IRS targeting of Conservative groups

you sure write a lot of words to not say much. what is the evidence for double standards? do you know all the search terms used? again, i think they should have been fired if they didnt look for political groups using those terms. i know they screen liberal groups, too. i know conservative groups did not get screened. i also know that none of the groups screened with the famous search terms were denied. i need more info to counter all of this. oh and every quote ive read about people that would know, including many conservatives, say no evidence of political motivations.

this whole stink is about political motivations, right? not just mismanagement.

 

I think that any time you have human beings in positions of power, the temptation to abuse that power will always arise. This temptation is not exclusive to any political party or agenda, as we have seen members of both parties guilty of recent transgressions. That said, I do not see a correlation between the current alleged abuse of power and the implementation of Obamacare. Is there potential for similar abuse in Obamacare? Absolutely, but not because of this scandal. There is potential for abuse in any organization, group or team when the membership are human.
Do I think that the Republicans would like to make that argument because every other argument that they've made against Obamacare has fallen grossly short? Absolutely.

Overbearing government bureaucrats should always be of grave concern to each and every one of us. For as much focus as we put on candidates and in-office politicians, they are probably the least likely to carry out sinister actions or to abuse their power because there is such intense media scrutiny today. Furthermore, of even graver concern, is the fact that the vast majority of these bureaucrats careers span over several administrations so they are not limited by elections. Out of every person who works for the IRS, I believe that the President gets to appoint two of them.

I get where you are going with this, or at least I think I do, but I would be cautious about drawing such a conclusion. I think, at the end of the day, we'll learn that because of Citizens United there were an irregularly large number of applications for 501-C status and the vast majority of those were Tea Party related groups. Past that, I believe we will learn that there may have been a few bad apples who singled out conservative groups but the problem wasn't systemic. In no way am I trying to justify any one who singled out groups based upon their politics alone and those who are found to be responsible need to be punished. I just do not think it will rise to the level that many are predicting.

 

their job is to look for political groups. why would using those search terms indicate "politics alone"? what other search terms did they use? what political movement was occuring at that time to cause them to use those terms, hmmm?

 

You obviously don't bother reading the news or let the facts intefer with your opinion. The whole point of the scandal was that there were only screening points for conservative terms none for liberal. Get it there were NO screening terms for liberal groups. That the ratio of conservative to liberal groups selected for screening did NOT reflect the ratio of applications. In other words for every 100 applications filed by left or right many more were selected from the right. There were some of the right wing groups caught in the seach who were denied. These facts are all confirmed in the IRS Inspector General's report.

I disagree with your premise that extra screening should be required based certain political terms. I don't think and application (liberal or conservative) should be screened any more or less than another based on preconditions. That smacks of censorship and limitation of political speech. If screening brings facts to light that demand deeper investigation then go for it.

There was political motoivation for this. The numbers noted above are proof. Whether it came from high in the Obama administration or not and I doubt it did still needs to be determined. If it did then the seriousnes rises exponentially to Watergate proportions. Regardless it has a chilling effect on political discourse and yes it is about political motivations. It strikes to the heart of a free and clean election and the heart of our democracy.

 

their job was to determine the validity of the 501-C applications that they received and to do so impartially and on the merits alone.

they did not do that, by their own admission. the inspector generals investigation would also support that. some discrimination occured. does it rise to the level that many partisans are alleging? probably not.

 

I'm sure there are some who want to kill the message by pointing out it was a Fox news reporter who was spied on, but there for the grace of God go any reporter.
This from the self promoted "most transparent administration ever" chilling reminders of Nixon's White House. The serious questions are where did the orders come from and what did the president know and when did he know it?
I hope civil libertarians and those who honor the constitution of all political persuasions will call for full, open and independent investigations.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-admin-spied-fox-news-reporter-james-rosen-134204299.html

 

the first amendment does not protect people from committing crimes. dont see how this is much different from assange, except i dont think assange coerced manning to leak.

 

at some point during this 2 yr period it was the job of one employee to screen all these applications. pretty sure they cannot review all applications based only on merit.

my main point is that this is only screening. people should complain about the end result. how many were incorrectly denied or approved. what number of errors are acceptable.

with the subjectiveness of the scotus decision, it seems relevant to ask for the info they did, and difficult to say if decisions made were correct or not.

 

guidance that the workers had was vague, so says IG. again, explaining the process without needing to manufacture political motivation.

 

I definitely hear what you are saying gumborue and I think the final result will probably tell us that the discrimination that occured, happened as a result of human error and not out of malice. That said, the inspector general conducted an investigation and the result of the investigation were that some discrimination did occur. I would dearly love to get to the bottom of this but I am not sure that we ever will because it is getting so politicized.