Going To The Dogs

Yesterday, we focused on the fact that whatever Republicans claim the problem is, their biggest problem is themselves - and that hasn't somehow miraculously changed in the last 24 hours. Republicans are still giving unprecendented levels of obstruction, as Greg Sargent accurately points out.

That said, just because the extremists in the Republican Party are the second biggest political obstacle to progress for our nation right now - second only to the nearly unregulated money in our political system - doesn't mean that organizations like the IRS are without fault. It's just not the kind of fault Republican extremists are desperately wishing for.

In fact, when Republicans began spinning the hype about the IRS scandals three weeks ago, as Steve Benen noted back then, many in both media and politics thought this IRS mess would likely end with a massive GOP overreach - in part because nobody likes the IRS, so who's going to defend them? Between the frustration of audits, and the possible penalties most Americans needlessly fear - everything from wage garnishment to jail - it's not exactly like Americans are predisposed to love our federal tax collection agency.

Sure enough, as Benen reiterated yesterday, this is exactly what scandalmania overreach looks like.

As we've pointed out more than once over the last month - and as leading Republican (and current Air Force Reserve JAG lawyer) Sen. Lindsey Graham strongly agreed with Monday - there is absolutely NO evidence that President Obama or anyone at the White House directed the IRS to target tea party and right-wing groups.

That fact still didn't at all stop the whine fest on Tuesday when extremist GOP nuts in the House rolled out the tissues and the red carpet for teabaggers to bawl and display their persecution complex in front of members of Congress. Unsurprisingly, no one at the hearing brought up the fact that all of the tea party groups were actually involved in politics, which - by federal statute - means they are not eligible for the 501c4 status they all currently retain, and that the IRS should have denied to any politically affiliated group.

So after nearly a month of these 'shoot first, ask questions later' dog-eared committee hearings, what is it that we've actually learned?

To start with, it appears the IRS mess happened because those people running the IRS very good at details - an oxymoron if we've ever heard one.

We've also discovered that the IRS has NOT been following a federal law regarding 501c4 tax exemptions since 1959! Instead, the IRS has been relying on its own internal rule that allows organizations that are "primarily" involved in social welfare to get the tax exemption. That's instead of following the law as it's written, by only giving the 501c4 tax exemption - and its associated donor anonymity - to groups that are EXCLUSIVELY involved in social welfare, and not at all involved in anything else, including politics.

The splashiest - though probably most embarrassing - thing Congress has discovered that the IRS has been guilty of came out this week: That the IRS spent $49 million on 225 employee conferences and other personnel 'moral boosters' between 2010 and 2012, including over $50,000 on a Star Trek parody movie.

What the hearings haven't discovered is any kind of Nixonian plot to go after only tea party extremists.

Instead, these hearings have served the GOP priorities of giving Fox & right-wing radio something to yowl about, while wasting even more taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, issues like the looming increase on student loan interest and the ongoing sequester continue to take a bite out the American people.

We'd say it's not just the IRS that's going to the dogs… but we think you're probably already aware of that.

Focusing On The Wrong Problem

For those people not in the Republican Party, and not aligned with its machinery, the problems their party is having and the solutions to fix many of those problems seem incredibly obvious, based on simple facts.

The troubles facing the GOP seem as clear to us as the news that came out three weeks ago, from the National Transportation Safety Board, that states should reduce the legal blood-alcohol level from 0.08 to 0.05 because doing so would save lives. Indeed, the basic facts do agree - lower blood alcohol levels have already saved lives in other nations where a lower level has been tried. Most people already know that driving buzzed is still dangerous, even though far too many do it anyway. So the solution seems simple.

However, if you think merely lowering the blood-alcohol level by itself, without any other measures, will significantly decrease all vehicle accidents, then you haven't thought the problem all the way through. What about all the crashes that happen because of a driver texting while sober?

In a similar way, while a flood of data continues to come out about what the Republican Party is doing wrong, if all that political pundits are doing is looking at the headlines from that data, their recommendations on how to fix the GOP will likely crash and burn.

From the study by College Republicans of why fewer and fewer young Americans are voting Republican, to the latest Gallup poll on age and sexual orientation, time and again the solution for what ails the GOP seems to be simple to those on the outside. The Republican Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, even made it clear, at the beginning of this year, that he and others also know the outsider's proposed solution for the GOP: "We've got to stop being the stupid party."

Greg Sargent's advice to Congressional Republicans on how to prevent Democrat Harry Reid from using the nuclear option in the Senate echos that simple solution: "If Republicans don’t want Democrats to exercise the nuclear option and do away with the filibuster on executive branch and judicial nominations… drop the endless, unprecedented obstruction of those nominations."

We agree 100 percent with Greg and others that say that first step seems both logical and easy - but we admit, we're not trying to reform the Republican Party from the inside.

The concept of "conservative reform" has been tackled shrewdly by Mr. Sargent, and others lately, including Jonathan Chait, who recently wrote this brilliant note of truth: "In the long run, the resolution to nearly every policy problem [facing the U.S.] depends on the GOP refashioning itself as a normal, non-pathological party."

As one of those conservative reporters, Josh Barro, notes in his new column at Business Insider, the problem is that anyone who is trying to change the Republican Party - including reformists like David Frum and Barro himself - can't get certain others in his political party to actually LISTEN to their advice. Even on simple issues, like the myriad scandals Americans don't care about, GOP elders like Lindsay Graham and John McCain are obviously trying to shut down the destructive scandalmania. Yet right-wing bombthrowers like Ted Cruz and Darrell Issa continue their self-destructive ways, intent on doing everything but listening to either their elders or the GOP reformists.

As we noted earlier with the idea of lowering the blood alcohol level, the solutions for fixing problems may seem simple, at first.

However, as Barro, Frum, and the small handful of Republican reformers on the right are reminding the rest of us, those people who believe a simple solution can fix a complex problem aren't looking at the whole picture.

Badge Of Hypocrisy

As June begins, our entire staff is back in action, and we can't think of a better time to be at full strength. For once, it appears both the House and Senate may be in session long enough this month to actually get a few things done - though one of those may be to metaphorically blow the place up. The Supreme Court is also going to hand down four major decisions this month on DOMA, Prop 8, Affirmative Action, Voting Rights, and may choose to get involved in the right of the President to make recess appointments.

That dense but important list of subjects on the schedule for June doesn't even begin to address the foreign affairs issues that will likely face the White House and Congress this month - including the ongoing civil war in Syria - or domestic issues like the effects of the ongoing sequestration and the continuing rollout of Obamacare.

With all of these serious topics coming to a head, we'd hope our colleagues in the media are ready to get down to real journalism, and quit screwing around with fake scandals. However, considering the way May ended, we have our doubts.

For example, an important story ignored by much of the media in the ridiculous scandalmania at the end of May was a major announcement by the Boy Scouts of America. Officially, as of May 23rd, the BSA has ended its longstanding ban on openly gay members under the age of 18, which prohibited self-identified gay scouts from participating in official scouting activities.

While the move toward acceptance has been met with support from major religious institutions like the Catholic church, and hope from some political pundits, sadly - but not surprisingly - the Scouts' move has also been met with bigotry and intolerance from other religious groups, like the Baptists.

The hypocrisy doesn't end there.

While the Scouts' new policy does allow gay members under the age of 18, as soon as a member of the BSA turns 18 and gains adult status, the organization's ban on 'adult Scout leaders' and support personnel kicks in. This means that youngsters who were 'gay but OK' to join the club on Tuesday will be thrown out of the group on Wednesday - their birthday - through no fault of their own.

There are a whole host of reasons why this hypocritical decision by the BSA makes about as much sense as a bunch of homophobic men wearing tight khaki shorts and thin brown shirts being freaked out by gay kids - which is to say no logical sense at all. One of biggest examples of hypocrisy includes a little-known subsidiary organization of the Boy Scouts called "Learning For Life" - an educational supply company, created by the BSA that's taken millions of dollars in Federal tax money, and which openly embraces LGBT members.

The right-wing dominated national media gave comparatively little time to this small but important part of the Boy Scout story - likely because many of them knew the money trail would lead to the hypocrisy under the BSA's own roof. Instead, they spent most of the last two weeks keeping everyone distracted with bogus "scandals" that Americans clearly don't care about - which should tell you all you need to know about the difference between right-wing media and real journalism.

That they continue to pretend their coverage is "fair and balanced" is almost as ridiculous as your average 50 year old bigot wearing too-tight boy shorts accusing anyone else of sexually inappropriate behavior.