Wednesday Open Thread [5.15.2013]

Sorry for my absence in the open thread department the last two days. I had some family business to deal with and thanks to Cassandra for stepping in.

So it looks like the whole Benghazi Conspiracy Theory being embraced by Republicans is based on a phantom email created by a GOP source. Whomever that GOP source on Capitol Hill is, he or she should be imprisoned. You have to wonder why the GOP does this to itself. Sooner or later some kind of actual government wrongdoing was bound to come down the pike for the GOP to make hay out of. It always does. In some administrations more frequently than others. But the current Repubican opposition is so bereft of ideas and new policies, and so desparate to come up with anything to tarnish the President so that he in reality matches their fantasy version of him, that they have tried to turn either minor stories or tragedies into massive scandals, like Fast & Furious, like Solundrya, and now, like Benghazi. And the reason why they were so desparate is that the Obama Administration, up until now, has been relatively scandal free.

If only the GOP had waited….. because now they do have two stories that could turn into actual wrongdoing, at least on the parts of the agencies themselves, but the poor GOP already cried Wolf. And because they cried Wolf so early and so often, labeling Obama a fascist socialist, a muslim dictator, a revived StalinHitler hybrid monster intent on devouring babies and freedom, the general reasonable middle ground public just yawns anymore. From Charlie Cook:

Perhaps the best way to determine whether either (or both) of these stories is starting to resonate with the American people is to simply watch Obama’s daily and weekly Gallup job-approval ratings. After all, this is the first presidency that will be covered from start to finish with daily public-opinion samplings. Since the beginning of March, the president’s approval ratings each week have been between 47 and 51 percent, and between 48 and 50 percent for all but two weeks. For the week of May 6-12, with the last interviewing being conducted Sunday night, Obama’s approval rating was at 49 percent, down a point from the previous week, and his disapproval was at 44 percent, the same as the week before.

According to the Gallup Organization, the average job-approval rating for presidents in their 18th quarter in office, covering the post-World War II period, was 51.3 percent. That’s a little over a point higher than where Obama is right now. Bill Clinton had the highest job-approval rating at this point in his presidency over the past 50 years, with 57 percent. Ronald Reagan was at 55 percent, George W. Bush at 46 percent, and Richard Nixon at 45 percent. Nixon had been above 50 percent until early April, and then he began his gradual decline, never to recover.

Personally, I agree with Kavips that the IRS scandal is really not a scandal on the part of the Administration. Indeed, if there is a scandal, it is on the part of all the political groups (whether they be conservative, moderate or liberal) trying to pass themselves off as charitable non political tax exempt organizations.

The IRS is fully justified in scouring any of these organizations and going after their individual members for cheating…

After all, there a very good chance they are not paying their fair share of taxes, wouldn’t you agree?

The real crime, is how does a political organization that spends considerable amounts (millions) of money on candidates and to influence elections, get to say it is an organization that is apolitical and therefore tax exempt?

IF there is any violation of law, it is the fact that 9/12 Patriots and Sheriff Arapao, and Jeff Christopher, were not audited sufficiently to determine whether they were apolitical or working for a political agenda….

Like we really don’t know.

I say they do work for a political agenda and should have their tax exempt status revoked and be ordered to pay back-taxes on all incoming amounts collected…

That is the real crime. The IRS was just doing it’s job……

But it did its job very stupidly. You don’t single out the Tea Party. That is biased. You target all political groups, and in that wide net, you will catch the Tea Party.

Booman:

This is another non-scandal. Or, rather, the scandal is that the IRS didn’t actually deny tax-exempt status to a single Tea Party or Glenn Beck-inspired 9/12 applicant. Not one. Sure, they delayed responding to some of those applicants. They asked for inappropriate information from some of those applicants. But they didn’t actually tell any of those nutballs to take their tax-exempt application and stuff it where the sun don’t shine.

When someone simultaneously tells you that they don’t intend to engage primarily in political behavior and that their organization is a “party,” you ought to do a little investigating, don’t you think?

That these morons in the IRS screwed up is undeniable. They were horrible at their jobs (and badly understaffed, I might add). Instead of creating a stupid Be On the Lookout (BOLO) criteria for Tea Party folks, they should have crafted ideologically-neutral language that had the effect of doing the exact same thing. And then they should have promptly DENIED most of the requests because being Dick Armey’s anti-tax stooge doesn’t qualify you as a charitable organization concerned with the general welfare.