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IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups[W:484,732]

Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Apples and oranges, bro. Making specific death threats is illegal.
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"Death to America" is not a specific threat to any specific person. In fact it kind of goes along with what people like Grover Norquist are saying when they call for an end to the US government by drowning it in a bathtub. Both expressions of 1st amendment rights with a similar message.

I'd call it more like comparing Fuji apples to Macintosh apples...bro...
 
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Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Buck Ewer said:
"Death to America" is not a specific threat to any specific person. In fact it kind of goes along with what people like Grover Norquist are saying when they call for an end to the US government by drowning it in a bathtub. Both expressions of 1st amendment rights with a similar message.
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I didn't say "death to America" qualfied as a specific death threat, either. :roll:

However, "death to all infidels"--that you mentioned--would be a specific death threat.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Correct me if I'm wrong , but isn't this IRS thing about ascertaining eligibility for tax exempt status ?..............
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Bonzai said:
Correct me if I'm wrong , but isn't this IRS thing about ascertaining eligibility for tax exempt status ?..............
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It is .
It is about the "Citizens United" decision and the murky area of political action committees claiming tax exempt status and then buying partisan political ads for or against specific candidates, with donated money.
They are crying that the IRS asked them more questions than usual when they applied for tax exempt status.
But the implications go far deeper as to just who the IRS can and should question.
When people or organizations behave in a suspicious manner they should be considered suspicious by the authorities.
 
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Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

apdst said:
I didn't say "death to America" qualfied as a specific death threat, either. :roll:

However, "death to all infidels"--that you mentioned--would be a specific death threat.
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Is a chant of death to all infidels really any more of a death threat than a call for drowning the government in a bathtub?
There are a lot of infidels. There are a lot of people that make up the government too.
At some point it all becomes rhetorical...bro...
Nevertheless both should be investigated.
 
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Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Buck Ewer said:
Is a chant of death to all infidels really any more of a death threat than a call for drowning the government in a bathtub?
There are a lot of infidels. There are a lot of people that make up the government too.
At some point it all becomes rhetorical...bro...
Nevertheless both should be investigated.
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Yes, because infidels are people. The government, isn't.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Bonzai said:
Correct me if I'm wrong , but isn't this IRS thing about ascertaining eligibility for tax exempt status ?..............
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As long as the requirements are pertinent to the request and applied equally to all applicants, no harm no foul. This thing is about using a governmental position to make acquiring tax exempt status more difficult for groups which hold views counter to what the governmental employees held.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

apdst said:
Yes, because infidels are people. The government, isn't.
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Romney claimed that "corporations are people too"... HA!
If you really want to pursue this line of hair splitting; The exercise of infidelity to Allah is an idea as is the exercise of a government of, by and for the people. The people calling for an end to the US government by starving it of revenue should be investigated for possible activity of tax evasion. The radical Islamist should be investigated for a possible plot to deploy a bomb. I drew the simile to illustrate the gravity of calling for the overthrow of the government by not paying taxes is every bit as high as calling for the end to America by throwing a bomb. Either activity should be investigated by the appropriate federal agency.
I'm not going to argue that the simile is exactly linear but I believe I made my point that they are at least ...similar.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

apdst said:
NFP's are randomly audited all the time, every year. We're not talking about audits. Yo DO realize the difference. Right?
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So you won't answer. Gotcha.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Fenton said:
Rob, Obama's tearing down your party.
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1) Obama isn't tearing down anything

2) It's not "my" party. I know it's probably incomprehensible to you that there are people out there that don't exactly subscribe to one party or the other whole hog style. I'm a liberal to the extent that the Dems pretty much are not near liberal enough for me.

Fenton said:
Are you a Democrat or Obama supporter because he could give a rats ass about the legacy of the Democrat party.
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I'm a supporter of policies I want to see happen. Again, I know this must be hard for you to grasp but Obama pisses me off in certain aspects but those aspects are what you probably like most about him... or should I say hate least about him.

Fenton said:
Once the press turns against him who does he have left ?

HOJ and HollyWood.
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He'll still stand towering over the GOP congress by leaps in bounds.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Bonzai said:
Correct me if I'm wrong , but isn't this IRS thing about ascertaining eligibility for tax exempt status ?..............
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Yeah, I actually fail to see the issue here. The IRS should be vigorously investigating phony rightwing lobby groups that want to use my tax dollars by carrying on their activities tax free. It's outrageous it isn't investigating them more thoroughly in the wake of Citizens United, which let lose a spate of Koch-funded front groups.

It's not the IRS's fault that corporations and the rich created hundreds of this front organizations while progressives didn't.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
As long as the requirements are pertinent to the request and applied equally to all applicants, no harm no foul. This thing is about using a governmental position to make acquiring tax exempt status more difficult for groups which hold views counter to what the governmental employees held.
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Well if you have a rush of new applications for tax exemption from alot of groups around an election, wouldn't it make sense that those increased numbers would result in an increased number of alot of those groups being scrutinized ? And the counter push from the Tea Party groups against the scrutiny is that they aren't pushing for any particular political party, something that no one actually believes in the first place...................
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
As long as the requirements are pertinent to the request and applied equally to all applicants, no harm no foul. This thing is about using a governmental position to make acquiring tax exempt status more difficult for groups which hold views counter to what the governmental employees held.
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I guess the real issue, which of course hasn't been reported on by the lazy media, is what percentage of applicants had an obvious rightwing agenda (as discerned by their names) as opposed to those with a leftwing agenda.

I suspect (but don't know) that Citizen United released a spate of Koch-backed rightwing front groups trying to use my tax dollars to illegally support tea party types. I suspect that there wasn't a concomitant increase in progressive groups.

So the IRS SHOULD be vigorously investigating these rightwing shills. I think the IRS commissioner was stupid to apologize to Koch and his ilk. He should have come out swinging.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

I would be surprised to see a correlation between the increased scrutiny of these "charities" and rampant attempts of voter fraud by the GOP.

Not that I condone focusing deliberately on one group over another.


Bonzai said:
Well if you have a rush of new applications for tax exemption from alot of groups around an election, wouldn't it make sense that those increased numbers would result in an increased number of alot of those groups being scrutinized ? And the counter push from the Tea Party groups against the scrutiny is that they aren't pushing for any particular political party, something that no one actually believes in the first place...................
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Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Chaddelamancha said:
I would be surprised to see a correlation between the increased scrutiny of these "charities" and rampant attempts of voter fraud by the GOP.

Not that I condone focusing deliberately on one group over another.
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Right. And next to attempted nationwide voter suppression by the Right in the same election, this is strictly a tiddlywinks game......................
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Chaddelamancha said:
I would be surprised to see a correlation between the increased scrutiny of these "charities" and rampant attempts of voter fraud by the GOP.

Not that I condone focusing deliberately on one group over another.
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Generally the rightwing noise machine come up with fake controversy (like the ACORN circus) when it's trying to cover up its own misdeed.

Thus Issa and Grassly went after Fast and Furious to suppress the GOP's participation in the more disastrous Wide Receiver fiasco of Bush's.

This attack on the IRS sounds like its the result of the IRS finding massive fraud by Koch front groups. The GOP saw it would be in more political trouble for this, so it cooked up this story.. It's the modus operandi of the rightwing noise machine.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

Bonzai said:
Well if you have a rush of new applications for tax exemption from alot of groups around an election, wouldn't it make sense that those increased numbers would result in an increased number of alot of those groups being scrutinized ? And the counter push from the Tea Party groups against the scrutiny is that they aren't pushing for any particular political party, something that no one actually believes in the first place...................
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As long as it was applied equally I will agree 100%. In this case it was not and regardless of who did it to whom is intolerable or should be at least.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
As long as it was applied equally I will agree 100%. In this case it was not and regardless of who did it to whom is intolerable or should be at least.
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How do you know it wasn't? Has anybody provided evidence about the number of rightwing front organizations that sprung up in the wake of Citizens United versus progressive groups? I'd like to see the statistics. I expect that the number of conservative shill group application exploded and made up the bulk of the applications the IRS had to review.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

head of joaquin said:
Generally the rightwing noise machine come up with fake controversy (like the ACORN circus) when it's trying to cover up its own misdeed.

Thus Issa and Grassly went after Fast and Furious to suppress the GOP's participation in the more disastrous Wide Receiver fiasco of Bush's.

This attack on the IRS sounds like its the result of the IRS finding massive fraud by Koch front groups. The GOP saw it would be in more political trouble for this, so it cooked up this story.. It's the modus operandi of the rightwing noise machine.
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Wow. You make it seem so obvious that I cannot believe Obama and all those congressmen and senators fell for it. You really need to be making some calls.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

head of joaquin said:
How do you know it wasn't? Has anybody provided evidence about the number of rightwing front organizations that sprung up in the wake of Citizens United versus progressive groups? I'd like to see the statistics. I expect that the number of conservative shill group application exploded and made up the bulk of the applications the IRS had to review.
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I guess if others come forward to show evidence otherwise, I will happily retract that statement. I guess in hindsight it would have been more accurate to have stated it appears that it was not applied equally.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
Wow. You make it seem so obvious that I cannot believe Obama and all those congressmen and senators fell for it. You really need to be making some calls.
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Honestly I think the Commissioner acted like a boob when he apologized. Did he bother to look into the number of applications the IRS faced from obvious rightwing groups versus progressive groups? Maybe he should have before he went public to see if in fact the IRS wasn't just doing its job.

Here's a concept: the IRS SHOULD vigorously investigate organizations that appear to be political front groups looking for tax breaks,
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

head of joaquin said:
Honestly I think the Commissioner acted like a boob when he apologized. Did he bother to look into the number of applications the IRS faced from obvious rightwing groups versus progressive groups? Maybe he should have before he went public to see if in fact the IRS wasn't just doing its job.

Here's a concept: the IRS SHOULD vigorously investigate organizations that appear to be political front groups looking for tax breaks,
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No argument at all with that statement. But the IRS needs to place policies in place that ensure that the process is not abused and open to bias.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
No argument at all with that statement. But the IRS needs to place policies in place that ensure that the process is not abused and open to bias.
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You're preaching to the choir on that. I know the IRS up close due to my practice. They're usually professional (much better than state taxing authorities), but lack of systematic policies can lead to unpleasantries with overzealous auditors and revenue agents.

It's just not clear to me that the Cincinatti Office did anything wrong, and simply vigorously examined suspect applications.
 
Re: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 201

BretJ said:
I guess if others come forward to show evidence otherwise, I will happily retract that statement. I guess in hindsight it would have been more accurate to have stated it appears that it was not applied equally.
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And the appearance of bias is as bad as bias in a government agency, I'll grant you that. The IRS not only has to be fair, but it has to appear to be fair. That said, I find this thing trumped up a bit.
 
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