When Roger West first launched the progressive political blog "News From The Other Side" in May 2010, he could hardly have predicted the impact that his venture would have on the media and political debate. As the New Media emerged as a counterbalance to established media sources, Roger wrote his copious blogs about national politics, the tea party movement, mid-term elections, and the failings of the radical right to the vanguard of the New Media movement. Roger West's efforts as a leading blogger have tremendous reach. NFTOS has led the effort to bring accountability to mainstream media sources such as FOX NEWS, Breitbart's "Big Journalism.
Roger's breadth of experience, engaging style, and cultivation of loyal readership - over 92 million visitors - give him unique insight into the past, present, and future of the New Media and political rhetoric that exists in our society today.
What we are against:
Radical Right Wing Agendas
Incompetent Establishment
Donald J. Trump
Corporate Malfeasence
We are for:
Global and Econmoic Security
Social and Economic Justice
Media Accountability
THE RESISTANCE
Returning after a one month hiatus, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver took a deep dive into the scandals – big and small – surrounding presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Needless to say, Trump came out “quantifiably worse” according to the HBO host.
However, Oliver explained, Clinton deserved equal scrutiny in the interest of fairness.
“I do know that even talking about her scandals will irritate some of you, given that her opponent is an unambiguously racist scarecrow stuffed with scrunched-up copies of Jugs magazine, and that’s fair,” Oliver stated. “But not being as bad as Donald Trump is a low bar to clear, and if you focus on nothing but him, you fail to vet a woman who might be president.”
“We’ve spent several frustrating weeks trolling through all the innuendo and exaggerations surrounding Hillary’s email and foundation scandals, and the worst thing we can say is that they both look bad. But the harder you look, the less you actually find,” he maintained. “There’s not nothing there, but what is there is irritating rather than grossly nefarious.”
VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO
With that, Oliver covered Trump’s use of his charity as a private piggy bank: paying his legal bills, making a political donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as her office investigated Trump’s “bullshit” university, and buying personal items like paintings and sports souvenirs.
According to Oliver, the biggest looming scandal is the one the voters know the least about: Trump’s finances.
“Bear in mind: we know nothing about Trump’s finances, and that is not good. He’s the first major party nominee since 1980 not to release his tax returns, and his justification is pathetic,” said Oliver, showing a clip of Trump saying he couldn’t release his returns because he’s being audited — which the IRS has disputed saying he’s free to release them at any time."
This, the final week before leaving The Daily Show for the summer, Jon Stewart took another swipe at the IRS for the ongoing scandal over the targeting of tea party groups.
Stewart expressed mock sympathy for the IRS and indulged in a little schadenfraude, asking “Where’s your receipts, assholes?” Stewart wryly remarked, “Sucks to get audited, doesn't it?” and proceeded to mock-audit the IRS for its own ridiculous expenses.
Stewart brought up how former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman was at the White House over 150 times, remarking that meeting with the president to scheme against his political opponents “should really only take about one meeting, two tops!” However, Stewart did liken President Obama to a mobster who only summoned Shulman to ask, “Did you take care of that thing?”
Stewart continued to turn the tables on the IRS with some devastating commentary on their actions:
“You may have perfectly reasonable explanations for every action that you took, but that doesn't mean we don’t need you to go back home and dig through another couple of shoeboxes until we get just that one document that we really need to see before we can be okay with your reasons. Why? Fuck you, that’s why.”
Stewart slammed the agency for a dance video that cost $1600 (“How the fuck did that cost $1600? Did the guy recording it drop his iPhone three times?”) and the $50 million that was spent on a little over two hundred employee conferences. Stewart told the IRS, “I don’t care… if you kept the receipts,” and gleefully suggested they use Tax Masters to sort out their troubles.
Does anyone really like the IRS/? Probably not. My problem with the holier than thou American Taliban ers screaming "we are being picked on", where was the outraged when under the George W. Bush regime, when they targeted the NAACP, not nary a tea bagger invoked, "corrupt government", or "impeach the President". HMMMM!
At the end of the day, tea baggers seeking 501 (c) (3) status was wrong - as their organizations do not fit "social welfare" status!
As you see below, the American Taliban and has a hard time selling the tax free status - and the IRS had a problem with the influx of tea baggers seeking this status - that they where/are not entitle to, while the IRS may have gone about the process wrong, the tea bagger is in err for seeking claim to something they should never be entitled too.
Exemption requirements: 501(c)(3) organizations To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductiblecontributions in accordance with Code section 170.
The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.
So, which is the true scandal, extreme radical political lobbyist seeking tax exempt status, or the IRS hand picking them for further investigation?
Since the election of President Obama, the American Taliban has been OCD [Obsessive-compulsive disorder] with scandals and conspiracies. The list of darts to throw at the President on any given day is a plethora if you are a GOPer.
If you spend every hour of your working life inventing new ways to attack Barack Obama or the government [or both], this is a very good week for you — or at least it should be. After wallowing through the deserts of Benghazi and Fast and Furious for four years, trying to extract any tiny drop of scandal from stone, now suddenly comes gold from the heavens, courtesy of the IRS and its misguided attempt to prevent political groups from taking advantage of the non-profit tax code. Then, even before your salad is done, the Department of Justice snoops on reporters. Hallelujah to the Republican God Ronald Reagan! The Promised Land of Impeachment can’t be far off.
Three scandals in a period of seven days, the mother load has cometh for the American Taliban.
Unfortunately, as with most of these stories, same ole shit just a different political party. Before we start urinating our pants and dancing in the streets with "we got him this time", let's autopsy what we know.
As we have written over the past few weeks, Benghazi is the story that never was. Yes 4 Americans died, and that is a tragedy, but making up shit so that you have something against the President doesn't work, because as always, facts out trump bullshit any day of the week. 74% of the American Taliban think that Benghazi is worse than Watergate and Iran - Contra. The kicker to this stat is - that 39% of the 74% cannot tell you where Benghazi is. Really? If your going to call bullshit, shouldn't you at least know where bullshit is?
In breaking news: the Benghazi "Scandal" - Jack Tapper of CNN exposed ABC - as an email found by Tapper shows that ABC edited their content to make the President look bad. Here is the Tapper release as it was sent out last night.
This latest bit of information shows just how low the American Taliban will go to discredit the President, and this disgusting signal, is as disturbing as the party itself. Of late, the American Taliban's motto is, if we can't hit the goal, move the goal post so that we can hit the target. A disgusting pattern of shoot first and ask queries later.
Epic Failure by the American Taliban!
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Let's be clear readers, jeopardizing National Security is a dangerous game to play, [First amendment to the constitution or not]. On MSNBC last night Rachael Maddow explains the complexities of "freedom of the press"
Nope, I'm not going to defend the IRS, which appears to have acted in ways wholly inconsistent with their mandate for unbiased investigations into, in this case, whether certain political groups should receive tax-exempt status. It is unclear how high up the chain of command these untoward actions went, but this morning'snews suggests it wasn't just a few rogue auditors in Cincinnati.
The problem wasn't that the agency scrutinized these so-called "social welfare" organizations -- as I'll emphasize in a moment, tax law in this area is an accident going out to happen. It's that they violated neutrality, investigating conservative groups by searching on "tea party" and "patriot."
Republicans will of course try to pin this on the president, despite the fact that since Nixon used the IRS to target his enemies, the president's been barred from even discussing this kind of thing with the agency.
No, the problem here isn't the president. It's the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and subsequent tax law written by Congress that gives these groups tax exempt status (under rule 501(c)(4)) as long as most of their activities are primarily on educating the public about policy issues, not direct campaigning.
Of course, the ambiguities therein are insurmountable. Many of these groups, especially the big ones, spend millions on campaign ads mildly disguised as "issue ads," and under current law they can do so limitlessly and with impunity.
The tax code states that 501(c)(4)'s must operate "exclusively" to promote social welfare, a category that excludes political spending. Some court decisions have interpreted that language to mean that a minimal amount of political spending would be permissible. But the I.R.S. has for years maintained that groups meet that rule as long as they are not "primarily engaged" in election work, a substantially different threshold.
Nowhere do the rules specify what "primarily engaged" means...
Again, I see no way that a government agency could fairly interpret and enforce these instructions. What is "primarily engaged"-at which point does an issue ad cross the threshold into campaign ad -- what kind of "education" is GPS Crossroads providing and how is it promoting "social welfare?"
Weirdly, the IRS hasn't seemed particularly interested in going after the big fish here, like Rove's Crossroads GPS on the right or Priorities USA on the left. Instead, they appear to have systematically targeted small fry on the far right. If so, not only is that clearly biased and unacceptable -- it's also ridiculous given the magnitude of the violations of tax exempt status by these small groups relative to the big ones.
At the end of the day, we should really ask ourselves what societal purpose is being served here by carving out special tax status for any of these groups. If anyone can show me any evidence that the revenue forgone is well spent, that these groups are making our political system and our country better off, please do so. If not, then no one's saying shut them down -- they've got a right to speak their minds. But not tax free.
Fact: Mitch McConnell used to be suspicious of the same 501(c)(4) groups that the IRS targeted.
Dear Tea Baggers, It sucks when you're unfairly treated because of prejudices about your name and appearance - see how things tend to come full circle?
All three of the scenarios above also happened on G.W. Bush's watch. The problem with the comparisons are, that under Bush, not a republican raised an eyebrow to complain, to impeach, nor did they attempt to drag any senior government official through the mud.
If I had advice to give to the tea baggers, I would say - number one rule in maintaining your narrative in a political stance, Stop accepting new information when the tide of facts turns contrary to your agenda.
At the very least the American Taliban suffers from Bushnesia, at its worst, they are the diabolical party that we see on Cable news on a nightly bases, lying, deceiving, hypocrisy of the highest order. The key to all these "scandals and conspiracies" is to dissect facts from bullshit, let the whole story play itself out before jumping the C&S freight train!
The IRS has always been a deviant entity, whether under Democratic rule or the American Taliban - freedom of press, its been a source of problematic issues since our countries inception, hence why the founders addressed it in the first amendment.
At the end of the day the American Taliban has what they want, "lame street medias" attention, Obama is engaged and taking action. The time for the narrative of "media bias" is no more, at least for the IRS and AP stories.
A saying here at the NFTOS horseshoe is "what these scandals need are a good conspiracy theory".
