Obama admin targeting conservatives with the IRS, 100 years from now?
Your point was well made. I truly agree. I loved the video clips. They are classics. But you know this IRS targeting conservatives is something that every one should understand that while it really did happen ,
it needed to happen. The second part is always what's left off! We never found out if there were any liberal "social welfare agencies" that were targeted, because no one seemed interested in asking, and the few that did ask got "i'm not sure" type answers. (I think it did come out that there were a handful, but nothing like the number of conservative "social welfare agencies" that were "targeted". Even the word "targeted" seems calculated. Of course these purely political organizations, lying to the IRS and claiming they were at least 50% social welfare agencies, should have been busted, regardless of political affiliation. But facts are facts. And the facts are that the ratio of Republican PACs applying under 501c4 to liberal PACs applying was something like 15:1. So even if you just grabbed those letters requesting pre-certification at random you'd have at least a 15:1 ratio; And if you did it based on first received first processed you could have easily been 100% focused on the lying conservative PACs versus lying liberal PACs. There were way more of these organizations springing up than any reasonable person would imagine.
You can't file, legally!, under 501c4 unless you can document 50% or more money and effort spent on helping the down and out. These lying, asshole groups couldn't get big donors to belly up to the bar unless they could guarantee anonymity. 501c4 does not require disclosure of contributors names. That's why all the slime wanted to squeeze under 501c4!, as opposed to just registering as a legitimate political non-profit.. But by the time they filed with the IRS and had been discovered as liars, the election would be over. So they thought to cover their asses with their fat cat donors by getting a letter from the IRS pre-certifying them, many months in advance of filing, as qualifying for 501c4 status. To get pre-certified they had to guess how much they would eventually spend on various activities, like buying crutches for little children, teeth for desparate grandmothers, etc., and since they had no intentions of being a legitimate "social welfare agency" they were force by political exigency to totally fabricate of how much they expected to spend on politics and how much on "soup kitchens". The incompetent IRS, actually, and foolishly, agreed to pre-certified a bunch of them based on these total lies. When the actual returns finally rolled in, it was way past the election and, as "fate" would have it, none of them qualified for 501c4 status using the real numbers. But, Oh Well, too late now.
Why in hell did the IRS ever agree to pre-certify these phoney 501c4 organizations in the first place??? (You've already guess the answer I'm sure. Could we say, political pressure!, and it would have come from the Congress, and not the administration.) My guess is that the idea of using 501c as a political cover to avoid ratting on donors was probably a Carl Rove innovation dreamed up under the "W" administration.
Issa's House committee used their "investigation" to grandstand for months, hurling every insult they could muster against the hapless, and publicly reviled, IRS, while knowing that the IRS was their own damn creation. If you wanted to trace the history of using 501c4 by political organizations to cover their tracks, I'd lay money on it being directly traceable to Karl Rove-- one of their own. Issa's committee proceedings were an immoral exercise in excoriating the innocent incompetence of the IRS for trying to its job, which included trying to weed out purely political organizations from 501c4. (These considerations, however, can't excuse Lerner's very unwise, too public display of her politics outside of work. Certainly unacceptable if you're an IRS manager. Lerner's attorney did the right thing in advising her to take the fifth. The committee was out for blood, and much innocent blood has been spilled by angry, politically motivated congressional crowds. Of course, asserting her rights played into the hands of the righteous who wasted no time claiming the high ground and calling for her testimony to be compelled, knowing all the while they could not succeed. They were lawyers, but the folks at home in Alabama weren't -- I told you she was a criminal. Ultimately, I think she got reassigned to a less politically sensitive position.)
