If Obama knew....

Rocketman said:

where is the last phrase of the last sentence, how convenient of you to leave that out

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I gave you the pertinent info. Not my problem if you want to mischaracterize something else I said.

It would be a pretty large abuse of power to use a tax collection agency to attack your enemies. But what do I know...I think funneling weapons to Iran should of been an impeachable offense as well.

iacardsfan said:

Lemme just say that even if we were to begin the impeachment process, look at his senate. Not even worth the time fellas.

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I say let those Senators who wish to play a political angle answer to their constituents on these violations against freedom of political speech.

roughdraft274 said:

I gave you the pertinent info. Not my problem if you want to mischaracterize something else I said.

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This is exactly what you said:

roughdraft274 said:

It was wrong for anyone to put the terms "tea party" and such on a list for screening, they never should have done it, and who ever did it should be fired, but trying to link this to the whitehouse is another wild goose chase.

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How silly of me to reply to exactly what you stated:roll:

pbrauer said:

Is the tax code 501 c(4) meant for major political donations?

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Were they giving donations? I understand that they were political advocacy and information groups and not PACs. That could be solved by simply inquiring whether or not donations were received by political candidates by these groups. The fact is that conservative groups were singled out and had their tax exempt approval unnecessarily delayed. This is a violation of freedom of assembly.

Rocketman said:

This is exactly what you said:



How silly of me to reply to exactly what you stated:roll:

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That does not show where I said that "CEOs, Presidents, Owners, should never be held accoutable for what they allow their subordinates to do."

Again, I refer you to that whole reading thing we discussed earlier.

No, I am not kidding you, IF it has been what is IT? Simple questions, no answers. You are in an outrage and dont even know why.

Rocketman said:

Are you ****ing kidding me? It has been in every newspaper and TV channel in the country.

The IRS discriminated against one group of people, if it had be blacks instead of a political group, what would the fall out have been then?

Obama and Clinton hung our people out to dry in Benghazi knowing an attack was coming.

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Quik said:

No because that would send the message that this action was somehow worse than the atrocities and flagrant violations of civil liberties that he has already committed.

Clinton should have been impeached for bombing Yugoslavia, but not for having sex with Lewinsky. Obama should be impeached for the Utah Data Facility but not for this.

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Clinton was impeached not for having sex with Lewinsky but for Perjury in his testimony in a civil suit that he sexually assaulted a a woman (Not Lewinsky). Perjury qualifies under the High Crimes and Misdemeanors clause for impeachment.

The actions of the IRS is abuse of power and would also apply as an impeachable offense. The fact that Obama has engaged in worse acts does not diminish the actions thru the IRS but is further support for impeaching him.

Zyphlin said:

Even if it's the case, this is an issue of an unequal enforcement of the law. It's funny that this standard is so often grasped on to in other debates, such as the gay marriage debate, but is ignored by you when convienent here. The Government discriminating on enforcement of the law based on political views is the issue, not whether or not the enforcement itself is right or not.

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Please check this thread.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/gener...s-scandal-happened-1959-a.html#post1061844664

Guy Incognito said:

You are misunderstanding this so completely I hardly know where to begin. The IRS was singling out tea party groups applying for tax exempt status based on their names because a group called "tea party patriots" is less likely to qualify for tax exempt status than a group called "Methodist hospice" or something. It was to catch tax cheats. This so damned obvious to anybody not pushing a political agenda!

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You are the only one who is bringing out the tax cheat point. I have not heard this in the media reports that they are tax cheats in fact or implied.

Why it would take years and three years in some cases for approval of tax exempt status in which it is generally self-declared and even for groups that do engage political advocacy only pay taxes on those expenses of political advocacy? The point of the thread is whether or not if Obama knew about this whether he should be impeached as is implied for abuse of power.

Given that the tax cheat issue you brought up is a red herring and given the large amount of time of approval by the IRS and also the request of info that the IRS requested that was not material to the approval for the tax exempt org 501(c) 4 such as the donor list are kept secret does the hypothetical of Obama knowing what was going on with the IRS qualify as a High Crime and Misdemeanor and in that case would it be sufficient in a public support sense to impeach Obama ?

Shadow Serious said:

You are the only one who is bringing out the tax cheat point. I have not heard this in the media reports that they are tax cheats in fact or implied.

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Waitaminute. Isn't the IRS Supposed to Watch Out for Tax Cheats? | Crooks and Liars

Guy Incognito said:

Their methods were probably unconstitutional, hence the apology. But the government does unconstitutional things all the time, usually they are pretty shameless. What is different about this? Only selective outrage by the tea party trying to gin up a scandal by loudly complaining and making insinuations about apolitical bureaucrats at an unpopular agency.

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Using Unconstitutional methods are worse than using statutorily illegal methods since the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and is higher than mere statutory law. More than an appology is needed; someone will need to pay a price for this outrage.

It doesn't matter how many times a government offical vioaltes his oath of office and the rights of the Citizenry the correct response would be removal of office and other additional penalties perhaps loss of pension and other privileges if not actual imprisonment.

Is it your opinion that the members of the Tea Party should just shut up and take it? Is it your opinion that they are not entitled to the justice that were denied them?

From what I seen so far the IRS is apolitical insofar as they take up the political water of whosoever is the President in the Whitehouse and for one I think that needs to be stopped.

Shadow Serious said:

Using Unconstitutional methods are worse than using statutorily illegal methods since the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and is higher than mere statutory law. More than an appology is needed; someone will need to pay a price for this outrage.

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That's laughably ridiculous. The government does unconstitutional things all the time, and they usually don't fold this easily. Your outrage is utterly misplace and based on ignorance.

Guy Incognito said:

Waitaminute. Isn't the IRS Supposed to Watch Out for Tax Cheats? | Crooks and Liars

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First the link is to a website that engages in advocacy of Democratic Party so is not independent Media. Secondly the article refers to an article done by the organization "Institute for Research and Education in Human Rights" which itself is a left leaning organization however in the article itself it states that some Tea Party orgs violated terms for tax exempt status on 501(c) 4 but did not call them tax cheats. The difference is that the expenses for political activity must be declared and taxes paid for on those. Major Media may yet go down that road but we are talking about orgs that have not declared themselves 501(c)4 and were not approved by the IRS when requested and were given the run around and were asked questions that the IRS did not need to approve the status. The 501 (c) 4 can keep their donor list secret as well as their member list. The IRS did ask for both of those from these groups.

Personally I think that there is need for some reform on this. Simply stating which politicals are for the groups stand should not be prohibited. They should be able to mention Politician A is for their position or in an election candidate A is against it. That doesn't mean that material support should come for the orgs just info on the stands of the politicos and contact info if a member wants to give support. Again if a org has a stand to improve the general welfare of the populace then this is necessary info and unfortunately we live in a situation that politics is a overwhelming factor and would have to be addressed.

Guy Incognito said:

That's laughably ridiculous. The government does unconstitutional things all the time, and they usually don't fold this easily. Your outrage is utterly misplace and based on ignorance.

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It doesn't matter that the government does unconstitutional things all the time. Regardless of any personal ignorance the best way forward is to start combating said unconstitutional acts somewhere at some point an continuing to press on to others. The Equal Protection clause was volated when they singled out Tea Party and Patriot orgs and I am fairly certain that there are many more orgs that have Progressive and other such terms that crossed the line in advocacy as strictly defined under 501(c) 4 and have not been called to pay the taxes for their political speech. Just finding 3 of them to have done so is not equal protection. Furthermore, I would like to know which one were found to be in violation I wonder if they were straying off the Democratic Plantation.

pbrauer said:

Please check this thread.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/gener...s-scandal-happened-1959-a.html#post1061844664

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Doesn't actually address the issue. If organically more tea party groups were sent in for a closer look then that's one thing. That's not what happened here. Tea Party groups were SPECIFICALLY TARGETTED. That's not organic, nor is it just a symptom of there being more of them applying...that's going out of the way to SPECIFICALLY target a subset of americans due to their personal political views.

Glad to know you're in favor of unequal enforcement of the law pbrauer and targetting of political views. How progressive of you.

Shadow Serious said:

Clinton was impeached not for having sex with Lewinsky but for Perjury in his testimony in a civil suit that he sexually assaulted a a woman (Not Lewinsky). Perjury qualifies under the High Crimes and Misdemeanors clause for impeachment.

The actions of the IRS is abuse of power and would also apply as an impeachable offense. The fact that Obama has engaged in worse acts does not diminish the actions thru the IRS but is further support for impeaching him.

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Negative, it sends the wrong message. It says that alleged political discrimination is somehow worse than war crimes (Libya war, terror drone war, etc.).

Quik said:

Negative, it sends the wrong message. It says that alleged political discrimination is somehow worse than war crimes (Libya war, terror drone war, etc.).

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Silencing ones political opponents using the police powers of the State IS worse than the war crimes that Obama has committed so far. He has the bully pulpit he can use that. It is a major violation on the civil liberties when he can bring the powers of the IRS, FBI, BATF, and possibly others for impeding the right of Americans to self assemble for an address of grievances per the 1st Amendment. The war crimes that have occurred that we know could probably be covered under the War Powers Act unfortunately and perhaps that needs to be tightened or abolished thus requiring a declared act of war by the Senate. With respect to "terror drones" where American Citizens were targeted to be killed is sort of a dark grey area I frown on it but am not adamantly opposed to it. I think the Democrat controlled Senate could put a ban on further uses of this by declaration.

Josie said:

If Obama knew what the IRS was doing to conservative groups and allowed it to occur, would you support going forward with impeachment?

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That would have to translate that Obama knew that they were selecting "conservative" groups and not looking for fraudulent Non_Profits that were actually politically oriented groups. It is all about hiding donor names in paperwork and there are no good guys involved. The mountain builders are working like beavers to inflate this molehill.

Shadow Serious said:

Silencing ones political opponents using the police powers of the State IS worse than the war crimes that Obama has committed so far.

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Not even close.

He has the bully pulpit he can use that. It is a major violation on the civil liberties when he can bring the powers of the IRS, FBI, BATF, and possibly others for impeding the right of Americans to self assemble for an address of grievances per the 1st Amendment. The war crimes that have occurred that we know could probably be covered under the War Powers Act unfortunately and perhaps that needs to be tightened or abolished thus requiring a declared act of war by the Senate. With respect to "terror drones" where American Citizens were targeted to be killed is sort of a dark grey area I frown on it but am not adamantly opposed to it. I think the Democrat controlled Senate could put a ban on further uses of this by declaration.

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Murdering people is objectively worse than targeting them for tax purposes.

Quik said:

Not even close.



Murdering people is objectively worse than targeting them for tax purposes.

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Killing people would be worse than targeting them for "tax purposes" provided that those who were killed had not declared themselves enemies of the United States and gave support to organizations who intend to murder citizens of the US and engage in wanton destruction within the US. Those who do so have warranted removing the safety on the "gun" that may be used to kill them. The actual use of deadly force against them is a point of some controversy. What should have been done for the filers of the 501(c) 4s was within say 3 mths the IRS would give provisional approval but notify them that they cannot engage in advocacy of any political candidate or Party including notifying their members on what politicians support what or what members of Congress were supporting the issues that concerned their organization. Also any advocacy that they have done before approval would be subject to taxation. The IRS did not do that instead they requested info that the IRS was not entitled to such as donor lists and member lists, they requested copies of information including all Facebook posts on their Facebook account, some were further targeted by FBI and BATF as part of the investigation. This made the approval process take years.

The use of police powers against the Citizenry to suppress their Right of Assembly and to Petition the Government for a Redress of Greviences is more severe due to the numbers affected and due to ablity to limit the destrcutive effects brought by government. Indeed the killing of these four people may only be addressed by such petitions and assemblies and then can put and end to it. It is a matter of scope, if the President exceeded his authority in the killings we can address the issue in Petitions in Congress as long as we can keep that Right and not have it suborned by a President that is continuing down a path that leads to a Police State and where unapproved ideas and speech is silenced.

DaveFagan said:

That would have to translate that Obama knew that they were selecting "conservative" groups and not looking for fraudulent Non_Profits that were actually politically oriented groups.

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It is a given in this OP that Obama knew and that "conservative" groups were targeted.

It is all about hiding donor names in paperwork and there are no good guys involved.

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Per the rules regulating 501(c) 4s the donor lists may be kept secret as well the member lists.

The mountain builders are working like beavers to inflate this molehill.

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It is more like we have this mountain and who's fault is it.

Shadow Serious said:

Killing people would be worse than targeting them for "tax purposes" provided that those who were killed had not declared themselves enemies of the United States and gave support to organizations who intend to murder citizens of the US and engage in wanton destruction within the US. Those who do so have warranted removing the safety on the "gun" that may be used to kill them. The actual use of deadly force against them is a point of some controversy.

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Innocent victims of pointless wars are still innocent victims of pointless wars. Killing these innocent victims in pointless wars is murder, and murder is worse than targeted taxation.

What should have been done for the filers of the 501(c) 4s was within say 3 mths the IRS would give provisional approval but notify them that they cannot engage in advocacy of any political candidate or Party including notifying their members on what politicians support what or what members of Congress were supporting the issues that concerned their organization. Also any advocacy that they have done before approval would be subject to taxation. The IRS did not do that instead they requested info that the IRS was not entitled to such as donor lists and member lists, they requested copies of information including all Facebook posts on their Facebook account, some were further targeted by FBI and BATF as part of the investigation. This made the approval process take years.

The use of police powers against the Citizenry to suppress their Right of Assembly and to Petition the Government for a Redress of Greviences is more severe due to the numbers affected and due to ablity to limit the destrcutive effects brought by government. Indeed the killing of these four people may only be addressed by such petitions and assemblies and then can put and end to it. It is a matter of scope, if the President exceeded his authority in the killings we can address the issue in Petitions in Congress as long as we can keep that Right and not have it suborned by a President that is continuing down a path that leads to a Police State and where unapproved ideas and speech is silenced.

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Your argument that taxation is worse than murder is very, very flimsy. Almost comical.

Josie said:

If Obama knew what the IRS was doing to conservative groups and allowed it to occur, would you support going forward with impeachment?

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What? No.

Everyone should have known (even without any empirical evidence) and nobody should have cared (even with evidence), including the groups targeted.

innocent victims? murder in war?

People tend to define words to suit their own prejudices rather than use accepted meanings of terms.

Murder is unlawfully taking anothers life.

While there are war crimes, killing enemy in war is not unlawfull and not murder. Neither is executing criminals murder, since it's lawfull.

As to innocents in a war zone? Impossible to determine. Normally in war EVERY citizen of an enemy nation is an enemy. That philosophy justified atomic bombs on Japan and fire bombing German cities.

I could make a case, that women are soldier factorys, and children the next wave, in a few years, but I won't.

The ONLY sentiment that makes sense to me is avoid war if possible. It's not nice or pretty. But if you MUST go to war, use overwhelming ruthless force and get it over quickly.

I fought in Vietnam, 68-69 during and after Tet. The fiercest fighting of that war. So, I've some experience to base my opinion on.