IRS official Lois Lerner to take the Fifth

trfjr said:

I'm calling your bull crap out. you are falsely claiming this "four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups"
so i have a few question of you i would like to ask sense you claim your so well informed.
how many tea part groups received the C4 status between 2009 and 2011?
tell me how many progressive groups received their C4 status during the same time?
If your are as informed as you falsely claim you are you should be able to answer that, and if you don't know how can you possibly make the claims you are making

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the ratio is comparable

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Mithros said:

Our media is terrible. They print the sensational headline but never bother
to explain the much less explosive reality.

There's no indication that only conservative groups were investigated. There's not even evidence that conservative groups faced more scrutiny than liberal groups. In fact, the only group which had it's status refused was a charter of a previously approved Democratic leaning organization. Not only was it rejected, but the entire national group lost it's 501c4 status..

What we know is that the words Tea Party, and Patriot were used as part of the process to identify potentially political groups. We also know that four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups. This was politically insensitive, but those keywords *should* be flags.

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Mithros said:

None as far as I know, though there were Tea Party groups approved earlier without any investigation. However, it's hard to label a delay as a hardship as organisations were free to act like 501c4's while they were being approved. They only risked having to reveal their donors if the IRS deemed them to be too political.

A better question is this: Do any Tea Party groups deserve 501c4 status? Are they exclusively dedicated to social welfare as stated in the law? Or are they non-profit PACs, the status reserved for political advocacy groups.

Of course these groups were investigated because of their politics. That's the point, they aren't allowed to be political. They should have filed as 527's, but they didn't want to disclose their donors as the law requires. It's like complaining that the FBI investigates too many bank-robbers for bank-robbery.

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The Prof said:

LOL!

welcome to the club



indication?

well, even the ostriches...

i mean, we can understand how they wouldn't see what's so violently circling around em

but you'd think they'd at least have heard

DOJ opens criminal probe into IRS - The Hill

all the other big birds are screeching

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the pieces in the report which most support our world-view

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Mithros said:

Humans are intuitively bad at statistics. So when when most of us see a statistical report, we don't understand what it is actually saying. Our lack of understanding then allow us to latch on to the pieces in the report which most support our world-view.

For example, say you suspect that some employees are on drugs. You decide to test all of them with a drug test that's 99% accurate. One employee tests positive, what's the chance that they were actually on drugs?

Most people would say 99%, but that's not correct. The answer is that you can't know without more information. Counter-intuitively, you first need to know the percentage of employees on drugs. For example, if you have 100 employees, 1 is on drugs, and 1 tests positive, then there is only a 50/50 chance that you caught the right person. If none are on drugs then you certainly caught an innocent person. On the other hand, if all of the employees are on drugs then the employee is certainly guilty, and only catching one is a statistically anomalous result.

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Mithros said:

Our media is terrible. They print the sensational headline but never bother to explain the much less explosive reality.

There's no indication that only conservative groups were investigated. There's not even evidence that conservative groups faced more scrutiny than liberal groups. In fact, the only group which had it's status refused was a charter of a previously approved Democratic leaning organization. Not only was it rejected, but the entire national group lost it's 501c4 status..

What we know is that the words Tea Party, and Patriot were used as part of the process to identify potentially political groups. We also know that four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups. This was politically insensitive, but those keywords *should* be flags.

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trfjr said:

then how in the hell can you claim this if you don't know "four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups" what are you doing parroting something you read on Mother Jones or Buzz feed. So I'm calling you creditability and integrity into question you might think you can come to these forums and spread you uninformed falsehoods but you wont get away with it when i am around

I will tell you the amount because you have proven you are not informed and just a straight up bull crapper

only 3 Tea Party groups was approved between 2009 and 2011
during the same time period 65 progressive groups received their C4 status

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so what was that absurdly false claim again "four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups"
the correct claim is over 20 times as many liberal groups received their status than conservative groups

Sir you have proven you have no creditability or integrity, i will continue to monitor your post and i will call you out on every lie, every falsehood, and all the misinformation you try to spread
so i advise you to get your self better informed or i will continue to make a fool out of you

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apdst said:

Actually, there is. Why the denial?

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Mithros said:

If you could give me the evidence, I'd really appreciate it.

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Mithros said:

Our media is terrible. They print the sensational headline but never bother to explain the much less explosive reality.

There's no indication that only conservative groups were investigated. There's not even evidence that conservative groups faced more scrutiny than liberal groups. In fact, the only group which had it's status refused was a charter of a previously approved Democratic leaning organization. Not only was it rejected, but the entire national group lost it's 501c4 status..

What we know is that the words Tea Party, and Patriot were used as part of the process to identify potentially political groups. We also know that four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups. This was politically insensitive, but those keywords *should* be flags.

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apdst said:

Where have you been? Seriously, why the denial? Even Democrat congress critters are calling BS on this one. Obama even called BS! Dear Leader said it's BS and you still deny any wrong doing took place?

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trfjr said:

No its Ideologue liberals like yourself that is bad at being informed.
every post you make lacks any type of creditability until you are able to explain how you can make false statements like this "four times as many conservative groups were approved than liberal groups"
then when asked how many Tea Party groups was approved between 2009 and 2011 and how many Progressive groups was approved during the same time frame? you then says you have no idea. when they actual truth is only 3 Tea Party groups was approved between 2009 and 2011. during the same time period 65 progressive groups received their C4 status. so the correct claim is over 20 times as many liberal groups received their status than conservative groups.
So don't you lecture us in statistics when you cant even get simple facts correct and the capability to do grade school math

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OpportunityCost said:

Youre kidding me. They asked some very invasive questions that were borderline constitutional intrusions and you have the balls to say they werent investigated?

I know you have been reading on the subject so is it willfull ignorance, willfull blindness, or just BSing us?

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Mithros said:

There's no indication that only conservative groups were investigated

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Mithros said:

"wilful blindness".... Such irony..

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OpportunityCost said:

Indeed, since there is no evidence that liberal groups were investigated that intensely.

Since you are dodging, Im going to go with the full of it stance---dont feign ignorance when you know the details you claim to not know.

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The Center for American Progress, Washington’s leading liberal think tank, has been a big backer of the Energy Department’s $25 billion loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects. CAP has specifically praised First Solar, a firm that received $3.73 billion under the program, and its Antelope Valley project in California.

CAP has emerged as perhaps the most influential of all think tanks during the Obama era, and there’s been a rapidly revolving door between it and the administration. CAP is also among the most secretive of all think tanks concerning its donors. Most major think tanks prepare an annual report containing at least some financial and donor information and make it available on their websites. According to CAP spokeswoman Andrea Purse, the center doesn’t even publish one.

After growing rapidly in its first few years, tax records show, CAP’s total assets fell in 2006 for the first time, from $23.6 million to $20.4 million. Assets started growing again in 2007 when CAP founded the Business Alliance, a membership rewards program for corporate contributors, and then exploded when Obama was elected in 2008. According to its most recent nonprofit tax filing, CAP’s total assets now top $44 million, and its Action Fund treasury holds $6 million more.

A confidential CAP donor pitch I obtained describes the Business Alliance, a secret group of corporate donors, as “a channel for engagement with the corporate community” that provides “the opportunity to…collaborate on common interests.” It offers three membership levels, with the perks to top donors ($100,000 and up) including private meetings with CAP experts and executives, round-table discussions with “Hill and national leaders,” and briefings on CAP reports “relevant to your unique interests.”

Last year, when First Solar was taking a beating from congressional Republicans and in the press over job layoffs and alleged political cronyism, CAP’s Richard Caperton praised Antelope Valley in his testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, saying it headed up his list of “innovative projects” receiving loan guarantees. Earlier, Caperton and Steve Spinner—
a top Obama fundraiser who left his job at the Energy Department monitoring the issuance of loan guarantees and became a CAP senior fellow—had written an article cross-posted on CAP’s website and its Think Progress blog, stating that Antelope Valley represented “the cutting edge of the clean energy economy.”

Though the think tank didn’t disclose it, First Solar belonged to CAP’s Business Alliance, according to internal lists obtained by The Nation. Meanwhile, José Villarreal—a consultant at the power-
house law and lobbying firm Akin Gump, who “provides strategic counseling on a range of legal and policy issues” for 
corporations—was on First Solar’s board until April 2012 while also sitting on the board of CAP, where he remains a member, according to the group’s latest tax filing.

CAP is a strong proponent of alternative energy, so there’s no reason to doubt the sincerity of its advocacy. But the fact that CAP has received financial support from First Solar while touting its virtues to Washington policy-makers points to a conflict of interest that, critics argue, ought to be disclosed to the public. CAP’s promotion of the company’s interests has supplemented First Solar’s aggressive Washington lobbying efforts, on which it spent more than $800,000 during 2011 and 2012.

“The only thing more damaging than disclosing your donors and having questions raised about the independence of your work is not disclosing them and have the information come to light and undermine your work,” says Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. “The best practice, whether required by the IRS or not, is to disclose contributions.”

Nowadays, many Washington think tanks effectively serve as unregistered lobbyists for corporate donors, and companies strategically contribute to them just as they hire a PR or lobby shop or make campaign donations. And unlike lobbyists and elected officials, think tanks are not subject to financial disclosure requirements, so they reveal their donors only if they choose to. That makes it impossible for the public and lawmakers to know if a think tank is putting out an impartial study or one that’s been shaped by a donor’s political agenda. “If you’re a lobbyist, whatever you say is heavily discounted,” says Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and an expert on political ethics. “If a think tank is saying it, it obviously sounds a lot better. Maybe think tanks aren’t aware of how useful that makes them to private interests. On the other hand, maybe it’s part of their revenue model.”

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Mithros said:

How am I dodging anything?

The only group to be denied 501(c)(4) status was a liberal group. Conservatives 501(c) groups outspent liberals 85%-11% in spending from non-disclosed donors. These are hardly indications that conservatives were subjected to excess partisan hardship. Instead, all evidence points to conservative groups making a concerted effort to exploit 501(c)(4) status.

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OpportunityCost said:

You are dodging right now. The issue isnt denial, its the type of investigation, the delay in processing, the requests for extra information---but you keep pressing that talking point, it means jack and squat.

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This agrees quite nicely with the ratio

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A federal agency is under fire from politicians on both sides of the aisle. President Barack Obama says he will not tolerate the Internal Revenue Service being used for political purposes.

He promised to get to the bottom of the agency’s admission it targeted conservative groups, CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reported on Monday.

“This is something people are properly concerned about,” Obama said.

The president reacted for the first time to reports from the IRS’ own inspector general that the tax agency targeted conservative groups.

According to the agency’s own inspector general, it started in the spring of 2010 when the tea party movement was gaining steam. IRS specialists were told to focus on groups with “political sounding names” seeking tax exempt status. Groups with names like “we the people” or “take back the country,” Kramer reported.

Later, agents got updated orders to be on the lookout for tea party application or groups whose mission was to “educate about the constitution” or “advocate for smaller government,” Kramer reported.

The issue was raised a year ago, in the spring of 2012, when the then-head of the IRS, Douglas Shulman, was asked by members of Congress about complaints from tea party groups.

“There is absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens when people apply,” Shulman said.

However, the inspector general’s timeline has the practice going on at least a year earlier.

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Mithros said:

Please, I'm very slow. I need you to point out exactly the question that I am dodging. So far, you've managed to misread my post, demand explanations for positions that I've never taken, and then make claims that i'm dodging because I didn't defend the strawman position of which you insisted that i'm taking.

But you are right. Reading through my posts I've made a serious error. I should correct this post:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...ng-conservative-groups-17.html#post1061844985

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Mithros said:

Please, I'm very slow. I need you to point out

exactly the question that I am dodging. So far, you've managed to misread my post, demand explanations for positions that I've never taken, and then make claims that i'm dodging because I didn't defend the strawman position of which you insisted that i'm taking.

But you are right. Reading through my posts I've made a serious error. I should correct this post:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...ng-conservative-groups-17.html#post1061844985

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Mithros said:

This is what I based my analysis on, These are 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) advocacy groups approved through May 9th 2013.
http://www.irs.gov/PUP/newsroom/App...Advocacy Organizations through May 9 2013.pdf

This is the source that Fox News used to generate their graphic.
Groups that sought tax-exempt status say IRS dealings were a nightmare - The Washington Post

and the Washington Post sourced SOI Tax Stats - Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract (EO BMF)

Note two things. First Fox News ignored any mention of Patriot, 9/12, or constitution as mentioned in the Washington Post article. Second, and more importantly, the Washington Post article was looking for Non-Profit organizations. This includes all of the different 501(c) organizations as well as 527 organizations.

This is a great example of terrible reporting. We are talking about using the keywords "Tea Party", "912" and "Patriots" to determine which 501(c)(4) organizations engaged in excess political activity. If the Progressive groups are filing as 527's and the Tea Party groups are filing as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)s... Then it's kind of not the same thing.
Nor is the IRS approving "PRISM (PROGRESSIVE RESEARCH IN SPORTS MEDICINE) FOUNDATION" and "PROGRESSIVE EQUESTRIAN THERAPEUTIC SERVICES INC" a result of political bias.

I can understand why you'd see a graph like this and see why you'd be upset. But I'm not sure how your misleading graphic makes me look foolish. And for the record, I saw your graph and realized that it contradicted everything that I previously knew. So I dug into how they arrived at those numbers.

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