The immediate rush of the IRS scandal has slackened a bit. But the story and the investigations are clearly by no means over. One of the things I’m most interested in, however, is what you might call the underbrush of the scandal cropping up in the right-wing media. We have a relatively narrow case of targeting of right-wing groups by keywords out of the IRS’s Cincinnati office. It’s still sort of mind-blowing how even line-level IRS employees didn’t get that that was a problem. But happen it did.
And yet, that’s now triggered an avalanche of claims of harassment or targeting where there seems little or no evidence any targeting ever happened. Basically any conservative group that ever got audited or scrutinized is now taking it as a given that they were targeted as conservatives. Conservative religious groups are now saying they’re being targeted too. Read More
Gun rights group in Colorado offering free ammo to volunteers working to unseat pro-gun control state legislators.
Marco Rubio says the only way to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal is to repeal Obamacare. Watch.
A sad day for TPM, as Michele Bachmann takes her leave. A quick and dirty recap of some of the highlights of the Bachmann oeuvre.
AP: “After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of al-Qaida’s North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn’t answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders. Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.” Read the rest here.
We’re hiring a Reporter to work out of our Washington, DC office. Job description and listing after the jump … Read More
Bob Dole’s comments this weekend kicked off a panic among Republicans on cable news.
As I noted in my original post on this, we shouldn’t ignore that many of us have benefited from the willful amnesia about what the Civil War was and was about. Many of us. Not all of us. From TPM Reader DR …
As a lifelong Black person raised in Georgia, I can tell you the views of TPM Reader JL are all classic Southern appeasement.
We change the names of streets when the men (mostly men) they are named for can no longer be justified or reconciled with our values.
Video emerges of controversial Obama/Christie football throwing stuffed bear ‘winning’ incident. Watch.
Back on the Mayor Ford/Crack story, first, I made a mistake. In my earlier post I said that ex-Chief of Staff Mark Towhey resigned. That’s not correct. He was fired. When I was writing this morning I’d misremembered and thought there was some uncertainty about whether he resigned or was fired. But he was definitely fired. Actually, he was apparently fired twice and escorted out of the Mayor’s office. Now, part of me wants to say it’s hard keeping track of the murder and crack smoking and hash dealing and resignations and firings. But no excuses. I got that part wrong.
Now, here’s why this is significant. Read More