... linking to a NYT article with the headline: "Treasury Knew of I.R.S. Inquiry in 2012, Official Says." Key text on that point:
The inspector general... divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.This morning, the headline at the link is: "Republicans Expand I.R.S. Inquiry, With Eye on White House."
It's all about the Republicans' political ambitions. That's the spin. That's what they have. We're supposed to look ahead to 2014 (and 2016), not back to 2012, when voters were deprived of information we could have used.
But we're not supposed to look backward. Only "Forward" — which was, you may remember, Obama's official slogan in the campaign. It fits nicely with the unofficial slogan "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
In that view, the NYT's new headline makes sense. Look always to the future. The past only matters to the extent that it influences what we do going forward. In that view, the scandal investigations are to be understood in terms of the next election. Naturally. What else is there?
Posts
94 comments:
Republican charges range from clearly questionable actions to seemingly specious allegations, and they grow by the day.
Spinning as hard as they can, aren't they?
Pro-democrat hack media in action.
or perhaps the NYT received a phone call from on high?
Good grief, could they be more obvious?
How dare the republicans notice democrat crimes.
Come on, what difference does it make that our nation is run like a third world dictatorship?
Like an orchestrated effort to cover for democrats, all of the MSM outlets title their scandal headlines as if this only matters to republicans.
The pro-democrat hack media (the media) cannot focus on the scandal head-on . No. It's "How dare you republicans make such a stink about it!"
So who at the Times put up the original one? Do they still have a job? Are they still sucking air?
But we're not supposed to look backward. Only "Forward" — which was, you may remember, Obama's official slogan in the campaign. It fits nicely with the unofficial slogan "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
And, no offense, but did Meade write this? It reads a lot more like Meade.
Understatedly vicious. I like it.
(I think I might have just made up understatedly, btw).
Democrats have a tough choice in front of them. If the IRS persecuted conservatives at the direction of the White House, then the corruption is personal. If the IRS went rogue and didn't need marching orders from the White House, then the corruption is systemic to the federal bureaucracy.
In the former case, the Democrats can preserve their governing philosophy by throwing Obama under the bus. In the latter case, the Democrats can save Obama by throwing their governing philosophy under the bus. The time for them to choose is at hand.
How do you draw a nuclear explosion? It's not so easy as you might think. Do you take the material that is there and drag it up into a cloud? Do you spray a new cloud? What shape? Apparently they make different shapes.
I just can't get over it. The IRS demands to know:
"Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers."
How can that be?
What happened to the US?
Do you see why I despair?
Justice Roberts made this possible. A-tax-not-a-penalty was all the permission they needed to twist the Constitution into an unrecognizable mass, or shred it completely to the point where the IRS believes it can do anything it damn well pleases.
And now I see it can.
Ann
Hmm, seems to me the NYT headline is ambiguous. The "with eye on White House" portion could refer to where their expanded inquiry is headed, i.e., they're following the evidence trail towards the White House.
This country is broke and our institutions are broken. We are all truly well fucked.
Life became sooo much easier for the NYT and the Ministry of Truth (I know I am redundant) in the digital age. No white out or black magic markers. Just Poof and the old bad headline is gone.
sorta
PS: The Real story and Real cover-up goes back to Aug 4, 2011.
Then, Ms Lerner briefed the IRS General Counsel and other senior staff on the BOLO process and the high level DC cover-up really got underway. Till then, the leadership at IRS could have argued ignorance.
"In the former case, the Democrats can preserve their governing philosophy by throwing Obama under the bus. In the latter case, the Democrats can save Obama by throwing their governing philosophy under the bus. The time for them to choose is at hand."
I wish I could agree and tell you that they actually had to make a choice. We know that they never will. Who will make them?
What Rialby said
The past only matters to the extent that it influences what we do going forward.
They must all be dynamic programming experts. I actually like DP as a personal philosophy in my life. But when bringing culprits and crooks to justice we have to look at what they did in the near past and hold them accountable.
NYT is disgusting. Always damage control for their master.
They believe they are on the side of angels fighting against Nazis. Not figurative Nazis, real Nazis. Why wouldn't they try to shut down tea party speech? You cannot purge that kind of thinking from a massive bureaucracy.
" Tom said...
Ann
Hmm, seems to me the NYT headline is ambiguous. The "with eye on White House" portion could refer to where their expanded inquiry is headed, i.e., they're following the evidence trail towards the White House."
Yes but in the current day and age one doesn't go after Obama unless one is doing it for political gain.
House Republicans: We won’t repeat Lewinsky-era missteps
"Issa is not ruling out pursuing the White House if the investigations take lawmakers down that path: “We’re not accusing the president — unless there becomes evidence — or anyone else, unless there become evidence of any direct participation.""
Fits nicely with Instapundit's quote of James Taranto: "One thing we have learned from the IRS scandal is that sports journalists are morally superior to political journalists. Whereas the former understand that cheating is an assault on the basic integrity of the sport, the latter all too often treat it as if it were just part of the game."
Maybe the rumors we sporadically hear about detention camps in Indiana and elsewhere are true. Obama grew up in a banana republic world and practices banana republic politics. The left wing MSM cares not about ethics, whatever it takes to meet the left wing goals is fine with them. Democracy and equal and fair representation are not among those goals.
It's all about the Republicans' political ambitions.
Is it? The new headline is: "Republicans Expand I.R.S. Inquiry, With Eye on White House."
I take that to say that the Republicans want to ultimately make their case against the White House, and Barack Obama, particularly, if they can.
Both Democrats and Republicans have political ambitions, last time I checked.
Tom said it better.
Both Democrats and Republicans have political ambitions, last time I checked.
Not according to the NYT. To them, democrats are only interested in helping people and making America a better place.
It's always about Republicans and Democrats, isn't it? The misconduct at issue is merely a tactical advantage gained by the Democrats against Republicans. Like a personal foul in a basketball game, which by the way is a more interesting thing for you to watch now because it's the playoffs now. So go watch that instead. This is hardfought, bare knuckles political stuff. Avert your gaze, American people. Let the politicians hash this out. This doesn't concern you.
In that view, the scandal investigations are to be understood in terms of the next election. Naturally. What else is there?
Well, if that's the case then these so called abuses would have been a trial run? ... for the purposes of finding out where the weaknesses are in terms of how much intrusion will be tolerated and how can the IRS be used more effectively next time.
If this sounds gruesomely terrifying and calculating to you... don't worry... you wont be asked to blow yourself up... you will get to retire with a pension instead... worst case scenario.
O'Reilly re-ran his Thursday interview with Mr Vandersloot from Utah last night. The whole thing.
If the Obama campaign did not know anything about what the IRS folks were doing, where else did they get their information from?
And in the other direction, where did IRS get their guidance from?
"In that view, the scandal investigations are to be understood in terms of the next election."
Why not? After all, the scandals are to be understood in terms of the next election after they happened, and in terms of Citizen's United.
Everything was justified to win elections so that they could get Obamacare and other liberal efforts.
It's also why only half of the country is following these scandals. It's not that they aren't aware of what's happening. It's that they, too, approve of using whatever means are necessary.
It would have been nice to prevent all of this in the first place. But those sucked in by the allure Obama presented mostly are resisting learning that this whole package is what the left always brings, every time, every place they ascend to power.
Obama: Hey, don't look at me folks, I'm on the outside lookin' in, just like you, a reg'lar guy.
When I awoke this morning This thought was in my head....The IRS scandal was pushed forward by the Clinton machinery. I base this on the revelation that the IRS commissioner revealed that the disclosure was in answer to a planted question. Why would the IRS officials plant a question that would open this scandal? Qui Bono? Clinton, that's who.
Terror Taverned, in Boston, wrote a note in the boat explaining his role and taking responsibility... it means a lot to them... to take responsibility so as to 'explain' why the do what they do.
Not so with this bunch.
Lem, that's because when they take responsibility they'll be awarded 72 virgins eventually. With the other bunch, they're looking at being rewarded with BJ Clinton holding a very large cigar.
They planted the question because they knew the IG report was coming out. These bozos hoped to make it seem like old news that they had already taken steps to correct. They much over-estimated both the quantity and the quality of the cover they had. They now wear scarlet letters and their Johns never knew them.
What about NYT headline which apparently changed under scrutiny? It reminds me of Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle* which could be restated:
The NYT's opinion may have a determinate position, or a determinate direction, but not both.
____________________
*Heisenberg's original paper used the word Ungenauheit which means "inexactness." "Uncertainty" implies that one could know something but don't. Indeterminacy is a better, more cruelly neutral term
Huffington Post shockingly put They Knew on their front page last night.
Yeah, always look FORWARD to see how to blame Bush for three more years.
What did the NY Times not know and when did they not know it?
The NY Times must have been sent an IRS audit notice between the times of the former and latter headlines.
Explain again why it was good to vote for Obama in 2008, when you could see this type of thing in the future?
None of this is a surprise. After the Obama campaign turned off the credit card verification system in 2008, it was obvious that they would stop at nothing, not even breaking the law, not even fraud, to win.
Something to keep in mind:
We know about 20% of the Democrat Senators (as of now) asked the IRS to "look into" the tea Party organizations. So the nudge to lean on these people didn't just come from the Choom Gang.
And from Senator Train Wreck, "It's gonna get worse".
I don't think this stops with the Choomies.
Rialby said...
They believe they are on the side of angels fighting against Nazis. Not figurative Nazis, real Nazis. Why wouldn't they try to shut down tea party speech? You cannot purge that kind of thinking from a massive bureaucracy.
For some of the low info trolls, that may be true, but, for most of them, it's about the power and it's always about the power.
Think Uncle Saul and his rules.
PS A Taranto quote off Insta:
"The history books should record Obama’s re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means. . . .".
That's getting close to something said here occasionally.
But remember, Drudge has no influence at all!
Scum is as scum does.
I think what the NYT did was smart. They know their readers don't want to be informed, they want the illusion of being informed without having to face any inconvenient truths.
I think you just summed up the gray Lady's last 40 years.
I think what the NYT did was smart. They know their readers don't want to be informed, they want the illusion of being informed without having to face any inconvenient truths.
and:
I think you just summed up the gray Lady's last 40 years.
What's different is all the backtracking in real time. The editorial helmsperson acts like she grew up thinking the NYT was the gospel truth but once at the helm she found that she wasn't so certain. There's a great uncertainty at the heart of the Times now.
Just Poof and the old bad headline is gone.
They wish.
As I sit within my rooftop garden
Reading Modo, munching on kale
I feel my resolve harden
as I grip this Brooklyn ale
Is there no justice, no fairness, no peace?
I ask 1,243 followers via Twitter,
No more truth in the stirring breeze
than that Tom Friedman book next to the shitter?
There's still Frank Bruni, David Carr and Kruggers,
English majors from prep schools, Barnard and Yale
to call the other side hacks: Evil, heartless muggers
and keep the dream alive should Obama fail.
What else is there?
For starters, the House and Senate can and should move enforcement of Obamacare out of the IRS and into an agency that everyone can trust.
If they can find one in the era of Obama.
The agency that people can trust is their own.
There is no agency of government that people can trust anymore. And, maybe there never has been. That's why checks and balances were instituted and why the left is so busily taking them down.
It's all about the Republicans' political ambitions.
So the Republicans have no political ambitions to be gained by using this against the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee? Seriously?
You guys are more naive than you think. Don't even have a clue as to what your own side is up to.
Republicans telegraph their cruder intentions more blunderingly than any group out there. And Althouse plays the role of innocent villager. Nice.
Obama may forward looking in a campaign, but he is backward looking in his Presidency. A victim of everyone and everything, a victim by its nature looks backward.
You should never let a political scandal go to waste.
You should never let a political scandal go to waste.
To paraphrase Captain Renault: I am shocked to find politics going on in the midst of governmental scandals. Our political "leadership" on both sides of the aisle are more concerned the politics than they are with leadership.
Michael: by the way (and OT): great time in the Bahamas--did a lot of flysfishing--no bones but a lot of reef fish where basically a fish every cast. Fished the loggerheads off the east coast of Abaco.
AprilApple said: "The pro-democrat hack media (the media) cannot focus on the scandal head-on . No. It's "How dare you republicans make such a stink about it!"
You are more right than you know. Here is what I think will happen - the newsies and all the rest of us will beat the IRS scandal, Benghazi and the AP criminal actions of the DoJ to DEATH over the next 9 to 12 months. Then about this time next year as the 2014 election heats up the spim will be - 'See! What difference did all this make? It is just those stupid Repubs and terrorist conservatives making a bunch of noise about nothing. THEY are just nutz and haterz and all that!'
The LIV - you know, stupid lieberals - will eat this narrative up. This whole thing is just setting the stage for the 2014 general elections. Or, if something does go sideways and pear shaped, it gives the Statists the license they need to finally kill the Bill of Rights all the way.
The current regime is nothing but Fascisti in Democrat clothing.
R and B--not being all that attentive to who is posting as whom these days, I did glean that R and B is associated with the fabled Ritmo--my question sir: You usually have the late shift on Althouse and garage takes the morning shift. Are you OK? :)
Edutcher asks about Hilary's chances--Recall please Ed that this country's electorate twice elected Mr Obama--Sad, but true.
From some above:
"It would have been nice to prevent all of this in the first place. But those sucked in by the allure Obama presented mostly are resisting learning that this whole package is what the left always brings, every time, every place they ascend to power."
Hey, Althouse, I think this is a question you should field. How is that "Hope & Change" working out for you? Felling a little more like "Rope & Chains"?
My only, I hope, substantive thought is that the IRS thing will major--why? because its an agency that everybody can hate--and that hatred I believe crosses party lines. Wrong agency of the government to be caught in a scandal. Time will tell.
"So the Republicans have no political ambitions to be gained by using this against the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee?"
Yes, they do. But is that the story, or is that a consequence of the story. They story is the story. It's the corruption and malfeasance in government. If you want to talk about the ramifications, that's one thing. But if you want to pretend that the ramifications are the story and ignore the story itself, then you're just shilling for one side and not really being a journalist. You're not serving the public.
Go back and look at the NYT coverage of the Bush era. Back then the story always seemed to be about Bush or the Republicans. Go find me some headlines where the primary focus is how those nasty Democrats are going to try to take advantage of the situation. How many of those can you find about Abu Ghraib. I won't hold my breath while you look.
I suppose I am too cynical, but at the end of the day, our politicians with a few exceptions only see these scandals as a scourge with which to beat their political opponents. The dysfunctions go deep and neither congress nor the executive have any real interest in solving them. Their only lodestar is retaining power because both parties benefit from the current system.
From the Modern Leftist point of view, that of the Times of course, there are two classes of politicians:
(1) statesmen, who, being human, may make the occasional mistake and need correction.
(2) Republicans.
The latter exist solely to chivvy the former into line when necessary, the way lions cull the zebra herd of weaklings.
So I think it's actually less about defending Democrats here as warning them -- hey! you could be eaten by The Enemy! Sharpen up!
They don't really think in terms of Democrats (= natural rulers) needing defense, so much as they need explanation (when what they do bemused the simple homespun folk who put them in office), and warning (when Republicans have an actual point).
It's true they fear the advent of Republican government, but from their point of view that's an oxymoron: there is no Republican government, there is just this occasional mini-Dark Ages of anarchy and rule by criminal thuggery that intervenes when government (= Democrats) loses its way for a while.
Garage has the decency to realize Obama is a tyrant and this is a bad thing. He claims the republicans are worse somehow but at least he decries government tyranny.
Ritmo may realize Obama is a tyrant, but he thinks it is a good thing when the government punishes his enemies and cheers it on.
Garage has the decency to realize Obama is a tyrant and this is a bad thing. He claims the republicans are worse somehow but at least he decries government tyranny.
Ritmo may realize Obama is a tyrant, but he thinks it is a good thing when the government punishes his enemies and cheers it on.
So, as a point of clarification from Blogland...: Responses to the post itself are ok, as long as responses to those comments are not?
Just seeking some clarification here.
Achilles, that's a great comment.
I'd like to respond to it, but am not yet sure if it's ok (as per the blog administrators) for me to respond to actual comments themselves.
So unless what you said was related to the post itself, I guess I'll have to let what you just uploaded go without any comment, criticism or perspective whatsoever.
Enjoy.
Live on the edge Ritmo (or r and B)--respond to what you want to and let the chips fall where they may--The Althouse blog policy is rather like the IRS's decision criteria for non profits :) We will make it up as we go.
They knew before the election. But we only know after the election. I'm sure that was just a coincidence. or a koinkydink as I like to call it.
No collusion between the media and Obama whatsoever. No targeting of right wing groups whatsoever.
Wow, for the most transparent admiinstration EVER, this administration is starting to sound worse than Nixon's.
Lol. That's a good point, Roger!
NYT is disgusting. Always damage control for their master.
NYT is Gollum and the Ring is Obama, or rather the lefty agenda. And they will do ANYTHING to keep their precious.
Gollum.
Rhythm and balls wrote:
So the Republicans have no political ambitions to be gained by using this against the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee? Seriously?
You guys are more naive than you think. Don't even have a clue as to what your own side is up to.
Er, responding to what YOUR side is up to?
That's a great comment, jr!
Enjoying the terror in Bitchmo today.
He won't admit it, but he knows that King Putt's administration was in the wrong here, and that the cat can't go back in the bag.
Enjoy the flop sweat, and good luck with your liberal wet dream legislative agenda. I'm sure that will be flying through congress imminently.
About as imminently as the Walker indictment, ha ha.
Ritmo channelled Churchill at his deleted 8:44 comment: chirbit.
That's a great comment, President-Mom-Jeans!
Nothing to add!
Pay no attention to the leash around my neck, Chickie! That's a great comment!
It's not a crime to muzzle when your intent is good!
@pogo,
Justice Roberts made this possible. A-tax-not-a-penalty was all the permission they needed to twist the Constitution into an unrecognizable mass, or shred it completely to the point where the IRS believes it can do anything it damn well pleases.
The Democrats started this long before Justice Roberts' ruling.
Remember when all the "w"s were removed from keyboards after Bush won the election in 2000?
Heck, before that:
Remember how the Florida Supreme Court tried to throw the game in Gore's favor? Remember how the left still screeches that SCOTUS was wrong to intervene in that naked power grab by the Florida Supreme Court? Remember how 4 SCOTUS Justices thought the Florida Supreme Court naked power grab was just peachy?
That was before Justice Roberts was even on the Supreme Court, but is of a piece with what the IRS did, with what Sebelius is doing, with what the EPA is doing, with what Holder is doing, with what ACORN did for its entire existence, with what Planned Parenthood does, with what Unions do, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
It's all about using taxpayer money to funnel to Democrat power bases that ensure that elections are never about whether to increase spending but how much to increase spending, and where, so that they can continue to funnel taxpayer money to Democrat power bases while skimming off a percentage for themselves that makes them rich for life.
See: Reid's finances, Pelosi's finances, the Clinton's finances, Huma Abedin's finances, Terry McAuliffe's finances, Jesse Jackson's finances, Al Sharpton's finances, Al Gore's finances...
edutcher said:
"For some of the low info trolls, that may be true, but, for most of them, it's about the power and it's always about the power."
No denying that. I think of it this way though - these people are not incredibly deep or brilliant. They're bureaucratic functionaries. All their lives they have been taught that Nazis were small government radicals who seized control of Germany. So, along comes this movement of small government people who are intent on reducing things like... the IRS. Well, whaddayaknow, it's the rise of the new Nazi party threatening their very livelihoods. They must be squashed.
This is what happens when the Left controls education, entertainment, et al. They teach everyone, including those who move into civil service, that "your enemies" are domestic. They're conservative Republicans. For the people who carried this out, they're no less noble than the various men who tried to take out Hitler.
I watched the entire proceedings last night on c-span and It came at the end when some rep from Arkansas pointed out the IG "audit" is just the beginning. No one was sworn under oath yet, no IRS apparatchics emails have been sorted through. So the cheery reassurances of the democrats that they have "taken on a little ice" is kind of comical.
Where is Larry Flynt -- or any of the other usual suspects --offering $1 million for whistleblower evidence that implicates Obama in this travesty?
If Hilary runs in 2016, I hope they run "What difference, at this point, does it make?" Over, and over, and over.
Don't even have a clue as to what your own side is up to.
Were it not for the media thus White House wouldn't know what was going on in its own Executive Branch agencies. Sez the Preznit.
No, the past doesn't matter... except when it's Bush's fault.
Then the past matters an awful lot, doesn't it?
Rhythm and Balls?
I thought that was Jim Bob Duggar's screen name?
Remember how 4 SCOTUS Justices thought the Florida Supreme Court naked power grab was just peachy?
Two thought that. (Remember the main decision was 7-2.) Two thought it was peachy, two thought it was unacceptable on equal protection grounds but that they shouldn't block a fair recount (even though there was clearly no time for one, so this was only a technical difference), and five thought it was time to stick a fork in the mess and call it done.
I know that it's a common shibboleth that the decision was 5-4, but we should remember it correctly.
WHAT did "they" know? "They" (they being the General Counsel of the Treasury Dept.–we don't know if this got passed further up the chain or not) knew that there was an investigation. "They" did not know if the allegations were true or not until March 2013.
Post a Comment