GOP Congressman Darrell Isa's Own Questionable Background

Among the GOP demagogues seeking to manufacture a presidential crisis out of virtually nothing  is GOP Congressman Darrell Isa.  Like most of today's GOP base and its Christofascists puppeteers, Isa puts on a false air of piety and feigned outrage over claims that the facts do not even support.  What the media needs to actually be reporting about is Isa's own questionable past that suggests that he has far more things to answer for than Barack Obama.  Here are highlights from NPR: 

Issa made his fortune building and selling Viper car alarms. He is the wealthiest member of Congress, worth as much as $450 million. In fact, it's Issa's voice on the popular alarm's signature warning to would-be thieves: "Protected by Viper. Stand back."

What's less well known is how Issa got into car alarms in the first place.

"For years I used to tell everyone that I went into it because my brother was a car thief. Then they found out when I ran for office my brother did spend time in prison as a car thief, and it ruined the whole joke I'd had for 20 years in business," Issa said during an interview with WhoRunsGov.
Issa himself was accused several times of auto theft. In the early 1970s, he and his brother were arrested after police suspected them of stealing a Maserati sports car from a dealership in Cleveland. Issa says the police mistook his identity, and the charges were later dismissed.

Another time, Issa was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon. Police found a handgun and a tear-gas gun — plus ammunition for both — in Issa's glove compartment.

Issa had a warehouse full of electronics that, one night in 1982, caught fire. Investigators later found "suspicious burn patterns," Lizza reported, and found that Issa had done some odd things.
A co-worker claimed that before the fire, Issa had put important electronic prototypes in a fireproof box, and that he'd removed the business's computer and financial files from the building. Investigators also found that less than three weeks before the blaze, Issa had increased the company's fire insurance from $100,000 to more than $400,000.

"So you add the more than quadrupling of the insurance along with the taking the computer and putting the other stuff in a fireproof box, and you can see why both the arson investigators and the insurance investigators pointed a finger, you know, at Issa after this fire," said Lizza.

Issa said he had nothing to do with the fire, but the insurance company refused to pay the claim. The two later settled out of court.

It was in part because of these allegations that Issa lost his Senate bid in 1998. He went on to win his House seat, he worked to recall the governor of California, and now he chairs the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Of anyone, Isa ought to know the dangers of smearing others based on sketchy facts and inuendo.  But, given the depravity of today's GOP base, Isa ignores such an approach.

The GOP Fanned "White House Scandals" Are Falling Apart

Despite the mixture of breathlessness and outrage among the GOP base and GOP demagogues like John Boehner, the situations being described as scandals that could topple Barack Obama have little actual substance - so concludes a piece in the Washington Post.  So why the furor?  Because (a) much of the racist GOP hates Obama and wants to see scandal in everything, (b) the supposed scandals are a way to distract the public from the reality that the Congressional Republicans are not doing their jobs and legislating on issues in dire need of solutions, and (c) the so-called scandals are convenient tools for GOP demagogues to fund raise and fleece their delusional party base for money.   Here are highlights from the Post article that looks at why the scandals so loved by the GOP and an always lazy main stream media are likely to fall apart and evaporate out side of the Kool-Aid drinking circles:

1) The Internal Revenue Service: The IRS mess was, well, a mess. But it’s not a mess that implicates the White House, or even senior IRS leadership. If we believe the agency inspector general’s report, a group of employees in a division called the “Determinations Unit” — sounds sinister, doesn’t it? — started giving tea party groups extra scrutiny, were told by agency leadership to knock it off, started doing it again, and then were reined in a second time and told that any further changes to the screening criteria needed to be approved at the highest levels of the agency.

The White House fired the acting director of the agency on the theory that somebody had to be fired and he was about the only guy they had the power to fire. They’re also instructing the IRS to implement each and every one of the IG’s recommendations to make sure this never happens again. .  .  .  .  .  so it’s hard to see where this one goes from here.

2) Benghazi: We’re long past the point where it’s obvious what the Benghazi scandal is supposed to be about. The inquiry has moved on from the events in Benghazi proper, tragic as they were, to the talking points about the events in Benghazi. And the release Wednesday night of 100 pages of internal e-mails on those talking points seems to show what my colleague Glenn Kessler suspected: This was a bureaucratic knife fight between the State Department and the CIA.

As for the White House’s role, well, the e-mails suggest there wasn’t much of one. “The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago,” report The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung. As for why the talking points seemed to blame protesters rather than terrorists for the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans? Well:

According to the e-mails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, and angry demonstrators.

White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the e-mails show, nor did they object to its inclusion in the public talking points.

But CIA deputy director Michael Morell later removed the reference to Ansar al-Sharia because the assessment was still classified and because FBI officials believed that making the information public could compromise their investigation, said senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal debate.

So far, it’s hard to see what, exactly, the scandal here is supposed to be.

3) AP/Justice Department:. This is the weirdest of the three. There’s no evidence that the DoJ did anything illegal. Most people, in fact, think it was well within its rights to seize the phone records of Associated Press reporters. And if the Obama administration has been overzealous in prosecuting leakers, well, the GOP has been arguing that the White House hasn’t taken national security leaks seriously enough. The AP/DoJ fight has caused that position to flip, and now members of Congress are concerned that the DoJ is going after leaks too aggressively. But it’s hard for a political party to prosecute wrongdoing when they disagree with the potential remedies.

Insofar as there’s a “scandal” here, it’s more about what is legal than what isn’t. The DoJ simply has extraordinary power, under existing law, to spy on ordinary citizens — members of the media included.

Because there was no actual evidence of presidential involvement in these events, the line for much of this week was that the president was not involved enough in their aftermath. He was “passive.” He seemed to be a “bystander.” His was being controlled by events, rather than controlling them himself. 

The smarter voices on the right are also beginning to counsel caution. ”While there’s still more information to be gathered and more investigations to be done, all indications are that these decisions – on the AP, on the IRS, on Benghazi – don’t proceed from [Obama],” wrote Ben Domenech in The Transom, his influential conservative morning newsletter. “The talk of impeachment is absurd. The queries of ‘what did the president know and when did he know it’ will probably end up finding out “’just about nothing, and right around the time everyone else found out.’”

The GOP base hates Obama - and I believe hate is the correct word - and this hatred is causing the base and the whores who comprise the GOP members of Congress to try to seize anything they can to destroy Obama and appease the lynch mob that is the base of today's GOP.

Why the IRS Targeted Conservative Groups

 

For years I have found it ridiculous that far right "family values" organizations and similar groups have been able to receive tax-exempt status as either "charities" or "educational" organizations when in reality they engage in political activities 24/7.  Here in Virginia The Family Foundation is a prime example and at the national level there are numerous hate groups such as Family Research Council, American Family Association and others which are tax exempt.  It is beyond ridiculous that taxpayers are indirectly supporting these foul organizations that are anything but charitable in any sense of the word.  They are political operations first and last.  The same holds true for many of the equally insane and vicious Tea Party organizations.  A piece at CNN looks at why the IRS would focus on some of these organizations in enforcing the tax laws and IRS Code which bars non-profits from any significant political activity.  Here are highlights:

The IRS watchdog is set to release documents this week that will reveal fresh details on why the IRS picked on conservative groups that were seeking tax-exempt status. The tax agency has apologized and given a rudimentary explanation.   Here are some questions and answers that throw light on what happened.

What does the IRS have to do with charities anyway?
 
The IRS has to make sure that charitable, education and religious groups -- that don't have to pay taxes on their operations -- are not scamming the federal government. The IRS gets 60,000 requests each year from such groups seeking tax-exempt status, according to Lois Lerner, director of the IRS's exempt organizations office.

Most charities are tax exempt under the 501(c)(3) category. The classification prevents groups from getting directly involved in politics, because donors can deduct contributions from their income taxes. Groups that want to dabble in politics can also apply for tax-exempt status under a different category called a 501(c)(4). This status allows the groups to campaign and participate in elections, as long as it's not their main purpose.

So why was the IRS digging into these groups? 

The number of 501(c)(4) applications more than doubled to over 3,400 in 2012, compared to 1,500 in 2010. The abnormally large number of applications was a red flag to the IRS.

Why so many?
 
It goes back to 2010, when a "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling allowed unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions on political campaigns. It also said that political donors should be disclosed. That case prompted a slew of politically-affiliated groups, including Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, to become charitable organizations under 501(c)4, which allows donors to be kept secret. 

How many groups were targeted?
 
The IRS says that 300 groups were set aside for extra review. About 75 of them had the words "tea party" or "patriot." 

Why did the IRS target conservative groups?
 
We'll find out more when the audit becomes public this week.

Among the legal work I do is at times assist groups in applying for non-profit status and filling out the applicable IRS forms and compiling the supporting documentation.   Being thus familiar with the regulations and requirements I suspect that the IRS was probably fully justified in giving higher scrutiny to groups most likely aimed at pure political activities.  I wish the IRS would audit The Family Foundation.