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The Scandal That Must Not Be Named
Townhall.com ^ | December 24, 2017 | Paul Jacob

Posted on 12/23/2017 9:07:55 PM PST by Kaslin

“They’ve been burned. They’ve been hammered. They’ve been bludgeoned,” George Washington University law professor Miriam Galston explains to the Washington Post. “They’re trying to survive.”

In this heartbreaking discussion during this special time of year, the “they” are the poor, long-suffering folks . . . at the Internal Revenue Service.

It is a terrible, too-long-ignored scandal, which should tear at the heartstrings of every American.

“Years of conservative attacks on the Internal Revenue Service have greatly diminished the ability of agency regulators to oversee political activity by charities and other nonprofits . . .” posits the recently published Post analysis.

Apparently, it is all part of a scheme by “conservatives” to “scale back the IRS and shrink the federal government.” They write as if that were a bad thing.

You see, the Post argues, conservatives “capitalized on revelations in 2013 that IRS officials focused inappropriately on tea party and other conservative groups based on their names and policy positions . . . Among conservatives, the episode has come to be known as the ‘IRS targeting scandal.’”

Did you get that? There was no scandal — just an “episode.”

Oh, sure “conservatives” call it a “scandal.” But not the Post. Even though the IRS did indeed target Tea Party and conservative groups and frustrate, delay and thwart their most precious First Amendment rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech — in some cases for many years.

Yet, the Post article does not seek to detail and decry this clear denial of constitutional rights, admitted to by the IRS. Instead, the paper zeroes-in on the “use” of this violation to mobilize a political check on the power — and budget — of the agency responsible: the Internal Revenue Service.

Heavens, Washington is never supposed to work like that! Balancing bureaucratic power with legal limits? That actually borders on . . . accountability.

The budget for the offenders, the Exempt Organizations division of the IRS, was cut. No, not merely a reduction in the rate of increase, but an actual cut — from $102 million in 2011 to $82 million in 2016.

This is good, not bad. It means the IRS is less likely to repeat this scandalous . . . episode. And note that the Post has no bloody shirt to wave, claiming the public has been ill-served by a leaner, but hopefully not meaner, IRS.

It is unfortunately true that Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division responsible during the epoch of its corruption and/or incompetence, avoided even a smidgen of accountability. After years of denying the targeting, she arranged to disclose it publicly. But then she refused to testify before Congress, asserting her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Lerner retired, instead, so taxpayers could begin paying her six-figure annual pension. From her days harassing conservative groups at the Federal Election Commission to her management of the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, she has served the Deep State well.

The lawsuits filed by Tea Party and conservative organizations against the IRS targeting have also now been settled with the federal government paying up big time. Sadly, it is with our money and without an apology, but as discussed earlier with perhaps some deterrent provided.

As attorney Edward Greim declared at the outset of the litigation: “If the government is right in this case, it means that from now on, no matter who the president is, the IRS can pick out a group of people that disagrees with the president and pull those people out, delay them, harass them, target them, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And our position is very simple: That cannot be true and that’s not the republic that we live in.”

Still, many on the left, in media and political circles, maintain, as the article states, that congressional and federal “investigators concluded there was no proof of political intent, a liberal conspiracy or White House involvement.” If certain groups are disfavored in exercising their basic political rights by sheer government incompetence — without regard to political intent or a proven conspiracy or White House involvement — it nonetheless remains a scandal.

It is also often advanced that progressive groups received the same treatment. Cleta Mitchell, another attorney for conservative groups, disagrees: “They didn't get subjected to the kinds of follow-up the Tea Party groups did. I don't care how anybody wants to spin it. They just didn’t.”

In a recent letter to Congress, the Justice Department unequivocally acknowledged that “the IRS’s mishandling of tax exempt applications disproportionately impacted applicants affiliated with Tea Party groups and similar organizations.”

But, of course, it would not have been better had the IRS also taken special pains to hamper progressive or liberal or moderate political groups, making it harder for them to organize. Partisan political people and a partisan press seem to miss that point.

To many, the IRS targeting of Tea Party and conservative and even some progressive groups is not a scandal. To me, that’s the biggest scandal of all.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 2013; bhoirs; irs; lerner; loislerner; obamascandals; scandals; teaparty
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1 posted on 12/23/2017 9:07:55 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Oooo, “Missed it by that much!” Maxwell Smart


2 posted on 12/23/2017 9:09:09 PM PST by DoughtyOne (McConnell, Ryan, and the whole GOPe are dead to me. Are Alabamans tired of winning?)
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To: Kaslin

I don’t know who’s worse, the IRS or the media.


3 posted on 12/23/2017 9:11:17 PM PST by Impy (I have no virtue to signal.)
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To: Impy

Lib “college” “professors”.


4 posted on 12/23/2017 9:15:12 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: Kaslin

BTTT


5 posted on 12/23/2017 9:16:24 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (Merry Christmas, Mr. President, and another happy year!)
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To: Kaslin

I think Cicero said “ First we hang the lawyers”.

Galston is a prime example of what he was talking about. A wise man way ahead of his time, this Cicero fellow.


6 posted on 12/23/2017 9:16:40 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: Kaslin

“investigators concluded there was no proof of political intent, a liberal conspiracy or White House involvement.”


7 posted on 12/23/2017 9:18:35 PM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: Kaslin

I want to see Lerners testimony.


8 posted on 12/23/2017 9:24:39 PM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: Kaslin
It is unfortunately true that Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division responsible during the epoch of its corruption and/or incompetence, avoided even a smidgen of accountability. After years of denying the targeting, she arranged to disclose it publicly. But then she refused to testify before Congress... Lerner retired, instead, so taxpayers could begin paying her six-figure annual pension.

Like Andrew McCabe's about to do...

9 posted on 12/23/2017 9:27:34 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: Kaslin

Oshkallaboomboom beat you by 20 seconds.


10 posted on 12/23/2017 9:28:21 PM PST by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Windflier; Admin Moderator
Oshkallaboomboom beat you by 20 seconds.

The difference between myself and Kaslin is that when I see someone else beat me to a post I ask to have it deleted.

11 posted on 12/23/2017 9:33:32 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Kaslin
Welllllll, imho, the two faced terminally hypocritical IRS folks need to still clean up their act.

They have aided and abetted black churches HOSTING DEM politicos during elections ROUTINELY in 100's of churches for months repeatedly. With impunity.

But let a conservative Pastor even utter one word or one sentence merely about a preferred candidate and the IRS was Johnny on the spot ready to jerk their charitable status.

We are stinking tired of the IRS being used as a lop-sided liberal hidiot bulldog tasked only with biting conservatives and conservative pastors and congregations.

12 posted on 12/23/2017 9:34:01 PM PST by JockoManning (to cpy/paste if want: http://preview.tinyurl.com/Haiku-For-The-End-Times)
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To: Kaslin
The Washington Post is a scandal.
13 posted on 12/23/2017 9:35:30 PM PST by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
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To: Kaslin

My own take on the IRS scandals is that it was more than a case of political harrasment. In 2012, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) published the results of an audit and found widespread apparent fraud involving temporary tax IDs of the type used by foreign workers. In one case, over 23,000 tax refunds were paid to a single address in Atlanta for a total of $50,000,000! Other cases cited were similar. Could someone be financing the “resistance” with taxpayer money? Could this possibly happen without someone on the inside? I never understood why this didn’t get more press.


14 posted on 12/23/2017 9:39:02 PM PST by D_Idaho ("For we wrestle not against flesh and blood...")
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
I think Cicero said “ First we hang the lawyers”.

Cicero was a very good lawyer. Shakespeare is the fellow to quote on this.

15 posted on 12/23/2017 9:42:28 PM PST by Nateman (The louder the left screams , the better it is for America!)
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To: Kaslin

“They’ve been burned. They’ve been hammered. They’ve been bludgeoned,” George Washington University law professor Miriam Galston explains to the Washington Post. “They’re trying to survive.”

Well, she’s from Georgetown so I think she must be talking about Sandra Flucks’ feminine hygeine products.

The very idea that IRS workers become demoralized because taxpayers don’t especially like them is barely worthy of the teeny violin pix. These workers don’t have to worry about EVER being fired (unless they commit the most egregious offenses imaginable, like shooting a fellow worker) they get all manner of health care, they get pensions. They are comparatively well paid. Oh, they are bored? Cry me a river. Do people go into this line of work in order to lead exciting lives teeming with glamour? Do IRS workers think there are or have been periods where the general taxpaying population really really appreciates them and their undying devotion to their work? Not hardly.


16 posted on 12/23/2017 9:46:52 PM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them.)
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To: piasa
her six-figure annual pension.

That needs to be "attached".

17 posted on 12/23/2017 9:54:14 PM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (RATs, RINOs...same thing)
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To: Nateman

You’ve never met my neighbor Cicero! He hates lawyers.


18 posted on 12/23/2017 9:59:25 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: Kaslin

To be clear, the Centralization of IRS powers into the National office is the same tactics used by all Socialist Governments. The reorganization in the 1990S thru OBAMA begand the centralization a system that existed in the 1940s through19521 when IRS was decentralized. 52 or so Directors are hard to keep quiet. Also in the 1940s the corruption was at owere levels; the new system enabled IRS to be corrupted at higher levels with Top Directives passed to lower levels with the need as to why. Also, under the old system, there was only one political appointment. Under Obama, they were able to transfer political robots who were placed at higher levels and transferred in.EG Lois Lerner, was an executive at the Federal Election Committee (guess that was deemed corrupted enough); sic she was able to abust the Charity application etc.


19 posted on 12/23/2017 10:06:54 PM PST by Tuketu (The Dim Platform is splinters bound by crazy glue. TRUMP is the solvent.)
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To: Kaslin
“They’ve been burned. They’ve been hammered. They’ve been bludgeoned,”

We were ripped, we were staggered, we were hopelessly blind
We were drunk on power and anything else we could find
But then you sobered up and you drifted away
Now happy hour is the saddest time of the day

20 posted on 12/23/2017 10:15:34 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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