The Republican Thread

[farmteam]

I dunno where exactly to put this, but Margaret Thatcher has died:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

Check out the dead celebrities thread

[Jenksismyhero]

Can't remember where we discussed the gun issue, but here's a win for anti-gun advocates:

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_...-04-15-10-19-55

 

I don't know much about the NY law, but I heard that in order to get a concealed carry permit you had to show some kind of justification for needing it. A little surprised they SC didn't take the case, but I'm guessing they see bigger cases (Illinois) coming in the next couple of years.

[mr_genius]

looks like some sort of Obama rally goes awry

 

http://photos.denverpost.com/2013/04/20/ra...nver-420-rally/

[Jake]

Barbara Bush on possible Jeb run: "We've had enough Bushes"

[Jenksismyhero]

Barbara Bush on possible Jeb run: "We've had enough Bushes"

 

Amen!

[StrangeSox]

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

 

Organizations were singled out because they included the words ‘‘tea party’’ or ‘‘patriot’’ in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

 

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

 

‘‘That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,’’ Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

 

‘‘The IRS would like to apologize for that,’’ she added.

[EvilMonkey]

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

Move along, nothing to see here...........

[southsider2k5]

Is it Friday afternoon already?

[StrangeSox]

WHY WON'T THE MSM COVER THIS!!!!???

 

(sorry, just trying to fit in!)

[EvilMonkey]

WHY WON'T THE MSM COVER THIS!!!!???

 

(sorry, just trying to fit in!)

More like, 'why didn't they cover it YEARS ago?'

[Cknolls]

Speaking of the MSM, I love how all the libs have their panties in a knot because the KOCH brothers are looking into the Tribune Co newspapers.

[StrangeSox]

They are the liberal version of SOROS!!!! but if iirc they have an explicit agenda to make them partisan outlets similar to murduchs empire

[Jenksismyhero]

So, are people really not worried that an administration used the IRS to muscle groups it didn't like? Isn't that, I dunno, Nixon-esque?

[StrangeSox]

There's no indication that "the administration" had anything to do with this at this point. Starting in 2010 or so, there was a huge influx of 501©(4) groups. 501©(4) groups are tax-exempt, but they cannot engage in politicking and must be educational or for social welfare. Groups filing for this status should be scrutinized to make sure they aren't a political organization. Some lower-level people at the IRS came up with a dumb way to filter them for heightened scrutiny. When more senior IRS officials became aware of it, it was stopped and the policy changed.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013...ot-then-reloads

 

But understandable or not, they bungled it horribly, leaving themselves open to equally understandable charges of politicizing the IRS. Conservative groups are as outraged as liberals would be if the Bush-era IRS were flagging groups with "environment" or "progressive" in their names. So even if, as seems likely, this whole thing turns out to have been mostly a misguided scheme cooked up by some too-clever IRS drones, it doesn't matter. Conservatives are right to be outraged and right to demand a full investigation. They suspect there might be more to it, and so would I if the shoe were on the other foot. We need to find out for sure whether this episode was just moronic, or if it had some kind of partisan motivation.

 

Republicans are absolutely justified in calling for further investigations, but they need to be careful about overplaying their hand because they've been crying "OBAMA'S WATERGATE!!!!" since 2009.

Edited May 13, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

My response goes something like this..."Please for God's sake investigate Priorities USA too!"

Now, let's see if we can understand the context in which this happened. There's an irony at work here, which is that it may well be that the IRS employees involved were trying to obey the spirit of the law but ended up violating the letter of the law, while for the organizations in question it was the opposite: they were trying to violate the spirit of the law, but probably didn't violate the letter of the law.

 

Let's take the first part, the IRS employees. When a group files for tax-exempt status, the IRS investigates it, asks it some questions, and determines whether it qualifies under section 501©(3) or 501©(4). The difference between them is that a 501©(3) is supposed to be a genuine charity, like your local food bank or Institute for the Study of Foot Fungus, while a 501©(4) is still primarily devoted to "social welfare" but is allowed more leeway to engage in some political activities like lobbying and participation in elections, so long as the political activities make up a minority of its time. The biggest practical difference is that donations to ©(3) groups are tax-deductible, while donations to ©(4) groups are not.

 

Once the Supreme Court said in the 2010 Citizens United decision that ©(4) groups could engage in "express advocacy" (i.e. explicitly saying "Vote for Smith!"), the IRS got flooded with new applications for ©(4) groups, and its job was to determine if these groups were actually "social-welfare" organizations that also did some politicking on the side, or if they were groups whose main purpose was actually political, in which case, according to the law, they should be denied ©(4) status. We know very little at this point about what the IRS employees in Cincinnati did and why, but the generous interpretation is that since so many of the applications they were getting in 2010 and 2011 were from Tea Party groups that looked a lot like their sole purpose was to elect Republicans, they looked for some way to handle them all together, so they searched for applications with words like "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in their names and subjected them to extra scrutiny.

 

Even if their motivations were innocent and they were just struggling to find ways to wade through all these applications and do their jobs properly—in other words, if there was no violation of the spirit of the law—it was still improper for them to sort the applications this way, because it could mean in practice that an ideological test was being applied to which groups got heightened scrutiny. But now let's look at the other half of the story, the groups applying for tax-exempt status.

 

The truth is that a great many of the groups that request 501©(3) and 501©(4) status, of all ideological stripes, are basically pulling a scam on the taxpayers. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but at the very least they're engaged in a charade in which they pretend to be "nonpartisan" when in fact they are very, very partisan. For instance, nobody actually believes that groups like the Center for American Progress on the left or the Heritage Foundation on the right aren't partisan. When there's an election coming, they mobilize substantial resources to influence it. They blog about how the other's side's candidate is a jerk, they issue reports on how his plans will destroy America, and they do all sorts of things whose unambiguous intent is to make the election come out the way they want it to. CAP and Heritage, along with many other organizations like them, are 501©(3) charities, meaning as long as they never issue a formal endorsement and are careful to avoid any express advocacy, they can maintain the fiction that they're nonpartisan (keep getting tax-deductible contributions, which are easier to obtain than those that aren't tax-deductible).

 

And that fiction is even more exaggerated when you get to the ©(4) groups, particularly the new ones. For instance, when Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS applied for 501©(4) status, it explained to the IRS that it was a social-welfare organization for whom influencing elections wouldn't be its primary purpose. Instead, the group said "Through issue research, public communications, events with policymakers, and outreach to interested citizens, Crossroads GPS seeks to elevate understanding of consequential national policy issues, and to build grassroots support for legislative and policy changes that promote private sector economic growth, reduce needless government regulations, impose stronger financial discipline, and accountability in government, and strengthen America's national security." It claimed that 50 percent of its activities would be "public education," 20 percent would be "research," and the remaining 30 percent would be "activity to influence legislation and policymaking." On the section of the form where the group has to state whether it plans to spend any money to influence elections, it wrote that it "may, in the future" do so, but "Any such activity will be limited in amount, and will not constitute the organization's primary purpose."

 

As everyone knows, this is a joke. Crossroads GPS was created for one purpose and one purpose only: to get Republicans elected. Maybe they found a way to stay within the letter of the law, but there's no question they were violating its spirit. And the same is true of Priorities USA, the pro-Obama group created in advance of the 2012 election by a couple of former White House staffers. Both are actually twin groups, a ©(4) and a super PAC, which allows the people running them to keep within the letter of the law by moving spending around between the two. (Stephen Colbert and Trevor Potter memorably explained how all this can be done.)

 

Without knowing anything about the particular Tea Party groups that were subjected to heightened scrutiny (we've only heard about a few so far), the broader context is that you have a lot of groups of all political persuasions that are essentially trying to pull a fast one on the IRS, and through them, the American taxpayer. Keep in mind that tax-exempt status is a gift that we give to groups that can demonstrate they deserve it. Perhaps this part of the tax code should be made stricter, or perhaps it should be made looser so all these charades can stop. But either way, this wouldn't be a bad time to start that discussion.

[Jenksismyhero]

My response goes something like this..."Please for God's sake investigate Priorities USA too!"

 

Yeah, I'll admit the IRS had a difficult line there, but it's still rather obvious that it purposefully and intentionally went after conservative groups only. And the senior officials lied initially about when they became aware of it.

 

 

 

In other Obama-is-the-Bestest-President-Ever news, can you imagine the uproar this would have caused if it were Bush?

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtain...e-records-probe

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, I'll admit the IRS had a difficult line there, but it's still rather obvious that it purposefully and intentionally went after conservative groups only. And the senior officials lied initially about when they became aware of it.

 

It's obvious that they came up with a screening system for 501©4's that was discriminatory in practice but not necessarily in intent. They were getting huge numbers of applications for these groups in the wake of Citizens United and then the 2009-2010 tea party wave. Something calling itself "Tea Party Patriots" should be scrutinized for political activity, as should any "Occupy" group.

 

In other Obama-is-the-Bestest-President-Ever news, can you imagine the uproar this would have caused if it were Bush?

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtain...e-records-probe

 

I remember a whole lot of conservatives defending Bush's warrant-less wiretapping of all American communications!

 

From conservative legal blogger Orin Kerr:

The Non-Story of the AP Phone Records, At Least So Far

 

A lot of blogs are expressing outrage at the AP story reporting that the government collected logs of telephone numbers used by the AP. The AP’s story appears to have been written to get people upset. The first sentence of the AP report is not subtle: “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.” Yikes, a secret investigation! And a massive and unprecedented intrusion! It sounds like quite the scandal.

 

But a different picture emerges if you look past the AP’s spin. DOJ is investigating a leak of national security information to AP reporters that culminated in a May 7, 2012 story that disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped a terrorist plot in early 2012. The story had the byline of five AP reporters. DOJ opened an investigation into the leak to the AP, and pursuant to its published special rules on investigations involving the media investigations, issued subpoenas to find out what numbers were dialed from the relevant AP reporters during the months of April and May 2012. Presumably the thinking is that AP reporters called their sources, and the investigators want to trace the phone numbers to see who the sources might be. As far as I can tell, the information collected by the subpoena concerned the work and personal phone numbers of the five reporters and their editor, as well as the general AP office numbers where the reporters were located and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. The AP knows about this because pursuant to DOJ’s policies found in 28 C.F.R. 50.10, the government was required to give the AP notice that the records were obtained. The AP received that notice in a letter on Friday, and then today (Monday) it released its AP story expressing AP’s outrage. That’s pretty much all we know so far.

 

Based on what we know so far, then, I don’t see much evidence of an abuse. Of course, I realize that some VC readers strongly believe that everything the government does is an abuse: All investigations are abuses unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt to the contrary. To not realize this is to be a pro-government lackey. Or even worse, Stewart Baker. But I would ask readers inclined to see this as an abuse to identify exactly what the government did wrong based on what we know so far. Was the DOJ wrong to investigate the case at all? If it was okay for them to investigate the case, was it wrong for them to try to find out who the AP reporters were calling? If it was okay for them to get records of who the AP reporters were calling, was it wrong for them to obtain the records from the personal and work phone numbers of all the reporters whose names were listed as being involved in the story and their editor? If it was okay for them to obtain the records of those phone lines, was the problem that the records covered two months — and if so, what was the proper length of time the records should have covered?

 

I get that many people will want to use this story as a generic “DOJ abuse” story and not look too closely at it. And I also understand that those who think leaks are good things will see investigations of leaks as inherently bad. But at least based on what we know so far, I don’t yet see a strong case that collecting these records was an abuse of the investigative process.

[EvilMonkey]

It's obvious that they came up with a screening system for 501©4's that was discriminatory in practice but not necessarily in intent. They were getting huge numbers of applications for these groups in the wake of Citizens United and then the 2009-2010 tea party wave. Something calling itself "Tea Party Patriots" should be scrutinized for political activity, as should any "Occupy" group.

 

 

 

I remember a whole lot of conservatives defending Bush's warrant-less wiretapping of all American communications!

 

From conservative legal blogger Orin Kerr:

The Non-Story of the AP Phone Records, At Least So Far

So I guess it was just routine matter that unapproved applications got sent to a liberal blog along with all their info on them? Just another low level employee?

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-offi...nfidential-docs

 

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

 

...

 

After receiving the unapproved applications, ProPublica tried to determine why they had been sent. In emails, IRS spokespeople said ProPublica shouldn’t have received them.

This kind of abuse of power should frighten you as well. Instead you brush it off as a simple 'mistake' or someone just trying to take a shortcut that had 'unintended results'.

[Y2HH]

It wasn't ok if/when the Bush administration did things that weren't legal, or questionable at best, and it's not ok when the Obama administration does it, either.

 

Anyone defending either are the problem this country faces. Stupid people electing bad leaders, and then defending their bad decisions and blaming everyone else for everything.

[Jenksismyhero]

It wasn't ok if/when the Bush administration did things that weren't legal, or questionable at best, and it's not ok when the Obama administration does it, either.

 

Anyone defending either are the problem this country faces. Stupid people electing bad leaders, and then defending their bad decisions and blaming everyone else for everything.

 

And that was my point. Bush is the worst president ever for reasons X, Y and Z, and yet Obama has probably maintained 75% of those same policies and is the liberal/progressive hero. It's ridiculous.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

So I guess it was just routine matter that unapproved applications got sent to a liberal blog along with all their info on them? Just another low level employee?

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-offi...nfidential-docs

 

ProPublica isn't a "liberal blog," they're a full-fledged investigative journalism operation that frequently works with NPR and shows like Frontline to produce in-depth and detailed reporting.

 

What happened here was ProPublica asked for 67 applications. The IRS sent them 31. 9 of those were not yet approved and should not have been sent, but could have been sent as soon as they were completed. Not exactly a gigantic scandal there, sounds like a bureaucratic mistake. ProPublica points out that the names associated with the releases are lifelong IRS employees, not political appointments.

 

This kind of abuse of power should frighten you as well. Instead you brush it off as a simple 'mistake' or someone just trying to take a shortcut that had 'unintended results'.

 

I've already said a full investigation is appropriate here, but I'm not seeing an "abuse of power" yet, more of a "poor administrative decisions within the IRS." The IRS has a legitimate interest and duty to ensure that groups filing for 501©4 status meet the legal requirements and are not engaged in electioneering. It's not exactly a stretch to imagine that groups self-describing themselves as tea party groups might be skirting that line or going over it (edit: not that they're a bunch of lawbreakers, just that it seems likely they would be engaging in a bit of political advocacy). For example, there's no reasonable way to argue that CrossroadsGPS and Priorities USA are "educational" or "social welfare" entities and not campaign groups, yet they applied for 501©4 status.

Edited May 14, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Jenksismyhero]

So I guess it was just routine matter that unapproved applications got sent to a liberal blog along with all their info on them? Just another low level employee?

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-offi...nfidential-docs

 

 

This kind of abuse of power should frighten you as well. Instead you brush it off as a simple 'mistake' or someone just trying to take a shortcut that had 'unintended results'.

 

And again, despite the fact that senior officials were aware of this stuff back in 2011, they were denying it happened (or was still happening) in 2012. If this simple "oh yeah we were just doing our due diligence as we are required by law to do" explanation was legit, they wouldn't have denied anything, they would have used that defense at the start.

[StrangeSox]

It wasn't ok if/when the Bush administration did things that weren't legal, or questionable at best, and it's not ok when the Obama administration does it, either.

 

Anyone defending either are the problem this country faces. Stupid people electing bad leaders, and then defending their bad decisions and blaming everyone else for everything.

 

It's not, but right now we don't have any information that obtaining the phone records in pursuit of a leak of classified information "[wasn't] legal or questionable at best." It could have been a completely routine subpoena procedure for all we know at this point. I posted conservative/libertarian legal scholar Orin Kerr's response precisely because he's not going to be a knee-jerk Obama defender (and his posts at Volokh are usually very informative on 4th amendment surveillance issues).

 

Jonathan Adler has a response at Volokh, for what it's worth:

 

In a thoughtful post below, Orin suggests that we don’t know enough about the federal government’s seizure of the AP’s records. As Orin notes, the Justice Department has special rules for this sort of thing. Yet there are reasons to doubt whether the government followed these rules. Among other things, the government is required to take “ all reasonable steps to attempt to obtain the information through alternative sources or means,” including attempts at negotiations with the media source before any request for a subpoena is made, unless the Assistant Attorney General concludes such negotiations would pose a “substantial threat” to the investigation.

 

This is hardly the first time the federal government has investigated the leak of national security information in the past dozen years, and yet this is the first time a seizure of this scope has been reported. The AP’s letter of protest certainly suggests this was an unprecedented seizure with serious implications for the AP’s newsgathering operations across a range of areas, and that the requisite efforts to obtain the necessary information through other means were not undertaken.

 

Perhaps the AP is wrong on these point, and perhaps DoJ did everything that is required. If so, there might not be cause for outrage. But that would hardly make this a “non-story.”

 

UPDATE: To place this in further context, it’s worth remembering the FBI has a history of obtaining phone records without following the relevant guidelines.

 

And that was my point. Bush is the worst president ever for reasons X, Y and Z, and yet Obama has probably maintained 75% of those same policies and is the liberal/progressive hero. It's ridiculous.

 

Bush is the worst president ever for a lot of reasons. Obama is a less-s***ty president for not maintaining all of Bush's terrible policies and for at least moving in a better direction in some areas. If you think Obama is widely hailed as a hero in the progressive/liberal world, you're just plain ignorant. He's routinely attacked from the left for his civil liberty policies (mostly continuations or expansions of Bush-era policy), he's attacked for his endless desire for a terrible "Grand Bargain" and for putting cuts to Medicare and Social Security on the table, he's attacked for his abandonment of expansionary fiscal policy in favor of DEFICITS!!!! early in his presidency, he's attacked for his lack of strong environmental policy, he's attacked for not closing Guantanamo, etc. etc.

[StrangeSox]

And again, despite the fact that senior officials were aware of this stuff back in 2011, they were denying it happened (or was still happening) in 2012. If this simple "oh yeah we were just doing our due diligence as we are required by law to do" explanation was legit, they wouldn't have denied anything, they would have used that defense at the start.

The policy was changed when senior officials became aware of it in early 2012, wasn't it?

 

A full investigation beyond the IG's report is probably warranted here.

[EvilMonkey]

The policy was changed when senior officials became aware of it in early 2012, wasn't it?

 

A full investigation beyond the IG's report is probably warranted here.

They were aware of it in 2011, and were still denying it in 2012, just now admitting to it in 2013. heads need to roll.