Micah Cohen of The New York Times reports:
Public data from the Internal Revenue Service ... shows that dozens of Tea Party groups were approved for tax exempt status beginning in May 2012. That was the same month that Representative Dave Camp of Michigan wrote to the I.R.S. asking for information about all "social welfare" groups that had applied for tax-exempt status in 2010 and 2011, to determine whether the I.R.S. was targeting conservative groups.
The flurry of approvals that came in the next few months was a sharp break from the previous two years, during which the agency approved just a handful of 501(c)(4) applications from Tea Party groups....
Here's a chart showing the approvals by month:
If you were a nakedly partisan IRS employee, is this how you'd have helped President Obama win reelection? It's not what I would have done. Remember late 2011: Herman "Uzbeki-beki-stan-stan" Cain led the Republican presidential field for quite a while. Then Newt Gingrich, temporarily an honorary teabagger, led the field. Then, in 2012, Rick Santorum made his move.
If you'd wanted to help the president, I think you'd have wanted to unleash the teabaggers in 2011. I think you'd have wanted them free to make mischief for Mitt Romney -- who, for all his flaws as a campaigner, could have pulled out a win against Obama with a better-executed campaign, unlike, well, every candidate enthusiastically embraced by tea types (see also: Trump, Bachmann). And I think you would have wanted teabaggers more deeply involved in GOP House and Senate primaries. More Christine O'Donnells and Sharron Angles!
So if you IRS folks were monkeying with elections, you were screwing it up.
Even you noted that there was a 'flurry' of approval after questions in 2012 were asked regarding the illegal procedures that the IRS was engaged in for two years. You suggest that is some grand GOP conspiracy, but a more logical explanation is that the IRS was caught breaking the law and attempted damage control. President Obama, of course, knew nothing and just read about it in the paper.
ReplyDeleteYou remember Herman Cain, who dropped out of the race for President in 2012, but somehow you forgot that Tea Party groups led the GOP to a massive victory in 2010 and were instrumental in helping the GOP win Governor races, state legislature races, and the House in 2012. Just saying that tea party patriots are bad doesn't make it so- in fact, the data points to the opposite.
In conclusion, your blog is one of the worst blogs on the internet. Your logic is flawed, your moral compass is wrong, and your writing is poor. Do everyone a favor and no longer subject the world to your thoughts on any issues.
In conclusion, your blog is one of the worst blogs on the internet.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet you can't stop reading it.
I'm sorry, Steve M., but where did you suggest this was all part of a "some grand GOP conspiracy"? Did I miss something?
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteDon't pay any attention to ACT.
Please keep writing. You're terrific at it, with a lot of laughs and insight I don't get anywhere else (and that's why ACT keeps coming back - or, maybe it's for the verbal beatings we all lay on his gnarly, hairy back. I'll spare him a beating today, since I've got a lot of stuff to do - you're off the hook today, ACT).
As we've all seen, the boy's a dope, a maroon, an ignoramus!!!
And I think you're right - he's got a crush on you.
But the thought that he might actually be a teacher, and be able to infect young minds with his syphilitic brain-damaged world-views, scares the living sh*t out of me.
*shudders*
He's probably from some Red State, and his family tree only had one branch.*
*Sorry, ACT - I couldn't help myself.
Kind of like your father with his sister.
ACT's family motto: "What happens in the family, stays in the family."
Have a nice weekend chasing your sister around, ACT.
Or, *shudders*, do you have children?
If you do, I hope they're fast!
A grand GOP conspiracy? Nope, I never said that about the IRS story.
ReplyDeleteIt is in fact a grande conspiracy, of which our political parties are at best rooks and the base merely rubes, but that's another post.
ReplyDeleteIt was never ratified by a quorum of states. It is not only unconstitutional, it is contrary to The Founders intent.
No fear.