Tag Archives: scandal

IRS/Tea Party controversy: progressive groups “targeted,” too, and corporate media once again refuses to tell Americans the whole truth

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CATEGORY: TaxationLate Saturday we posted a Scrogues Converse Roundtable looking at the IRS/Tea Party controversy. The debate got started when our colleague Dr. Sid Bonesparkle suggested that perhaps the IRS wasn’t out of line in taking a good hard look at organizations dedicated to undermining the tax system trying to organize using 501 status, which is reserved for social welfare oriented nonprofits.

Perhaps Sid was, if anything, too generous regarding the alleged facts of the case. Surprise, surprise: The version of the story that, thanks to the slothfulness of our corporate media establishment, has now been accepted as gospel turns out to be inaccurate.

In short, the IRS did not “target conservative groups.”

The corporate media is blasting out the story that the IRS “targeted conservative groups.” Some in the media say there was “IRS harassment of conservative groups.” Some of the media are going so far as claiming that conservative groups were “audited.”

This story that is being repeated and treated as “true” is just not what happened at all. It is one more right-wing victimization fable, repeated endlessly until the public has no choice except to believe it.

Conservative Groups Were Not “Targeted,” “Singled Out” Or Anything Else

You are hearing that conservative groups were “targeted.” What you are not hearing is that progressive groups were also “targeted.” So were groups that are not progressive or conservative.

All that happened here is that groups applying to the IRS for special tax status were checked to see if they were engaged in political activity. They were checked, not targeted. Only one-third of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Once again: Only one-third of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Conservative groups were not “singled out,” were not “targeted” and in the end none were denied special tax status – even though many obviously should have been.

Bloomberg details three progressive groups that were probed, noting that one of them had its application rejected.

The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure after admitting it targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups for scrutiny in recent years, also had its eye on at least three Democratic-leaning organizations seeking nonprofit status.

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries. [emphasis added]

All told, the IRS’s poking about seems to have been extensive and non-partisan.

…agency officials told lawmakers in a briefing yesterday that 471 groups received additional scrutiny, a total that indicates a crackdown on politically active nonprofit groups that extends beyond the Tea Party outfits.

A look at the questions presented to Progress Texas suggests that if the Tea Party was being “harassed,” so were they.

“Progress Texas and the Tea Party strongly disagree on the role of government,” the group’s executive director, Ed Espinoza, said in a statement. “Yet, when we applied for tax-exempt status, Progress Texas received the same type of additional scrutiny that Tea Party groups are complaining about. The similar treatment indicates the IRS was likely addressing a flood of 501c4 applications after Citizens United, and undermines the paranoid notion that Tea Party groups were singled out.”

…

The questions resembled the list of 35 questions (PDF) sent to the Liberty Township Tea Party, which has complained of IRS harassment.

The real culprit here is the infamous Citizens United decision.

The year 2010 began a busy period for the IRS office in Cincinnati, the home of the tax-exempt determinations unit. That January, the Supreme Court handed down its Citizens United decision, which loosened the rules governing contributions to political causes and candidates. Applications flooded in to the office from groups seeking tax-exempt status, many with a political agenda.

The IRS has admitted it flagged applications from groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names. But applications from other groups were closely scrutinized as well.

An Austin, Texas-based progressive group, Progress Texas, was one of them. Its executive director, Ed Espinoza, says it took almost a year and a half for the IRS to review the application from his organization.

…

In 2010, some 1,700 applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status came into the Cincinnati office. That number nearly doubled by 2012. Yet according to the IRS Inspector General’s Report, just one person was originally given the task of sifting through the applications deemed politically sensitive.

…

Another application that seemingly got caught up in the backlog came from a group of journalists in Chicago. The Chicago News Cooperative provided news for the Midwest edition of The New York Times. The co-op also sought tax-exempt status. Veteran journalist James O’Shea, a former managing editor of The Chicago Tribune, was in charge.

“There were political organizations trying to get these exemptions, and I think the IRS was concerned — and probably appropriately so — that some of these news organizations were really political organizations,” he says, “and so they were examining that, and we just got caught up in that.”

For more than two years, the Chicago News Cooperative waited for an IRS ruling. But without tax-exempt status, foundation support dried up, and the cooperative went out of business. [emphasis added]

The final score, then: Conservative groups “targeted” accounted for about a third of the total. None were denied nonprofit status. Meanwhile, at least one liberal group was turned down and at least one innocent bystander was forced out of business.

All thanks to a pro-corporate, pro-conservative Supreme Court ruling.

It’s probably not fair to assume that big money media organizations are always wrong, but you have to be positively daft to assume that you’re getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from them.

Forewarned, forearmed.

Profiling the Tea Party: In defense of the IRS. Sorta. Or not.

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You’ve probably noted the controversy surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s apparent “profiling” of groups aligned with the Tea Party. A discussion on the issue broke out here at S&R this week, with our colleague Sid Bonesparkle suggesting on our internal e-mail forum that perhaps such action, even if it only involved a couple of “rogue” agents, might not be entirely unwarranted.

As is often the case, not everyone agreed with Dr. Sid. In the interest of fostering some debate on the larger issues surrounding the case, we have decided to share out internal discussion with our readers as part of our ongoing Scrogues Converse series.

Dr. Sid Bonesparkle

First, a caveat or two. I’m not a huge fan of the IRS. In general large bureaucracies with minimal oversight make me nervous. This isn’t an anti-taxation thing, it isn’t an anti-government thing, and I can’t say that I’ve ever had any personal issues with them. Call it philosophical.

I’m also not a huge fan of government employees usurping extralegal powers for themselves, although I recognize that expansionism is as natural to a bureaucracy as sucking eggs is to a weasel.

All of which is to say that I am not endorsing or advocating roguery by individuals working within the IRS or any other government agency.

That said, I’m a lot less bothered by these charges than everybody else seems to be.

I know there’s no way that Obama can use this messaging, but I do think there’s a fair question here: Aren’t law enforcement officials well advised to keep a close eye on those who advocate positions that aren’t in line with the law?

For instance:

  • If you insist on your right to stockpile military grade weapons and you advocate overthrowing the government, aren’t the FBI and ATF justified in surveilling you?
  • I’m guessing all kinds of agencies, from local police up through the Justice Dept., pay attention to those who want to legalize drugs.
  • If you’re the cops and you find out that the newly elected president of NAMBLA lives in your town, you might be interested in that.
  • What about eco-terrorists? You don’t think the law in the vicinity of pipeline development is interested in them?

And so on. The Tea Party’s stated raison d’etre is all about taxation. Now, their propaganda hacks might shape the rhetoric in a way that suggests the civic side of the word “reform,” but if you’ve been paying attention for the past few years (and by “few” I mean 35) you know that in their view ALL taxes are evil. We see corps making billions and paying no taxes. We see the hyper-wealthy hiding their money offshore. We see Tea Party politicians willing to shut down the government – especially the parts that administer those nasty social programs – in order to further trim taxes on their rich donors.

All of which is to say that the IRS might be justified in keeping a close eye on certain groups, especially when those groups are organizing under 501(c)(4) statutes. Tell me, does this sound like the Tea Party groups with which you’re familiar?

Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.

Despite pretending to be a grassroots movement of concerned citizens, we now know that the Tea Party is nothing of the sort. It was from the start an astroturf put-up job funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that emerged from decades of deep planning by the tobacco industry, and if you’re going to allow it to organize and operate under the 501(c)(4) umbrella you might as well let the Democratic Party and Exxon organize as charitable non-profits.

In other words, the groups “targeted” by the IRS were and are and always will be, in their DNA, dedicated to undermining our revenue system. This doesn’t make them criminals automatically – certainly one can work to change laws that one disagrees with – but when your methods are overtly built around gaming the system, it’s not my fault if I’m wary of you. If you don’t want to be treated like a sneaky egg-sucking weasel, then don’t sneak around the henhouse when you think I’m not looking.

Just saying.

Cat White

Absolutely.

This is the reason I have been skeptical of this particular outcry. The Parties (intentionally capitalized) questioned are political in nature, back candidates, and are anti-tax. Where’s the “social welfare” aspect? It’s in our collective best interests to do away with all taxes? I don’t think so.

Talk about being able to identify a duck from its characteristics.

Oh, but in this case it’s not a duck because it wants to be a cow.

Ok, sure.

Otherwise

I’m nervous about this one. We have enough problems controlling the FBI, et al. Not sure we want to encourage political activism by other groups as well. Understand what is really happening. The IRS is in part doing its job, but it’s also doing a Ruby Ridge/Waco, squashing opposition to government per se. The desire to protect the institution is nonpartisan.

I personally think this is really bad for Obama. It’s the Manny Ramirez thing. If he fakes an injury, he’s just Manny being Manny. If anyone else does it, they’re assholes. Obama has the narrative going. Yeah, Karl Rove is a liar, but it’s just Karl being Karl. Yes, Tom DeLay rigged elections, but it’s just Tom being Tom. Yes, Mark Sanford is an idiot, but he’s better than a woman librul. Wait, I lost the thread on that last one.

Anyway, this doesn’t fit with Obama’s narrative, which is exactly opposite: “I’m above partisanship, trying to do the right thing. Those guys are the one politicizing everything.” Of course, as Alex said in her post the other day, Boehner’s outrage is feigned because he’s party to worse. But being no worse than Boehner is not what Obama promised us. (It’s what Bill Clinton promised us, but not Obama.)

Sam Smith

Well, this is an interesting question. Were these IRS agents targeting suspicious anti-IRS groups because they were suspicious or because they were anti-IRS? No way to know that, and I’m not sure it matters. The issue for me is whether the groups were acting legally or not. If their actions are structured so as to subvert not only the law as written, but the clear intent of the statute, then the IRS is probably not out of line in having a look, right?

Cat White

Whoa – this isn’t Waco or Ruby Ridge. Yes, Nixon did use the IRS as a blunt instrument. And yes, it can be heavy handed on its own. But if the IRS were going after people who espouse anti-government rhetoric, they’d have to target a large sector of the GOP and THAT ISN’T HAPPENING or their reaction would be nukular compared to this.

Otherwise

Not sure on that. Partial discrimination is still discrimination. If there’s a documented history of teabaggers faking not-for-profit, then it should be a national policy. If not, it was discrimination. My argument is it might not be polical but rather the natural antipathy of those inside the institution for those who criticize of it.

Sam Smith

I don’t personally care about the Obama PR angle at all. He’s working hard to cement his legacy as “not quite as bad as Bush was, except for all those civil rights issues.” Really, my only concern is whether the agency is operating more or less efficaciously. Whether you like the point Bonesparkle is raising or not, Cat is dead on the money. She even understates the case a bit, I think.

Lex

Didn’t the GAO say that there’s no evidence that there was targeting? Caveat for protecting your own and whatnot.

In any case, while people spin over the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, we’re not paying close enough attention to far more worrying actions by the administration, like tapping the AP’s phones for two months because it was mad at journalists for doing their jobs. And now we have the President and AG saying they didn’t know it was happening. Right, that was Reagan’s favorite trick and it’s almost certainly true only in the sense that there’s no paper trail.

Nonetheless, it’s comical that when shit like this happens to the Right it’s a national travesty. Seems to me that the Feds have been harassing the Left for a good many decades. To the best of my knowledge the only thing the CIA’s ever infiltrated was the American Left.

Otherwise

Actually I think they’ve done a good job getting the patriots. Again, they don’t mind anti-people (Klan, abortion clinic bombers) but they hate anti-government.

Sam Smith

I’d love it if we could develop some context around how various factions use the government as a hatchet against those they don’t like. Let’s see here. ACORN. Shirley Sherrod. Oh, and this. Hmmm. What else?

Meanwhile, Obama trips all over himself apologizing for this horrific breach of IRS trust. How dare they profile groups that are working the letter of the law and ignoring the hell out of its intent.

Bonesparkle

I giggle every time I see that word “profiling,” by the way. If a convicted pedophile applied for a license to open a day care center, would it be wrong to “profile” him?

It’s time for the feds to consider RICO charges against the Boy Scouts of America

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boy-scouts

Back in September Kim Christensen and Jason Felch of the Los Angeles Times broke an absolute blockbuster of a story: the Boy Scouts of America have, for decades, been providing cover for pedophiles in its ranks.

Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.

A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.

Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, “chronic brain dysfunction” and duties at a Shakespeare festival.

DATABASE: Tracking decades of allegations

The details are contained in the organization’s confidential “perversion files,” a blacklist of alleged molesters, that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. Scouts’ lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view.

…

In about 400 of those cases — 80% — there is no record of Scouting officials reporting the allegations to police. In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it, The Times found.

The raw numbers are terrifying, and now Congress is being asked to audit the BSA’s youth protections.

The effort to seek a congressional inquiry came Thursday as the attorneys released more than 20,000 Boy Scout documents identifying more than 1,000 leaders and volunteers banned from the group after being accused of sexual or inappropriate conduct with boys.

How many victims are out there? Well, research suggests that only one in 10 molested boys reports the crime, so you do the math. If the Times report is accurate, then we’re talking about Jerry Sandusky times…what? 100? 1000?

You might expect, with good reason, that the public response to this outrage would be nigh-on nuclear. After all, we’re talking about the most appalling violation of trust fathomable – the only scandal in recent memory on a par with the BSA conspiracy is the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophile ring.

Instead, the outcry has been minimal, at best. The organization’s decision to deny one member his Eagle rank because he’s gay seems to have garnered about as much national attention. (How ironic, by the way. If you’re a gay kid who has earned Eagle, screw you. If you’re a gay who wants to be a scoutmaster, thanks, but you need not apply. If you’re a pedophile, though, we got your back.) Granted, the Boy Scout scandal isn’t threatening any football programs, but still, you’d think it would be driving at least a little bit of interest, wouldn’t you?

In any event, the Times report paints a picture of BSA leadership involved in a systematic, sustained campaign to cover up felony behavior. Earlier today, I found myself wondering why we weren’t hearing more about federal investigations into these crimes. More specifically, I began thinking that perhaps RICO charges might be in order.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act…focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows for the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them, closing a perceived loophole that allowed someone who told a man to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually do it… While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.

Since I’m not a lawyer, I reached out to Guy Saperstein, one of America’s most prominent attorneys. Here’s what he said:

I think RICO has been used in a few cases against Catholic church officials; I don’t recall if the cases were successful, but the cases went to juries, so at least a few federal judges found RICO to be applicable. The same standard could apply to the Boy Scouts, but to be successful under RICO, it would have to be shown that the abusive activity was at least sanctioned, if not designed, at the upper levels of the organization to be considered a criminal conspiracy. I also remember RICO being used here in Oakland against the head of the Hell’s Angels, Sonny Barger, a case defended by a friend of mine, but Sonny was acquitted or the jury hung when it could not be proven that running drugs and killing people was a policy of the Hell’s Angels.

So pursuing the Boy Scouts using RICO might be a potentially viable course of action (the case seems, from what I can tell, to be more or less parallel to the Catholic Church situation) although the outcome of such prosecution would be anything but certain. Was covering up for pedophiles “policy”? I’d think you could make the case, but I’m also sure that the BSA can afford good lawyers.

The BSA, for its part, seems to understand the gravity of its situation. (I expect those lawyers I just referred to have discussed the organization’s civil liability with leadership.)

The release of the files has been an embarrassment to the Boy Scouts, which in 2010 finally adopted a policy of requiring local scout leaders to report sex-abuse allegations to police.

“There have been instances where people misused their positions in scouting to abuse children, and, in certain cases, our response to these incidents, and our efforts to protect youth, were plainly insufficient, inappropriate or wrong,” said Wayne Perry, the national president of the Boy Scouts, in a statement last week. “Where those involved in scouting failed to protect, or, worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest and sincere apologies.”

It’s good to see them working to fix the problem, but in no way does this excuse those guilty of criminal behavior in the past.

I hope federal authorities are paying close attention to this case. We were repulsed by the Catholic Church’s game of musical pedophiles and I think the multi-tiered Sandusky cover-up at Penn State is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Here’s yet another large, powerful organization that spent decades violating its constituencies in the most reprehensible manner imaginable, and it’s about time that everyone – everyone – entrusted with the well-being of children came to understand that institutional enabling is as bad as the actual raping.

For all we know, there are other organizations out there still hiding serial pedophiles, and it would be good if the directors of said organizations had one more reason to come clean. Today.

Lakers/Nuggets Game 7 preview: call your bookie because the #fix is in

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Tonight, the Los Angeles Lakers will square off with the visiting Denver Nuggets in a first-round playoff Game 7 that promises to be crackling with intensity. I’m a big fan of my hometown Nugs and I expect them to bring their A games.

I also expect them to lose, no matter what, because however well prepared they are, however brilliant George Karl’s game planning, however incredibly they may shoot and rebound and defend, they’re playing 5-on-8.

Put simply, it is not in the league’s financial interest to have LA lose to Denver. Read more

The NBA: where will “fixed” happen this year?

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We watch sports for a variety of reasons. To revel in the thrill of head-to-head competition. To marvel at the athleticism. To root for the home team, in which we have somehow invested a piece of our own identities. To mark our place in the timeless ritual. To learn, even.

With the NBA, there’s one more reason: to see which narrative the league has decided is the most compelling.

Now, I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think the world is biased against me personally and I don’t believe that the refs are out to get my team. In most cases, my attempts to explain bad officiating, whatever the sport, need go no further than “basic incompetence.” Read more

Loyal Dubya is Dem’s best friend

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President Bush today said that embattled World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, currently embroiled in yet another BushCo scandal, “ought to stay” in his position. This comes hot on the heels of Bush’s show of support for buddy Alberto Gonzales, whose leadership at Justice has been such a festering embarrassment that even loyal Republicans are howling for his head.

This is all very good news for Democrats, although not all of them seem to fully understand the gift before them. Read more