“I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks,” republican chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Darrell Issa announced.
Those were Issa's words and his goal. That was the plan and still is it seems, but why and since when? It can't all be attributed to a suspicious nature perhaps due to his personal experience with theft or that his extremely well and personally financed bid for higher office failed to buy his a seat in the Senate, now having to settle for subpoena power as the House oversight committee chair. It's been happening since republicans like Mitch McConnell's stated priority to "make him [President Obama] a one term President" or before that, Jim "waterloo" Demint stated that their goal is to "break him".
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The Fox/GOP/Issa I.R.S. scandal:
“This was the targeting of the president’s political enemies effectively and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn’t discovered until afterwards,” - Issa
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Setting aside that the problem began in 1959 and Darrel Issa's proclivity for scandal or that it's also a common bond within the bulk of the republican party today, and that as Jed Lewison reported, has wasted $14 million tax payer dollars - so far.., there is a very persuasive argument being made explaining why Issa won't let this particular scandal die.
It's a huge distraction that has stalled actual oversight investigations into dark money flowing into our democratic election process
255 employees have spent 97,542 hours responding to congressional investigations..
It doesn't stop with the
Citizens United v. FEC
decision.
Karl Rove; the Koch bros. et al.; corporations/republicans, to obtain dominion over US politics as well as the economy, are in the process of buying a government they've determined that a majority of Americans don't want and won't vote for
In Senator Elizabeth Warren's words:
"The republicans can't cope with the realities of a democracy"
Link:
IRS scandal distracts from the ‘big fish’
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Dark money in Wisconsin: What it did for Scott Walker
Meanwhile, the I.R.S. Exempt Organization Division has been paralyzed.
Thomas B. Edsall writing at NYT's wrote this piece back in February:
Why the I.R.S. Scandal Won’t Go Away (if you hit a pay- wall here is another route)
What Thomas B. Edsall has uncovered is a timeline that points to a purpose in all this mess. It could protect the 'dark money' donors from further investigation until it is too late to do much about it. The electoral damage will have been done.
In the continuing battle over Republican allegations that the Obama administration pressured the Internal Revenue Service to obstruct Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status, three well-known political figures are among those likely to benefit: Karl Rove and David and Charles Koch.
- emphasis added
So instead of a scandal as Darrell Issa claims:
“How dare the administration imply that they’re going to get to the bottom of it,” said Issa in an interview on CBS’s “This Morning.”
“This was the targeting of the president’s political enemies effectively and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn’t discovered until afterwards,” he added.
..actually the
IG's report concluded that political bias did
not play a role. It is Issa himself that was
cherry picking information to be released to the press, then
lied about having even made his own accusations once debunked.
Issa has failed for months upon months now, but the "investigations" into non-scandals continue.
Thomas Edsall's work on this is quite informative. He puts it together. The statute of limitation; end dates; the paralysis of the IRS Exemption Organisation Division:
With work at the Exempt Organization Division at a standstill, Owens pointed out that “the clear impact of the investigations has been to throw a proverbial wooden shoe into the machinery, causing it to grind to a halt.”
Marcus Owens [former director of the Exempt Organization Division | 1990 to 2000] told me that attempts to determine the degree to which some 501(c)(4) groups “played fast and loose with the tax law will soon be lost to history.”
[...]
The potential success of the continuing congressional investigations in bringing the work of the Exempt Organization Division to a halt provides some explanation for the persistence of House Republicans in pressing the scandal despite repeated setbacks.
Issa has come up with zero. Maybe that is not the point.
Rep. Darrell Issa's latest oversight hearing into the Internal Revenue Service's botched enforcement against tea party and other "social welfare" groups has revealed a dirty little secret: Many of those groups actually want to preserve the option to run as "dark money" political operations.
- HuffPo | March 27, 2014
But since the Thomas Edsall story is over a month old and probably been covered here
- and I can't keep up with you guys & gals :) @ Daily Kos, this latest from HuffPo confirms Mr Edsalls previous investigation and there is one other thing that I found interesting and wanted to add to it
The group is called The Progressive influence has also done some well organized sleuthing and linked to an excellent chart (as did Thomas Edsall) well worth a look at to see the scope of these tentacles of dark money.
The chart was put out by The Center for Responsible Politics Here is the link to the chart: “the Koch brothers’ labyrinthine network of political groups.” FEB. 26, 2014 - a metastasis of corruption that is worsening
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Or this: Billionaire Tom Perkins words:
"The Tom Perkins system is, you don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes. But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. If you pay a million dollars in taxes you should get a million votes. How's that.."
Some may claim that Mr. Perkins is merely joking. I won't. Not after watching red state after red state enacting
RWNJ "conservative" movement think tank written legislation that is designed to disenfranchise voters unwilling to support a party of greedy
polluting corporate
thieves.
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This 'dark money' is a menace to democracy, our environment, and our civil rights. I'm hoping people of whatever political persuasion get to know this; that all our voices are being lessened by this - imo
So just wanted to (re?)post this mess of money and the connections to highlight what we're up against and maybe people who aren't aware of how fragile actual democracy is becoming, will stumble across this and have seconds thoughts about voting for a party that would marginalize the voice they have that doesn't require being a billionaire - voting
That's the way it seems to this blue collar workman anyway
Thanks for stopping in :)
P.S. also too once again Kudos to Elijah Cummings and some good things happening in California reported @ Digby's Hullabaloo
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A late update: to demonstrate how important dark money is in republicans election strategy. More republican hostage taking.
Ukraine IMF deal held hostage unless the investigation into 'dark money' 501(c) is shut down according to HuffPo Wa. Bureau chief Ryan Grim discussion with Rachel Maddow.
Here is a shortened clip:
(short ad - sorry)
Link to full segment with transcript: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/...