IRS targeted conservative groups

It is actually okay for you to mention it. It is not okay, as you have been doing, to accept such testimony as fact and to be rubbing your hands like it is vital, smoking gun stuff.

First off, your sources for what we are talking about has been a phantom, a Wall Street Journal article that could not be accessed without a subscription, which made it hard to know exactly what it said from secondary sources.

Secondy, the actual testimny has shown in many instances Washington invovement more ambiguous than advertised and often of the I believe so variety rather than any direct knowledge.

You are the one who has been making accusations and innuendoes that if I was doing it with the same scanty information against President elect Romney you would be screaming bloody murder. That is not intellectual shame, to only be idignant when the other party is in power? So shame on you being wrong, shame on you making false accusations, and shame on being ignorant of the topic, because every word of it applies to you as much as would me.

I think so. If he wasn't using this scandal just as a punching bag against a President he doesn't like for partisan reasons and proves his insincerity by his shifting excuses when the other side engages in similar behavior, then I let him have his say. I don't think it is honest or fair to have double standards depending on which party is in power.

Looks to me like you're the attack dog here, will.

This is sheer invention. When I posted the link I described it as "IRS agents have already told Congress." All this stuff about "treating it as fact" or "smoking gun stuff" is a total straw man.

You preface your comments with things like "this is messed up" which goes way beyond simple reporting. A fair commentary, which you don't do, would be something like, "if this it true, it would mean..." But you don't do that. it is always worded in a way that makes it clear you are taking the revelations as gospel.


...which doesn't remotely explain why you thought your source contradicted it. Everything I'd reproduced from it and said about it was in your source, too. So please, explain to me how the WSJ pay wall caused you to misread a completely different article.

And I provided another source that showed the remarks contained ambiguity you glossed over. It might have even been in the original WSJ article or a later one. Hard to say because I couldn't access the original article and had to rely on secondary sources.


So? This doesn't contradict anything I said. Hofacre claims direct knowledge, and Mufert does too, in the sense of having heard it directly from his superior (and not merely inferred it circumstantially). So your claim that the source didn't say what I said it did was and is wrong.

Mufert does not say that if you look at the last link I provided. He backtracked from that in further questioning. Nor does Hofacre exactly. In her case at this point I am very suspicous because she sounds like someone who may be trying to pass the buck. It appears if she didn't have a superior giving her direct orders she may be the one feeling the most heat. She says she expressed her concerns to superiors with a possible e mail trail, but the investigators don't have that yet apparently. Why don't you just wait until Hull's testimony is released to see what he says? But you don't wait. Your attitude is apparent when you started it with the absurd how many times an IRS official visited the White House, implying some grand conspiracy based on that.


Except I wasn't wrong, I didn't make false accusations, and I'm not ignorant of the topic. But other than that, yeah, ya' totally got me.
You have been wrong. You have made false accusations. Your first post is a case of that. Your accepting as fact things still in dispute is another. Your only focus on testimony that conforms to your assumption the targeting was directed in Washington for political purposes while ignoring testimony that contradicts that is another. You keep insisting the targeting began before the influx of applications in Cincinatti, which contracicts repeated testimony at the hearings that says otherwise. And your discussion is not about IRS targeting conservative groups, it is arguing it was done for political purposes, to stifle the oppositon during an election, and was directed by Washington at the top with officals that had access to the President in the loop. That has been your topic, not a simple fact finding mission to discover why IRS officials targeted the Tea Party.

Are you capable of responding to this stuff without changing the subject? Doesn't seem like it. It seems like every time you get called on this stuff you try to draw some hacky equivalence to take the focus off of your own mistakes. As if you think your behavior and mistakes are somehow excused if you can try to accuse someone else. But they aren't.

You preface your comments with things like "this is messed up" which goes way beyond simple reporting. A fair commentary, which you don't do, would be something like, "if this it true, it would mean..." But you don't do that. it is always worded in a way that makes it clear you are taking the revelations as gospel.

And I provided another source that showed the remarks contained ambiguity you glossed over. It might have even been in the original WSJ article or a later one. Hard to say because I couldn't access the original article and had to rely on secondary sources.

Mufert does not say that if you look at the last link I provided. He backtracked from that in further questioning. Nor does Hofacre exactly. In her case at this point I am very suspicous because she sounds like someone who may be trying to pass the buck. It appears if she didn't have a superior giving her direct orders she may be the one feeling the most heat. She says she expressed her concerns to superiors with a possible e mail trail, but the investigators don't have that yet apparently. Why don't you just wait until Hull's testimony is released to see what he says? But you don't wait. Your attitude is apparent when you started it with the absurd how many times an IRS official visited the White House, implying some grand conspiracy based on that.

You have been wrong. You have made false accusations. Your first post is a case of that. Your accepting as fact things still in dispute is another. Your only focus on testimony that conforms to your assumption the targeting was directed in Washington for political purposes while ignoring testimony that contradicts that is another. You keep insisting the targeting began before the influx of applications in Cincinatti, which contracicts repeated testimony at the hearings that says otherwise.

I am not changing the subject. Your motives are very relevant.

I know you don't like to address it because you have no defense for it except to admit you only care because it is the IRS in a Democrat administration targeting GOP alligned groups. You don't care about any principles. You are just angry the target was a political group you like. If Romney's IRS used the same tactics agains unions we wouldn't hear a word from you about it except to defend them if someone slse brought it up. When it comes to this sort of thing, it is all politics with you. It is all just partisan war.

So, let's recap: I referenced sources. You said they didn't really say what I claimed. Turns out they did.

Yes, let's recap. You provided two links which were worthless because they were invisible, they could not be accessed unless you were a subcriber to the WSJ and you refused to provide either an actual link that could be accessed or paste the actual article which might have worked. So it is my fault I wasn't sure what was in it? But as it turns out you still were not accurate because apparently the actual article or a later one had information that contradicts what you reported.
You said the WSJ was making things up. It wasn't.

I said it might not be reporting accurately as I had to rely on secondary sources which came from a right wing source that had only excerpts with editorial commentary in black. I never said they were absolutely making it up, but responded to your assertion it was a reliable news source by correctly pointing out it had recently been taken over by Rupert Murdoch who had a reputation in Grerat BRITAIN for BUYING A PAPER KNOWN FOR ACCURATE REPORTING AND TURNING IT INTO A PROPAGANDA PIECE. I DIDN'T HAVE THAT BRITAIN CONNECTION IN MY PREVIOUS COMMENTS. I AM ADDING IT NOW TO SHOW IT IS HARDLY PARANOIA TO QUESTiON WSJ REPORTING WHEN MURDOCJH IS NOW THE OWNER.

You suggested the targeting may have just been to deal with the influx. The targeting started beforehand.

Actually, it didn't. Even your own sources say the Cincinatti branch requested help from the IRS Washington lawyer because of the influx of applications. This is indisputable. Why do you keep repeating a lie?

You suggested the groups were merely labeled suspicious, and this is in and of itself wasn't inherently wrong. But the thing that got them labeled suspicious was the targeting.

You are confused about the timeline. The targeting that was wrong is searching for applications with key words. That wasn't done from the start.

And when confronted with that last one, your response was (direct quote): "So I didn't know it before, so what?"

That's a lie. I didn't say it in response to that. It was a general reply to the discussion at the start of the thread.

This is a jaw-dropping list of mistakes and false accusations. I don't know why you think you have any credibility left here.

Operative, take us out:

Your article is confusing investigating tea party groups and targeting them.

My credibility at this point is certainly no worse than yours.

There's a lot of daylight between merely "reporting" and "taking it as gospel." I'm certainly suspicious, and I have plenty of reason to be, but I'm prudent enough not to pretend my suspicions are facts. If I wanted to suggest something was fact, I would. You don't get to argue with the things I deliberately choose not to claim, no matter how hard up you are for substantive objections.

You provide commentary that geso beyond mere reporting and for all extent and puroses presume the testiminy is inherently f damning which makes it in your view essentially gospel.

This is way too vague to possibly answer specifically, but it doesn't really matter, because the bottom line is this: the source says what I said it did. You issued a standard kneejerk denial/accusation/whatever, and it was incorrect. This wouldn't be a big deal, except it happens all the damn time, and you don't seem to get any more careful when it does.

Well, does it? Because either the same WSJ article or another one contradicts what you chose to highlight.


What testimony is that? You've provided nothing to this effect. You tried to, when you referenced Hofacre's quote about needing help, but as you may recall that didn't make any sense because she was reacting to the targeting, which by definition means it can't have been a response. Is that the "repeated testimony" you're referring to?

Was she reacting to the targeting or was she reacting to being accused of targeting tea party applications on her own? She sounds very defensive, and maybe be she is correct to assert that she had no control, but it also sounds like the old i was only following orders defense. It is not my fault it is the person over me who was in charge.


This is just sloppy thinking. The second sentence doesn't explain the first, even if you take it to be true. Many people other than myself have already tried to explain to you why your reasoning in this regard is logically fallacious, though you remain weirdly impervious to the concept. But in this instance, even if you're right about it being relevant, you're still inarguably changing the subject. You're offering absolutely no defense for your errors or your ignorance: you're simply leveling a counter accusation to avoid admitting it.

This is very funny. The many people you cite is at best two. And of course it is relevant if you only care about this as political fodder instead of as an important principal. Because it makes your outrage hollow and unconvincing abd really quite dishonest. I notice you never deny that is indeed what you are doing, which is why the irrelevant argument is so important to you.

Defense for what? The thing you claim I would do in an alternate universe? What would a defense of that look like, exactly? It would only be a flat contradiction--as useless as the accusation itself.

There is no need for an alternative universe. There have already been many, many examples of you getting upset over what Obama or Dems did, then when it is pointed out similar trangrssions happened under Bush, you try to make some kind of technical distinction that only exists in your own mind.

I am definitely especially mad that things I believe are the target of the attack, but you're dead wrong if you think I'd be fine with this if it were happening the other way. It's wrong in any direction. It'd be wrong if it happened to Communist groups, too. You want to believe otherwise? Knock yourself out. I don't give a damn. But stop pretending that shrieking these repetitive accusations over and over again is an argument. It isn't.