OBAMAGATE BOOMERANG ?

Obamagate Boomerang

There is tumultuous celebration in the Republican ranks. Finally, they believe they have got Obama where they want him. Finally, they don’t have to smear him personally as a Muslim loving Socialist born anywhere other than the USA. They have a trifecta of issues – Benghazigate, IRSgate and Freedom of the Pressgate. You do not have to be a mathematician to realize that is three gates. This is why this whole calamity is worse than Watergate, where Nixon’s whole inner circle including some cabinet members went to prison and Reagan’s Irangate where there were pardons and indictments left, right and center, (but mainly right), while poor old Oliver North was thrown under the bus. Now Watergate and Irangate are only two gates and that is one less than Obamagate so therefore Obamagate is worse.

WHAT NOW?

Jay H. Ell has long maintained that the Republican Party is leaderless and split in two. The tempo is being set by unelected megalomaniacs and institutions that lay out the agenda for the conflicting factions within the party. (Blogs: Obama's Second Term and the GOP, (11/11/12), The Republicans Ongoing Denial of Reality, (12/7/12), What Barbara Bush's "Enough Bushes" Means, (5/2/13).

The unelected megalomaniacs, like Karl Rove have been strangely silent on Obamagate but some media moguls such as Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer have urged caution. The Heritage Foundation, which is the leading Republican policy maker has told the Republican Congress to stick to the Obamagate issues. The Heritage Foundation believes this stategy will unite the Republican Party while discussing legislative issues will just expose the divisions within the GOP.

So let us examine the three components of Obamagate.

Benghazi part 3.

Jay H. Ell has covered this extensively in blogs, (Stopping Clinton in 2016 Starts at Benghazi, (1/7/13) and Carry on Benghazi: Stop Hillary 2016, Part 2, ( 5/16/13), so what has happened since? There are murmurings from those that were fired as a result of the Pickering report, that was commissioned by Hillary Clinton, but these are not of enough substance and gravitas to be publicized even by the Republican media.

Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, is ready for a second sequel. He wishes to interview Thomas Pickering the author of the report on the Benghazi incident that Hillary appointed and upon whose recommendations she immediately acted. Now Pickering and Issa are having a public fight. Darrell Issa who, by his actions, could be thought to be addicted to publicity, wants Pickering to testify privately in Committee. Pickering is having none of it and has thus far refused Issa’s invitations to do so. Pickering believes he should testify in the public arena. Issa is now going to subpoena him to do his bidding.

None of this would indicate that Benghazi has got any legs and if Issa forces a showdown with the Republican Pickering over the issue of a public hearing he is going to come off second best.

Freedom of the Press.

This “gate” arises out of the Department of Justice’s subpoenaing of the Associated Press’s records, emails and the like. The Department of Justice was after the culprits that had leaked sensitive information. Obama has maintained that Security leaks can put people at risk.

This seems a terrible issue for the Republicans. Freedom of the Press is really not the main plank in their platform. In fact they have lead the attacks on the Press. In 2012 John McCain wanted a special counsel appointed to investigate security leaks relating to Obama’s drone “kill list”. Also in 2012 Republican Congressman Gowdy mooted that reporters who refused to reveal “leakers” on security issues be locked up. The Republican leaders both in the Senate and the House of Representatives went ballistic attacking the Washington Post for running a story that Bush had secret prisons.

So if the Republicans really followed this one through they would need a lot of Democratic votes to get a condemnation of the Justice Department’s actions. The Heritage Foundation would have a fit if the Republicans had another public blood feud over the “Freedom of the Press”. Sadly, the public does not give a hoot about the issue so why on earth this is one of the “gates” Jay H. Ell is not sure.

As an aside, to say the least, the media are not too happy with Obama This will not affect his political position one jot as the press are never to popular anyway.

Internal Revenue Service, (IRS)

Now here is a “gate” that really shows promise. Everyone hates the powerful IRS. They have a reputation of being despotic, autocratic and uncaring. They are actually feared. 

The IRS allegedly targeted Conservative groups that wished to attain 5-1c 4 status. This status ostensibly allows the group exemption from Federal taxes. Also not only does the 5-1c 4 organization not have to pay Federal Taxes it is given a non profit status and the donors can give tax free donations anonymously. This 5-1 c 4 status really achieved major significance when the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizen United Case that anyone could anonymously donate as much as he or she liked to political parties or anything related to politics. So now 5-1c 4’s became the rage and applications for this status poured into the IRS.

It is with this as background that the Treasury Inspector General issued a report that Conservative Groups especially the Tea Party had been discriminated against.

Reaction and Response.

Oh bliss oh joy unforeseen screamed the Republicans. Obama immediately condemned the alleged behavior and said that there would be investigations. – the behavior could not be tolerated. All government agencies had to be ethical and above board but especially the IRS.  Immediately there were resignations from the very top of the IRS. But John Boehner said he was not interested in resignations he wanted to know who was going to jail.

Every Chairman of every Republican Committee got ready to hold hearings. This really was not a good idea if they wanted jail terms cause these investigations muddy the waters, contaminate the evidence and allow people to scream the 5^th Amendment before the investigators have a chance to speak to them. But this was not really the issue, the real issue was to follow the Heritage Foundation mandate. Also the objective was to link this to Obama. He had to have known about it - even better if, Nixonlike, he had ordered it.  If slippery Hillary had escaped the net here was a bigger fish - Obama himself!

However with all the media around these days nobody is hanging round for Congress. The LA Times, The NY Times, The Washington Post, Pro Republican and the Business Insider among others probed and probed deeply.

• As work in the IRS increased it was decided to move the Federal Office to Cincinnati to process not for profit requests as the Federal Pay there was the lowest.
• Tax-exempt applications increased while the number of staff has decreased due to austerity measures. These applications grew exponentially after the Supreme Court Citizens United decision.
• By far the greatest number of these requests was from right wing Tea Party organizations.
• The initial response of the IRS was to just accept the applications and very few were refused.
• However, the numbers just grew and grew. The Office had 70,000 applications a year for the 5-1 c 4 category,
• One employee who was in charge of all the 5 – 1 c 4  applications tried to separate them into those that she had found to be more likely to be “political”. She would seek more information from these applicants. She decided that terms like “we the people” and “patriots” for example were more likely not to meet the criteria of not being primarily welfare organizations.  The employee “Mitzie” asked for guidance in decision-making but got none. She also snagged liberal groups in her endeavor. All she wanted to do was move files of her desk. 
• This was considered profiling by the Inspector General’s Office and here we are.now.
• Mitzie has been handcuffed and arrested and will be rushed before a million congress committees where she will be advised to plead the 5^th amendment and say nothing.
• It was all so Kafgaesque. She was acting in no man’s land and according to her she was doing the best she could with no help from anyone. How does an IRS official interpret what is “principally” social welfare? Then how must she do it in the light of all the Supreme Court decisions?
• So we now have the spectacle of all these Congress Hearings that will now go nowhere as there is a criminal investigation going on. Everybody will plead the 5th Amendment. In Issa’s ongoing hearing on May 19, Lois Lerner, who actually revealed that the IRS appeared to have singled out the Conservative Groups, pleaded the 5^th Amendment, as there was an ongoing criminal investigation.
• Issa will go the whole hog. He will attempt to keep this upfront and in the public arena forever or at least till the midterm elections in 2014. After all Issa is not doing so well on Benghazi.

UPSHOT.

• So Boehner has his arrest but how it will help him and his cause G- D knows. They have to tie Mitzi, (who was way way down in the food chain, who reported to a Bush appointee), to Obama and Hillary. After all this is supposedly Watergate where Nixon and his associates were shown to have initiated, financed and directed this type of behavior.
• Prosecuting “Mitzi” will appear to be ridiculous.
• All this is going to show is that the Civil Service is in a big mess. A mess in this and other areas. Part of the problem is the “austerity” and “sequester” measures backed by the Republicans.
• Obama would like nothing more than a simplification and revision of the tax code. He particularly would like to cut out all the Romney type loopholes and these tax-free political fronts.
• The Obama administration will certainly be held responsible for the IRS deficiencies that will be revealed but they have been generations in the making.
• This trifecta has going to have a very low pay out.
• After what has been described as the worst week in the Obama Presidency the latter’s ratings are up and Hillary’s are still the highest for any active politician by far.
• Maybe, just maybe, the Republicans should just focus on legislation. Immigration would be a great start as if they completely alienate themselves from the Latinos they will never win a national election again.

THE REAL UPSHOT

 In reality no organization should have received tax-free status.

The IRS provision 5-1 c4 states that tax-free status should only be given to Organizations that act exclusively for Social Welfare. Apparently, as Lawrence O’Donnell on his show revealed, in 1959, an IRS Republican Commissioner arbitrarily changed the word exclusively for the word primarily.

Thus as a result of this illegal change of wording a 5-1 c4 group that supports certain philosophies, viewpoints, activities etc could now also lobby and promote a cause that could be considered political such as gun rights or be for against abortion. They could do this in election campaigns as long as they were primarily, as adjudged by the IRS, involved in welfare, as interpreted by the IRS

When this illegality sinks in the debate is going to change to loopholes in the tax code, which the 5 –1 c4 has illegally become. This will open the way for a whole revisit of the tax code. It is hard to carry on that some groups were discriminated against with regard to tax-free status when none should be given tax-free status at all.

So maybe just maybe the Republicans should have their main focus on legislative issues.