The Real IRS Scandal, for the millionth time...
Why is it necessary to repeat the most obvious truths over and over again, only to have them ignored, while right wing lies, such as the totally discredited claim that the IRS "targeted conservatives" are kept alive endlessly by the press?
The real scandal of this whole affair is that the IRS will not stand up to endless, flagrant abuses of its 501(C)3 laws, resulting in the most blatantly political organizations, like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and all of the hundreds of Tea Party groups feeling free to laughingly call themselves "social welfare" groups, which is what 501(C)3 organizations are supposed to be, thus committing perjury and forcing all of the rest of us to pay for their destruction of American democracy all at the same time.
One thing that I've noticed over the years is that Republicans rarely engage in one of their patented screaming sessions for only one reason. They are very efficient in this. In this case, not only are they smearing the Obama administration by telling patent lies about it over and over again, but they are putting on a demonstration of the sort of vicious abuse that lies in wait for anyone who tries to stop them from breaking the law in order to advance their agenda.
This has been an amazingly successful strategy of theirs, born, I think, out of their determination after Nixon's fall that no Republican ever again would be held accountable for their behavior.
Here is what we have had since:
The successful blaming of Jimmy Carter for the out of control inflation that started under the Nixon/Ford administration, contributing strongly to the great lie that Democrats are the ones who cannot control the economy responsibly- a claim so patently out of joint with history as to be one of the biggest jokes of the last century, but one which Republicans have convinced a large part of our mainstream press to repeat over and over again, even with the consequences of the recent Bush administration's behavior to prove them disastrously wrong.
The utter ignoring of the "October surprise," in which Republicans sabotaged negotiations to free American hostages, in an act of actual, real treason- giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The further likely sabotage of the Iran Hostage rescue attempt by Oliver North, again a blatant act of treason, which resulted in North being declared a hero by the right, and which helped put Reagan in the Oval Office.
The Iran Contra affair, in which Reagan illegally sold two thousand missiles to the Iranian Mullahs, once more an open act of treason, and which then stole the money to illegally fund an attempt to overthrow a legally elected government, by a pack of drug dealing right wing terrorists, who the American people were ludicrously told were the good guys.
The packing of Cabinet posts with people committed to frustrating the enforcement of the laws they were picked to enforce- people like industry stooge James Watt at the interior department, or the vicious and stupid Clarence Thomas as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
All of this and far more (forgive me- I'm writing a blog post here, not an encyclopedia) went ignored as Reagan was hailed far and wide as the greatest President ever. And anyone who questioned that insane claim was tarred as a vicious partisan traitor.
Next, of course, the tables turned, and we had the spectacle of the Clinton administration, in which a fine President who kept us out of foreign entanglements while balancing the budget and presiding over a time of rapid economic growth, was subject to a constant stream of lying Republican smears designed to prevent him from doing his job: Tens of millions spent on the so-called Whitewater scandal, which proved to be about nothing; the idiotic claim that he had his very popular treasury secretary murdered, the claim that his wife had one of her assistants killed, for no discernible motive, the claim that Clinton, while in the White House was carrying out a drug smuggling operation for his personal profit, the claim that Clinton was a serial rapist, over fifty other murders allegedly caused by Clinton, and finally, the Monica Lewinski farce- the greatest abuse of Congressional power in the history of the United States- in which the claim was made that Clinton's attempts to get Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida were nothing but an attempt to distract attention from the Monica "scandal," which was held to be obvious, because in Republicans' minds, Al Qaida was not a threat to the United States.
Next, Bush (sigh.) His placement in office after losing the election was an act of Supreme Court corruption, pure and simple- the worst criminal act in the history of the United States judiciary. Penalty to the criminals involved- nothing.
Bush went on to start a war of aggression without any cause- an act exactly analogous to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. This was a monstrous war crime for which he should have at least spent the rest of his life in prison- penalty nothing, because every time someone brought it up, the Republican screaming machine drowned them out. Bush went on to plunder the economy on behalf of the rich, knowingly causing, "with malice aforethought," as it were, a depression whose depth was only limited by Democratic intervention. And let's not even talk about the concentration camps and torture. Penalty for all of this: an "honorable" retirement eased by his ill-gotten riches earned by having betraying the American people over and over again.
And finally, Obama- a perfectly competent, if rather politically naive, President, who, from the moment he emerged on the national scene, has been subject to an endless stream of vicious, lying attacks, all with the intent of disgracing him and forcing his removal from office, and all of them accepted as legitimate critiques by the mainstream press. Once again, no Republican is ever held to account for any of these monstrous betrayals of the nation, guaranteeing that their behavior will continue again and again forever.
And this is the path that the viciousness of the Republican party and the weakness of the Democrats have chosen for us: Whenever we have a Republican President, we are going to have a lawless tyranny doing everything to destroy our right to share in the abundance that should be ours, and whenever we have a Democratic President, we are going to be force-fed endless lying scandals aimed at impeachment. This is no way to run a country; in fact it is a perfect way to ruin a country. And unless something is done about it, the United States is on the fast road to oblivion.
Well, look on the bright side. At this point maybe there's not enough to be worth saving.
The real scandal of this whole affair is that the IRS will not stand up to endless, flagrant abuses of its 501(C)3 laws, resulting in the most blatantly political organizations, like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and all of the hundreds of Tea Party groups feeling free to laughingly call themselves "social welfare" groups, which is what 501(C)3 organizations are supposed to be, thus committing perjury and forcing all of the rest of us to pay for their destruction of American democracy all at the same time.
One thing that I've noticed over the years is that Republicans rarely engage in one of their patented screaming sessions for only one reason. They are very efficient in this. In this case, not only are they smearing the Obama administration by telling patent lies about it over and over again, but they are putting on a demonstration of the sort of vicious abuse that lies in wait for anyone who tries to stop them from breaking the law in order to advance their agenda.
This has been an amazingly successful strategy of theirs, born, I think, out of their determination after Nixon's fall that no Republican ever again would be held accountable for their behavior.
Here is what we have had since:
The successful blaming of Jimmy Carter for the out of control inflation that started under the Nixon/Ford administration, contributing strongly to the great lie that Democrats are the ones who cannot control the economy responsibly- a claim so patently out of joint with history as to be one of the biggest jokes of the last century, but one which Republicans have convinced a large part of our mainstream press to repeat over and over again, even with the consequences of the recent Bush administration's behavior to prove them disastrously wrong.
The utter ignoring of the "October surprise," in which Republicans sabotaged negotiations to free American hostages, in an act of actual, real treason- giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The further likely sabotage of the Iran Hostage rescue attempt by Oliver North, again a blatant act of treason, which resulted in North being declared a hero by the right, and which helped put Reagan in the Oval Office.
The Iran Contra affair, in which Reagan illegally sold two thousand missiles to the Iranian Mullahs, once more an open act of treason, and which then stole the money to illegally fund an attempt to overthrow a legally elected government, by a pack of drug dealing right wing terrorists, who the American people were ludicrously told were the good guys.
The packing of Cabinet posts with people committed to frustrating the enforcement of the laws they were picked to enforce- people like industry stooge James Watt at the interior department, or the vicious and stupid Clarence Thomas as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
All of this and far more (forgive me- I'm writing a blog post here, not an encyclopedia) went ignored as Reagan was hailed far and wide as the greatest President ever. And anyone who questioned that insane claim was tarred as a vicious partisan traitor.
Next, of course, the tables turned, and we had the spectacle of the Clinton administration, in which a fine President who kept us out of foreign entanglements while balancing the budget and presiding over a time of rapid economic growth, was subject to a constant stream of lying Republican smears designed to prevent him from doing his job: Tens of millions spent on the so-called Whitewater scandal, which proved to be about nothing; the idiotic claim that he had his very popular treasury secretary murdered, the claim that his wife had one of her assistants killed, for no discernible motive, the claim that Clinton, while in the White House was carrying out a drug smuggling operation for his personal profit, the claim that Clinton was a serial rapist, over fifty other murders allegedly caused by Clinton, and finally, the Monica Lewinski farce- the greatest abuse of Congressional power in the history of the United States- in which the claim was made that Clinton's attempts to get Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida were nothing but an attempt to distract attention from the Monica "scandal," which was held to be obvious, because in Republicans' minds, Al Qaida was not a threat to the United States.
Next, Bush (sigh.) His placement in office after losing the election was an act of Supreme Court corruption, pure and simple- the worst criminal act in the history of the United States judiciary. Penalty to the criminals involved- nothing.
Bush went on to start a war of aggression without any cause- an act exactly analogous to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. This was a monstrous war crime for which he should have at least spent the rest of his life in prison- penalty nothing, because every time someone brought it up, the Republican screaming machine drowned them out. Bush went on to plunder the economy on behalf of the rich, knowingly causing, "with malice aforethought," as it were, a depression whose depth was only limited by Democratic intervention. And let's not even talk about the concentration camps and torture. Penalty for all of this: an "honorable" retirement eased by his ill-gotten riches earned by having betraying the American people over and over again.
And finally, Obama- a perfectly competent, if rather politically naive, President, who, from the moment he emerged on the national scene, has been subject to an endless stream of vicious, lying attacks, all with the intent of disgracing him and forcing his removal from office, and all of them accepted as legitimate critiques by the mainstream press. Once again, no Republican is ever held to account for any of these monstrous betrayals of the nation, guaranteeing that their behavior will continue again and again forever.
And this is the path that the viciousness of the Republican party and the weakness of the Democrats have chosen for us: Whenever we have a Republican President, we are going to have a lawless tyranny doing everything to destroy our right to share in the abundance that should be ours, and whenever we have a Democratic President, we are going to be force-fed endless lying scandals aimed at impeachment. This is no way to run a country; in fact it is a perfect way to ruin a country. And unless something is done about it, the United States is on the fast road to oblivion.
Well, look on the bright side. At this point maybe there's not enough to be worth saving.
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