Republican Jackass of the Week

Meet Representative Tim Murphy (R) of Pennsylvania.

He and several other Regressive Republicans in congress were awfully understanding and unusually apologetic as they begged for patience regarding the myriad of problems that occurred for four months when Medicare Part D enrollment began back in 2006. Back then the rollout was a disaster, with sign-up problems and a website that didn't work properly for over four months.

So are they singing the same tune now that the ObamaCare website is having problems? Of course not. Just listen to the jaw-dropping hypocrisy from Regressive Timmy in the short clip below.  Lawrence O'Donnell from msnbc humorously pretends they're playing the wrong clip.

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.

100 More American Gun Deaths In a Week

Since the Connecticut elementary school shooting, one week ago, where 20 six-year-olds and 6 adults were massacred by a crazed gun nut with military-style assault weapons and huge clips that could enable one to shoot and kill dozens of people in seconds, another hundred people have been killed by guns and gun nuts.

The National Rifle Association, which has only 4 million members yet holds Regressive republicans in congress in a choke hold, has done the typical cowardly thing: they hid in the closet for a week before peeking their heads out and making a statement.

Wayne LaPierre

And what a statement that was. It came yesterday afternoon, when Pepe LePew, or whatever the name of their CEO in charge of promoting gun sales, said that he could not back one more law to restrict gun ownership, and that the problem is that there simply aren't enough guns in circulation. This insane coward actually stated that the only solution to "a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." His ingenious idea? Have an armed guard at every school in the country.

Yes, let's make every elementary school a maximum security prison, complete with armed police, armed teachers and an arsenal of weapons in every classroom. That sounds safe.

If only the teachers and all those 6 year olds were armed, this could have all been avoided, right Pepe LePew?

So now the very same teachers that the far rightwing blowhards and Foxbots refer to as "union thugs," the very same ones who are "paid too much" and need to be fired by the thousands, these same teachers now have to take on the additional responsibility to act as SWAT team members and sharpshooters.

And since all schools have multiple entrances, there will need to be multiple armed guards. And what about movie theaters? What about shopping malls? Should there be dozens of armed guards at all those locations, too?

What the NRA's CEO in Charge of Gun Sales has conveniently forgotten in his insane rant carried by every cable news network yesterday, is that there was an armed guard at Columbine High School. That didn't stop a mass murder. Virginia Tech had its own police department. That didn't stop a mass murder. And most ironic of all, Fort Hood is loaded with guns and experts in their use -- it's a military base! And that didn't stop a mass murder.

Turning elementary schools into armed camps seems very reasonable to this insane rightwing gun nut, but background checks making sure the mentally ill don't get their hands on guns is not reasonable, right? Banning high powered, military-style assault weapons and large clips that can kill 100 people in 30 seconds is out of the question, right Mr. LePew?

The NRA is a lobbying organization that represents gun manufacturers, not gun owners. Reasonable, common sense gun laws are favored by the great majority in this country -- including most members of the NRA, according to recent polls.

Doing background checks to make sure guns don't end up in the hands of the mentally ill is a common sense gun law. Banning high powered, military-style assault weapons that can -- with huge clips -- kill 100 people in 30 seconds, is a common sense gun law.

Nobody's taking guns away. Nobody's infringing on the Second Amendment. But there are necessary, reasonable restrictions.

Even the First Amendment -- you know, that "free speech" thing -- has RESTRICTIONS, dealing with inciting violence, slander, lying in a court of law, etc.

You can't do that.

The Second Amendment DOES NOT give you carte blanche to own just anything you want. You can't have grenades, rocket launchers, tanks, drones or nukes. And you can't have military style semi automatic weapons.

If you like, you may own as many muskets as you want. Those weapons, which allowed you to shoot once or twice in a minute, are what was available when the Second Amendment was written.

Last night's Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell summed it up perfectly:

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Rightwing Backlash Against Bob Costas

Another great "rewrite" from Lawrence O'Donnell, this time about the irrational rightwing meltdown over another gun tragedy.

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Who's More Christlike?

Lawrence O'Donnell's "rewrite" comparing Ricky Gervais and Pat Robertson. Well worth the time to watch.

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