The media mysteriously seems to have forgotten all this.

[kpete]

The year 2010 gave us Citizens United. Suddenly corporations were people who had the right of free speech. But corporations didn't want their free speech to be disclosed. Enter the Koch Bros., Dick Armey and Freedom Works. In their basement lab, they concocted the very first para-political party, the Tea Party, disguised as a social welfare agency, a 501(c)4. Tea Party Groups were mysteriously born all over the US. Not surprisingly, people and the media began howling loudly that the Tea Party was a wholly political entity that should be a 527 entity for IRS purposes. The media mysteriously seems to have forgotten all this.

Again not surprisingly the IRS began to question this rash of new applicants. That's how you make a determination. But ah, the Koch Bros were ready. In March 2012 a conservative legal foundation, the Landmark Legal Foundation filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Treasury that the Tea Party groups were being unfairly targeted.
http://www.landmarklegal.org/uploads/IRS%20IG%20Letter%20without%20attachments.pdf

Shortly thereafter the IRS systematically changed its procedures to avoid the appearance of targeting. Also shortly after, Congress made substantial bi-partisan inquiries into the matter, including conducting an investigation. They also concluded that unless/until the rules are changed, there can be no appearance of targeting.
http://documents.jdsupra.com/70eadcc1-e046-407f-8e...

So the Tea Party which is a 100% political organization can pretend it is a social welfare agency until the rules are changed by Congress. To fault IRS workers who were responding to complaints is an ex post facto re-investigation of something that has already been examined and addressed.

It must be Ground Hog Day.
The media mysteriously seems to have forgotten all this.
http://www.landmarklegal.org/uploads/IRS%20IG%20Letter%20without%20attachments.pdf
http://www.landmarklegal.org/uploads/IRS%20IG%20Letter%20without%20attachments.pdf

[Newest Reality]

1. Thanks for that

Last edited Tue May 14, 2013, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)

important dispatch from the memory hole!

That's one of the glaring problems with the corporate media news cycles. Rather than being significantly informative, it's like a roving band of monkey-puppets with ADD stirring a pot of voodoo stew.

When there is a event that deals with base fear, as we have seen over and over again. the corporate news and cable opinion tubes gets fixated and beats the issue to death as if gleefully hammering it into our National limbic system. Wolf Blitzer has become a deadpan poet of news drama, (who really could benefit from using a thesaurus) who, rather than reporting, tends to act like he is conducting a symphony of emphatic self-importance and feigned concern while the experts and talking heads play their professional hot-air pipes for him.

How often are events that are still impacting us and important get revisited in a proportionally relative way? The mass media seems to forget what it wants to and then obsess about what it needs and wants us to know and that's why it sounds more and more like a highly polished, tabloid of sensationalistic and, more importantly, manipulative litany of tabloid trash rife with the sent of ulterior motives. Information as a clothes washing machine: cycle-after-cycle, so much is lost in the rinse.

[CanSocDem]

5. Ha! Good one.

"...act like he is conducting a symphony of emphatic self-importance and feigned concern while the experts and talking heads play their professional hot-air pipes for him."

Nailed it.

.

[AnnieK401]

2. The coverage does appear to be slanted.

Maybe some IRS employees decided to take some shortcuts that they should not have taken, but to call it political is wrong.

[BlueToTheBone]

3. Thanks for the clear and concise information

about the situation from the beginning. People get so caught up in the tiny fragments, they can't see the whole.

[Cha]

22. No shit. :( thanks BlueToTheBone.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Bravo.

[EC]

6. Just like

the AP scandal...it was repubs that asked for the investigation into the leaks - accusing the White House of leaking info to make themselves look good. So the DOJ were pushed to find out who's talking...well we know he rest...

[Progressive dog]

7. They were patiently waiting for the Bush appointed

IRS commissioner to be gone, so at least casting blame on Obama would be more believable. Thugs who vote over and over and over again to repeal Obamacare have lots of persistence.

[pangaia]

8. Thanks for taking the time to research this

and collect it all in one place.
Of course there is almost no way any of this will ever see the light of day.

Tell me if I am wrong here but-- if Clinton were president, would he, at some point, get up there and lay all this out with his signature finger pointing at the camera and nail all these lying, idiots?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. Somebody mentioned something here on DU yesterday that I thought was good:

How do you politically target groups seeking tax-exempt status that are not *supposed* to be political?

[SunSeeker]

13. LOL. Thanks, I didn't see that but it's spot on. nt

[Cha]

23. Here it is, SunSeeker..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2836622

[SunSeeker]

32. Thanks, Cha.

The real scandal here is that blatantly political groups (they had the word "party" in their name for Pete's sake) were all granted 501c4 tax exempt status as social welfare organizations.

[Cha]

34. I know! I hope this gets straightened out in a reality based

scenario.

[Cha]

24. This, Proud Liberal Dem?..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2836622

[Proud Liberal Dem]

25. That would be it. Thanks!

n/t

[zeemike]

10. Perhaps they have to forget.

Cause if they don't they will lose their cushy jobs that pay them very well.
When the GOP wants a scandal they get it.
And this is all to put pressure on Obama to give them the SS trust fund they have always wanted...he will have to cave or be impeached like Clinton.

[AgingAmerican]

11. US political memory

is about 6 months

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. You're far too generous. I'm surprised when, without 4-wall media coverage, we can remember

what happened 6 days ago.

[freshwest]

16. I'd say it's closer to three minutes or however long a commerical is these days.

I've noticed people tend to reflect over the meaning of and remember long-term events better, when they turn the evil eye off. After a while 'the news' is just a stream of consciousness polluted by the billionaire owners to take the viewers down to wherever they want them to go. No mental effort required, just go with the flow. It has no room for principles, logic, values or anything but the visceral reaction they intend to create.

[DeSwiss]

14. We. Don't. Have. A. Press. In. The. US.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” ~George Orwell

- K&R

[center][/center]

[GeoWilliam750]

37. I believe it was Jefferson who said

That he would prefer newspapers with government over government without newspapers.

I wonder what he would think now.

[ErikJ]

15. What about tax-exempt churches which have become GOP breeding grounds?

[mountain grammy]

38. +1000

[Skidmore]

17. The media is paid to not cover news and to forget.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. It's a problem when you hear an anchor who is supposed to be about hard news talking about "JLo".

[Life Long Dem]

19. The media did seem to allow the chance to grow legs

[harun]

20. Corporate Media isn't about News or "covering" anything.

[patrice]

21. Political Finance Reform #1 TRANSPARENCY. Why should a public political resource be used

as a secret and, hence, private resource.

[Cha]

26. The US media are ratings based corporations. Too lazy to look up

information and report it. AKA rw propaganda machine.

thanks kpete.

[hue]

27. What a coincidence!! *sarcasm*

[grok]

28. I guess one man's "Profiler"

Is another man's "Righteous Truth Seeker.


It's the American Way!

[spanone]

29. yes ma'am. k&r...

[siligut]

30. Truth is not something that the GOP values

The GOP values getting what they want anyway they can. They have to influence some of the people, even with all of their cheating, to get what they want and that is where the "news" comes in.

[AverageJoe90]

31. Yep, they "forgot" all right.....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that Bush dismissed a very valuable report that could've led to the prevention of 9/11, in August of 2001....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that the Tea Party was created by Big Astroturf....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that atmospheric global warming underwent a major slowdown in the late '90s, and that it really wasn't as catastrophic as the "Chicken Little" nutters screamed that it would be.....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that Big Oil was exposed as having funded climate change denialism....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that there was investigations into electoral fraud in last year's elections, and how Karl Rove reacted when Obama won Ohio....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that Fast & Furious wasn't really the fault of the Obama administration....

Just like they conveniently "forgot" that not everyone fighting al-Assad in Syria was necessarily a good guy(or an Islamist, on the other end).

And just like they "forgot" that Obama has been screwed with and held back by the Goppers since day fucking one.

Yeah, our media "forgets" shit alright.......good post, man.

[HiPointDem]

33. +1

[Sensible321]

35. Your point is spot-on, but we picked the wrong battle in that SCOTUS case.

Trying to 'limit corporate speech' was the wrong angle. Ownership of the airwaves was the correct tactic. The public has zero democratic-say in what goes gets "broadcast" over the airwaves. The Internet is mitigating this, to some extent, but people still think "if its not on Tee Vee it isn't real." Therefore, democratizing the airwaves was the solution, not trying to tell people what they could or could not say. Clearly, a "worker's party" cannot compete with Billionaires in a Capital-Ownership-Driven Media Marketplace, as Air America demonstrated.

Further, the 'tax loophole' sideshow only exists because of the way we collect taxes / provide social-services. If every American owned an equal share of our Natural Resources and Farmland, there would be no need for taxes to fund handouts to 'offset the hardship' of wage-slavery and unemployment.

But the dual-resentment-dynamic which pits the Bougis against the Proles, so that the Elite-Billionaires can continue to Rule both, would be reduced by an order of magnitude sans the current tax-framework. Therefore, this system to "externalize" the cost of maintaining the Billionaires' "human resources" (you and me) was concocted in place of the solution to the underlying problem, which requires removing the Billionaires from Power entirely.

[Crunchy Frog]

36. The media is owned by the same people who own the tea baggers. n/t

[mountain grammy]

39. For the most part, yes! Sickening!

[HumansAndResources]

41. And so the Democratic Party

Most completely after Koch Brothers created the DLC / Bill Clinton, which ended the meaningful differences (in your paycheck) on domestic policy.

But the foreign policy of both parties has been owned and staffed by the Council on Foreign Relations (Rockefeller / Bankster / Minerals Barons) actors since the early 20th century.
This is why the War Crimes run Non-Stop from that point through the present day no matter which 'party' the Elites select for us to vote for.

[mountain grammy]

40. The mainstream media is a platform for right wing extremists

while it accuses itself of "liberal bias." Impeachment is good for ratings.