Republican Jackass of the Week

Rep Darrell Issa (R) of California, also Chairman of the Oversight Committee.

This is the committee that, under his rule, does nothing but go fishing for non-existent "scandals," like the "IRS scandal," the "Fast and Furious scandal," and of course, everybody's favorite, "Benghazeeeeeeeeeee!"

Of course, not one shred of evidence of wrongdoing, coverup, or illegal activity of any kind has ever been discovered. Yet arsonist/car thief/oversight chairman Issa keeps blindly plugging away, determined to find something--anything--worthy of impeaching President Obama.

In case you don't remember, this fake IRS scandal consisted of an IRS office in Cincinnati searching the applications of rightwing Teabagger organizations, as well as Liberal organizations, that requested 501(c)4 status. What Darrell and all the Teabaggers don't understand is that the IRS had every duty to check out those groups, since getting 501(c)4 status requires an organization "to operate exclusively for the promotion of social welfare," not primarily to promote social welfare. This means they cannot be political even 1% of the time.

And, in case you don't remember, not a single rightwing organization was denied 501(c)4 status, although legally they all should have.

Wednesday, during his umpteenth hearing into the non-existent IRS scandal, he called a former IRS official before the committee once again, only to have her take the Fifth once again. So what did Issa do? Immediately he adjourned the meeting, despite the fact that Oversight Committee Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings had every right to speak for a few minutes. Cummings was attempting to speak--when Issa ordered his mic to be turned off.

This act of rudeness and inappropriate conduct is unparalleled in recent history. No pundit could remember the last time an opposing member of Congress, who had a right to speak according to House rules, was not only refused response time, but actually had his mic disconnected while speaking.

Darrell Issa is an angry, frustrated little man, who promised his rightwing backers he'd find something with which to take down the president, but who has been a miserable failure for the last four years.

And he's also the Republican Jackass of the Week.

Republican Jackass of the Week

This time it's the entire Republican-controlled House of Representatives, allegedly run by Speaker John Boehner.

Today's their last workday, if you can call it that, before their 5-week summer vacation. Usually at this time of year, they tend to scramble to get things done before running out the door.

But not Bourbon Boehner's Bunch.

Today, they'll waste more time and taxpayer money voting, for the FORTIETH TIME, to defund the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, despite the fact that even the rightwing Supreme Court admitted it was Constitutional, and Boehner himself referred to it as "the law of the land."

Since the Democratically-controlled Senate is not in a million years going to agree to kill off Obamacare, and the President is certainly not apt to sign a bill destroying his own signature health care plan, this is just another circus act to placate the far rightwing radicals in the Regressive republican party. Now they'll be able to go home to their gerrymandered districts and beam with delight in bragging about their vote that accomplished, yet again, absolutely nothing.

They're calling this 40th attempt to defund Obamacare the "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act." Cute.

Another waste of time bill passed this week is called the "Stop the IRS Act," which would mandate the firing of any IRS agent who "takes official action for political purposes." Of course, not a single IRS agent has been found guilty of such a thing, despite months of interrogations from car-thief and insurance-fraudster Darrell Issa. Even the Bush-appointee who was in charge of the IRS during this fake scandal said there was no political motivation and the Obama White House had nothing to do with scrutiny of some rightwing groups.

Were any jobs bills passed? Any infrastructure bills passed? Budget plans? A way out of the sequester? Transportation bill? Housing bill? Immigration reform? Efforts to reduce gun violence? Background checks?

No.

They haven't accomplished a single priority demanded by Americans according to most polls.

John Boehner remains the weakest, least-accomplished Speaker of the House we've seen in decades, a so-called leader who can't control the fringe element of his own party. And his Congress remains the least productive in American history.

But hey, enough about that.
It's vacation time, right John?

The IRS "Scandal" Explained

This is not as complicated as it sounds. And you won't fall into a coma and hit your face on your keyboard. I promise. Here we go:

Once upon a time, the US Supreme Court decided to uphold the Citizens United case, allowing corporations and organizations -- including foreign entities -- to spend unlimited amounts of money in support or opposition to a candidate, without having to disclose where that money came from. It struck down a previous law banning this practice.

The Supreme Court  not only opened the floodgates allowing unlimited and unregulated corporate money to flow into campaigns, it also blurred the line between political groups and non-profit social welfare groups. Until then, these social welfare groups could only apply for tax-exempt status as "501(c)(4)" groups, with the strict privilege of not engaging in political speech. But now it's difficult to determine which social welfare groups live up to that standard. Certainly the Teabagger groups did not: they were completely political in nature.

So this Supreme Court ruling occured in 2010, and immediately afterward, over 3,000 rightwing groups that opposed President Obama sprang up like weeds and demanded to be recognized as non-profit, civic organizations that should be given tax-exempt status. The IRS noticed they all used the words "tea party" or "patriot." So they used those as search terms.

Because of this, it was determined the IRS "used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions," as the complaint goes.

In other words, yeah, the IRS is supposed to determine which groups deserve tax-exempt status and which don't; they just can't use specific terms flagging rightwing groups.

So the IRS is now faced with the challenge of filtering out groups that step over the line and flagrantly abuse the social welfare moniker without appearing to specifically target rightwing Teabagger groups. See?

The real problem, as Lawrence O'Donnell clearly pointed out this week on his msnbc program, is that back in 1959, the IRS arbitrarily changed the word "exclusively" to "primarily" in this rule:

Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code defines tax-exempt social welfare groups as: Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.

In 1959, under the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, the meaning of this section was changed dramatically when the IRS decided the word “exclusively” could, in effect, be read as “primarily.”

“For 54 years, the IRS has gotten away with the crime of changing the word ‘exclusively’ to ‘primarily',” said Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word  Monday. “The IRS took a hard, clear word like ‘exclusively’ and changed it into a soft word  ’primarily’ and then left it to the IRS agents to determine if your organization was primarily concerned  with the promotion of social welfare.”

This is why every Teabagger group was given tax-exempt status, despite the fact that they are not social welfare groups, but completely political in nature, which flies in the face of the IRS rule stated above.

The bottom line is that even though the IRS used rightwing-specific terms to search for these groups, not one was turned down for tax exempt status, even though they should have.  And it wasn't an Obama appointee in charge during these years -- it was Douglas Shulman, appointed by George Dubya Bush.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Marco Rubio, Regressive republican senator from Florida (where else).

This week, he manufactured so much fake outrage at the IRS, with its dastardly scrutiny of Teabagger groups, that he demanded the head of the IRS be fired!

Immediately!

How dare President Obama's IRS commissioner investigate the 3500 Teabagger groups that sprang up immediately after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, requesting non-profit classification for tax-exempt status! Right, Marco?

Here's the problem: there was no "head of the IRS." The usual obstruction from the Regressives of President Obama's nominees caused the IRS to have only a temporary, acting IRS commissioner.

And who was the commissioner in charge of the IRS during the alleged scandal? That would be Douglas Shulman, appointed by none other than George Dubya Bush!

Whoops.

(Steven Miller, who symbolically resigned yesterday, was the acting commissioner whose 210-day term would have ended in 3 weeks anyway, on June 8. He was not the acting commissioner during the alleged scandal.)

And by the way, it's the job of the IRS to scrutinize groups that request non-profit, 401(c)4 status.

Marco Rubio, confused and thirsty Florida senator, who needs to spend 30 seconds with The Google before opening up his big mouth: this week's Republican Jackass of the Week.

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.