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Thread: Abuse of IRS Power - Page 3







Post#51 at 05-21-2013 12:59 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
No, it was the fear that the baggers got a hold of magic ponies that poop gold nuggets. Obama got a call from the New World Order telling him he must end the bagger magic pony gold poop threat or they would unleash the alien dogs from the hell planet Xenon to remove the precious body fluids and make every other American male in Tennesse gay starting with guys living in trailer parks in Clarkesville! Unfortunately, Obama was out that day and didn't get the message.
Are you okay?
-Or maybe someone in the Obamanation (or Obama himself) just saw conservative and libertarian groups as a threat and decided to crush them, with a little bit of spite thrown in. FDR did it. Nixon did it. Why not Obama?
BTW, you can tell that even PW thinks he's losing when he gives up any pretense of polite discourse. He must be really upset...







Post#52 at 05-21-2013 01:07 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-Or maybe someone in the Obamanation (or Obama himself) just saw conservative and libertarian groups as a threat and decided to crush them, with a little bit of spite thrown in. FDR did it. Nixon did it. Why not Obama?
And the Zoltons from Planet Zoteria did it as well!

Basically, there's not much precious bodily fluids held any more by those males living in Clarkesberg trailer heaven.

To date, it hasn't been missed much, however.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#53 at 05-21-2013 01:11 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
And the Zoltons from Planet Zoteria did it as well!

Basically, there's not much precious bodily fluids held any more by those males living in Clarkesberg trailer heaven.

To date, it hasn't been missed much, however.
1) I'm not aware of this Planet Zoteria. PW will have to tell us what he knows about it;
2) Zoltons don't run the IRS. The White House does;

3) Yep. The tone shows that PW is desperate.







Post#54 at 05-21-2013 01:29 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
1) I'm not aware of this Planet Zoteria. PW will have to tell us what he knows about it;
2) Zoltons don't run the IRS. The White House does;

3) Yep. The tone shows that PW is desperate.
The Zoltons don't run the IRS anymore???!!!

Did the MegaPies from MegaPielandis buy them out or was it a fight?

You baggers have all the inside info. Although you did blow that call on the Mayan Calender thingee - you know, the Zoopatians are still pretty pissed off about that - further lessening the likelihood of you getting your precious bodily fluids back. Oh well, I guess you can blame that on Obama as well.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#55 at 05-21-2013 01:34 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
The Zoltons don't run the IRS anymore???!!!
-If they ever did. That is why it is more productive to investigate the Obamamation than to check up on PW's Zoltons...







Post#56 at 05-21-2013 05:32 PM by wtrg8 [at NoVA joined Dec 2008 #posts 1,262]
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Quote Originally Posted by Copperfield View Post
Heh, did Adam go and get himself arrested again?

*Edit*

Ah, it would appear that he did.
Apparently a new video came out and it shows the federal cop elbowing the local cop as they tried to maneuver him to make it look he resisted. Anything to get his guns.







Post#57 at 05-21-2013 05:57 PM by Classic-X'er [at joined Sep 2012 #posts 1,789]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
[Q
-So, PW's argument is that the Obamanation is able to pull the wool over the eyes of the ignorant, and PW considers that to be a good thing...
You have to admit, he's really good at playing the magic pony stuff with hopeful liberals and pulling the wool over the eyes of the ignorant. Do you really care how bad ignorant people and dimwit Democrats end up screwing themselves in the long run? The Republicans are going to declare their independence and split the nation in two before they allow the Democrats to drag the entire nation down the tube with them.
Last edited by Classic-X'er; 05-21-2013 at 06:21 PM.







Post#58 at 05-21-2013 06:58 PM by Copperfield [at joined Feb 2010 #posts 2,244]
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I'm confused... Were there actually people out there who didn't think that the IRS was doing this sort of thing on a regular basis? I mean honestly, what good are you as a government agency if you can’t be used as a blunt object to beat down a few political dissidents every so often?

Oh well. Please continue to argue over the rising of the sun each morning ("I can’t believe the sun came up, I’m outraged!" "No it didn’t!").







Post#59 at 05-21-2013 09:37 PM by Classic-X'er [at joined Sep 2012 #posts 1,789]
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Quote Originally Posted by Copperfield View Post
I'm confused... Were there actually people out there who didn't think that the IRS was doing this sort of thing on a regular basis? I mean honestly, what good are you as a government agency if you can’t be used as a blunt object to beat down a few political dissidents every so often?

Oh well. Please continue to argue over the rising of the sun each morning ("I can’t believe the sun came up, I’m outraged!" "No it didn’t!").
My mother said the same thing about Nixon and Watergate. In her opinion, Nixon just happened to be the one who got caught.







Post#60 at 05-22-2013 05:48 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Grey Badger View Post
I agree. It is as if he is channeling Richard Nixon. Welladay, I guess it's our turn this time

But I was disgusted to see how both factions on this board are reacting. The posters on the right are gloating and the posters on the left are making excuses or denying the problem. I'm sorry. This IRS business was way out of line and is no matter who does it.
Are you assuming that there was, in fact, political pressure brought to bear? If so, there is no evidence I've seen so far, but I haven't been following this soap opera very closely.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#61 at 05-22-2013 05:50 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by Galen View Post
I thought the odds of him being a black Jimmy Carter were high when he got elected, it looks like Obama found an even worse role model.
At least wait for real evidence, unless you prefer innuendo and out the other. Making baseless claims is always easier than looking for supporting evidence. In fact, that explains a lot of the incarceration rate issues, now that I think of it.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#62 at 05-22-2013 06:03 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-No, it's apt. The IRS was abusing its power, probably at the behest of the Obamanation, and all of a sudden PW wants to throw attention on the victims rather than the perpetrators. I'm sure that some will fall for it.
Because you hate him so, Obama must be guilty until proven otherwise, right? Or maybe he's guilty regardless.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#63 at 05-22-2013 11:55 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...8ca_story.html

The head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt organizations office, faced with allegations of improper targeting of conservative groups, told a House committee Wednesday that she has done nothing wrong but declined to answer questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Lois G. Lerner told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in an opening statement that members of the panel have already accused her of providing false information to Congress...

...and...

...Miller explained that IRS leaders were aware that George was on the verge of releasing his report, so “we thought we should begin talking about this. We’d thought we’d get out an apology.”

Miller said he worked with Lerner, who leads the agency’s tax-exempt unit, to ensure that she would be asked a question about the controversy during a panel discussion at a conference...

[in other words, a shill to lighten the impact...]

Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Are you assuming that there was, in fact, political pressure brought to bear? If so, there is no evidence I've seen so far, but I haven't been following this soap opera very closely.
-So would you care to theorize how IRS agents in different offices came up with the same idea without coordination? If there are that many partisan Lefties in the IRS who are willing to abuse their power to advance their agenda, then we need to get to the bottom of that...

Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Because you hate him so, Obama must be guilty until proven otherwise, right? Or maybe he's guilty regardless.
-Go back and read what I wrote. I didn't say that Obama himself necessarily knew the details (plausible deniability). But it's a challenge to explain how all this happened without someone in the Obamanation having something to do with it, and without Obama's acquiescence. I think it would be a good idea to find out who. I suspect that you will agree with this. And, since you yourself admit you haven't been keeping careful track, it's obvious that he knew a lot more about this than he originally let on:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...unt-91638.html

Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press...

Here’s how the White House account has evolved...


Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Because you hate him so, Obama must be guilty until proven otherwise, right?
-I could just as easily point out: "Because you adore him so, Obama must be innocent until evidence of his guilt is shoved down your throat, right?"

BTW, Mr. Horn, posting at 6:03 Eastern time? I'm mildly impressed.

Quote Originally Posted by Classic-X'er View Post
...The Republicans are going to declare their independence and split the nation in two before they allow the Democrats to drag the entire nation down the tube with them.
-I doubt it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...837484232.html

The problem of media bias runs deep... Here's an example, from a Washington Post story on the IRS scandal:

Nonprofit groups that do not have to pay taxes are supposed to ensure that political activity is not their primary purpose, so evidence that some of the new organizations seeking tax-exempt status were fronts for campaign organizations drew bipartisan interest. Good-government groups started pressuring the IRS to more closely scrutinize applicants. One such group, Democracy 21, wrote a series of letters to the IRS arguing that many of the groups should not receive favored tax status. "In all of these cases, the groups were claiming (c)(4) status basically for the purpose of hiding their donors," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer.

There's a whole world of bias in that phrase "good-government groups." According to the Inspector General's report, one of the red flags the IRS used to identify dissident organizations for targeting was "education of the public via advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live.' " Tea Party organizations conceive of themselves as good-government groups, just as Democracy 21 does. The Post accepts the latter characterization, but not the former, unquestioningly.

The description of Democracy 21 as a "good-government group" is especially inapt in this particular story. Wertheimer's organization wrote letters lobbying the IRS to take action against political groups of whose activities it disapproved. The IRS did Wertheimer's bidding, and in so doing massively abused its power. The IRS, not Wertheimer, is culpable for the abuse of power. But it is preposterous to label Democracy 21 "a good-government group" in the course of telling how its activities encouraged an abuse of governmental power...







Post#64 at 05-22-2013 12:09 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by Classic-X'er View Post
You have to admit, he's really good at playing the magic pony stuff with hopeful liberals and pulling the wool over the eyes of the ignorant. Do you really care how bad ignorant people and dimwit Democrats end up screwing themselves in the long run? The Republicans are going to declare their independence and split the nation in two before they allow the Democrats to drag the entire nation down the tube with them.
The part of America that the Hard Right takes over will quickly become a laughing stock. It will rely heavily upon agriculture and resource extraction and fail at all else. OK, maybe it will do well in country music.

Its universities will fill with cranks and will become diploma mills. People who want good K-12 education will go elsewhere. Relatively-sane places like Austin and Dallas will lose talent people who will cause places like Detroit, Flint, and Youngstown to recover. Wages will plummet.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#65 at 05-22-2013 12:33 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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A teachable moment

Here's a very good summary of the latest GOP scam regarding the IRS.

It's long, but I provided it in full because it touches on so many aspect of the lying filth that passes for the GOP these days.

I would even recommend going to the site and watching the video as well as getting the many links that back this article up -

http://crooksandliars.com/dave-johns...-conservatives

The Latest Lie: IRS Targeted Conservatives


Remember the video of the guy in the "pimp costume" who got advice from ACORN employees on how to run his prostitution ring? Turns out the whole story was just a lie, a doctored-video smear job on an important organization. The guy never wore a "pimp costume" and the real, undoctored videos showed that ACORN employees did nothing wrong. But a lie travels around the world before the corporate media bothers to check the facts. The "news" media blasted the story everywhere, and Congress was so outraged they forced ACORN to close its doors. And here we are again.

The corporate media is blasting out the story that the IRS "targeted conservative groups." Some in the media say there was "IRS harassment of conservative groups." Some of the media are going so far as claiming that conservative groups were "audited."

This story that is being repeated and treated as "true" is just not what happened at all. It is one more right-wing victimization fable, repeated endlessly until the public has no choice except to believe it.

Conservative Groups Were Not "Targeted," "Singled Out" Or Anything Else

You are hearing that conservative groups were "targeted." What you are not hearing is that progressive groups were also "targeted." So were groups that are not progressive or conservative.

All that happened here is that groups applying to the IRS for special tax status were checked to see if they were engaged in political activity. They were checked, not targeted. Only one-third of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Once again: Only one-third of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Conservative groups were not "singled out," were not "targeted" and in the end none were
denied special tax status – even though many obviously should have been.

From last week's House hearings on this:

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

Outgoing acting 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 [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration]."

Bet you didn't see that blasted all over your TV news that night.

Click here to watch the video clip of this. It's worth it.

And from Bloomberg reporting: IRS Sent Same Letter to Democrats That Fed Tea Party Row, (emphasis added, for emphasis)

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected. Progress Texas ... faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

In a statement late yesterday, the tax agency said it had pooled together the politically active nonpartisan applicants -- including a “minority” that were identified because of their names. “It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” the IRS said in its statement.

Again, for emphasis: "It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” the IRS said in its statement."

But no matter, its conventional wisdom now that "the IRS targeted conservative groups." And it's very useful to the right if people believe this. But it just is not true. (If you want to see conventional wisdom at work watch this clip from the most recent Saturday Night Live.)

What Did Happen?

Here's the story. After the "Citizen's United" decision allowed unlimited corporate money into elections there was a flood of applications to get special tax status that allowed an organization to hide its donors from the public, and in some cases even be tax-exempt. But the rules say that political groups can't get this special tax status. The IRS has to check out applications for tax status to see if it is really a political group trying to sneak in to a special tax status.

Because they were flooded and couldn't check out every applying organization, the IRS group looked for things in the applications that "flagged" an organization as possibly a political group. These flagged applications were then passed along to specialists to look deeper and determine if they were legit or not.

So What Was The "Wrongdoing"?

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has issued a full report: Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review that looked into the accusation that the IRS "targeted" tea party groups that were applying for special tax status for extra scrutiny. The report is not all that long. You should read it. (Apparently most the people you are hearing from in the media haven't read it.)

According to the report, the swamped IRS group involved in this came up with ways – "criteria" – to identify groups that really needed to be checked further because it was possible they might be engaged in the kind of political activity that would exclude them from getting the special tax status. (The rules for what constitutes political activity that would keep a group for getting special tax status are, to say the least, not clear. See the P.S. below.) Some groups were chosen to receive the required scrutiny because they had "political-sounding" names. Some of the "political-sounding names" included the words "tea party." Others included "We the People" and "Take Back the Country." (The inspector general's report does not disclose if or which other "political sounding names" were also used as criteria.)

And the other problem was that the scrutiny these groups received involved some "unnecessary, burdensome questions."

That was the extent of the wrongdoing. At a time when they couldn't give all applying groups the necessary scrutiny they used criteria that included the names of an applying group to decide if it would get the required scrutiny. And they asked "unnecessary, burdensome questions." That's it. That's the whole thing.

Normally all groups applying for special tax status would and should all get looked at to see if they were really political groups. In this case no groups received any extra scrutiny as has been accused, instead many received less than usual. No group was "singled out" or "targeted" for extra scrutiny, instead they were not given the free pass others were getting because of the overload of applicants.

The IG report concluded that it was wrong to use a group's name as a criteria to help determine if an applicant would be checked out at a time when there were so many applications that every group was not being checked out. (However, the IG report did say that most of the groups forwarded with this criteria in fact should have been forwarded.)

Again, that's the wrongdoing that has triggered the absolute frenzy of outrage you are hearing from ... everyone. They said it was silly to use a group's name as criteria for deciding if they should be checked out thoroughly at a time when the IRS was too busy to thoroughly check all applications as they usually do. And they said groups filing for a special tax status but suspected of political activity were then asked "unnecessary, burdensome questions."

And again, that's it, That's the whole "scandal." That's the whole "IRS harassing conservative groups." That's the whole "Obama the dictatorial tyrant going after his enemies" hissy-fit. (Please read Digby's The Art of the Hissy-Fit)

A Few Facts

Fact: The IRS is required to determine whether organizations applying for special tax status are "social welfare" groups or are instead engaged in political activity. Political groups cannot get the special tax status these groups were applying for.

Fact: Only one-third of the groups that were passed to specialists for a closer look were "conservative." Lots of other organizations were also checked, including progressive organizations.

Fact: No groups were audited or harassed or "targeted" or "singled out." This was about applications for special tax status being forwarded to specialists for a closer look to see if they were engaged in political activity that would disqualify them for the special tax status. This closer look is the kind of review all organization should get, but the IRS was swamped because of the flood of groups applying for a status that let them mask their donors, after Citizens United.

Fact: No groups were harmed. There were delays while the groups were checked to see if they should have special tax status. That's it. But the rules are that they are allowed to operate as if they had that status while they waited for official approval.

Fact:The only groups actually denied special tax status were progressive groups, not conservative groups. In 2011, during the period that "conservative groups were targeted" the New York Times carried the story, 3 Groups Denied Break by I.R.S. Are Named . The three groups? Drum roll ... "The I.R.S. denied tax exemption to the groups — Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts — because, the agency wrote in denial letters, they were set up specifically to cultivate Democratic candidates."

Fact:The IRS commissioner in charge at the IRS at the time this happened was appointed President George W. Bush.

Fact: According to the inspector general's report (p. 10) in the "majority of cases, we agreed that the applications submitted included indications of significant political campaign intervention."

Other scandals?

The stage for this story to take off at this time was set by other "scandals" in the news. The scandal frenzy began when ABC News' Jonathan Karl falsely reported that White House emails had "taken out" "all references to al Queda and all references to CIA warnings before the attack about the terror threat in Benghazi." He said that these emails "show that many of these changes were directed by Hillary Clinton's spokesperson ..."

Click here to see the video of this report.

But a couple of days later CNN broke the news that the emails Karl used for his ABC report were edited by Republicans to make it appear they said these things. Parts of the edited emails Karl used were "inaccurate" and "invented" to make the administration and State Department look bad. (The word "fabricated" comes to mind.)

Next came a story that the Justice Department had looked at records of AP reporters to see who in the administration had leaked a story. The story was that an informer high up in al Queda in Yemen had delivered a new kind of bomb to target airliners, while the government was still analyzing how to detect it and the informer was still in Yemen. The Justice Department looked at call records – phone numbers only – to see if they could spot who had called AP. This became a "scandal" with accusations that the government was "wiretapping" reporters and "secretly monitoring" or "listening in" on their calls – with the "scandal" gaining traction with its conjunction with the "Benghazi scandal" story promoted by ABC.

Driving Right-Wing Themes Out To Wider Audiences

It is worth noting that Jonathan Karl is a graduate of a conservative-movement "media training" program, the Collegiate Network. The significance of this is explained by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), in A Right-Wing Mole at ABC News: Jonathan Karl and the success of the conservative media movement,

Conservatives don’t just complain loudly, endlessly and inaccurately about liberal media bias. They also train right-leaning journalists to make their way into the supposedly hostile terrain of Beltway media. And one of the most famous alums of a conservative media training program is now a major star at a network news outlet: ABC’s senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl.

Karl came to mainstream journalism via the Collegiate Network, an organization primarily devoted to promoting and supporting right-leaning newspapers on college campuses - such as the Rutgers paper launched by the infamous James O’Keefe. The network, founded in 1979, is one of several projects of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which seeks to strengthen conservative ideology on college campuses. William F. Buckley was the ISI’s first president, and the current board chair is American Spectator publisher Alfred Regnery. Several leading right-wing pundits came out of Collegiate-affiliated papers, including Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, Michelle Malkin, Rich Lowry and Laura Ingraham.

ABC's Jonathan Karl is also one of the reporters driving the "IRS scandal" story to a wider audience, with on-air reports like "Document Draft Shows IRS Targeted Conservative Groups," "IRS IG Report: Targeting Conservatives Began In 2010," "IRS Scandal Spreads Wider Than Cincinnati Officers" and more such stories, usually with inflammatory headlines and sensationalist scandal-hyping story lines.

The Daou Triangle

In 2005 Peter Daou wrote a widely-discussed paper describing how the right's media machine works to drive false stories and smears out to wide audiences. In THE TRIANGLE: Limits of Blog Power Daou described how "a triangle of blogs, media, and the political establishment" worked together to "generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom." "...it's still the Russerts and Broders and Gergens and Finemans, the WSJ, WaPo and NYT editorial pages, the cable nets, Stewart and Letterman and Leno, and senior elected officials, who play a pivotal role in shaping people’s political views."

Describing a triangle of "netroots + media + party establishment = CW," (netroots = "the base" and CW means "conventional wisdom"), Daou explained how they work together,

"...a well-developed echo chamber and superior top-down discipline, the right has a much easier time forming the triangle. Fox News, talk radio, Drudge, a well-trained and highly visible punditocracy, and a lily-livered press corps takes care of the media side of the triangle. Iron-clad party loyalty – with rare exceptions – and a willingness of Republican officials to jump on the Limbaugh-Hannity bandwagon du jour takes care of the party establishment side of the triangle. "

The Daou triangle described how Republican politicians work in concert with the echo chamber to turn false stories into "conventional wisdom." On the progressive-aligned side? Not so much. Daou again,

Whereas rightwing bloggers can rely on their leadership and the rightwing noise machine to build the triangle, left-leaning bloggers face the challenge of a mass media consumed by the shop-worn narrative of Bush the popular, plain-spoken leader, and a Democratic Party incapacitated (for the most part) by the focus-grouped fear of turning off "swing voters" by attacking Bush. For the progressive netroots, the past half-decade has been a Sisyphean loop of scandal after scandal melting away as the media and party establishment remain disengaged.

Six years later Doau wrote an update, How the Democratic establishment shunned the left, spawned the Tea Party and moved America right. From Daou's follow-up piece,




At the root of the problem is this: the GOP benefits from a superior communications mechanism with which to shape and reshape conventional wisdom. Faced with a public that holds opposing views, politicians can either change their positions to match the public’s views or change the public’s views to match their positions — Republicans almost always choose the latter, bolstered by a highly sophisticated framing and messaging infrastructure crafted and funded over decades.

... On the other side you have the Democratic establishment, political leaders, pollsters and strategists who, by and large, are poll addicts, chronically incapable of taking principled stands, obsessed with appealing to independent voters, hostile to progressive advocates, often just as captive to moneyed interests as their Republican counterparts. ...

[. . .] So the brashest, loudest, most confident-sounding voices end up filling the knowledge void, voices that sound authoritative and principled. Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Or Sarah Palin. Sean Hannity. Ann Coulter. Bill O’Reilly.

Echoing these blaring ‘voices of authority’ are Republican politicians and the right’s online denizens. Conservative pundits and columnists then lend it all an air of seriousness. And the media, desperately seeking to appear “fair,” give an uncritical national platform to those voices. Not to mention Fox News, which pipes a steady stream of propaganda into millions of American homes. The triangle of establishment, media, and Internet comes together on the right and conventional wisdom is created. Pollsters then dutifully register that shift in sentiment and the media regurgitate it. A virtuous loop for the right.

There’s simply nothing comparable on the Democratic side.

If anything, in the debt debate, President Obama and leading Democrats were part of the Republican triangle, reinforcing GOP talking points and running roughshod over a country that didn’t even agree with the conservative position.

But The President "Admitted It"

Daou's last point is key. While Republican politicians work with the conservative movement's propaganda outlets, often Democratic politicians also echo Republican messages. In the case of the "IRS scandal" the President did just that, saying that what happened was "intolerable" and firing the acting IRS commissioner. This validated and propelled the false message that the IRS had "targeted" conservative outlets for "harassment" instead of refuting the accusations with facts. And this admission served to validate by proxy the other false right-wing scandal accusations about Benghazi and "wiretapping reporters."

This is not the first time the Obama administration was taken in by false stories originating at right-wing propaganda outlets before the real facts were known. Van Jones had to leave the Obama administration after Glenn Beck accused him of being a "communist" and other right-wing sites accused him of being a "9/11 Truther." Shirley Sherrod was fired from the Department of Agriculture after Breitbart (the same person who posted the doctored ACORN videos) posted doctored video that made it appear she had made racist remarks -- even though the full video later showed the opposite to be true.

The great Brad Blog tells these stories, in IRS 'Scandal' Appears Nearly as Phony as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, ACORN 'Scandals',

... if you listened only to the corporate media, you --- like the Obama Administration --- also probably thought that the phony, trumped-up "scandals" that led to the inappropriate firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, the cowardly firing of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones and the outrageous federal defunding of ACORN were also the unhappy result of an endemic culture of corruption by the Obama Administration, the Democratic Party and its insidious political apparatchiks.

Those fake scandals, however, all three of them, were shams. They were eventually identified as such, though only after a great deal of harm to Sherrod, Jones and ACORN had already been done by the Democrats who fell for them and acted out of knee-jerk and cowardly fear to try and contain the perception of "scandal" which was, naturally, helped along by the very loud misreporting of "the nightly news".

A Teachable Moment

This is a teachable moment -- to us -- to recognize how the right's machine operates, to see how the corporate media and Washington Democrats react, and to learn not to get taken in by it. This is what they do. We shouldn't fall for it -- again and again. Remember, it was Washington Democrats who were taken in by right-wing smear operations, responding by defunding ACORN and censuring MoveOn.

These "scandals" are intended to distract us from the important stories that are unfolding around us, and obstruct the Obama administration from being able to accomplish anything more. For example, one unfolding story is how Senate Republicans are obstructing all attempts to get the government functioning and the economy recovering. By obstructing the National Labor Relations Board and Labor Department nominations, they are preventing the government from being able to enforce laws and rules that enable people to organize and bargain for better wages and benefits. By filibustering laws like last year's Bring Jobs Home Act and The American Jobs Act, they are keeping us from growing the economy and rebuilding our infrastructure, and from preventing the offshoring of jobs. By using hostage-taking tactics with the debt ceiling they are forcing cuts in programs that help people and grow the economy.

This is where our attention should be focused.

PS - A Note About The Law vs. The Rules For Groups Applying For Special Tax Status

While researching this post I came across something interesting about the kind of special-tax-status organization that is allowed to do political work while masking its donors. This is called a 501(c)(4) organization, often just called a "C4." According to the IRS,

The statute: IRC 501(c)(4) provides, in part, for the exemption from federal income taxation of civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.

The IRS regulation, or "interpretation" of the law: Section 1.501(c)(4)-1(a)(2)(i) of the Income Tax Regulations states that an organization will be considered to be operated exclusively for social welfare purposes if it is primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the people of the community, i.e. primarily for the purpose of bringing about civic betterments and social improvements.

Note the shift from "exclusively" to "primarily." These words have VERY different meanings. While the law says these "social welfare" organizations cannot engage in what is called political intervention, the IRS "interprets" this to mean that up to 49 percent of their activity can.

Recently the New York Times explained some of the ambiguity this difference creates, in Uneven I.R.S. Scrutiny Seen in Political Spending by Big Tax-Exempt Groups,

The tax code states that 501(c)(4)’s must operate “exclusively” to promote social welfare, a category that excludes political spending. Some court decisions have interpreted that language to mean that a minimal amount of political spending would be permissible. But the I.R.S. has for years maintained that groups meet that rule as long as they are not “primarily engaged” in election work, a substantially different threshold.

Nowhere do the rules specify what “primarily engaged” means, though there are indications that the agency has begun to re-examine the question. In March, the I.R.S. began sending out questionnaires to roughly 1,300 tax-exempt organizations, including some 501(c)(4)s, regarding their political lobbying and other activities. The agency has said it is merely seeking a clearer picture of how tax-exempt groups operate to ensure better compliance.

So all of those smear ads you see at election time, and no one knows who is paying for them? THAT is the difference between the law and this "interpretation" of the law. This "interpretation" of a law that requires groups with special tax status to operate "exclusively" for the social welfare is used to mask the corporate and billionaire donors and enable the smear ads that are destroying our civility and democracy.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#66 at 05-22-2013 12:44 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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05-22-2013, 12:44 PM #66
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
The part of America that the Hard Right takes over will quickly become a laughing stock. It will rely heavily upon agriculture and resource extraction and fail at all else. OK, maybe it will do well in country music. ..
-Uh, the policies of the "hard right" are those which made America the best country on the planet.

The Left's policies are those which have made France, well, France...

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
... Its universities will fill with cranks and will become diploma mills. People who want good K-12 education will go elsewhere...
-Now, you're delusional.

The University are filled with left wing cranks, particularly the humanities, That's why, although our engineering and science is still respected, the humanities are a joke (sad to say). As for schools, some of the dumbest kids in America come out of Blue Heaven...

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
... Relatively-sane places like Austin and Dallas will lose talent people who will cause places like Detroit, Flint, and Youngstown to recover. Wages will plummet.
In case you haven't noticed, the exact opposite has occurred for a long time...

Oh. And I noticed that PW has a spin on the IRS scandal which has already been so disproved that even the Obamanation hasn't tried it.







Post#67 at 05-22-2013 12:45 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Please read the last closing line of that article above. Read it a couple of times.
Then you will know why the GOP propaganda machine is on full tilt.

They're trying to distract you from the reality that we have a Tax Code that allows the elite in this country to buy election anonymously and tax free!

Remember that when you read the next post of faux outrage here and who is doing the posting.

I don't thing we have too many elites here,…
.. but we're sure as heck are knee-deep in sheepleshit around here.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#68 at 05-22-2013 12:47 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
...They're trying to distract you from the reality that we have a Tax Code that allows the elite in this country to buy election anonymously and tax free!
-No, PW is trying to excuse Obama IRS corruption because he likes their targets.







Post#69 at 05-22-2013 12:51 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-No, PW is trying to excuse Obama IRS corruption because he likes their targets.
Obviously, you lying filth have problems with simple facts -

Fact: The IRS is required to determine whether organizations applying for special tax status are "social welfare" groups or are instead engaged in political activity. Political groups cannot get the special tax status these groups were applying for.

Fact: Only one-third of the groups that were passed to specialists for a closer look were "conservative." Lots of other organizations were also checked, including progressive organizations.

Fact: No groups were audited or harassed or "targeted" or "singled out." This was about applications for special tax status being forwarded to specialists for a closer look to see if they were engaged in political activity that would disqualify them for the special tax status. This closer look is the kind of review all organization should get, but the IRS was swamped because of the flood of groups applying for a status that let them mask their donors, after Citizens United.

Fact: No groups were harmed. There were delays while the groups were checked to see if they should have special tax status. That's it. But the rules are that they are allowed to operate as if they had that status while they waited for official approval.

Fact: The only groups actually denied special tax status were progressive groups, not conservative groups. In 2011, during the period that "conservative groups were targeted" the New York Times carried the story, 3 Groups Denied Break by I.R.S. Are Named . The three groups? Drum roll ... "The I.R.S. denied tax exemption to the groups — Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts — because, the agency wrote in denial letters, they were set up specifically to cultivate Democratic candidates."

Fact: The IRS commissioner in charge at the IRS at the time this happened was appointed President George W. Bush.

Fact: According to the inspector general's report (p. 10) in the "majority of cases, we agreed that the applications submitted included indications of significant political campaign intervention."
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#70 at 05-22-2013 01:03 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Obviously, you lying filth have problems with simple facts -
-The IRS is supposed to check, but they targeted conservative and libertarian groups unfairly, and then made them jump through hoops which lefty groups did not have to jump through.

Even the liberal mainstream media admits that:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

...Things started brewing earlier this month when Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington first admitted conservative groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by tax bureaucrats in Ohio's Queen City.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

A few miles away, IRS analyst Mitchell Steele, answered the door of his home in a bath robe though the work day was just about to begin downtown. He seemed genuinely beaten down and told ABC News "this isn't fair to me."

...awwww. Poor baby!

[QUOTE=playwrite;470475]Obviously, you lying filth have problems with simple facts -[/QUOTE]

-Interesting. I provide evidence that the IRS admits that they unfairly targeted certain groups, I provide evidence of the length of time it took many groups to deal with the harassment (27 months) compared to bogus liberal groups connected to the POTUS (less than a month), but I'm suppose to be lying filth, while the Obamanation would be...?








Post#71 at 05-22-2013 01:22 PM by Wallace 88 [at joined Dec 2010 #posts 1,232]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Obviously, you lying filth have problems with simple facts -
Damn playwrite. You look like your going to blow a gasket.







Post#72 at 05-22-2013 01:24 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...they targeted conservative and libertarian groups unfairly,...

None of that says they didn't 'targeted' OTHER groups unfairly.

I realize you clown car sheeple brains have been rotted by all that ether you snort so let me give it to you one more time -


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

Outgoing acting 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 [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration]."
Maybe you can find a 3rd grader with a brain still intact and have him explain this to you real slow. That's under my assumption that sheeple programming starts at a later age in your neck of the woods - I may be too optimistic on that account.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#73 at 05-22-2013 01:25 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by Wallace 88 View Post
Damn playwrite. You look like your going to blow a gasket...
-Yeah. PW isn't used to having the Progressive Mainstream Media actually trying to report the truth on so many issues at once. He's confused.







Post#74 at 05-22-2013 01:29 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
None of that says they didn't 'targeted' OTHER groups unfairly...
It pretty much does.

As I've already covered:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...-hold/2159983/

...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...







Post#75 at 05-22-2013 01:29 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-Yeah. PW isn't used to having the Progressive Mainstream Media actually trying to report the truth on so many issues at once. He's confused.
No I'm sick of you lying filth destroying this country, period.

AND there's more and more of us unwilling to coddle you and your crap any longer.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
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