I'm having an argument with a RW coworker

[AndreaCG]

We are discussing Christie and he pops in with Obama knew about the IRS. I found a huff po article that said progressive groups were targeted too. I thought I had read that more progressives were targeted than right wing. Am I mistaken? Thanks.

[Kingofalldems]

1. There was no IRS scandal. It was much ado about nothing

ginned up by Issa, Fox news and even former (now PPRed) DUer--- DKF .

[rustydog]

2. I am a bit fuzzy on it, but if I recall correctly

Republicans investigating this only requested the information on conservative groups and discarded what they were given on progressive/liberal groups and ran with their lie. This was, again, a GOP manufactured scandal.

You can only scream BENGHAZI so many times.

[The Magistrate]

3. You Are Right, Ma'am

One or two left groups were denied, in fact, and no rightist groups were.

There is no connection whatever between the routine IRS enforcement in this matter and the President. There was some attempt by the usual suspects to trump something up out of normal communications between the agency and the White House, but it was bogus distortion by people who knew they were lying.

[zbdent]

4. you used the correct word to describe it ...

When having a talk with your average (and even some "above average&quot RWers ...

It's never a discussion, you'd hit the lottery (twice) before it would be a debate.

It devolves into an ARGUMENT (and not the GOOD definition), with the RWer dragging you into it.

[questionseverything]

5. following link has a graph

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10018




What sort of groups made up the majority two-thirds of flagged organizations? The IG's report doesn't tell us --- it wasn't in their mission to examine that particular aspect, it seems --- but I'd love to know.

The IG's report says only that, during the use of the inappropriate criteria being examined, the IRS Exempt Organizations unit searched "for applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in the organization’s name as well as other 'political-sounding' names." [Emphasis mine.] The report does not tell us what other "political-sounding" names were examined.

It should also be noted here that none of the flagged organizations --- Tea Party or non-Tea Party --- were eventually denied tax-exempt status. None of them. That is true, even if the applications were finally approved after an absurdly long time, and after inappropriate, unnecessary follow-up questions (such as the names of donors, etc.) were sent to the organizations by the IRS.

The only group known to have actually lost their tax exempt status during the period in question, according to Joan Walsh at Salon, was a progressive organization, "the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office."

[JoePhilly]

6. Send him this video ...

It does not answer his question ... but it does explain WHY he asks it.

[AndreaCG]

7. Thank you all

I told him the facts, I expect him to go lalalalalalala I can't hear you. After all this was brought in on a totally unrelated topic.

[rufus dog]

8. Here is the scenario in a nutshell

Some IRS workers got slammed with a whole lot of extra work. In an effort to manage the workload and to quickly stratify the mass amount of work someone came up with the logical idea of creating a pile that consisted of political groups. (be it left or right)

That turned into the claim that were targeting Teabaggers, when in fact they said hey, let's focus on names like Tea Party of Dumshitistan, and Progressive Americans from Utopia, and on and on.