Scandal Fever has hit Capital Hill and the investigation into the IRS unfairly targeting Tea Party groups is one of the hottest. Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP had some very cold words on the matter:
I mean, here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who tried as best they can to harm President Obama in every way they can, … They are the Taliban wing of American politics and we all ought to be a little worried about them.” – Julian Bond
“Truth hurts,” according to Bond.
While Bond doesn’t feel that the there was any wrong doing by the IRS, it will be up investigators to discover the truth. Only time will tell if this is the big moment before President Obama reveals that this whole time he was a patriot-shaming, constitution-hating, African-born-socialist.
Today on #TWiBRadio #TeamBlackness discussed The NAACP’s Julian Bond dismissing parallels between the IRS targeting the Tea Party, the New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition dry snitching on fakes among their ranks, and ironically doing goodwill for the homeless. Listen here:
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
And on #amTWiB, political strategist L. Joy Williams and the morning crew discuss lowering the blood alcohol level for DUIs, yoga guru Bikram Choudhury accused of rape and human trafficking, and Uni-Ball’s controversial new ad.
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download| RSS
Misterpuff
I think I love Julian Bond.
Saw that live, and for all the incindiariness of the attack. I just marveled.
Howcum the rest of our guys can do that: go on the attack once in a while?
OK I’ll climb back into the totebag now…..
Chris
Amen. Afuckingmen.
So nice to see SOME people acknowledging it in public. And fuck civility. It’s the truth, unlike when they call us Communists and fascists.
Chris
Amen. Afuckingmen.
So nice to see SOME people acknowledging it in public. And fuck civility. It’s the truth, unlike when they call us Communists and fascists.
jrg
As a former nonpartisan, I found it pretty disgusting when the right referred to the left as being America haters during the Bush years. Just who will find this compelling?
pokeyblow
CougarLife looks pretty good.
lamh35
I love how the media brings up the IRS investigating NAACP, but trying to use it in a way to smear Obama rather than the truth and showing that the double standard for so called “Tea Party” groups is abundantly clear.
Where was the investigation of the IRS in regards to the NAACP and Liberal groups under Bush? I mean it just stupid. Dems are pushing back harder on the Tea Party targetting, but unless I missed it, there was no such strong outrage and big statements at the time.
Oh yeah, there are alot of mentioning it now as a way to deflect, but at the time, I don’t believe I heard much from the Dems in Congress outside of the CBC
MikeJ
Ever seen Foul Play with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn? If the Tax the Churches League from that movie were real I’d be happy. I don’t think my favorite charities would lose that much money if we did away with the concept of tax exempt orgs, and it would help cripple the ones I hate,
If you want to be a non profit org, don’t turn a profit. The Washington Times has been doing it for decades.
Violet
Wow. That’s awesome. Good for him for speaking the truth.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
Goddamned motherfucking right, Mr. Bond.
mouse tolliver
Michael Eric Dyson said he was audited five times when Bush was president. And the first audit happened after Bryan Williams showed Bush a clip of Dyson criticizing him during an interview. And Susan Collins actually petitioned the IRS to go after the NAACP.
I don’t know what’s worse. The fucking hypocrisy of the Republicans or the compliant media who frame every story to their benefit.
Scott S.
The teabaggers are going to start screaming that Bond has to be fired now. I hope the NAACP remembers not to negotiate with terrorists.
Quaker in a Basement
Standing by for comment that declares this to be more proof that black people are The Real Racists.
beltane
@mouse tolliver: The media is worse. If the media were not complicit in the behavior of the Republicans, the Republicans would behave better.
Higgs Boson's Mate
It’s a damned good thing that the administration didn’t, say, demand the resignation of the acting head of the IRS. That might have vindicated the TPer’s claims that they were being oppressed.
Amir Khalid
@Scott S.:
I’d like to hear that demand too. I wonder how they expect the NAACP to fire a chairman emeritus — what with him not being a serving officer anymore.
pokeyblow
So by firing the IRS head and giving credence to idiotic teabagger claims of persecution, Obama won the day how?
Chuck Boller
Is it not amazing how everything that the repubs do and say goes down the rabbit hole the next day. What time is the automatic dump?
Jebediah
you go, Mr. Bond!
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
There was an IG report, so it wasn’t just the teabaggers.
jl
@lamh35:
” Oh yeah, there are alot of mentioning it [Bush II biased investigation of liberals] now as a way to deflect”
Not sure I agree. I heard Reid bring it up, and it didn’t seem like he was deflecting, but charging the GOP with hypocrisy on IRS scandal, or blandal, kerfluffle, managerial boo boo, or whatever it is. And I heard Pelosi and Boxer make some comments about GOP House caucus role in funding cuts that contributed to both the real Benghazi tragedy (as opposed to “Benghazi!”) and the IRS problems, and that didn’t seem to be in deflection mode either. And gosh golly gee I heard on the news radio machine last night, so it got reported. Will wonders never cease!
I haven’t been able to listen to the Obama announcement, but I don’t think he should bring it up. I think most sane people expect the president to tend to the business at hand. And Obama is very disciplined at doing that, so I don’t expect him to go into the sins of the past administrations on this particular topic.
The insane and the racist (aka GOP base) expect Obama to make a full confession about how the IRS problem was really the first step in his plan to destroy human freedom, and they got him, and he and his co-conspirator and mini-him master Dr. evil mind Joe Biden will report to the jailhouse first thing in the morning.
Joel
Just cause the fuckers had it coming doesn’t make it right. We do the right things for our own protection, not because we love our rivals.
Suffern ACE
The reason I might think twice about this “bush did it, too” tack is that it lead people to believe that the current administration is doing far worse things than it did.
chopper
dude that shit was epic. seriously, i need a cigarette.
debbie
Great clip. Now he needs to name what evangelicals practice: Christian Sharia.
pokeyblow
Remember numerous outrages during the Bush administration? Infiltrating little-old-lady groups who were against the war? Free Speech Zones?
I remember those.
I don’t remember Bush coming out all angry and firing the HBIC for whichever area. I do remember Bush acting like he didn’t give a fuck. But I know, Obama can’t do that. I’m not sure why, but he just can’t.
Suffern ACE
@pokeyblow: I have no idea. David Gergen seemed pleased enough about it on CNN that he even mentioned that the administrations Benghazi email indicated that there was no smoking gun.
jl
@pokeyblow: I think a case can be made for sacking the acting director. I’ve read that he was not appropriately forthcoming about the problem even though he knew about it.
As a commenter above notes, there was a problem and it extended to squish moderate, centrist BS and liberal groups as well. That is a fact whether it fits our infantile, lazy dishonest and venal corporate media narrative or not, and whether they choose to report it or not.
Obama won the day by acting like a sane responsible grown up doing his best to administer the executive branch. I think the contrast will not be lost on most sane non-racist people in the country.
El Caganer
@Baud: True, but the guy who fell on his sword had nothing to do with this shit. Somebody had to get canned, and he was available. What a fucked-up system we have.
jl
Is there a clapper thingee we can buy for fake scandals that fall down and can’t get up?
Issa, the grumpsy twins, Gregory and Schieffer, and surely Fox News need some.
I’ll watch the infomercials tonight and see if there is anything.
Edit: I;ll throw in premium long life batteries, for free.
Hal
MSNBC showed a clip of Boner saying her didn’t just want folks fired, he wanted to know who was going to jail; and then walked of stage. Really? Even in the worst case scenario, would any of this send someone to prison?
The IRS needs blanket review of all of these 501 (c)(4) groups. Now none of them will have any legit review because of this screw up.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Baud:
I haven’t read all the way through the IG’s report yet. So far, it appears that most of the problem was a lack of clear guidance and the ambiguity of IRS guidelines. Obama might have stood with the IRS head while that person pledged to make certain that all organizations are treated equally going forward.
The Tea Party gained stature and credibility from this.
El Caganer
@jl: That’s assuming that the sane non-racist people actually give a shit about this ridiculous nonsense.
Chyron HR
@pokeyblow:
Go stand in a corner and think about what you just wrote.
pokeyblow
@jl: Perhaps. I think it would be better if Obama encouraged the IRS to go after all sorts of rogue tax-dodging operations. He could have someone prepare a list showing the salaries of various teabagger honchos, for example. He could talk about the donor-anonymity nonsense. He could take a rhetorical swing at Citizens’ United.
And of course he could say that the scrutiny he was championing should be applied across the board, to political front-groups of all stripes.
Fuck the teabagging 27%. They won’t be happy until Obama is gone from office, if not outright lynched. He has no need to reach out to them. And there is a good populist case to be made to put a stop (or at least a brake) to the ongoing joke which is tax compliance in the era of Mitt Romney.
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Haven’t read the report either, but the reporting on it says that the acting head didn’t handle the after the fact process well.
Roger Moore
@El Caganer:
I’m hoping that Obama can at least leverage this to get a permanent IRS director through the Senate.
jl
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
” The Tea Party gained stature and credibility from this.”
I don’t agree with that, or even if it is true, if it means much.
So what? What are they going to do? Nominate more lunatics to screw up the GOP in the midterm elections? The astroturf teabaggers were going to chug along with their corporate dough anyway. The real grassroots teabaggers are deluded losers who have zero influence on anything.
Suffern ACE
@jl: the stage is now set for a replay of the 1997 hearings and subsequent Taxpayer Relief Act. If it plays out like that one, we’ll get a whole new set of shelters to play with.
pokeyblow
@Chyron HR: That’s not a quote from me.
I’m mad because Bush fought, and Obama won’t.
If you’re going to argue with me, argue with me, not your feeble, fevered imagination.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: I kind of agree.
Baud
@pokeyblow:
Bush was the most unpopular president in recent history. I’m not sure why that’s a model to follow.
pokeyblow
@Baud: So if Bush used his turn signals religiously, then subsequent presidents shouldn’t use theirs?
Obama has no problem following Bush’s precedent on various domestic-surveillance matters, and I gather that complaining about that on this website is bad form.
But to follow Bush and fight back when attacked by partisans from the other side? To follow Bush and occasionally claim informal executive “authority” to do some shit? That’s bad?
It’s really a crock to claim I’m saying Obama should be like Bush. If I think Obama should stop smoking, does that mean I think he should be like Hitler? Seems so. : )
Higgs Boson's Mate
@jl:
Well, ya’ got me there. One exit poll had only 45 million registered voters identifying with the Tea Party. Only nine of ten Representatives who identified as TPers were elected or re-elected in 2012. The Republican takeover of numerous state leges and the subsequent gerrymandering of electoral districts were in no way assisted by Tea Party money. The Democrats should be such losers.
Baud
@pokeyblow:
I don’t understand what you just said.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
FTFY.
becca
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I don’t know about that. There’s a good portion of the population that don’t see why any of these groups should get exemptions at all.
Or churches.
Short Bus Bully
Fuck and Yes.
Get Mr. Bond in front of a camera as much as possible please. Well said, well said.
Also too, fuck those fucking fucks who take offense at any of this.
pokeyblow
@Baud: Oh well.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
That too.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
But, but, but, don’t you “Miss Him Yet?” Didn’t you know Gallup shows that his approval rating is actually back in the forties, which is almost close to the approval rating of History’s Worst President Jimmy Carter? Even the liberal David Brooks has good things to say about him – he was just so presidential!
Yatsuno
@jl:
Fixteth for their actual expectations.
jl
@Yatsuno: Hey! Ain’t you a revaynoooer, buddy?
Jeremy
Also the people who got canned at the IRS were Bush appointees so I don’t see Obama firing them as a bad thing. Also, the only people who are following this crap are political junkies and the beltway. The majority of Americans don’t give a rat’s ass and it shows in the polling. Anyone who believes that these non scandals will play a big part in an election more than a year away are delusional.
lamh35
Ok, so people say heads should roll and then head do roll and now the same people are mad because the heads that rolled are not “the right heads”. Ok, so then maybe Obama should have re-hired the Bush appointee and bring him live on camera and made him resign all over again. Or not maybe he should have fired the lowly workers in Cincinnati just following orders, but being civil service employees, you can’t just fire ’em right?
Oh and Obama needs to do something translates to…???? What exactly. Issue a statement saying the admin doesn’t condone the actions, check, that’s it’s inexcusable, check, that some investigation of the IRS will occur within Congress, check, and what else????
What more could/should he do aside from rendering his garments and dropping to his needs in shame and apology?
Oh, yeah, he could wait a bit more, but then of course the same people who said, Obama “needs to address this soon or now” or “did the White House wait too long”..will be satisfied with that right?
Or maybe he could go on that epic rant that so many seem to want him to do, and have it ONLY be broadcast and represented fairly and correctly…where exactly? We are already inundated with the “press turns against” Obama bias and we expect the media to fairly report anything Obama says???
jl
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
We disagree then. The teabaggers also limited GOP gains in the Senate, and the GOP might have done better without the reabaggers in 2010.
I’m also operating on the assumption, which I think looks better each day, that these fake scandals are falling down and they won’t get up. If things keep up the way they’ve been going, the only people who will remember this stuff by the midterms are crazy people who dote on Beck and Jones. People who try to stretch this stuff out all the way to the midterms will be viewed as partisan obnoxious jackasses.
Now, if any of these were real scandals that touched the WH, or Democrats in Congress, it might be different.
Yatsuno
@jl: That’s Mister Revaynoooer to you.
@Jeremy: Miller wasn’t a political appointee. Having said that, I think he wanted out anyway especially after seeing the shit show that was the appointment process. Things are just going to get worse and worse and now the Repubs have a great opening to defund the IRS even further so their cronies can get away with more tax shenanigans. I like what I do but I do wonder why in the hell I put up with this shit.
gnomedad
OT: Michelle Obama needs to encourage everyone to avoid sex with hornet nests.
Yatsuno
@gnomedad: Mmm…hornet porn!
the Conster
@Jeremy:
Unfortunately for the press and the Republicans, no one has a memory that wipes itself clean every 8 years. Most sentient voters recall the Bush years and the naked partisanship that was brought to bear on every. single. thing. That horrible Monica Goodling and Alberto Gonzalez were Exhibit A of the entire Bush misadministration, so the ginned up outrage is just not working. And no one cares about what the media asshats think about anything.
Roger Moore
@lamh35:
I think they want an apology Captain Needa style.
raven
@efgoldman: What up? Enjoyed your town.
jl
@Roger Moore:
” I think they want an apology Captain Needa style. ”
Obama was supposed to choke himself to death?
Yatsuno
@jl: Hey if ya can’t get a pretzel a Sith lord will just have to do…
lojasmo
@Chyron HR:
You’re surprised? This is it’s MO.
Poopyman
@gnomedad: Yeah but
A sentiment I can agree with.
joel hanes
@the Conster:
Most sentient voters
That’s good, but insufficient.
We need a majority.
Roger Moore
@jl:
No, he was supposed to choke the acting head of the IRS to death.
Suffern ACE
@the Conster: I do think every time he hands over e-mails he should note: “Remember when the last administration always seemed to delete theirs”. What kind of cover up operation are they trying to run here.
pokeyblow
@lojasmo: I don’t threaten to kill people, however.
I think we’d all be a bit safer if you didn’t have internet access.
Baud
@joel hanes:
Paraphrasing Adlai. Nice.
Suffern ACE
@the Conster: Actually, the voters have horrible memories and even worse, they ones who try to stay informed have to do so with our media. Which can’t help matters much.
No one seems to remember what Watergate was about, even folks who were alive and paying attention.
pokeyblow
@Suffern ACE: No, but they equate Watergate = Nixon BAD. To a lesser extent, they equate Whitewater = Clinton BAD.
Sometimes, the less people know, the bigger the problem (e.g., Whitewater).
But Obama can only do what he can do, right? And there are severe limits to that, I’m learning.
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
I know this one. It was about Woodward and Bernstein becoming big media stars by bringing down the president. That’s the model the Villagers understand.
Villago Delenda Est
Bond is right, you know.
Absolutely on target.
bvernia
First, in a case like this, if you begin your comment “I haven’t read the OIG Report” then, seriously, put down the keyboard and read it. It’s only 54 pages long (including the cover).
Second, as for the statement that “it will be up investigators to discover the truth”: you might as well lie down now and give up with that attitude. The “investigators” will be hand-picked hatchet-men and -women who will perceive their participation in this circus as a way of credentialing themselves in GOP circles. The closest thing you’ll get to the truth is the OIG report, which brings me to:
Third, the OIG report basically just says that this small, overworked and understaffed office, facing a huge increase in their workload, used logical but one-sided key phrases in an attempt to ID groups legitimately needing additional scrutiny due to their apparently political purpose. In reading the OIG report, you must bear in mind that the job of these public servants necessarily touches on politics, so the mere fact that they were interested in political activity just shows that they were doing their job. Where the OIG says they crossed the line was in looking at groups’ names and stated purposes in an attempt to ID problematic applications. I don’t know the Treasury Regulations they cite well enough to know if that was a violation, but it doesn’t make sense to scapegoat the employees and act like they were Nixonian monsters or something.
Hey, guess what you’ll also learn if you read the OIG report: the OIG did not find that the IRS unit in question mistakenly denied tax-exempt status, just that they selected groups for extra scrutiny based on impermissible criteria, and inconvenienced them by asking unnecessary questions.
Suffern ACE
@the Conster: I also was thinking back a little earlier. We’re getting these e-mails now. E-mails that we definitely wouldn’t have gotten out the last administration. They would have been “missing” because they would have shown Rove’s fingerprints on things he shouldn’t have had access to. But is there anything like that in this administration? You know, the e-mails come out and there’s a “who the hell is that guy and what’s he doing here” Dick Morris or David Gergen type?
Suffern ACE
@lamh35: Oh and Obama needs to do something translates to
SOMETHING BOLD AND DECISIVE!
ETA: Or he needs to invade Iran because nothing unites us all together like a good war. Kumbayah, let’s go to Damascus.
dance around in your bones
Thank gawd cleek’s got his pie filter updated!
Now, if one of you geniuses (PeakVT, MikeJ, Steeplejack, Martin and whoever else I’m leaving out) could fix the block quote box so it isn’t miles teenier – textwise – than the comments, I’d be ever so grateful. I’m currently using PeakVT’s Stylish script and it works great except for the block quote box. Gotta break out the magnifying glass to read it, practically.
Danke. Tash a kor. Gracias.
Yatsuno
@dance around in your bones: I LIKE PIE!!
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
I now have the comments to the font where I can read them, but now the posts are hilariously big, like large-print Reader’s Digests.
danielx
Quite true. Ordinarily Tea Partiers could give two hoots and a damn about the opinion of what they would refer to as an old ni-CLANG!, but comparing them to the Taliban will provoke howls of rage.
Delightful.
PeakVT
@dance around in your bones: The problem is that the blockquote is tagged a couple of different ways, and I haven’t quite figured out why or when that is the case. I’ll try to fix the size in the next day or so.
dance around in your bones
@efgoldman: I use NoSquint as well, but it seems to have no effect on the blockquotes people use (I mean the ones that show up in people’s comments, not when I am composing them).
That’s one of my peeves with this update, is the strange contrasts between FP posts text and comment text and blockquote text – it’s all so variable.
@gogol’s wife: Ha ha! I have to restrain myself from making the text so big I feel like a Reader’s Digest Big Print reader, even if it would make it easier for me to read. I get it *just* to the point that it doesn’t look totally ridiculous, on the off chance that someone might look over my shoulder at my screen and start snorting with laughter.
@PeakVT: Gads, I appreciate your work and effort so much. Thanks, if you can fix the block quote text size!
MattR
So how long will Karen Olsen remain the Champaign Tea Party Treasurer
dance around in your bones
@Yatsuno: Yatzi (heh) I love PIE, too!
I donated a bunch of new pie phrases over at cleek’s place the other day. Fun to see them show up! Hey, everybody….make some new pie! Y’all can do it, prolly better than me.
Tom Q
Only marginally on-topic, but…
I know others have bitched about Jon Stewart in the past, but tonight was the first night I found him unwatchable. As in, I flipped the channel two minutes in — about the time he was saying Obama was either Nixonian or Mr. Magoo obtuse. Because, you know…a president would have to be totally blind not to know what some IRS flunkies in Ohio were doing.
Stewart is (probably only temporarily) dead to me. He ALWAYS buys into the GOP spin when there’s a hint of Obama-going-down. You’d think his experience with ACORN/Shirley Sherrod would make him slow down a little here. It’s bad enough official DC has gone bonkers; I’d hope for sanity from Stewart. (I wonder what he’d have done when the Lewinsky thing started. Called for resignation?)
dance around in your bones
@Tom Q: I hear ya – I’ve pretty much given up on Jon Stewart nowadays. When I sit through a whole program and don’t even crack a smile (not to mention getting pissed off) I just hit mute and wait for Colbert.
PeakVT
@dance around in your bones: Okay, for you, I’ve updated the style again. The two blockquote font sizes are now the same as the comment text, and larger. There is some borked coding that FYWP spits out that I can’t work around using CSS.
If there is anyone who wants a super-big font for comments let me know and I’ll do another.
dance around in your bones
@PeakVT:
testing :) (and really, just for ME? Whew!)
danielx
Also, too – I am not so eagerly awaiting the howling and yowling about how the Obots were fooled all along, Obama REALLY REALLY is worse than Bush, and that all he needs now is to open a fourth branch of government office for Dick Cheney.
Although…I truly am beginning to ask WTF? This is for certain a metric shit ton of bad news in a really short period of time, and provides the wingnut world with a whole lot of feces to fling at walls in the hope that some of it will stick. As well it should, in the case of the Associated Press phone records/tapping/whatever business. Narrowly focused investigation, my ass – what the fuck was Eric Holder thinking, and for that matter what was Obama thinking? The idea that Obama wouldn’t have been informed about an investigation this politically sensitive is ludicrous.
dance around in your bones
@dance around in your bones:
Holy Moses, now it’s HUGE! The blockquote text, I mean :)
eta: I swear to DAWG I put that in b-quote.
Chris
@Suffern ACE:
If he did that, they’d say that he was politicizing the war on terror and manufacturing reasons to start a war in the Middle East in order to boost his popularity.
Cacti
@danielx:
Yeah, I keep hearing this from left tards but, bull fucking shit.
A subpoena is not illegal, not unethical, and not in any way out of the ordinary in the course of a criminal investigation.
If you think there’s some sort of privilege that exists between a journo and a leaker, then you should have been equally up in arms for Judith Miller going to jail rather than coughing up the name of Scooter Libby.
AxelFoley
@beltane:
Exactly.
AxelFoley
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
LOL, if you really believe this, we can’t help you.
Applejinx
Lissome gray wet form
Shakes its sexy Ditto-ass
Despite lack of butt
You have to be careful saying things like ‘dolphin twerk haiku endorsing Rush Limbaugh’ around some of the readers, Elon. Now you have to burn everything :)
debbie
I just listened to Glenn Beck slamming Bond’s interview. He declared that the NAACP was a sad, pathetic parody of its former self, and even better, he stated that he, Glenn Beck, better embodied the principles of Martin Luther King, Jr., than did the NAACP. The man never ceases to entertain.
Bulworth
This Julian Bond guy sounds really, really shrill. Break out the fainting couches and the clutching pearls.
Tone In DC
I really needed to read this, today. I am so sick of the last three weeks or so of ceaseless fake-as-Reverend-Ike’s-coin outrage. From the party (the teabaggers are just G00pers with less thorazine) whose motto has to be We Make Shit Up.
Jane
Hey thanks for reading our piece on the IRS targeting of tea parties.
We decry the use of the IRS to target anyone, no matter their political leanings.
The lady on the show got our foreign policy wrong. We are NON-interventionist, want to stop foreign aid and bring the troops home. That’s the real tea party platform of 2007. We are libertarians and definitely not racist. All are welcome.
Jane
@jl: We do not take any money. The tea party mentioned in this show is 100% volunteer and has never taken money.