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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 5/18/13

This IRS Story Doesn't Pass the Smell Test.

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Richard Spisak
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Qui bono? Who benefits?

The mainstream-press story starts: "The IRS apologizes?" Then jumps to crocodile tears-ville about how UNFAIR it is to target groups just because they have "Tea Party" or "PATRIOT" in their name. Why it's almost COMMUNISTIC! Then the small minds get out their knives and start carving up Democrats. [Oh how "partisan"!--and they wring their little hands, shed their crocodile tears... and send out the fund-raising letters!]

I wondered why nobody was asking the obvious questions? Who, and where and why? And this little question: What bureaucratic organization at the height of the partisan bloodletting stops to throw glass on the road ahead? Here are some answers:

Who:  Lois Lerner, director of the Internal Revenue Service's Exempt Organizations Division. She "accidentally" (while referring to notes with three IRS press aides in tow) responded to a question (which raised eyebrows among the attending attorneys).

from the transcript*: "However, in these cases, the way they did the centralization was not so fine. Instead of referring to the cases as advocacy cases, they actually used case names on this list. They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate -- that's not how we go about selecting cases for further review."

from Reuters: "The question itself came from a long-time professional colleague of Lerner's, Celia Roady, a Washington tax lawyer at the firm of Morgan Lewis who served on the agency's Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities for a two year term starting in 2010 and has attended numerous professional conferences with Lerner.

In a brief telephone interview Monday, Ms. Roady said she was "as stunned as anybody to get a response" to her question." Was she surprised to get an answer, or to get that answer?

But she declined to comment when asked how it was she happened to ask the question in the first place, referring Reuters to the IRS, which also declined to elaborate." She referred the questioner to the IRS?

"HOT AIR," a conservative blog reports: "Not exactly a question out of the blue.... Capitol Hill sources described the question as 'planted' and say the IRS has informally admitted as much." (Several sites use this quote. Who at the IRS admits it and when?) Curiouser and curiouser.

This curious Kabuki press-BOMB was explained this way, by an appropriately embedded corporatist: "On Monday, an agency statement said the IRS specifically wanted to reveal the information in that forum because it knew a report from the IRS Inspector General was about to be released. Why did Ms. Lerner desire to scoop the Inspector General's Report. Pray tell, Why?

It continues. Her Answer: "The ABA Tax Section conference was an important meeting for a key part of the Exempt Organization community," and it was "important" for members to "hear first-hand that we made mistakes in handling the process."

What's Really Going On?

So, in sum, what we have is a planted question, engineered by two people who knew exactly what this would mean to the administration when they staged their Q&A charade, planting their political landmine. They knew it would result in a BIG PASS for Conservative "Not for Profits." And, secondarily, they knew it would add fuel and fools to the media narrative on the LEFTIST OBAMA Administration's incompetence.

These comments are in no way a defense of the myriad sins of the OBAMA faux-democrats). It's intended merely to shine some light on this too-too-typical right-wing mugging and Look, Martha! surprise. The mainstream press has been snookered again. Thanks again to the Rovian flacks and long-hidden Republican moles who, while sitting pretty, are prepared to strip-mine the public good, strangle governance, and lob their fratricidal memes into the political narrative.

*Transcript provided by Paul Streckfus
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An activist since the Edmund Pettis Bridge March, and the Chicago Police Riot of 1968 when Pigasus was Nominated. Recently a founding member of Miami for Peace, Richard has produced and edited the (www.miamiforpeace.net) website which has carried (more...)
 
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