Karl Rove bamboozles the IRS: His dark money machine gets "social welfare" blessing

[kpete]

In a farcical abuse of common sense and the American taxpayer, the Internal Revenue Service has granted Crossroads GPS, the dark-money machine of Karl Rove, the Republicans’ guru of attack politics, status as a tax-exempt “social welfare” organization. This means it can keep its deep-pocketed campaign donors secret. The ludicrous I.R.S. finding that the group is not primarily what it so obviously is — a strident G.O.P. operation that should be required to name its donors — is essentially a license for it to run amok in the current federal election cycle with anonymous, unlimited donations.

The ruling, quietly made in November and brought to light this week by the Center for Responsive Politics, signals a shameful retreat by the I.R.S. from enforcing regulations intended to prevent abuses of the nonprofit tax law by campaign operatives. The agency had come under attack from Tea Party and other right-wing groups for questioning their claims to be “social welfare” exemptions, and the Rove ruling is the latest result. It can only invite more partisan operatives to pretend to have society’s nonpolitical interests at heart as they fill campaign troughs with money from hidden donors.

Since pioneering this fiction, Mr. Rove has proved to be no Mother Teresa of a social welfare advocate, as he strategizes obsessively for Republican hegemony. His group has spent $330 million on election ads and candidate support since it was created in 2010, after the Supreme Court freed corporations and unions from political spending limits, according to the center’s watchdog blog, Open Secrets. The dodge has become bipartisan, with President Obama’s re-election helped by the Democrats’ Priorities USA Action operation as a “social welfare” organization under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.


MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/opinion/karl-rove-bamboozles-the-irs.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=0

[underpants]

1. Result of the IRS Teabagger hoax

I wouldn't think that that was the reason for the hoax but I would think that this is a result of it.