WHERE is the Black Caucus and all the usual Race Baiters Defending President Barack Hussein Obama and claiming this is a RACIST WITCH HUNT BY THE REPUBLICANS

WHERE is the Black Caucus and all the usual Race Baiters Defending President Barack Hussein Obama and claiming this is a RACIST WITCH HUNT BY THE REPUBLICANS

Are they afraid that there is going to be several more shoes drop?

Where are these folks famous for playing the race card?

President Barack Hussein Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Jerimiah Wright, Rev. Al Sharpton, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Father Pflager, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., King Samir Shabazz, Van Jones, Barney Franks, Charlie Wrangle, Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Andre Carson?

Markle wrote:WHERE is the Black Caucus and all the usual Race Baiters Defending President Barack Hussein Obama and claiming this is a RACIST WITCH HUNT BY THE REPUBLICANS

Are they afraid that there is going to be several more shoes drop?

Where are these folks famous for playing the race card?

President Barack Hussein Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Jerimiah Wright, Rev. Al Sharpton, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Father Pflager, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., King Samir Shabazz, Van Jones, Barney Franks, Charlie Wrangle, Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Andre Carson?

Sometimes....no matter race.....people get ticked off when they find out that the government is using the IRS against hand picked groups...Liberals suffered under the Nixon administration and there's no difference other than now it's conservatives...One thing that can unite Americans is hatred and distrust of the IRS...

It's a witch hunt, all right...doesn't have to be racist, but if you Nazis call it that, it's easier to dismiss criticism by throwing down the race card, as you're doing here. Nope...it's about the midterm elections and trying to undermine the credibility of the President so Republicans can keep their House majority. GOP = dodos

Floridatexan wrote:
It's a witch hunt, all right...doesn't have to be racist, but if you Nazis call it that, it's easier to dismiss criticism by throwing down the race card, as you're doing here. Nope...it's about the midterm elections and trying to undermine the credibility of the President so Republicans can keep their House majority. GOP = dodos

'witch hunt'....It's the incompetence...arrogance...and the lack of leadership of this administration under the cowh...This wasn't created by the republicans this is an out of control agency with no supervision...Reports are that this started in 2010....The cowh with this and other scandals is undermining his credibility without help from anyone...Another sign of guilt is when liberals and/or supporters of the cowh start up with 'nazi' references...but this time it ain't liberal groups targeted like under Nixon...

The use of the label nazi is the same mindset that seeks to punish ones political enemies... even to the point of a coordinated abuse of power. I suspect that flatex really has no problem with the actions of the irs... except that perhaps they were outed.

Sal wrote:

newswatcher wrote:
Reports are that this started in 2010....

Started in 2010, eh?

About the time the Citizens United ruling came down?

Round about the time the IRS was given the ridiculous task of determining what constitutes "political activity"?

Who woulda thunk it?

Duh.

That's a defense or excuse?....Chris Matthews said the "thrill is gone" must be it was passed on to you....

newswatcher wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
It's a witch hunt, all right...doesn't have to be racist, but if you Nazis call it that, it's easier to dismiss criticism by throwing down the race card, as you're doing here. Nope...it's about the midterm elections and trying to undermine the credibility of the President so Republicans can keep their House majority. GOP = dodos

'witch hunt'....It's the incompetence...arrogance...and the lack of leadership of this administration under the cowh...This wasn't created by the republicans this is an out of control agency with no supervision...Reports are that this started in 2010....The cowh with this and other scandals is undermining his credibility without help from anyone...Another sign of guilt is when liberals and/or supporters of the cowh start up with 'nazi' references...but this time it ain't liberal groups targeted like under Nixon...

2010...right about the time the teabaggers made their coup in Congress...right about the time these supposed public service organizations made their debut.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/irs-scandal-tea-party-oversight.html

"Washington’s scandal machinery, rusty from recent disuse, is cranking back up to speed due to the alleged targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said, “It’s the kind of thing that scares the American people to their core. When Americans are being targeted for audits based on their political beliefs, that needs to change.” Senator Susan Collins, of Maine, called on the President to apologize. George Will said President Obama could be impeached. Obama himself is taking the path of contrition. At a news conference Monday, the President said, “If in fact I.R.S. personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous. And there’s no place for it.” More hearings, with more outrage, are planned.

In light of this, it might be useful to ask: Did the I.R.S. actually do anything wrong?

The stories began to come to light on Friday, when the Associated Press reported that a draft report by a Treasury Department inspector general had found that the I.R.S. subjected certain Tea Party-affiliated groups to undue scrutiny. Lois Lerner, head of the I.R.S. tax-exempt-organizations division, said the agency was “apologetic” for what she termed “absolutely inappropriate” actions by lower-level workers.

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former.

It is certainly true that the I.R.S., and every other part of the government, should be evenhanded in how it applies the law, regarding liberal and conservative groups alike. If left-leaning organizations were disguising their true purposes to obtain 501(c)(4) status, the I.R.S. should have turned them down, too. And there will also be questions about how the Service, which is an independent agency, answered questions from Congress.

But let’s be clear on the real scandal here. The columnist Michael Kinsley has often observed that the scandal isn’t what’s illegal—it’s what’s legal. It’s what society chooses not to punish that tells us most about the prevailing ethical standards of the time. Campaign finance operates by shaky, or even nonexistent, rules, and powerful players game the system with impunity. A handful of I.R.S. employees saw this and tried, in a small way, to impose some small sense of order. For that, they’ll likely be ushered into bureaucratic oblivion."

--------------------------
http://seeingtheforest.com/phony-irs-scandal-weve-been-okeefed-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SeeingTheForest+%28Seeing+The+Forest%29


"Guess what. We’ve been O’Keefe’d again. It turns out that the “IRS Targeted Conservatives” story is just one more made up, phony, right-wing victimization fantasy lie...

...Only 1/3 of the organizations that received extra scrutiny were conservative. The rest are not identified, but liberal and progressive organizations are reporting that their applications received the same scrutiny as conservatives. (And by the way almost 70% of the applications that were flagged WERE engaged in campaign activity that would disqualify them from c4 status.)

-------------------------------
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_05/two_rather_important_details_a044751.php#

Political Animal
Blog

May 15, 2013 10:55 AM
Two Rather Important Details About the IRS “Scandal”
By Ed Kilgore



"I know we’re already getting into the post-factual stage of what Roll Call’s Stu Rothenberg is gleefully calling the “triple play” of Obama “scandals,” where the focus is on alleged cover-ups and who-knew-what-when and Big Narratives and all sorts of third- and fourth-order considerations. But there are two aspects of the “IRS Scandal” that keep nagging at me.

The first is nicely covered by TNR’s Noam Scheiber today: the applications for 501(c)(4) status that are at issue are not part and parcel of some burdensome government regulation of political speech. They are voluntary, and simply provide the applicant an advance assurance of tax-exempt status before they file their tax returns for a given year. If they are reasonably sure they aren’t afoul of the rules for 501(c)(4) organizations, they don’t need the certification at all. So the idea that the IRS was “shutting down” Tea Party and other groups by sitting on their applications or requiring them to deal with burdensome questionnaires is an exaggeration from the get-go. Besides, most groups like this don’t (and shouldn’t) wind up having the sort of “profits” that generate tax liability to begin with.

But the whole role of the IRS in this “scandal” raises a much more fundamental question. If the entity in question wasn’t the IRS but the FEC (hard as it is to imagine the FEC having any “teeth” to “bite” political advocacy and campaign groups), would anyone other than campaign finance wonks care about this whole issue? Probably not. And that’s not because in this kind of case the IRS was in a position to kick down doors and take serious action against the groups in question (which, again, probably had little or no tax liability unless they were really running a crooked game). It’s because the IRS is a great national devil-figure with a history of using over-aggressive tactics against people without the resources to fight them, and the idea of that agency “targeting” anyone is quite naturally frightening, even if the actual consequences of being “targeted” in these cases were not that serious.

Yeah, some groups undoubtedly incurred unnecessary legal expenses in dealing with IRS pettifogging, and the more paranoid among them probably feared ancillary tax actions against individuals. But before we all decide this incident represented a big step towards totalitarian government, a closer look at the actual situation would be helpful."


Hannah on May 15, 2013 3:09 PM:

First of all, I didn't know that 501(c)4s didn't have to apply for that status, when 501(c)3s do (and it's a huge amount of work).

I've kept books for non-profits (501(c)3, not 501(c)4), and done tax returns (Form 990) for a few of them. It's a lot of work, especially the long form. Pages and pages, and for those NPs on smaller budgets that truly make no profit it can be a bit onerous, but the IRS needs to keep NPs honest, right?

One bit of information the IRS asks for is how much has been spent on "lobbying". There isn't anything specific on advertising, but I have to wonder how much the Rovianesque political groups claim for that (i.e. expensive TV ads for them vs web & newspaper ads for real NPs), or if they claim it at all, or hide it in some other expense.

What the IRS should do is audit the 990s. And the GOPers should be challenged to allocate the IRS the money to hire folks to audit all of the 501(c)4s or shut up about this "scandal".

Also re expenses: in Part IX of long form 990 for both, expenses need to broken down into three categories: program, management/general and fundraising. I have to wonder where Rove's group puts their massive advertising expenditures. Or if they've even filed?


Hannah on May 15, 2013 5:14 PM:

One more thing related to my post above.

There is a section of the return for the long form that asks what programs, giving details, where your expenditures were used, and the amount of expense for those programs. The IRS' reviewing that would be a good step one in any audit. Also checking the NP's website to see if it matches what they are saying on their 990. A website might be a bit more truthful about the true purpose of the org. - that's where they would be "hooking" people to their cause.

-------------------

The IRS should audit every one of these groups.

PkrBum wrote:The use of the label nazi is the same mindset that seeks to punish ones political enemies... even to the point of a coordinated abuse of power. I suspect that flatex really has no problem with the actions of the irs... except that perhaps they were outed.

I was actually referring to Markle, but you'll do. I calls em like I sees em, Pardner. It's hard not to categorize the GOP as fascist, when their favored candidate, Mittens, said, with a straight face, "Corporations ARE people, my friend."

Floridatexan wrote:

PkrBum wrote:The use of the label nazi is the same mindset that seeks to punish ones political enemies... even to the point of a coordinated abuse of power. I suspect that flatex really has no problem with the actions of the irs... except that perhaps they were outed.

I was actually referring to Markle, but you'll do. I calls em like I sees em, Pardner. It's hard not to categorize the GOP as fascist, when their favored candidate, Mittens, said, with a straight face, "Corporations ARE people, my friend."

You really should at some point begin to learn about your ideology:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html

As an economic system, fascism is SOCIALISM with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful COMPETITION, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary MARXISM, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism —“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. ENTREPRENEURSHIP was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/economic-fascism

http://beforeitsnews.com/economy/2013/05/just-how-fascist-is-the-us-2517084.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrochafuen/2013/05/15/dont-cry-for-me-america-comparing-argentina-and-the-united-states/

Impossible to make these things up!

The Internal Revenue Service comes out publicly and states YES, WE INTENTIONALLY CHOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS, BY THE HUNDREDS, FOR EXTRA SCRUTINY, ABUSE AND INTIMIDATION while we did not with Progressive groups. We did this for several years now, gosh we're sorry about what we did.

Now we have the Progressives are trying to say YES BUT they REALLY didn't do anything wrong.

Conspicuous by there absence is support from Progressive Groups, the Black Caucus and all the race baiters. Think they're afraid to call any attention to their own activities?

The Internal Revenue Service comes out publicly and states YES, WE INTENTIONALLY CHOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS, BY THE HUNDREDS, FOR EXTRA SCRUTINY, ABUSE AND INTIMIDATION while we did not with Progressive groups.

I watched the hearings and in fact the IRS did not say this, and in fact audited progressive groups also. This statement is an outright made up lie......do you want to provide a link that no progressive groups were audited when in fact members of the House Ways and means committee repeatedly stated that progressive C4 groups were also audited.

2seaoat wrote:The Internal Revenue Service comes out publicly and states YES, WE INTENTIONALLY CHOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS, BY THE HUNDREDS, FOR EXTRA SCRUTINY, ABUSE AND INTIMIDATION while we did not with Progressive groups.

I watched the hearings and in fact the IRS did not say this, and in fact audited progressive groups also. This statement is an outright made up lie......do you want to provide a link that no progressive groups were audited when in fact members of the House Ways and means committee repeatedly stated that progressive C4 groups were also audited.

He doesn't have a link...just a cap lock.

2seaoat wrote:The Internal Revenue Service comes out publicly and states YES, WE INTENTIONALLY CHOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS, BY THE HUNDREDS, FOR EXTRA SCRUTINY, ABUSE AND INTIMIDATION while we did not with Progressive groups.

I watched the hearings and in fact the IRS did not say this, and in fact audited progressive groups also. This statement is an outright made up lie......do you want to provide a link that no progressive groups were audited when in fact members of the House Ways and means committee repeatedly stated that progressive C4 groups were also audited.

Not what the IRS said. The flat out stated that they targeted Conservative Groups, NOT Progressives, IRS said they were wrong and apologized.

It has now reached to the White House. That's okay, this is only one of FOUR major scandals swirling and growing about the White House.

Markle wrote:

Not what the IRS said.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-IL: “How come only conservative groups got snagged?”

Outgoing IRS commissioner Steve Miller: “They didn’t sir. Organizations of all walks and all persuasions were pulled in. That’s shown by the fact that only 70 of the 300 organizations were tea party organizations, of the ones that were looked at by TIGTA.”

It has now reached to the White House.

When did it reach the White House?

That's okay, this is only one of FOUR major scandals swirling and growing about the White House.
[/quote]

"It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
- Bill Shakespeare

Sal wrote:

Markle wrote:

Not what the IRS said.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-IL: “How come only conservative groups got snagged?”

Outgoing IRS commissioner Steve Miller: “They didn’t sir. Organizations of all walks and all persuasions were pulled in. That’s shown by the fact that only 70 of the 300 organizations were tea party organizations, of the ones that were looked at by TIGTA.”

It has now reached to the White House.

When did it reach the White House?

That's okay, this is only one of FOUR major scandals swirling and growing about the White House.

"It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
- Bill Shakespeare[/quote]

You would think that Markle would get a grip on reality. This is not the only forum he posts his garbage on. He has worked tirelessly to discredit Progressives in his forum posts for years. All for naught, as evidenced by the election results of last November 6th.

He and PeeDog are going to be fun to watch over the next couple of years; especially as the 2014 midterms near.

Sal wrote:

Markle wrote:

Not what the IRS said.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-IL: “How come only conservative groups got snagged?”

Outgoing IRS commissioner Steve Miller: “They didn’t sir. Organizations of all walks and all persuasions were pulled in. That’s shown by the fact that only 70 of the 300 organizations were tea party organizations, of the ones that were looked at by TIGTA.”

It has now reached to the White House.

When did it reach the White House?

That's okay, this is only one of FOUR major scandals swirling and growing about the White House.

"It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
- Bill Shakespeare[/quote]

My Progressive good friends really need to reach out more and read some sites and watch some news NOT coming from the DailyKOS or MediaMatters.

IRS Scandal: Administration Official Knew a Year Ago

By ANDY SULLIVAN and KIM DIXON, Reuters
May 19, 2013

The outgoing head of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service angered Republican lawmakers on Friday by resisting their demands that he identify who at the tax-collection agency had inappropriately targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny.


But during the first hearing into a growing IRS scandal that could preoccupy Washington for months, Republicans did learn that a top official in President Barack Obama's administration knew that the IRS was looking into targeting by the tax agency nearly a year ago.

That detail could encourage Republicans' efforts to link the scandal to the White House as the administration faces a series of setbacks that threaten to derail Obama's second-term priorities, which include revamping immigration laws and reaching a budget deal with Republicans.

###

Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/05/19/IRS-Scandal-Administration-Official-Knew-a-Year-Ago.aspx#PVhKp9sVu2rbdrwZ.99

Suddenly the subject of the IRS "scandal" brings our resident Nazi out of his toilet. As expected he tries to twist the situation into a racist ploy. Now here's a little boy who runs on hate.

As for myself, while I surely am against the IRS or any other branch of our corporate owned government targeting folks for their political persuasion, I wonder why there's so much stink in this particular incident -- considering that virtually every one of the conservative organizations crying for justice were lying about their status as "social" organizations so (like Rove) they could anonymously raise and send funds and advertise against their political opponents without paying taxes as required. In that perspective, just who's really in the wrong here?

Markle wrote:WHERE is the Black Caucus and all the usual Race Baiters Defending President Barack Hussein Obama and claiming this is a RACIST WITCH HUNT BY THE REPUBLICANS

Are they afraid that there is going to be several more shoes drop?

Where are these folks famous for playing the race card?

President Barack Hussein Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Jerimiah Wright, Rev. Al Sharpton, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Father Pflager, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., King Samir Shabazz, Van Jones, Barney Franks, Charlie Wrangle, Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Andre Carson?

Wordslinger wrote:Suddenly the subject of the IRS "scandal" brings our resident Nazi out of his toilet. As expected he tries to twist the situation into a racist ploy. Now here's a little boy who runs on hate.

As for myself, while I surely am against the IRS or any other branch of our corporate owned government targeting folks for their political persuasion, I wonder why there's so much stink in this particular incident -- considering that virtually every one of the conservative organizations crying for justice were lying about their status as "social" organizations so (like Rove) they could anonymously raise and send funds and advertise against their political opponents without paying taxes as required. In that perspective, just who's really in the wrong here?

Markle wrote:WHERE is the Black Caucus and all the usual Race Baiters Defending President Barack Hussein Obama and claiming this is a RACIST WITCH HUNT BY THE REPUBLICANS

Are they afraid that there is going to be several more shoes drop?

Where are these folks famous for playing the race card?

President Barack Hussein Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Jerimiah Wright, Rev. Al Sharpton, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Father Pflager, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., King Samir Shabazz, Van Jones, Barney Franks, Charlie Wrangle, Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Andre Carson?

Poor baby. Have I tweaked your nose? Or do you just get really p o ed when I merely post your own words? You know, expose who you really support and idolize?

Are you talking about Progressive organizations such as the DailyKOS, MediaMatters, DemocratUnderground, the Tides Foundation, MoveOn.org, Center for American Progress, Open Society Institute, Communist Party USA, Progressive Party and others?