Cantor Loses To Tea Party Candidate: Not Holding Breath For The End Of Crony Capitalism

Eric Cantor stepping down from Republican House leadership is being reported as sending shockwaves through political halls of power, I believe that it is actually not an indicative of things to come but rather a lagging indicator that the GOP's purity test is has the party on a trajectory to obliviation. When elected officials that are willing to compromise about anything are thrown out of the party, such as Arlen Spectre and Bob Bennett, there can be no debate or civil discourse between the parties. As the logjam becomes semi permanant, the voters will continually seek to 'throw the bums out' and as the primaries veer off to a more and more untenable obstruction for obstruction sake position the moderates that were thrown out of the party would either join the Democrats or start their own moderate party like the Likud party in Israel.

Starting a third party with centrist inclination while the Democratic party veering back to a populist left position would be best for the nation, having gradients of political policy among the three parties would give more choice to the electorate for having their voice represented while at the same time dissuade an absolutist purity of ideology due to an alternative viable option in the general election. Though that scenario would be best for the electorate and democracy, the more likely outcome is the lip service paid in campaigns against status quo crony-capitalism hegemony but govern to the whims of Big Business so that every election both Republican and Democratic politicians claim to be the savior of Main Street and bash the elite until they are sworn into office. For example, Barack "Change" Obama who repeatedly stated that you can keep sending the same people into office and expect different results-- then goes hires Clinton's old economic team and Bush's Military-Industrial-Complex team to carry out exactly the same policies.

To rebut the Chief Justice of Supreme Court in his McCutcheon decision, but it is absolutely within the role of government to fix the apparatus of democracy and whether the elected representatives decide that the fix is providing transparency of campaign contributions or restricting only constituents to contribute to campaigns or some sort of public financing of campaigns, to keep our democracy strong and transform an out-of-touch Majority Leader losing an election from shock to expected outcome we need to tackle this as an problem that needs a solution.

IRS so called scandal

George Will said on ABC's This Week "A Tennessee group was told your entitlement to this status was contingent upon telling us the names of the high school and college students that you trained to participate in politics." The status that Mr. Will has his undies in a twist over is the nonprofit apolitical 501c4 organizations having their tax exempt status being delayed. If the Tennessee organization had nothing to hide, they could have sought out a 527 status and avoided the delay, instead decided to avoid contributors disclosures and obfuscate where their money is coming from denying the American public their right to know who is attempting to persuade public policy. 

There is a common theme in the conservatives' response across internet forums and social media, that liberals would not stand for the same actions if IRS used the same scrutiny on liberal nonprofits. No one needs to imagine what would occur if a Republican administration used the IRS to harass and audit liberal nonprofits; since it occurred under Bush against the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, and others. The right-wing complains about delays in being granted tax-exempt status; what conservative organization was denied 501c4 status? I can tell you which progressive organization was denied, Emerge America as they transformed their 527 organizations to 501c4 was denied the only benefit of avoiding to disclosing their contributors. The Tea Party and Patriot movement creating nonprofit organizations explicitly for politically purposes were still able to retain financial contributors anonymity despite that is neither the letter of the law or the spirit of the law to grant the status to such poltical organizations.

Much can be understood by the modus operandi, if tax-exempt 501c4 organizations intended for apolitical purposes to promote the general welfare in comparison to tax-exempt 527 organizations intended for purely political purposes, then the reason for political organizations seeking out 501c4 does so for the only distinction between 527 an 501c4: not disclosing political contributions.


Stephen Colbert famously and poignantly mocked the tax statuses of Super PACs and their deceiptive partners in crime by creating Colbert Super PAC and 501c4 Colbert Super PAC SHH! to hide who contributed to the his fund. Unlike the Tea Party and Patriot movement 501c4, Stephen Colbert actually had apolitical purposes  to educate and entertain the public about the absurdity of the campaign finance and the tax code.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/business/advocacy-groups-denied-tax-exempt-status-are-named.html?_r=0

Tea Party is making satirists jobs that much easier.

Ironic that the Tea Partiers' non-profit 501c4 organizations are illegal if used for political purposes seem to escape the mainstream media's attention. So why are political conservatives complaining that in there attempt to get tax-exempt status for their evidently purely political organizations that were under extensive scrutiny? They still erroneously received tax-exempt status and proceeded to use the status for purely political purpose.

Tea Party groups kvetching that the IRS granting tax-exempt status for purely political intended organizations took to long and and were politically motivated is akin to a bank robber complaining that the bank cashier is taking too long while he/she is cordially handing over all the money, even offering immunity for the crime that is being committed. Hypothetical bank robber's response: "How dare this bank teller after offering me immunity slow my roll!"

John Boehner: Who is going to jail over this scandal? Which of the plethora of scandals?

John Boehner stated in a press conference today: "Who is going to jail over this scandal?" Which scandal? LIBOR? House GOP gutting diplomatic security a year before the Benghazi attacks? Banks auto-signing foreclosing on homes that were already paid off? HSBC money laundering for drug cartels and Al-Qaeda affiliates? Director of the SEC Mary Jo White being paid by financial industry defense law firm $500,000 a year bribe (ahem... I mean retirement plan)? Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas obvious conflict of interest for his wife being paid by plaintiffs that appear in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, such as Citizens United Vs. FEC that created a new legal channel to affect elections and public policy with excessive and obtuse dark money?

No, none of that, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was instead referring to Internal Revenue Service bringing extra scrutiny to non-profit 501c4 organizations whose legal intended purpose was to "promote the general welfare" but public statements were to oppose taxes in all there forms. The scrutiny started back in 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Citizens United, and the anti-government movement flooded the IRS with requests most with newly named organizations with "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in them. As I wrote yesterday that the of the non-profit organizations that the IRS provided extra scrutiny to, 25% had conservative leanings with telling anti-tax terms in their names. All of whom were non-profit organizations that were the children of the Super PACs and the Citizen United decision, whose sole purpose was to make their finances opaque as possible and hiding the contributors before they went off to run deceptive political ads for the upcoming 2010 midterm elections. The actions of the IRS were far from adroit but it was equally distance from being illegal; it was equally legal to the Bush administration auditing Planned Parenthood, NAACP, Greenpeace, National Organization of Women and other left from center non-profits that existed before the Bush administration, and continue long after the shot callers of their political harassment have left office (unlike a majority of the non-profit organizations that were targeted). Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation sparking this controversy, after 8 years of promoting the politicization of the IRS under the Bush administration, brought this to national attention after a 13 month effort. So has it become common wisdom that audits and extra scrutiny are only a tools to be used against the left without repercussions? Could there be any possibility that the same standards of behavior be for both sides of the aisle not leniency for those calling for uncompassionate market forces to mete out "justice" and rigid higher standards for proponents of universal forgiveness?

Please comment what you think about the situation, and of course share and forward this to your social network.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/15/18275058-boehner-on-irs-controversy-whos-going-to-jail?lite

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/boehner-on-irs-scandal-who-is-going-to-jail/

http://www.alternet.org/story/10496/defunding_the_left

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/irs-targeted-naacp-in-2004-91284.html

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/10/mark-levin-may-have-prompted-irs-conservative-group-revelations/

IRS taking a double look at conservatives who oppose paying taxes-- is like Child Services taking a double look at NAMBLA

Last week it was discovered that the IRS performed extra scrutiny on 25% of the 501c4 non-profit organizations if they had "tea party", "patriot", or other conservative identifier within their name; the double check was limited to the Cincinnati regional IRS office. This extra scrutiny was in response to the Citizen United decision that allowed Super PACs and the follow up of the 501c4 to hide the contributors from the public. It doesn’t come to anyone’s surprise that a burst of newly formed tax-free organizations created with the patina of tax avoidance should come under closer examination by the agency that is responsible for regulating such organizations. This is in comparison to pacifists and non-violent activists coming under extra scrutiny of the FBI from 2001 to 2006, under the premise that they were dangerous to the security of the nation.

The facetious shock that the right wing pundits responds to this story comes from the same mindset that believes if government revenues can be shrunk small enough then the government can be small enough to be drowned in a bath tub. So those organizations that are advocating against taxes altogether warrant the double check by the IRS.

"Just imagine, Donna Brazile, if you will that the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings saying we are going to target organizations with the word 'progressive' in their name, we would have all hell breaking loose."
-George Will on ABC's This Week

The kabuki that is being slung by conservative pundits regarding this story wholly ignores the recent history, and the administration’s defense is devoid of assertiveness (no surprise there).

http://abcnews.go.com/News/Blotter/fbi-spied-peta-greenpeace-anti-war-activists/story?id=11682844#.UZI7OrXF-So

CIPSA permanently enshrining warrant-less wiretaps: Best Government Corporations Can Buy

CISPA is legislation that recently was passed by over whelming margins in the House of Representatives will codify the fact that corporations can invade their employees and customers privacy under the guise that it might prevent some national security-- but that employees and customers can never sue the corporations for infringing their rights. So where is the Tea Party Congressmen with their tri-corner hats to stand up for all the rights spelled out in our Constitution? Should the nation expect another speaking filibuster over the trampling of individual rights by this piece of legislation just as he used it against the nomination of John Brennan for CIA Director?

But due to the $600+ million of lobbyist money used to promote this legislation against the paltry $4.3 million that opposed the legislation, probably will be seeing this get passed in the Senate and signed by Capitulator-In-Chief Obama. When your next employer asks for your personal email passwords and social network passwords, don't be surprised-- and unless you want remain unemployed-- then don't resist because your boss will have a right to demand such things. If the government (or those that hold influence over the government) can look into specific individual without just cause or going through judicial process and find out all of that individual's online activity without ever having the purpose preventing crime and terrorism, then on paper our nation becomes the police state that we have always said America could never be.

Though this legislation is multitudes worse to the civil liberties of denizens of the Internet than SOPA, it doesn't have big money interests like Google, Microsoft, etc. along with Internet giants like Wikipedia Huffington Post, and others that participated in the March 2012 Internet Blackout protest and therefore CISPA isn't getting its due attention.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/how-cispa-opponents-were-outspent-by-industry-lobbyists-38-to-1-20130422?mrefid=site_search