Protests Against Rewriting History for Rightwingers

A new rightwing majority of Denver's school board members wants to rewrite American history to please themselves.

They've stated the curriculum must change so it "does not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard of the law." Their words.

Hmm. Seems most of the important turning points in American history were the direct result of civil disorder, social strife and disregard of the law as it stood at the time.

Whitewashing and censoring American history in Colorado means erasing the Civil Rights Movement and Rosa Parks. The Declaration of Independence itself was civil disobedience. The fight for unions brought us the five day workweek, eight hour workday, overtime and the end of child labor. And ironically, the far rightwing Teabaggers who are now running the school board, are named after the original Tea Party, which was a huge act of disregard for the law.

Signs read, "People didn't die so we could erase them," and "I want to learn the entire history to change the future."

Protesting students said, "The nation's foundation was built on civil protest;" "I don't want my education censored;" and "you always hear that America's the greatest, the land of the free and the home of the brave. For all the good things we've done, we've done some terrible things. It's important to learn about those things so we don't repeat them."

This is what happens when you don't vote and rightwingers have their way.

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.

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.

Tea Party Downgrade

The rightwing's intractability and lack of increased revenue are specifically mentioned in S&P's report on why they downgraded the US from an AAA to an AA+ nation:

"Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now
assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012,
remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority
of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise
revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy.
It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options."
  
In addition, the far rightwing Teabag Wearers who claim to be such Constitutional sticklers, blatantly rooted for default and not raising the debt ceiling. This would have specifically been unconstitutional since the Constitution says the debt of the US govt "shall not be questioned."

So the bottom line is the Regressives in Congress -- controlled by their own minority of far rightwing Newbies With Teabags Stapled to Their Hats -- refused to compromise at all, they got what they wanted, they acted unconstitutionally and our collective credit rating was lowered thanks to them.

And then there's the other thought that says, who cares?  Standard & Poors were the idiots who gave Lehman Brothers triple-A ratings until they collapsed as well.

Fox Lies (Surprised?) to Make Protest Seem Bigger

...and they wonder why nobody takes them seriously.

Last week's far right-wing Teabagger protest against health care reform in Washington had thousands of people bussed in, literally, on 40 buses. The Fox Channel promoted it heavily. Still, only about 10,000 people attended according to the Washington Post. Not a bad turnout, but not the hundreds of thousands they expected.

Nonetheless, to make the crowd seem bigger, Fox used a dishonest editing trick. Watch Jon Stewart from The Daily Show on Comedy Central explain it. It's hilarious.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Even First Graders Know the Pledge of Allegiance

It happened in front of a crowd of right-wing Teabaggers, shipped in on 40 buses paid for by right-wing billionaire CEO David Koch who runs the organization "Americans for Prosperity," which spends millions opposing health care reform.

Kicking off yesterday’s tea party protest at the Capitol, Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin tried to whip up the crowd to join him in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because it “drives the liberals crazy.”

Then he botched it.

So eager to scream the words “one nation UNDER GOD,” Akin skipped right over the next word – “indivisible” – before stumbling into “with liberty and justice for all.”

Another Republican Storms Off the Set

Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo (R-of course) couldn't stand the heat, had an on-camera temper tantrum and walked off the set on MSNBC yesterday (11/6/09).

The subject was the republican leaders who attended, but did not condemn, the inappropriate, hateful signs held at an anti-health care rally. These, of course, were held by the Teabaggers who are "for" nothing and "against" everything that Congress and the President are trying to accomplish. Get this -- at this particular rally in Washington DC, these right-wing crazies were holding pictures comparing health care reform to the Nazi death camps. Great. To these sickos, giving a government option to people with no health care equals Hitler killing 6 million people. Bizarre.

Well, it was pointed out to Tommy Tancredo that the military itself uses government-run health care. Tancredo became flustered and, speaking for the veterans, claimed they would rather not have health care supplied by the US military! Markos Moulitsas from the Daily Kos reminded him that he, Moulitsas, actually is a veteran and Tancredo is not. (Tancredo pushed for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pushed for the war in Vietnam, although he used "depression" to get out of serving. Kinda like Chickenhawk Dick Cheney, who never met a war he didn't like, unless it was his turn to fight. Then he managed to pull off FIVE deferments to stay out of Vietnam.)

So what happens when you use truth and facts with a republican? They panic and run off. Watch for yourself.