Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

You don't know Jack

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #31
    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

    Funny how they consistently "screwed up" and targeted conservative groups almost exclusively.

    And of course you don't think Jack Smith who led the charge should be held responsible. I wouldn't expect you to say anything else.
    Do you have any evidence that Jack Smith decided exactly which groups should be targeted?


    I didn't think so.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
      And according to the facts, Jack Smith went after conservative groups specifically.
      What you mean is, "according to Brietbart", which is very different from "according to the facts".

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

        I mean targeted. No, not a 'handful of progressive groups'. The IRS was equally atrocious to both sides in its abuse of power. Again, Trump's own inspector general gave that finding.


        (and I don't click breitbart links or give them traffic anymore, sorry, they've fallen far since their namesake was alive)
        Yes, a handful of progressive good, and no, the treatment was not equal when compared to what was done to conservatives.

        And choosing to remain willfully ignorant is not an admirable trait.
        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
        Than a fool in the eyes of God


        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by Stoic View Post

          What you mean is, "according to Brietbart", which is very different from "according to the facts".
          In other words, you didn't read the article.
          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
          Than a fool in the eyes of God


          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

            In other words, you didn't read the article.
            I read the article. The difference between us is that you didn't read it critically.

            During an October 2010 meeting, the Public Integrity section’s attorneys, of which Smith was the chief of the section, “expressed concern that certain 501(c) organizations [conservative organizations] are actually political committees ‘posing’ as if they are not subject to FEC law,” and thus could be subject to “criminal liability.”


            That bolded part was inserted by Breitbart, as if the attorneys were only talking about conservative organizations. No evidence is given that this is the case.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
              Would that include a Mr. Squat?

              Cow Pokey claimed that in post #5
              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

              go with the flow the river knows . . .

              Frank

              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

                "the vaccine isn't working so get the vaccine"
                58 percent of deaths are occurring in the 68 percent of the population that's been vaccinated. If the vaccine was not working, those numbers would be equal.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

                  Ah, just being a . Gotcha.
                  I got busy yesterday, so I missed the context on this.

                  But from what I can see ... the post you're quoting is no longer visible except to the mods. The preacher says that whatever it was, he has retracted it. He admits that whatever it was was a "goof" while oddly claiming that he'd already done so.

                  But still, a retraction is a retraction, and always appreciated, even when it's muddled and covered up. On balance, then, his more considered reaction is laudable. So I'll make a polite request that you give him the same benefit of the doubt on this one that I'm giving him.

                  No one's going to mistake me for a supporter of his person, but principles are principles.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                    Yes, a handful of progressive good, and no, the treatment was not equal when compared to what was done to conservatives.

                    And choosing to remain willfully ignorant is not an admirable trait.
                    Trumps own investigation says you're wrong.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Stoic View Post

                      I read the article. The difference between us is that you didn't read it critically.

                      During an October 2010 meeting, the Public Integrity section’s attorneys, of which Smith was the chief of the section, “expressed concern that certain 501(c) organizations [conservative organizations] are actually political committees ‘posing’ as if they are not subject to FEC law,” and thus could be subject to “criminal liability.”


                      That bolded part was inserted by Breitbart, as if the attorneys were only talking about conservative organizations. No evidence is given that this is the case.
                      Yep that sort of underhanded crap is why I don't even open Breitbart links anymore. They're dishonest as hell

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Juvenal View Post

                        I got busy yesterday, so I missed the context on this.

                        But from what I can see ... the post you're quoting is no longer visible except to the mods. The preacher says that whatever it was, he has retracted it. He admits that whatever it was was a "goof" while oddly claiming that he'd already done so.

                        But still, a retraction is a retraction, and always appreciated, even when it's muddled and covered up. On balance, then, his more considered reaction is laudable. So I'll make a polite request that you give him the same benefit of the doubt on this one that I'm giving him.

                        No one's going to mistake me for a supporter of his person, but principles are principles.
                        Nah if he wants to use mod powers to 1984 his dumb post and then claim he admitted to a "goof' without actually having admitted to such a thing, I'll stick to what I said.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

                          Trumps own investigation says you're wrong.
                          Citations please.

                          Prior to The CRASH™ I started a thread regarding this and put up the evidence for deliberately targeting conservative groups and how at the very end they included several liberal groups so they could claim that both sides were targeted. Unfortunately that and everything else was lost.

                          I'm always still in trouble again

                          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            Citations please.
                            https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...candal-at-last




                            Shortly before Koskinen left office, the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration released the (presumably) final report on the scandal. Like a previous Inspector General report, it tried to soothe Republican feelings – the IRS really, really should’ve handled things differently -- while utterly refuting Republican charges about what had transpired.

                            The story told by Republicans is so well known that it substitutes for fact. In the first years of the Obama administration, Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations rose up to defy the government. When the groups sought IRS approval for their designations as “social welfare” organizations under the tax code, the IRS targeted them with burdensome queries, harassing the groups while slow-walking reviews of their applications. In this telling, it was a political vendetta – carried out against conservatives by a government agency that many anti-government, anti-tax conservatives especially despised.

                            Republicans claimed the IRS served as an attack dog for the Obama White House. But inquiries by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Justice Department all failed to produce evidence of political interference.

                            Perhaps it was because the premise of the scandal -- that Obama’s political team would want to destroy local Tea Party groups -- was absurd. For Democrats, local Tea Party groups were a political Giving Tree, bearing glorious, loopy fruit such as Christine O’Donnell and Todd Akin, Tea Party candidates who managed to lose crucial Senate campaigns that a competent Republican – perhaps any competent Republican -- would’ve won.

                            What’s more, none of the groups actually needed IRS approval to operate. “These organizations didn’t have to wait for the IRS to tell them anything to go into business,” Koskinen said in a telephone interview last week.

                            Yet the IRS clearly applied extra scrutiny to groups that it thought might be engaged in too much politics to warrant the preferential tax designation. One way IRS personnel did that was to look for key words, such as “Tea Party.” Other words that triggered IRS scrutiny included: “Occupy,” “green energy,” “medical marijuana” and “progressive.”


                            Contrary to the Republican story, the IRS never targeted conservatives. The IRS targeted politics, which was pretty much what it was supposed to do.

                            In September, the Trump Justice Department reaffirmed the decision of the Obama Justice Department not to prosecute Lois Lerner, the IRS bureaucrat whom Republicans settled on as a criminal mastermind after they had failed to find an exploitable connection to Obama.


                            [/quote]
                            Trump's own admin report
                            https://web.archive.org/web/20180225...01710054fr.pdf
                            Last edited by Gondwanaland; 11-24-2022, 06:38 AM.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              Odd that in the adoring review of Smith provided by the AP they felt it necessary to skip over his involvement with Lois Learner in her attempt to weaponize the IRS to suppress Tea Party and conservative groups[1] -- something that Lawfare apparently conveniently leaves out of their glowing endorsement as well. Can't have those inconvenient facts of a history of going after conservatives muddy the waters can we?
                              Get off your lazy patoot and leave links.

                              No one else should be responsible for searching out the sources you claim support your case. Moreover, your history suggests that you may be omitting links because they argue against you. That said, I'm generally familiar with the context of some of the above. Enough so to offer a preliminary debunking.

                              This will take some unwinding.

                              The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations
                              .
                              Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

                              ...

                              That's straight from the IRS. The action by Lois Learner involved using "Tea Party" in searches to identify those 501c3 organizations which by virtue of their declared names could be reliably identified as intending to violate the code. Lists I viewed at the time showed they were also enforcing compliance by non-conservative groups. The "Tea Party" affiliated organizations were more blatant in their intent. Then again, it's not like the Tea Party ever aspired to being the brightest crayons in the box.

                              On the other hand, Obama himself called out Learner's actions as inappropriate at the time, a position I have to assume was in the interest of avoiding "even the appearance of bias."

                              A comparative case springs immediately to mind.

                              Trump Wanted I.R.S. Investigations of Foes, Top Aide Says
                              John F. Kelly, who was White House chief of staff, said that as president, Donald J. Trump wanted investigations into perceived enemies like James Comey, the former F.B.I. director.
                              .
                              While in office, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly told John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Kelly said.

                              Mr. Kelly, who was chief of staff from July 2017 through the end of 2018, said in response to questions from The New York Times that Mr. Trump’s demands were part of a broader pattern of him trying to use the Justice Department and his authority as president against people who had been critical of him, including seeking to revoke the security clearances of former top intelligence officials.

                              Mr. Kelly said that among those Mr. Trump said “we ought to investigate” and “get the I.R.S. on” were the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe. His account of Mr. Trump’s desires to use the I.R.S. against his foes comes after the revelation by The Times this summer that Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe had both been selected for a rare and highly intrusive audit by the tax agency in the years after Mr. Kelly left the White House.

                              Mr. Trump has said he knows nothing about the audits. The I.R.S. has asked its inspector general to investigate, and officials have insisted the two men were selected randomly for the audits.

                              Mr. Kelly said he made clear to Mr. Trump that there were serious legal and ethical issues with what he wanted. He said that despite the president’s expressed desires to have Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe investigated by the I.R.S., he believes that he led Mr. Trump during his tenure as chief of staff to forgo trying to have such investigations conducted.

                              After Mr. Kelly left the administration, Mr. Comey was informed in 2019 that his 2017 returns were being audited, and Mr. McCabe learned in 2021 that his 2019 returns were being audited. At the time both audits occurred, the I.R.S. was led by a Trump political appointee.

                              That's what weaponizing the IRS actually looks like.

                              AP even quotes Lanny Breuer, an Assistant DA in the DOJ under Obama as saying that Smith "is an exquisite lawyer and an exquisite prosecutor ... [who's] not political at all. He’s straight down the middle." 'scuse me if I don't take the word of someone who was up to his neck in the Operation Fast and Furious coverup about who is and who isn't is "not political at all" and plays it "straight down the middle," particularly considering Smith's record of trying to shut down conservative groups.
                              Citing Grassley to impugn Breuer is an own goal. As in so many other of his activities, he's out on his own on this one. Moreover, from the documents appended by Grassley in support of his call for Breuer's resignation, the suspect activities occurred in 2006 and 2007 and oversight of the case was not granted to Breuer and the DOJ until 2010. The email chain shows Breuer himself was unaware of the allegations made by Grassley in late January 2011 before February 2, 2011, and was not able to provide input to the response sent to Grassley on Feb 4 because he was traveling with a DOJ group in Mexico between Feb 1 and Feb 3.

                              The overarching point is that even when you do provide links, they're from suspect sources and include allegations which you don't examine in detail.

                              As an aside, some of the most liberal and conservative people I know insist that they're moderates. Actions, not self-descriptions are what counts here.
                              Some of the most conservative people I know claim the fringe attached to their right flank isn't actually conservatives. Neither is this a new phenomena. In Reagan's day, his favorite conservative, Wlliam F. Buckley, Jr., was famous for having purged the Birchers, his right fringe at the time, from the conservative movement.

                              Do you identify as a conservative, or, as your actions suggest, are you more closely associated with the pizza-gaters.

                              1. according to government documents he might very well have been the one who pushed the IRS to go after them
                              The only government documents provided in this post are in a link attached to Grassley's call for Breuer's resignation. Your source here — for your strongest charge — is non-existent.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Juvenal View Post

                                Get off your lazy patoot and leave links.

                                No one else should be responsible for searching out the sources you claim support your case. Moreover, your history suggests that you may be omitting links because they argue against you. That said, I'm generally familiar with the context of some of the above. Enough so to offer a preliminary debunking.

                                This will take some unwinding.

                                The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations
                                .
                                Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

                                ...


                                That's straight from the IRS. The action by Lois Learner involved using "Tea Party" in searches to identify those 501c3 organizations which by virtue of their declared names could be reliably identified as intending to violate the code. Lists I viewed at the time showed they were also enforcing compliance by non-conservative groups. The "Tea Party" affiliated organizations were more blatant in their intent. Then again, it's not like the Tea Party ever aspired to being the brightest crayons in the box.

                                On the other hand, Obama himself called out Learner's actions as inappropriate at the time, a position I have to assume was in the interest of avoiding "even the appearance of bias."

                                A comparative case springs immediately to mind.

                                Trump Wanted I.R.S. Investigations of Foes, Top Aide Says
                                John F. Kelly, who was White House chief of staff, said that as president, Donald J. Trump wanted investigations into perceived enemies like James Comey, the former F.B.I. director.
                                .
                                While in office, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly told John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Kelly said.

                                Mr. Kelly, who was chief of staff from July 2017 through the end of 2018, said in response to questions from The New York Times that Mr. Trump’s demands were part of a broader pattern of him trying to use the Justice Department and his authority as president against people who had been critical of him, including seeking to revoke the security clearances of former top intelligence officials.

                                Mr. Kelly said that among those Mr. Trump said “we ought to investigate” and “get the I.R.S. on” were the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe. His account of Mr. Trump’s desires to use the I.R.S. against his foes comes after the revelation by The Times this summer that Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe had both been selected for a rare and highly intrusive audit by the tax agency in the years after Mr. Kelly left the White House.

                                Mr. Trump has said he knows nothing about the audits. The I.R.S. has asked its inspector general to investigate, and officials have insisted the two men were selected randomly for the audits.

                                Mr. Kelly said he made clear to Mr. Trump that there were serious legal and ethical issues with what he wanted. He said that despite the president’s expressed desires to have Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe investigated by the I.R.S., he believes that he led Mr. Trump during his tenure as chief of staff to forgo trying to have such investigations conducted.

                                After Mr. Kelly left the administration, Mr. Comey was informed in 2019 that his 2017 returns were being audited, and Mr. McCabe learned in 2021 that his 2019 returns were being audited. At the time both audits occurred, the I.R.S. was led by a Trump political appointee.


                                That's what weaponizing the IRS actually looks like.



                                Citing Grassley to impugn Breuer is an own goal. As in so many other of his activities, he's out on his own on this one. Moreover, from the documents appended by Grassley in support of his call for Breuer's resignation, the suspect activities occurred in 2006 and 2007 and oversight of the case was not granted to Breuer and the DOJ until 2010. The email chain shows Breuer himself was unaware of the allegations made by Grassley in late January 2011 before February 2, 2011, and was not able to provide input to the response sent to Grassley on Feb 4 because he was traveling with a DOJ group in Mexico between Feb 1 and Feb 3.

                                The overarching point is that even when you do provide links, they're from suspect sources and include allegations which you don't examine in detail.



                                Some of the most conservative people I know claim the fringe attached to their right flank isn't actually conservatives. Neither is this a new phenomena. In Reagan's day, his favorite conservative, Wlliam F. Buckley, Jr., was famous for having purged the Birchers, his right fringe at the time, from the conservative movement.

                                Do you identify as a conservative, or, as your actions suggest, are you more closely associated with the pizza-gaters.



                                The only government documents provided in this post are in a link attached to Grassley's call for Breuer's resignation. Your source here — for your strongest charge — is non-existent.
                                Yep. And just as they searched terms like "Tea Party" they similarly searched words like “Occupy,” “green energy,” “medical marijuana” and “progressive"

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by little_monkey, Yesterday, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                82 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                278 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Stoic
                                by Stoic
                                 
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                109 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                195 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                                84 responses
                                355 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post JimL
                                by JimL
                                 
                                Working...
                                X