Lois Lerner pleads the 5th on the IRS scandal, this thing is just getting stickier. Hopefully some of the higher ups get jailed.

She didn't plead executive privelige, the fifth is self incrimination.

Which makes some Republicans screaming White House cover-up on this one hilarious.

Ah yes, the standard will playbook: when there's a scandal and you can't defend it, just try to find an overzealous Republican so you can make fun of their overreach. Nevermind the actual wrongdoing.

But yeah, "hilarious" is the word. Like how the report was delayed several times. Until after the election.

Hilarious.

The fifth is self incrimination? You may want to read that again...pretty sure it protects against self incrimination...The fifth amendment recognizes a right to AVOID self-incrimination.

No wonder you hate the constitution; it's just a made up document in your head full of things you THINK it means.

More hilarity: the IRS commissioner overseeing all this targeting visited the White House 118 times, but won't say who he met with. When asked what kinds of reasons he had for going there, he said "Um, the Easter Egg Roll with my kids." Yes, that's the excuse he gave.

More hilarious still: the IRS employee union gave 23 times as many political donations to the Democrats as they did the GOP.

Uber-hilarious: the head of the union? She met with the President the day before targeting started.

LOL. :indifferent:

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

It is pretty hilarious because what you are hoping for and it isn't going to happen is Obama is implicated.

But go ahead and hope.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Yup, the Shulman case is pretty funny I think, but it also shows the lack of seriousness that's going into this, on the part of the IRS. 9/10 of the members that spoke had something wise to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxQS280RgEA

Hey, I don't hate the constitution.

I support the Miranda decison unlike many Republicans.

Your distinction is semantics and I have no problem with anyone taking the fifth, but when they do it looks like they are guilty of something to the layman.

The original statements made was this was just a small mess up going on in Cinncinati. Now it's built up from there. I'm not sure if Obama was involved or not, but if he wasn't it shows how little authority and knowledge he has of what's going on around him. Either way it doesn't look good. But somehow despite this and Benghazi Obamas approval ratings stayed at 53%.

Yeah, I love the "It's not a scandal, the President is just wildly incompetent" argument. He saw it all on CNN, just like us! The President.

News flash: when you argue to increase the size and scope of government, you can't use "nobody can be expected to control a government this size" as a defense.

I didn't say it wasn't a scandal. It is absurd to say it means the President is wildly incompetent because suboordinates did something wrong. Is this the criteria you would have applied to Ronald Reagan who wasn't aware what Ollie North was doing?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I know it's the criteria lots of others applied to him. Though there's a pretty massive difference to something that can be carried out by one or two people and something that was systematic, deliberate, and was hidden for an entire year and only released after the election.

If you want government to be bigger, then you have to bear some consequences for the downsides of that. One of which is that it gets harder to oversee properly.

Here you go again with your distinctions. It was widepread in the IRS, which is not an agency the President is directly overseeing. Here you go again making assumptions and setting up standards you don't make for Republican administrations. This is pretty deplorable and typical of you. Why don't you just wait to see where this goes before making these charges?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

You're the one assuming things: for one, you seem to be assuming that I think the President had full knowledge of this. I don't, as it so happens, but neither does that absolve him of blame on a couple of different fronts. And it definitely doesn't absolve the White House of blame for the absolutely absurd dissembling they've done since.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

You accused him of massive incompetence based on...what?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Allegedly having no idea what the IRS was doing despite the Commissioner being at the White House constantly. Allegedly having no idea what they were doing despite meeting with the head of their union the literal day before the targeting started. And the confused, tortured, painful-to-even-watch press briefings the White House has held to try to explain things. Seriously, they need to be seen to be believed.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

All that said, I think it's pretty easy for people in the White House to nudge the IRS towards this stuff without ever technically doing anything illegal, or technically involving themselves. Super PACs aren't allowed to coordinate with campaigns, either, but it's also no secret how they can best do what they want. The IRS is overwhelming Democratic and its high ranking officials spent a lot of time around the White House. Do you think they were targeting conservative groups like this when the other party held the White House? I sure as hell don't.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Lerner gets paid leave (:rolleyes:) I think we should remember this is tax paying money giving these people their paycheck. It appears that no one is involved based on congress statements, of course.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Yeah whatever donnie it isn't Watergate so who cares? Hilarious.

Did the Commissioner know? Did the decislon start with him?

The head of the Union? What does he have to do with it? Is he involved?

He says no, but then, that's what people usually say in that sort of position.

She. And we don't know. We know that their union members give overwhelmingly to Democrats, and that the head of the Union met with the President the day before the targeting started. And we actually have a long record of the Obama campaign and administration calling for investigations into numerous conservative groups before this came to light, when they didn't like what they were doing.

I can see what's already happening here, though. You're just going to blithely dismiss all shady circumstantial evidence. It's the same Smoking-Gun-Or-Nothing, Watergate-Or-Bust mentality that you use to dismiss every scandal that besets this administration.

Strike a big blow against the "it was just a couple of rogue underlings" excuse:

The head of the IRS visited the White House more often than the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Direct of the CIA.

Combined.

http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...n-visitors.jpg

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I just saw this thread. I have to say that this situation really is outrageous. I am all for President Obama and support many of his policies, but the idea that the IRS is targeting people for being conservative and seeking to intimidate them using our tax agencies is frightening and a flagrant abuse of power. Like many here, I don't think President Obama was involved with this, and without evidence to the contrary, it's pretty irresponsible to accuse him of a Watergate-style conspiracy effort as some on the right are doing, but that doesn't absolve President Obama and his administration from engaging in a full and open, transparent process, and it doesn't excuse them from their responsibility to fully explain the errors that were made by the administration. Yoda is right that when you believe in a larger, more centralized federal government that should have a greater role in helping to deliver services to our society, when that government apparatus you are pushing to expand breaks down you have a greater responsibility to explain what happened and to punish those responsible. None of these things have as yet been done. The Obama administration needs to immediately act to ensure that the administration they claimed would be the most transparent in history resolves these problems and institutes safeguards so this does not happen again.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Well said. People being able to have confidence that the law is being enforced equitably is one of government's most sacred obligations. That makes this way more sensitive than even much more seemingly salacious scandals.

The transparency thing is one of the few things that genuinely surprised me. Obviously, I didn't vote for the President, but I still genuinely thought he'd at least enact some moderate transparency reforms. I definitely thought he'd follow through on the Obamacare negotiations being on C-SPAN, given that he mentioned it something like two dozen times on the campaign trail. I definitely didn't expect him to go backwards on the issue.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I do think that this whole controversy over politically motivated targeting by the IRS has obscured the central problem though, and it is this: None of these organizations, be it Crossroads GPS, Organizing for America, or the Tea Party Patriots, should be receiving tax exempt status. This idea that overtly political organizations like these that spend millions of dollars on political activities should be receiving tax exempt status under the guise of posing as non-political organizations is pretty ludicrous. In an age where our government is battling an economic crisis and our deficit continues to climb, there needs to be much stricter oversight of all of these groups, on both sides of the aisle. Only true social welfare organizations should be granted this status.

Well, "non-political" in this case means focused on specific issues, and not specific candidates or parties. And the problem with making any further distinction than that is that it entails government declaring what issues are "public good" issues and which ones aren't. Nearly all political activism is done for what its proponents feel is the public good, and it's a bit dangerous to be picking and choosing which issues qualify.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I respect your point of view on this, but I don't think these distinctions are as difficult to draw as you are making it seem. If you are running a soup kitchen or a church or a hospital which gives care to the uninsured, you are a social welfare organization. If you spend millions of dollars working to elect Republicans, or defeat Obamacare, as Crossroads GPS did, or spend millions of dollars promoting President Obama's agenda, which was what Organizing for Action did, you are not a "social welfare organization." You are a political organization, and should be classified as such. Political organizations also believe that the candidates that they run are in service of the public good, but they don't get tax exempt status. Perhaps the whole category of a 501c4 "social welfare" organization should be abolished entirely, as all the organizations that I hear that are granted this status are not non-partisan issue-oriented advocacy outfits. I think drawing that distinction is not dangerous at all. It's common sense to me.

Those distinctions aren't too difficult to draw, because nobody's against soup kitchens. But what about increased funding for schools? Public good, or politics? What about wanting more public money for solar power? What about advocating for more/less regulation, or more/less funding for any public works project? What about social issues that are considered highly political today, but might not be later?

Perhaps, as you suggest, the entire designation should be abolished. I nearly mentioned this in my last reply. I don't know if I like the idea or not, but I like it a lot more than making value judgments about the social benefits of individual organizations.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

To me, these distinctions are not difficult to draw either. If you are for improving schools, or promoting clean energy, etc. that is issue-oriented and broadly applicable. If as an organization you move beyond advocating generally for certain principles, and instead move into campaigning for or against specific candidates or pieces of legislation, than in my opinion you move into the political sphere. To me, you can be a Democrat or a Republican and be supportive of clean energy or more funding for schools. It's when the advocacy organization becomes tied to candidates or parties that it begins to get political.

So saying you're for funding clean energy is fine, but saying you're for a bill that funds clean energy isn't? And by that same principle, it'd be okay to say you're against something just like Obamacare provided you don't mention it by name?

This is even less tenable, I think, because now you're tying it to the ideological scope of each party, which is constantly changing and would be impossible to quantify empirically even if it were static. If the party suddenly rejects something, can an organization suddenly lose its status? How do you measure that? And doesn't tying it to the ideological scope of the party give that party an incentive to undermine its more moderate elements, since the more they have, the more their opposition is funded?

And while we're at it, why just those two? Socialists and libertarians don't get the same tax benefits unless they supplant one of the two parties?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think that you raise some worthy points, so I hope you'll allow me to clarify my position. I don't fundamentally have a problem with organizations supporting bills that advocate for the interests of their organization as long as they do so in a way that focuses on the issue and not on the candidates themselves. By political parties, I didn't intend for Republican and Democrat to be an exhaustive list. I merely cited them because they are the most common parties and they were the parties that these organizations which I referenced were promoting. It's one thing to support broad principles and say, our advocacy organization supports a free market approach to health care and health savings accounts, and another thing entirely to use your organization to defeat President Obama and run negative ads because you don't like Obamacare, while at the same time funneling tens of millions of dollars to Governor Romney's campaign. It's one thing to say generally, we don't support the principles of the Affordable Care Act and another thing to run ads that are dedicated almost exclusively to tearing down its architect and misleading the American people about what Obamacare does and does not do. I think one is okay, the other, in my opinion, is not, because it is not consistent with being a social welfare organization. It's consistent with being a political organization, and political organizations shouldn't be entitled to game the system by masquerading as social welfare organizations when it suits them and morph into political appendages of campaigns when it does not.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Thanks for clarifying. :) I guess my question then is: where do you propose we draw the line? And wherever you propose we draw it, won't that just make the exact same organizations reword a few things and achieve roughly the same result?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Don't tax exempt any of them.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think the line can be drawn fairly. Since I am not an expert on tax law, I will have to leave it to others who have more experience to draw these lines, but I do think that distinctions ca be made. If it is determined that this is too unwieldy, as I stated before, I would also be totally fine with eliminating this classification altogether and leaving tax exempt status to organizations that don't engage in political activity at all.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Why should any of them get tax exemption?

Except for charities and churches tax them ALL.

Well, if you won't draw such a line I guess we'll just have to disagree about how plausible it would be. But abolishing the designation would definitely be preferable to picking and choosing.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Anyway, that's beside the thread topic. This story just gets worse and worse. Obviously we get the kneejerk defenses from everyone about how it was just some rogue agents, but we've already found out that it can't be dismissed so glibly. And the number of trips the Commissioner made to the White House is pretty incredible.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

what irritates me the most currently is how people like Maddow and a lot of the liberal press, keep bringing up that this is just a GOP running point for 2016. Like, really? It wasn't the Republican or Tea Party groups who were choosing to be targeted. This wasn't a plot to get votes 5 years later. I think it's shameful on how many are shrugging this whole thing off. Could you imagine if instead of targeting by political ideologies the IRS targeted by religion? If someone tried to say, oh this is just another way for evangelicals to get more followers.

Lets just call it profiling. And last I checked, profiling was wrong.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

The only thing I've seen on the other side that actually made laugh is this:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...25167144_n.jpg
But once again it shows how much of a shrug off people have been making this.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think the line could be drawn, as I said before. For instance, you could have a blanket policy that these organizations could not get involved in political campaigns at all. For example, 501c3 organizations are not allowed to get involved in campaigns, even if those campaigns are issue oriented. When I worked for the Lung Association as a volunteer helping to pass a ballot initiative to increase funds for cancer research and smoking cessation programs, employees were not allowed to lobby on behalf of that initiative. In order to do so, they had to conduct their lobbying efforts before or after work or on the weekend. They could not do so during normal working hours because they were a 501c3 organization.

As for the IRS targeting of conservative groups, I've already condemned that. I think that there needs to be a full investigation, but I am hesitant to throw my full support behind a Congressional investigation because I am wary that it will become a circus and that those running it will turn it into a witch hunt against President Obama. I don't want an investigation to do anything other than find out the truth and hold those accountable responsible.

Hey, more bad news: not only did conservative groups get more scrutiny, but their donors were targeted, too:

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

If this is true, than it seems to provide evidence that this targeting started before the Obama administration, which would suggest that it likely wasn't his administration that originated these policies. Of course, it's premature to read too much into this without knowing more, but if that is true, that's pretty huge, and a fairly big blow to the goal of some conservatives to use this issue to damage his administration.

The group was formed in 2007; that's not when it was targeted. The donor targeting took place at the same time as the conservative group targeting.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

The whole sorted mess is probably just the tip of a mostly submerged berg.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Ah, okay! That is disappointing then! Unfortunately all I could read was the blurb that you posted, which didn't specify when the targeting started, since I'm not a subscriber of the Wall Street Journal.

Think it can't get worse? Somehow, it does: the wife of the IRS Commissioner, on Twitter:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLzbPLACYAI7836.jpg:large

She also visited the White House fifteen times, and visited President Obama twice. She also worked for his campaign's GOTV effort.

She stopped tweeting on May 9th. The IRS apology was May 10th.

More: it appears the IRS leaked tax documents from a conservative advocacy group...directly to an opposition liberal group. During the campaign.

This is really getting messed up.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think we've established that this is a legitimate story that deserves to be investigated. We already know that the IRS targeted conservative groups. The White House could be involved with this, but I doubt that they are because the IRS Commissioner was a Bush appointee. If Obama intended to target conservative groups unfairly, qit makes little to no sense to retain Bush's guy to run the IRS. It is entirely consistent with the facts that some low level official or officials in the Cincinnati office decided to target conservative groups. I'm not sure what is to really be gained by posting multiple stories about this that don't really add much to what we already know. I really think that conservatives are making a huge mistake by blowing this out of proportion. What was done was bad. It doesn't need to be exaggerated for political purposes. The type of overreach that is going on, which is being driven by Republican officials and their interest groups, is counterproductive to finding out the truth and holding those accountable responsible because conservatives run the risk of being seen as motivated by politics and not a sincere desire to find out what happened. If they are seen by large swaths of the American people as being motivated by politics, then they will lose a lot of credibility if they ever do seek to bring evidence to light that this was a concerted effort on the part of the White House.

I also think it's worth pointing out that although what was done was inappropriate, the amount of harm done appears to be pretty small. There is as of now no credible evidence that conservative groups were denied 501c4 status on a political basis. The only evidence that has been presented is that they were asked more intrusive questions to justify receiving that status. I think a pretty good case can be made that all organizations seeking this status should have been receiving this type of scrutiny.

On a personal level, I would be shocked if President Obama had anything to do with this, not just because there's nothing in his background that suggests that he would do something like this, but also because engaging in this type of behavior would be a huge threat to his Presidency, and President Obama is far too intelligent not to know that.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

In the end it does not matter who knew - it matters who should have known. Incompetence in this case is worse than bias imo.

If that is the issue everyone but the partisans will yawn.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I do not really care who yawns - do you?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I'll yawn if this doesn't turn into into something more than lack of oversight by Obama..

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

To me it is way more than oversight sans Obama - as long as those responsible are held accountable then I can live with it but they will not be.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

It depends what was going on. Was the targeting directed at the top? And if so, how high does it go? That is the issue, not Obama didn't do something about something he never knew about until it became public knowledge. If he found out about it before he says he did that is an issue. But right now all we have is a lot of smoke and no gun attached to it. This stuff about how many times somebody went to the White House, ho-ho hum. Real damning stuff (not). Maybe more dots will be connected to make a White House conspiracy compelling. But it will require a lot more connected dots.

It makes perfect sense if Bush took the independence of the IRS seriously and thus didn't know or care what his politics were. The "it's Bush's guy" thing doesn't have the weight behind it that it does if we're talking about, say, a member of his Cabinet. The whole point of the position is that individual administrations don't have their "guys" in there.

Actually, it appears this may not be consistent with the facts, as I pointed out earlier.

Yeah, the "Overreach" narrative is probably the most predictable part of every Democratic scandal. It comes right after Denial and It-Was-Isolated.

There's not much to say to this, except that the tendency to try to label something as overreach is always every bit as overtly political as the thing it's usually describing.

This isn't true, either; many organizations went years without those tax benefits. Some were still waiting for approval when they testified the other day! And many more simply stopped trying. So there's no serious question of tangible harm. And this is without getting into leaking a conservative group's information to a liberal group in direct opposition to them, which is mind-boggling and shows serious malice aforethought.

Sure there is. During the campaign, Obama's general counsel called for a targeted investigation into a conservative ad group. He became the general counsel for the White House after the election. He ended up writing three letters in total to the Justice Dept. about it, even after they explained to him that no law had been violated. And it just kept going; more details at the link above. Really has to be read to be believed.

In 2010 Obama accused the Chamber of Commerce--a group he's been at odds with, politically--of taking money from foreign corporations. I'll bet if I look more, I'll find more.

Not to mention talking very publicly and very often about how dangerous it was to have these groups spending money trying to influence the election.

And you're far too intelligent to think this is a good defense. Bill Clinton was brilliant, and he did some pretty stupid things. Most Presidents do. The kind of things that get people in power in trouble tend to have to do with moral and character failings, not intellectual ones. It's usually hubris that does it, and the correlation between humility and intelligence is inverted.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think I've made it clear that I think this is serious, and that I think a full investigation into this is warranted. At the same time, I do see a lot of overreach on the part of some on this issue. I am not seeking to defend the administration, but I also don't see any evidence that President Obama knew about any of this, or that he was involved with it in any way. It could be that individual officials working for President Obama were involved with this, but unless it involves the President, I don't see this as a huge scandal that undermines his Presidency. I think his handling of this has been poor, and I have said so.

If Lois Lerner or the IRS Commissioner were involved with this, they should be fired, and prosecuted if a crime was committed. I think this investigation should be focused narrowly on rooting out what happened and why. That's not what is going on here. Republicans are using this issue to block President Obama from being able to govern. They are always doing this. Democrats did it to Bush, and I was against it then just as much as I'm against it now. Cabinet appointments remain unfilled. Judicial nominations are blocked, leaving the courts without the judges to do their job. This is unconscionable. This shouldn't be happening, regardless of which party is in office, and now these investigations are being used to continue the obstructionism. Darrell Issa has said that he plans on holding a few investigations every week into the Obama administration. Instead of governing, he plans on engaging in potentially hundreds of partisan investigations. If that's not overreach, I don't know what is!!

Rather than being focused on talking points, Benghazi became one of the worst cover-ups in history and a symbol of one of the most incompetent administrations in history. Rather than being focused on who targeted conservative groups and why, this IRS situation becomes evidence of corruption and incompetence at the highest levels. This kind of language isn't warranted by the facts that have come out, and the harms of these so-called scandals are being exaggerated. The rhetoric should match the facts. In these cases, it doesn't.

As I said, this is the standard playbook: take the focus off the scandal by talking about whether or not people are reacting the right way to the scandal, which is relatively trivial in comparison and usually involves an inordinate amount of focus on whichever individual says the stupidest or most presumptive thing in the course of the process.

In the post before this we were talking about the facts of the situation. Now we're not. This is not a coincidence; it's the intended result.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I'm not sure what you are saying is always true. Do you think that the intended result of my participation in this conversation is to distract from this scandal for political purposes?

No. You're an honest guy and I trust your motives. But that's how/why this works: get people riled up about something adjacent to the scandal and they help you change the subject.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I think that if you are not willing to impugn my motives, than you likely shouldn't impugn the motives of others either. It could very well be that many of those who are downplaying this scandal feel the way I do, that all of these groups should be asked these types of questions and receive this type of scrutiny before receiving tax-exempt status. If that is what you believe, than it's hard to see this as that outrageous. If you, on the other hand, believe nobody should be asked these questions, and be subject to this type of scrutiny, than the fact that this was done for political purposes becomes that much more egregious. In my case, I think the political targeting was wrong, and inappropriate, but I don't particularly see the process itself as beyond the pale. I don't think it's unwarranted to believe that many who are more liberal in their orientation may see things in the same way, and that it may be for that reason that they don't see this behavior as as terrible as conservatives do. Keep in mind that as a liberal, you generally believe that people should be paying more taxes, and that big-monied entities in particular should be paying more, not less. You are generally against tax loopholes and gimmicks that allow for some to avoid paying taxes. You would generally be skeptical of the concept of these groups, which largely act as political entities, receiving tax-exempt status. Under this line of thinking, downplaying this and seeking to place it in its proper context would not be political. This philosophy is consistent with believing that the type of scrutiny these conservative groups faced is not only warranted but should be expanded.

Why? Not everyone is equally trustworthy, and some people have a direct stake in changing the subject. And I assume you wouldn't impugn my motives, either, but you didn't hesitate to suggest that some Republicans are being purely opportunistic with this scandal. How is this different?

The problem, of course, is that it wasn't "all of these groups." It was just the conservative ones; and that's where the outrage comes from. The issue is applying scrutiny equitably, which has nothing to do with our respective opinions about what level of scrutiny should be used.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Well, I remember this.

http://www.politicususa.com/irs-targ...ches-bush.html

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

From your article:
Ok, it's clear that politicians have been using IRS for their gains. And while this article shows hardly any evidence that this was due to the anti-war sermon, I'm not defending any kind of targeting. But this article was clearly just trying to justify the current targeting by bringing up an isolated incident, and saying that it's equivalent.

Yeah, investigating one politically active church and not revoking their tax exempt status is on part with denying that status systemically to a whole host of groups, and linking their donor information to political rivals.

Please.

Also, don't ever whine about partisan sources again if you're suddenly fine with linking to op-eds on blatantly liberal commentary sites.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

I was linking to a contemporary comment on the story because I found it right away and it had updated information. The story was well reported at the time in regular news stories. And it isn't the only example of alleged IRS targeting of liberal groups by the Bush Administration. I am sure you are aware of that. And investigating a church on very flimsy grounds is hardly not uncomparable to this situation.

It was because of the speech they were targeted. That is not in dispute. That is why they were being investigated.

I didn't pick the article because I just read about it. It was widely reported at the time on the news.

So many conservatives are using hyperbolic rhetoric that is not justified by the facts that have been presented thus far. It is for that reason that I impugn the motives of some conservatives. In my opinion, it's clear to me that they are exploiting this scandal for political purposes. I also think it's pretty clear when Darrell Issa says that his stated goal is to hold multiple investigations every single week for years what his true motivation in doing this happens to be. To me, there's no other reason to do that other than to obstruct anything meaningful from being done in Washington. You at least seem to be concerned about this based on the merits.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Just to make clear, these same kind of allegations of politicization and stonewalling do not exist only in Democratic Administrations.

Members of Congress investigating the dismissals found that sworn testimony from Department of Justice officials appeared to be contradicted by internal Department memoranda and e-mail, and that possibly Congress was deliberately misled. The White House role in the dismissals remained unclear despite hours of testimony by Attorney General Gonzales and senior Department of Justice staff in congressional committee hearings.[32][33] The Bush administration issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings.[34][35][36][37] The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear.[38][39][40][41] In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress

Yeah, it is. They weren't denied their exemption, they weren't part of systematic targeting, and their information wasn't leaked to some rival organization. Trying to draw anything even close to an equivalence is incredibly hacky.

Funny you should mention that: the Bush administration appointed a special prosecutor to investigate, as well they should have. But for the IRS scandal, the White House is resisting one, even though 76% of those polled agreed that one should be appointed. Why do that? Because their complete innocence would backfire on them somehow?

I'm not asking why you impugn their motives. I'm asking why you think my trust in your motivations should somehow transfer onto other people attempting to distract from the scandal.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

In fact, let's make that an open question for anyone who cares to address it: give me one reason the White House should resist a special prosecutor.

The Bush Administration did not immediately appoint a special prosecutor. The pressure got to them and they did. The Obama Administration may eventually do so as well. To suggest they are not appointing one with what is known now because they are afraid is hilarious. Are you even being rational at this point? Oh, you cite a poll that shows that is what the public wants? And when I do the same thing, your reply is what the public thinks is irrelevant.

Could have been? That's your evidence that it's comparable to admitted, systematic targeting? And the fact that they actually had their tax exemption and never lost it is irrelevant, even though that's literally the entire thing being fought over in the first place? Terrible.

This is basically just a hyperbolic temper tantrum. Noose? Lynch mob? Yeah, look at the way I'm violently posting updates and threateningly providing sources. :rolleyes: I'm sure it's really frustrating that you can't somehow make this about Mitt Romney, but get a grip.

Then what's the reason? That was the question.

Ding ding ding. That's exactly why I cited it. Try to keep up. You can't alternate conveniently between a "who cares?" attitude when you think the polls are one way and a dogged pursuit of the facts, public perception be damned, when they're another way.

I'm not really sure how the fact that other administrations have also engaged in similar behavior is relevant to whether or not the behavior itself was appropriate. That's what is the crux of the matter here. People do things all the time that are totally wrong, and immoral, and sometimes a lot of people do these things, but that doesn't excuse an individual from participating in the behavior because others do the wrong thing too. I've never really understand this defense.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Oh, it's easy to understand. It's trying to change the subject, like we were just talking about.

Yoda only cares if Democrata do it and defends Republicans when they are accused of it. To look at his posts you would think this is the most horrible political scandal of all time when unfortunately it is pretty typical and crosses party lines.

No, actually, systematically targeting political opponents does not cross party lines.

Oh, so you admit you are talking out of both sides of your mouth? Well, I have news for you, I never said who cares about there being an investigation. I am saying who cares speficially about some of the stuff you are highlighting like who goes to the White House the most to use the White House pool or watch football with the Pres. Am I against a special prosecutor being appointed? No. It is probably going to happen at some point. The public supporting it will add to the likelihood. But I also think your notion the Obama Administration is resisting it means automatically they are covering up their involvement is silly on the face of it. Why? Because a probe takes the ball off the President's agenda. No President welcomes the glare from a special prosecutor even if there are no prosecutions. The investigation itself always leaves a smell. Nobody is exonerated, well rarely, usually the conclusion is...not found sufficient proof to warrant a prosecution. Not the kind of conclusion an Obama or Bush would consider vindication.

See, this is what I'm talking about. Sounds to me like you're just ignorant of the basic facts here. The groups in question didn't get the exemptions in the first place. Many gave up applying, and many were still waiting when the news came out. That simply has no comparison to a group that was merely investigated, but kept its designation. None.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

It is not any different because none of them were denied the exemption. It is wrong they were tied up in these endless probes. Most of them did get it, but not in a timely manner but government rarely does anything in a timely matter. Again, the issue is motivation, and those answers have not come yet.

What are you calling systematic?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

The article doesn't show that at all. It has an allegation and the so-called proof without corroboration by another source is thin gruel, like the experts declaring Obama's birth certificate was a fake. It may be so, that another expert who was not hired by the head of a tea party group would make the same conclusion, that the information came directly from an IRS document. But what you have here is at this point far from being messed up, except for your extraordinary sloppiness in drawing conclusions from it.

Huh? In one example, a group HAS its designation and gets the tax benefits from it. In the other, they never get it, and thus never get the benefits. On what planet is that the same?

Funny, because they managed to approve liberal groups in a relatively timely manner:

WASHINGTON -- In the 27 months that the Internal Revenue Service put a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status, it approved applications from similar liberal groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with obviously liberal names were approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," these groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

It's becoming pretty obvious that you're not up on the basic facts of the situation. Which, as always, begs the question of why you're arguing about it.

Ongoing and deliberate, both of which have been established. During any administration there will be investigations, and some of those will involve people of differing viewpoints. That isn't what's going on here.

The "article" is a report on Congressional testimony from the House Ways and Means Committee. This isn't some offhand accusation.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

It is at this point an offhand accusation.

There isn't anything of substance to back it up. All you have is a targeted tea party member saying he hired an expert who concluded the leaked information came from an IRS document. I would like to hear what another expert not hired by that guy says before I assume it is apparently true. Wouldn't you? I am not stating an impossible standard.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

Sure I would. And my use of the word "apparently" is an acknowledgement that we'll have to wait for full confirmation. But people do not testify before Congressional committees lightly, either. It's well worth mentioning, especially in light of the abuse that's already been admitted.

That has gone on in previous administrations, that criteria. it is not unique to thsi situation in other administrations.

The witness is a tea party guy. He already doesn't like the president. He is testifying truthfully from his point of view. But his testimony about this is what he suspects happened, the leaked information came from the IRS, which may be so, but his only evidence is his hired expert agreed with him.

Yeah, I thought you'd say exactly this, and it's a completely nonsensical response.

Compared to never, yeah, nine months is fast. But the overall speed isn't the issue; the issue is that different ideological groups got different treatment. So this "government is always slow" business is a complete red herring. It doesn't explain, defend, or excuse what happened in the slightest.

Nope. That was the line they sold at first, when everyone thought the targeting began in 2012. But then we found out it started in 2010, which actually saw fewer applications than the year before. And IRS officials have already told Congress that the targeting was directed by "officials in Washington."

This is probably the third time you've made a claim that's at odds with the basic facts of the situation. You should probably educate yourself on the topic more before you continue arguing about it.

Based on what? You've provided no evidence to this effect. In fact, the one thing you tried to argue was comparable (which, again, didn't even result in anyone's exemption being denied) wasn't even for the same tax designation. I didn't notice at first, but the church in the article is a 501(c)(3), not a 501(c)(4). The former has a stricter qualifying standards. There's basically no meaningful angle, then, from which it's comparable.

You never heard of Richard Nixon and his use of the IRS?

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

It turns out that WSJ story, if what I read was sourced from them, may not even be accurate. Other news sources what appears to be the same story reports two IRS agents suspect the targeting was being directed from Washington, but were not told that and have no direct knowledge it did. Congressional investigators using this information are trying to confirm it by tracing email. Maybe they will confirm it, maybe they won't. But once again you were jumping to a conclusion that has far from been proven to be a fact.

Suspicious based on what criteria? The whole problem here is that the BOLO statement the IRS issued defined "suspicious" in a way that only applied to conservatives. So this a circular argument.

This is one of those questions where the mere way you're asking it suggests you're not really clear on what's going on. See above for more on why. But, in short: yes, liberal groups engaging in similar political activity were not being subjected to the same level of scrutiny, as already stated in the USA Today article I linked to before.

Expressing skepticism is completely different than what you've been doing, which is asserting the opposite: referencing the scandal being confined to Cincinnati as if this were an established fact.

I wasn't referring to the Congressional testimony. I was referring to claim that the targeting was a response to an influx of applications. That is completely at odds with the basic facts.

So when you brush this off because "both parties do it," you're talking about Nixon, 40 years ago? Seriously?

The WSJ article doesn't really have any ambiguity to it:

It's a pretty tall order to suggest a major newspaper is making a major factual error upon which the entire story is based, so no, it's not "jumping to conclusions" to expect that the reporting is basically accurate.

If you want to suggest it's wrong, you should provide that source. I'm positive I've said this before, but apparently it has to be said again: there's no reason not to provide the source upfront when you want to make a claim like this. They should only be excluded if you're making reference to something well established which you expect nobody will question.

Re: IRS targeted conservative groups
 

You want me to cite other legit news sources reporting the same story with far more ambiguous language what they said? They include some of the same quotes from the agents, except it includes they supect and had no direct knowledge it was coming from Washington. That makes a big difference. And are you forgetting the WSJ was bought up by Rupert Murdoch and so we can no longer assume their news reporting is as reliable as it was before the takeover?

Yes, I want you to cite other sources any time you dispute the factual content of something. There's zero reason not to.

That said, I think I can already guess what the issue is: the WSJ article says that the IRS agents heard from their superior that someone in Washington was directing things. If that's the only issue, then I think the use of the word "suspect" is fairly ridiculous, because it implies speculation where it appears none is involved. This isn't something they pieced together from circumstantial evidence: it's something they say they were explicitly told.

No, that is not what the articles said. The other reports do not say they heard from their superiors. It says two agents with only one being quoted suspected Washington inivolvement because iof the scrutiny their work was receiving, which is not the same thing. And you are the one that chose to cite what turns out to be a rogue version of the story. What I eventully found that apparently was citing the WSJ version was from some right wing source that had jolly commentary in black every paragraph or two about the evil Obama administration. They needed the WSJ version to do that slant. You know something? Since you now know your version is not accurate and was not the version published widely by the media, why should i provide a direct link to it? You can find it. And it is quite hilarious you are taking this cocky attitude about providing a link when I never received a proper link from you for your source because the WSJ limits its website to people who either subscribe to the paper or subscribe directly to the site. But I will quote this excerpt from ABC:

Congressional investigators are starting to see cracks in the Internal Revenue Service argument that a small group of agents in the Cincinnati office solely targeted conservative political groups.

Investigators, who are still in the early stages of their probe, have not uncovered any direct evidence that senior officials in Washington ordered the agents to target tea party groups, or why they may have done so.

But two agents in the IRS's Cincinnati office say they believe their work was being closely monitored by higher-ups in Washington. One agent, Elizabeth Hofacre, complained to investigators that she was being micromanaged by Washington when she processed applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups, according to a transcript of her interview with investigators.

Her interview suggests a long trail of emails that could support her claim.


The other versions od the story are in this vein. The one I first read explicitly said they suspected. None of the three three i read ever said they were told by their superiors the marching orders came from Washington.

If you want the text of the WSJ story, you can plug the article's title into Google News--they usually show the full text when referred by a search engine. Not that this has anything to do with your bizarre refusal to source your claims, for which there is simply no reasonable explanation.

That said, the quote from ABC doesn't appear to contradict anything in the WSJ report. It says they "believe" their work was being monitored, but that's a different claim from saying it was "directed," which the WSJ report says they were told by their superiors. And what is your accusation, anyway? That this is just made up? What part of "our superiors told us this" is supposed to be slant, exactly? Either they testified that, or not. If they did, it's not slant. If they didn't, it's a straight up fabrication. Is that what you're claiming?