"If you're covered in political stink, ..."

[SHRED]

"...it might be prudent to avoid yelling "dirty politics" at others."

IRS should outlaw all "social welfare" political fronts
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 | Posted by Jim Hightower

Lately, a mess of right-wing tea party groups have been wailing nonstop that they have been targeted and harassed by Obamanistic, IRS thugs. The groups certainly are right that it's abhorrent for a powerful agency to run a repressive witch hunt against any group of citizens just because of their political views. Liberals have certainly felt the lash of such official repression by assorted McCarthyite-Nixonite-Cheneyite forces over the years, and it must be condemned, no matter who the victims.

In this case, however, the right-wing groups were not targeted by government snoops and political operatives, but tagged by their own applications to be designated by the IRS as 501(c)(4) "social welfare" groups. This privileged status would allow them to take unlimited bags of corporate cash without ever revealing to voters the names of the corporations putting up the money. The caveat is that 501(c)(4)s are supposed to do social welfare work and cannot be attached to any candidate or party, nor can politics be their primary purpose.

Forget what the rule says, though. Such renown political players as Karl Rove and the Koch brothers have cynically set up their own pretend-welfare groups, openly using them as fronts to run secret-money election campaigns. Suddenly, hundreds of wannabes were demanding the special (c)(4) designation, brazenly lying about their overt political purpose. Some even asserted that they were engaged in no political activity, when their own websites bragged that they were.

It was the groups' stupidity and audacity that prompted the IRS inquiries, and their current hissy-fit about the agency is really just a PR effort to let them continue their "social welfare" fraud.

http://jimhightower.com/node/8047#.UbSl3ueHvEc

BRAVO JIM! BRAVO!

[truebluegreen]

1. The IRS' administrative rule says politics can't be their primary purpose,

the law says they can't do politics at all. The IRS needs to follow the law, and so do the non-profits. It would be outstanding if the groups' stupidity and audacity led the IRS to enforce the law as written, wouldn't it?

[politicaljunkie41910]

2. Thanks for posting. This group doth protest too much.

Not to mention the fact that the majority of these groups applications were "actually" approved and that the questions being raised at the IRS were legitimate questions. We also now know that the IRS Supervisor who originally elevated the matter to the Washington Technical Office described himself as a Conservative Republican and has 21 years service with the IRS when he testified before a House investigative committee. He also said that he didn't believe the White House had no role in this matter and did not believe that the WH was pursuing their political enemies, aka the Tea Party.

Had this guy wanted to insinuate otherwise he was in the perfect position to do so, and chose not to. Who would have thought that there was anyone left in the Republican Party with any integrity? This guy might be the lone wolf.