Some insight into a present Obama "scandal". Read and be informed.

[Gunner Since Time Began - born to moan]

By David Horsey

May 15, 2013, 5:00 a.m.

The revelation that conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status were singled out for special attention by Internal Revenue Service bureaucrats has given Republicans their best cudgel yet to beat on the Obama administration. But as the outrage revs into high gear, let me offer a contrarian perspective: As inept as the IRS may have been in the way they processed applications for 501(c)(4) status, the bigger scandal is that the IRS grants the tax-exempt designation to so many overtly political organizations, treating them as if they are no more engaged in partisan politics than the Girl Scouts.

The reality is that numerous high-powered political operatives for both Republicans and Democrats have formed 501(c)(4) organizations. The GOP’s most prominent political guru, Karl Rove, has Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) entity that spent $70 million during the 2012 campaign encouraging voters to cast their ballots for Republican candidates. Under the guidance of former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, the president’s reelection apparatus has been reorganized as a 501(c)(4) group that no doubt will “educate” the public about the need for more Democrats in Congress.

After the Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United decision in 2010 that opened the way for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns, all that new funding needed someplace to go where it would not be easily tracked. In response, the number of groups seeking 501(c)(4) status – which, in addition to the tax break, allows donors to remain anonymous – shot up to 3,400 in 2012.

The flood of applications overloaded the IRS processing system. It may be wrong that, in order to deal with the mountain of paperwork, the IRS functionaries began culling the applicants by looking for keywords such as “tea party” and “patriot,” but I suspect it had far less to do with political bias than it did with the fact that the majority of new groups were conservative. If someone were running a bogus political operation and wanted to attract corporate cash, they would probably pretend to be some kind of grass-roots tea party group. It is entirely understandable that an overwhelmed IRS bureaucrat would choose to look for questionable applicants in the most obvious places.

The fact is that none of the right-wing applicants were turned down, even though they are probably as engaged in partisan campaigning as Karl Rove or Jim Messina. A 501(c)(4) group is, by law, supposed to be a social welfare organization whose primary activity is not politics. Can anyone honestly say that about Rove or Messina or any of the many tea party organizations?

Sadly, after this so-called scandal has blown over and enough heads have rolled, the cowed IRS will be even more timid in denying tax-exempt designation to any front organization run by partisan

[David Pleat AHADF (Royal Welsher and monkey lover)]

influx of wealthy Americans. And a few famous ones seem to have relocated over here as well.

[Gunner Since Time Began - born to moan]

We in the US have Federal income taxes to pay as well as state taxes of varying amounts.

[bostonbrian]

:****er:

[David Pleat AHADF (Royal Welsher and monkey lover)]

why Im asking.

[bostonbrian]

[Supermac1976]

:wave: Can you not get associates of Whitey Bulger to go collecting?

[David Pleat AHADF (Royal Welsher and monkey lover)]

and the house prices are still going up in the area.

:vsign:

[Supermac1976]

Dodgy dead Russians certainly trump my a few doors up there's a thai lass who got done for running a brothel. :hehe:

[David Pleat AHADF (Royal Welsher and monkey lover)]

[Supermac1976]

Mind the wife is still left bewildered at why I've become Mr helpful neighboor all of a sudden. :hide:

[eastgermanautos]

[bostonbrian]

[Snin]

crap sent to bbc by our al-quadea freinds he will be invading syria and keeping to supply al-quadea with money and weapons to fight a proxy war v russia and iran through syria so getting rid of the news stories about IRS whilst also keeping haliburton and the mlitiary companies and the zionists happy whilst also boosting the war mongering usa economy so rock on armageddon on the way n ting

[Snin]

you tempted chap ? go on its easy :hehe:

http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/more-americans-commit ting-suicide-than-during-the-great-depression-2/34195/ (http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/more-americans-committing-suicide-than-during-the-great-depression-2/34195/)

[David Pleat AHADF (Royal Welsher and monkey lover)]

[seasider7]

[Snin]

[seasider7]

[Snin]

is a zionist loving sell out cnut...love ron paul!

[seasider7]

on many fundamental issues though. His stance on education and taxes are scary, almost bizarre. I can understand his desire for isolationism, but he takds it to the exreme which would be counter productive. Paul seems set on eroding the separation to church and state protections, which I disagree with.

I love watching him though, as he is honest and passionate about his opinions, soething which is clearly lacking in others in the GOP/TP.

Rand Paul is a karnt.

[Snin]

but both fundamentally mental..but oh the passion...real politics...george at the senate was one of the greatest political speeches of all time but ignored by mainstrwam media...at least both of them show the vitalism that politics should bring but now its washed out with same shades of grey...really what is the difference from republican to dem or labour to con..nothing imo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4LDQixpCa8

[Snin]

to make one think..just like galloway...you push the extreme then settle for middle ground...now they all push the middle and have no actual political convictions..its bollox tbh..obama is no different to bush in reality..cnuts to a man

[Chief Arrowhead]

[Snin]

move on , obama not the problem its your military big business facist non democratic facist system...wake up and smell the feckin catnip...fair enough slag the bounty obama but also slag spineless cnuts in republicans , all same cnuts trying to destroy the true spirit of america imo ...i re-read ( for 4th time!) zen and art of motorcycle maint last week :cloud9: the whole country is fecked unless you all wake up and fight the whole feckin system , dont get sidetracked by obama v republican bollox...shirley you can see by doing that they are playing you like a dumb feckin patsy ?

[Chief Arrowhead]

when it fact it was spin.

Where did you infer the rest?

:calmdown:

It's not Obama, per se, that's at fault here. It's Liberalism. Or progressivism, Statism, whatever you choose. This is the use of the government as a bludgeon against its own people. I rail against the Statists, regardless of their political party. I rail against the Ruling Class including the establishment Republicans.

The IRS can take your home away from you, they can put you in jail. They can be the Gestapo of the US Government. This is why this is so chilling. When one party uses this awesome power to ruin lives based on the political persuasion of the person, we do not have America any more.

Ironically, or maybe not so ironic, what you advocate is what the Tea Party advocates, a total overhaul of the whole system that allows the Ruling Class to run roughshod over the citizenry. Are you not aware of how many establishment Republicans were voted out in their own primary by Tea Party candidates?

This is what had them scared and they stalled and harrassed these citizens for over two election cycles. The IRS then leaked information they discovered to the Compliant Media.

Democrat senators urged and implored the IRS to use its power against their "enemies" and the IRS gladly complied.

This is the kind of stuff that happens in Venezuela, snin.

[seasider7]

This should be interesting..

[Snin]

amerika is fecked , taken over by big business...its facism , run big big business,,...its cnuted...its like days of nero...end of an era...enjoy it...worlds changing...bbbbbbbbbbboooooooooooooyyaaaa , my time is coming, i got the weapons, i got my hy hill...die all commien facist cnuts...tbh i love pol pot...a true great...him n che ! the public are too feckin stupid to vote imo, dictatorship rules, and i am that ruler...bow down and love me and ill spare you inthe revolution chief

[Snin]

strip you of youre freedoms..wake up , smell the coffee and shoot fox news imo its like mogadomn of a nation...drug the kids on ritalin,feed the news stories, destroy democracy...amerika is germany 1936...stop arguing the small toss and see the biggwer picture imo

[Chief Arrowhead]

There are all kinds of like minded folks, mim-Obamas if you will, all over the government. They know that they will be rewarded for being a good loyal member of the regime. Look at the gal who ran the tax-exempt division, the gal in charge of this whole thing. She got lots of bonuses and now is in charge of Obamacare!

So, you harass ordinary folks, remind them that lying to the IRS is a potential jailing offense, and then ask them questions that Ostensibly are illegal. You know you won't get punished for it, in fact you might just get a nice bonus and a great performance review, allowing you to raise your status from, say, G-19 to G-25.

And if you are above them and you hear this isn't going on, wellllll, you just don't let it go higher up. Check out today's testimony. Here's the gist of it from the hard core right wing newspaper, the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/us/politics/irs-scandal-co ngressional-hearings.html?hp&_r=3& (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/us/politics/irs-scandal-congressional-hearings.html?hp&_r=3&)

Here's another right wing rag. They not only allowed a leftist group to get their approval in record time, they were also allowed to backdate the approval, thus covering up their illegal fundraising. While "Tea Party" groups had to answer hundreds of time consuming questions, burning up money in attorney's fees and keeping them out of the political process:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/irs-stalled-conservat ive-groups-but-gave-speedy-approval-to-obama-foundation/2013 /05/16/90c53e8a-be57-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/irs-stalled-conservative-groups-but-gave-speedy-approval-to-obama-foundation/2013/05/16/90c53e8a-be57-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html)

The IRS asked an Iowa right-to-life group if they ever prayed together and if so what was the contents of their prayers.

But this stuff is all fine with the likes of you because you don't understand America and are at heart a Statist.

[Chief Arrowhead]

[seasider7]

and you are now saying it's not actually the Party, but political minded IRS employees?

So which way do you want it?

[Alexism - Atheoist]

as they can from the rest. It's like smoking...it will kill you, but high powered marketing people can still get a good % of people to do it anyways.

Now they cry vs. the "redistributionists" who want a tax policy to be the same as it was 15 years ago...so it wasn't redistributionist the past 15 years???

[Alexism - Atheoist]

Obama is under 20%. You know non-political people who don't have to report are closer to 0.

All our politicians are whores - bought and paid for and the tax code reflects this.

[Alexism - Atheoist]

were correct. Ron Paul tells a great story - it just turned out to be wrong and he hasn't changed it which saddened me.

This is why I follow Krugman's advice these days - the Keynesians were right so why not listen to em?

[Snin]

thats what they want you to do! fight the man not his feckin monkey! cmon dude lifes getting good , we getting old and they taking the last of our freedoms...nothing to lose imo lets feckin go for it

[Chief Arrowhead]

I knew as soon as I answered him in good faith it was a mistake. Trolls will always nitpick on one little point and not reply to the substance. Sure enough that's what he did.

What an asshole.

[Snin]

cockknockers imo they have no basic idea of how politics is created to keep simpletons happy...opium of the supposed educated maseeses,...cnuts tbh i hate them more than religoious cnuts..arguing brain dead reb v dem policies...feckin wake up and see the bigger picture! its our feckin freedoms! dumb cnuts

[Chief Arrowhead]

[Gunner Since Time Began - born to moan]

[Chief Arrowhead]

READ, you complete waste of space.