minute statement from the East Room of the White House. He was referring to the swelling scandal at the IRS, which put extra layers of scrutiny on conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status.

“I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the IRS’ conduct.

“The facts will take us wherever they take us,” Holder said. “This will not be about parties. This will not be about ideological persuasions. Anyone who has broken the law will be held accountable.”

Obama after the election: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...-Corruption-In-IRS-Targeting-of-Conservatives

Barack Obama told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" involved in the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups.

Obama's bold statement stands in contrast to established facts. Even the left-leaning journalism group ProPublica has admitted that the IRS office that harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave ProPublica nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt statuses were pending. Moreover, ProPublica noted that the documents it received were "not supposed to be made public" but that "no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica."

Still, Obama chalked up the IRS scandal to mere mistakes.

"There were some bone-headed decisions," said Obama.

The president then blamed O'Reilly and Fox News for the IRS scandal.

"These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them," said Obama.

Pretending that you are not an ultra-partisan and are simply waiting for the results of the FBI investigation is too big a lie to even be amusing, much as the concept that there even IS an FBI investigation. Holder isn't even pretending to carry out an investigation.

 

[werepossum]

ProPublica's article: http://www.propublica.org/article/i...ed-tea-party-also-disclosed-confidential-docs

The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.

The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica.

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

On Friday, Lois Lerner, the head of the division on tax-exempt organizations, apologized to Tea Party and other conservative groups because the IRS’ Cincinnati office had unfairly targeted them. Tea Party groups had complained in early 2012 that they were being sent overly intrusive questionnaires in response to their applications.

That scrutiny appears to have gone beyond Tea Party groups to applicants saying they wanted to educate the public to “make America a better place to live” or that criticized how the country was being run, according to a draft audit cited by many outlets. The full audit, by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, will reportedly be released this week. (ProPublica was not contacted by the inspector general’s office.) (UPDATE May 14: The audit has been released.)

Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how dozens of social-welfare nonprofits had misled the IRS about their political activity on their applications and tax returns. Social-welfare nonprofits are allowed to spend money to influence elections, as long as their primary purpose is improving social welfare. Unlike super PACs and regular political action committees, they do not have to identify their donors.
SNIP

Seems pretty clear that the IRS and proggie groups were working in concert to shut down conservative groups ahead of the election. Before the election, all Democrats were officially horrified; after the election, that's just good government.

Note specifically that one of those applications was Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, which as Bowfinger so helpfully pointed out could not have been picked up in the oh-so-innocent Tea Party BOLO. In fact, one is hard pressed to understand how ANY BOLO could pick up a group with such a name. If on the other hand the IRS was targeting all conservative groups' applications, then anything associated with Karl Rove is a natural choice.
http://www.propublica.org/article/what-karl-roves-dark-money-nonprofit-told-the-irs

 

[werepossum]

Hmm, seems 76% of Americans (including 63% of Democrats) wanted a special prosecutor for the IRS scandal, compared to 17% who did not. Shockingly, a year later we do not have a special prosecutor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-30/special-irs-prosecutor-favored-as-obama-support-drops.html

And while it's true that the woman named to investigate claims that the IRS targeted President Obama's and the Democrat National Committee's political enemies is herself a big contributor to, well, President Obama and the Democrat National Committee, that's only because all the other prosecutors are busy going through the illegally obtained phone records of, um, President Obama's and the Democrat National Committee's political enemies.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ter...lict-interest-investigating-irs-targeting-tea

On January 8, 2014, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, sent a letter to Holder stating their belief that the FBI’s lack of cooperation with the committee up to that point “may rise to the level of criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation.”

The letter also stated that Barbara Bosserman, a DOJ lawyer assigned to investigate the IRS case, was a contributor to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama’s campaigns.

“In light of indications that the Bureau was not taking the investigation seriously, we have written to FBI Director James Comey on September 6, 2013, seeking information about the status of this matter,” Issa and Jordan told Holder. “The FBI has failed to provide the requested information, and after Department officials apparently interfered, the Bureau rescinded an offer to meet with Mr. Jordan to discuss the investigation. As we pointed out in our most recent letter to Director Comey on December 2, 2013, the FBI’s blatant lack of cooperation with the committee may rise to the level of criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation.”

Yup, nothing to see here but good government.

 

[Jhhnn]

Seems pretty clear that the IRS and proggie groups were working in concert to shut down conservative groups ahead of the election. Before the election, all Democrats were officially horrified; after the election, that's just good government.

Bullshit. It seems pretty clear that somebody at the IRS mistakenly released info about pending apps as if they'd been approved.

 

[Jhhnn]

And while it's true that the woman named to investigate claims that the IRS targeted President Obama's and the Democrat National Committee's political enemies is herself a big contributor to, well, President Obama and the Democrat National Committee, that's only because all the other prosecutors are busy going through the illegally obtained phone records of, um, President Obama's and the Democrat National Committee's political enemies.

Desperate slander. Your quote mentions illegally obtained phone records not at all.

 

[Zorkorist]

Even the discussion, of IRS abuses, should be investigated. Impeach Obama, for shits and grins.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Desperate slander. Your quote mentions illegally obtained phone records not at all.

There's nobody desperate here, Jhnnn.

You are as fucked as we are, the entire way down.

-John