Tag Archives: Tea Party

“But They Are Terrorists…”

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Pino| 16 Comments

I think that Coyote sums it up nicely:

There won’t be any direct order found telling the IRS to go hassle Conservative groups.  That’s not the way it works.  Obama’s style is to “other” groups he does not like, to impugn their motives, and to cast them as pariahs beyond the bounds of civil society.  Such and such group, he will say, opposes me not because they have reasonable differences of opinion but because they have nefarious motives.  Once a group is labelled and accepted (at least by your political followers) as such, you don’t have to order people to harass them. They just do it, because they see it as the right thing to do to harass evil people.  When Joe Nocera writes this in support of Obama in no less a platform as the NY Times, orders are superfluous

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took…

He concludes by saying

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

There are probably some deeply confused people in the IRS right now — after all they were denying tax exempt status to terrorists, to enemies of America.  They should be treated like heroes, and now they are getting all this criticism.  So unfair.

Jay Carney mentioned the other day that the White House and Barack Obama is responsible for setting “tone.”

I think that Obama has been clear that the Tea Party is the bad guy.  That’s the tone.

Posted in Barack Obama, Politics: National

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Legit Scandal

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Pino| 4 Comments

IRS

Recently ReflectionEphemeral posted on the IRS scandal:

On a scale of 1-10, the IRS scandal seems to me about a 3. It is improper to focus on one side’s fundraising groups. An overall examination of supposedly tax-exempt organizations would probably be worthwhile. But they didn’t audit or persecute people; they sent them additional questionnaires.

Recently, nickgb got me thinking that perhaps profiling groups isn’t that bad an idea.  In fact, it’s an idea that I have been a proponent of in the gun debate.  As such, RR may have a point.  Overtly political groups may need to be audited.  However, it might be nice if such political groups were audited in equal measure based on their ideology; right and left groups.

However, in RR’s post, he pointed out the fact that there maybe a bigger scandal:

If someone at the IRS actually took confidential information and sent it out, that’s unequivocally a crime.

Well, as it turns out:

ProPublica on Monday reported that the same IRS division that targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle provided the investigative-reporting organization with confidential applications for tax-exempt status.

That revelation contradicts previous statements from the agency and may represent a violation of federal guidelines. Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS sector that reviews tax-exemption applications, told a congressional oversight committee in April 2012 that IRS code prohibited the agency from providing information about groups that had not yet been approved.

As an interesting experiment I Googled “ProPublica IRS”:

Not one single major news source on the first page.  And when I include “CBSnews” in the search I do get a New York CBS affiliate and, at the bottom, a cbsnews.com story about how the scandals benefits conservatives.  And even that story is lifted from Slate.

Anyway, it would seem that we now have a legit scandal.  We’ll see if it goes anywhere.

Posted in Barack Obama, Liberty, Politics: National

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Obama’s Tyranny Speech

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Pino| 7 Comments

…hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some seperate sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works.  They’ll warn that tyranny is just around the corner.

You should reject these voices.

Obama is talking about conservatives in general.  Republicans in congress and Tea Party republicans in specific.

He is referring to people who feel that we must ever be careful that government is only one day away from becoming a tyrannical mechanism that will restrict liberty.  He is referring to people, specific people.

Think those voices need to be rejected now?

IRS

Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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IRS Targetted Tea Party Affiliated Groups

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Pino| Leave a comment

Right now the report is only mentioning Cincinnati.  I’m not sure what caused the IRS to review its data or how they determined the discrimination took place, but it sure would be fun to see if they are willing to audit other IRS offices:

(Reuters) – U.S. tax auditors inappropriately targeted applications from conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status, an Internal Revenue Service official acknowledged on Friday.

Lois Lerner, director of the IRS tax-exempt office, said the practice was “was absolutely incorrect and it was inappropriate.”

Lerner, speaking at an American Bar Association conference in Washington, said, “We would like to apologize for that.”

None of the groups that were given extra scrutiny have been rejected yet for tax-exempt status, she said.

Organizations that used the words “patriots” or “Tea Party” in their filings were flagged by the Internal Revenue Service for further review, something conservatives complained about during the 2012 election campaign.

I think it’s important to note that the IRS is reporting, as above, that no group given extra scrutiny has yet been rejected.

Posted in Lobby/PAC, Politics: National

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Creation, Evolution, Democrats and Post Graduates

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Pino| Leave a comment

So, I’m just reading around when I came across a Gallup poll on creationism, evolution and who believes in what.  I grew up Christian, went to church almost every Sunday for 18 years, Sunday School ’till I graduated high school, sang in the choir and take my kids to church today – though not every Sunday.

I don’t think I can remember ever thinking, when I was old enough to begin to think independently, that God created humans in human form.  I certainly NEVER believed that science was wrong.  I’ve always accepted that rocks were very old, that people once couldn’t read, write and do the things we can today.

In short, I’ve always felt that evolution was very clearly how we got to where we are today.

So, I’m stunned, freakin’ STUNNED, to learn that a plurality, 46% of American’s, believe that God created humans in current form just 10,000 years ago.

Unbelievable.

The first thing that came to my mind was that it was that group of people that the Left loves to hate; the Tea Party:

Certainly republicans are leading the charge, but not by the margins I would have thought.  I mean, 41% of democrats think that God created, what I have to believe, is Adam and Eve in literal form.

Only slightly less surprising is the numbers that support my view that God guided evolution to get us where we are today [I'm not sure that we're the finished form, by the way.  Which may explain my "meh" attitude on supposed crisis like overpopulation and global warming].  I would have thought that as education increased, the view that God guided evolution would decrease:

Nope.  In each case, high school, college and then postgraduate, the rate increased supporting God involved evolution.

I can’t explain it.

Anyway, no commentary, just cool.

Posted in Faith, Life

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The Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Pino| Leave a comment

Very appropriate considering the convention in Charlotte.

Posted in Politics: National, Politics: North Carolina

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Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Pino| 10 Comments

Ted Cruz

‘nough said.

Posted in Elections 2012

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Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Pino| 2 Comments

In one night alone the Occupy Wall Street movement had many people arrested:

(Reuters) – Tensions boiled over early on Tuesday in downtown Boston, where police arrested more than 100 protesters after the Occupy Boston group expanded its footprint and was told by authorities to move back.

The OWS folks have been at this for less than a month and already they have seen violence and lawlessness.

The Tea Party?

Zero arrests.

Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty

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Obama’s Speech: What He Should Say – August 8, 2011

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Pino| 3 Comments

The United States of America has lost it’s AAA credit rating for the first time in the history of time.  It lost it in part because of it’s long term debt and deficits and, to be fair, because of the political nonsense displayed by the Congress and the White House.

The markets are down, at one point down nearly 400 points.

Barack Obama is going to address the nation this afternoon at 1:00.

Here’s what he should say:

  1. America DOES have a spending problem.  While you can debate whether or not the S&P should have made the downgrade move, the point has been made; we need to address our fiscal irresponsibility and that begins with the President of the United States of America.  To be sure, there have been bad decisions made along the way.  But right now, right here, I am the CEO of the country; the quarterback.  And it’s my job to bring us back.
  2. I have a plan.  I am going to address the spending problems that have brought us to where we are.  I’ll identify the areas where spending has increased faster than we thought and what we want.  I’ll find ways to end programs that don’t work and streamline those that we can.  This is going to be painful.
  3. Taxes on a fragile economy are dangerous; something we don’t wanna investigate.  However, where possible the tax code should be rewritten to avoid needless loopholes and poor incentives.  It doesn’t serve anyone to implement a 35% corporate tax rate only to have the most powerful corporations hire IRS tax attorneys to avoid paying any tax whatsoever.

Here’s what he will say:

  1. The credit rating was downgraded last week by Standard and Poor’s.  This organization, who largely missed the worthiness of sub-prime securities during the housing boom and brought about the 2007 recession used numbers that were not accurate in arriving at the downgrade decision.
  2. The political infighting we saw from Congress in the last few weeks was brought about by a minority of the minority.  A few select Congressmen felt that America had to be held hostage in order to maintain ideological positions.
  3. This downgrade is not reflective of America’s ability to pay her debts; it’s a Tea Party downgrade.

Posted in Diplomacy, Economy, Government, Politics: National

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The Tea Party Was Right

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Pino| 3 Comments

The government’s credit rating was cut today.  For the first time in the history of the planet the United States of America is no longer a sure bet on it’s credit.  To be sure, AA+ isn’t nothin to sneeze at, but it’s not, ahem, Money.

The impact:

S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government’s budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the American government, companies and consumers.

And the why:

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement.

The deal reached by Congress and signed by the President doesn’t do anything about our fiscal woes.  Cries from the Left that we aren’t raising revenue ring hollow as the United States regularly see year over year revenue gains of over 7%; revenue is NOT the trouble.

Spending is the problem.

And the liberal Left will not listen and take action.  They continue down the path that somehow someone isn’t paying their fair share yet irresponsibly care to put pen to paper and define what that fair share really is.

What we are seeing now is the natural result of the kind of quasi socialism that exists in the world today.

The Tea Party is right.

Posted in Economy, Government, Politics: National

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