Is it just our imagination, or is GOP obstruction real? Here's a list, from today's New York Times, of how the GOP continues to undermine any progress this administration has proposed and set forth that will help the country to do better and to prosper.
IMO, the GOP destests President Obama more than it loves its fellow Americans.
Mr. Obama hasn’t given up inviting the Republicans to join him in making the hard choices of governing, but he has been rebuffed each time. This year, in hopes of getting some support for modest tax increases on the rich, he even proposed a reduction in the cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. The events of the last few weeks should make it clear to him why that offer should be pulled from the table immediately. Consider:
¶Shortly after Mr. Obama presented this idea to Republicans, more than a half-dozen of them began trashing it as too “draconian” and a “shocking attack on seniors.” For years, the party has demanded entitlement cuts, but the moment the president actually offered one, he was attacked. Then last Tuesday, Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, said that no grand bargain is possible because Democrats aren’t willing to make significant cuts to spending and entitlement programs. The Social Security cost-of-living change, he said, did not go far enough.
¶Senate and House Republicans are refusing to meet with Democrats to negotiate over the budgets passed by each chamber. Four times in the last two weeks, Senate leaders have proposed beginning a conference committee to hash out a federal budget; four times they have been blocked by Republicans. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said they were afraid the committee might reach an agreement to raise both taxes on the rich and the debt ceiling, which are, of course, the Democrats’ stated goals. Knowing that their positions would be deeply unpopular among the public if their stubbornness were exposed in an open committee, Republicans would simply prefer not to talk at all.
¶Instead of negotiation, Republicans cling to their strategy of extorting budget demands by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling. On Thursday, the House passed a stunningly dangerous bill that would allow foreign and domestic bondholders to be paid if Republicans forced a government default, while cutting off all other government payments except Social Security benefits.
The bill has no possibility of becoming law, but its passage was a deliberate thumb in the eye to Mr. Obama, business leaders and those who say the debt ceiling should not be used for political leverage.
Republican lawmakers have become reflexive in rejecting every extended hand from the administration, even if the ideas were ones that they themselves once welcomed. Under the circumstances, Mr. Obama would be best advised to stop making peace offerings. Only when the Republican Party feels public pressure to become a serious partner can the real work of governing begin.
Republican obstructionism, its obsession with the Benghazi attack, and now its newest bright shiny object, the IRS debacle, is what the GOP considers "governing." While the GOP wallows in its "All Benghazi All The Time" circus, important matters are not being addressed, and the American people are not happy. But that's the GOP's game plan. Screw the country as often and hard as they can, then blame the administration for doing nothing about it.
The GOP's greatest hope is to find something, anything, to bring down this administration. Never forget that the leading pols of the Republican Party got together on the night of Mr. Obama's inauguration in 2008 and made a promise to one another to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. That plan was hatched and sworn to in the midst of this country's terrible financial collapse, and while we were still at war.
"On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, a group of top GOP luminaries quietly gathered in a Washington steakhouse to lick their wounds and ultimately create the outline of a plan for how to deal with the incoming administration. “The room was filled. It was a who’s who of ranking members who had at one point been committee chairmen, or in the majority, who now wondered out loud whether they were in the permanent minority,” Frank Luntz, who organized the event, told FRONTLINE. Among them were Senate power brokers Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn, and conservative congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan. After three hours of strategizing, they decided they needed to fight Obama on everything. The new president had no idea what the Republicans were planning."
That is a bigger scandal than anything that's happened in the Obama administration.
But! LOOK! Over there!
BENGHAZI!
48 comments:
"Obama is looking more like Nixon every day..."
every crazy nutters dream...lol...theyre hoping some scandal will take this president down..this is how wingnuts believe government should work...when the goper are not in the wh...sniffing around for a way...to...impeach...lol...they're dumber than a box full of pig ears.
America has indeed become a nation of cynics. To some degree maybe it always was. A nation of HONEST cynics at one time. Sadly such "honest cynicism" seems a thing of the past.
Or perhaps it is more about biases, perceptions, and old paradigms than anything reflecting reality. Irrespective of what has caused our current national phyche is doing disservice to the nation many of us love.
But what does s libertarian conservative know?
And the beat goes on...
Shaw, while no one in the GOP, or the blogosphere has been able to tell us what was covered up, clearly, the Obama Admin is not without fault in this.
Their clumsy attempt to not say terrorists, terrorism or any like words, was at best political and at worst, inept.
How can Carney stand up and say the sky is not blue because he is not authorized to do so?
The IRS is a real issue and I for one would like to know when Pres Obama will address this. Why has no one lost their jobs yet? Why has he not been critical if the IRS over this?
It is as if, looking at both of these issues, that he is politically tone deaf.
Do either of these rise to the level of Watergate, as some in the idiotic part of the GOP charge? Of course not, but they do point to a continuing struggle of Pres Obama to understand, or care about political optics.
Republican Obstructionism is too light a term.
He was a Democrat and a Black....that was enough.
Hilary, in my opinion, would have faced much of the same...
She would have been a Democratic President...and a woman.
Just goes to show....you can take a Republican to lunch (or a 10K a plate diner)..... but you can't take them seriously. Kudos.
Shaw sorry you are getting foul email again and have to resort moderating your blog. To bad everyone can't be civil.
NYT is about as unbiased as MSNBC. The total misquote of the republicans will do whatever they can to obstruct obama. They just stated they will do whatever they can to defeat him in his reelection attempt. Unfortunately they chose the wrong person with the wrong message to bring that about.
I agree with you and hillary about bengazi. What difference does it make, only four Americans died. I heard obama on a press conference today say he said it was a terrorist the very next day. Wonder why he had rice say it was a youtube 5 days later.
I am sure our unbiased media will set the records straight, after all he did kill binladen and everything else is GWB fault.
Dave, regarding Benghazi:
"House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) responded to President Obama’s forceful condemnation of the GOP’s effort to portray his administration’s response to the attacks on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya as a cover-up on Monday, suggesting that the president sought to downplay the severity of the incident by describing the killings of four Americans as an “act of terror” rather than a “terrorist attack”
In the day following the Benghazi attacks, Obama appeared at the White House Rose Garden alongside then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In his remarks, Obama referred to the incident as an “act of terror” and used the phrase again at a campaign rally the day after in Denver, CO. “I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished,” he said."
This is what this nation has been reduced to in its petty and stupid partisan quarreling. Wasting time and money over whether or not the president called what happened in Benghazi "a terrorist attack" or "an act of terror."
There were many, many more attacks with many, many more deaths on consulates and embassies during the last administration, and nothing close to this witch hunt followed those tragedies.
Yes, the Obama administration could have and SHOULD HAVE done a better job in the aftermath of the attack, but from the testimony I heard, there was no dereliction of duty on anyone's part when the attack happened.
Where were people like skudrunner when lots more people were killed in the attacks during GWB's administration. Were those lost lives not important enough to him and the people who are hounding this administration? After all, only 53 PEOPLE died in those attacks. Why no hearings into the security failures then? The Democrats didn't politicize those deaths. In this case, the GOP is looking to do damage to Secy. Clinton and to President Obama.
AS for the IRS controversy. It is MUCH too early for the president or anyone to know what EXACTLY happened, why it happened, and who ordered what happened.
I hope the administration lets us all know what the hell that was about and why very, very soon.
BTW, skudrunner, did you think the NYTimes was unbiased when it helped the Bush administration beat the drums for war in 2003? Because it dutifully reported what the administration talking points were through the WH reporter, and very good friend of "Scooter" Libby, Judith Miller?
Or was the NYTimes "biased" when it reported all the details of Bill Clinton's Lewinsky escapades? The NYTimes didn't leave anything thing out.
Better whining, please, skudrunner.
Someone sent this to me in an email. I hope more information comes out about this:
"Tea Party groups were applying for 501(c)4 status. Political groups can’t be 501(c)4s. They can’t be involved directly in politics, raise money for candidates, launch primary challenges, run for office, etc. But groups calling themselves “Tea Party” and “Patriots” had been in the news for months doing exactly that! So why is it a big deal that the IRS was looking into the activities of groups calling themselves “Tea Party” before granting them non-profit status?"
------------------------
"You know what I think? I think the news media are desperate for a political scandal. We had so many of them during the Bush years, and then there was Clinton’s blow job and Gennifer Flowers and TravelGate and all the other Clinton-era scandals, phony and otherwise. Obama is just too boring."
Of the two stories, the IRS one is the one of greater import, IMO, because it presents the undermining of the First Amendment and, possibly, the election process.
It is ABHORRENT that the IRS, which so often operates with impunity, should specifically target groups that stand in opposition to the policies of a sitting President facing re-election.
The time line of the targeting is also a grave matter: it was known much earlier than now that the IRS had done what I had thought was just raving from the Right Wingers (who, I well recall, were complaining about targeting as back as far as 2011). This morning, CBS News had several alarming revelations -- to say the least!
Head should have rolled at the IRS -- and heads have not rolled yet.
There is squirm room in the Benghazi story -- although the imprisonment of a film maker as scapegoat is clearly a miscarriage of justice. I don't believe for a second that he wouldn't have been scrutinized if the offending-film-as-case scapegoating had not occurred.
IRS Mess by Joe Klein
I read that piece from Joe Klein earlier.
This is from Andrew Sullivan's blog:
"...so far, we don’t have the full set of facts, which is why getting the Inspector General’s report – and, in due course, a Congressional investigation – will help us sort out who was responsible and why. But what we do know is bad enough: what appears to be politicized auditing by the IRS in an election cycle. Here’s the best spin Ezra can muster:
"The IRS is supposed to reject groups that are primarily political from registering as 501(c)4s … If they’re going to do that, then they need some kind of test that helps them flag problematic applicants. And that test will have to be a bit impressionistic. It will mean taking the political rhetoric of the moment and watching for it in applications. It will require digging into the finances and activities of groups on the left and the right that seem to be political even as they’re promising their activities are primarily non-political.
If we’re not comfortable with that, then we need to either loosen the definition of 501(c)4s or create a new designation that gives explicitly political groups the benefits of the 501(c)4s (namely, they don’t have to pay taxes and they can keep their donors anonymous). But either way, as I wrote on Friday, the only way to make sure this doesn’t keep happening is for the IRS — or the Congress and White House that control it — to make some tough decisions about 501(c)4s."
And here’s the direst political gloss:
Where might an enterprising, public-spirited I.R.S. agent get the idea that a Tea Party group deserved more scrutiny from the government than the typical band of activists seeking tax-exempt status? Oh, I don’t know: why, maybe from all the prominent voices who spent the first two years of the Obama era worrying that the Tea Party wasn’t just a typically messy expression of citizen activism, but something much darker — an expression of crypto-fascist, crypto-racist rage, part Timothy McVeigh and part Bull Connor, potentially carrying a wave of terrorist violence in its wings.
I’d just note here that this is about the weakest link to the president or administration imaginable. The argument is that Obama generated paranoia about right-wing extremists and this caused lower-downs to check right-wing groups more assiduously than others. As Jesse Walker notes:
Douthat is speculating here, and this is hardly the only possible explanation for what happened at the IRS."
nobody knows the facts behind the IRS revelations...but that doesn't stop the rightwing/libertarian pant-wetters from howling at the moon and their fellow low information lackeys, hoping somehow, someway this will be the end of obummer.lol...they're way too eager to make this an impeach obama circus...it ain't gonna turn out that way...and they'll find something else to crap their pants over......they are so boring...lol
Well, Dave, if we can't discover what the administration covered up regarding Benghazi, mightn't that mean they did a highly skillful job of covering their tracks? That IS a possible interpretation, you know. ;-)
It all depends what one's bias is.
As for "Obstructionism" a number of things spring to mind:
1) Are our memories so short that no ine remembers -- or is willing to admit the role Tom Dashiell played in making it impossible for numerous Republican initiatives to be brought to a vote in the senate -- even though many of their ideas were not dissimilar in any significant way to objectives Democrats had in mind? It was a matter of not wanting the Republicans to GET CREDIT for doing something good -- a game as old as politics, itself, and one that usually works against the best interests of the people in favor of a particular faction or party.
2) Celebrated American humorist James Thurber -- certainly no conservative by the wildest stretch of anyone's imagination -- once wrote:
"He who hesitates, is sometimes -- SAVED." ;-)
In the honest opinion of most conservatives -- and after all we do have a right to exist, you know -- government has done and continues to "do" far too much.
We conservative-libertarians ltruly believe Thomas Jefferson when he said, "The government that governs best governs least."
The liberal-activists' fanatical, unswerving belief in the infallibility, innate righteousness and certain salubrious effects of their ideas is not accepted by everyone by a long shot, thank Heaven.
Unchecked power from ANY faction -- even the one I, myself, tend to admire most -- could NEVER bring good results in the long run.
NO ONE is correct ALL the TIME.
The metaphorical "bird" that symbolizes the body politic needs both a left AND a right wing in order to fly.
Extreme partisanship -- from ANY direction -- too often loses sight of that simple truth.
The country is in desperate need of MORE LIGHT and LESS HEAT -- now more than ever.
"Well, Dave, if we can't discover what the administration covered up regarding Benghazi, mightn't that mean they did a highly skillful job of covering their tracks? That IS a possible interpretation, you know. ;)"
There is no evidence whatsoever that the administration covered anything up. You're repeating FAUX NOOZ talking points, Mr. FT. Nothing came out of the hearings that even hinted at a "cover-up."
"The liberal-activists' fanatical, unswerving belief in the infallibility, innate righteousness and certain salubrious effects of their ideas is not accepted by everyone by a long shot, thank Heaven"
And this is how the Republicans operated when they were in power during the Bush administration. And Mr. Bush left office with an approval rating of 28%.
Lower than herpes.
For a week now, as we've lived through Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI!, and now the bureaucratic dumbassery in the IRS, we've also had a very complete performance of the entire repertory company of Bad Historical Analogy Theater.
The Obama White House is like Nixon's so says silverfizzle, regurgitating the righwing gruel he so dutifully swallows and leaves behind like spit on a sidewalk.
Ah yes, "lower then herpes," perhaps, but not NEARLY as low as the ELEVEN-PERCENT rating given congress in the same time frame. ;-)
I agree that these tactics are not helpful when indulged in by either side, BUT both parties have used them profusely in more or less equal measure, so all we can honestly say is, "Politics as usual," and ain't it a shame?
Oh, and let's not forget that fickleness and base ingratitude are part and parcel of politics everywhere. Look what the British people did to Winston Churchill after he'd brought them through the most threatening period in their history and -- with OUR help -- secured a decisive victory over the Axis Powers.
They THREW HIM OUT of OFFICE!
C'est la guerre! ;-)
FACT: Gallup's historical survey of approval ratings lists Harry S. Truman at 22% in February of 1952.
Our opinion of him him improved greatly with the passage of time.
As one who has had to navigate the Byzantine regulations of the IRS and as one who is currently waiting for the official reblessing of my ministry after 20 years, I understand the ire of people pissed off about this.
We had 501[c]3 status and lost it for failure to file 990's that we were not required legally to file.
So we have had to completely refile and now we wait, seemingly forever. Why does it take so long? because applications for 501 status have exploded as political groups take advantage of the Citizens United ruling.
The Tea Party Groups on the right and Occupy groups on the left that really have no business receiving 501 status have no desire to serve the public themselves. They exist solely for political purposes, no matter what their charter says.
That said, it is horrible that employees in the IRS targeted specific groups for extra review. I am glad the GOP is pushing this hard because faith in the IRS and our government is important in a free society and democratic country.
i only wish they would have been as vociferous in before the 2004 elections when the NAACP was targeted by the IRS.
For some reason, that incident did not rise to the level of much outrage within the GOP.
Shaw, isn't it ironic that the GOP, and conservative partisans have to resort to one of their own to tar President Obama?
Invoking Republican President Nixon's scandalous departure from office strikes me as slightly humorous.
Apparently, there were no Democratic Presidents as power hungry and devious as the one many still celebrate as one of our better presidents of the 20th Century.
Free, interesting point and at some level, I agree...
However, the GOP is saying they have the evidence of a coverup. If that is true, let's see it.
More likely, what they have is evidence of a bureaucratic war involving the White House and State and between Obama and Clinton, each protective of future legacies.
And yet here is what passes for legitimate GOP/Conservative scholarship in todays world... Sen inhofe of Oklahoma... “of all the great cover-ups in history” — including the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra and Watergate — Benghazi is going to go down as the most serious, most egregious coverup in American history. We may be starting to use the I-word before too long,”
Really? There is no hyperbole there is there?
Worse than the worst Constitutional crisis in US History? Worse than the Pentagon Papers detailing systematic lying by our government in the Vietnam War?
Worse than selling arms to terrorists and illegally funding rebels in Central America against an American law specifically written to prevent that type of action?
Clearly the GOP has so much disdain for President Obama that they are unable to discuss things in a reasonable way.
It gets harder every day for regular folks to take them seriously.
Are the Dems saints? Nope and neither is Obama. But our country would be better served if the GOP could temper its glee when the Obama Admin stubs its toe and save the heavy artillery for some real issues.
Benghazi was a fiasco, no doubt about it. But if there was a coverup, all that could be covered up would be the process of deciding how to describe and frame the events of that night to the American people.
But, and this is a big but, the American people knew within hours that this was an "act of terror." the president said so himself.
Free, we might also ask why, in light of such other high profile public testimony from admin critical witnesses, Rep Issa wants Amb Pickering to be deposed in private?
Is he afraid of what will be aired in public? I for one find his desire to avoid a public airing of the Pickering testimony to be very interesting...
Any thoughts?
I must say the IRS thingy is of substance and therefore deserving of scrutiny and investigation.
I can't help but wonder what the progressives position would be if a conservative or rEpublican were in the Big House.
RN, according to Politico:
This isn't the first time the IRS has been in hot water for meddling in the politics of nonprofits. And if past is prelude, the Obama administration may have a years-long scandal on its hands.
In 2004, the NAACP was hit with an audit over accusations of improper political activity for criticizing the Bush administration.
Rep. Charles Rangel, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee at the time, called the audit a police state tactic. Max Baucus, then the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to then-IRS Commissioner Mark Everson demanding answers to a list of questions about other similar audits.
“The integrity of our tax enforcement system is a critical matter,” Baucus wrote at the time. “The American public expects a high degree of non-partisanship and professionalism from the IRS."
The agency denied a culture of bias. They said the audit was triggered by staffers in a satellite office, this time in Kentucky.
It took more than two years and a lengthy legal battle for the IRS to drop its case against the NAACP. That was all well before the Supreme Court unleashed a flood of political groups into the IRS pool with its Citizens United decision.
“It caught the IRS completely flatfooted,” Lloyd Mayer, one of the attorneys that represented the NAACP in the case, told POLITICO on Monday. “They had never even thought of the possibility that one of their audit targets would go public and accuse the agency of bias.”
FACT: Gallup's historical survey of approval ratings lists Harry S. Truman at 22% in February of 1952.
Our opinion of him him improved greatly with the passage of time. --FT
Well then I'll remind you of this when Mr. Obama leaves office, should his approval numbers be low.
That, according to your comment, will mean that his standing in history will improve with time?
If any scandal taints his presidency, we can just ignore whatever impact it has on his popularity, because Mr. Obama will be seen as a great president in the years to come.
So, are you saying you agree with me?
I do believe you have raised the larger pictute and subsequent question of government agency abuse of power.
Perhaps Obama will nip it in the bud.
Not holding my breath thats for sure
I responded but blogger must have ate my comment... Oh well, it is what ot *
What a relief, Benghazi was becoming sooo last season.
Now we have another tempest in a teapot. Certain groups received thorough investigation if they had Tea Party or Patriot in the name of their organization when applying for 501-c status.
None of them were turned down.
Yup, you're really going to put a blowtorch up the administration's butt with this one.
Meanwhile, the adults wish to know when we're going to get to work on real problems.
Shaw,
With regard to the IRS's previous malfeasance: previous wrongs do not make right a similar wrong being perpetrated again.
My mother was an IRS auditor -- and hated the job. She told me time and again how dangerous the powers of the IRS can be.
Shaw,
Mr. Obama will be seen as a great president in the years to come
I doubt it. Of course, I have no crystal ball.
History narratives often dwell on the negative aspects -- as does the blogosphere as a whole (as we we see demonstrated time and time again). Just look at how many of us are in comment moderation!
IF [truncated and redacted by FT]
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating, ...
.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by [friends] to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop to build 'em up with worn-out tools; ...
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings –– nor lose The Common Touch ––
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And –– which is more –– you'll be [grown-up], my son!
~ Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
For decades every administration has vowed to change the tax code. None have because it has only been campaign talk that soon falls by the way side.
Maybe the latest IRS intrusion will spark reform, seems like a good time to enact the Fair Tax. Revenue neutral and takes away the punitive actions of politicians. After all it is Fair and The Right Thing to Do.
"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies, and we're gonna reward our friends ..."
-- President Barack H. Obama
I'd say the IRS was just following orders. The fish rots from the head.
President Obama's own perpetual campaign organization, Organizing for Action is a 501(c)(4).
Does anyone really believe their primary purpose is "social welfare?" and politics secondary?
I image in the Moonbats Shouting Nothing But Crap crowd does...
Skud, I agree that it is time to change the tax code...
Revenue neutral? Nah...
Soon conservatives will be decrying the jobs downturn as the sequester, military cutbacks and recession due to these cutbacks kick in.
Let me ask you, as a conservative, do you support cutbacks in military spending and if so, should the military identify those or the politicians?
Ducky, the twin stories of IRS overreach and government snooping on reporters emails should give pause to everyone...
Maybe, just maybe the government is indeed going too far.
"Shaw,
With regard to the IRS's previous malfeasance: previous wrongs do not make right a similar wrong being perpetrated again."
Of course they don't. My comment was to illustrate how everything is politicized in our present poisonous culture.
There were many more attacks on embassies and consulates resulting in 53 deaths during the GWB administration, and the IRS intimidated the NAACP in 2004.
The Chicken Littles running around the internet clucking about Mr. Obama being Nixonian are, of course, out of their partisan minds. Mr. Nixon was directly involved in the "enemies list" and in retributions against those who opposed him. The tapes of such conversations exist.
Unless evidence emerges that proves without a doubt that President Obama DIRECTLY ordered the IRS to do what is alleged, and to deliberately cover up anything having to do with Benghazi, I think we should deal with those two issues the way those issues should have been dealt with during Bush's administration: Punish those who were involved and find ways to be sure those things never happen again.
Of course Mr. Obama is responsible in that these things happened during his administration. As some folks have childishly pointed out, if he took the credit for the killing of bin Laden; then he must take the responsibility for matters that go wrong.
Here's the difference no one wants to acknowledge:
President Obama gave a DIRECT ORDER to go after bin Laden and take him dead or alive, and Mr. Obama knew the enormous risks attached to that DIRECT ORDER.
Regarding Benghazi and the IRS: There isn't a jot of evidence that President Obama ordered any cover-up or ordered the IRS to do any snooping.
Those two matters, by all appearances, seem to have been the result of poor judgement by government agencies and their underlings. The GOP can't bring down Mr. Obama's administration with trumped up personal scandal--he's clean as a whistle there--so the GOP HAS TO DO ALL IT CAN to promote sinister motives to both of these matters.
We understand what this is about. This is more of the same that has been going on since President Obama's took his first oath of office.
The GOP will not tolerate anyone except one of their own as a resident of the White House. They've been throwing tantrums ever since January 20, 2009.
Here is another example of how the Bush administration used the IRS to intimidate a group they didn't like:
"While few are defending the Internal Revenue Service for targeting some 300 conservative groups, there are two critical pieces of context missing from the conventional wisdom on the “scandal.” First, at least from what we know so far, the groups were not targeted in a political vendetta — but rather were executing a makeshift enforcement test (an ugly one, mind you) for IRS employees tasked with separating political groups not allowed to claim tax-exempt status, from bona fide social welfare organizations. Employees are given almost zero official guidance on how to do that, so they went after Tea Party groups because those seemed like they might be political. Keep in mind, the commissioner of the IRS at the time was a Bush appointee.
The second is that while this is the first time this kind of thing has become a national scandal, it’s not the first time such activity has occurred.
“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way,” California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. “I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I’m glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.”
The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. “Jesus [would say], ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,’” rector George Regas said from the dais.
The church, which said progressive activism was in its “DNA,” hired a powerful Washington lawyer and enlisted the help of Schiff, who met with the commissioner of the IRS twice and called for a Government Accountability Office investigation, saying the IRS audit violated the First Amendment and was unduly targeting a political opponent of the Bush administration. “My client is very concerned that the close coordination undertaken by the IRS allowed partisan political concerns to direct the course of the All Saints examination,” church attorney Marcus Owens, who is widely considered one of the country’s leading experts on this area of the law, said at the time. In 2007, the IRS closed the case, decreeing that the church violated rules preventing political intervention, but it did not revoke its nonprofit status."
Where were the howler monkey on the right when this happened?
IOKIYAR!
@Anonymous 9:57, here's the entire quote:
“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”
Punishing one's "enemies" through one's vote is what happens in a representative democracy. How many times have I heard "We'll remember what you voted against! and we'll vote you out of office!" when a politician does not vote in the way her constituencies wanted her to?
That's not rot. That's the way it's been since the beginning of our republic.
Attributing a nefarious underlying motive to this very American habit is what churlish little minds do, especially when the other side engages in it.
It is the IRS's job to ask questions and investigate those asking for a privileged non-tax status. reading the IRS qualifications for a non-tax status, I would agree some of these groups need to be questioned.
//The GOP will not tolerate anyone except one of their own as a resident of the White House. They've been throwing tantrums ever since January 20, 2009.//
Precisely. I have been saying that since November of 2008! There were idiot pundits even that early that blamed the 'economic collapse' on the imminent inauguration of Obama. That the very fact he was RUNNING for President caused all the problems.
they have attacked Michelle Obama.....for her dresses,her haircut, for advocating healthy diets, for being 'too good looking', for being a lawyer.
It has been getting worse all the time.
Actually this has been a good thread...several astute comments.
Who can take President Obama seriously?
Not the Washington Post. They give him four pinocchios:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-claim-he-called-benghazi-an-act-of-terrorism/2013/05/13/7b65b83e-bc14-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_blog.html
In other news...
President Obama's own perpetual campaign organization, Organizing for Action is a 501(c)(4).
Does anyone really believe their primary purpose is "social welfare?" and politics secondary?
I image in the Moonbats Shouting Nothing But Crap crowd does...
Hope and change? Hell no, politics as usual...
Dave
"Revenue neutral? Nah..."
Why do you say that. The books and articles I have read state it will be revenue neutral. Part of the gain would be in the underground economy paying taxes. We could also eliminate tax benefits on all charitable deductions. If you support the cause/church/group, a tax benefit should not be a factor.
"Let me ask you, as a conservative, do you support cutbacks in military spending and if so, should the military identify those or the politicians?"
I am all for eliminating any government waste, military, welfare, food assist programs and anything that brings spending under control.
The sequester was something that the politicians didn't expect to happen. I do believe the military should be given discretion where to save the money and when BHO was given the opportunity to administer his sequester he balked.
The remedy to end Republican obstruction is for voters to reject Republican candidates and can Republican incumbents in impressively large numbers in the next two elections, at least. For that to happen, a whole lot of middle class and working class people in red states are going to have to wake up to the fact that acting and voting on their biases and swollen baggage of resentment is costing them and the whole country plenty, and that it's not worth what it costs.
Re: the so-called IRS scandal. There was a flood of tea party and "patriot" groups seeking 501(c) tax-exempt status. There was no such flood of progressive groups doing that. Just that development is, and should be, a red flag prompting the IRS to check out at least some of those groups. And no, there would be no semblance of balance in the checking out, because there was no balance in the kinds of groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Groups legitimately engaged in charitable activities, not political activities, had nothing to fear from IRS scrutiny.
Obama should have stated that flatly and refused to treat this matter as an outrage or wrongdoing on its face. Not unless people doing their job and sticking to laws and regulations passed by Congress is suddenly outrageous and wrong.
Now, would someone explain to me, with a straight face, why I should believe Rove's Crossroads GPS and Freedomworks are charitable organizations?
So move on.org is not political
Eliminate all tax deductions for any group and that will solve this issue. If you believe in the cause a tax deduction should not matter, this includes churches as well. Why should an atheist have to support religion which a tax deduction is.
Skud, tell me how realistically we can cut military spending?
Currently the military wants to eliminate certain weapons programs but congress, which made sure those programs were in districts across the US to insulate them from cuts, refuses to accept military judgement on these weapons systems.
The GOP is much more reluctant to approve the cuts the military leaders want than the Dems are.
Are they saying they know more about military needs than the generals themselves?
Apparently they are.
We will never be able to cut our budget at all, in any category.
It's a mess...
Dave,
You didn't ask how realistic cutting the military is, you just asked if I support cutting it. My answer is yes.
Eliminate career politicians and go back to a citizen legislature. Two terms and you are out. That won't happen but one can dream.
Do we really need such a huge global military presence?
DDE was, what now can only be considered prophetic, absolutely correct when he warned of us of the MIC.
And, he was a Republican. How some things change, yet remain the same.
It was Republicans who abused military power in the last 12 years. Obama got stuck with that mess, and was one of the few who voted against invading Iraq.
Ike was a moderate among his political colleges like McCarthy and Nixon. Ike never liked Nixon and was forced to take him as vice president by the Republican party.
Ike also created the largest government program at that time. Bigger than SS, the national highway program was the biggest and most expensive government program to that time.
Ike was not a political party hack; and it was Ike who gave force to the then new Supreme Court ruling of integrated schools, something the Republican party at the time was against.
Where is the Republican with the courage to go against their party, for the common sense good of the country?
Ronald Reagan started our march to bankruptcy, and today's Republicans want to finish the job.
Glad you agree Ike was a good President.
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