Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
So I guess now we know that it is not some rabid right-wing talk show fantasy that government officials think nothing of weaponizing the bureaucracy and machinery of Government against the citizens for their personal policy ends.
That this guy would even say that out loud is a scandal. The IRS needs the Augean Stables treatment. So does the EPA (but I guess we’re getting that), and many others.
My deep cynicism is justified. Talk about “what got Trump elected”.
Tar. Feathers.
I suppose I’m just skeptical that things have really changed.
First, I’m skeptical that “exposing” frauds has much of an effect. After all, John McCain was exposed as a muppet to the entire world back in 2008 but still managed to win two contested Republican primaries after that. Republican voters apparently have either an incredibly short memory or just don’t care.
Second, it seems to me that even in our current “nothing will ever be the same again” world, a lot is remaining the same. The Tea Party Congress (also a “nothing will ever be the same again” moment) managed to go its first term in full power without passing major legislation on the two most pressing topics of the day (Obamacare and immigration). The Goodlatte immigration bill (which I think most conservatives would consider to be most liberal immigration system they could support) just died a quiet death yesterday with nary a peep of protest from Trump or major conservative leaders. And yet none of these Congressmen are facing serious primary challengers, nor has any conservative Congressman stepped up to use the campaign to position themselves as the de facto next Speaker.
So, yes, lots of low-level government employees are being raked over the coals, creating lots of excitement among people who already knew how corrupt low-level government employees were and lots of yawns among the rest of the public. Meanwhile, the people who actually write the laws have gone back to promising a lot, doing none of it, and getting rewarded again by the voters. Wasn’t that your original complaint?
Mendel is right here. Whatever Lerner did later in terms of targeting conservative groups, there’s no indication in the Memo that Kerner or, by extension, McCain, wanted to target conservative groups. They were apparently concerned with enforcing the 501(c)(4) requirement that to be exempt under that section, the group should engage in the activity described in that section (promotion of social welfare), not a cover for political activism.
Whatever you think about whether a group engaged in political activism should be exempt from taxation, the current law is that they are not. If there are groups abusing that code section, it’s fair for the IRS to look for ways to reign in that abuse. Lerner at some point unfairly, and perhaps illegally, targeted conservative leaning groups in that effort, but this is really weak evidence that McCain was a part of that. (I say this as someone strongly opposed to McCain Feingold). Like with so many issues these days, though, once the outrage train starts going downhill, the headlines and hot takes shoveling in the coal, evidence and proof, or lack thereof, don’t do much to slow it down.
According the Lowneck Redneck in the member feed, Kerner encouraged the IRS to”Engage in “Financially Ruinous” Targeting.
One can talk all they want about:
A. How political groups should not be tax exempt and
B. How Mc Cain and Kerner weren’t specifically targeting conservative groups
But we should surmise that McCain and Kerner knew all along that the government had then and continues to have a bias against conservative groups. So this “financial ruinous targeting” was really in fact aimed primarily at conservative groups. Leftist Progressive group then and have continued to this day to operate freely without this targeting and frankly without much restrictions in their tax exemptions. The wind blows only in one direction (against conservatives and the constitutional operation of our government) for the Washington bureaucracy and all the Establishment knows it. The political Establishment did not then and does not now want any political group to expose their fraudulent handling of government and so to them conservative groups are a direct threat to their continued unconstitutional abuses of the populace. Therefore conservative political groups are their sworn enemy.
This IRS targeting was clearly unlawful, biased and discriminatory and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Then you have to believe that McCain and Kerner were wide-eyed innocents who believed that the Obama Administration were just as interested in targeting their own allies as McCain has always been eager to attack Republicans to bolster his “maverick bonafides” (and well-documented history of pettiness.)
So we’re left choosing between stupidity and malice. And Kerner, is no innocent. He’s currently the head of the Office of the Special Counsel. (Not the Mueller group.)
Indeed. This answers the question of why the DOJ in September of 2017 declined to prosecute Lerner. Lerner and the IRS were documented to be completely guilty of crimes. Just like Comey did of Hillary in July, 2016. And then promptly declined to prosecute.
Until Jeff Sessions actually does his job as Attorney General and puts a stop to the lawlessness and actually prosecutes these crimes, I place him alongside McQueeg as a “Disgrace”.
Even were that not true, action against Lerner would have inevitably led to the discovery of what legislators and executive personnel were providing her guidance. McCain was fingered as the issue heated as a warning blast to the Republican leadership.
These are good points and I’m not saying this change will take place in one or two cycles. However there are two things that are different from before. We must account for cumulative effect. The husband slaps his wife, she doesn’t leave him, then he punches her, she doesn’t leave him, then he punches her for challenging him about his affair. We can predict that she won’t leave him then either. But it would not be scientific IMO. There are tipping points. Everything stays the same until it doesn’t – see the 2016 election.
Second, we are seeing in real time the effect of Trumpism and the now crystal clear rift in the GOP. No longer is there even the argument that there is no “ establishment “ in the GOP. They have exposed themselves. It doesn’t matter what the actual label is, they have been flushed out and are “leaving the party”, running primary opponents to effect the outcome of a HRC victory, openly parroting Democrat talking points (Jeb and Laura) and thankfully retiring like Flake and Ryan, or have been dumped like Mark Meadows.
2018 is not the Hill to fight for a full retooling and purge. Trump needs to consolidate power and keep the House and win more seats in the Senate. Continued below….
At one point I would have been squarely in the corner of @mendel and @daventers. This is the role of the “reasonable” conservative. This is the land where everyone is sincere, on the up-and-up, and while they all have serious philosophical differences are more than eager to reach across the aisle and find solutions to our most pressing problems.
But there’s not a lot evidence that that world exists.
Once the 2018 election is over,the administration will start to go into overdrive with more changes and policy victories. Many more Republican representatives will feel compelled to go along with Trumps agenda.By the 2020 cycle, the opposition in the GOP will be isolated and primaried, will simply retire and the second term will be – if things continue apace- nothing short of an American Renaissance and a fundamental political shift.
This vision is a nightmare for Democrats and legacy GOPers, which is why they are showing so much desperation.
Well now, some things are understood. After Citizens United there was an enormous surge in 501(c)-4 applications. Probably 80% + of these groups self identified as conservative. This was the Tea Party moment. You know… the “hobbits”. You don’t have to point out ‘conservative’ – just saying 501(c)-4 guarantees that you are targeting conservatives/Tea Party groups.
EJ, you’re ascribing opinions to me that I don’t have. Even a cursory reading of my comment shows that I suspect McCain and Kerner must have known that asking the Obama IRS to hound activist groups would result in more conservative groups than liberal groups being investigated. For all my doubts about McCain’s awareness of the world around him, I don’t think he was so naive to think that the Obama IRS would be politically neutral.
I was merely trying to clarify the facts in the article since yours was the only article that popped up in Google News on the topic. The way you worded your post could easily be interpreted to mean that the memo explicitly cites McCain/Kerner calling for conservative groups to be targeted. That was not the case.
@ejhill
This takes 30 seconds of Research EJ. This is what Trump has done to you guys. You can’t bother to look up anything.
And the rest of the site clapping along like seals. Jesus Christ.
My mistake for engaging. We don’t care about facts on the right anymore.
Um … Frank …. that’s the Senate. EJ said ‘House majority’
And what do you think the house looked like?
Again, why would you make an argument like this when you can’t be bothered to do 30 seconds of reseach?
It was 4-1 against for Republicans. Everyone who liked EJ’s response should take a step back and ask why you reflexively like the comment without looking up the specifics.
Wishing something was true is not the same as it being true.
My my. Who pissed in your wheaties this morning? If this is “engaging”, you’re right. Don’t.
EJ pissed in my wheaties. And was utterly wrong. You can be a dick, but it’s less wise to be a dick and completely wrong.
Ok Frank. Do the math.
41+176+5= 222 Republicans
198+12+1 = 211 Democrats
1+1 = 2 Independent
Republican majority in the House. QED
If I am doing my math right, there were more Republicans in the House at the time.
AND the signature of a Republican president. Those are facts, Frank. The GOP could have killed it in its crib but didn’t.
I knew damned well what the composition of the Senate was when I posted. But it takes the House AND the Senate AND the president. What? You never watched School House Rock? Never heard of a veto? Those 60 Senate votes were not enough for an override and you know it.
This is what Trump has done to me?
Frank, you’re being insulting and profane. I’m not flagging you, I’m settling this between adults.
If your point is that McCain/Feingold would have passed without any Republican support, fine. Say so. It’s still more than a little annoying that the bill was sponsored by a “Republican” and signed by Bush. What a disaster.
Go-along/get-along Republicans come off like battered wives — risk averse to the point of cowering.
This is your original declaration, Frank, and I quote: “The Republican party was the biggest enemy of McCain Feingold.” And then you produce charts that show the large chunks of Republicans voted for the bill. And that a Republican President signed the damned thing.
Your claim is that McCain represents the average Republican prior to trump. In reality he was an outlier and only a handful of republicans went along with him on this.
It was Republican lawsuits that brought it down. You have a narrative and that runs counter to the facts.
You were also kind of a dick in your response. Per the new rules of Trump the only way to fight back is for me to be equally a dick, right?
I am absolutely sick of people on this site saying profoundly wrong things but doing so with a smug confidence and a churlish attitude to those who disagree.
If the game in the era of trump is you win by being a jerk then fine I’ll play your game.
McCain was the Candidate in 2008. As such, I think he represented the GOP, didn’t he?
I mean, he was my last choice in that election, but I voted for him, even not liking him. Same for Romney.
Weren’t they “Business as usual” for the GOP? There was no Never McCain movement, so anyone who is Never Trump has to think that going back to a McCain led party would be better than a Trump led one, right?
Almost 20% of the House Caucus is more than a “handful.” 20% of your caucus voting against the First Amendment is pretty shameful. Those same Republicans voted for a discharge petition.
In the Senate you had Chafee, Collins, Domenici, Fitzgerald, Lugar, Snowe, Specter and Warner, besides McCain. Just one of those was needed to not vote for cloture and it’s dead.
And then there’s the ultimate Republican. The man in the Oval Office. The titular head of the Party. Neither majority was veto proof. He said it was unconstitutional and signed it anyway. And that is very emblematic of the pre-Trump GOP. And then we rewarded McCain by nominating him to be Bush’s successor.
I don’t agree with all of Frank’s assertions and I especially don’t agree with his tone, but “large chunks” is also a little exaggerated. In both chambers only about 1/5 of Republicans voted for the bill, which is a small minority. Granted that’s still 1/5 too many, but a few points worth noting:
This was right after the Enron scandal, which was a pretty big deal at the time and cowed many Republicans – including Jeff Lay’s good friend George W Bush (don’t forget that HW Bush actually vetoed similar legislation). Also, to his credit, Speaker Dennis Hastert wouldn’t let the bill come up for a vote (thanks to the eponymous Hastert rule), but was overruled by a discharge petition.
The discharge petition consisted of about 12 Republicans joining the Democrats in demanding the bill be put to a vote. Last week, a discharge petition demanding that DACA amnesty be put to a vote was signed by 23 Republicans.
The whole premise of this thread is that times have changed and the GOP of today is not the establishment GOP of yesteryear. But with more Republicans today bucking their party leadership to demand a vote on DACA than was the case for McCain-Feingold, I’m not convinced the GOP Congress has changed a whit.
Don’t need to ‘pretend’ when he was the nominee in 2008.
That’s just history, man.
This vote was 2002. As mentioned, the bill was signed by President Bush. The ‘outlier’ GOPer’s who voted with the democrats included prominent Senators who later went on to become the Party’s Presidential contenders … notably McCain and Fred Thompson. At the [link] … I only count 10 GOP votes … McCain, Lugar, Cochran, Domenici, Thompson, Warner, Collins, Snowe, Spectre and Chafee. Who was the 11th? If any one of these 11 had voted against, it wouldn’t have passed. These 11 later added McConnell and others and became the loud voice of the GOP “pre-Trump norms” from 2002 on. They did nothing from that point on to stem the democrat agenda. By 2016, many traditional GOP voters had had enough.