So many scandals, this one needs its own thread. We know the IRS inappropriately targeted conservatives. Only a few are denying this is a problem or in one case, saying it's their own fault for trying to follow the law.

Most acknowledge the outrage that the most feared agency in the land was using it's power to bully conservatives and infringe on their rights. I'm sure some new narrative will emerge now that Obama has fired the acting head even though he was leaving next month anyway.

One here is stubbornly sticking to the defense that other groups were denied tax exempt status even though that's a) irrelevant and b) irrelevant. The scoop came from the IRS itself in it's faux apology and admission to unfairly, and I say illegally, targeting ONLY conservative groups.

So just for fun anyway, are their any liberal groups claiming they were unfairly targeted? Were liberal groups asked for information on donors, entire printed websites, board meeting minutes, attendees, past, present and future members and activities?

Were they ever asked for a list of everyone they "had ever trained, or planned to train?"

Or my favorite, were they asked to pledge not to protest a certain group?

First of all, a 501(c)4 is not prohibited from being involved in politics, so you can throw that defense of the IRS out the window.

Whatever their goal was, what the IRS did is indefensible, inexcusable and an egregious violation of the public trust. And no, I won't stop hollering because of Obama's attempt at damage control yesterday.

We need a special prosecutor to investigate this, I do not trust this administration to investigate itself, particularly in light of the DoJ snooping on the media and possibly Congress and what typically happens to whistle blowers in this administration.

But here's your chance anyway to defend the IRS, sweep this under the rug, blame SCOTUS or continue mocking the real, now validated, concerns of those darn right-wingers or whatever. Or you can join me in standing strong for a full accounting, full accountability and reform so American citizens never have to feel threatened by their own government again.

What say you?

Lots of internet noise is being made today that this isn't new. That much is absolutely correct.

Nixon was impeached for this very thing (Article 2, Specification 1).

The one new thing seems to be the publication of individual and organizational application data.

I'm not the only one wondering about the pedophile.
Did the IRS give Romney's tax returns to Harry Reid? | The Daily Caller

Edit: I wouldn't trust a Prosecutor from Holder's Department. A former Congessman yesterday said that the best investigative tool was the one used for Nixon (So many comparisons to Watergate, hmm... ), a bipartisan Special Select Committee

No it isn't new and both Lerner, the one who 'apologized' and Miller, the guy who was quitting next month anyway, lied about one of their excuses, a “big application surge between 2010 and 2012″

And speaking of excuses, here's another from one of the guys on the left still in denial about the gravity of the IRS betrayal. The IRS didn't' do anything wrong, they were "acting in the public interest when it opted to train its auditing power on the Tea Party and affiliated groups" because I mean hey, the Tea Party "has made no effort to hide its contempt for the very institution of taxation" and so you're damn right the IRS SHOULD bully and intimidate their enemy according to this guy.

OK you Huffpo goober, it's called the first amendment. The very same constitutional right you just exercised to rail on the Tea Party instead of the IRS gives the rest of us the right to express contempt for the IRS.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Julian Bond thinks the TP should be audited because they are in his words the Taliban,

Right, I watched that video. It's nice to know some left-wingers are all for a tyrannical government intimidating and harassing conservatives. Those darn baggers are an evil threat!

Hello Steve:

Which of the words from the IRS website do you NOT believe?

Excon

Hello again,

Yes, there's more...

When you write a tax code that fills 100's of volumes, and then leave it to the IRS to interpret and define what those words mean, there's going to be some differences of opinion... THIS is just latest iteration.

If you want to BLAME somebody, BLAME congress.

To think that Obama would ORDER his underlings at the IRS to investigate his enemy's, is ludicrous. But, I'm USED to your side's ludicrousness.

excon

Why is it ludicrous when there are so many examples of Presidents doing it in the past ? But that isn't how I think it went down. I think he loves demonizing conservatives and that sent a signal down the food chain. The only real question is.. how high up the food chain did the corruption go ? Take them under oath one at a time and ask them "did you make the call ...or was it your boss ? "

Edit.. and yes ;the tax code needs simplifying and the IRS power dramatically reduced... except the Dems created legislation that now gives them power over our wallets ,and our health . So when you complain about the power of the IRS.. know from where it came from.

The part under that that says " Organizations that engage in substantial lobbying activities sometimes also are classified as social welfare organizations."

The part in the actual regulation that says this:

Got it?

The Woman responsible for the IRS harassment and civil rights abuse of Conservatives got a $130,000 bomus and got promoted to be in charge of Obamacare...

And people on the left claim Obama doesn't have his hands in this. And that Obamacare won't determine who gets treated and who doesn't by what their political affiliation is.

Hello again, Steve:
Let me see... Which one carries more sway - the LAW as passed by congress, or the REGULATION as promulgated by the IRS??

Uhhhh, let me make this easy for you... It's the LAW!

Got it?

Excon

Since 1959 the IRS has gotten away with the crime of changing the specific and concrete word exclusively to the soft and open-ended primarily. IRS agents were thus allowed to determine if an organization was "primarily" concerned with the promotion of social welfare.

You posted IRS talking points. What I posted IS the law. You do know how the law works don't you? It's just like Zerocare, Congress passed that 1000 page nonsense and the regulators turned it into a 7 foot tall stack of code. That's how it works.

I repeat, the LAW states "As long as the legislation that an organization attempts to influence is germane to its social welfare purposes, the organization is engaged in activities that further social welfare purposes. See for example Rev. Rul. 67–293, 1967–2 C.B. 185 (promotion of legislation on animal rights); Rev. Rul. 76–81, 1976–1 C.B. 156 (advocacy of anti-abortion legislation); Rev. Rul. 68–656, 1968–2 C.B. 216 (legalization of currently illegal activity); and Rev. Rul. 71–530, 1971–2 C.B. 237 (advocacy of changes in the tax law). "

This is getting uglier all the time. Lies, lies and more lies.

First, the IRS lied about the existence of documents in regard to targeting conservative groups in response to a FOIA request.

Second, they staged the revelation - the question that led to it was a plant.

Third, after abusing their power to target conservative groups, the IRS deliberately withheld this information until after the election.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but does this not trouble you lefties yet? Don't expect me to entertain your notions that government is the solution, it's the problem, and expanding it is only going to make things worse. Imagine if this were a Republican administration... I suspect you'd be hollering until you're blue in the face.

This discussion of the interpretation of the wording of the law is largely irrelevant . The fact is that the IRS took the Tea Party out of play for the 2012 election to avoid a repeat of 2010 .Tea Party applications averaged 27 months for approval, while those from liberal groups averaged nine. The Barack H. Obama Foundation status was approved in a one-month timeframe.

There is no other explanation . The inspector general's report shows Louis Lerner knew about the targeting problem in June 2011, but wouldn't admit to it in correspondence with Congress over the next two years. There were at least 4 documented lies she told to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in that time. Douglas Shulman knew about the targeting in May 2012, but told Congress in August 2012 he didn't.Steve Miller knew about the targeting in May 2012, but refused to admit it to Congress during testimony . On August 4 ,2011 the executives of the IRS met; including the IRS chief counsel to discuss the problem . So we know that before the election . All the bosses of the IRS were aware that their agency was specifically denying tax-exempt status because of political considerations.

AND ,it's most likely that the Treasury Dept was aware of it . Treasury's inspector general, J. Russell George, told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 that he was auditing the IRS political organization screening.Deputy secretary Neal Wolin, knew of the IRS scandal before the presidential election.So what are the odds that the White House did no know about the situation by the summer of 2012 ? WE may be looking at criminal conspiracy to cover up improper or illegal practices inside the IRS .

We also know that this was not the actions of a local Cincinnati office .The same activity occurred in offices in Washington, D.C. two towns in California, and even Austin, Texas. So it is not likely that this was some low level staffer's interpretation of the law. What we have instead is a violation of the equal application of the law... and what was the determining factor ? The political position of the organizations applying .
This is a situation that is crying for an independent counselor and committee to investigate. But so far the Obots position is that the highly politicized Eric Holder Justice Dept can investigate this... and we are assured of integrity of process. Yeah right !

Sour grapes?

Really ? How many postings were there about voter suppression on this board ? The only pertinent question here is... was there any illegal activity by this super empowered government agency?. and was there a systematic illegal attempt to suppress the conservative vote by the IRS ,the Treasury Dept ,and ultimately the White House or the Obama re-elect organization ?
The broader question of course is why would a free people allow a government agency to acquire so much power and control over their lives ?

Some one was over zealous in investigating the obvious, but the question must be asked why would someone try to register a charity with a provocative political name, seems like laying a trap to me, but then I have surpicious nature when it comes to things political.

You talk of voter suppression but surely that counters the millions of dead who vote. I truly don't understand how it is that such things happen but then I don't live in a place where centralisation is abhored

Hello again, tom:

Really, now... I think they're at the heart of it..

IF the Tea Party was taken out of the 2012 election, it was the CONGRESS who did it with their stinkin tax laws.. Even IF I accept Steve's argument over the words primarily and exclusively, that IS the problem... The rule/law says that it's LEGAL for you to spend 49% of your money on politics, and 51% on social welfare, but ILLEGAL is you spend a penny the wrong way.. Now, let's say you're an IRS employee trying to figure out which penny went where.. Frankly, it's a job that can't ever be done right... If he misses by a penny one way, he's targeting somebody... If he misses it the other way, he's abusing the taxpayers money...

If you wanted to SIMPLIFY the IRS burden on us, it stands to reason that we need to SIMPLIFY the tax code... In THIS case, that's SIMPLE... We can enforce the law that's ALREADY in place and in the process make the IRS LESS of a political arbiter and MORE of an accountant... Any dumbcoff can tell where somebody EXCLUSIVELY spends their money, but it ain't so easy to figure out where they PRIMARILY spend it...

I'm not quite sure WHY you think think this complication in the tax code is GOOD. That doesn't seem very right wing of you.. Could it be that if it ruled your way, the donors of these organizations can be kept secret... Nahhh... Republicans aren't like that.. You LIKE transparency... Don't you?

If you get your way, I'll ask questions of you, like Ted Cruz asked of Chuck Hagel... IF we DON'T know where YOUR money is coming from, we don't know if it came from North Korea, or Al Quaida. We don't know if it came from Al Gore, or Saddam Hussein... We just don't know...

Excon

The wording has not changed . What changed is the uneven application of the law for political reason .So while I'm all for simplifying and clarifying ,the real issue is if one standard applied to lib organizations and another more stringent standard for the TP ,then their rights were violated. Further ,if there was an intentional conspiracy to apply that for political reasons ,then it was criminal conduct.