Posted on 06/21/2013 12:29:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Mitch McConnell delivered a speech today at the American Enterprise Institute to officially signal that the IRS scandal has entered its post-fact phase. When the IRS first revealed that its Cincinnati office had attempted to enforce its nonprofit laws using a search function that disproportionately impacted conservatives, Republicans were certain it must have come from the White House. They were going to follow the facts. But all of the facts point in the same direction, which is that the Obama administration had nothing to do with it at all. That was the conclusion of the agency’s inspector-general report, as well as the House Oversight Committee’s own interviews, which the Republican majority tried to suppress and which (when the Democrats released them) showed the operation was an independent, well-intentioned effort to enforce the law led by an IRS official who happens to be a conservative Republican.
McConnell’s speech is an attempt to reframe the issue in a way that it can survive the utter absence of incriminating facts. One method he employs is to flip around the burden of proof: Now we have an administration that’s desperately trying to prove that nobody at the top was involved in any of this stuff, even as they hope that the media loses interest in this scandal and moves on …
Got that? Before Republicans were going to prove that Obama’s administration was involved. All of the evidence suggests it wasn’t. So now McConnell is framing the question as Obama trying to prove he wasn’t involved. Which, of course, he can’t. For that matter, McConnell can’t prove that he didn’t mastermind the IRS. You can’t prove a negative.
McConnell also argues that the scandal is larger than facts about illegality or misconduct — “what we’re dealing with here is larger than the actions of one agency or any group of employees.” By "larger," McConnell means the scandal is just the same nebulous suspicions they have always had about Democrats running the government: The attacks on speech that we’ve seen over the past several years were never limited to a few Left-wing pressure groups or the DISCLOSE Act. They extend throughout the federal government, to places like the FEC, the FCC, HHS, the SEC, and as all Americans now know — even to the IRS. These assaults have often been aided and abetted by the administration’s allies in Congress.
The “Disclose Act” is a proposed measure that would require unregulated political groups to publicly disclose their donors. Back when campaign finance reformers were trying to actually put limits on outside donations, McConnell was a fierce advocate of this idea. Since the Supreme Court killed spending limits, disclosure has become the best reformers can hope for, and McConnell has now turned against it and indeed portrays it as a sinister Nixonian attempt to suppress free speech.
The belligerent and borderline-paranoid tone of McConnell’s speech today is a kind of covered retreat, signaling the IRS scandal’s turn into a vague trope that conservatives use with other members of the tribe, the way liberals liked to say “Halliburton” during the Bush years, to signal some dark beliefs they don’t need to back up.
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
FUMM
We knew that the IRS chief was visiting the White House weekly. But we just found out his deputy was there hundreds of times. And we know the IRS harassment started right when Obama started claiming the conservative C4 organizations were raising "illegal" money. This goes right to the White House.
You are correct.
McConnell is really pissing me off right now, playing footsie with amnesty.
It might be on something else that link, but yesterday it repeated.
"GOING to become"????
Why would you be pissed now? Has he ever claimed to be anything other than a total Obama lackey? He’s never eve attempted to be conservative.
How did this gobbler survive another Thanksgiving?! I cannot find publicly acceptable words to describe my contempt for what his kind are doing to we the people.
I want the persons who actually did the targeting, such as Lerner to be prosecuted. If Mitch doesn't get that, he needs to go to the house--probably needs to retire just on general weak-kneed principles.
vaudine
” He’s never eve attempted to be conservative.”
Correct, hw reminds me of the cave-in artist Trent (Not)t.
Who now makes 5 million a year, as owner of a “lobbyist” company.
I wonder if Droopy is “so happy” about it.
Yes, another despicable logroller; you are spot on.
I agree. I consider McConnell a weasel, but the argument in the article does not make sense. In fact, O *is* trying to shift blame away from himself. What is wrong with McConnell saying that?
"You are always shifting the blame. Shift, shift, shift, that's all you do!" - Col. Erhardt from "to be or not to be"
As you know USPS has something very comparable to this (applications for nonprofit mailing rates) and I had a good 30 years experience working in that area ~ and rewriting the rules from time to time as things changed. Our best guy did just over 500 approvals in one month of eight hour days!
I doubt that mega form IRS issues (one form for several different broad classes of applications) can be handled that fast, but it shouldn't have taken more than half an hour to write up an approval for the boss to sign!
Something horribly wrong happened ~ and I don't think it was because a branch chief called Headquarters with a question!
Keep your eye on Holly ~ she got fired ~ but she also said she (they) thought Cincy was working the cases as normal.
It will eventually come out that the productivity rates were normal ~ which they would be whether that handful of new cases were worked.
Three years delay is criminal! There's a crook in the mess and he or she needs to be ferreted out.
I have this bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to have Mr. Chait look at.
What a joke.
Since this wasn’t dealt with now, IRS intimidation is going to become an entrenched practice.
It certainly is. And it’s going to be more horrific when they start enforcing Obamacare.
See #34.
To me this is by far the biggest of the scandals.
I personally believe it will do a lot to change how many people view the government. Not just people on the right either.
And a lot of that change in attitude is still developing and spreading as the story sinks in.
It’s not just the IRS, they’re using multiple arms of the government as a political weapon.
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