What do you consider right wing extremist?

[post]

Odd that they exonerated themselves, but then apologized for mistreating conservative groups and paid out a settlement in litigation. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/5603...or-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups IRS Apologizes For Aggressive Scrutiny Of Conservative Groups - that was in 2017.

In 2013 - WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for subjecting Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election, but denied any political motive. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...gy-conservative-groups-2012-election/2149939/

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with dozens of conservative groups that claimed the Internal Revenue Service unfairly scrutinized them based on their political leanings when they sought a tax-exempt status, court documents showed. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...vative-groups-over-irs-scrutiny-idUSKBN1CV1TY

Obama says some IRS employees ‘failed,’ orders accountability​

Lax oversight at the Internal Revenue Service allowed for the singling out of some conservative groups, resulting in lengthy delays in the processing of their applications for federal tax-exempt status, according to a report by the agency’s inspector general released Tuesday. https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/politics/irs-conservative-targeting/index.html

And, that's just what CNN, NPR and Reuters were willing to report....

"Willing to report"? LOL! All of that "reporting" was before the more comprehensive study released in 2017.
The only "conspiracy" is the chorus of lying G.O.P. Senators still using the debunked excuse to demonize the IRS into the current
budget year....

Uhh... that was Trump appointees stealing from taxpayers to perpetuate a narrative Senators Toomey, Capito, et al, are still using as an
excuse to protect the wealthiest G.O.P. donors from an IRS funded for 2022, not for 2013.

New Senate Committee chair took over after the consequences to the corrupt predecessors resulting from the results of the Georgia
run-off elections that put "out on the street", former Senator David Perdue and the political donor who had bought a senate seat from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Whitehouse, Warren Urge Yellen to Review IRS Enforcement of Dark Money Groups | U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

www.whitehouse.senate.gov

Feb 3, 2021 — Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate ...

Supporting links from the image above, (on .pdf page 4 of 6),

https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2021.02.03%20Letter%20to%20Sec.%20Yellen%20re.%20IRS%20investigation%20of%20dark%20money%20%20non-profits.pdf

https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2017reports/201710054fr.pdf

How the IRS Gave Up Fighting Political Dark Money Groups

Six years after it was excoriated for allegedly targeting conservative organizations, the agency has largely given up on regulating an entire category of nonprofits. The result: More dark money gushes into the political system.

www.propublica.org

How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call it Public Welfare

Some tax-exempt groups underreported their political activities in 2010 to the IRS, ProPublica finds, using tactics that are being used to pour dark money into campaigns on an even larger scale this year.

www.propublica.org

 

[MrNiceGuy]

​

Republicans stand against president's IRS bank plan - WAVY ...​

https://www.wavy.com ›
Oct 19, 2021 — Toomey says the IRS has a track record of discriminating against conservative organizations and doesn't believe the collected information .

Any self-respecting Liberal should oppose the wholesale reporting of private banking information to the federal government's tax law enforcement agency, or any other police power agency. that's like the State Police being able to access your bank account information anytime they want, without a warrant, and without probable cause.

In the United States the Fourth Amendment secures every individual from unreasonable searches and seizures, and warrants without probable cause. It has always been the case that law enforcement cannot just look in your files, or examine your "person, houses, papers and effects" including your banking and finance records, medical records, purchase and sale records, communications/phone records, and the like, without a warrant based on probable cause, except if there are certain limited exceptions, like exigent circumstances, and that kind of thing.

For so called liberals to be suggesting that it is "right wing extremism" to oppose a modicum of privacy in our banking records, our purchase histories and our money management records, is really rather disconcerting.

Yes, Republicans are standing against the President's bank plan - or, at least they are SAYING they are standing against it - because they read the political winds as being against it - that most people don't want all their banking information transferred to the IRS if they spend more than $600 or $1000 or whatever figure they want to tag on it. The reason for not wanting that is obvious - we aren't slaves to the government and unless the cops (in this case the IRS) have probable cause to believe that the individual in question has committed a crime, then we don't want the cops poking around fishing for violations.

Also, we all know damn well that the tax code is already overly complicated and created to make almost anyone arguably a criminal. And, the defense of tax inquiries is so risky and so expensive that most people just have to cave under the weight of the IRS.

The IRS, the tax code, and the tax regs are an abomination.

 

[MrNiceGuy]

Uhh... that was Trump appointees stealing from taxpayers to perpetuate a narrative Senators Toomey, Capito, et al, are still using as an
excuse to protect the wealthiest G.O.P. donors from an IRS funded for 2022, not for 2013.

Trump appointees in 2013? LOL. Think about that for a second. - the post I responded to cited an article from October 6, 2017. It said "AFTER FOUR YEARS. the IRS..." exonerated itself for the alleged targeting of conservative groups (four years before). However, NPR reported on October 27, 2017, that the IRS Settled a suit and apologized for doing exactly that. And, another article I cited had Obama himself apologizing and acknowledging that the IRS did.

So, please, it wasn't "Trump appointees" at the times in question, and clearly being opposed to the government targeting people based on political persuasion ought not be considered "right wing extremism." LOL

 

[Lovebug]

Anyone to the right of Biden, Pelosi or AOC.

and anyone who doesn't look for victims under every grain of sand.

 

[Lovebug]

I'm not so sure about that. I am old enough to remember when it was a common theme among Democrats that the Republicans controlled the ballot boxes and that George W. Bush was elected because of Diebold voting machines. It's an odd view, and sometimes conspiracy theory-ish, but frankly there are portions of both left and right wing people that like to believe conspiracy theories.

I have a friend who is incredibly smart, degreed, engineer and computer programmer - but he is convinced that the election was stolen.

I think the idea that "voter fraud is a myth" is just as weird as claiming an election was stolen. I mean, the stakes are very high in elections, and we're talking about a lot of power being at stake, I think it would be naive to think that parties are incapable or fraud, or that they are so honorable that fraud would be just an irrelevant rarity.

From a show I watched (paraphrased)
Voters don't have a chance because politicians are such skillful liars.

 

[MrNiceGuy]

Opinion | In Praise of Smoke and Mirrors​

If we need creative accounting to invest for the future, go for it.
www.nytimes.com
OPINION
PAUL KRUGMAN
Aug. 5, 2021
"...On the surface, Republican demands should have made agreement impossible. G.O.P. senators were adamantly opposed to tax increases. They also blocked proposals to give the I.R.S. resources to crack down on widespread tax evasion — a stance that even cynics like yours truly found a bit shocking. What kind of party more or less openly aligns itself with wealthy tax cheats? ..."

The kind of party that would target anything and anybody in its constant effort to divert attention away from discussion
of issues that most concern the party's wealthiest political donors...

LOL - the same Paul Krugman that misses the "misrepresentations" of the Bush Administration, but doesn't like the "lies" of the "Trumpkins?"

So, the government should "give a false or misleading account," and that's to be admired. But, we ought not "lie?" That's a new one.

The Enron Krugman? https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...an-if-the-system-is-corrupt-arent-you/377580/

Krugman’s Posthumous Nobel | National Review

Prior to 2008 the Nobel Prize had never been awarded posthumously. So great minds such as John Maynard Keynes and Fischer Black never received the coveted award. But all that has changed. This year…

www.nationalreview.com

In 1999 Paul Krugman was paid $50,000 by Enron as a consultant on its “advisory board,” and that same year he wrote a glowing article about Enron for Fortune magazine. But he would change his tune. After Enron collapsed in 2001, Krugman wrote several columns excoriating the company. (One featured what may be the most absurd howler in the history of op-ed journalism: “I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.”) In most of these columns Krugman worked hard to link Enron to the Bush administration, and in one he actually blamed Enron’s consultants for the company’s collapse — while neglecting to mention that he, too, had been an Enron consultant.

Daniel Okrent, while ombudsman for the New York Times, wrote that “Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers.” Indeed. But Krugman’s distortions were so rampant, and his unwillingness to correct them so intransigent, that Okrent — no doubt pressured into service by my Krugman Truth Squad column for NRO — did something about it. Okrent forced the Times op-ed page to adopt for the first time a corrections policy for op-ed columnists. That was in 2004. Later, when Krugman flouted that policy, the Krugman Truth Squad went to work on Okrent’s successor, Byron Calame, who pressed for the adoption of a new, more stringent policy in 2005.

 

[post]

LOL - the same Paul Krugman that misses the "misrepresentations" of the Bush Administration, but doesn't like the "lies" of the "Trumpkins?"

So, the government should "give a false or misleading account," and that's to be admired. But, we ought not "lie?" That's a new one.

The Enron Krugman? https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...an-if-the-system-is-corrupt-arent-you/377580/

Krugman’s Posthumous Nobel | National Review

Prior to 2008 the Nobel Prize had never been awarded posthumously. So great minds such as John Maynard Keynes and Fischer Black never received the coveted award. But all that has changed. This year…

www.nationalreview.com

I observe so many making the mistake of seeking confirmation of their bias, That is the only motivation I can think of
to take national review or WSJ editorial page opinions with more than a grain of salt. I'd never link to either except
to point out what I find inaccurate, providing cover for "conservative: political donors or spinning conspiracy theories.

You're a "moderate" posting a supporting link from nationalreview.com ?

Kudlow is a Trump sponsored clown who impressed Trump from the other side of the TV screen.

Donald Luskin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"....
Luskin was a frequent guest on Larry Kudlow's CNBC television show, Kudlow & Company.

Conflicts with Paul Krugman​

Luskin has been controversial as a public intellectual. Much of his blog and many of his NRO columns were devoted to arguments that economic facts, figures, and trends are distorted by politicians, pundits and the media. He has a particular animosity towards The New York Times, especially columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, whose economic pronouncements he has endeavored to debunk. Luskin is de facto leader of what he calls the "Krugman Truth Squad," an ad hoc group of bloggers who are dedicated to detailing and rebutting what they consider Krugman's lies and distortions.

According to Daniel Okrent, former Public Editor of the Times, "Luskin serves as Javert to Krugman's Jean Valjean. From a perch on National Review Online, he regularly assaults Krugman's logic, his politics, his economic theories, his character and his accuracy." Luskin claims that his work has resulted in corrections from Krugman and "the imposition of a new and more rigorous corrections policy for the entire Times editorial page."

Krugman has occasionally responded directly to Luskin's criticisms. In one instance Luskin accused Krugman of making an arithmetical error in his appraisal of the costs and effects of the 2003 tax cuts. Krugman responded with a series of postings on his website. In one such posting, apparently referring to the persistence of Luskin's criticisms, Krugman humorously referred to Luskin as his "stalker-in-chief". Later, after Luskin appeared at a Krugman book signing, Krugman said of Luskin on the Fox News television program Hannity and Colmes, "That's a guy, that's a guy who actually stalks me on the web, and once stalked me personally". The animosity between Luskin and Krugman became so intense it became the subject of a story in The New Yorker with extensive remarks from both men. Krugman's characterization of Luskin as a stalker was repeated by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) prompting a threat of legal action from lawyers representing Luskin. .."