See Steve Benen.

The so-called IRS scandal is getting dumber by the minute. Jeffrey Toobin:

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates. …

… Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former.

The real scandal, Toobin says, is that all kinds of political groups have gotten away with calling themselves “social welfare” organizations to get the tax break.

Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

Andy Kroll:

It began back in March 2010, when the tea party movement was all the rage. According to a leaked timeline (PDF) from a draft report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, IRS staffers began flagging applications from groups with politically themed names like “We the People” and “Take Back the Country.” Staffers also targeted groups whose names included the words “tea party” and “patriots.” Those flagged applications were then sent to specialists for a more rigorous review than is typical.

The IRS gave extra scrutiny to 298 groups applying for tax-exempt status, the Washington Post reported. Seventy-two of those groups had “tea party” in their title, 13 had “patriots,” and 11 had “9/12,” shorthand for the 9/12 movement started by conservative TV host Glenn Beck.

But IRS officials not only singled out tea party and liberty groups. They also looked for “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” according to the leaked timeline. This included groups that planned to focus on government debt and spending, taxes, or those trying to “make America a better place to live.” In June 2011, Lerner reportedly became aware of what was going on and directed staffers to change to how they vetted nonprofit applications.

I don’t know how the IRS defines “social welfare,” but IMO promoting a political agenda, even if candidates are not endorsed, ain’t it.

Garance Franke-Ruta points out that members of Congress had been pushing the IRS to be more vigilant about allowing political organizations to claim tax-exempt status. Alex Seitz-Wald reminds us that when George W. Bush was president, the IRS went after Greenpeace, the NAACP and a liberal church. See also David Sirota, “Stop holding Democrats to a different standard.”

Right now the Daily Mail is bristling with outrage that the IRS allegedly asked one Teabagger group who was donating money and how the donations were being used. These seem to be logical questions to ask if you are trying to determine if the group is actually being used for political purposes. And so far there is no evidence that the President knew this was going on until last week.

First off, Newt demonstrates why he really needs to shut up and go quietly to the Old Hornytoads Home.

Today Darrell Issa returned to the claim that President Obama did not call the Benghazi attacks a “terrorist act,” but an “act of terror,” which means something entirely different.

What can one say but … please proceed, congressman.

Joan Walsh notices that some on the Right no longer comprehend the difference between real and phony allegations.

The National Journal’s Ron Fournier tweeted “Welcome to the 90s,” with no apparent irony or self-awareness about the role of the media in ginning up that decade of phony scandals that paralyzed our last popular second-term Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

In fact, Fournier contends Benghazi will hurt Clinton and President Obama, even though he acknowledges the GOP’s claims are overblown. “If nothing else, Benghazi is a blow to the credibility of the president and his potential successor, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This could be big … Credibility is Clinton’s vulnerability, dating to the unjustified financial accusations that triggered the Whitewater investigation. Doubts persisted about her veracity and authenticity throughout the 2008 presidential campaign.”

Read that again: “Credibility is Clinton’s vulnerability, dating to the unjustified financial accusations that triggered the Whitewater investigation.” The accusations were unjustified, Fournier admits, but they hurt Clinton anyway. Why? Because reporters continued to act like they were justified, even in the face of contrary evidence.

And so it goes with Benghazi. Welcome to the ’90s!

I’d rather not go back there, thanks, especially if I have to re-live the ’00s.

Update: Ok, here’s another one. Today Marco Rubio called for the resignation of the IRS Commissioner. Jonathan Chait explains why that is a problem — currently, the position of IRS Commissioner is vacant.

The IRS commissioner from that period is already gone.

The IRS commissioner during the probe was Donald Shulman, a holdover from the Bush administration. He left his job last November. There’s an acting commissioner right now, but he assumed his acting role well after the Cincinnati probe ended. The position of IRS commissioner is vacant, which may explain why Rubio’s letter calls for “the IRS Commissioner’s resignation” but doesn’t name whom Rubio wants to resign. Does he want the acting commissioner to resign? The old commissioner to re-resign? Appoint a new commissioner and then force that person to immediately resign?

How many Republicans does it take to make a measurable IQ? That’s what I want to know.

It’s a happy day in Rightie World. It has been determined that the part of the IRS that oversees and approves tax-exempt status was putting right-wing groups under heavier scrutiny than normal. This has given the Right plenty of cause to whine and wallow in self-pity, which of course is what they live for.

This was not good on the part of the IRS of course. But I’ve slogged through a couple of articles and cannot determine if any organization was actually harmed or even somewhat inconvenienced. Even so, this will be all we hear about for the next several weeks. Well, this and Benghazi.

speaking of which, Kevin Drum observes,

… the real giveaway about this whole thing is that it keeps changing whenever it’s debunked. Originally, the story retailed by Charles Woods, the father of Benghazi victim Tyrone Woods, revolved around the notion that Obama had a live video feed of Benghazi and refused to let a fast-response team deploy even though he knew they could get there in time. That wasn’t true, so another story developed that General Carter Ham was ready to send in a team, received an order to stand down, and was going to disobey orders and send them in anyway. But then his second in command apprehended him and told him that he was now relieved of duty. That wasn’t true either. So then we got a story about a team in Tripoli that Obama refused to deploy. Then a story about a C-110 team in Croatia that could have gone in but wasn’t allowed to. And finally, last week, a different story about a different team in Tripoli that could have gone in the next morning but didn’t.

And when that last story turns out not to be true, they’ll think up another one.

Encouragingly, Public Policy Polling finds that voters trust former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Benghazi over the GOP, by a 49/39 margin.

The New York Times editorial board writes of this week’s Benghazi hearing,

The hearing did not prove anything like an administration cover-up or other hysterical allegations of crimes equal to Watergate that some Republicans, such as Representative Steve King and Senator Lindsey Graham, have alleged. Republicans have held numerous hearings and briefings on Benghazi and are threatening to hold even more. It is a level of interest they did not show during George W. Bush’s administration when there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets or in the years they spent cutting back diplomatic security budgets.

The real scandal is that serious follow-up on security in Libya is going unaddressed. Congress needs to make sure that State Department budgets for personnel and security improvements are sufficient and that security reforms are put in place as soon as possible.

The Times‘s Andreww Rosenthal states the obvious:

What’s really going on is that Republicans have been salivating for decades for a chance to get revenge for Watergate and Iran-contra. They yell “cover-up” at the drop of a hat. My Facebook post on the Rove video drew a comment on “Mena.” That’s a reference to the nutty idea that the Clintons (and both Presidents Bush) covered up cocaine trafficking and murder in a sleepy Arkansas town of that name. Get ready to hear about how Mrs. Clinton had Vince Foster, a deputy White House counsel for her husband, murdered.

So if the State Department needs congressional Republicans to pay attention to what’s going on in Libya now, maybe someone should leak a memo saying that Vince Foster’s suicide note is being held for ransom in Tripoli, and can be had for a sum roughly equivalent for what is needed for personnel and security improvements. Confirm the President’s Libya ambassador nominee, and maybe they’ll get Monica’s blue dress as well.

As far as the word “terror” goes, Republicans seem to think that standing in front of a camera and saying it makes them look macho, or amounts to a real response to attacks on Americans. Likewise, they think that sending terrorist suspects to military tribunals is “tougher” than trying them in federal courts.

Take care, Mr. Rosenthal. You’re starting to sound like a blogger.

This just in at Talking Points Memo:

In a letter to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted their original opposition to Obamacare, reiterated their intent to repeal it entirely, and declared that they would not make any appointments to the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The IPAB is a 15-member panel whose members must be confirmed by the Senate. The President selects three members himself and is required by law to seek three recommendations each from the top Democrat and Republican in each chamber. With Thursday’s letter, Boehner and McConnell refused to make any recommendations.

As I remember, IPAB is a panel set up to recommend ways to reduce Medicare costs. The panel may not recommend cuts to benefits or increase premiums. It meets only when Medicare costs are increasing faster than economic growth. Congress may review and vote to override the recommendations, but otherwise they automatically go into effect.

“Because the law will give IPAB’s 15 unelected, unaccountable individuals the ability to deny seniors access to innovative care, we respectfully decline to recommend appointments,” Boehner and McConnell wrote in the letter.

But there is a catch: if IPAB fails to do its work for any reason, the Health and Human Services secretary must order the cuts herself. So in a way, Boehner and McConnell are surrendering some of their power in order to appear as though they’re thwarting Obamacare — when in reality they’re merely turning over more control to the executive branch.

So what Boehner and McConnell are doing is just obstruction for the sake of obstruction.

Elsewhere:

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee boycotted a meeting of the panel on Thursday, blocking a vote on President Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The eight Republicans, led by the ranking member Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, said they took the action to protest what they called an inadequate response by the nominee, Gina McCarthy, to more than 1,000 written questions about E.P.A. policies and internal practices.

Since when have nominees been required to answer more than 1,000 written questions? Sounds like harassment to me.

Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who is chairman of the panel, said that Ms. McCarthy was one of the most qualified nominees ever named to lead the E.P.A. Ms. McCarthy currently heads the agency’s office of air and radiation, a post to which she won easy Senate confirmation in 2009. She previously served as a top environmental regulator in Connecticut and Massachusetts, working for Democratic and Republican governors.

“Gina McCarthy deserves a vote,” said Ms. Boxer, visibly angry. “I have delayed a vote for three weeks. I was assured by Senator Vitter that once he received answers to 1,000 questions — a record-breaking number — they would allow us to move forward with the vote.”

Ms. Boxer and other committee Democrats noted that Republican members had submitted 1,079 questions to Ms. McCarthy, compared with 157 for Mr. Obama’s first E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, and 305 for Michael O. Leavitt, who served in the post under President George W. Bush.

See also Another Obama nominee obstructed, another threat from Harry Reid

When he’s good, he’s really good.

The Cabbage writes, thus:

… immigration opponents are effectively trying to restrict the flow of conservatives into this country. In survey after survey, immigrants are found to have more traditional ideas about family structure and community than comparable Americans. They have lower incarceration rates. They place higher emphasis on career success. They have stronger work ethics. Immigrants go into poor neighborhoods and infuse them with traditional values.

I infer from this that liberals oppose families and careers and want more people to go to jail. See also David Gelman, “According to David Brooks, staying out of jail is a conservative value.”

Brooks fails to mention that “immigrants” (by which he mostly means “Latinos”) tend to vote for Democrats. It is well documented that increases in the percentage of immigrant populations in a voting district correlates to fewer votes for Republicans.

Even assuming that only immigrants and conservatives love their families and hope to stay out of jail, it may be that immigrants recognize that the Republican Party is less the party of work than the party of moneyed interests trying to establish a corporate encomienda system. The racist dog whistles probably aren’t helping the GOP, either.

This may cheer you up — Rush Limbaugh is costing Cumulus Media millions of dollars.

Cumulus Media today reported a $2.4 million first-quarter decline in revenue related to talk programming, a loss that CEO Lew Dickey attributed, indirectly, to Limbaugh’s controversial remarks about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke.

The earnings call came one day after POLITICO reported that Limbaugh was considering ending his affiliation agreement with Cumulus because he was frustrated with Dickey for blaming him for advertising losses.

Yet when asked about the Limbaugh on today’s earnings call, Dickey again suggested that Limbaugh’s remarks about Fluke played a significant role in the company’s revenue decline.

“We’ve had a tough go of it the last year,” Dickey said. “The facts are indisputable regarding the impact certain things have had on ad dollars.”

Mediaite:

Mediaite’s own sources confirm that the ad troubles in connection with Limbaugh’s show are, indeed, severe. In fact, one source within the radio advertising world with direct knowledge of the ad buys on Limbaugh’s show confirms the extent of the problem: “The vast majority of national advertisers now refuse to air their ads during Rush Limbaugh’s show,” our source tells us.

Radio Ink:

People close to Cumulus tell Radio Ink, “48 of the top 50 network advertisers have “exclude Rush and Hannity” orders. Every major national ad agency has same dictate.”

Enjoy.

I see that the Right is still trying to make an issue out of Benghazi. They’re still struggling to make out just what was done that was so awful, however. Jonathan Bernstein writes,

No, there’s no particular reason that it makes any sense…there’s still no core story that this cover-up was (supposedly) covering up for. But there do appear to be plenty of Usual Suspect conservative movement lawyers and flacks involved. …

…this is another case of how the minimal standards of the GOP-aligned press make Republican politicians lazy. Just chant “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” and you’re sure to generate plenty of positive publicity, so what’s the incentive for actually mastering the substantive issues involved?

And second: there’s a real dogs-not-barking aspect to this; the continued focus on what has appeared for months to be a dry well suggests that there are no real Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) scandals to investigate.

See also “They’ve Lost Fox And Friends: GOP Claims Of Benghazi ‘Cover Up’ Collapses”