Book: The Intimidation Game: How has Citizens United manifested in modern politics?

Link to video

Democrats are going after Republican donors. Enemies list.

Oversight chairman moves to censure IRS chief

Fox News:  The chairman of the top House investigative panel introduced a measure Wednesday to censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen -- and remove him from office without a pension -- in the latest bid by Republicans to pressure him into being more cooperative in their probe of the 2013 IRS targeting scandal. 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is seeking Koskinen’s resignation or removal for what he calls an alleged “pattern of conduct inconsistent with the trust and confidence placed in him as an officer of the United States.”

If censured, Koskinen, who became commissioner in 2013, would also forfeit his government pension and other federal benefits.

IRS continues to stonewall tea party case papertrail

Fox News:  In a blistering rebuke of the IRS, a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court has ordered the tax-collecting agency to quit stalling and produce the names of organizations it targeted based on their political leanings.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit gave the IRS two weeks to turn over the documents sought as part of a class-action lawsuit brought by the NorCal Tea Party Patriots.

“The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws … The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition,” the opinion said.

Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance which is funding the class-action lawsuit, applauded the court's bold comments.

“We are very pleased that the 6th Circuit had smacked down the IRS and its thuggish DOJ lawyers,” Meckler told FoxNews.com, adding that he felt the IRS is an “unredeemable organization.”

Meanwhile, in an not so unrelated development... Look I'm not a lawyer but it doesn't seem that complicated to me. The tea parties wanted what religious organization have - tax exemption. Here is a story claiming a tax exempt entity (Mosques) want to do voter registration? Will the Mosques receive the kind of scrutiny tea parties did? I doubt it.

Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, the Islamic Circle of North America and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations are encouraging mosques to turn themselves into voter registration centers before the November election so that Muslims can make their voices heard at the polls. Registration drives are expected to ramp up significantly in June, during Ramadan, when attendance at Islamic centers peaks.

“The fear and apprehension in the American Muslim community has never been at this level,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR. “The anti-Islamic tidal wave is spurring civic participation.”

Fundamentally transform...

"IRS May Still Be Targeting Conservative Groups"

Americans for Tax Reform: Serious internal control flaws mean the IRS may still be unfairly selecting Americans for an audit “based on an organization’s religious, educational, political, or other views,” according to a pair of reports released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) today.  As GAO notes, certain deficiencies increase the risk of unfair audit selection based on a taxpayers First Amendment rights. As the report finds:

“The control deficiencies increase the risk of selecting organizations for audit in an unfair manner—for example, based on an organization’s religious, educational, political, or other views.”

GAO audited Wage & Investment (W&I) and Small Business/Self-employed (SB/SE) divisions in response to a request from House Ways & Means Committee members led by Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.).

These requests were made in response to IRS targeting conservative groups. This targeting resulted in just one conservative non-profit being granted tax exempt status over a three year period.

"IRS beats tea party in court"

“After the plaintiff initiated this case, its application to the IRS for tax-exempt status was approved by the IRS. The allegedly unconstitutional governmental conduct, which delayed the processing of the plaintiff’s tax exempt application and brought about this litigation, is no longer impacting the plaintiff,” Walton said in his decision to throw out True the Vote’s lawsuit against the IRS.

His reasoning was similar in the second case, where 41 conservative groups banded together to sue the IRS for similar misconduct: “[T]he allegedly unconstitutional governmental conduct … is no longer impacting the plaintiffs. … Counts … are therefore moot.”

The judge, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, also said the groups couldn’t receive monetary relief from individual IRS officials, such as ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, because of the chilling effect it would have on tax administration.

Suing the IRS is like suing a king or a dictator.

Independent Journal Review: "Group At Center Of IRS Scandal Has Never Been Interviewed By FBI Investigators"

"No one from True The Vote, the highest profile organization targeted by the IRS in the scandal involving improper scrutiny of conservative-leaning non-profits, has been interviewed by the FBI or investigators from the Department of Justice, according to the group’s President, Catherine Engelbrecht."

"This stunning revelation comes just days after Attorney General Eric Holder rebuffed the suggestion that an independent investigation is needed into the growing scandal. Holder told ABC News this weekend that a special investigation was unnecessary because “career people” and FBI agents were “doing a good, professional job” investigating the matter."

"IRS agents’ testimony: NO progressive groups were targeted by IRS"

“Only seven applications in the IRS backlog contained the word ‘progressive,’ all of which were then approved by the IRS, while Tea Party groups received unprecedented review and experienced years-long delays. While some liberal-oriented groups were singled out for scrutiny, evidence shows it was due to non-political reasons,” according to the Oversight staff report, which was obtained by The Daily Caller."

“[T]he Administration and congressional Democrats have seized upon the notion that the IRS’s targeting was not just limited to conservative applicants,” the report states. “These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the facts. Yet, the Administration’s chief defenders continue to make these assertions in a concerted effort to deflect and distract from the truth about the IRS’s targeting of tax-exempt applicants.”

“[T]here is simply no evidence that any liberal or progressive group received enhanced scrutiny because its application reflected the organization’s political views,” the report stated.

Daily Caller via Drudge

ObamaCare Gadsden Flag...How To Riff Back

It doesn't really work as a visual parody because it changes more than one element, the snake and the phrase, but leaves the color intact. 

Here is a parody I did a while back which changed only one element:

I made that when I had access to better graphics and a color printer.

Here's an idea for a Tea Party retort:

1) Take the Gadsden flag, keep the colors, and the phrase.

2) Remove the usual snake image, and insert the Rod of Ascelpius:

3) Adjust the colors such that the white space is filled with the same mustard color.

The resulting image would symbolize a threat to thousands of years of health care with the familiar phrase, "Don't Tread On Me."

Finito

Has this been done?

POWERLINE: Happy Birthday to the Tea Party

"There will be a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party today in Washington DC. The Wall Street Journal‘s Jason Riley gives a run down here. The Tea Party is the best thing to happen to American politics since the tax revolt of the 1970s. Paradoxically, its broader focus has made it both less easy to lead and organize effectively, and easier for liberal media to attack, such that polls show many voters in the middle have an unfavorable impression of the Tea Party even while they agree with many Tea Party points of view on individual issues. It was ever so in politics."

"In any case, on this fifth anniversary (and here’s to the next five years, where the Tea Party will be even more important), it’s worth savoring the famous Rick Santelli rant that got it all going (about four minutes long):

"Obama Donor to Head IRS Tea Party Targeting Investigation"

"The attorney heading the internal investigation into potential unfair targeting of conservative groups by the IRS is a frequent and significant donor to both the Democratic National Committee and President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa revealed today, in what he calls a "startling conflict of interest" that jeopardizes the investigation."

"Rep. Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder revealing new information that reached the committee on who is conducting the internal investigations at the IRS regarding the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups. Seeking an explanation as to why the FBI has been unresponsive to the committee, Rep. Issa
noted that current and former IRS officials revealed Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS's Civil Rights Commission, is leading the internal investigation."

"Bosserman's leadership raises all sorts of questions about the investigation's fairness. Rep. Issa's investigations revealed that she has been a loyal financial backer of the DNC since 2004 and has donated multiple times personally to President Obama's two campaigns. Her personal donation total reaches $6,750 to both the party and President Obama."

Breitbart via Instapundit @09daytona tweet

"IRS lawyer to Congress: 'I don't know' — 80 times"

"The top lawyer for the IRS [William Wilkins] in the midst of the congressional investigation swirling around the nation's tax collectors and their admitted targeting of the Tea Party, has responded to a written inquiry, and managed to claim ignorance on 80 different responses, as reported by The Daily Mail of London, England on Dec. 4, 2013."

Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Regulatory Subcommittee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have sent a letter to Wilkins giving the IRS top lawyer 10 days to "amend" his answers if he so chooses.

Your memory consistently failed when you were asked about information you shared with the Treasury Department', adding his testimony 'suggests either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate your involvement in this matter or gross incompetence on your part.'

Prior to being appointed to the top spot at the IRS by Barack Obama, Wilkins was retained as legal counsel for Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago ran by the controversial Jeremiah Wright....

Examiner.com via Instapundit

George Takai on Al Jazeera

* Tea Party is crazy.  

* Not just regular crazy, Takei means lunatics
* They closed down government
* Throw people out of jobs
* Hundreds of thousands of people
* Tea party says they're doing it to create jobs. Madness!
* It's like Japanese internment in its madness
* Takei's life shaped by craziness on one side and shiny ideals on another * Democracy memorialized in monuments nearby
* Tea party people do not understand constitution

And that is why George Takei is one flat stupid ignorant arrogant sanctimonious son of a female dog in heat used for breeding purposes, I meant to say a bit misinformed. Takei has his ideals reversed. A polar shift occurred when he wasn't looking, yet he remains fierce, that makes him a dumbass. 

Were Takei in possession of a streak of common sense and were Takei true to his "shiny ideals' he'd join the tea party in their efforts and not criticize them so profoundly ignorantly. And he'd be wary of government that does such miserable things. He would be criticizing progressive government.

If he knew anything at all he'd know that knowing the constitution inside and out is the central focus of tea party activity, with an emphasis on its limitations, not just electing hardliners. They hold classes on that. It is what they are about.

He knows too the Japanese internment was under FDR. Should know. Must know. Or else he really is too stupid to take on. Takei describes the political insanity that formed his own political activism, a touching story that, one damning to progressive politics, but Takei dumbly reverses the positions and then publicly  masturbates to his reversed concept of "shiny ideals."

I think Takei is describing Senate tea party, I'm not sure, even there he is flatly wrong. I don't think it has sunk in those senators are there because regular people not usually involved in politics came alive and put them there. People who are disgusted with just that type of misguided overreach. He is slow on the uptake.
Stick to overacting.

legalinsurrection

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/george-takei-those-tea-party-people-are-crazy-i-mean-theyre-lunatics//#more

The Tea Party Anthem?

According to Richard Cohen -- who seems to have something for everyone to hate in today's WaPo column -- it could be:

I thank Dennis J. Goldford, professor of politics and international relations at Drake University in Des Moines, for leading me to a live performance on YouTube of Merle Haggard singing “Are the Good Times Really Over.” This chestnut, a lament for a lost America, has been viewed well more than 2 million times. It could be the tea party’s anthem.

 

I resent the vile fuck's dissing of Palin's intelligence, but that's just me.

Opinion Columnist Ezra Klein Attempts to Correct Fellow Liberal Colleague

"In his column Tuesday, Richard Cohen explores the more reactionary edge of Iowa's Republican blogosphere. "Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled," he writes, "about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children."

Given the context of the column, I think that Cohen is using "conventional views" to mean "culturally conservative views." But insofar as "conventional" means "based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed," acceptance of interracial marriage is overwhelmingly conventional. A July poll from Gallup finds that 87 percent of Americans approve -- up from 4 percent in 1959. 

Ezra Klein Washington Post  (bold added for emphasis)

"Emails: IRS Sent Tea Party Tax Documents to FEC"

"The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) shared confidential tax records from several tea party groups with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), emails obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal."

Lois Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division at the heart of the agency’s targeting scandal, sent the FEC records from several conservative groups, including the American Future Fund and the American Issues Project. Federal privacy laws heavily protect tax returns and associated documents.

“These extensive emails and other materials provide a disturbing window into the activities of two out-of-control federal agencies: the IRS and FEC,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “And there is the very real question as to whether these documents evidence a crime.” 

Judicial Watch obtained the emails from the FEC through an Aug. 9, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. 

Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify before the Oversight Committee earlier this year. She retired last month while an internal IRS probe was still ongoing, guaranteeing her a federal pension.

Washington Free Beacon

GOP factions to duke it out

"LaTourette's Defending Main Street group has identified its first project: defending Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho. The Club for Growth threw its support to a tea-party challenger, Bryan Smith, because Simpson backed the $700 million Wall Street bailout, raising the debt ceiling, and a budget deal that staved off the fiscal cliff.

...Along with LaTourette's group, another player in the battle for control of the Republican Party will be the Conservative Victory Project, an arm of the Crossroads super PAC founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove. The group plans to vet GOP primary candidates with the goal of sending the most viable conservative to the general election.

"We want to avoid situations like 2010 with (Delaware Republican nominee) Christine O'Donnell, where a candidate gains momentum and the skeletons come out after the primary," said Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio. "If skeletons exist, we'll make every effort to make sure they're known to every group that spends money long before the primary."

...The latest round of polling offered evidence of this exile: 64 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party in a new CNN/ORC International poll. The party's image also sunk to an all-time low in the latest Washington Post/ABC News survey.

The damage to the party is obvious in the Virginia governor's race, where two weeks before the election, Republicans are already writing off Cuccinelli, their tea-party-backed nominee. As he lags behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the polls, Republicans are condemning the state party for choosing its nominee at a convention dominated by conservative activists instead of in a regular primary. The decision prompted Lt Gov. Bill Bolling, who has strong ties to the business community, to drop out of the race."

National Journal

Click through to see the races the anti-Tea Party Republicans are targeting in the future.

Invitation

I'm thinking of attending a Tea Party meeting one of these days, and would like to know what it is like, and what to expect. Any insights would be appreciated.

Three kings

"In a segment on possible Tea Party contenders for the Republican Party's nomination in the 2016 presidential race, Hayes used a graphic (above) that portrayed Cruz, Paul, and Rubio as kings in a deck of cards--and that, rather conveniently, spelled out the initials "K K K." (Hayes did not say the word "kings" during the segment.) 

...There is a hazard, of course, in taking offense too quickly at bad jokes, and there is always the possibility that Hayes was unaware of the graphic, or even that the KKK reference was entirely coincidental. However, given Hayes's past record, and the constant obsession of fellow MSNBC anchors with making false accusations of racism against the Tea Party and the Republican Party, Hayes has arguably exhausted the benefit of the doubt."

If this was intentional, I hate to see this kind of thing in someone like Hayes. I enjoyed him very much the times he appeared on Bloggingheads. I had hopes for Maddow, back in the day, but she immediately  launched into a mini-me impression of Olbermann. I guess it's the way of the media world...if you sign with MSNBC, you are expected to play to the masses more than the average info-tainment outlet does. Was this a back-handed KKK reference or an innocent graphic? 

Brietbart

Pump Up the Volume

Tea party dance lesson.

Full screen, please for the full dance lesson effect, plus lyrics so you learn those too. What a great way to lean a dance and a language, don't you think? Look up every single word you don't know in the target language and stuff it in there until the whole song is fully stuffed and your new language thoughts flow with the song. That's the way to go, I say, that and movies. A lot more fun than lab.

So the tea party patriots support team says pumpupthevolume pumpupthevolume pumpupthevolume and this time for the first time I've seen they provide a list of names and numbers to assist in the pumping. 

The message starts out angry Republican senators have turned off their phones and sent calls to voice mail and that they say patriots do not know what they're doing. 

It is my pleasure to share their email with you, here. 

Melted the phone lines  = annoyed again

I like their attitude. I find it proper. Here I am at odd with fairly everyone I know, so many seek a larger more productive, more involved humanitarian type government, look to it for validation such as marriage, instead of looking at it as servant, and a poor one at that, one that must be constantly watched. 

When you own too much you lose control. I was thinking about Canada's David Suzuki, CBC's David Suzuki it inflicts on the rest of Canada. Used to be scientist, now straight up activist. Does not know anything at all about climate yet pontificates endlessly. In hypocrisy similar to Gore in that he owns four houses but blathers constantly about conservation. 

Conservation = conservative.

For Suzuki does not speaketh for himself but for the one who sent him. 

CBC is part of Canada's government, Canada's house, the servant of the house is made master, one who does not follow his own pontifications, one who does not know what he is talking about and it shows. 

I like that in no way is their self-worth attached to government, the opposite, they are  prepared to shift gears and work hard to turn out poorly performing employees. They are not having any David Suzukis, house servants, telling them how their lives are to be lived. I admire that. 

It is not that they object to paying taxes, it is that they object to owning so much that servants are masters. They must go. 

Is this an IRS Tea Party Targeting Smoking Gun?

The IRS Hit List Democrats Don’t Want You To See

 

National Review media editor Eliana Johnson on new evidence that proves the government targeted conservative groups. Plus, when did Treasury learn of the abuse?

Wall Street Journal