Ruh-roh Raggy! :
News reports about how the Internal Revenue Service applied heavier scrutiny on conservative political organizations applying for tax-exempt status have pointed to a March 22, 2012, House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee hearing in which IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman denied any wrongdoing. But that wasn't the first time lawmakers grilled him about the IRS' practices.
During a Financial Services subcommittee hearing the day before, on March 21, 2012, Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Graves also questioned Shulman about similar concerns. Shulman pushed back against allegations that the IRS was targeting groups that advocated for limited government, just as he did at the subsequent Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.
At the March 21 hearing, Graves pointed to concerns from tea party groups that the IRS had unfairly scrutinized them with burdensome questions because of their political ideology. Shulman, who was appointed to the post by President George W. Bush and whose five-year term as IRS commissioner ended in November 2012, told Graves that the agency had followed standard protocol and said allegations that specific groups were being targeted were "off."
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/georgia-lawmaker-grilled-irs-commissioner-agency-practices-two-145438634.html
And there it is.
This exact same fucking IRS issue has already been investigated by the Republicans in March of 2012. If some of The Gadfly's conservative readers did not quite hear what he just said, The Gadfly will speak up a bit louder. THIS EXACT SAME FUCKING IRS ISSUE HAS ALREADY BEEN INVESTIGATED BY THE REPUBLICANS IN MARCH OF 2012! Better?
So - as it stands - what is really going on here is that the GOP, bereft of any measurable ability to govern the country intelligently and judiciously, is cynically recycling a ho-hum nothingburger of a micro-scandal from 2012 in order to further obstruct President Obama from moving the country forward and managing the people's business as he was fairly and unanimously elected to do so.
Also - note that the report indicates that these actions by the IRS purportedly took place from 2010 to 2012, under the auspices of the previous IRS Commissioner, Douglas Graves, who was a George W. Bush appointee. Mr. Graves adamantly denied any wrongdoing by the IRS at the time of the March 2012 hearings held by the GOP, and insisted the agency was operating under "standard protocol" with their audits of these tax exempt seeking 501(c) groups. And apparently that was a good enough response for the House Ways and Means Committee back in March of 2012 as there were no corrective actions taken by Congress pursuant to those hearings.
So what has changed since March of 2012 to today's freakout by the GOP over THE EXACT SAME FUCKING IRS ISSUE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN INVESTIGATED BY THE REPUBLICANS IN MARCH OF 2012? Glad you asked.
Ask yourself dear reader - what seminal political event has occurred between March 2012 and May of 2013?
If you answered -- the re-election of the Kenyan, Muslim, socialist, communist, terrorist appeasing, vacationing, umbrella using, teleprompter using negro over a wealthy vulture capitalist, who was financially supported by wealthy industrialists, multi-national corporations, and tax-haven exploiting moneyed elites -- then you win the kewpie doll award.
In summation, The Gadfly will once again state for the record, as with the AP phone subpoenaing case, The Gadfly has no problem with an independent counsel looking in to this issue. However, that counsel needs to be truly independent with neither Democratic or Republican influence or connections whatsoever. But we all know that is not going to happen, because this is a manufactured scandal which the GOP is using as a political cudgel to bludgeon Obama and further obstruct his administration from governing the country. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ed Kilgore at The Washington Monthly sums it up even more succinctly:
People, people: the IRS wasn’t roaming around the countryside looking for Tea Party groups to persecute; it was responding (yes, poorly, no doubt) to voluntary applications for a tax exemption that has been routinely and massively abused over the years. Nobody’s doors were being kicked down; nobody was being fined or threatened, so far as we know. Yes, a benefit was delayed or withheld to which the applicants might have (or might not have) been entitled as a matter of (really bad, in my opinion) public policy. But any “monster under the bed” was entirely in their own minds...http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_05/your_hardworking_congress044813.php
And with that - The Gadfly says - Nuff' said on this ridiculous matter.
----TFG
No comments:
Post a Comment