Leno has a great idea! <iframe title="MRC TV video player" width="640" height="360" src="http://www.mrctv.org/embed/121486" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Good one! And that's coming from a guy who leans a little more left than in the center. I like him though. Loved Johnny Carson, however!
Pad, it seems you are reading into my remarks something that is not there. No one denies that conservative groups were targeted -- BUT we don't have much information on other groups that were apparently also targeted. But most importantly for the IRS to admit that they targeted organizations "because they are conservative political organizations," does not tell us what we really want to know. It appears now that there were some progressive organizations that were also targeted "because they were progressive political organizations." I hope you see my point. The common thread is "political organization" not a specific political leaning. You can get the answer you want depending on how you ask the question. It's equivalent to me asking you on the witness stand, "when did you stop beating your wife?" The question presupposes the answer. Then of course I interrupt and do not let you elaborate. The wild jumping to unfounded conclusions needs to stop. In the hearing there was some very limited testimony about "progressive" groups that were targeted as well. But these folks are less vocal. As we learn more, it is very clear that the IRS screwed up! But what's new there. There was testimony that "it seemed like" orders were coming from Washington. But what does that mean? Bottom line is that none, zero, of these political organizations --conservative and progressive, or whatever their political stance-- are qualified under the rules for 501c(4). None of them deserve to be subsidized by we tax payers by being given a tax break. They are all 527 organizations. The only reason any of them are applying for 501c(4) is so the can hide the source of their funding, which makes it much easier to raise money. None of them have to apply for 501c(4). They just won't get we taxpayers to subsidize them if they don't get approved. My position is that those who signed the applications falsely presenting their organizations as being "primarily" Social Welfare organizations should all see jail time -- liberal, progressive, conservative, tea nut, whatever -- all of them! And preferably all in the same cell. Maybe once the documents that resulted from the real investigation are made public we can began to make sense of this bizarre episode. By the way I did get to watch a bit of the hearing today, and I want to commend Rep. Nunes as exemplifying what the committee should be trying to do -- get correct information! Nearly all the others that I watched were simply grandstanding, both parties, and formulating their questions to get the answers they wanted (like any good prosecuting, of defense attorney). But Nunes actually asked questions aimed at getting facts. That's what our representatives should do. They are NOT Prosecuting or Defending -- at least not supposed to be.
IRS Hearing: Dems Call No Liberal Groups as Witnesses On Monday's Appropriations hearing on the IRS scandal, OH Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptur grilled Inspector General George about whether liberal groups were also singled out for special scrutiny. She inferred that, because a large number of groups didn't have "tea party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their name, that many liberal and progressive groups were also likely targeted. Okay, so where are they on Tuesday's Ways and Means hearing with victims? The minority party has the power to call witnesses at all committee hearings. The majority party generally gets to call more witnesses and schedule in what order they testify, but the minority still has the right to bring forward witnesses. If liberal groups were targeted by the IRS, wouldn't Tuesday's hearing be a perfect opportunity to tell their stories? The media would embrace the opportunity to complicate the hitherto simple narrative of the IRS scandal. So, why no testimony from liberal victims of the IRS? There aren't any. Its been almost a month since news of the IRS targeting broke. That is more than sufficient time for a liberal group to come forward and say, "you know what, the same thing happened to us." The left has every incentive to identify such victims, as it would shift the focus away from the political motivations behind the targeting. Instead, Democrats like Kaptur infer and imply. What they can't do is produce an actual victim. Tuesday's hearing confirms that only conservatives were targeted. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...ail-to-Provide-Liberal-Groups-Targeted-By-IRS
What Kaptur was saying is that since we not only targeted conservative groups with the name tea party ... we may have caught a liberal group by mistake. It was a very tricky way to use the word targeted. liberal groups could have been collateral damage but they were not the target. You have to understand people coached by lawyers. if they have to go to that much trouble to craft misdirection into a sentence... you have to pin them down to plain straightforward English.
How do you explain this one Piezoe? TESTIMONY: IRS LEAKED INFO ABOUT DONORS TO LIBERAL GROUPS On Tuesday, John C. Eastman, the National Organization for Marriage's Chairman of the Board, accused the IRS of illegally leaking information about the organization's donors to liberal organizations for political purposes. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, he said the IRS leaked the information to the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-gay rights group. He noted the head of the HRC was a co-chair of the Obama campaign. Eastman said NOM is a 501(c)(4) organization and portions of NOM's "Form 990," which contains the names and addresses of NOM's major donors are not public." He said that on March 30, 2012, NOM became aware that the Human Rights Campaign, the pro-gay rights group, obtained confidential information of its donors and posted the information without redacting the names. That information later appeared on websites like the Huffington Post. NOM discovered another document with redactions that had been posted. A computer analysis, after removing the document's redaction layer, discovered the document had "originated from within the IRS itself." He said the group found the header of each page read: âTHIS IS A COPY OF A LIVE RETURN FROM SMIPS. OFFICIAL USE ONLY." And that was proof that the leak originated from the IRS. He said this "unauthorized public disclosure" was "a violation of federal law" and a "serious felony." Eastman said the group asked the Department of Justice and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TITGA) to investigate. He noted that a year after making the request, the group still has not received any information. He said his organization was initially asked whether someone from NOM had leaked the documents, and the organization notified TITGA that the group could not have put the identifying markings that were on the leaked documents.
I agree, it is suspicious that we haven't heard much of anything from non-right-wing political groups, if indeed it is actually true that some other groups were targeted as well. I heard one of the committee members refer the other day, in passing, to prior testimony that indicated that other than right-wing groups had been targeted, but where is the testimony from those other groups?