The IRS "Conspiracy" Against the Teabaggers

It doesn't exist.

Despite all the shrill noises coming from Rupert Murdock's Fox channel (when they're not screaming about the other imaginary scandal -- "Benghazi!"), there is no IRS conspiracy against the myriad of Teabaggers' organizations. At all.

After Barack Obama was elected to his first term, and after the Citizens United ruling allowing any corporation or organization -- from anywhere on the globe -- to donate unlimited amounts to a presidential candidate, the IRS was suddenly flooded with applications for so-called non profit organizations wanting to be allowed tax-exempt status.

The vast majority of these groups suddenly springing up either had the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their names. So a couple of low-level IRS workers used those words to search for these organizations so they could determine, if indeed, these organizations complied with IRS rules actually allowing them tax-exempt status.

This, by the way, is the job of the IRS.

But once anyone above these low-level IRS workers discovered that the teabaggers' groups appeared to be under additional scrutiny, the practice was stopped and the policy was changed. No high-level IRS official was aware of, or condoned, the scrutiny of these hundreds of anti-Obama organizations. Certainly the President himself knew nothing of what a couple of low-level employees were doing to seemingly make their jobs easier in tracking all these new, questionable groups.

If, during the Bush administration, Liberal groups had come under additional scrutiny, of course there'd be complaints and an investigation. But once it was established that only a couple of low-level employees took it upon themselves to search for these particular groups, and no upper level employees, nor the administration had any knowledge of wrongdoing, it would have ended right there.

"Nothing to see here, move along," we would have been told from Bush's spokespeople and the union teleprompter readers on Fox. But this is something for the righties to whine and carp about. Remember, it wasn't the Obama administration that was asleep while 3,000 Americans were killed in the biggest security failure in American history. It wasn't the Obama administration that lied us into an unnecessary War Against the Wrong Country, or deregulated the banking industry which led to the worst financial mess in 80 years and more foreclosures than we've seen since the Great Depression.

Seems like this is just a whiny bunch of Obama-hating sore losers screaming for attention and pretending they've been wronged. Keep in mind that no Teabagger group was denied anything, including their tax-exempt status because of the extra scrutiny. And keep in mind that the IRS has already apologized and changed the methodology for investigating these situations.

By the way, as an interesting sidenote, the guy in charge during this alleged conspiracy, was IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and was appointed by -- wait for it -- George W. Bush. Shulman ended his 6-year term last November. President Obama has yet to nominate a new IRS commissioner.  So if these rightwingers are looking to put someone's head on a platter, it would have to be the guy Dubya appointed to run the IRS.

As O'Reilly or Hannity would have said, if the shoe were on the other foot, "Where's the problem? So a bunch of Liberal anti-Bush groups suddenly sprang up and a couple of IRS people, on their own, used a few specific search terms to find them more easily and see if they really deserved tax-exempt status. So what? These anti-American, anti-Bush people need to be put under the microscope to see if they really deserve tax-exempt status. I don't see a problem here."

In other words, get over it. Move along. Nothing to see here.