Posted on 05/18/2013 11:28:27 AM PDT by jiggyboy
Despite what you sometimes hear from eight-year-olds, pundits, lawyers, politicians, chat-room trolls, and UFOlogists, "proving a negative" is not just not "philosophically impossible" but often easily accomplished.
One of the simplest ways to prove a negative is via a "proof by contradiction". Proving that a claim or assertion is false can be a simple matter of recognizing what would have to follow from that claim and also demonstrating that it could not or did not.
We see examples of proof by contradiction regularly on Free Republic. If it had been true that "Tea Partiers spit on Emanuel Cleaver and called him names!", other things would have happened immediately: In that cameraphone-obsessed mob of anti-Tea-Party leftists, fervently hoping and working at all times to indict the Tea Party en masse of racist and violent tendencies, somebody would have had video of the incident and rushed it to all corners of Old Media and the left-wing blogosphere. Indeed, it might be only a slight exaggeration to think there would have been so many videos from so many angles that a skilled videographer could have created a true 3D version viewable from any angle as was done for the subway fight scene in "The Matrix".
A day or so later, MSNBC had yet to air what would certainly have been the most satisfying left-wing political pornography ever, completing the proof that it had never happened. Andrew Breitbart upped the ante, twice, by first offering $15,000 and then $100,000 for video of the incident. That would not only have created a god of the left, the guy who destroyed the Tea Party on Breitbart's dime, but would also have redefined Breitbart to the right as the guy who just couldn't let well enough alone. As we all know, that bounty went unclaimed.
Mediaite offered another proof by contradiction: a nearby policeman did nothing about any "assault".
I was reminded of "proving a negative" this morning when I read a thread on the IRS targeting Tea Party groups. (I call it IRS-ghazi but that hasn't caught on.) jaybee wrote:
"So if it WASN’T partisan, where are all of the groups called ILoveBarakObama, and Citizens for Peace and Justice that got scrutinized the same way? And if there were, we’d be hearing about it 24/7."
That's a tidy proof by contradiction in two sentences.
So how many left-wing groups were similarly targeted? Some quick googling for the basis of my response in that thread showed me that there were laughably few. With a little more work since then, I am quite confident that there were in fact laughably none.
I googled for “irs scandal liberal”. The results of the first four or five pages of that search show that anybody thinking that liberal groups were “targeted” in any way comparable to Tea Party is almost crazy enough to have his or her own MSNBC show.
Here are the only groups -- four in all -- that the battiest of moonbats have managed to come up with so far:
“Emerge America, a group which helps Democratic women seeking elected office, said it lost it tax-exempt status last October. The IRS invoked the “private benefit doctrine” barring 501(c)(4) status for any group promoting a candidate or political party.” [1] “...The agency said it was disqualified because the group’s activities were “conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole.” “ [2]
“In June the IRS said it denied 501(c)(4) tax-exemption for an unnamed political group also under the private benefit doctrine. The IRS is barred by law from disclosing the group’s name and the group has not publicly identified itself. The group had one objective: to serve the political goals of its founder, the IRS said.” [3]
“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.” [4]
“A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.” [5]
A week into IRSghazi breaking into the mainstream, the group of “targeted liberal organizations”, so far, consists of these four groups. Emerge America and the unnamed group appear to have been properly denied as being front organizations for electing specific individuals. Next, consider the name "Clean Elections America" -- that certainly sounds like a right-leaning organization to me.
That leaves Progress Texas. Its website's home page shows the left's favorite euphemisms for abortion: "access to safe and legal medical care" and "women's health", a graphic of Governor Rick Perry with money taped over his mouth (which incongruously suggests to me that donating money to Rick Perry himself rather than to Progress Texas will silence him), a call for universal preschool, two calls for Medicaid expansion, and three denunciations of the Tea Party. There can be no question that they're hard-core leftists.
What about those "same lines of questioning" of Progress Texas? The debunking comes quickly:
"The questions resembled the list of 35 questions (PDF) sent to the Liberty Township Tea Party, which has complained of IRS harassment. ... Though the line of questioning was generally the same, there were some key differences between the lists of questions. ... The Liberty Township Tea Party was asked to provide copies of all its activity on Facebook and Twitter, while the Progress Texas was not. The Liberty Township Tea Party was asked for more specific information about the employment background of its officials, including copies of resumes, while Progress Texas was asked for more general information. The tea party group was also asked whether any of its officials had served on the board of another organization or planned to run for office." [6]
"You can read the request sent to Progress Texas here. You can read the request sent to Waco Tea Party here. Bottom Line: Progress Texas was asked standard follow-up questions by the IRS and had their application approved in a little over a year; Tea Party groups were given a proctology exam and many are still awaiting approval 3+ years later." [7], embedded link [10], embedded link [11]
Either or both of those articles might have led to Progress Texas itself backtracking from its original claims:
"Update II: Progress Texas has updated their original post to use the word 'similar' instead of 'the same'..." [7]
So what are we left with?
- Two left-wing groups were properly denied status.
- One left-wing group with a right-wing name "received inquiries", which does not necessarily mean that they "received additional scrutiny", as one article mildly editorializes [9].
- One left-wing group claimed that they were (mis-)treated in the "same" way as many Tea Party groups. Original IRS documents showed that that was not the case, and the group was forced to backtrack from their initial claims.
And there you have it, friends. A big zero. No liberal groups were "targeted" by the IRS in the same way many Tea Party groups were. Zero. That's easy to remember, easy to look up, easy to share. As to whether original IRS documents, common sense, and proper use of the English language will convince any low-information voters or "true believers" of your acquaintance, I know that's still not going to be easy.
LINKS
[1],[3]: http://www.politicususa.com/gop-scandal-falls-irs-targeted-liberals-2012.html (linked from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-13/news/sns-rt-usa-taxfundraisingl2e8icenx-20120713_1_tax-exempt-status-tax-exempt-organizations-ofer-lion
[6],[9]: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/15/liberal-group-progress-texas-also-received-extra-irs-scrutiny/
[7],[8]: http://acahnman.blogspot.com/2013/05/did-progress-texas-fib-about-irs-scandal.html
[10]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/141747252/IRS-Request-for-More-Information-Progress-Texas-Feb-2012
[11]: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/05/10/letter-from-irs-to-waco-tea-party/
ping re earlier thread
Great research.
Your effort is appreciated!
I have to admit that I’m amplifying a bit on an article from Daniel Foster at National Review, who was disproving the Washington Post’s lie that “plenty of liberal groups were targeted as well”.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348539/chait-there-there-theres-no-there-there-daniel-foster
I am however quite pleased that it really does look like zero, zilch, nada.
E-mail it to the Washington Post.
“The dog that didn't bark”
Of course liberal groups weren’t targeted - there was no point, since they would not have been guilty. Only conservative groups would abuse the system to obtain improper tax status - liberal groups would deserve the tax status. That’s pretty much how the comments were running in the WaPo at any rate.
Bookmark
Looks like everybody already figured it out.
Here we are almost three weeks later and this story on Drudge tonight caught my eye. What's the latest?:
Liberal groups say they don’t see IRS targeting their tax applications
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/05/193100/liberal-groups-say-they-dont-see.html
Emerge America got tax exemptions for the national group and for affiliates in California, New Mexico and Arizona during the Bush administration. Groups routinely were asked about their brochures, websites and other material explaining Emerge America’s purpose. “We knew we were in an interesting place,” since the group was obviously Democratic-leaning, group co-founder Dana Kennedy said. She saw no political bias in her dealings with the IRS, but in 2011 “we started getting more and more questions.” Three new state applications were rejected, and the tax-exempt status of the other four organizations was revoked. Holly Paz, who was then the acting IRS director for exempt organizations, rules and regulations, explained why in a letter: “You are not operated primarily to promote social welfare because your activities are conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole.”
“During the Bush administration we often thought the IRS was not doing enough, so the scrutiny we got was fair,” said Liz Wally, the executive director of Clean Elections Texas.
Progress Texas, which bills itself as “communicating progressive values,” is based in the capital city of Austin. Eleven months after it applied for tax exempt status in March 2011, it received a nine-page, 21-question letter from Lois Lerner, the IRS executive who was placed on administrative leave recently after she refused to answer questions from Congress. Among the questions asked were whether the group, which won tax-exempt status last June, held candidate forums, the names and issues discussed and what material was provided to citizens. “If you’re going to be asking for these exemptions you should expect scrutiny,” said Ed Espinoza, the group’s executive director. Asked whether he thought the process was politicized, he responded, “Not at all.”
No other groups are mentioned in this article. There is nothing in this article that contradicts in any way what was written here three weeks ago.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.