IRS Targeted Progressive Groups MORE than Tea Party

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/23/1294061/-IRS-Targeted-Progressive-Groups-MORE-than-Tea-Party

A series of IRS documents, provided to ThinkProgress under the Freedom of Information Act, appears to contradict the claims by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that only Tea Party organizations applying for tax-exempt status “received systematic scrutiny because of their political beliefs.” The 22 “Be On the Look Out” keywords lists, distributed to staff reviewing applications between August 12, 2010 and April 19, 2013, included more explicit references to progressive groups, ACORN successors, and medical marijuana organizations than to Tea Party entities.

The IRS provided the heavily-redacted lists to ThinkProgress, after nearly a year-long search. From the earliest lists through 2012, the “historical” section of the lists encouraged reviewers to watch out for “progressive” groups with names like “blue,” as their requests for 501(c)(3) charitable status might be inappropriate. Their inclusion in this section suggests that the concern predates the initial 2010 list.

Explicit references to “Tea Party,” included in the “emerging issues” section of the lists, also began in August 2010 — but stopped appearing after the May 10, 2011 list. From that point on, the lists instructed agents to flag all political advocacy groups of any stripe. The documents instructed the agents to forward any “organization involved with political, lobbying, or advocacy” applying for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status be forwarded to “group 7822″ for additional review. Groups under both categories are limited in the amount of of lobbying and political activity each can undertake.

[Turbineguy]

1. BENGHAZI!

[Jesus Malverde]

6. Libya is one of the modern tragedies of nation building.

Up there with UN involvement in palestine, haiti and south sudan.

[Turbineguy]

7. You're right

but the repubs will not be interested in fixing that.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. I've seen the enemy, and he is us.

[Warpy]

3. Rich men are terrified of the left, that's why

They consider even the most violent on the far right to be their dupes and always think they control those freaks.

Until they can't.

[eridani]

5. This has gone in my "refute bullshit Repuke talking points" file

Not that the whackjobs themselves will ever believe this.

[kelliekat44]

4. Well, guess what. Now they will have to stop..thanks to the GOP investigations., nt

[Chathamization]

8. Once again, the media was spreading right-wing propoganda

And it's important to point out that anyone who read the original report (which was pretty short) would know that other groups were targeted, but that the report was only about Tea Party targeting specifically because that's what a certain member of congress told them to do. That point was brought up here, but no one in the mainstream media, including many supposedly on the left (Chris Matthews, Ezra Klein), seemed to bother reading the report before they decided to talk about how the IRS was "targeting conservative groups." Weeks of front page and prime time news was devoted to that piece of information, and just about none was devoted to the retraction.

It really can't be emphasized enough how much the media botched this, nor how much of the trouble the Democrats are having is because of an implicitly (and occasionally explicitly) right-wing media. That's one of the primary challenges we face, and people need to be constantly reminded of the media's history of spreading misinformation.