You’ve probably noted the controversy surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s apparent “profiling” of groups aligned with the Tea Party. A discussion on the issue broke out here at S&R this week, with our colleague Sid Bonesparkle suggesting on our internal e-mail forum that perhaps such action, even if it only involved a couple of “rogue” agents, might not be entirely unwarranted.
As is often the case, not everyone agreed with Dr. Sid. In the interest of fostering some debate on the larger issues surrounding the case, we have decided to share out internal discussion with our readers as part of our ongoing Scrogues Converse series.
Dr. Sid Bonesparkle
First, a caveat or two. I’m not a huge fan of the IRS. In general large bureaucracies with minimal oversight make me nervous. This isn’t an anti-taxation thing, it isn’t an anti-government thing, and I can’t say that I’ve ever had any personal issues with them. Call it philosophical.
I’m also not a huge fan of government employees usurping extralegal powers for themselves, although I recognize that expansionism is as natural to a bureaucracy as sucking eggs is to a weasel.
All of which is to say that I am not endorsing or advocating roguery by individuals working within the IRS or any other government agency.
That said, I’m a lot less bothered by these charges than everybody else seems to be.
I know there’s no way that Obama can use this messaging, but I do think there’s a fair question here: Aren’t law enforcement officials well advised to keep a close eye on those who advocate positions that aren’t in line with the law?
For instance:
- If you insist on your right to stockpile military grade weapons and you advocate overthrowing the government, aren’t the FBI and ATF justified in surveilling you?
- I’m guessing all kinds of agencies, from local police up through the Justice Dept., pay attention to those who want to legalize drugs.
- If you’re the cops and you find out that the newly elected president of NAMBLA lives in your town, you might be interested in that.
- What about eco-terrorists? You don’t think the law in the vicinity of pipeline development is interested in them?
And so on. The Tea Party’s stated raison d’etre is all about taxation. Now, their propaganda hacks might shape the rhetoric in a way that suggests the civic side of the word “reform,” but if you’ve been paying attention for the past few years (and by “few” I mean 35) you know that in their view ALL taxes are evil. We see corps making billions and paying no taxes. We see the hyper-wealthy hiding their money offshore. We see Tea Party politicians willing to shut down the government – especially the parts that administer those nasty social programs – in order to further trim taxes on their rich donors.
All of which is to say that the IRS might be justified in keeping a close eye on certain groups, especially when those groups are organizing under 501(c)(4) statutes. Tell me, does this sound like the Tea Party groups with which you’re familiar?
Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.
Despite pretending to be a grassroots movement of concerned citizens, we now know that the Tea Party is nothing of the sort. It was from the start an astroturf put-up job funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that emerged from decades of deep planning by the tobacco industry, and if you’re going to allow it to organize and operate under the 501(c)(4) umbrella you might as well let the Democratic Party and Exxon organize as charitable non-profits.
In other words, the groups “targeted” by the IRS were and are and always will be, in their DNA, dedicated to undermining our revenue system. This doesn’t make them criminals automatically – certainly one can work to change laws that one disagrees with – but when your methods are overtly built around gaming the system, it’s not my fault if I’m wary of you. If you don’t want to be treated like a sneaky egg-sucking weasel, then don’t sneak around the henhouse when you think I’m not looking.
Just saying.
Cat White
Absolutely.
This is the reason I have been skeptical of this particular outcry. The Parties (intentionally capitalized) questioned are political in nature, back candidates, and are anti-tax. Where’s the “social welfare” aspect? It’s in our collective best interests to do away with all taxes? I don’t think so.
Talk about being able to identify a duck from its characteristics.
Oh, but in this case it’s not a duck because it wants to be a cow.
Ok, sure.
Otherwise
I’m nervous about this one. We have enough problems controlling the FBI, et al. Not sure we want to encourage political activism by other groups as well. Understand what is really happening. The IRS is in part doing its job, but it’s also doing a Ruby Ridge/Waco, squashing opposition to government per se. The desire to protect the institution is nonpartisan.
I personally think this is really bad for Obama. It’s the Manny Ramirez thing. If he fakes an injury, he’s just Manny being Manny. If anyone else does it, they’re assholes. Obama has the narrative going. Yeah, Karl Rove is a liar, but it’s just Karl being Karl. Yes, Tom DeLay rigged elections, but it’s just Tom being Tom. Yes, Mark Sanford is an idiot, but he’s better than a woman librul. Wait, I lost the thread on that last one.
Anyway, this doesn’t fit with Obama’s narrative, which is exactly opposite: “I’m above partisanship, trying to do the right thing. Those guys are the one politicizing everything.” Of course, as Alex said in her post the other day, Boehner’s outrage is feigned because he’s party to worse. But being no worse than Boehner is not what Obama promised us. (It’s what Bill Clinton promised us, but not Obama.)
Sam Smith
Well, this is an interesting question. Were these IRS agents targeting suspicious anti-IRS groups because they were suspicious or because they were anti-IRS? No way to know that, and I’m not sure it matters. The issue for me is whether the groups were acting legally or not. If their actions are structured so as to subvert not only the law as written, but the clear intent of the statute, then the IRS is probably not out of line in having a look, right?
Cat White
Whoa – this isn’t Waco or Ruby Ridge. Yes, Nixon did use the IRS as a blunt instrument. And yes, it can be heavy handed on its own. But if the IRS were going after people who espouse anti-government rhetoric, they’d have to target a large sector of the GOP and THAT ISN’T HAPPENING or their reaction would be nukular compared to this.
Otherwise
Not sure on that. Partial discrimination is still discrimination. If there’s a documented history of teabaggers faking not-for-profit, then it should be a national policy. If not, it was discrimination. My argument is it might not be polical but rather the natural antipathy of those inside the institution for those who criticize of it.
Sam Smith
I don’t personally care about the Obama PR angle at all. He’s working hard to cement his legacy as “not quite as bad as Bush was, except for all those civil rights issues.” Really, my only concern is whether the agency is operating more or less efficaciously. Whether you like the point Bonesparkle is raising or not, Cat is dead on the money. She even understates the case a bit, I think.
Lex
Didn’t the GAO say that there’s no evidence that there was targeting? Caveat for protecting your own and whatnot.
In any case, while people spin over the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, we’re not paying close enough attention to far more worrying actions by the administration, like tapping the AP’s phones for two months because it was mad at journalists for doing their jobs. And now we have the President and AG saying they didn’t know it was happening. Right, that was Reagan’s favorite trick and it’s almost certainly true only in the sense that there’s no paper trail.
Nonetheless, it’s comical that when shit like this happens to the Right it’s a national travesty. Seems to me that the Feds have been harassing the Left for a good many decades. To the best of my knowledge the only thing the CIA’s ever infiltrated was the American Left.
Otherwise
Actually I think they’ve done a good job getting the patriots. Again, they don’t mind anti-people (Klan, abortion clinic bombers) but they hate anti-government.
Sam Smith
I’d love it if we could develop some context around how various factions use the government as a hatchet against those they don’t like. Let’s see here. ACORN. Shirley Sherrod. Oh, and this. Hmmm. What else?
Meanwhile, Obama trips all over himself apologizing for this horrific breach of IRS trust. How dare they profile groups that are working the letter of the law and ignoring the hell out of its intent.
Bonesparkle
I giggle every time I see that word “profiling,” by the way. If a convicted pedophile applied for a license to open a day care center, would it be wrong to “profile” him?
Categories: Crime/Corruption, Politics/Law/Government, Scrogues Converse
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
Walking under the dense green canopy it’s sometimes difficult to see the forest for the trees. America has been undergoing a significant demographic shift for several generations. In 1920 we were 34% rural 66% urban. In 2004 it was 20% rural, 80% urban. (Carsey Institute study, University of NH).
The TEA party is much more about rural and recently rural Americans feeling increasingly left behind and speaking up about it than corporations setting up sham social groups to sway elections for profit. Despite marginalization and demonization, e.g. “knuckle dragging hillbilly klansmen”, the basic truth is that the majority of TEA party members and supporters are middle class, middle of the road Americans who are simply frustrated and availing themselves of the same system as any other group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
It’s is absolutely not about the violent overthrow of the government anymore than ACORN is about Black Panthers forcing votes at polling places. Puffing up the actions of a few to show intent of the many is very poor logic. In that light I would suggest that a few mid-level IRS supervisors acted on their own agenda to the great detriment of the agency as a whole.
It is wrong for agencies of our Federal Government to show partisanship period. No excuses no bullshit “Oh well, it was wrong but we don’t like the TEA party so they probably deserved it”. Keep the system fair, keep the system balanced, we stand together or we fall apart
Further interesting reading here, and all links are purposely neutral verging on progressive lest you think I’m stirring the pot with a tainted spoon. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/
Frank, it’s hard to tell whether you’re innocently missing the point or actively sidestepping it. But missing it you are, and in a couple important ways.
First, this post isn’t about characterizing the rank and file of the Tea Party. You have a lot more charitable view of them than I do, but that’s completely beside the point. Whether they’re noble patriots or knuckle-dragging hillbillies is utterly irrelevant here. The point is the Tea Party ORGANIZATION – Corporate, if you will. The point is that it’s a division of Koch Brothers Industries and that it is dedicated to undermining the revenue system and further enriching the very few at the expense of the many. This is its reason for existing and one need not be a rocket surgeon to understand that its tactics are iffy, at best. 501(c)(4)? Please.
Second, nobody here is arguing that agencies of the government or the individual employed therein should behave in a partisan fashion. On the contrary – at least two or three people in the roundtable are explicitly arguing the exact opposite (and one can read Cat’s point in a way that suggests how the refusal to go after certain elements of the GOP is, at a minimum, passively partisan in its effects). The argument is that there’s nothing partisan at all about taking a close look at groups that are potentially behaving ILLEGALLY.
I appreciate thoughtful engagement, but it’s better if you’re engaging the argument that is actually being made.
Interesting Sam, I thought I spoke _directly_ to the post and the general tone of the comments that were, simply put, since the TEA party and it’s supporters are Koch brothers sock puppets advocating all manner of heinous anti-government behavior they deserve extra scrutiny even if it is extralegal. I disagree with that and attempted to state so with facts and substantiating documentation.
I get it that you folks have your own mutual admiration society going on here and despite lip service to reason and discourse actually have little use for dissenting opinion no matter how on target. Otherwise one of you might have piped up and said, “Well in fairness, Organizing for Action is a 501(c)(4) and it’s no more a social welfare group than the ones we’re discussing.
http://www.barackobama.com/about/about-ofa/
Peace.
For two times in two tries you have attempted to draw the focus of the conversation away from the point. That alone is instructive.
But the post is about a couple of very specific issues, neither of which is what I or you or anyone else thinks of the Tea Party rank and file. If I’m wrong here, you should have no trouble directing me to the passage where the authors address anything but the Tea Party’s leadership and its goals.
Misdirections do not serve the conversation, nor are they in line with our comment policy. If you want to talk about the issue before us, please do so. If you don’t, stop trying to lead us down a blind alley.
One more thing. Re: Organizing for Action and other 501s.
1: If you are charged with murder, “Sam killed someone, too” is not a defense.
2: If there are groups using 501 status as a cover for illegal activity, then they deserve the scrutiny of the appropriate agencies, regardless of who they are. I’m a little confused as to what part of the post you think says it’s okay to break the law if you’re progressive.
Dr Smith I perceive that you and others here are speaking from the position that the TEA party is a cohesive organization with a distinct corporate structure and a solitary treasury being replenished regularly (with strings attached) by those rascal Koch Brothers. Here are your words, correct me if I’m wrong.
“The point is the Tea Party ORGANIZATION – Corporate, if you will. The point is that it’s a division of Koch Brothers Industries ”
My point sir is that the TEA Party is NOT a cohesive singular organization but rather an extremely loose clusterfuck confederacy of thousands of citizen groups, each with their own agenda and treasury, and most of which the Koch brothers have never sent a dime to. There are 6 different groups right here in the Metro Denver area http://www.teapartypatriots.org/groups?scode=LOCAL&s=80002
These are the type of small demonstrably rank and file entities whose 501(c)(4) filings the IRS held in abeyance for up to 27 months without cause and just long enough to make sure they couldn’t participate in the 2012 election cycle. No crimes were committed, no group was ultimately turned down for failure to comply with the oddly vague letter of the law. The reference to Organizing for Action was merely to show that 501(c)(4) status for political organizations is de facto copacetic. The TEA Party didn’t make the rules, they were merely following them as law abiding citizens by nature do. Fair for one, fair for all.
The question I would present to the three of you who seem to have no problem with Bonesparkle equating middle class Americans exercising their right of free speech with NAMBLA pedophiles. Which part of the parsed acronym “Taxed Enough Already” leads you to believe that the TEA Party is advocating positions that aren’t in line with the law, that all taxes are evil, that they’re dedicated to undermining our revenue system, and want to do away with all taxes?
I don’t think anyone would argue that there are many chapters of the Tea Party organization. But the idea that they’re all somehow independent and have nothing to do with the Koch brothers is dogma, not fact. You continue to stay away from those links demonstrating where it came from.
I suppose one can point to all kinds of organizations around the world, noting their organizational and distributed corporate structures, in the attempt to prove independence. I grew up Southern Baptist and technically each church is an independent entity. Of course, they’re all members of the SBC and there are ways in which they’re tied together quite snugly with ideology and cash. Are they technically and legally independent and autonomous? Sure. Does that describe the street-level reality of the organization’s heft and impact? Not even a little bit. I think that individual parishes in the Catholic Church are legally independent, aren’t they? And I’m pretty sure they don’t all get money from Rome. But it would be utterly silly to describe them as a “loose confederacy,” even though “clusterfuck” probably does apply in many cases.
The Koch brothers founded the TP, funneled huge amounts of money into it, and what we have today is an organization that behaves in ways that are remarkably consistent across the board. There would be no Tea Party chapters at all in your area without the Koch brothers. Even if your assertion that some of these chapters receive no money from the Koches were true – and it may be – the complex and arcane shell game accounting they have used since the git-go would make it impossible for an army of accountants to prove.
And I believe your Organizing for Action argument has been answered.
You can believe what you will about the Tea Party – and at this stage it seems quite likely that you’re a member, so I doubt you’re going to have anything to say that will surprise me – and that’s fine. You have that right. Further, I am not saying that these organizations have violated the law. As you say, the 501 statutes aren’t the best defined in the canon and plenty of observers will tell you that the code is abused by groups from one end of the political spectrum to the other.
I don’t think there’s anything about the argument being presented here that’s unclear or especially sinister. Government agencies are charged with enforcing the law, and if there is reason to suspect that someone isn’t complying, they’re justified in looking into it. Suspicion isn’t conviction, and if the org in question is innocent, then full speed ahead.
In THIS case, the real problem is that we’re apparently talking about rogue action by individual agents within the IRS, and THAT is not okay. That point is not in dispute. So no one is suggesting that what actually happened in this case is hunky-dory. There’s merely a question about principle and policy and process.
Sam, allow me a moment of off point please. In a separate discussion you were inclined to believe I was a NRA plant. Here you suspect I’m a Teabagger. I am neither.
I am a 58 year old white male raised in a matriarchal single parent society who, while a registered Republican and NRA Patron member believes firmly in gay rights, women’s rights, a woman’s right to choose, and the responsibilities of a civilized society to provide for it’s lesser members.
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal, I served a few years in the Marines, and earned a BA in English lit on the GI Bill from a podunk West Virginia teachers college (Marshall). I am a business owner with 34 years on the job paying better than living wages and full healthcare and other benefits to 10 highly valued employees as well as engaging in significant tithing to Arvada and greater Denver charities because it’s the right thing to do.
I believe in Obamacare and speak vociferously on the subject and the Christian Right scares the dogshit out of me but believing in the constitutional republic in which we live I support their right to spout their dogma while still cringing at every word. I am also convinced global warming is a reality while holding significant reservations about the extent of human causation
Nothing is black and white, colors and shades permeate each of us and I would appreciate it if you would at a minimum hear me out and judge me by my words and actions rather than any particular affiliation. And if you find me to ultimately be an overbearing irrelevant pink power thug (we’re not really white are we?) then you’ll need ask only once and I will evaporate immediately back into the internet fog from whence I recently appeared.
Thank you!
I try not to draw too many conclusions about people from their comments, although the tendency to generalize along established lines is always there. I have been misperceived any number of times myself and if you read enough of what I write you’ll trip across places where I don’t wind up being what it might seem that I am at first glance. Guns, for instance. I hate the NRA with a bloody passion, but am and always have been a dedicated gun owner. I’m generally for the death penalty in principle, and that confuses the hell out of my liberal friends. And so on.
You’ve proven, I think, that you’re a smart guy and I’m glad to hear about your positions on other issues – that you’re committed to providing your employees with a living wage and benefits, in particular, says very good things about you.
I’m someone who has lived in the world of words my whole life. I have been a poet (recently retired) and make my living in corporate communications. And I have a PhD in Communication. All of which makes me a) good with words, and b) keenly aware of how they can be put to use in service of various agendas. I’m a strategist from hell, and when I see words and ideas behaving in ways that subtly do more than they pretend, the bells go off. Can’t help it. You work in a Fortune 500 corpcomm environment and see what it does to you.
As I made clear, your comments behaved in a way that struck me as what I guess I’ll call misdirection with a purpose. I see corporations and political organizations do it every day and I have done it for a living. So I called it.
Your last two comments seem far more transparent. As for the TP, I have been lately thinking about a series on them and on the liberals we suppose to be so thoroughly at odds with them. If I get around to it, I think you’ll find much to agree with.
I do think Frank is responding to the post and he’s right–the issue is perspective.
To him, obviously, the Tea Party is a viable political movement, while to everyone else it’s a bunch of old white irrelevant men who have been left behind by progress and nod at each other’s foolish rants, about as relevant as the Raccoon Lodge. (After all, when the Tea Party throws up candidates like Sanford, Palin, and ODonnell, how in the world are people supposed to take them seriously?)
What Bonesparkle intended as a throwaway line is significant to Frank, and that’s fair. If you remember, I got hundreds of comments to a throwaway I made. Readers have the right to react to anything, and just because you/we think it’s a throwaway doesn’t mean they do.
He’s also right that we tend to give ourselves a lot of slack and don’t always extend that to others. All fair points.
But Frank, what do you think about the other points? Did the IRS do something egregious and beyond it’s mandate or was this just a goof up? Does this sort of stuff go on under every administration or is it unique to this one? Was it motivated by partisanship or by routine institutional self-preservation instincts? Should Obama be held to a higher standard?
Much of what Frank was responding to, at least initially, was his perception of what the authors believe about TP rank and file members. Now, he’s probably right to some degree – I know what I think about those folks, and while I don’t demonize them in a unitary fashion, I do see them as a mixture that includes everything from out and out barking racists to well-intentioned types acting on behalf of an initiative that is directly counter to their own best interests. I might use the word “dupe” in that last instance, but if I did I suppose it should be noted that a lot of people who voted for Obama’s hopey-changey message were dupes, as well, just to head off the challenge I know would be coming.
However, while I may personally think that the average Tea Party member is a dupe or worse, that is explicitly not what the post is about. If indicting my personal beliefs on the Tea Party in a post where that isn’t the subject is fair game, then I guess technically you could do the same thing when I post about music or the WWE, couldn’t you? I mean, what we suspect about my feelings is fair game, no matter what I’m trying to talk about, right?
Your comment asks fair questions and I don’t want to derail it, but I do think there’s some value in a case like this in insisting that we stick to the point. As I noted in my previous comment, the roguery of those agents can’t be condoned or tolerated. But that, also, seems to a bit beside the point of the original post.
“To him, obviously, the Tea Party is a viable political movement.” That’s exactly the point: it’s primarily political, no involved in social welfare. I’m not going to get into the other issues. Yeah–it’s disorganized and decentralized (on the surface). But almost a hundred years ago Will Rogers said, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Organization and centralization tend to happen with maturity. The point is that if it’s political, it’s NOT a 501(c)4. PERIOD.
Mr. Otherwise thank you, your translation skills are greatly appreciated. As I mentioned a week or so ago, I was ecstatic stumbling upon this site relishing the thought of engaging in adult conversations about the travails and vagaries of life as we find it, little realizing that as a Parisian in Montreal, my English is not Scrogue English.
To the points then and nothing but the points.
***Did the IRS do something egregious and beyond it’s mandate or was this just a goof up?
The IRS is an organization of 106,000 employees with a 12 billion dollar fiscal budget collecting in excess of 2 trillion dollars revenue a year. Did a small group of employees within the organization do something egregious and beyond the organizational mandate? Absolutely. Does it go all the way to the top of the IRS or beyond? Doubtful. I picture a scenario vaguely reminiscent of Lt. Calley standing outside the ville at My Lai in 1968, scratching his head saying, “Boys, I can’t tell who’s VC and who’s not. Let’s kill ’em all and let God sort it out.” Afterwards he told his boss Capt. Medina what he’d ordered done and Medina said, “Well shit don’t tell anyone” and it snowballed from there.
***Does this sort of stuff go on under every administration or is it unique to this one?
If we’re running geddankenexperiments beyond a basic institutional failure, then yes the IRS has been used as a blunt club by more than a few administrations. Sometimes for justice as in the Al Capone case, sometimes for harassment of perceived rivals as Kennedy and Nixon.
While I feel Barack Obama is an amoral Chicago pol, I would never underestimate his intelligence. If the events unfolding resulted from a bug planted in the IRS’s ear, I highly doubt it was instigated by the President. More likely in such a case that a loyal minion acted in what he/she thought was good faith.
***Was it motivated by partisanship or by routine institutional self-preservation instincts?
Absolutely the former, somebody was bucking for a promotion.
***Should Obama be held to a higher standard?
That question only becomes germane if indeed he instigated this and I don’t think he did. “The Buck Stops Here” is a lovely axiom but of little use in a real world of almost infinite operators engaged in an astronomic number of scenarios. Obama didn’t kill Bin Laden, the SEALS did. Obama did not cause acting Ambassador Stevens death at Benghazi, the paralysis of analysis at AFRICOM did. American’s are big on blamestorming but the truth in many cases is much too complicated to pin on a single scapegoat. In risk analysis it would be called a cascade failure and I don’t see where our Cheerleader in Chief is accountable for systems long in place before he arrived.
So, in summary, do I agree with the premise that the IRS has overstepped it’s boundaries? Yes.
Do I agree the Koch brothers have mind fucked the TEA Party into acting as their evil corporatist zombie slaves because a UK journalist says so? Not in the least, but I do respect all of your opinions and have attempted with each post to speak civilly, intelligently, and directly to all of your words as presented and within the terms of use of this site as I understand them.