The latest non-scandal from the cult of conservatism? It’s the IRS targeting Tea Party Groups.
The IRS realized it needed to better ensure that all these Super Pacs and other organizations that started up since Citizen’s United were complying to the rather loose and not-very-well-defined rules of a 501c4. The IRS received so many of these that they couldn’t audit every one, and they instead needed to focus on certain types of organizations that they thought might be abusing the system (such as organizations who make it their mission got abolish income taxes, etc). The office charged with this compliance in Cincinnati began a key word list to sift through the filings and find ones that may have a higher risk of non-compliance. That lower level group came up with a list that tilted very heavily to conservative and tea party groups (using words like “tea party”, “patriot”, “preserving the constitution”, etc). Within a few weeks (remarkably fast for the government) when senior managers within the IRS learned about the list, those in charge immediately told the compliance group to broaden the list and not use techniques that singled out one political group. They did, end of story.
But not if you’re a card carrying member in the cult of conservatism. For Republicans it was an assault led by the President himself.
Disgusting.