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

[Fanatical Meat]

It implies nothing regarding his involvement. His team appear to have done something in what they thought were his best interests. Whether or not he directed them to do it or not does not change the fact that he owns this as it was done under his watch and by part of his administration.

Would you say "Obama's Military tracked & killed Bin Laden"?

 

[xBiffx]

Would you say "Obama's Military tracked & killed Bin Laden"?

No, because the military isn't part of the executive branch, i.e. the administration.

Edit: The military is actually part of the executive branch via the Depart of Defense.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Excellent gymnastics!

 

[xBiffx]

Excellent gymnastics!

Stating facts is now gymnastics. Gotcha.

In that case excellent job of being deliberately obtuse.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Thanks
See what I did there? I posted something that implied that you were involved with.

 

[nickqt]

Or duped. Congrats hack!

You guys continue to be duped over and over and over again!

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/307813-irs-ig-says-audit-limited-to-tea-party-groups

Fucking morons!

Sounds about right.

It's the same as Issa (DumpsterFire - CA) releasing partial transcripts of testimony about Benghazi™ that with context meant nothing. Or Issa releasing classified information because he's an idiot.

But hey, look.

You know there's a huge scandal here with the IRS, because the House Republicans haven't found any smoking guns over the PAST THREE YEARS.

 

[ivwshane]

No, because the military isn't part of the executive branch, i.e. the administration.

Oh really? What branch is the military apart of? The judicial? Legislative?


Can I get a picture of you? I want a picture of what stupid looks like and all I've seen so far have been abstract representations of it but you, you've created the perfect picture of stupid!

 

[Bowfinger]

No. Specific key words were used as part of the filtering/screening process that obviously resulted in disparate impact on conservative groups. The fact that some other groups were also scrutinized does not change the fact that conservative groups were inappropriately targeted. Again, there is no disputing that fact. The only valid discussions center around intent, who knew, why it was done and so forth.

FWIW, I agree with this. Conservative groups were targeted inappropriately, most notably by using partisan terms like "Tea Party" to identify applications to pull for additional investigation. The IRS claims this was not due to partisan intent, but rather due to employees' ill-considered shortcut for quickly sifting through piles of applications. Some people believe the IRS explanation, some do not.

Note that the keyword targeting only accounted for about one-third of the applications pulled for more scrutiny. The other two-thirds were selected for other reasons. Also note that the TIGTA investigation found that the great majority of applications pulled did show signs of inappropriate political activity. In other words, the shortcut was effective. Nonetheless, using such partisan criteria was inappropriate, period. The IRS conceded this and apologized.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Oh really? What branch is the military apart of? The judicial? Legislative?


Can I get a picture of you? I want a picture of what stupid looks like and all I've seen so far have been abstract representations of it but you, you've created the perfect picture of stupid!

Its the 4th branch dummy (sarcasm)

 

[Bowfinger]

More like 15 to 1.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallp...0/report-irs-scrutiny-worse-for-conservatives

Sorry, that chart is lying. Werepossum insists that no conservative groups were approved, and he's never wrong about anything.

/s

That's good information, but note that it's not the whole story. There are only 111 groups listed, while TIGTA reviewed 297. The list above apparently only covers applications targeted due to keywords in the groups' names. The ideology of the remaining 186 groups is not shown.

In other words, we don't know the total ratio of conservative to liberal groups pulled. TIGTA declined to classify the non-keyword groups. I'm not aware of anyone else who's reviewed the whole list, probably because I don't believe the whole list has ever been released. The only definitive word seems to be the IRS received significantly more conservative political applications than liberal political applications. I've also read the ratio was about two to one, but I don't remember where, and I won't claim it's accurate. It may just be someone's off-the-cuff guesstimate.

 

[ivwshane]

Sorry, that chart is lying. Werepossum insists that no conservative groups were approved, and he's never wrong about anything.

/s

That's good information, but note that it's not the whole story. There are only 111 groups listed, while TIGTA reviewed 297. The list above apparently only covers applications targeted due to keywords in the groups' names. The ideology of the remaining 186 groups is not shown.

In other words, we don't know the total ratio of conservative to liberal groups pulled. TIGTA declined to classify the non-keyword groups. I'm not aware of anyone else who's reviewed the whole list, probably because I don't believe the whole list has ever been released. The only definitive word seems to be the IRS received significantly more conservative political applications than liberal political applications. I've also read the ratio was about two to one, but I don't remember where, and I won't claim it's accurate. It may just be someone's off-the-cuff guesstimate.

The link I posted earlier had documents released from a foia request that purported to have a more complete list but I couldn't read it to see if that was true. The link is at the bottom of the article.

 

[Bowfinger]

That chart pretty much says it all. Anyone who doesn't look at that information and see the obvious inappropriate targeting and abuse of certain groups is simply delusional and/or stupid.

See my note to Doc Savage Fan. That chart is only a subset of all the targeted applications. Also bear in mind that chart was produced by House Republicans, so there's maybe a teeny, tiny chance of a bit of partisan spin. (At least it wasn't Issa's committee, or the chart would show millions of conservative groups were all sent a zillion questions, with -1000% of them approved.)

 

[Bowfinger]

The link I posted earlier had documents released from a foia request that purported to have a more complete list but I couldn't read it to see if that was true. The link is at the bottom of the article.

Thanks. I'll take a look.

 

[werepossum]

Sorry, that chart is lying. Werepossum insists that no conservative groups were approved, and he's never wrong about anything.

/s

That's good information, but note that it's not the whole story. There are only 111 groups listed, while TIGTA reviewed 297. The list above apparently only covers applications targeted due to keywords in the groups' names. The ideology of the remaining 186 groups is not shown.

In other words, we don't know the total ratio of conservative to liberal groups pulled. TIGTA declined to classify the non-keyword groups. I'm not aware of anyone else who's reviewed the whole list, probably because I don't believe the whole list has ever been released. The only definitive word seems to be the IRS received significantly more conservative political applications than liberal political applications. I've also read the ratio was about two to one, but I don't remember where, and I won't claim it's accurate. It may just be someone's off-the-cuff guesstimate.

Nope, I'll cheerfully admit I was wrong - as I always do if shown that I am wrong.

 

[shira]

Or duped. Congrats hack!

You guys continue to be duped over and over and over again!

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/307813-irs-ig-says-audit-limited-to-tea-party-groups

Fucking morons!

The Treasury inspector general (IG) whose report helped drive the IRS targeting controversy says it limited its examination to conservative groups because of a request from House Republicans.

A spokesman for Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, said they were asked by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) “to narrowly focus on Tea Party organizations.”

The inspector general’s audit found that groups seeking tax-exempt status with “Tea Party” and “patriots” in their name did receive extra attention from the IRS, with some facing years of delay and inappropriate questions from the agency.

But top congressional Democrats have wielded new information from the IRS this week that liberal groups were also flagged for extra attention on the sorts of “be on the lookout” lists (BOLOs) that also tripped up conservative groups.

The spokesman for the Treasury inspector general noted their audit acknowledged there were other watch lists. But the spokesman added: "We did not review the use, disposition, purpose or content of the other BOLOs. That was outside the scope of our audit.”

Oh, the irony: Republicans weren't interested in an overall, balanced audit of IRS practices, because that wouldn't have been aligned with the Republican agenda of claiming that only right-wing groups were targeted. So Republicans told the inspector general to target ONLY IRS behavior toward right-wing groups. What a surprise; the results of that targeted audit showed targeting of right-wing groups. And the righties on ATPN just eat up the results of that "targeted" audit. Tools.

 

[nickqt]

Oh, the irony: Republicans weren't interested in an overall, balanced audit of IRS practices, because that wouldn't have been aligned with the Republican agenda of claiming that only right-wing groups were targeted. So Republicans told the inspector general to target ONLY IRS behavior toward right-wing groups. What a surprise; the results of that targeted audit showed targeting of right-wing groups. And the righties on ATPN just eat up the results of that "targeted" audit. Tools.

It's a page from the Issa book on releasing limited pieces of information instead of all of it, because context doesn't get the right people enraged as much.

 

[umbrella39]

Its' fun to watch the resident faithful try to rinse, wash, and repeat lies and think that anyone outside their bubble buys their blatant and obvious disingenuity. Zzzzzz.

 

[ivwshane]

Its' fun to watch the resident faithful try to rinse, wash, and repeat lies and think that anyone outside their bubble buys their blatant and obvious disingenuity. Zzzzzz.

You'll notice that the troll who resurrected this thread did the typical post and run. As soon as his bubble began to be penetrated by facts he ran away.

 

[werepossum]

Oh, the irony: Republicans weren't interested in an overall, balanced audit of IRS practices, because that wouldn't have been aligned with the Republican agenda of claiming that only right-wing groups were targeted. So Republicans told the inspector general to target ONLY IRS behavior toward right-wing groups. What a surprise; the results of that targeted audit showed targeting of right-wing groups. And the righties on ATPN just eat up the results of that "targeted" audit. Tools.

Funny how that happens. It's like when someone is robbed and then insanely insists that the police investigate their robbery rather than all the houses in town.

 

[soundforbjt]

Funny how that happens. It's like when someone is robbed and then insanely insists that the police investigate their robbery rather than all the houses in town.

More like 5 houses on each side of the street gets robbed and the block captain demands the police only investigates the robberies on his side of the street.

 

[werepossum]

More like 5 houses on each side of the street gets robbed and the block captain demands the police only investigates the robberies on his side of the street.

Funny how if that's the case only Republican donors' confidential info was given to the media, eh? I'd say it's closer to one house robbed and the family of the guy caught with the stolen property is screaming about all the other houses that were robbed, only we don't know it because the guy who was robbed is only concerned about his own house.

 

[PokerGuy]

That's good information, but note that it's not the whole story. There are only 111 groups listed, while TIGTA reviewed 297. The list above apparently only covers applications targeted due to keywords in the groups' names. The ideology of the remaining 186 groups is not shown.

Even including only that particular subset of applications, the chart is very revealing. Lets assume the "mistake" of using certain key words was an innocent one, a shortcut to help weed out political groups pretending to be social welfare groups. Even if that's the case, the chart shows that even among the groups selected for additional scrutiny, the conservative groups were subjected to significantly worse treatment, three times as many questions (often absurd and abusive ones as the evidence has shown), longer delays etc.

So even if we accept the notion that the disparate scrutiny was simply due to inappropriate key words used as part of a regular screening process, it's very clear that whoever was applying that 'additional scrutiny' didn't do so in a neutral way.

No matter how this gets spun, one can not reasonably get away from the fact that conservative groups were abused by this process. The real questions are who knew, how much did they know, and at what level were these activities known? IMO anyone who was aware of this activity or participated in it should be fired immediately.

 

[PokerGuy]

You know there's a huge scandal here with the IRS, because the House Republicans haven't found any smoking guns over the PAST THREE YEARS.

Actually, it is a huge scandal, and yes, there are plenty of "smoking guns". The IRS admitted that what happened was inappropriate. It's just that a lot of idiots don't think it's a big deal when a government agency such as the IRS abuses people with political ideology that differs from their own.

 

[xBiffx]

Its the 4th branch dummy (sarcasm)

Since when is the military the department of defense? Does that mean that every school in the country is the department of education or every hospital the department of health and human services and therefore they are part of the administration?

Edit: Whatever, they report to the executive at some point I guess (through a cabinet position). But then again, they also report to Congress as well.

 

[Jhhnn]

Funny how if that's the case only Republican donors' confidential info was given to the media, eh? I'd say it's closer to one house robbed and the family of the guy caught with the stolen property is screaming about all the other houses that were robbed, only we don't know it because the guy who was robbed is only concerned about his own house.

Shameful. Much earlier in this thread, it was established that only the timing of the information release was improper. It was released prior to approval & would have been released anyway upon approval.

You already knew that, but please, hack away.