This Is What Passes For A Scandal?

[UPDATE]:

Hilarious:

There was a commissioner, Douglas Shulman, who was appointed by the Bush/Cheney administration five years ago, and who was in charge when the agency began treating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status unfairly. It’s unlikely that a Republican deliberately targeted groups on the right for extra scrutiny.

But more to the point, Rubio’s demand is problematic given the fact that Shulman has already resigned, leaving the IRS last November. It’s tough for a guy to fall on his sword after he’s already packed up his stuff and gone home.

So the guy in charge of the IRS when conservative groups say they were unfairly targeted was a Bush appointee, and he’s been gone for six months.

I’d say the Teanuts have been played.

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Help me out here, people. Other than massive butthurt and shrill whining, skills which the Tea Party employ with surgical precision, I don’t get what this supposed “scandal” involving the IRS is all about.

Tea Party groups were applying for 501(c)4 status. Political groups can’t be 501(c)4s. They can’t be involved directly in politics, raise money for candidates, launch primary challenges, run for office, etc. But groups calling themselves “Tea Party” and “Patriots” had been in the news for months doing exactly that! So why is it a big deal that the IRS was looking into the activities of groups calling themselves “Tea Party” before granting them non-profit status?

What am I missing here?

Also, many on the left have mentioned the numerous ways the Bush Administration did the same and even worse, without so much as a tear from conservatives or a front page headline from the mainstream media. Remember All Saints Church in Pasadena, California? Following a 2004 anti-war sermon which went viral, the IRS investigated the church for two years and threatened its non-profit status. At the same time, conservative “Patriot pastors” telling their congregations how to vote were ignored.

Remember when the FBI infiltrated anti-war groups as they planned protests ahead of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis? Probably not — there’s little mention of this in the corporate media.

Or what about this one:

The FBI improperly targeted Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and two antiwar groups in domestic terrorism investigations between 2001 and 2006, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice said in a report released today.

The IG found there was “little or no basis” for the terror investigations, and that they were “unreasonable and inconsistent with FBI policy.”

At least two of the investigations resulted in innocent people being placed on the domestic terror watch list for years, and one resulted in FBI Director Robert Mueller providing Congress with “inaccurate and misleading information,” according to the report.

Remember the Pentagon’s TALON data base, which targeted anti-war Quakers and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell protestors? Doubtful: most people have probably never heard of it. Outside the lefty press, it got little attention on cable and network news.

Remember back in 2003 when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation took down names of anti-war protestors at an MTSU peace rally? More recently, remember when the FBI targeted Occupy Wall Street?

Imagine the Tea Party hysterics if the FBI put their leaders on the terror watch list. But you don’t see Morning Joe booking the head of PETA to discuss the ways they were targeted; today he did book Newt Gingrich. And the Wall Street Journal is calling this “Nixonian.” Seriously? So you had to wait a little longer for your tax exempt status to clear on account of your politicking. Cry me a damn river, you big babies. Call me when your name is placed on a secret domestic terror watch list.

This is one giant nothingburger, another chance for the Tea Party to whine and call for the fainting couches about how unfair everyone always is to them. Seriously? The media is playing along with this? After ignoring the far worse ways liberal groups have been targeted by different government agencies — including the IRS?

Just further proof that the media is not liberal and its infatuation with all things Tea Party has continued.

You know what I think? I think the news media are desperate for a political scandal. We had so many of them during the Bush years, and then there was Clinton’s blow job and Gennifer Flowers and TravelGate and all the other Clinton-era scandals, phony and otherwise. Obama is just too boring.

Good News Friday

I’ve been so slammed this week, I feel like I’ve neglected my blog friends. I managed to scrape together a few items of good news, though. Have a good weekend and remember to call your mother!

• It’s a miracle: a survivor has been found in the rubble of the collapsed Bangladesh garment factory where more than 1,000 workers perished.

• On a related note, an increasing number of clothing retailers are responding to consumers’ concerns about where and how clothing is manufactured.

• Saudi Arabia will start letting girls play sports — in private schools, if they dress “modestly.” Baby steps.

• Elizabeth Smart explained how abstinence-only education actually harms women who are victims of sexual assault. This is a perspective on the sex education debate I’ve never considered before, and I really appreciate her candor.

• Environmentalists and agricultural groups are touting a compromise reached on farmland conservation. Have to say, I don’t know much about this issue at all, but FWIW, it’s seen as a promising sign in getting a farm bill through Congress.

• Cheaper, faster Wi-Fi in-flight, that’s better than what you get at home? I might actually enjoy flying again.

• The California State Assembly passed a transgender rights bill. The measure has moved on to the state Senate.

• Hong Kong port workers ended their 40-day strike, winning a 9.8% pay raise.

• Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have drastically lowered the cost of their HPV vaccines in Third World nations to under $5 a dose.

• New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, facing backlash over her vote against universal background checks, has done the ol’ flip-flop.

• Another one bites the dust: Delaware becomes the 11th state to legalize same-sex marriage. I think we all know how this one it gonna play out.

• …. and Minnesota would make 12…

• Seems like I’ve posted this before, but it appears the slowdown in rising healthcare costs is permanent. While I’d prefer permanently declining costs — this isn’t that — I’ll take what I can.

• The Louisiana Supreme Court struck down Gov. Jindal’s school voucher plan, saying its method of funding is unconstitutional.

• College divestment campaigns are creating the next generation of environmental leaders.

• This is so cool: linguists have discovered two dozen 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’. So study up before you crawl inside that time machine!

Good News, Tennessee Edition:

• A Clarksville Boy Scout leader has resigned to protest the Scouts’ anti-gay policies.

• Pit bull puppies and dogs will no longer immediately be killed at Metro Nashville Animal Control, a reversal of longstanding policy.

• Meet the Tennessee Justice Center’s Dad of the Year, who fought to obtain healthcare for his son.

* LightWave Solar completed the installation of a 211 kW solar system for the Music City Center, making it the largest solar installation in Nashville. Here’s ‘a photo:

• Good riddance Albert Tieche, and good riddance Jim Gotto. I haven’t written about this but y’all have to know there’s been a major internecine battle going on inside the Davidson County Republican Party which has involved the Nashville-Davidson County Election Commission. The state GOP appointed a Tea Party wacko to head our election commission, which predictably resulted in some major election day problems and angered moderate Republicans, who are tired of Tea Party stupidity:

The state report said the problems included failing to open the polls on a Saturday during early voting; machines that sometimes defaulted to the Republican ballot during the primary; and shortages of poll workers, printed forms, parking and phone lines on Election Day.

Commissioner Jim Gotto resigned during the meeting and criticized others for seemingly fast-tracking the firing of Tieche. Gotto told the commission’s chairman that he had lost his “respect and trust.”

The fact that Jim Gotto “resigned in protest” is just icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned. Our election commission lost two partisan wackjobs for the price of one. Hooray. A more detailed report on this story is here, for those interested.

• Good riddance, number two. This is one legislator who stayed long, long past his expiration date, and I say this because I lived in his district for years. I still haven’t forgiven Sen. Henry for his crackpot statements about rape. Every time I called his office in the past few years I ended up speaking to an extremely rude and unpleasant female aide, and I’ve even wondered on occasion if this person hasn’t been acting as our de facto state senator because the octogenarian Sen. Henry was unable to do so. So, farewell, good riddance, and it’s time for some fresh blood.

This week’s cool video: What American English Sounds Like To Non-English Speakers:

WTF, Time Magazine?

Holy racist rant, Batman. I cannot fucking believe that Time magazine printed this crap from Joel Stein about how those stinky brown people need to move back to India so his hometown can go back to the way he remembers it:

My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime.

I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?

This was supposed to be funny? Oh, FFS! Why is Nashville home to one of the world’s largest populations of Kurds? Why are there so many Somalis here, and now people from Burma are arriving? You know why? Because of refugee resettlement programs and support services from all of our churches and Catholic Charities. So Stein wants to know why Indians chose Edison, New Jersey? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe just to piss you off with “the amount of cologne they wear.”

Honestly, is this click-bait or what?

(Both Time and Stein has apologized for the column’s offensiveness, BTW.)

Taxes, Texas-Style

Texas has to be the only state where they allow a company to collect taxes and then keep the money instead of turning it over to the government:

CBS 11’s I-Team has obtained a study that says Oncor, the giant electric utility company in North Texas, is collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from customers for federal taxes that don’t exist.

“Since 2008, they have collected $500 million for the purpose of paying taxes on their income,” said Randy Moravec, executive director of the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a coalition of member cities – including Arlington, Plano and Frisco – that works toward finding the lowest rates for residents.

Asked how much of that money has actually reached the Internal Revenue Services, Moravec said: “None … not a penny.”

Gee, where I’m from that’s called theft. But in Texas, it’s all perfectly legal:

Although Oncor collects for federal taxes, it actually does not owe the IRS anything because its majority owner, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, has been operating in the red for years.

“In the state of Texas, it’s perfectly legal for Oncor to do what they’re doing right now,” said state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who is a critic of the utility company’s collection for federal taxes.

[...]

Sen. Davis said there should be a law against charging consumers for taxes that are never levied.

“Unfortunately, rather than moving in that direction, the state is actually trying to move in the opposite direction,” she said, referring to a bill that has already passed the senate and is still pending in the Texas House.

If the bill becomes law, the senator said, “It would remove the Public Utility Commission’s authority to regulate utility companies in this particular arena.”

See, you thought they hated taxes in Texas, right? Nope. Not as long as they’re another angle that can be played in the state’s culture of grift.

Reason #10,981 why I will never, ever live in Texas. Ever. Rick Perry can take his bogus campaign and shove it.

We Are Tired Of Your Shit, Real America

Apparently the residents of Burkesville, Ky., where a little boy is experiencing the thrills of My First Accidental Shooting™, want those of us who have recoiled in horror at this tragic incident to mind our own beeswax:

“I think it’s nobody else’s business but our town’s,” said a woman leaving a store, who like many people here declined to be interviewed. A woman who answered the phone at the office of John A. Phelps Jr., the chief executive of Cumberland County, whose seat is Burkesville, said, “No, I’m sorry — no more statements,” and hung up.

After the funeral service, two men advanced across North Main Street toward a single television crew present, from the German network RTL, and punched the cameraman, bloodying his face and knocking him down.

Two other men told a newspaper reporter, “If you had any sense, you’d get out of here. You’re next, buddy.”

Lovely.

Esquire’s Charles Pierce has the perfect rebuttal:

If your “way of life” involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should change it immediately because it is stupid and wrong. (And, again, also, too: goddammit, “learning to use and respect a gun” means at least knowing that the fking thing is loaded when it’s sitting in the corner of the parlor like it’s a damn umbrella stand or something, and we should talk about that part, too.) It is not in any way “normal” to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too. If your culture demands that, in the face of a general national outrage over the killing of other children, your politics work to loosen the gun laws you have, as they apparently did in Kentucky, then your culture is making your politics stupid and wrong and you should change them, too. I do not have to understand these people any more, and it is way too early in the day to be drinking this much.

Yes, and amen, a fucking thousand times. I’m sorry Rural America is tired of being told by the culture that they are wrong about everything, but their not liking it doesn’t make it any less true.

Great Moments In Corporate Citizenship

The West, Texas fertilizer plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance, reports AP:

Tyler lawyer Randy C. Roberts said he and other attorneys who have filed lawsuits against West Fertilizer’s owners were told Thursday that the plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Brook Laskey, an attorney hired by the plant’s insurer to represent West Fertilizer Co., confirmed the amount Saturday in an email to The Associated Press, after the Dallas Morning News first reported it.

“The bottom line is, this lack of insurance coverage is just consistent with the overall lack of responsibility we’ve seen from the fertilizer plant, starting from the fact that from day one they have yet to acknowledge responsibility,” Roberts said.

Roberts said he expects the plant’s owner to ask a judge to divide the $1 million in insurance money among the plaintiffs, several of whom he represents, and then file for bankruptcy.

He said he wasn’t surprised that the plant was carrying such a small policy.

“It’s rare for Texas to require insurance for any kind of hazardous activity,” he said. “We have very little oversight of hazardous activities and even less regulation.”

A $1 million policy is not gonna do squat for West, Texas or the 14 families who lost a loved one, or those 200 injured people. But I guess the glorious free hand of the market will be there for them, right? That and federal disaster aid, of course!

By the way, maybe in addition to all of the prayers and moments of silence, the Texas House and Senate might want to pass a few regulations to help ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. After all, taxpayers all around the country are going to be footing the bill for the negligence of a Texas business — and the failure of Texas legislators to adequately regulate their dangerous industries. So yes, Gov. Rick Perry, as long as we all have to pay for it, you can take your “states rights” and shove it, you arrogant phony cowboy.

And since we’re talking about this, Texas is starting to look an awful lot like Bangladesh and China. Except in those places, the evil business owners are arrested.

The “Routine Maintenance” Bad PR Dodge

[UPDATE]:

Via the Political Carnival is this ad from Crickett for “My First Rifle.” So much for that “safety promoting design”; this is one tradition I’ll take a pass on, thanks.

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Interesting. If you Google “Crickett youth guns,” makers of the “My First Rifle” weapon used in this week’s tragic shooting in Kentucky, you get this:

But if you click on the link, you get this:

Cowards.