Since the original IRS-being-mean-to-the-Tea-Party scandal seems to have fizzled out, you’re left trying to connect it to utterly unrelated and apolitical corruption in a totally different part of the IRS. By this standard, any instance of Republican malfeasance (e.g. Bob McDonnell’s Rolex) would justify a headline about “The Continuing GOP Debacle”.
It hasn’t “fizzled out” at all.
It’s come out that the reason the Inspector General’s report focused on inappropriate scrutiny of right-wing groups is that Issa asked him to confine his investigation to that topic. Now we know that there was extra scrutiny given to groups with “occupy” or “progressive” in their names as well. And now we know that the decision to look for “Tea Party” was made by a conservative Republican in the IRS. Even Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell seem to be giving up on it as an example of specific White House wrongdoing, since there’s no evidence that there was any White House wrongdoing.
All the Republicans are left with is the fact that voters don’t like the IRS, so they’ll talk about the IRS as much as possible (as with the post linked to above), but that’s hardly another Watergate.
the decision to look for “Tea Party” was made by a conservative Republican in the IRS
Who is the conservative Republican who made this decision? What is his name?
A particularly bad argument, insofar as that is what we have seen from the Left for decades. Witness the endless call-outs connecting Republicans to McCarthy and Nixon. Not that the scandal in question has fizzled out, Mr. Simberg is quite correct about that, but to be lectured on how scandals are to go by the people who pushed “The October Surprise”…….
Yeah the Huff Post (where Jim gets his talking points from) and lemmings such as Jim who eat up the talking points are trying to defuse the IRS scandal by saying everyone was targeted.
Of course, it would have behooved our Beloved Lemming (and PuffHo) if he had thought to ask what the percentages were…..
That attempt at defusing has failed – as is to be expected when data is cherry picked, important info deleted, and there exists a serious lack of curiosity on the part of the Socialists:
IRS auditor reaffirms that conservatives, not liberals, were targeted
“TIGTA concluded that inappropriate criteria were used to identify potential political cases for extra scrutiny — specifically, the criteria listed in our audit report. From our audit work, we did not find evidence that the criteria you identified, labeled “Progressives,” were used by the IRS to select potential political cases during the 2010 to 2012 timeframe we audited,” Inspector General J. Russell George said.
He said that while 30 percent of groups that had the word “progressive” in their name were given extra scrutiny, 100 percent of groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names were pulled out for strict scrutiny, which involved what the IRS since has said were invasive and inappropriate questions.
“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,” Mr. George wrote.”
Since the original IRS-being-mean-to-the-Tea-Party scandal seems to have fizzled out, you’re left trying to connect it to utterly unrelated and apolitical corruption in a totally different part of the IRS. By this standard, any instance of Republican malfeasance (e.g. Bob McDonnell’s Rolex) would justify a headline about “The Continuing GOP Debacle”.
It hasn’t “fizzled out” at all.
It’s come out that the reason the Inspector General’s report focused on inappropriate scrutiny of right-wing groups is that Issa asked him to confine his investigation to that topic. Now we know that there was extra scrutiny given to groups with “occupy” or “progressive” in their names as well. And now we know that the decision to look for “Tea Party” was made by a conservative Republican in the IRS. Even Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell seem to be giving up on it as an example of specific White House wrongdoing, since there’s no evidence that there was any White House wrongdoing.
All the Republicans are left with is the fact that voters don’t like the IRS, so they’ll talk about the IRS as much as possible (as with the post linked to above), but that’s hardly another Watergate.
Who is the conservative Republican who made this decision? What is his name?
A particularly bad argument, insofar as that is what we have seen from the Left for decades. Witness the endless call-outs connecting Republicans to McCarthy and Nixon. Not that the scandal in question has fizzled out, Mr. Simberg is quite correct about that, but to be lectured on how scandals are to go by the people who pushed “The October Surprise”…….
Yeah the Huff Post (where Jim gets his talking points from) and lemmings such as Jim who eat up the talking points are trying to defuse the IRS scandal by saying everyone was targeted.
Of course, it would have behooved our Beloved Lemming (and PuffHo) if he had thought to ask what the percentages were…..
That attempt at defusing has failed – as is to be expected when data is cherry picked, important info deleted, and there exists a serious lack of curiosity on the part of the Socialists:
IRS auditor reaffirms that conservatives, not liberals, were targeted
“TIGTA concluded that inappropriate criteria were used to identify potential political cases for extra scrutiny — specifically, the criteria listed in our audit report. From our audit work, we did not find evidence that the criteria you identified, labeled “Progressives,” were used by the IRS to select potential political cases during the 2010 to 2012 timeframe we audited,” Inspector General J. Russell George said.
He said that while 30 percent of groups that had the word “progressive” in their name were given extra scrutiny, 100 percent of groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names were pulled out for strict scrutiny, which involved what the IRS since has said were invasive and inappropriate questions.
“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,” Mr. George wrote.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/27/irs-auditor-reaffirms-conservatives-not-liberals-w/
So much for the silly claim that the IG was only doing ISSa’s bidding and limiting the search.
….Watching while PuffHo and Jim the Lemming are exploded into hash as they try to defuse a bomb their side set.