So, here’s my takeaway from the IG report on the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups: in passive language, and thanks to insufficient managerial oversight, suddenly, ex nihilo, spreadsheets were developed that put conservative organizations into the exempt division’s cross hairs.
This was done, ex nihilo, because [?] wanted to make sure that conservative-sounding groups — with triggers that included “patriot”, “TEA Party,” “constitution,” “limited government,” or some suggestion the the current government wasn’t being run properly — weren’t abusing their request for exempt status, with [?] in this case remaining unnamed, but, of necessity, coming from inside the IRS, given that the IG report notes that IRS officials claim no outside pressures or involvement.
Which means either that the IRS itself is completely politicized, or else the IRS officials interviewed lied about their motivation, and that the ex nihilo development of this spreadsheet, which just so happened to include only conservative triggers and which we’re to believe appeared of its own out of whole cloth with no proximate cause or instigator, was in fact politically motivated, pace the rather strange and disjointed conclusions from the IG report, which seems to have based the conclusions on IRS officials’ testimony about their own motives.
— And which evidently missed the 2010 letter from Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus urging the IRS to look into the tax exempt status of conservative groups.
But never fear. The IG’s report is just the beginning of the process, and the Senate has vowed to look into the matter, which we’re being told now was a mere non-political management snafu base on a desire to better streamline the process of exempt status approval. To save the taxpayers money!
And the man leading that investigation? Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus. Who doesn’t see any conflict of interest, because he doubts “very much” that his letter directing the IRS to look more closely at conservative groups had any influence on the IRS looking more closely into conservative groups, which agency, let me remind you, decided independently and with no outside instigation, to develop a spreadsheet that, as it so happens — passively and by sheer non-political coincidence (damn the luck!)– to have targeted nothing but conservative groups. Because of insufficient managerial oversight. Over who was being targeted and why.
According to Orrin Hatch, the BOLO for conservative-sounding groups and entities was put in place a month before the Baucus letter. Suggesting either that he Baucus letter only led to refinements of a program that was already being instituted — by [?], based on no prompting whatever — or that Baucus’ letter was only the first official suggestion to the IRS to begin harassing conservative groups.
Or, I suppose, you can buy the ex nihilo story being pushed buy IRS officials (and the mainstream media, shockingly!), which pins the whole thing on low level employees with good intentions and no political axes to grind trying to make the country better, failing only because they weren’t properly managed and didn’t know the rules as well as they should have.
Like, for instance, the First Amendment.
Were Kafka not Kafka, he’d be spinning in his grave. Instead, he’s just kind of lying there, completely still, dead. Ironically. Because he’s Kafka, and he knows what you’re expecting him to be doing.
Kafka’s just an oversized bug. Who cares what he’s got under the carapace?
Well, [?] can’t have the masses getting out of hand, thinking their own thoughts, doing their own business — now can [?] ? It just wouldn’t be prudent, as George H. W. Bush might say. So [?] would naturally arise to put a stop to it. Since CHAOS, of course, must ensue otherwise.
Sit down. Be quiet. Rest calmly. Pay your taxes.
To the political right playing to the Watergate comparison: Do not.
In this series of official malfeasance — I include the lies and the wiretapping, which to my knowledge also cannot install itself — damages were done. Willfully.
Your government damaged you, America, and then sought to buy you off in that way you do an inferior subservient: By rote apology. “Mistakes were made. So sorry.”
Welcome to a thoroughly, irredeemably postmodern America.
No. Damages were committed and the only due course of action is and shall only be criminal prosecution.
Man up, right America. Stop playing catchup in the left’s Calvinball. If they are the ethical and intellectual frauds you know them to be, why do you perpetually have them compose and lead the narrative?
You have recourses and if you’re literally going to survive, use them!
The ex nihilo excuse is almost credible because Leftists being Leftists, you get a critical mass of them in one place and there’s plenty of spontaneous combustion as they feed off each other’s Fanatical Moral Certitude.
OTOH, anyone who’s worked in a gubmint bureaucracy knows that the Administration sets the tone. Had Obama made it clear from the get-go that Everything WILL Be Above Board, nobody would have dared “go rogue,” because they wouldn’t want to disappoint Dear Leader.
I’m sure it was well understood that as part of the O-ministration, they had a moral obligation to use whatever levers of power they had at hand to beat back the enemy. Fairness and legality is all well and good unless you’re dealing with subhuman
colored folkstea-baggers, and then you’d be Part Of The Problem if you didn’t thwart them at every turn.Bureaucrats are far more fearful of what the higher-ups think than of what the public thinks. I don’t know what Obama actually knew about the IRS—he may have given explicit instructions to NOT be informed—after dropping enough hints about what he generally wanted to choke a horse.
Thanks for clarifying that the world, indeed, is surreal, Jeff. I thought it was the Vicodin.
when you streamline the process of exempt status approval then shouldn’t you be approving things more quicker
fascism is supposed to make the trains run on time
curiously, that does not appear to be the case here
Calvinball
YES!
#Oscandalnames
shouldn’t you be approving things more quicker
Pretty sure it “streamlined” the process of knowing whom to reject.
Boehner, for today at least, gets that. “Now, my question isn’t about who’s going to resign. My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”
My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?
I bet more than a few people would gleefully nominate John Boehner to head the list.
Boehner growing a pair? Could it be?
That said, the most probable outcome is some minor flunkies are cut loose and hung out to dry, but the Demunists close ranks and protect the Obamunist Ohministration, with copious media fellatio.
I thought it notable that in regard to AP/DOJ, Media Matters invoked “la Affair Ms Flame” as part of it’s defense talking points.
Even more notable was that they managed to find a link to NPR for “Timeline: The CIA Leak Case” which is completely devoid of the name of the leaker, Richard Armitage, a Democrat.
My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?
Why, no one.
Only look at Kathleen Sebelius running around the Capitol City, guilty as sin, free as a bird.
You don’t buy that this was a spontaneous response to existing regulations that naturally included tea party organizations because they really WERE up to no good?
Cynic.
Armitage is a Democrat? I am going to want links.
From Wikipedia:
These don’t sound like the kinds of people a Democrat might hang out with.
…but the rest of Media Matters’ regurgitation of leftist talking points made me snort, in a kind of I-expected-that way. “The Bush Administration” outed Plame, not Dick Armitage.
And they’ll probably declare, if asked, that Scooter Libby had something to do with it.
Does anyone recall being surprised at the 2012 election results?
This is the beginning of a glimpse into an account long missing.
The other leftist meme is that in the post-scandal era, Obama’s Real Test of Leadership™ is how he handles the aftermath.
Kindly go screw yourself. I shall not just nicely Move On. If social justice is all leftwing cause du jour, I demand justice now. I mean, it’s a thing, right?
Obama is no more a victim of circumstance than a leader shall ever be — if leadership is the thing, where was it prior, just for starters? Or will this be an Official Apology and then back to junkets on Air Force One to see top celebrity acts across the continent while Americans are jailed or die?
So the jackassery is already bleeding through and it’s that shameless mendacity that the left will use, not just to confirm its inherent corruption, but to pretzel logic the right into arguing the wrong arguments.
Prosecution. Do it now or get out.
Does anyone recall being surprised at the 2012 election results?
I watched Mittens phone it in on the 2nd and 3rd debates, and the media fellatio of Obama reach full suction, so sadly I was unsurprised.
I do hope that these scandals finally breaking have two impacts:
1. The nails in the coffin of Hillary’s political career,
2. An Obamunist Ohiminstration so paralyzed that they cannot implement Obamunistcare and cannot do further damage for the next 3 years.
Yeh, and consider the surreal irony in the fact that Axlerod blames the …..”size” of the Government for this issue:
“If you look at the Inspector General’s report, apparently some folks down in the bureaucracy, and you know we have a large government, took it upon themselves to shorthand these applications for tax exempt status in a way that was, as I said, idiotic, and also dangerous because of the political implications,” Axelrod said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“Part of being president is there’s so much underneath you because the government is so vast,” he added. “You go through these [controversies] all because of this stuff that is impossible to know if you’re the president or working in the White House, and yet you’re responsible for it and it’s a difficult situation.”
ht to the hill via Wz
No mention of the fact that Plame was not outed, not having been covert. Her cover was blown for good in the Alrdich Ames case. Covert agents don’t drive to Langley every day.
So you think the use of the IRS was just a lark, a kind of college prank, with no rhyme or reason, no purpose or expectation of result, eh Curmedgeon? Merely a frivolous past-time for [?] and [?]’s minions in the IRS. A happy gag without ultimate effect?
So you think the use of the IRS was just a lark, a kind of college prank, with no rhyme or reason, no purpose or expectation of result, eh Curmedgeon? Merely a frivolous past-time for [?] and [?]‘s minions in the IRS. A happy gag without ultimate effect?
Hell no. But I do think a large enough % age of the American people are dupes, or who just want their Obamawelfare and don’t care. :-(
Holder said that he recused himself from making the controversial decision to subpoena the phone records of Associated Press journalists, saying that it was made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
– See folks. None of these people have done anything.
…..?
– Then why are they drawing government paychecks?
– In his reclusion he just admitted he knew what was going on and did nothing as the head of the agency to stop it.
– Apparently no one in this administration is held responsible for anything. Hillery, Holder, Bumblefuck, none of them. They’re just there to go on vacations, party with celebs, golf, drink their staff under the table, and spend tax payers money, nothing so crude as actually governing.
Hell no.
Well then what sort of effect would you think took place? Stirring Tea Party types to redouble their fund-raising efforts despite their wasted time and funds dealing with the IRS, ultimately resulting in greater recruitment and energy? Or less, the opposite of this?
So How Did Obama’s Organizing for Action Get IRS 501(c)(4) Approval So Quickly?
Well then what sort of effect would you think took place? Stirring Tea Party types to redouble their fund-raising efforts despite their wasted time and funds dealing with the IRS, ultimately resulting in greater recruitment and energy?
I sure am hoping, and in my own small way working, for this. If these scandals lead to:
1. The nails in the coffin of Hillary’s political career,
2. An Obamunist Ohiminstration so paralyzed that they cannot implement Obamunistcare and cannot do further damage for the next 3 years, and
3. Tea Party inspired Congress gains in 2014 of an equal or greater magnitude than those of 2010,
then I will finally smile.
The Congress gains of 2010 were actually proportionally really good, better than 1994, but far fewer seats were in play, so the impact was much less.
Good point Pablo, since there are two sides to this coin — suppression on the one side, and concomitant encouragement and grease on the other — put together to make a whole.
“took it upon themselves”
Would that be this David Axelrod?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25891.html
If these scandals lead to:
But here you are talking about the future, when the question pertains to the past. Why avoid looking at the past? Too unpleasant?
But here you are talking about the future, when the question pertains to the past. Why avoid looking at the past? Too unpleasant?
Too many Americans being stooges, parasites and chumps? Yah, that’s unplesant.
I am told that, sometimes, when you tell the people that work for you to do something, they actually do it.
But what do I know?
There would be no “plausible deniability” defense if those at the top didn’t keep getting away with what their subordinates are allowed to do on their watch. When you assume the power you assume the responsibility. Long prison sentences might convince the spineless weasels in Washington to find another line of work more suited to their character.
Like maybe, squeegeeing cars on the corner..
Yeah, “low-level” bureaucrats at the IRS took it upon themselves to hinder, delay and harass the TP-related applications. Without any direction or “policy” from up the food chain. Right. Got it.
It’s bullshit of course. Anybody who’s ever worked as a low-level bureaucrat could tell you that.
The thing that always PO’d me about Wilson “leaping to the defense” of his poor put upon wife, was the obvious lie Wilson told that no one called him on.
Wilson claimed that since he had the appropriate security clearances, it was okay for he and his then lover, Valerie, to talk about what they did for the government.
Complete bullshit. Security clearances are always “need to know” only and it doesn’t matter if two people hold the same security clearance, they are not supposed to talk about what they know. Especially two people who are not married.
“squeegeeing cars on the corner..”
Honest work is nothing to belittle. Just sayin’.
Obazm, 10/25/2010: ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’
So you think the use of the IRS was just a lark, a kind of college prank, with no rhyme or reason, no purpose or expectation of result, eh Curmedgeon? Merely a frivolous past-time for [?] and [?]‘s minions in the IRS. A happy gag without ultimate effect?
By the way, where did you ever get the idea I thought *that*? The Obamunist Ohministration is staffed with Marixst cadres, and I am sure they will leave behind moles in the civil service for a future Administration to deal with, or perhaps exploit, depending.
In Praise of Paranoia
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
Most of these TEA Party startups were asking for 501(c)(4) status, which allows tax exemption only on operating expenses. Partisanship is expected, and criteria judging partisanship is supposedly relaxed compared to stricter limitations placed on organizations having cherished (c)(3)’s, which allow tax exemption to extend to donors.
An egregious example of abuse of 501(c)(3) privileges is that one held by our dear friends at Media Matters For America (MMFA), the most partisan collection of kooksnakes I can recall, excepting perhaps OFA or KOS.
Right now would be a perfect time to hammer MMFA’s exemption status. Someone with a platform (or everyone with a platform) should seize this moment…
But that’s the only honest work they’re suited for, and has the advantage of being an actual service to those paying for it.
By the way, where did you ever get the idea I thought *that*?
Did you notice the idea was addressed in the form of a question?
Reason being, you so readily dismissed the possibility that IRS attacks on Tea Party people and conservatives generally would have had a significant role in the election results in 2012. Which results, it seems, to your mind are sufficiently explained by the inadequacies of Mitt Romney and the groveling stupidities of Americans in general, and the willing support of the media, without any need therefore to consider potential voter suppression effects of the attacks aforementioned.
Yet the attacks took place anyhow, despite the lack of need for them?
What a waste of time on the part of [?] and the minions of [?] at the IRS.
You don’t buy that this was a spontaneous response to existing regulations that naturally included tea party organizations because they really WERE up to no good?
If you read Other Gubmint Publications, prepared in part by the SPLC, then you’d KNOW the difference between a Hate Group and a Virtue Group.
Valerie Jarrett: “It’s payback time.”
Little did they know. Or so they claim.
Reason being, you so readily dismissed the possibility that IRS attacks on Tea Party people and conservatives generally would have had a significant role in the election results in 2012. Which results, it seems, to your mind are sufficiently explained by the inadequacies of Mitt Romney and the groveling stupidities of Americans in general, and the willing support of the media, without any need therefore to consider potential voter suppression effects of the attacks aforementioned.
Uh, that’s a Snake River Canyon jump to conclusions on your part. Regardless of impact, this is criminal.
That said, are you really telling me that Mitt wasn’t flawed enough to fail all by himself? On THIS blog, of all places?
Yet the attacks took place anyhow, despite the lack of need for them?
What a waste of time on the part of [?] and the minions of [?] at the IRS.
For the Left, everything is political. Stop them in one place, they will seek another, Ho Chi Minh Trail style. I don’t think they stop until they die.
Burns and Harris, Politico: Obama’s Dangerous New Narrative
And why is it dangerous? Because
“All bolster the conservative worldview.” That’s why.
Can’t be having that happen. Just can’t.
jump to conclusions
Still didn’t see the question marks? Or what?
On THIS blog, of all places?
Man. You really are dense, aren’t you?
On THIS blog, of all places?
Man. You really are dense, aren’t you?
Fuck off.
Its a toss-up. I will never forget the “Shoot-from -the-hip” meme that hit right after Benghazi, which was one of the few times Mitt tried to be forceful, and the conservative support for him after his remarks was pretty weak.
Most of the time, however, he was fairly terrible (like when he ended up apologizing for his comments, and setting the whole effort back half a year.).
* Or will this be an Official Apology and then back to junkets on Air Force One to see top celebrity acts across the continent while Americans are jailed or die?*
I think he should have Beyonce and Jay-Z deliver the apology. It would set the tone.
Actually, this whole IRS thing is nothing new as it turns out, and, as sdferr points out, it likely had a large effect on the election. It’s systematic abuse by the “any means necessary” crowd goes a long way to explain how progressivism has been electorally successful despite it’s proven record of real world fail.
Like as the government itself; the only prescription against tyranny being by limiting it’s size, IRS abuse can only be limited by limiting it’s size.
So, what do we do? Why, we give the IRS control of health care and our very lives of course.
We’re too stupid as a species to keep liberty.
The official [not supposed to be known but blathering idiots* do exist] repository of all the information and money that has been so painstakingly acquired these past five years would of course fly through the approval process.
The IRS-Pro Publica information flow will likely turn out to be just a part of the small stream that flowed to the MSM. The entire river flows to what was known in its beta forms as Narwhal & Dreamcatcher. Personnel is policy and both for progressives have a target, an end aimed at. All must be marshaled to achieve it soonest.
*
… to explain how progressivism has been electorally successful despite it’s proven record of real world fail.
To explain how, and also why.
Electoral success is all, because power is all (for the Obazmites).
Everything else — as for instance governing with a view to a better world, to the “benefit” of the governed — is secondary or tertiary, so not a “real world” measure of any worth.
Then if electoral success is all, every measure of governing will be determined by it’s contribution to that end. If this means eliminating the Constitution in effect, well, goodbye Constitution. The further entailment is that once this tyrannical principle is taken up seriously, letting go of it is necessarily impossible (because of the impossibility of making repair or restitution for the harms tyranny imposes on the subject[s]). Hence the shrug, or ease, at the use of the IRS, entirely contrary to the enormity of the harms imposed. Ha, ha, suckers, you trusted us.
For more correctness, you could have left this part off completely.
I blame evolution.
Peace is our value.
Liberty wants something other.
\
I blame that damned serpent.
I figured someone would blame Eve.
For being too stupid to keep liberty, we have (so far) always managed somehow to get it before we lose it.
Maybe we’re not through evolving.
Letting Eve vote, maybe.
Anybody who’s ever worked as a low-level bureaucrat could tell you that.
Because bureaucrats are always looking for ways to create more work for themselves, such as combing through long Byzantine questionnaire answers and then having to make decisions based on ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF DATA.
Unless, of course, they designed the questionnaires with the express aim of discouraging people from responding at all.
Which, that’s plausible only if they made EVERYONE fill them out.
#WeedOutTheWeakFirst
The Obamunist Ohministration is staffed with Marixst cadres, and I am sure they will leave behind moles in the civil service for a future Administration to deal with, or perhaps exploit, depending.
“Who needs a President for Life when you have an entrenched bureaucracy?” —Steyn
organizations having cherished (c)(3)
Like churches, right?
Didn’t the prohibition on political activity by non-profits come about because LBJ was torqued off by how badly a non-profit opposed his congressional bid, so when he got into office, he changed the tax code?
Out of spite?
How’s about we cut the Gordian Knot and get rid of LBJ’s handiwork once and for all?
The fuck???
Would You Believe The Administration Got Phone Records of The House Of Representatives?
DN being Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). If true, holy shit.
Whoops. The judge granting that warrant better have thought of a good escape plan. Cause it looks like that judge is between a rock and a hard place by definition.
Apparently, it is true:
Does AP have dedicated phone lines in the House?
There is no judge, sdferr. The AG has subpoena power. That power, according to Holder, was transferred to his deputy by way of his supposed recusal, which has never been committed to writing. We have major league shenannigans here, my friends.
holder needs to resign unless his goal is to completely undermine any and all idea that we’re a nation of laws, in which case he should stay
I thought this was operating under the secret court of the Patriot Act regime. But that was a mere assumption on my part.
“Does AP have dedicated phone lines in the House?”
nah the doj knows everyone’s service providers. you’re too ma bell
So, we have a DOJ underling subpoenaing the phone records of the House of Representatives using a power reserved for the Attorney General alone (though not for use against the HoR) based on a recusal that could not be proved in a court of law. You’ll have to take his word for it.
Incredible.
You also have to take his word that it is only the AP reporter’s calls that they are interested in and will keep in their records.
proggtardia no?
Well, this certainly adds a new motivating force for congressional action.
Wow.
In case you thought I was kidding at 11:34 am.
Add the results of the AP phone records too, especially the ones from the House Cloak Room.
link
link
They set those wiretaps in the Capitol?
How Congress responds will determine whether Franklin’s “if you can keep it” has left the building.
I don’t think that they are wiretaps but instead records of numbers incoming & outgoing and the time and duration of each call.
Hmm. Well, that’s less lurid, but still pretty damned provocative.