Why Doesn't Anti-American Fox News Report That IRS Did Not Target Conservatives

Why Doesn't Anti-American Fox News Report That IRS Did Not Target Conservatives

For weeks, Fox News has promoted selective clips of interview transcripts leaked by House Republicans to promote their baseless claim that the White House engineered the Internal Revenue Service's improper screening of conservative groups seeking non-profit status.

Such claims were always speculative. The IRS' inspector general has said that while employees used "improper criteria" to scrutinize conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, that behavior was "not politically biased" and was not driven by the White House. Subsequent testimony leaked by House Republicans has suggested that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were at first unaware of the improper behavior and stopped it when they learned of it. 

The House Oversight Committee's Democrats have now released the full transcript of an interview with another IRS witness which further undermines claims that the White House was at the center of the process. According to the interview subject, a self-described conservative Republican who worked in the IRS' Cincinnati office, an agent he supervised flagged the first Tea Party application that came under scrutiny, asking for guidance on the case.The interview subject denied having had contact with senior IRS officials or the White House about the targeting. According to The Washington Post's Greg Sargent:

    In the testimony, the screening manager says that he first became aware of the initial Tea Party application when an "agent who worked for me" asked for "guidance concerning a case for him." The manager testified that in this case he agreed with the agent that "there was not enough information" to figure out whether to grant the group tax exempt status.

    "I told him at that point in time I agreed with his thinking," the manager testified, adding that he informed the agent that he would "elevate that issue to my area manager."

    "This was the first case that came in that was brought to my attention," the manager continued.

    The manager further testified that the Tea Party groups were deliberately grouped together so that they would receive consistent treatment. "There was a lot of concerns about making sure that any cases that had, you know, similar-type activities or items included, that they would be worked by the same agent or same group," the manager testified.

    In the testimony, the screening manager also flatly stated he had no reason to believe there was White House involvement.

    [...]

    The screening manager also testifies that he never had any conversation with Lois Lerner, the former director of the Exempt Organizations Division, or former IRS commissioner Douglas Schulmanm about the "screening of Tea Party cases."

It remains to be seen how Fox News will react to statements that so strongly undermine their conclusion. But we have some precedent - on June 9, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, released excerpts from this interview, and said that it showed that "the case is solved" and that the White House had not been involved in the improper behavior. Fox responded by airing his conclusion that "the case is solved" and hosting conservatives to criticize that claim, without laying out Cummings' evidence.

Fox News and their sheeple viewers need not worry, conservatives love playing victim so much they will invent or exaggerate another faux-scandal so they can whine themselves to sleep at night. Fox News seems to lack the fundamentals of American values like truth and fairness. Thus they are contributing to the degradation of American society as conservatism has done throughout history.

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former.

Not to worry. The anti-American tea bagger political groups which were basically operating as a charity, will get away with it, as conservatives always do by way of political intimidation and whining like the little plastic patriots they are. Certainly everyone, regardless of their politics should not be breaking the law, and they should all be prosecuted. Don't hold your breath waiting for that.

Liberals Stand For Freedom and Responsibility. In the Doublespeak World of Conservative Republicans 'Freedom' Is Just a Codeword For Tyranny

Liberals Stand For Freedom and Responsibility. In the Doublespeak World of Conservative Republicans 'Freedom' Is Just a Codeword For Tyranny. Fracked and Burned: The Tyranny of the Corporate Tea Party

From a letter to the editor of the Record Courier May 20, 2012, from Tom Zawistowski, Founder, President and Executive Director, Portage County TEA Party:

    "In short... conservatives, including those in the TEA Party movement, believe in common sense. That 2+2 always equals 4. That you live within your means. That you are responsible for your life and whether you succeed in life. That the only real rights you have are granted by your God, not by man. That you stay out of your neighbor's business and that they stay out of yours. That you take care of your family and friends when they need help. That our job is to be productive and government's job is to stay out of our way. That businesses are good because they produces jobs, economic growth and all tax revenue, and that government's job is to create a safe, business- friendly environment so that can happen.

    "That anyone who does not believe as we do does not understand what made America great, does not believe in the Constitution, and should not be involved in our government."

I had to read that last sentence several times: "...anyone who does not believe as we do ... should not be involved in our government."

In one register I can’t argue with that: Mr. Zawistowski certainly said it, and I believe he means what he says – that those who don’t share his conservative beliefs shouldn’t be allowed to vote or participate in our government.

At another level it is certainly a good description of the present political scene. Millions of dollars are being spent to promote legislation to keep segments of our population from voting or having a voice in their own government, or even participating in governance of their local communities. More millions go for legislation to protect the profits of the private sector.

In 2004 the Ohio legislature stripped the right to regulate oil and gas drilling from local community governments. Now residents of Kent and Shalersville are fighting to restore their right to regulate drilling and fracking in their communities. Gwen Fischer of Concerned Citizens Ohio said "We hope [everyone] will learn about the risks of this massive industrialization .... as human beings, we have the right to decide, as a community, whether or not we want our community turned into an industrial zone."

The Ohio Senate this month passed SB 315, a bill to regulate drilling and fracking, that contains the following provisions:

    (H)(1) If a medical professional, in order to assist in the diagnosis or treatment of an individual who was affected by an incident associated with the production operations of a well, requests the exact chemical composition of each product, fluid, or substance and of each chemical component in a product, fluid, or substance that is designated as a trade secret pursuant to division (I) of this section, the person claiming the trade secret protection pursuant to that division shall provide to the medical professional the exact chemical composition of the product, fluid, or substance and of the chemical component in a product, fluid, or substance that is requested.

    (2) A medical professional who receives information pursuant to division (H)(1) of this section shall keep the information confidential and shall not disclose the information for any purpose that is not related to the diagnosis or treatment of an individual who was affected by an incident associate with the production operations of a well.

Paragraph (2) is a gag order on medical professionals: If a patient has been affected by any aspect of the fracking process, while drillers must tell their trade secret chemicals to the physician, the physician is specifically forbidden to disclose the chemicals to the patient or public.

Public Utilities Committee chairman Rep. Peter Stautberg (R) said the House action this week clarified Senate language to make sure that doctors were not barred from performing their professional and ethical duties by sharing proprietary information about chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process.

Meanwhile, in Cuyahoga Falls, the Parks & Recreation Board refuses to offer family rates for its Natatorium swimming pool to a gay couple, Shane & Coty May, legally married in Washington DC. Coty is an injured Iraq war vet who benefits from water therapy.

The Mays are denied family rates not because of lost revenues, which are apparently negligible, but because three people on the Parks & Recreation board believe that (their) God doesn’t like gays – and that people who don’t believe as they do don’t deserve the rights of citizens.

The great dream of a nation with liberty, equality and justice for all – for all -- is already seriously compromised by the Citizens United decision giving moneyed corporations the rights and powers of citizens to be involved in our government.

And now we have the admission that the TEA Party intends to silence and disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. And we have a Republican- controlled legislature that will make sure that those who disagree with them will not be heard or allowed to participate in our democracy.

My confidence is unraveling that I live in a rational world of people with sentiments and values like mine, who share some basic assumptions about the way the world works. I don't want to live in a society in which common sense is parsed as belief in someone else's God, and someone else's interpretation of the Constitution is required for participation in the political process.


Caroline Arnold retired after 12 years on the Washington staff of US Senator John Glenn. She served three terms on the Kent (OH) Board of Education. In retirement she is active with Kent Environmental Council and sits on the board Family & Community Services of Portage County.

Who knows what the tea baggers stand for. They say one thing and push for the kind of government that would make Stalin grin with satisfaction. They say they stand for 'small' government yet are doing everything they can to increase authoritarian government powers and connect those powers with corporate America. 

Economic Downturn and Conservative Republican Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits

Florida conservative Republicans spent millions and told so many lies to get Rick Scott, a literal criminal elected governor, they set some kind of record in political immorality. Florida Telling Hundreds Of Eligible Citizens That They Are Ineligible To Vote.

Riddle: Why, how or in what fantasy do conservative Republicans think they have "values"? Breitbart Republican Blogger Dan Riehl  Launches Sexist Attack On Salon's Joan Walsh