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IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups...


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Out of curiosity I've been looking for a list of designated domestic terrorist organizations, like from DHS or whoever.. Apparently there isn't one? I did find a document that mentions "types" of domestic terror groups, which includes "sovereign citizen" movements and all that.. But as far as official designation, ie freezing bank accounts, opening anyone offering material support to them to prosecution, all that stuff.. Apparently there aren't any - not one.  Granted this was just a cursory google search, but I did find articles etc asking the same question; that is, why isn't, for example, the KKK designated a terrorist organization?

 

If anyone knows differently please correct me, because as far as I can tell, from a legal standpoint there are no designated domestic terrorist groups. And that's kinda fucked up.

 

You're a terrorist when they say you're a terrorist, and you're non-the-wiser until a drone blows up your car... 

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I only do what my reptilian overlords command.

 

Actually, if it was up to me, I'd have quite a few of those Teabilly groups labeled terrorist organizations.  When you support overthrowing the government & "removing" a duly-elected President, I think that qualifies.  Throw in any fundamentalist Christian organization whose members have attacked abortion clinics, for that matter.  Oh that's right, only Muslim people can be terrorists. 

I have never attacked an abortion clinic..

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how can you have a good discussion without both points of view..did you read it?

Consider the possibility that there are more than two points of view.

Then again, I should consider the probability that you're either a troll or staggeringly ignorant, and either way not worth arguing with in the first place.
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how can you have a good discussion without both points of view..did you read it?

 

 

I did. Now you want me to take seriously a website that has a menu item "Emergency Food" where they sell food in bulk as well as other menu items for Doomsday Preppers? Seriously?

 

This isnt just some conservitive website, it's full on loony tunes website, and you want to have a good dicussion from that website?

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Im not paying attention to this situation but my question is what is the problem with targeting people who have listed the desire to not pay their fair share of taxes as part of their mission statement?  I would hope that police target people who say they want to rob my house.

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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/charlie-rangel-irs-associated-press-comments-91398.html?hp=r6

 

 

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that he believes President Barack Obama owes the American public explanations for both the seizure of Associated Press phone records by the Department of Justice and the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

 

But Rangel, a staunch Obama ally, said the press should give Obama time to sort out what happened.

 

“We have to give him an opportunity to root out any wrongdoing, whether it’s just negligence or criminal,” Rangel said. “But, for right now, to say that the president should be doubted? No. He has to come forward and give more of an answer than he has done.”

 

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-irs-investigation-20130515,0,1556855.story

 

Attorney general orders criminal review of IRS

 

A report blames confused staff and lax oversight for overzealous scrutiny of conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS says nobody outside the agency was involved.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department began a criminal investigation Tuesday into overzealous scrutiny by the IRS of applications for tax exemptions by conservative groups, an improper targeting that an inspector general's report blamed on a confused staff and lax oversight.

 

 

 

I am somewhat impressed that action is being taken to investigate this matter.  Now to clear up some of the other stuff that needed investigating many years ago...

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http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/15/1209257/-Liberal-groups-received-same-IRS-letter-that-ignited-Tea-Party-nbsp-outrage

 

 

 

Liberal groups received same IRS letter that ignited Tea Party outrage

 

The maelstrom over the revelation that the IRS targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups applying for tax exempt status for scrutiny is showing no signs of slowing down, with Republicans seeing their chance to milk a scandal for political purposes. But while the politics is heating up, some important context is emerging, like the fact that liberal groups were targeted as well, and in fact the only group to have its application denied was a liberal group.

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

The IRS released a statement late Tuesday admitting that it had pooled together the applications of groups that were politically active, and incorrectly used the names of some of the groups—a "minority" of them—as the basis for targeting them. Which, David Cay Johnston at the Columbia Journalism Review reminds readers is the IRS's job.
  • Missing from much coverage is the relevant recent history—the role of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and how it prompted a deluge of requests from new organizations seeking tax-exempt status under tax code Section 501(c)(4) as “social welfare” organizations—despite the fact that many of these are blatantly political operations.
  • Congress requires the IRS to review every application for tax-exempt status to weed out organizations that are partisan, political, or that generate private gain. Congress has imposed this requirement on the IRS, and its predecessor agencies, since 1913.

Those are just two of the salient points Johnston makes to give the critical context behind this scandal. He also points out that the IRS is tasked with the vague and mushy directive to distinguish between groups are "primarily engaged" in politics versus those that are primarily engaged in "social welfare," and getting to that distinction is a challenge for an agency deluged by applications post-Citizens United and which has had its budget slashed by 17 percent per capita in the last decade. The agency processed 2,774 501(c)(4) applications in 2012.

 

The other point he makes, which we're not hearing frequently or loudly enough in the response to the kerfuffle, is a real scandal: "the social welfare tax exemption is being used by existing 501(c)(4) organizations, including some very large ones, to promote partisan political interests—the very activity Congress has explicitly prohibited for a century." In other words, Karl Rove and Crossroads.

 

This is a serious issue, one deserving of investigation. But Republicans could be biting off more than they can chew if it causes a bright light to be shone on how politically partisan organizations, like Rove's, are exploiting the law.

 

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Thanks.

 

Well aware of the dual nature of this investigation.  This investigation will probably highlight the dirt on both sides.

 

After witnessing the various veterans organizations that supposedly have the veterans best interest at heart actually having enormous operating costs with little going to the actual veteran makes me hate the system of non-profit organizations / tax exempt organizations.  I am extremely skeptical of these people.  Want to help someone ?  Check their operating costs and other background before handing over your money and that includes SOCIAL WELFARE organizations.  Even some of the better known Cancer foundations have ridiculous operating costs with ONLY pennies to the dollar going to actually support the cure for cancer.

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Liberals have always had special favor.

 

Which liberals receive any more or less favor than a conservative ?  Name them.  For every one liberal a person can name, there will be a matching conservative.



 

 

:lol:

 

I couldnt make this kind of lunacy up.

 

I'm entertained.  If not taking your meds makes you this funny, keep it up...  :rsju31uh9:

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