Ray Jay wrote:

freeman3 wrote:Why were these conservative groups targeted? Is it because some people in the IRS don't like conservative groups?...Or is it because Tea Party groups after 2010 election decided that this 503(c)(4) was quite a good thing to have. We know applications doubled after the 2010 election. The fact that there were so many new applications made it reasonable to carefully scrutinize at least some of the new applications. How does the IRS decide to audit? Well, if there are certain red flags that come up on a return then that return is more likely to be audited.
So context matters here. What percentage of 503(c)(4) applications in 2011 and 2012 came from conservative groups? Would it have been for irrational for the IRS to be concerned that Tea Party Groups, heavily involved in campaigns in 2010, were now in droves seeking to get a favorable tax classification that does not allow them to favor or disfavor politicians? I don't think so.
Now, could the IRS use key words to flag conservative returns? No that is not allowable, probably logical and more efficient in this case, but you can't single out conservative groups.
I think conservatives are protesting a bit much here...

Would you feel as relaxed if the IRS systematically targeted groups that had the words "progressive", "equality", or "occupy" in their name?

I don't think anyone should underestimate the IRS scandal

More than seven in 10 Americans said the IRS actions were unacceptable; 55 percent said they believe the agency acted on it own, while 37 percent said it acted under the order of White House officials. The White House has said Obama did not learn of the episode until he read about it in news reports.
The good news for Obama is that 61 percent said they believe that what the president said about the IRS matter is mostly or completely true. The good news for the GOP is that 54 percent said they think congressional Republicans are reacting appropriately to the episode.

Would you feel as relaxed if the IRS systematically targeted groups that had the words "progressive", "equality", or "occupy" in their name

In 2004, the NAACP was hit with an audit over accusations of improper political activity for criticizing the Bush administration.
"[]We have received information that during your 2004 convention in Philadelphia, your organization distributed statements in opposition of George W. Bush for the office of presidency," the IRS wrote in an audit notice that the group released to the media at the time.

Auditors also notified the group that it could be subject to a 10 percent tax for political expenditures as well as a 2.5 percent tax on any manager that signed off on the political activity.

The NAACP went public and sparked a now-familiar firestorm. Democrats in Congress were up in arms and called for answers about what constitutes political activity and questioning the political motivations of the agency.

rickyp wrote:fate

I don't think anyone should underestimate the IRS scandal

In what way? If you mean will it affect Obamas popularity or the next election cycle...doubtful.
The numbers from the recent CNN poll show the same 37% who would never vote Obvama or Democratic blame the White House, (I assume the 61% who think Obama is truthful are the "low information" voters you speak of?

Anyone who thinks Obama is "truthful" must either believe he is woefully ignorant or, yes, be woefully ignorant themselves

rickyp wrote:fate

Anyone who thinks Obama is "truthful" must either believe he is woefully ignorant or, yes, be woefully ignorant themselves

.

Or perhaps their diet of information is different than Fox, Breitbart and Hor Air?

The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time.

In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general's report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that "a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like 'tea party' and 'patriot,' " the official said.

President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president's statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority.

But a CNN/ORC International survey released Sunday morning also indicates that congressional Republicans are not overplaying their hand when it comes to their reaction to the three controversies that have consumed the nation’s capital over the past week and a half. And the poll finds that a majority of Americans take all three issues seriously. …

Republicans have ripped the administration for not providing adequate security for the Benghazi mission, botching the response to it, and misleading the public for political gain with the attack coming less than two months before last November’s presidential election.

According to the poll, 44% say statements made by the Obama administration soon after the attack were an attempt to intentionally mislead the public. Half of those questioned say those statements reflected what the Obama administration believed, at the time, had occurred.

But 59% now say that the U.S government could have prevented the attack in Benghazi, up 11 points from last November. And only 37% say that congressional Republicans are overreacting in their handling of the matter, with 59% saying they’ve reacted appropriately.

It’s the same story on the IRS controversy, with 54% saying the GOP in Congress has not overplayed its hand.

Here’s the evidence that proves the Republicans are playing politics with this: They received these emails months ago, didn’t say a word about it, didn’t complain, confirmed the CIA director . . . right after that. And then last week, a Republican source provided to Jon Karl of ABC News a doctored version of the White House email that started this entire fury. After 25,000 pieces of paper that were provided to Congress, they have to doctor an email to make political hay, you know they’re getting desperate here.

That certainly does look like a lethal blow to critics of the administration… were it only true. As Jonathan points out, the history of these events is quite different than what’s being portrayed here. He breaks it down into four key points, of which two will be of particular interest.

Nothing was “doctored.” Following the House report, Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard revealed a significant amount of new detail, followed by Jon Karl at ABC News. Both Hayes and Karl refer to summaries of the emails, meaning they presumably relied a great deal on the notes of those at the March 19 White House briefing. Karl inaccurately quotes from one email, which may have been based on faulty note-taking or some other error. While this is significant, the email in question exists and has the same core content as the email quoted by Karl — there was no wholesale fabrication.

The incorrect versions – and they were inaccurate quotes – were not generated by GOP operatives. They were extracted by ABC’s Jon Karl from notes taken by attendees at the original meeting when the White House refused to initially allow anyone to have copies which could have been used for full referencing. ABC went with the notes, being the closest thing anyone had to an official record, and the GOP worked off those notes. But even then, the “doctoring” wasn’t nearly as significant as the Democrats are making it out to be.

The differences between the two versions of the email have been overstated. At issue is the involvement of Ben Rhodes, a senior White House aide, in directing the various members of the inter-agency discussion to resolve their dispute.

Here’s the relevant part of the email as quoted by Karl:

We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.

Here’s the relevant sentence from the real email:

We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

The email is important because in the preceding email back-and-forth, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland had urged that references to terrorism be removed because they could be a political liability to State. Whether Rhodes said Nuland’s objections should be accommodated explicitly or by implication is a difference, but it’s a pretty small one.

Were there differences? Yes, and we should be careful in providing an accurate record of what was written, so older versions should be expunged and replaced. But does this change the essential testimony being offered from the e-mails? Not to speak of. And what differences there are were not generated by the GOP, but by quick note taking which was picked up by Jon Karl. Just keep that in mind as the White House continues to try to squirm their way out of this.

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship.