Here is what I don’t get about the IRS/Tea Party pseudo-scandal – isn’t truth a strong defense here? Why can’t the lawyers for the IRS say that since these groups identified themselves with a “party,” the IRS assumed that their reason for being would be primarily political, and so not tax exempt. Also since that party, “Taxed Enough Already,” was fundamentally anti-tax, the IRS felt there was an elevated likelihood that such groups would interpret tax-exempt criteria in an excessively broad manner, because avoiding tax is one of their main preoccupations.
We might also remember that the Tea Party movement was a corporate creation, not, as it’s usually represented, some grass-roots movement. It is, in its very DNA, an effort by corporate interests to deceive the public and the media, a disguise for their agenda and their political spending in support of that agenda. Given the corporate agenda, and the demonstrable, broad-daylight, right-wing conspiracy to buy the most “business friendly” government possible, wouldn’t the IRS have been remiss had its people not paid special attention to the groups who slavishly adopted the branding suggested by the corporate funders. And finally, will the coming congressional inquiries address such questions as: Did any of these so called public service organizations perform any function that was not basically political, and if they did not, wasn’t their tax-exempt status perfectly questionable?
It seems to me that if the Democrats handled this properly, the coming inquests could be converted into an exposure of corporate shilling and political money laundering -- not that I have any confidence the Lemmingcrats will see such an opportunity.