Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
The White House wants us to believe that dozens of IRS career bureaucrats spontaneously and simultaneously lost their minds and decided to start breaking the law to persecute Conservatives, with no direction from above, no warning to anyone in authority and no way to stop them.
That’s ridiculous. It wasn’t sudden at all, it’s been going on for ages.
Why wouldn’t this lie work? The same standard of BS has worked for years with the complicity of the liberal main stream media. Until the AP email story broke, it was working.
Joe Doakes
Until the media finds itself under attack, there’s really no crime the AP and the rest of the Praetorian Guard won’t sweep under the rug.
In a related matter: is this circumstantial evidence of administration knowledge? (Empasis is added)
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
From administrator of a bureaucratic unit that took care of tax-exempt applications to head of the biggest and most politically-linked part of the IRS, a part slated for massive expansion…
…a coincidence?
Hey, could be.
“We’ll have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”
Folks mocked Ms. Pelosi, but she was just speaking truth to power.
The permanent bureaucracy tilts…
The media tilts…
The IRS tilts…
It’s gettin’ hard for a man to stand on his own feet.
I is a Tea Party man.
And a patriot.
And I think guvaments too darn big!
(You have a few days to kick up your heels)
(Scandals distract big guvament for a time)
Mitch and Joe…
…keep on keepin’ on…
All the groups got their tax-exemptions. It would be a better story if groups were denied but they weren’t. In general terms what this means is the GOP can do this rather than talk about stuff that matters. The economy is at least stable despite recession in Europe. The deficit is down. They started talking about immigration but then the push back came from the right and now they’re beginning to argue about how Marco Rubio, the guy that may be their next candidate, “knows” or “understands” about the issue.
The larger question that congress should address, but of course won’t, is why the IRS should be put in the business of drawing a very fuzzy line between “social betterment” and “political advocacy”. This is as bad as the other line they have to draw when they decide which religions are legitimate and which aren’t, in terms of tax-exempt status. The only way to prevent this kind of problem from continuing to arise is to either eliminate all such tax-exempt statuses, or automatically grant tax-exempt status to any non-profit organization no matter that it is or isn’t involved in political lobbying or the practice of what it calls a religion.
Too facile, Doug.
Suppose you want to refinance but your lender says there’s a problem with the title to your house so you apply to the government office where I work to fix it. But I keep demanding more information about your home, who will live there, whether your daughter will have guests sleep over and who they might be, including photos and report cards and Facebook access and cell phone numbers of all her friends . . . before I finally approve your application. Meanwhile, you’ve been unable to refinance or sell for two years. Now suppose you learn I have a history of doing that to people like you, but only to people like you.
You got your loan in the end, so no problem? Hardly. It’s an abuse of government power that ought to result in my immediate dismissal. And if I was instructed to do it by higher-ups, they ought to go, too, all the way up.
When the people who hold political power use it to harass and oppress their political opponents, we call them dictators or tyrants. The fact it’s your people doing it, doesn’t make it right, Doug. It just makes you part of the problem.
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Well, as Derek Zoolander once said: “I’ve got a news flash for you, Walter Cronkite. You aren’t.” :^)
The biggest problem for Obama is that his (self-created) image is that of the competent technocrat, just trying to manage the country in a sensible way even as he is battered by idealogues unwilling to govern. But the IRS action was incompetent and stupid. If he’s not competent, then he’s not a competent technocrat, which makes him just another politician on an idealogical soapbox. The presidency is special because you are the chief executive of the biggest, richest organization on the globe. But it’s only as asset if you are seen to run it well.
Bush Jr., Clinton and Reagan lost their power to set the political agenda in their second terms not because their ideologies lost popularity, but because they were seen to be weak and incompetent after Katrina, Lewinsky and Iran-Contra. Obama took a couple of big steps in that direction. A few more and he’s officially a lame duck.
“All the groups got their tax-exemptions.” What? That is bullshit Doug. Half of them withdrew, and several are still waiting.
Maybe you should go back to copying and pasting the opinions of others; they are wrong, but at least they’re not insulting our intelligence by producing flimsy lies.
What the hell is your major malfunction?
Obama knew nothing about Fast & Furious, which just coincidentally mirrored his political belief in the need to disarm White Americans.
Obama knew nothing about the IRS targeting conservative Americans for audits and conservative groups for harassment, which just coincidentally mirrored the way he’s risen through political levels his whole life.
Obama knew nothing about actual Al Qaeda terrorists attacking Benghazi, he truly believed it was a bunch of film critics who got out of hand, which just coincidentally mirrored the “Barak-The-Bin-Laden-Slayer” narrative he was peddling to the electorate at the time.
Obama knew nothing about secret Justice Department wiretaps of conversations between Congress and reporters, which just coincidentally was leaking information that made him look bad in the Middle East?
Obama isn’t your typical use-your-power-to-crush-the-opposition Chicago politician, he’s just an empty chair, that’s your honest opinion, Doug? Seriously?
For someone so “conservative”, Emery is quite the sycophant when it comes to Democrat executives.
Incompetence is certainly at issue in this story. However, an even larger story is why these political groups are getting tax exempt status to begin with(liberal or conservative)? If the media wasn’t as lazy or inept as the IRS we would hear about that angle of the story.
… making all the convenient assumptions, avoiding the darker possibilities, focusing on side issues. Could the administration have a better representative on a blog?
You are misdirecting, Doug, same as Senate Democrats. Won’t work, we have our eyes fixed firmly on the ball, we won’t glance at the bunny.
The issue is abuse of power by government employees for partisan political purposes. There’s no longer any question it happened, the question is what to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s going to require more than a scapegoat retiring two weeks early and petulant remarks in the Rose Garden.
These were career IRS employees. If they haven’t always done this, what gave them the idea conservatives were fair game now? Who turned a blind eye when conservatives justly complained? How deep is the rot, how high does the corruption reach?
If conservatives can’t trust career government employes with something simple like tax exemptions, can we trust them with life-and-death decisions about our medical care? Will conservative requests for treatment get delayed two years while liberals fly right through? Incidents like this make me wonder.
Oh, I didn’t know that. But I still think it’s ok for this particular failure to have its turn on the flagpole. I know Republicans will overplay it and Tea Party folks will be telling the tale over and over to their bar mates for decades, but I don’t spend much time in bars anyhow.
Why shouldn’t they be tax exempt if they are non-profit? What would they be paying taxes on?
//”The larger question that [congress] should address, but of course won’t, is why the IRS should be put in the business of drawing a very fuzzy line between “social betterment” and “political advocacy”. This is as bad as the other line they have to draw when they decide which religions are legitimate and which aren’t, in terms of tax-exempt status.”//
Have you thought through the implications of your defense, Doug?
You suggest IRS agents mis-used the power of their office for partisan political purposes, not because Obama ordered it, but because he was incompetent to stop them.
That implies government agents are predisposed to abuse their powers but are restrained only by competent managers, i.e. Republicans.
The sensible conclusion is to give over as little of our lives to government agents as possible, and in those areas, put Republicans in charge.
I completely agree with the conclusion that flows from your analysis; I’m surprised you do.
//”The larger question that [congress] should address, but of course won’t, is why the Attorney General should be put in the business of drawing a very fuzzy line between “lobbying” and “bribery”. This is as bad as the other line they have to draw when they decide which religions are legitimate and which aren’t, in terms of tax-exempt status.”//
My edits.
The Economist is wrong. There is not much of a fuzzy line when it comes to deciding which religions are legitimate. What we had here was the equivalent of a clear preference being given to, say, religions whose leader does not wear a pope hat vs. those religions whose leader does where a pope hat.
Yes Terry, Emery is omnipresent.
I would also like to share with you a link to a that you may find interesting on a professional level.
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/
/..There is not much of a fuzzy line when it comes to deciding which religions are legitimate…./
Scientology is one example of what I would assert, a questionable and “fuzzy” tax exempt religion.
Thank you Sideshow Doug!
And now with a link that actually is on topic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348756/true-scandal-jillian-kay-melchior