A budget from the Senate would be nice...

freeman3 wrote:The IRS "scandal" has become very uninteresting (now it turns out that they were screening for "progressive" groups too). http://news.yahoo.com/irs-chief-agency- ... 35407.html

There is bipartisan responsibiity for NSA. .

Still nothing on Benghazi. Can conservative legislators actually try and accomplish something instead of wasting all of their time criticizing the president?

A November 2010 version of the list obtained by National Review Online, however, suggests that while the list did contain the word “progressive,” screeners were in fact instructed to treat “progressive” groups differently from “tea party” groups. Whereas screeners were merely alerted that a designation of 501(c)(3) status “may not be appropriate” for applications containing the word ”progressive” – 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from conducting any political activities – they were told to send those of tea-party groups off IRS higher-ups for further scrutiny.

That means the applications of progressive groups could be approved on the spot by line agents, while those of tea-party groups could not. Furthermore, the November 2010 list noted that tea-party cases were “currently being coordinated with EOT,” which stands for Exempt Organizations Technical, a group of tax lawyers in Washington, D.C. Those of progressive groups were not.

The AP reported earlier on Monday that “Terms including ‘Israel,’ ’Progressive’ and ‘Occupy’ were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination.” That appears to be misleading, as there is no indication from the list examined by NRO that progressive groups were singled out for heightened scrutiny in a manner similar to tea-party groups. Cases involving healthcare legislation, however, were. “New applications are subject to secondary screening in Group 7821,” the list notes.

Also sent along for more further examination were applications involving ”disputed territories in the Middle East,” in particular, those that advocated a “one sided point of view,” which perhaps explains the testimony of Cincinnati screener Gary Muthert, who told commitee investigators that the applications of pro-Israel groups went to an antiterrorism unit within the agency.

Based on the lookout list examined by NRO, however, it is inaccurate to say that progressive and liberal groups were subjected to the same or similar scrutiny as tea-party groups, or even that a surprisingly broad array of criteria was applied to screen applications for tax exemption.

rickyp wrote:Whats the point of passing laws or budgets that the House would never consider? Is that productive?
Hasn't the House voted to repeal Obamacare 37 times?

rickyp wrote:Mark Twain said
"If at first you dn't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."

until and unless a spirit of compromise is realized, or a change in the composition of one of the legislatures is realized ....
I'd take Twains advice if I were in the Hosue or Senate.
Bumping along is the best to hope for until Hillary sweeps to power ...

freeman3 wrote:The IRS "scandal" has become very uninteresting (now it turns out that they were screening for "progressive" groups too). http://news.yahoo.com/irs-chief-agency- ... 35407.html
There is bipartisan responsibiity for NSA. . Still nothing on Benghazi. Can conservative legislators actually try and accomplish something instead of wasting all of their time criticizing the president?

Unfortunately, given the way this I.R.S. scandal slid so easily into ideological definitions, I fear that few non-politicos are recognizing the real disgrace here: that the federal government—Congress, the White House, the tax agency, and the Supreme Court—has created a situation where blatantly political organizations are able to legally break the law by pretending they’re something that they’re not.
The key to this obscene state of affairs is an entity known as a 501(c)(4), named for the section of the tax code that created it. Supposedly, these are civic associations or organizations devoted to social welfare, which can operate tax-free, but whose donors aren’t allowed to deduct their contributions. Fair enough.
But then comes the loopholes that politicos have used to drive not only a truck through the intention of the law but a whole fleet. Unlike a wholly charitable organization, a 501(c)(4) can engage in political activities, so long as it is not its primary purpose. In other words, I could form an organization that spends 49.99999 percent of its time, energy, and money on politics and still be deemed tax exempt. In other words, you, me—every American citizen—can be providing a tax subsidy to groups that (theoretically) are spending almost half of their money on politics. It’s worse than that. Under the law, a 501(c)(4) can spend an unlimited amount of money on lobbying, so long as it is related to its “primary purpose.” So, in truth, an organization can be fully political under any rational interpretation of the meaning of that word, yet be deemed not to be primarily political under the law.

I don't think Benghazi is over.

Hillary is not going to be President--unless she takes power via a coup

rickyp wrote:fate

I don't think Benghazi is over.

Of course you don't.Ben Ghazi is on the scrap heap of scandals too. It will probably resonate through conservative web sites, and Fox news, but has lost its power to influence anyone who isn't already convinced Obama is a Kenyan Socialist .

The IRS scandal isn't. Though it will also have resonance in the same quarters... And a lot of people were probably happy the TP groups were singled out for scrutiny to start with... They are not a popular organization

The NRA scandal is, a scandal that is, but is owned by the entire Federal government excepting the extreme left and extreme right (libertarians).
So all in all, the abuse of power meme seems to be eroding....

Hillary is not going to be President--unless she takes power via a coup

But then you haven't been right about much. I remember your arguements on DOMA for instance ....
This is good news for Hillary. Your prognostications having had such deadly inaccuracy ...

rickyp wrote:regarding the so called IRS scandal.
- The scandal was suppossed to be that tea party groups were being unfairly singled out for scrutiny, and that ISSA was going to prove that this policy was directed from the Obama administion..

- Issa has never produced evidence that the WH was involved in any way. After all this time and all his promise to do so, its evident that he has failed to accomplish this...

Nearly six weeks ago, President Obama responded to an inspector general's report detailing the targeting, which had been long denied by the IRS. "The misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable. It's inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," Obama said, vowing to "hold the responsible parties accountable."

The IG report was based on a cursory audit. It was not a full-fledged investigation. And yet Democrats disingenuously claimed that it exonerated the Obama administration and the president's re-election campaign from any involvement in IRS targeting.

To truly "hold the responsible parties accountable," Obama still needed a thorough and impartial inquiry led by investigators who would question witnesses under oath, and would subpoena the White House and his own re-election campaign for related emails and other documents.

He did not ask for that.

- Although its fairly evident that some IRS agents did target TP groups ... what has never been revealed is whether or not that scrutiny turned up abuses or transgressions by the TP groups.
In fact most of the targeted groups did break the law..

Although, admittedly, the law is not well constructed or thought out. .

Unfortunately, given the way this I.R.S. scandal slid so easily into ideological definitions, I fear that few non-politicos are recognizing the real disgrace here: that the federal government—Congress, the White House, the tax agency, and the Supreme Court—has created a situation where blatantly political organizations are able to legally break the law by pretending they’re something that they’re not.

freeman3 wrote:The IRS "scandal" has become very uninteresting (now it turns out that they were screening for "progressive" groups too). http://news.yahoo.com/irs-chief-agency- ... 35407.html
There is bipartisan responsibiity for NSA. . Still nothing on Benghazi. Can conservative legislators actually try and accomplish something instead of wasting all of their time criticizing the president?

Liberal groups seeking tax-exempt status faced less IRS scrutiny than Tea Party groups, according to the Treasury Department’s inspector general.

Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, told Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) in a letter dated Wednesday that the IRS did not use inappropriate criteria to scrutinize groups with “progressives” in their name seeking tax-exempt status.

“Our audit did not find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” George wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill.

The inspector general stressed that 100 percent of the groups with “Tea Party,” “patriots” and “9/12” in their name were flagged for extra attention, while only 30 percent of the groups with “progress” or “progressive” were highlighted as potentially political. George’s letter does not say why the progressive groups were given extra scrutiny.

“While we have multiple sources of information corroborating the use of Tea Party and other related criteria we described in our report, including employee interviews, e-mails and other documents, we found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention,” George wrote to Levin, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/d ... z2XQxVYRG8
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