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An obscure bureaucratic policy that allowed IRS officials totarget conservative and Tea Party tax exemption applicants during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns is still in place, meaning the same abuses may be continuing, according to a nonprofit government watchdog.

The federal tax agencys policy requires IRS officials to stop processing tax-exempt applications that are likely to attract media or congressional attention, the Cause of Action Institute said in a report made public Wednesday.

The policy also directs IRS officials to prepare sensitive case reports for their supervisors and to ignore the merits of the application if it involved a newsworthy topic.

Targeting was and is IRS policy, not a violation of it, the report said, noting that the policy is still in place. As a result, American taxpayers are at risk for similar treatment in the future.(RELATED:Real Power Behind IRS Conservative Targeting Scandal Still A Mystery)

In halting the applications, preparing such reports and referring the matter to supervisors, including political appointees, IRS employees behaved exactly as agency rules dictated, the report continued.

The IRS delayed hundreds of applications from conservative and Tea Party groups beginning in 2010. A federal court recently ruled the IRS is still targeting groups using the policy.(RELATED:Federal Judge Says IRS Still Targeting Tea Party With Classic Catch-22)

The policy automatically politicizes the process in an attempt to avoid potential embarrassment, according to the report. Partisan officials can use the vague and open-ended policy to selectively delay and obstruct those applications receiving higher scrutiny without a way to hold the officials accountable for their decisions. (RELATED:Justice Dept. Had Powerful Case For IRS Targeting Charges)

Issues that attract media or congressional attention are usually political in nature, and reliance on such a criterion means that the process itself cannot avoid partisan bias, the report continued, noting low-level employees could delaytax-exempt applications after watching a single TV news story.

Cincinnati-based IRS tax specialist Jack Koester referred a Tea Party groups tax exempt application to a supervisor one year after Tea Part rallies began. Cause of Action Institute called it the patient zero for forthcoming problems.

The application was passed up the chain of command until supervisors determined to hold it until Washington managers decided how to proceed.

This same procedure was followed in the numerous Tea Party applications that followed, the report said. In most of those matters, the higher-level decision on how to proceed would not come for several years.

Cause of Action Institute noted that one theme was consistent while the original case was passed around among managers concern about media attention, the report said. Five separate levels of management cited that concern specifically, including the reference to potential embarrassment, while no mention at all was made of workload concerns, novel legal questions, or other similar rationales.

The targeting became more elaborate over the following months, and the agency created be on the lookout lists ordering officials to hold all Tea Party or patriot applications. (RELATED:New FBI Docs Show IRS Tea Party Applications To Black Hole)

Regardless, the IRS hasnt changed its policy, even after an inspector general report, five in-depth congressional reports and extensivenews coverage.

Seven years after the targeting scandal began, the rule that enabled this inexcusable behavior still exists, the report said. Until that rule is removed from the internal manual used by all IRS employees, targeting of political opponents will remain a very real threat.

Cause of Action Institute noted that the IRS has the authority to change its policy without legislation.

Given the amount of criticism the IRS has received regarding its targeting practices, it is hard to believe the agency has not yet taken the steps needed to remedy the problem, the report said.

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IRS Targeting Could Happen Again, Watchdog Finds | The Daily ... - Daily Caller

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (screen grab)

President Donald Trumps proposed budget has been drawing predictable criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans, but a new report claims that even Tea Party favorites such as Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin are worried as well.

TheNew York Times reports that during a conversation with White House budget director Mick Mulvaney recently, both Bevin and LePage expressed concerns about some of the massive cuts proposed in the Trump budget to key programs that benefit their states.

Bevin was particularly upset by the White Housess plan to defund theAppalachian Regional Commission, which the Times describes asan economic development agency that spans 13 states and steers millions of dollars in federal money to Kentucky.

LePage, meanwhile, questioned the White Houses plans to cut low-income housing aid.

Although neither of these governors have gone public with their gripes yet, theTimes notes that their private opposition is symbolic of the difficulties that the Trump administration will have in making its proposed budget a reality.

Originally posted here:
Even Tea Party Govs. LePage and Bevin are spooked by Trump budget's draconian cuts - Raw Story

Speaker Paul Ryans American Health Care Act would cut federal spending on health care by about $1.2 trillion, in part by reducing funding to Medicaid for the poorest Americans.

But cutting government spending on health care is deeply unpopular with the public overall and not just among liberals and independents. A new poll released Wednesday by the firm Morning Consult found that wide margins of both conservatives and self-identified Tea Party supporters want the government to increase its spending on health care, rather than decrease it. Only 20 percent of Republicans want less government spending on health care; more than half say that it should be increased.

The margins are not even really close:

These numbers, of course, are even higher for liberals, Democrats, and the country overall. By a 58 to 15 margin, Americans overall want increase rather than cut government spending on health care.

The irony of this finding is that the same Republican rank-and-file that wants more government health care spending is in favor of Ryans bill slashing it, at least according to the current polling. Morning Consults poll on Wednesday, for instance, found that 62 percent of Republican voters like the GOP health care plan. (Though thats down from the 65 percent who said they supported AHCA earlier this month.) Similarly, a Fox News poll last week found that 69 percent of Republican voters back Ryans bill, even as more than half of them want more government health care spending.

On Wednesday, Business Insiders Josh Barro described the central dilemma of the Republicans health care predicament: They campaigned on doing something to fix what voters hated about the health care system overall, without making clear that their remedy would involve cutting the programs voters support:

People are always upset about how much healthcare costs, and healthcare is very complicated, so it is hard for voters to tell whether a politician is actually able to keep his or her promises about it.

If you went around telling abortion opponents that you would ban abortion and abortion-rights advocates that you would give abortions out free, the two sides might notice you were promising two incompatible policies. But for years, Republicans were able to capitalize on public ignorance [about health care] and get away with promises that amounted to "much less expensive and much better."

Their political strategy was cynically brilliant until it led to their getting elected.

The new polling makes it additionally clear just how wide this chasm is. Republicans are caught between a promise (repealing Obamacare) that their base wants, and their main solution (reducing government health spending) that they dont. And with just one day until the House votes on Ryans bill, they dont have much time to figure it out.

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The House GOP is set to slash health care spending. Tea Party voters want more spending. - Vox

Now, though, he may wind up being most famous for going to jail.

The former Texas Republican wasjailed on Thursdayandaccused in federal court on Friday of conspiring with two former employees to violate federal election laws. Prosecutors allege that Stockman created a non-profit in Las Vegas called Life Without Limits in 2011 and thenplanned to funnel thousands in donations made by his employees to himself for personal use. During his second term in office, Stockman accepted one such donation for$350,000.

At an initial hearing on Thursday, Stockman appeared surprised when Judge Stephen Smith told him that he was required to obtain an attorney by 2 p.m. on Friday.

Ill have to hustle with that, Stockman told the judge.

Yeah, you will. These are serious charges, the judge said.

Stockmans bail has been set at $25,000.

Before his campaign fundraising issues, Stockman had loftypolitical ambitions. He challenged Texas Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican senatorial nomination in 2014by repeatedly referring to him as Liberal John Cornyn. Given that Cornyn was ranked as the second most conservative Senator of 2012 (the year before Stockman announced his bid), the National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman referred to Stockmans primary campaign as quite the head scratcher.

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Former Tea Party darling Steve Stockman arrested for felony ...

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We are here on Capitol Hill today and we will be here tomorrow when Judge Gorsuch testifies for 10 hours. in addition, our Tea Party Patriots are making phone calls and sending emails and letters to their senators from across the country, said Jenny Beth Martin, the author of the 2012 bookTea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution.

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Martin was joined by two dozen volunteers holding signs outside the Hart Senate Office Building, while Gorsuch spent the day listening to senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee make opening remarks before making his own 10-minute statement.

Gorsuch was nominated by President Donald Trump to fill the seat on the high court made vacant with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia.

When the nominee walked into the hearing, he was mobbed by senators, well-wishers, and at least 30 photographers. The shutter clicks from the still cameras rose and fell like the waves of sleet upon a tin roof. His every step and motion triggered a new wave of shutter clutters, so much so that reporters, who are not members of the photographers gallery, stood up to take photos and videos of the photographers. It was not just the swarm of photographers in front of Gorsuch at the witness table, but also the photographers and video cameras in the shooters nests revealed by the removed panels in the walls on either side of the Hart-216 hearing room.

Also inside the room were 10-to-12 Capitol Hill police officers, including an officer with a still camera and a video camera, ready to document violations of the law or Senate decorum or both. Outside the room, there were four checkpoints: the immediate doorway, the doorway to the small lobby outside the hearing the room, then the door to the larger lobby on the other side of that door, and finally the hallway leading to that larger lobby.

Back outside Hart, Martin and the Tea Party Patriots were joined by activists from Concerned Women for America, Young Women for America, and the Susan B. Anthony List.

Martin said she was surprised that the left-wing protesters had not shown up to rally against Gorsuch, but an important lesson learned for Tea Party activists has been that regardless of what the Democrats do, the Tea Party must show up.

It is important to show up, she said. No matter how big the event is, you show up. You talk to people, you hold signs, you let people know we are herethat is how you convert hearts and minds.

The Republicans hold a 52-to-48 majority in the Senate. The Senate rules require 60 votes to end debate and holda vote. Without saying it out loud, Senate Republican leaders have signaled that if Senate Democrats insist on extending debate, in the attempt to delay and/or block a vote on the nominee, they will challenge and overturn the 60-vote rule for ending debate for Supreme Court nominees.

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ExclusiveJenny Beth Martin: Tea Party Activists Gather on Capitol Hill to Support Gorsuch - Breitbart News