Thursday, January 23, 2014

"IRS Requests Hollywood 'Right Leaning' Group's Sensitive Information"

"The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the organization’s confidentiality strictures, and to avoid complicating discussions with the I.R.S."

"Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status."

The IRS questionable treatment of citizen groups, seeking non-profit status, continues.

In the NYT comments...
Pierre Anonymot, Paris
These people have every right in the world to meey secretly as long as they're not seditious. But not on my taxpayer's dime.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Everyone knows Harvey Weinstein's leftwing Hollywood propaganda machine is in creepy speech-code lockstep with the leftwing authoritarian political elite in DC. It's basically a tax grafting lobby.

Not everyone remembers (including, sadly, Rudy Giuliani) that Obama joked about auditing his enemies.

Michael Haz said...

The membership rolls of Organizing for America and Media Matters for America are all public information, right?

Right?

Weren't we recently informed that the IRS harassment of right-leaning groups had ended. I think we were, right about the time Dr. Ben Carson was audited, just two days after he proposed an alternative to ObamaCare.

Or not, I get confused. Wasn't it about the time when Chuck Heath, Sr. (Sarah Palin's father) went through his sixth IRS Compliance Audit sisnce his daughter was nominated to run for Vice President? Those retired public school teachers in Alaska have a lot to hide, you know.

Voter suppression done by the federal government. Fascism writ large.

Unknown said...

Political McCarthyism is now on the left.

It's a mind-crime if you don't fall in line with the authoritarian left.

"A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist."

Left-wingers would never blacklist anyone. They are so wonderfully tolerant.

ricpic said...

It appears that the exposure of the use of the IRS by the Obama Administration to harass individual conservative tax payers and deny conservative organizations tax free status in the run-up to the 2012 election, it appears that exposure has had no effect at all. And why should it on Obama, whose legacy will be (as Michelle Bachmann pointed out today) an utterly lawless land.

The Dude said...

It is time to start a movement to starve the beast.

Paying taxes is a voluntary exercise. Time to stop volunteering.

edutcher said...

These revelations won't have any effect until somebody in the government DOES something.

Impeachment of Choom and my people would be a dandy start.
April Apple said...

Political McCarthyism is now on the left.

It always has been.

PS I love that comment from the Gray Lady.

Apparently M. Anonymot has no problem with Lefties meeting in secret on his dime.

One wonders about the seditious part.

Amartel said...

All that whingeing about McCarthyism, all the movies and books, all the studious Articles of Concern, all the indictments of the American Character ...
projection and political opportunism. Like, hey, that's totally something that I would do, and now it's my turn to do it!

The rationale behind all Progressivism: Projection and Political Opportunism.

Harvey Weinstein's (and the rest of Hollywood's) concern about gun ownership

Concern about greedy capitalists who haven't really earned their ill gotten gains

Concern that people don't really care about the poor

Concern that illegal immigrants will just be used and abused by the powers that be

Concern that the Constitution will be trampled under foot in the rush to accumulate and hold onto power

Concern that racial and ethnic minorities and homosexuals are subject to discrimination

Concern that government power will be used to intimidate and suppress political opponents

Michael Haz said...

These revelations won't have any effect until somebody in the government DOES something

That's the real pisser, innit? When the hell will the Republicans, or any Republican for that matter stand up and demand that the Obama administration stop using a governmental agency to harass the administration's political enemies?