"Mistakes Were Made"

[B-Man]

Heh...............

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Magox]

Steven Miller, head of the IRA wrote an OP-ED today:

 

In an op-ed published Tuesday in USA Today, he said the agency was simply trying to manage the explosive growth in applications for 501©(4) status that started pouring in to the IRS in 2010.

"The Internal Revenue Service recognizes that we should have done a better job of handling the influx of applications by advocacy groups," Miller wrote.

He denied that politics played a role in the targeting practice.

“Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation,” he wrote. “We are — and will continue to be — dedicated to reviewing all applications for tax-exempt status in an impartial manner.”

 

 

Raise your hand if you believe him

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/irs-steven-miller-op-ed-91326.html#ixzz2THh815v5

[DC Tom]

Steven Miller, head of the IRA wrote an OP-ED today:

 

 

 

Raise your hand if you believe him

 

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz2THh815v5

 

 

I half believe him (I already posted earlier that was likely part of the problem).

 

The biggest problem with that excuse, though, is that you would expect a poorly managed process for handling the influx to result in LESS scrutiny, not more. The detail requested is more in line with a well-defined and managed process than a poor one.

[Magox]

We haven't heard of one left-leaning group that has come out saying that they were targeted. You have tea party groups, people who advocated for lower taxes, who "educated" people on the constitution, NOM, and even hawkish Jewish groups that were all targeted. In other words, all right-leaning groups.

 

If there was a arguably disproportionate number of conservative groups relative to liberal groups, MAYBE I could possibly see that as the case, however, considering that the disproportionality is100% to 0%. Not to mention that now we have heard that it not only came from the divisions hub in Ohio, but now from California and DC as well.

 

I simply don't buy it.

[meazza]

We haven't heard of one left-leaning group that has come out saying that they were targeted. You have tea party groups, people who advocated for lower taxes, who "educated" people on the constitution, NOM, and even hawkish Jewish groups that were all targeted. In other words, all right-leaning groups.

 

If there was a arguably disproportionate number of conservative groups relative to liberal groups, MAYBE I could possibly see that as the case, however, considering that the disproportionality is100% to 0%. Not to mention that now we have heard that it not only came from the divisions hub in Ohio, but now from California and DC as well.

 

I simply don't buy it.

 

It's ok because they're racist.

 

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/naacp-chairman-legitimate-for-irs-to-target-admittedly-racist-tea-party-taliban-wing-of-poltics/

[Magox]

It's ok because they're racist.

 

http://www.mediaite....ing-of-poltics/

 

The NAACP is a shadow of what it use to be...

[B-Man]

It's ok because they're racist.

 

http://www.mediaite....ing-of-poltics/

 

 

It is apparent that this 'gentleman' does not understand the definition of "admittedly"

 

nor little else .

 

 

.

[DC Tom]

We haven't heard of one left-leaning group that has come out saying that they were targeted. You have tea party groups, people who advocated for lower taxes, who "educated" people on the constitution, NOM, and even hawkish Jewish groups that were all targeted. In other words, all right-leaning groups.

 

If there was a arguably disproportionate number of conservative groups relative to liberal groups, MAYBE I could possibly see that as the case, however, considering that the disproportionality is100% to 0%. Not to mention that now we have heard that it not only came from the divisions hub in Ohio, but now from California and DC as well.

 

I simply don't buy it.

 

I would like to see the questions that MoveOn or Code Pink (if they're registered non-profit) were asked.

[GG]

Steven Miller, head of the IRA wrote an OP-ED today:

 

 

 

Raise your hand if you believe him

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz2THh815v5

 

 

Head of the IRA talking about explosive growth?

 

Freudian slip much?

[Azalin]

It's ok because they're racist.

 

http://www.mediaite....ing-of-poltics/

 

a group of people who are admittedly racist? admittedly? the only thing I've ever heard regarding the tea party and racism are a bunch of unsubstantiated claims by people who use epithets like 'tea-baggers'.

[DC Tom]

It's ok because they're racist.

 

http://www.mediaite....ing-of-poltics/

 

Anyone know the Klan's tax exempt status? Anyone?

 

Dave in Elma, you still here?

[IDBillzFan]

a group of people who are admittedly racist? admittedly? the only thing I've ever heard regarding the tea party and racism are a bunch of unsubstantiated claims by people who use epithets like 'tea-baggers'.

 

The physical pain associated with twisting logic must give many liberals sleepless nights. They continually try to beat the meme that tea party people are racist, and then the minute they hear from conservatives like Herman Cain, Mia Love, Alan West, Ben Carson, Condoleeza Rice, we hear how they are token Uncle Tom Oreo porch monkeys.

 

Which isn't racist at all, I guess.

[3rdnlng]

a group of people who are admittedly racist? admittedly? the only thing I've ever heard regarding the tea party and racism are a bunch of unsubstantiated claims by people who use epithets like 'tea-baggers'.

 

It's the same media that showed a picture of a Tea Party rally in Phoenix with a guy with a semi-automatic rifle. They cropped the picture for tv so you couldn't see the face and talked about the Tea Party as "angry white men" with tendencies towards white supremacy. Someone showed that picture uncropped and it was a black guy.

 

 

Edit---it was not a Tea Party rally, it was a Obamacare protest while he was giving a speech to veterens. Anyway it was the media's sentiment that counts.

Edited May 14, 2013 by 3rdnlng

[DC Tom]

The physical pain associated with twisting logic must give many liberals sleepless nights. They continually try to beat the meme that tea party people are racist, and then the minute they hear from conservatives like Herman Cain, Mia Love, Alan West, Ben Carson, Condoleeza Rice, we hear how they are token Uncle Tom Oreo porch monkeys.

 

Which isn't racist at all, I guess.

 

Blacks can only think for themselves if they toe the Democratic Party line.

[B-Man]

Not all of the questions were standard fare..............from ABC News;

 

Weirdest IRS Questions for the Tea Party: Views, Donors, and Etymology

 

WASHINGTON — Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS asked tea party groups a whole lot of questions.

As admitted by the IRS, and as detailed in a forthcoming Inspector General report, the agency targeted conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status for issue advocacy, a standard practice for political groups that aren’t mainly about elections.

The IRS sent long questionnaires to the organizations, and documents obtained by ABC News show that the questions were extensive. The Richmond Tea Party, for instance, was asked 17 detailed questions in 2010, and 12 more, with lots of bulleted sub-questions, in 2012. Other groups were asked about 30 questions in one letter, and most of the letters were similar, with some specific, quirky questions added or subtracted.

The Liberty Township Tea Party in Ohio got it worst, as the IRS asked about its relationship with a Cincinnati-area tea-party organizer and with a local group.

“It’s just hundreds of hours and plenty of money, and this was not something any American would want to have to deal with,” said Larry Nordvig, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, who joined the group earlier this year after its IRS saga was over.

Here are some of the weirdest and most notable questions and requests that ABC found in roughly half a dozen IRS questionnaires sent to tea party groups from 2010 to 2012:

• “Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization. Indicate your position regarding each issue.”
  
• “Please explain in detail the derivation of your organization’s name.” (in a letter to the Ohio-based 1851 Center for Constitutional Law)
  
• “Please explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”
  
• “Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas.” (a Cincinnati-area Tea-Party activist)
  
• “Provide information regarding the Butler County Teen Age Republicans and your relationship.”
  
• “Submit the following information relating to your past and present directors, officers, and key employees: a) Provide a resume for each.”
  
• “The names of the donors, contributors, and grantors. … The amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.”
  
• “The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they spent on the event or program.” (for events)
  
• “Provide copies of the handbills you distributed at your monthly meetings.”
  
• “Fully describe your youth outreach program with the local school.”
  
• “Please provide copies of all your current web pages, including your Blog posts. Please provide copies of all of your newsletters, bulletins, flyers, newsletters or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others. Please provide copies of stories and articles that have been published about you.” (SERIOUSLY?)
  
• “Are you on Facebook or other social networking sites? If yes, provide copies of these pages.”
  
• “Provide copies of the agendas and minutes of your Board meetings and, if applicable, members ship meetings, including a description of legislative and electoral issues discussed, and whether candidates for political office were invited to address the meeting.”
  
• “Do your issue-related advocacy communications compare to the positions of candidates or slates of candidates on these issues with your positions? Provide copies of these communications. What percentage do these constitute of your issue-related advocacy communications?”
  
• “Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for political office or political party? If so describe fully the nature of that relationship.”
  
• “Apart from your responses to the preceding, estimate the percentage of your time and what percentage of your resources you will devote to activities in the 2012 election cycle, in which you will explicitly or implicitly support or oppose a candidate, candidates or slates of candidates, for public office.”
  

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/weirdest-irs-questions-for-the-tea-party-views-donors-and-etymology/

.

[Magox]

I would like to see the questions that MoveOn or Code Pink (if they're registered non-profit) were asked.

 

Not sure if that will surface.

 

However, I found this to be interesting.

 

 

Letters provided to CNN show IRS officials in Washington and California contacted conservative groups to demand more information before approving the groups' requests for tax-exempt status.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group representing numerous conservative organizations, provided CNN with four such letters: one each from IRS offices in Washington; Cincinnati; El Monte, California, and Laguna Niguel, California.

The words "patriots" or "tea party" figured in the names of each group that received the letter.

The IRS did not respond to CNN's request for comment regarding the letters.

Lois Lerner, director of tax exempt organizations for the IRS, said Friday that the IRS had targeted some groups for further review because they had those words in their names.

She said the activity took place at the IRS office in Cincinnati that handles most applications for 501©(4) status.

A draft report from the inspector general for the IRS obtained by CNN says agents were on the lookout to give special scrutiny to groups with "tea party" and "patriots" in their names as well as groups that had made statements criticizing "how the country is being run."

The report says in January 2012, the criteria was revised as "political action-type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/politics/irs-conservative-targeting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

 

Now these details don't absolutely rule out what it was that you were saying, but it certainly weakens that argument. For one, we are talking about multiple offices were targeting conservative groups. Secondly, when they revised the original search criteria of "tea party" and "patriots", they then revised it to "political action-type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement."

 

We know that the new criteria certainly implies that they are searching for conservative groups, if it was an honest mistake, they would of at least included along with the original or secondary criteria with key words such as "progressive", "middle class tax fairness and reform" or whatever key words that would smoke out any progressive groups.

 

The searches were done exclusively to target conservatives.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Magox

[IDBillzFan]

I say this completely tongue-in-cheek, but all this IRS/Tea Party stuff somehow reminds me of Randy Quaid in "Independence Day." He kept saying there were aliens, and everyone laughed at him and mocked him until he was a drunk outcast.

 

But in the end, well...

 

http://youtu.be/v-fBruIPPxs

 

Looks like they went after Franklin Graham, too.

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/franklin-graham-irs-targeting-91362.html

 

You have to be a massive dumbass of epic proportions to set this in motion and not realize the schittstorm you would cause. The list of people currently being audited will prove to be ridiculously embarrassing, whether the claims ring true or not.

Edited May 14, 2013 by LABillzFan

[OCinBuffalo]

Steven Miller, head of the IRA wrote an OP-ED today:

Ah HA! SEE? Magox knows who the head of the IRA is. Terrorist! That's because Magox and his fat cat Wall Street pals sell guns to the IRA.

I half believe him (I already posted earlier that was likely part of the problem).

 

The biggest problem with that excuse, though, is that you would expect a poorly managed process for handling the influx to result in LESS scrutiny, not more. The detail requested is more in line with a well-defined and managed process than a poor one.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

 

Organizations experiencing significant, turbulent, external change, however defined, do not typically actively improve their business processes in the midst of it, or see improvement by default. They weather the storm. They re-commit to what they are doing today, and just try to do it faster/better, with the intention of making changes/repairs once the storm has passed.

 

Low level employees possess neither the guts, interest or power to effect this level of both precise and accurate questioning. The criteria is one thing, the questions themselves are another thing. Both tell us different things. And the work product being requested from the groups seeking exemption has a specificity that no low level employee, or any employee of the IRS in general, cares about.

 

 

Speaking of telling us something, read this:

http://www.propublic...nfidential-docs

 

and realize that these ProPublica clowns are merely trying to wriggle off the hook they are on with this article. They are saying "look what the IRS gave, I mean, forced on us...last year".

 

Yeah dickcheese, and it was suck a hot story, that you waited an entire year to report it. These people personify the new "progressive fascist" ideology, as they are supposedly an media outlet, who is willing to deny themselves a scoop, for ideology alone? The only people who do that are ones who figure they've got something better coming.

Edited May 15, 2013 by OCinBuffalo

[GG]

Ruh, roh, the natives are turning on the Golden One:

 

Say it isn't so, Slate

[IDBillzFan]

Ruh, roh, the natives are turning on the Golden One:

 

Say it isn't so, Slate

 

Funnist Jon Stewart in a long time tonight, slamming Obama for somehow only learning about all these problems like everyone else...from the news. The entire 9 minutes are worth every second.

 

Stewart quipped, “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announce it on television.

 

http://www.mediaite....ame-time-as-us/