203 thoughts on “ISIS AUMF”

  1. Should there be one? Yes, it’s past time to get the legal formalities done.
    Beyond that, think of the possibilities for amusement while it is happening. Just for one, you get to watch conservative Republicans arguing that the law ought to grant a President that they accuse of being a tyrant more power than he has asked for. How can you not love that, russell?

  6. While the Senate is debating the AUMF, Biden should sneak Obama up to the main podium…then when Sen. Graham is holding forth about “yadda yadda Obambi’s doon it rong derp”, Obama pops up and yells BOOO!
    I just hope that Graham’s girlish shriek and pants-wetting is caught on CSPAN.

  8. the questions I have about it:
    what is the causus belli that warrants military action?
    there are probably plenty to pick from, i’m just curious to know what is presented in the request.
    are we doing this ourselves?
    if not, who are we allied with?
    how do we know when we’ve won?
    assuming we defeat ISIS, who holds the territory afterwards?
    i’m also wondering how enemies-who-are-enemies-of-our-enemies fit into this. for instance, iran and maybe assad in syria.
    are they friends for the duration?
    last but not least, what happens to the other two AUMF’s that are currently in place?
    does this replace them?

  11. I “accidentally” lose my AUMF’s so I can keep going back for another. That way I have several in case of multiple opportunity types.

  12. It’s always nice to force the Executive to at least pay lip service to the responsibilities demanded of it by the Constitution and the law. There’s some legal status stuff where increased formality benefits the people we’re throwing into harm’s way as well.
    Plus, what Marty said. It’s so embarrassing when – an hour before a diplomatic function – you look on top of your dresser and absolutely none of your omphs coordinate with your outfit and you have to plunge back into the closet and start from scratch with that threadbare omph that’s so ten years ago…

  13. bobby, isn’t it kind of a heroic assumption that the Senate will actually manage to pass something? (Or did you just mean that debating it will give them something to do….)

  14. We’re not being very helpful here.
    If Russell was President and we were his foreign policy/national security strategy team, we would have been replaced first thing this morning.
    The two most interesting questions:
    “How do we know when we’ve won?”
    Given the dynamics of the Mideast, the imaginary borders drawn from colonial times, the Sunni-Shiite blood feud, and the djinn-like nature of the enemy – appearing like whirlwinds in the desert and then vanishing and turning up hundreds miles away (so it seems from the news reports), I’ve no idea.
    When George W. Bush removes the rolled up socks from down his flight suit and stuffs then in Lindsay Graham’s mouth, thus shutting him up, might be one answer.
    I’ve got nothing. And “Nothing” may be the answer. I hereby resign from the national security team to spend more time with my family.
    “Who holds the territory afterwards?”
    A new set of murderous, conservative, religious ideologues. Might as well ask if the next crop of Republican hopefuls for elective office might be a tad less sadistic.
    It’s like asking if Vlad Putin, Bibi Netanyahu, or any number of unrelenting conservative filth might be a little more conciliatory tomorrow.
    Forget it. In all cases, it’s a f&cking horror show.
    I think Jon Stewart’s resignation is an admission that satire as a peaceful weapon against conservative sh*theads across the globe has lost its edge.
    I’d love it if he reappeared at some point in the future as the head of a fully nuclear trans-national superhero paramilitary force and started laying waste to the sadistic conservative ruination killing the world, including within our own borders.
    No studio audience. No laugh track. No hilarious graphics.
    Just an end to it. And then silence. We’ll know the enemy are all dead by the conservative silence on Twitter.
    I don’t care what comes after.

  15. It’s always nice to force the Executive to at least pay lip service to the responsibilities demanded of it by the Constitution and the law.
    Yeah, that would be nice. But Congress definitely isn’t forcing, and the request for an AUMF from the administration maintains that they don’t need one:
    Obama again noted in his letter to Congress Wednesday that he already has the authority to fight ISIS
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/politics/isis-aumf-white-house-congress/
    I still think its a good exercise, if for no other reason than to show people a framework of how Congress could, in theory, debate the merits and objectives of military action before we start launching missiles.

  16. Of course, the whole purpose of an AUMF is to keep Congress from the horror of having to actually execrise their Constitutional responsibility to declare war. Possibly because doing so would entail a responsibility for them to demand actual sacrifices on the part of the whole country (not just the military) in pursuit of victory.

  17. isn’t it kind of a heroic assumption that the Senate will actually manage to pass something?
    They should pass a kidney stone. No amendments. No cloture.

  18. From what I understand (which is admittedly not much) the Sunni population in these areas is pretty well excluded from roles in government or formal power structures, and ISIS is currently the most visible attempt to get that power. Just Aing some MF without doing something to change that, like recognize their interests and working with them some way, seems like it won’t achieve much.

  21. What would be sad, obscene even, would be facing something like ISIS, and not waging war.
    At some point, you need to be able to recognize when you’re faced with genuine evil on a “final solution”, “lampshades made of human skin” level. What’s the matter, not enough funny mustaches for you to see what they are? Waiting for a larger death toll before moving against them? A more challenging fight?
    Like cancer, (with which I’ve got some experience) you need to recognize this sort of thing when it’s small, and deal with it BEFORE it becomes a looming existential threat. Not go straight into denial at the first signs, and leave it to deal with when it’s gotten bigger. (Alas, experience, also.)
    ISIS is growing fast, they find Islamic societies fertile ground. The despots who rule those societies are not in denial about what they’re faced with, they know serious competition when they see it.
    If the somewhat benign tumors can recognize genuine cancer, should we avert our gaze until it comes after us at home?

  22. “Like cancer, (with which I’ve got some experience) you need to recognize this sort of thing when it’s small, and deal with it BEFORE it becomes a looming existential threat. Not go straight into denial at the first signs, and leave it to deal with when it’s gotten bigger. (Alas, experience, also.)”
    Good to see that you’re coming to appreciate the looming threat of Global Warming, Brett.

  23. “All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,” bin Laden said.

  25. “At some point, you need to be able to recognize when you’re faced with genuine evil on a “final solution”, “lampshades made of human skin” level. What’s the matter, not enough funny mustaches for you to see what they are? Waiting for a larger death toll before moving against them? A more challenging fight?”
    You got a strategic military plan for which funny moustaches to go after and where with U.S. troops? Or, are all moustaches funny and thus fair game?
    In other words, to follow your metaphor, do you prescribe radical surgical intervention followed up by full body chemo and radiation therapy, or perhaps something more targeted, and with a long-term after-care plan with reconstructive surgery and perhaps a well-funded disability fund for the ravaged patient?
    A prognosis might be in order while we’re at it. Especially against a cancer, as I see cleek has pointed out, WANTS surgery, chemo, and radiation on its turf so it can use them as nourishment.
    I’d like to see a detailed plan with a list of the American interests threatened by ISIL as soon as your thick cloud of tough-guy squid ink dissipates.
    First bullet point in the plan: an immediate tax increase on every American, perhaps an annual surcharge, to pay for every single foreseeable military cost item in Operation Funny Moustache, including American casualties and the after plan.
    No tax increase upfront? I stop reading the plan and for all I give a sh*t, ISIL can start unloading jeeps with mounted weapons from wooden rafts on the beaches of either U.S. coast and get the beheadings of the undertaxed underway.
    I will concede that the sadistic, murderous plan by our very own genuine, domestic witches brew of Evil to halt Obamacare for millions of Americans, does NOT include making lampshades out of their victims’ skin, in so far as anyone has been privileged to see a plan for the sadistic after-party, but I suspect this is only because the sadists in question make a pretty good living and are all ready fully provisioned with adequate shade from harsh light.

  27. At some point, you need to be able to recognize when you’re faced with genuine evil on a “final solution”, “lampshades made of human skin” level
    I would say that a casual look at the history of the human race shows that being faced with genuine evil on a final solution, lampshades made of human skin level is more or less the normal state.
    Unfortunately, we’re not really in a position to rid the world of bad actors. So, we have to pick our battles.
    I think the question on the table is whether ISIS (or whatever they call themselves today) are a sufficient threat to *us* to warrant committing ourselves to their defeat.
    It won’t be enough to just go kill them all, even if that were possible. They exist for a reason, and the reason would have to be understood and addressed, otherwise it’s just a game of mole whack.
    And, assuming they could be eliminated, their demise will leave a vacuum, which will have to be filled.
    When we last decided to take up arms against a final solution, lampshades made of human skin evil actor, we instituted a draft, raised taxes (top marginal income tax bracket was above 90%), and marshaled the resources of the entire productive economy toward that goal.
    Then followed about four years of war, another decade or so of occupation, and another generation of providing military and economic support to the successor government.
    The ISIS situation would likely be at least that complex, if not more, because of the overall volatility of the region where they hold territory.
    It’s great to talk about Defeating Evil, but evil’s always around, because humans are always around.
    What will it cost to defeat this particular evil.
    What will it cost to let them be.
    That’s what needs to be weighed.

  29. When you say “skin in the game” to the vast majority of Americans, they think you mean to make lampshades of their tax dollars.
    That’s the only skin they’ve been trained to fear losing existentially.
    By the usual pig filth suspects.

  30. How is the U.S. plan, not yet paid for, but carried out by our Shiite low-tax puppet Iraqi government, that dismissed tens of thousands, maybe more, of experienced Sunni Iraqis from that country’s military going, I’d like to know?
    Can the tough, glib know-nothings counseling Armageddon tell me where those folks went when they were excluded from our touching democratic freedom yearning, also not paid for yet, yearning being a tax haven in the Caribbean to hide American money from paying for American adventurism abroad, except in so far as it used to purchase American Federal debt instruments, clipping the coupons and depositing those proceeds abroad too.
    And then whining about the debt and blaming it on poor Americans on food stamps in every so-called election we conduct in this country.
    I’m curious too, before I assent to even more American blood and treasure being emptied pointlessly into the sands of than region, about the material support finding its way to the Sunni ISIL from our erstwhile strategic ally, the Sunni Saudi government, which in turn, discriminates against Shiites in its own country.

  31. No argument about its being better to defeat something like ISIS while it is still small.
    The question is, how to best attack and defeat it? It is pretty clear, after our experience in Afghanistan, that simple military assault won’t do the trick. Yet those demanding war don’t seem to be able to wrap their minds around anything else.
    I would say that there will have to be some military component. Albeit not huge in terms of foreign troops; weapons for the Kurds, etc. would be more to the point.
    But the real core of the attack will have to be economic. Which means
    a) convincing Turkey, or whoever else is providing/allowing it, to stop the flow of oil out ISIS territory.
    b) convincing the Saudis, the Gulf states, etc. to stop the flow of funds to ISIS, and to freeze whatever accounts they have.
    If that is done, two things start to happen:
    – ISIS can’t pay their troops
    – ISIS can’t buy weapons. And, more to the point, ammo.
    And it becomes hard for them to provide anything resembling government in the territory they control. Without which, the attraction of their caliphate drops substantially.
    One of al Qaeda’s strengths was always that they were not generally trying to sieze, hold, and govern territory. ISIS is doing so, which increases their vulnerability to economic attack.

  32. This U.S. invasion of ISIL territory should be accompanied by the simultaneous shutdown of key parts of the Department of Homeland Security, just to keep front and center how colossally full of sh*t the people “counseling” all of these policy prescriptions are.
    To paraphrase George W. Bush mimicking Karla Faye Tucker: “‘Please,'” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “‘don’t kill me.'”
    “Please”, Americans whimper, their lips pursed in mock desperation about people being burned to death in the Mideast, “don’t kill me, too. But please do shut down the government and cut my taxes to kill the Others.”

  33. That’s what needs to be weighed.
    Also, is there even something productive that CAN be done, without providing propaganda material for ISIL, which wants to paint this as a holy war between the caliphate and the US?
    How long can ISIL maintain control and recruiting while exhibiting a level of barbarism that is alienating everybody in the region?
    I really don’t see a US lead military solution to ISIL, mostly for the reasons russell noted. We could probably grind them down, but something would fill the void. Unless we want to commit ourselves to indefinite occupation of that reason, we need to work to fix the underlying problems of that region.
    convincing the Saudis, the Gulf states, etc. to stop the flow of funds to ISIS, and to freeze whatever accounts they have.
    Well, they are keeping the oil taps open, depressing prices. Added bonus to the Saudis: increased pressure on Iran.

  34. We better get moving on Boko Haram and the LRA, too. They’re evil. Those Mexican drug cartels could use a good “How’s Your Father?” while we’re at it.
    We’ve got a lot of evil to clean up around the world, huh?

  35. Don’t forget the need for a massive military response to “parking disputes” before they escalate into terrorism.
    “You counsel passivity as people are burned alive.”
    C’mon, Global warming isn’t THAT bad yet! There’s still time to deal with it, and it’s far more of an “existential threat” than a bunch of fanatics running around in Iraq.
    But hey, if YOU want to go over there with a fire extinguisher, be my guest. I think we’ll even chip in for the airfare. And if you want to sit passively and do nothing about it, that’s okay too. It’s not your fight.

  38. You counsel passivity as people are burned alive.

    and you think the US is the world’s police force, to be used to solve any problem, any time, any where, no matter the cost or consequences – so long as it gives you a way to complain about your political opponents.

  39. It’s as though our government were (Mildly, at the moment.) warring against a substantial fraction of it’s population, and in the process losing their sympathy.
    That’s what happens when you weaponize the government, and use it in your political fights. The people you use it against stop feeling that it’s ‘their’ government.

  42. Yeah, right, IRS confesses to doing political targetting, it’s “Black helicopters”.
    IRS lies about relevant emails being gone, just didn’t look for them. “Black helicopters”.
    I’m getting to think that ‘black helicopters’ is just liberal-speak for “something I refuse to acknowlege”.

  44. wheels within wheels, man.
    the government you want to solve every world crisis is also the one that’s out to git ya!
    quite a dilemma.

  45. You complain about lost e-mails while people are burned alive.
    (Me, I just brush my teeth and ponder my navel.)

  46. Cleek, it just requires understanding that a government which is massively incompetent at home (which is why it shouldn’t be trying to run everything), is nearly omnipotent else (which is why it should take responsibilty for fixing all the (outside) world’s problems. what’s the conflict? Incompetence (like politics once upon a time) stops at the water’s edge. 😉

  47. The IRS scandal isn’t about incompetence, but corruption. It wasn’t incompetence that led multiple IRS employees to perjoriously deny the existence of the backups Lerhner’s emails were later found on. To the incredulity of everyone who knew anything about IT.
    There are many things the goverment is incompetent at. Breaking stuff and killing people, however, is it’s core competency. If it can’t do that even when that’s the actual answer to a problem, what good is it?

  49. So, what action do we take?
    sounds like “break stuff and kill people” is the way to stop people from killing people.
    and blowback is a liberal myth invented by Lois Lerner to entrap god-fearing grifters.

  50. Incompetence and corruption are not even close to being the reasons the Republican Party and the libertarians want to get rid of the IRS.
    They just don’t want to pay taxes. In fact, the core competency of the IRS, which it’s pretty good at when fully funded, is collecting taxes and the enforcement that comes with, and THAT, and only that, is why the IRS is under constant attack.
    All else is entertainment on Brett’s political playstation.
    “What action do we take?”
    All of that will remain a mystery.
    The action we can be certain won’t be taken is collecting the tax revenue to pay for the mystery action in the Mideast.
    Mitt Romney (as good a name to use as any) and company buy safe U.S. debt, collecting certain tax deductible income while enabling the purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars of military gear from their own corporations to leave rotting and/or available for Mideastern despots, and I include conservative fundamentalist Israelis among that group, to kill their own people, whenever and wherever they fail again at their war aims, which remain clothed in mysterious prevarication.
    Mitt Romney and company’s corporations and investors squirrel the profits away in a beach-side unmarked account.
    Mitt Romney and company look up innocently from their tax evasion every two years, while their killer surrogates beat the drums for austerity in the interim, and exclaim, hey, whatta about all this debt? We need to cut food stamps, SS disability and privatize just about everything else (again, to their corporations) so their government-guaranteed income is not endangered.
    Or trying to send various functions to the States, which have been deliberately shorn of their own tax revenue by the usual Norquistian suspects to prevent taking on the responsibilities.
    “What action do we take” again.
    We’ll probably find some tubes, maybe the missing intertubes, somewhere in ISIL territory, and the conservative machine and its media will lie, cheat, and steal our soldiers and the country into a another deadly boondoggle.
    Jeb Bush the other day said he doesn’t want to talk about the past vis a vis foreign policy.
    No kidding?
    How utterly sh*thead American of him. To want to blunder into another deadly war with no reference to the past (in the Mideast, where EVERYTHING is marinated in the past) with some fresh lies and bullsh*t, which resemble the previous lies and bullsh*t, but shhh, those last are off the table for discussion.
    You break, you own it.
    Never sign a contract with an American that contains those words.

  51. and THAT, and only that, is why the IRS is under constant attack.
    doing away with the evil IRS would make the gears of the grift machine mesh much smoother.
    someone should ask all the wingnut wannabes what they recommend we do about ISIS. let’s have that debate right now.

  53. one would think the phrase “revenue neutral” would be all over the lips of every “conservative” war monger out there. but, no.
    i get the feeling any war will be happily put on the credit card, with the resulting debt blamed on the nearest liberal. cause, ya know, fiscal responsibility and all that.

  56. poor Brett, getting piled on again? Strange how it always happens to year, guess we just can’t handle the actinic light of your truth!

  57. A pile looks like a hole, to somebody who’s standing on their head.
    I’m probably more sympathetic to some of the points you’re making than most here (Frex, I am pretty disturbed my the Lerner/IRS scandal).
    But, I’d also really be interested in your answer to russell’s 3X query. If we should take action on ISIL, as you seem to think, what should it be?
    Economic pressure? Air raids? Drones? Ground troops? A draft-supported million soldier occupying force in the region?
    It’s all well and good to say ‘something must be done!’ but without specifics as to what ‘something’ is, its very difficult to weigh the pros and cons, or if it even has potential to succeed.

  59. thompson,
    based on their outraged reactions, one of the most effective ways of poking religious fundamentalists like ISIS is to make fun of them.
    I, for one, intend to do my part to defend western civilization.

  60. Nestled within Brett’s comment far above he wrote:
    “The despots who rule those societies are not in denial about what they’re faced with, they know serious competition when they see it.”
    I think this comment has merit. I would add that one despot, Saddam Hussein, as much as he was a blood thirsty killer financed by the United States when it was convenient for us, might have been the only motherf*cker who would be able to deal with the ISIL threat, but alas.
    An interesting read:
    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/02/17/long-read-what-isis-really-wants/
    ISIL executes innocent Muslims, probably the same ones we and our client despots been killing as collateral damage for years, probably the translators we couldn’t find room for after the Iraq War, and probably the same innocent ones who want to live peaceably in the United States but are under siege from our domestic paranoid evil, because all Muslims are suspect.
    Incidentally, I like the David Koresh reference in the article.
    Maybe we know more about how to deal with End World fanatics than we’re letting on.

  61. Snarki,
    I am with you: the one thing fanatics can’t stand up to is ridicule.
    Sure, they can kill cartoonists. But just like civilized people can’t kill all the fanatics, the fanatics can’t kill all the cartoonists.
    What the fanatics can do is hope that “religious moderates” will tsk,tsk at the cartoonists for “provoking” them. But blowback works both ways, and it’s at least possible that even “moderates” will decide that they’d rather side with the cartoonists after all.
    –TP

  63. here’s number four.
    what action should we take?
    if it was just a matter of waving a magic wand and making them go away, i’m pretty sure everyone here would be in favor.
    we don’t have a magic wand. we have people, and money, and gear. maybe, we have sufficient diplomatic clout to get some other folks to help us.
    how do those resources translate into a plan?
    note that we are already doing well beyond nothing, so the question really is what *else* should we do?

  66. 4x counts as a deafening silence.
    and so i remain 100% convinced that all of this “we must act!” noise from “conservatives” is absolutely nothing more than cynical posturing from people who have substituted complaining about their imaginary Obamas for actually trying to make America better.
    I am pretty disturbed my the Lerner/IRS scandal
    from the WaPo article i linked above:

    For the most part, the bigger and more elite PACs Hawkins looked at are the ones that spent money in the way they said they were going to; for instance, Club for Growth Action spent 88 percent of its contributions on candidates. On the other end, the Tea Party Express spent only 5 percent of its contributions on candidates; Hawkins even found a couple of smaller PACs that spent nothing at all on candidates.

    so we should excoriate the IRS for daring to wonder if these groups are legitimate under the law ?

  67. Of course we should. Because the IRS was looking at conservative groups. The fact that they were actually ripping off conservative donors is simply irrelevant in the face of the overarching fact that they were conservative groups (it says so right on the label) and were being investivated by the Federal government.
    That, by definition, is outrageous — and outrage is the name of the game. Because it generates more donations. 😉

  68. If ISIL blew up IRS headquarters and all of its satellite offices around the country and beheaded Lois Lerner, would anti-American conservative PACS increase their donations to the ISIL cause for future operations in this country, while decreasing donations to conservative Republican candidates because the tax problem would have been solved/ended, or what?
    How do reptilian minds work so closely together, even across such a wide cultural gulf is what I’m trying to find out.
    Any lurking reptiles want to fill me in.

  69. Well, since the PACs are supposed to spend money on issues, not candidates, I suspect the IRS should look at the ones that spent 88% on candidates. Whichever “side” they’re on.

  70. “4x counts as a deafening silence.”
    4x counts as having a life. I think I was fairly clear: We should kill them. We should kill them in such numbers that anyone who might think of joining ISIS would view it as suicide, and change their mind.
    “Of course we should. Because the IRS was looking at conservative groups.”
    The problem was not that the IRS was looking at conservative groups. They SHOULD be looking at conservative groups. And liberal ones, and apolitical ones.
    The problem was that the IRS was, explicitly, deliberately, treating similarly situated conservative and liberal groups differently. Slow walking the former’s applications, transmitting confidential data from them to liberal groups, and so forth, while the liberal groups got valet service.
    This is not a controversial charge, it is what the IRS has already confessed to doing, what the IG has already confirmed happened. The only question is how high the rot went, and the fact that the IRS went to Congress and committed perjury about Lerhner’s emails being beyond retrieval, and that those emails are currently not being released to Congress, creates a presumption the rot went pretty high.
    You can be in denial all you want about the IRS and other three letter agencies being used by this administration as political weapons, but your denial doesn’t stop conservatives from reacting to it. We don’t live in your fantasies.

  71. 4x counts as having a life.
    I’ve generally taken ‘having a life’ to mean ‘I was too busy to reply’, not ‘I’m going to reply to other things and ignore your question’. Hope that I wasn’t mistaken in that assumption.

  72. I think I was fairly clear: We should kill them.
    How should we do that?
    Should we just carpet bomb or even just nuke the territory they hold? We will kill all of the folks who live there who aren’t in ISIS. Is that price a fair one?
    Should we invade and engage them in on-the-ground combat? How many people will we need to do that? Where will those people come from? How long will it take?
    ISIS currently holds territory larger than the UK, including territory that is nominally in at least two countries (Iraq and Syria). Assuming we destroy them, what happens to that territory? Does it just go back to Iraq and Syria? Are either of those countries capable of holding the territory once we’ve defeated ISIS?
    What does “defeating ISIS” mean? Kill the caliph? Kill every person who claims allegiance to the caliph? Re-take the territory they hold? How does doing any of those things prevent them from re-forming somewhere else, under a different caliph if that’s what is needed.
    Basically, you haven’t really answered my question. Or, your answer is no improvement over waving a magic wand.
    If it was as simple as “duh, go kill them!” I don’t think there would be much question about what to do.
    To reply to folks’ questions about how to move forward with comments like “You counsel passivity as people are burned alive” is just bullshit.
    You sit behind your computer monitor and say “go kill them” while people are burned alive, and beheaded, and otherwise abused.
    Are you going to accept a 10, or 15, or 20% increase in your taxes to pay for it?
    Who is the “you” that is going to go kill them? Are you going to send your kid, or your wife, or other family members, or god forbid your self, to go do the fighting?
    ISIS is a really thorny problem, “go kill them” is basically a moronic reply.
    Don’t be a moron.
    Or, if you have to play the moron, don’t give other people sh*t if they try to actually make intelligent comments about the situation.

  75. No one forgets it cleek. They looked at gardening groups and library groups and individuals and corporations and well, everyone. They looked specifically at conservative groups differently. This is a particularly irritating way to argue this, I call bad faith.

  76. They looked specifically at conservative groups differently.
    They looked at groups with obvious partisan language in their names differently.

  77. Russell (and cleek), there hasn’t been any doubt that they treated conservative groups differently. There is not a rational person in the country that believes otherwise. when there was a big push to prove the White House ordered it, I agreed it hadn’t been shown. But this is the most partisan and unsupportable position I have ever seen either of you take. So it’s a lot like watching Brett try to defend and indefensible position. IMO

  78. This is a particularly irritating way to argue this,
    know what’s really irritating? the fact that this is so obviously a partisan witch-hunt is irritating. that it’s founded entirely on bad faith, deliberate ignorance and wishful thinking is irritating, too. no fact is just a fact here, it’s always a sign of a deeper conspiracy: irritating.
    people who want Obama to look bad have already convinced themselves of the conclusion and now they’re using the mighty power of confirmation bias to support it.
    also, Brett’s threadjack is irritating.
    i apologize for enabling.

  79. Marty, they know the party line, (“There are no real Obama administration scandals!”) and the’re not departing from it. What are facts next to the party line?

  80. I’ll forgive Brett’s IRS threadjack, since he’s provided a model for creating a perfect world. It goes like this:
    Q: What do you do if you have a problem?
    A: Fix it! Duh…
    Now let’s get to it! Let’s clean up this mess!

  81. I think I was fairly clear: We should kill them.
    Yeah, what russell said. Even if I thought that killing ISIL would solve the problem once and for all, and I don’t, I really don’t see how ‘killing ISIL’ is going to be any easier than killing the Taliban, or Iraqi insurgents, etc.
    We have over a decade of very costly experience that shows us that killing insurgencies is out of our reach.
    In you want to explain why you think otherwise in this case, I’m curious to hear why.

  82. Brett: Marty, they know the party line, (“There are no real Obama administration scandals!”) and the’re not departing from it.
    in response to
    Marty: when there was a big push to prove the White House ordered it, I agreed it hadn’t been shown.
    Not. On. Point.

  84. Brett: We should kill them in such numbers that anyone who might think of joining ISIS would view it as suicide, and change their mind.
    Um, we’re talking here about people who, successfully recruit suicide bombers. Whatever makes you think that merely seeing joining ISIS as suicide would cause them to change their mind? (For some, it actually seems to be an attraction.) Just because you would have better sense doesn’t mean the rest of the world does.
    And that’s before we get to the fact that most people joining such a cause, whether ISIS or any other violent uprising or even just the conventional military of their country, routinely assume that they will survive. Even if the odds are demonstrably strongly against them, they still assume that they, somehow, will survive.

  85. Marty: there hasn’t been any doubt that they treated conservative groups differently.
    Say, rather, “…there hasn’t been any doubt among conservatives that they treated conservative groups differently.” That would still not be completely true, but at least it would come close. Among those not already paranoid on their own behalf, the matter is far from proven. Witness the comments from some others here.

  86. no wj, among just about everyone there is little doubt that the IRS treated conservative groups differently. Even the numbers put up in defense were laughable. There is this diehard mentality, I guess reflected here, that because no one got Lerner to confess that “nothing happened”. I f there is a partisan view of this, that’s the primary one. Secondarily there is a partisan view that the White House “had to know”. While I believe that, I recognize that it is a partisan bias on my part.

  87. Really, hairshirt, who am I, the Joint Chiefs?
    Obviously not. But when you put yourself out there by criticizing others for failing to advocate further(!) (unspecified) action “while people are burned alive,” you better bring something better to support your kinda-sorta offensive critique.
    It’s easy to paint others as being spineless and morally bankrupt when all you have to come up with is “Do something!” as opposed to making a suggestion that takes into account the complexities of the situation at hand. But you don’t get to do that here, because we’re not that stupid.
    You don’t know what do to about ISIS anymore than anyone else on this thread. The difference is that others acknowledge that they don’t know what to do and don’t have the gall to talk like they do or to pretend that it’s so simple as “kill them.”
    I don’t expect you to know what to do, except when you make comments implying that you do. So stop being poor, put-upon Brett. No one forced you to make your stupid comment.

  88. The rancid, monied conservative groups in these latter years of the Republic that have been legally enabled to launder their resources anonymously into the political system to pervert government ARE different.
    Like a shark fin appearing offshore of a swimming beach is “looked at” differently than a harmless log floating by, I congratulate the IRA and Lois Lerner for doing their jobs and trying to clear the beach.
    She’s a patriot, exposing an anti-American domestic enemy.
    Why? Because I say so.
    Does that clear that up?
    F8ck the Republican Party! Blow it up!
    They are f*cking sadists with no good intentions toward the government that Brett demands kill (though there is never an active subject in his demands for protection, merely a verb “kill” and an object “them”) ISIL.
    Yever notice how when I issue bloviating demands that our enemies be killed, whomever they are, and I know who they are, Brett predicts we’ll read about me in the newspapers one day, but when he demands killing, no one expects to see him front and center in the news, because he wants someone else to do it for him, the goddamned f*cking government he hates.
    Mercenaries are streaming to the Mideast to fight WITH and AGAINST ISIL, depending on which crazy-ass religious and political motives are involved.
    You wanna kill ISIL? Plane to Turkey, various buses to the border, some smuggled transport into Syria and Iraq, no doubt some hiking at night with a beard and some diversionry head-gear to get to the center of attention and then introductions to the dozens of anti-ISIL paramilitary forces swarming through the area.
    Do it.
    Stop asking me to pay for it with taxes while you f*ck with the agency trying to collect the f*cking money for your protection.

  90. Among those not already paranoid on their own behalf, the matter is far from proven.
    And the report:
    “The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued. Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months…. For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications [reviewed in the audit] as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles)…. Many organizations received requests for additional information from the IRS that included unnecessary, burdensome questions (e.g., lists of past and future donors).”
    The matter, that inappropriate criteria and burdensome questioning was used by the IRS, according to the IRS’ IG, is settled.
    http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf

  91. there hasn’t been any doubt that they treated conservative groups differently.
    Yes, there has.
    I got your doubt right here. *I* doubt that they treated conservative groups differently.
    We know that both conservative and progressive groups were targeted. At least, I do. I know this because the only group whose application was denied was a progressive group.
    So, at least one progressive group was targeted. Q.E.D.
    If you want to claim that conservative groups were targeted more, or in a different way, than progressive (or whatever) groups, there are some basic questions you have to answer.
    How many groups that applied had language in their name or in their application that would flag them as conservative?
    How many had language in their name or application that would flag them as progressive?
    Of those having language flagging them as conservative, how many were investigated?
    Of those having language flagging them as progressive, how many were investigated?
    Of those having language flagging them as conservative, and which were investigated, what was the disposition of the investigation?
    And, likewise for progressive groups.
    Was there a quantitative difference in how they were handled? I.e., were 50% of apparently conservative groups investigated, while only 5% of progressive groups were?
    That would be a significant difference.
    Was there a measurable qualitative difference in how the groups were handled? I.e., conservative groups had their requests denied, while progressive groups did not, or 80% of conservative groups experience delays of N weeks in the processing of their requests, while only 10% of progressive groups experienced delays of similar length.
    That would be a significant difference.
    Stuff like that is what *proof* looks like.
    In the absence of proof, my position is that I doubt it happened. Because I’m not a priori disposed to assume that the IRS is on a witch hunt.
    Show me the proof, and my doubts will disappear.
    Note that “proof” sourced from Breitbart, or whatever other variety of Knucklehead Knews Daily Brett (or whoever) is reading today, will be viewed with suspicion.
    Show me the freaking numbers, from a credible source having some kind of documentary evidence.
    Short of that, IMO it’s rumor.

  92. Really, hairshirt, who am I, the Joint Chiefs?
    No, you’re Some Guy On The Internet who wants to disparage other folks’s comments with tough-guy Churchill-wanna-be one-liners, without contributing anything of substance to the discussion.
    If that’s a cap you like to wear, have at it.

  93. The matter, that inappropriate criteria and burdensome questioning was used by the IRS, according to the IRS’ IG, is settled.
    I don’t think anybody disagrees with this.
    What has not been demonstrated, at least to me, is that the inappropriate actions were disproportionately directed toward conservatives.
    Is evidence of that in the report? Or anywhere else?

  94. “I got your doubt right here. *I* doubt that they treated conservative groups differently.”
    Ok, no rational doubt. The proof you’re asking for has been out there for over a year. I’ve presented links to it myself at this site.

  96. Right, thompson, there is no doubt that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria”. What is in doubt is whether one of those criteria was to just go after conservative groups and not others.
    What the report says is that the IRS was going after groups with “Tea Party . . . or other ‘political-sounding’ names.” Now maybe “other ‘political-sounding’ names” means only conservative political-sounding names — but I didn’t get that from the report. From the report: “Determinations Unit employees stated that they considered the Tea Party criterion as a shorthand term for all potential political cases.” (emphasis added)

  97. russell, you might also not that those criteria (whatever they were) were not used to deny approval. They were used to refer applications to a special group for review. Which resulted in some unacceptable delays in processing, as the IRS has acknowledged, but is not the same as denying approval.

  98. What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

  99. “Really, hairshirt, who am I, the Joint Chiefs?
    Have to admit, I find this is a funny rejoinder.
    I picture General “Buck” Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxLe8MWdWe0
    I, by the way, am the Obamacare Death Panel that Sarah Death Panel warned us about.
    As soon as the Republican Party goes the way of ISIL, as in vanquished, I will be tasked with allowing the IRS to collect whatever taxes it deems appropriate to pay for whatever health insurance and procedures keeps every American in fine medical fettle, without skimping.
    I’ll even give a thumbs-up to an all-expense-paid emergency brain transplant for Palin herself, despite the meager chances of IQ improvement.
    Just a thought:
    ISIL has killed … is it three .. or four Americans?
    In early March, the conservative reptiles on our Supreme Court may issue orders to kill and/or shorten the lives of, I don’t know, up to 11 million Americans, but if it makes folks feel better, probably ONLY hundreds of thousands of ailing Americans.
    It will be murder, to be avenged, hopefully by the families of the murdered, in kind.
    Kind of puts those body count contests we have periodically between Stalin and Hitler into base relief.
    As in, those who want to kill ISIL will be vaguely discomfited that ISIL isn’t trying harder to close the body bag gap and will hope they try harder to make their domestic Stalins seem not as lethal.
    Anyway, I hereby withdraw from the pile-on, justified though it be, to look forward to the weekend recipe thread.

  102. “Which resulted in some unacceptable delays in processing, as the IRS has acknowledged, but is not the same as denying approval.”
    I’m unclear what the difference between perpetual delay and denying approval is, beyond lack of closure, and continuing expenses complying with pointless data requests.

  103. Read the freaking report, why don’t you?
    Here is what I see in the report:
    For the first 15 months of the program, from early 2010 until July 2011, the criteria used to identify applications for review were definitely skewed toward targeting conservative groups. The language used to flag applications included phrases like “Tea Party”, “9/12”, etc., but did not include language that expressed a clearly progressive orientation.
    From July 2011 through the end of the program, the criteria targeted, generically, any partisan orientation.
    So, conservatives have a legitimate complaint about the criteria used from mid-2010 until July 2011.
    I do not see anything in the report to indicate any partisan skewing of the actual outcomes.
    Given the political climate of 2010, the fact that folks tasked with identifying applications for tax-exempt status based on partisan orientation chose language like “Tea party”, “9/12”, or “Take back America” seems, to me, unsurprising, if suspicious.
    In other words, I find the claims of the IRS staff that “tea party” was used as shorthand for “partisan orientation” to be, in context, believable, if bone-headed.
    Long story short, if that’s the whole of it, I’m not seeing anything like proof of a plan to “go after” conservative groups.
    Even during the 2010-2011 period, it looks like the groups selected for review based on conservative language were about 1/3 of those reviewed.
    Who were the other 2/3? What happened with those cases?
    So, to my eye, definitely worth looking into, which apparently has been done, but pretty far from proof of what has been claimed.
    YMMV.

  104. russell:
    What has not been demonstrated, at least to me, is that the inappropriate actions were disproportionately directed toward conservatives.
    I suppose I’m somewhat unique in thinking this could be a problem even if it was broadly applied. Frex, I don’t particularly want occupy groups targeted anymore than TP groups.
    However, my impression is that there is evidence of a bias:
    “In total, 30 percent of the organizations we identified with the words ‘progress’ or ‘progressive’ in their names were processed as potential political cases,” George wrote to Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. “In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases during the timeframe of our audit.”
    from: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-progressive-groups-flagged-but-tea-party-bigger-target/
    Really, the wiki article is a pretty good place to start:
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
    wj:
    Tea Party criterion as a shorthand term for all potential political cases.
    Yes. I’m pretty skeptical that that particular shorthand doesn’t reflect a bias, but I suppose its possible.

  107. “In total, 30 percent of the organizations we identified with the words ‘progress’ or ‘progressive’ in their names were processed as potential political cases,” George wrote to Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. “In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases during the timeframe of our audit.”
    Yes, I agree that that is evidence of bias. Thank you.
    Here are my thoughts on this, overall.
    First, the IRS was being pressured to look for groups abusing the new 501(c) laws. At the same time, their funding and staffing was being reduced. Apparently, folks in Cincinnati and elsewhere were looking for shortcuts. They chose poor ones.
    Second, in the time frame we’re talking about, partisan conservative groups had a much more recognizable brand than liberal groups. What’s the liberal equivalent of “Tea Party”? You could say “Occupy”, but how many organizations associated with the Occupy movement were applying for 501(c) status? How many organizations associated with Occupy are even involved in partisan electoral politics at all?
    Third, the focus in all of this has been on the Cincinnati office. Cincinnati is a highly conservative area. Was the Cincinnati office screening requests just from Cincinnati, or nationwide? Were the other IRS offices that were using political “flag” language – two in CA, one in DC – also focused on conservative language? Who was targeting “occupy”, and “medical marijuana”, and “occupied territory advocacy” (from the Wiki page)?
    If the claim is that the criteria used to look for inappropriate 501(c) applications resulted in conservative groups being unfairly singled out, I would say there is evidence for that.
    If the claim is that the IRS deliberately went after conservative groups, specifically because they were conservative, with the intent of suppressing conservative political activity, I don’t see it.
    Regarding the Silver 538 piece, it’s not suprising that Tea Party 501(c) applications were processed in a burst after Congress told the IRS to stop singling out Tea Party groups for review.
    Regarding the IG’s final report to Levin, it appears that we are in he said / she said territory. The IG says no progressive groups were targeted, other folks say they were. And in fact, progressive groups were subject to review, and in at least one case were not only denied 501(c) status, but the parent group had their 501(c) status revoked.
    So, I’m skeptical that no progressive groups were targeted, and/or that language reflecting a progressive orientation was never used to select groups for review.
    It was a really bad idea to use language like “Tea Party” to vet 501(c) applications, just like it was a really bad idea to use language like “occupy” or “medical marijuana”. It creates the perception that the IRS is being used to suppress legitimate political activity for partisan reasons.
    Perceptions are important, but they are not reality.
    30% vs 100% is a persuasive piece of evidence, pointing toward bias. I’ll look at that further.
    Other than that, I’m not seeing evidence of anything other than bad judgement.

  108. I’m pretty skeptical that that particular shorthand [“Tea Party” as a shorthand term for all potential political cases.] doesn’t reflect a bias, but I suppose its possible.
    It’s certainly impolitic. Or, if you prefer, politically incorrect.
    But it’s the kind of shorthand that routinely happens when you have a group of people dealing with a diverse body of data in which one piece is significantly larger than others (albeit still a small fraction). I’ve seen it numerous times, with everything from IT projects to political and economic discussions to religious arguments (including some here). Human beings are, apparently, just inclined to that kind of verbal shorthand.

  109. Oh, and according to at least one IRS agent the targeting never stopped.
    never stopped?
    FFS, that article is from August 2013.

  110. So, who here is claiming evidence of an Obama-administration scandal – one of the many no progressive/liberal here is willing to countenance (if I may continue along with the masterful threadjack)?
    I don’t have much of a strong opinion either way on what the IRS did or how purposefully they did it. It’s not entirely clear. Maybe they really had it in for conservative groups. It’s a possibility that’s consistent with what evidence is available, even if it hasn’t been proven.
    What I do have a strong opinion on is that there is no evidence that direction for targeting came from the White House. But, of couse, that must be because I just love, love, love Obama and think he can do no wrong.
    Scandal-free administration, baby! (Don’t forget where the goal posts were when this got started.)

  111. russell:
    If the claim is that the IRS deliberately went after conservative groups, specifically because they were conservative, with the intent of suppressing conservative political activity, I don’t see it.
    I think that hasn’t been demonstrated by the evidence, which is why I haven’t claimed that, although I think it would be consistent with the evidence. And no, I don’t buy a far reaching conspiracy. I think, far more likely, individuals let their personal bias effect their work.
    Again, I personally find the point of ‘were they specifically targeting conservatives’ somewhat irrelevant. It was an abuse of their authority and of public trust regardless of who was targeted.
    Regarding the Silver 538 piece
    Sorry, I should have clarified why I brought that up, as the focus of the article was, as you note, the surge in approvals after congress got on them about it. What I actually wanted to point out was the last paragraph, which I think is further evidence of bias:
    As a point of comparison, we tried to identify liberal groups approved for 501(c)(4) status since 2010. A search for “progress,” “progressive,” “liberal” and “equality” finds 32 groups. […] The I.R.S. approved these groups at a fairly steady rate from 2010 through 2012. The I.R.S. approved 13 in 2010, nine in 2011 and 10 in 2012.
    Regarding the IG’s final report to Levin, it appears that we are in he said / she said territory. The IG says no progressive groups were targeted, other folks say they were.
    The IG’s letter, as pointed to in the cbs article, and in the actual letter Brett posted, does not say that. It says some progressive groups were targeted, but not to the extent that the TP was. It’s where the 30% vs 100% numbers come from.
    It creates the perception that the IRS is being used to suppress legitimate political activity for partisan reasons.
    It creates that perception, and IMO, probably resulted in actual suppression. As noted in the report, many groups have a cause of action against the IRS.

  112. “FFS, that article is from August 2013.”
    Which is, conspicuously, well after May of 2010…
    “So, who here is claiming evidence of an Obama-administration scandal”
    I would say the best evidence that it is specifically an Obama administration scandal, not just an IRS scandal, is the flat refusal to permit anybody to examine the Lehrner/administration emails, now that they’ve been located.

  113. Which is, conspicuously, well after May of 2010…
    anything that happened in August 2013 is something that “never stopped” ?
    is that your claim ?

  115. Perhaps it is just me. But when some group constantly claims that everything is an evil conspiracy, it admittedly makes it harder for them to get me to spend time looking at whatever evidence they claim to have to support their latest claim. Simply because doing so has been a complete waste of time so often before.
    It’s the “boy who cried wolf” phenomena. Certainly it means that accurate complains of real problems will get missed occasionally — as they will no doubt complain, and with some justice. But where does the blame for that really lie?

  116. The point is, it certainly didn’t stop in mid 2010.
    right, because it “never” stopped. unless it did. but it doesn’t matter because…

  117. this piece has a link to the actual ‘BOLO’ docs.
    They are, of course, highly redacted, so good luck.
    The primary difference between Tea party groups and progressive groups appears to be in the direction, given in the BOLO’s, for how to handle the different kinds of groups singled out for attention.
    Non-tea party groups could be approved by local office line staff. Tea Party groups could not, and had to be referred up a level for approval.
    This could be evidence of bias.
    Another thing to note is that most progressive groups that appear on the BOLO’s appear under the heading of “Touch and Go”. Meaning, they’ve already been reviewed at some point, but could be a problem, so keep an eye on them. Tea Party groups were categorized as “Emerging”.
    Emerging groups were / are apparently automatically referred for closer scrutiny. That’s nothing to do with political orientation, see here for a discussion of how this was applied to non-profit news organizations, many of progressive stripe.
    That last link comes via here, which provides some additional context, as does this.
    So – why were all of the Tea Party groups subject to intense review, while only some progressive groups?
    Partisan bias is a possible explanation.
    The fact that the progressive groups had been on BOLOs for years, and so had already been vetted to some degree, while the Tea Party groups were new, and had not, also a possible explanation, and in fact directly supported by the documentary evidence.
    Lots of things are potentially “consistent with the evidence”. Not all of them are true.
    A claim that a branch of government has been tasked with deliberately suppressing a specific set of lawful activities is a very strong claim. It’s criminal activity, and if proven to the level of the POTUS, warrants impeachment.
    It really needs stronger evidence than what has been provided.
    Not last, I will offer my personal opinion, and it’s no more than that, that the Tea Party crew are prone to fits of paranoid crybaby butthurt. So, for good or ill, I take their complaints with many grains of salt.
    That’s just me.

  118. I would say the best evidence that it is specifically an Obama administration scandal, not just an IRS scandal, is the flat refusal to permit anybody to examine the Lehrner/administration emails
    can’t be because internal IRS emails are likely to contain information about taxpayers and the IG thinks maybe it should go through the emails and redact anything that shouldn’t be made public. and it can’t be that there’s a good chance that the emails contain information about internal IRS policies and procedures that are irrelevant to the wingnut freakout but which could aid those who want to evade paying taxes.
    nope, any delay must be exactly what your paranoia says it must be.

  119. “It really needs stronger evidence than what has been provided.”
    Oh, I agree, the problem being that making sure stronger evidence can’t be provided is exactly the point of stonewalling. You might say that the purpose of stonewalling is to deny your enemies the proof they’d need to make your allies admit youre guilt, at the cost of assuring that everyone who isn’t your ally will be convinced of it.
    And, from that perspective, that the IRS lied about the Lerhner emails being irretreivable, and that the administration won’t let them be looked at even now that they’ve been found, (In the backups the IRS denied existed.) is damning.

  122. the problem being that making sure stronger evidence can’t be provided is exactly the point of stonewalling.
    The fact that the evidence has not been produced is proof that it exists!!
    What I take away from the digging I’ve done this afternoon is that progressive groups have been on IRS BOLO’s for years, reaching back before the current administration.
    Why aren’t they subject to the same frequency of review? I.e., why only 30% instead of 100%?
    Because they’ve been on the BOLO for, like, ever. That’s why. They’ve already had the cavity search, now the IRS is just “keeping an eye” on them.
    The biggest difference between them and the Tea Party is that they (the progressives) aren’t having a pity party about it.

  123. The fact that the progressive groups had been on BOLOs for years, and so had already been vetted to some degree, while the Tea Party groups were new, and had not, also a possible explanation
    The BOLOs were for keywords, not groups. I don’t see any evidence that the 70% of ‘progressive’ groups that got through had been previously vetted. If you have some, I’d be curious to see it.
    It seems like your argument is (and correct me if I’m wrong) that ‘progressive’ groups, as an aggregate, had been previously vetted, while ‘tea party’ groups had not. If that’s correct, it strikes me as at odds with a policy that is supposed to not engage in any targeting based on politics, and should treat each application individually.
    And I think that’s at the core of the IG report: groups are being flagged based on nomenclature and politics, not laws and regulations guiding exempt status. Or in the words of the report:
    inappropriately identified specific groups applying for tax-exempt status based on their names or policy positions instead of developing criteria based on tax-exempt laws and Treasury Regulations.

  124. Crap. And to just say something on topic, regarding The Atlantic article on ISIL: I was linked to this:
    http://jacobbacharach.com/2015/02/18/one-thousand-and-one-mights/
    Which, overall, I found to be overwrought and content free writing, but I did think these to paragraphs are actually decently insightful:
    Incidentally, Koresh isn’t only a silly example, but an ironic one. The Branch Davidians were a natty, perverse little cult of guns and polygamy, but they didn’t really trouble anyone outside their own tiny compound until the United States Government went in, guns a-blazing. Remind you of anything?
    and
    But I happen to remember that, among other recent events, the United States and a few pals went in and smashed Iraq to smithereens, then warehoused a lot of its very angry young men in hasty prisons, out of which came the kernel of any number of currently belligerent groups, including ISIS. So when I read these inevitable articles, so full of worry about what we should do, I want only to remind everyone that for God’s sake, we made them; might we not make it worse?

  125. I don’t see any evidence that the 70% of ‘progressive’ groups that got through had been previously vetted. If you have some, I’d be curious to see it.
    From Bloomberg:

    Even on the first BOLO document released, from August 2010, progressives are listed under the label of TAG Historical, short for Touch-and-Go Historical, or issues that had been raised in the past. Tea Party is listed under Emerging Issues.

    “Touch and Go Historical” apparently means a group that has been reviewed previously.
    See here:

    Progressive groups were filed under “Touch-and-Go Historical”, meaning a group that had been reviewed in the past but could be problematic. Tea Party groups were filed under Emerging Issues

    The second piece, from the Columbia Journalism Review, discusses how non-profit news organizations had received treatment similar to the Tea Party’s a couple of years previous. And, for the same reason – they represented a new and growing category – an “emerging” set of applicants – who had, as a class, not previously been considered for 501(c) status.
    The actual BOLO’s are available on Scribd, I’ve linked to them upthread. They’re hard to read because they’re heavily redacted, and because (as presented online) the type is really small.
    If I get really motivated, I may spring for the $8.99 one-day membership and download them.
    Then again, maybe not.
    But, if you’re so inclined, there they are.
    It seems like your argument is (and correct me if I’m wrong) that ‘progressive’ groups, as an aggregate, had been previously vetted, while ‘tea party’ groups had not.
    Not really my argument, it’s an observation I make from what I’ve read. It appears to be so.
    If that’s correct, it strikes me as at odds with a policy that is supposed to not engage in any targeting based on politics, and should treat each application individually.
    I think that’s correct.
    I also think that large organizations, tasked with doing things at a large scale, look for ways to do things more efficiently than can be done on an individual basis.
    Especially when their resources are reduced.
    And I think that’s at the core of the IG report: groups are being flagged based on nomenclature and politics, not laws and regulations guiding exempt status.
    I don’t disagree that groups should not be singled out based on inferences made about their political orientation.
    What I contest is that conservative groups have been targeted, intentionally, out of a desire to suppress their actions, for partisan political reasons.
    You noted that 30% of progressive groups initially identified were subject to greater scrutiny, while 100% of tea party groups were.
    That is, in fact, potential evidence of partisan bias.
    What I’m presenting in return is evidence for a different explanation, one that still demonstrates (minimally) ineffectiveness and political bone-headedness, but which is not based on bias.
    If anything, the opposite, because unlike conservative groups, progressive groups have apparent been called out for increased scrutiny – i.e., been “BOLO’d” – for many years already.

  128. Unintended comedy from the sidebar at Brett’s link, under the “Our Voices” section.
    [headshot photo here] Ben S. Carson
    The face of evil

  129. also, not to simply dismiss Brett’s thing because it comes from Wash Times:
    do you understand the amount of daylight that exists between “I think those people are jerks” and “I am going to use the power of my office to deliberate suppress their political activity”?
    do you understand what proof of malfeasance consists of?

  130. For the record, all this went on at the IRS under George W. Bush appointed Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and George W. Bush appointed Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. Obama did appoint the Chief Counsel during this time, William J. Wilkins.

  131. The other thing that is worth noting is that it actually *is* the responsibility of the IRS to make sure that organizations applying for tax-exempt status under 501(c) are not abusing that status.
    It actually *is* appropriate for the IRS to direct special attention to applications from groups who appear to be engaged in partisan political activity.
    In particular, given the increased opportunities for creative fund-raising and -spending post Citizens United.

  132. russell:
    Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear with what I was saying. I had reviewed the scribd documents (as best as I can anyway, terrible quality). What I saw in them (and I want to emphasize ‘saw’, because there was a lot of text I just couldn’t make out) was lists of flags like ‘progressive’ or ‘medical MJ’ etc, not specific groups.
    I don’t really care that dozens or hundreds of organizations with ‘progressive’ in the name have been previously vetted, that shouldn’t be a basis for future differential processing of ‘progressive’ vs. ‘TP’ applications.
    So, what I was asking for was if I had missed something in the BOLO documents suggesting the specific groups that got a pass had been evaluated previously, as opposed to my current interpretation that the keywords had been evaluated historically.
    I think, confounding the issue for me, is the relative lack of precision in talking about the history of a specific group vs. a keyword. For example, the CJR article says
    “meaning a group that had been reviewed in the past” implying that the TAG-H list is for specific groups that have been previously cleared. However, this is based on the Bloomberg article:
    ” short for Touch-and-Go Historical, or issues that had been raised in the past”
    which to me implies not specific groups, but keywords.
    Not really my argument, it’s an observation I make from what I’ve read. It appears to be so.
    Ok. I’d agree that is the case too.
    What I’m presenting in return is evidence for a different explanation
    I suppose. It strikes me as pretty unlikely that a 30% to 100% split in processing, with many of the applications held for past the regulatory limits, lacks no prejudice beyond bureaucratic shenanigans. YMMV.
    I’m not arguing for a grand conspiracy, I just think some of the agents likely acted on their conscious or unconscious biases, and a lack of oversight allowed it to happen.

  134. “do you understand the amount of daylight that exists between “I think those people are jerks” and “I am going to use the power of my office to deliberate suppress their political activity”?”
    Do you understand how much of that daylight evaporates, when you actually HAVE used the power of your office to suppress their political activity?
    Do you understand that the IRS has been proven to have lied about Lerner’s emails being lost, lied about actually making a serious attempt to find them? Lied about the very existence of the backups that the IG found them on. This is not the sort of thing innocent people do.
    “I’m not arguing for a grand conspiracy, I just think some of the agents likely acted on their conscious or unconscious biases, and a lack of oversight allowed it to happen.”
    IMO, this is actually the uglier explanation. IRS doing this under orders, vs the IRS being staffed by the sort of people who’d do it     spontaneously? You can change the former with an election, changing the latter will be like cleaning the Augean stables. It really IS an argument for burning the place to the ground, and starting fresh, with everybody currently working their barred from future employment.

  135. I’ll try to lay out what my understanding of the situation is, hopefully more clearly.
    What appears to be the case is that the BOLOs listed “things to look for” in 501(c) applications. Among those things were particular pieces of language that might indicate that the applicant – a group – was engaged in improper partisan activity.
    For each bit of language or other flag, the BOLO also included direction to the IRS staffer about how to handle it.
    The direction might be that the staffer could make their own determination, or the direction might be that the staffer had to forward it to the exceptions office for their review.
    If the staffer could handle it, it would probably be processed fairly quickly. If it had to go to the Exceptions office, it would take longer, probably much longer.
    The BOLOs also apparently characterized the “things to look for” according to whether they had been considered before – “Touch and Go” – or whether they were new and possible precedent-setting – “Emergent”. Note that the “thing” in question here is the language that is used to flag the application for review, not the specific organization making the application.
    Also apparently, things that were characterized as “Touch and Go” were more often, or maybe even always, accompanied by direction indicating that the local staffer could make their own decision.
    And, things that were characterized as “Emergent” had to be forwarded to the Exceptions Office. Because there wasn’t a precedent for them yet, and the IRS wanted those decisions to be taken at a level higher than the local office.
    The net result of this, if I understand correctly, is that virtually all applications that were “Tea party”-ish ended up going to the Exceptions Office, because “Tea party” as an indicator for possible partisan activity was new, and no precedent or policy had been set for them yet.
    Conversely, applications that were “progressive”-ish were much less likely to have to be forwarded to the Exceptions Office, because they had been BOLO’d for some time, and the relevant issues or policies were established and sufficiently familiar that local staffers could make the decisions.
    Net/net, the explanation for the difference in handling of Tea party-ish vs progressive-ish groups that is being advanced in the Bloomberg and CSJ pieces is that the novelty of the tea party as a phenomenon was what prompted the requirement for Exceptions Office attention, rather than their perceived conservative orientation.
    Assuming the pattern of how the different language “flags” was characterized in the BOLOs actually complies with what the Bloomberg and CSJ pieces claim, IMO it’s a reasonably credible scenario.
    Certainly as credible as a plot by rogue IRS employees to squash conservative activism.
    And most definitely more credible than a plot to do so instigated in the White House.
    There is no iron-clad proof either way, however when presented with “bureaucratic clumsiness” vs “system-wide secret plots” as possible explanations for things, I’m inclined to go with the simpler and less dramatic “bureaucratic clumsiness”.
    Especially since the presence of progressive groups in the BOLOs precedes the current administration. And, especially since no conservative group’s application was actually denied.
    That’s how I see it. YMMV.

  136. I just think some of the agents likely acted on their conscious or unconscious biases
    I’m sure that happens. Do we know that the IRS is overwhelmingly staffed by liberals?

  137. when you actually HAVE used the power of your office to suppress their political activity?
    Do you understand that whether or not that happened *is what is in question*?

  138. IMO it’s a reasonably credible scenario.
    Fair enough. When it comes to ‘bureaucratic clumsiness’ vs ‘in the absence of set criteria, people tend to act on their biases’, I’m inclined not to really see those two possibilities as exclusive.
    And, especially since no conservative group’s application was actually denied.
    No, but many were held past the regulatory limit. As were a few progressive groups, etc, etc, I’m not really eager to go back down the rabbit hole.

  139. Do we know that the IRS is overwhelmingly staffed by liberals?
    No. We don’t. And to circle back around to my point at the beginning, I think this is a problem regardless of if it afflicted conservatives more, progressives more, or what have you. The problem was lack of criteria, I think we agree on that.

  142. A question for Brett, Marty, and anybody else who smells even a whiff of scandal in the IRS “targeting”:
    If you donated money to a group with “Tea Party” or “9/12” or “Patriot something or other” in its name, and then found out the group did NOT engage in political activity, would you be happy, or annoyed?
    –TP

  144. The problem was lack of criteria, I think we agree on that.
    Yes, I think there was a lack of clarity and clear direction on what was and was not allowed.

  145. thompson needs to read more IOZ!
    Which, overall, I found to be overwrought and content free writing
    A dismissal of a short, but well written (and pithy) essay that is as superficial as it is arrogant (and yes, totally CONTENT FREE-the very thing he critiques it for).
    I suggest all here click on the link and read it.
    Thanks, Thompson!
    As to the IRS: Tell you what. Pillory the agency all you want, but if those (name your flavor) groups who were really engaged in partisan activity are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for abusing their tax exempt status…well, therein lies the real crime.
    For me, the litmus test is this: What material harm was done by what is essentially a bureaucratic blunder? So 30 folks in Sioux Falls who claim they only wanted to “pass out copies of the Constitution” are outraged because they wanted tax-exempt status and to conceal the names of their donors? Are you kidding me?
    Did the tardy review of their application stop them from doing what they were planning to do? I dare say not.
    Talk about “overwrought”. Compare this to, oh, let’s take a look here:
    Red scare, 1920’s
    McCarthyism
    Intelpro
    Yup…the butthurt of today’s conservatives looks rather farcical if you ask me.

  146. Just wondering why people are dwelling on the IRS issue. Clearly, the tea partiers feel persecuted. Isn’t that their raison d’etre?

  148. Just wondering why people are dwelling on the IRS issue.
    My bad. The thread jack bait was dangled, and I bit.
    Back to ISIS? The floor is open.

  150. “Do we know that the IRS is overwhelmingly staffed by liberals?
    No. We don’t.”
    Yes, actually we do. Political donations over $200 are tracked, by federal law, IRS employees are identifiable because they list the IRS as their employer. And most tracked donations from IRS employees go to Democrats. That’s about as clear of evidence of IRS employees being Democrats as you could ask. And the office where the targeting was centered was even more lop-sided than the average IRS office.
    And, the relevance of this again, is you can’t expect bipartisan support for the bureaucracy, if one party turns the bureaucracy into a weapon to use against the other party.
    Not even in time of war.

  151. If I were an IRS employee, and had spent most of my career hearing Republicans belittle and denounce me, I’d probably support Democratic candidates too.
    You can’t expect people you consistently attack to be on your side politically.
    BTW, the IRS spends almost ALL its time collecting taxes and NOT, as the Crybabies of the Right seem to believe, reviewing tax exemption applications.
    –TP

  152. No doubt you would, Tony. And then, when the chance came along, you might engage in some “payback” by discriminatory enforcment of the law, or illegal actions like transmitting confidential information to outside groups, or demanding compliance with illegal demands.
    And, at that point, you’d have crossed the line from grievance to criminality.

  153. OK, now the bastards have gone too far.
    I think I spotted a nice old Leedy bass drum in that pile, and maybe a sweet pre-serial keystone Ludwig snare.
    I’m with Brett, just kill them all, we can sort out the details later.

  154. Stop projecting, Brett. Maybe YOU would engage in “payback” and all that, but yours is hardly the civil servant personality.
    –TP

  156. bobbyp:
    Red scare, 1920’s
    McCarthyism
    Intelpro
    Good point. I retract all comments comparing the findings of the IG to McCarthyism.
    abusing their tax exempt status…well, therein lies the real crime.
    The point I made, over and over, is that the IRS used improper criteria, had delays in excess of regulation, and asked irrelevant and burdensome questions. None of that could be construed as an argument that violations of tax-exempt status should remain unpunished.
    A dismissal of a short, but well written
    Well written? Not in my opinion. Take this section:
    Even dentistry! These little OMG moments, along with the supposed Muslim propensity for conspiratorial thinking, are the bright acid in the otherwise mundane braise; they get the saliva glands going. Those crazy Arabs!
    Overuse of exclamations, complex and flowery prose, etc. I prefer simple and to the point. You differ. That’s fine, I don’t really care what style you enjoy reading.
    As for content-free, you have bits like this:
    The Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas also rule areas larger than the United Kingdom, and are just as insanely violent, if not more so, but no one seems to believe this can be traced back to all those Santa Muerte candles.
    Now, I think the comparison is apt. The cartels, IMO, represent a more direct threat to the US than ISIL. And I think this demonstrate a difference between how different threats are amplified and expounded upon in the media, and islamophobia likely plays a role.
    But if I didn’t think any of that, this would be utterly unconvincing. What evidence is offered that the cartels are in any way comparable to ISIL, or vice versa? If it was pointed out the the cartels are motivated by profit, providing an explanation why none of their barbarity is linked to Santa Muerta candles, what evidence (links, citations, detailed facts) is offered that ISIL is differentially treated because, as put by the author “But then again, those guys aren’t . . . The Muslims . . .”
    If I wanted to convince someone that we were over-responding to ISIL because of an anti-islam bias in the media, this doesn’t really arm me with any facts to make that case. It preaches effectively to the choir, but I’m not interested in doing that.
    Why didn’t I put those examples, and more, in my original post? I’m not a TA in a political science class, and more to the point, I doubted anybody would be interested in my careful deconstruction of a blog post that wasn’t currently under discussion. And, as you exemplify, different people will get different things out.
    So why post it? Because, as I said, I thought it had some insightful sections. Despite its failings, I think it offers counterpoints to the Atlantic article, which I felt lacked any discussion of the effect of the middle east being wracked by war, sectarian conflict, and corruption had on allowing groups such as ISIL to prosper.
    Further, it made the point that the US has had a role in breaking the region, and in fostering an environment conducive to ISILs rise, which should give us pause before breaking the region again.

  157. Overuse of exclamations…
    I won’t argue the flowery prose, but the overuse of exclamations (I think you found the only two in the whole post) were clearly ironic and mocking the tone of the Atlantic piece.
    (A very minor point, but one I just couldn’t let go by.)

  158. clearly ironic and mocking the tone
    Oh, I agree that was their purpose, I just don’t think that’s a particularly useful form of discourse.
    Look, for better or worse , the Atlantic has a big audience and currently people like Wood are making the case for war to that audience. Wood isn’t going to be convinced he’s wrong and he should make a different case by mocking.

  159. “Do we know that the IRS is overwhelmingly staffed by liberals?
    No. We don’t.”
    Yes, actually we do.
    No, we actually don’t. We know that they generally favor Democrats, but your link strongly suggests they don’t do so “overwhelmingly”. To wit:

    Overall, rank-and-file IRS employees donated more than $840,000 to federal candidates and committees from 1989 to 2012, according to the Center’s analysis. Democrats and liberal-leaning organizations received about two-thirds of this sum.
    While GOP-aligned groups and candidates received the remainder, during some election cycles, such as the 2002 midterms and the 2010 midterms, Republicans and conservative-leaning organizations achieved near-parity.

    “Near parity” would never be achieved if the IRS was “overwhelmingly” staffed by the malicious partisans you’ve endlessly reassured us it is. So do unionized federal employees favor the more union-and-bureaucracy-friendly of the two corporatist parties instead of the one that demonizes civil servants in general and them in particular? Yes, real shocker. It’s as much of a shocker as the federal employees in the military favoring the Republicans. That’s evidence that they’re human, not that they’re corrupt. Try harder, Brett.

  160. Gotta side with NV on this. Someone can be pretty damn conservative (on any objective, i.e. not Fox News, measure) and still not be a fan of the candidates currently served up by the GOP. “Democrat” and “liberal” are not actually synonyms — although liberal is a subset, probably even a proper subset, these days.

  161. Despite its failings, I think it offers counterpoints to the Atlantic article, which I felt lacked any discussion of the effect of the middle east being wracked by war, sectarian conflict, and corruption had on allowing groups such as ISIL to prosper.
    Further, it made the point that the US has had a role in breaking the region, and in fostering an environment conducive to ISILs rise, which should give us pause before breaking the region again.
    I personally think these are completely valid criticisms of the Atlantic piece, which I found useful and insightful, though not as unambiguously warmongering than you did. I saw these themes as being brushed aside too swiftly, not as being dismissed entirely. But as you said, different people get different things out of a work, and I did go into reading it with a firm conviction that ISIS is the crop of our last intervention in that region, so I suppose I was biased towards reading it as a backgrounder, not a call to action.
    The IOZ I’ll confess I didn’t bother to read, mostly because I’m familiar with their oeuvre and rather underwhelmed by it (honestly for reasons akin to your critiques of it). Perhaps I should twist my arm and give it a scan…

  162. Wood isn’t going to be convinced he’s wrong and he should make a different case by mocking.
    If Jason Bacharach harbored any illusions about being able changing Wood’s mind with a different style of writing on his blog, maybe you’d be able to change Jason Bacharach’s mind about his choice of writing style with your comments here at Obsidian Wings. ;^)
    What that says about the silliness of Wood’s piece on ISIS is an open question.

  163. things that actually have happened.
    Among things that have actually happened:

    Consider the San Francisco Public Press.
    …
    But the IRS got the paper’s application nearly two years ago and still hasn’t given it an answer.

    The San Francisco Public Press.
    In contrast:

    Conservative provocateur James O’Keefe III’s Project Veritas, famous for taking down ACORN and for using dubious journalistic practices (which in one case landed O’Keefe a misdemeanor conviction), applied well after two of the delayed nonprofits but the IRS approved its application several months ago, something that irks the straight-journalism practitioners.

    Both quotes are from here, the dates are as of October 2011.
    How do those things that actually happened fit into your understanding of the IRS as a liberal goon squad?
    Apologies to all for extending the threadjack, apologies to myself for continuing to try to make a tiny dent in Brett’s obsession with the Lerner stuff.
    I’m imagining Sisyphus happy.

  164. Arm duly twisted, I found the Bacharach piece to be a facile, pithy froth. Its good points were counterbalanced by bad ones, and it felt just ever so slightly over-pleased with the sound of its own voice. Yes, his last paragraph needed said, but I saw little value in half or more of the twenty-ish preceding it. Meh, different strokes, etc.

  166. Perhaps I should twist my arm and give it a scan…
    It’s not a long piece, if that makes a difference.
    I suppose I was biased towards reading it as a backgrounder, not a call to action.
    Well, it did explicitly include calls for a continued campaign of military strikes, IIRC. ‘Slow bleed,’ I think he phrased it as.
    And I will say this for the article: it included quotes, interviews, discussion of ISILs own media. As a backgrounder I felt it was good.
    I don’t think it was a sloppy piece, I think it just needs a serious, well reasoned and calmly worded counterpoint.
    maybe you’d be able to change Jason Bacharach’s mind about his choice of writing style with your comments here at Obsidian Wings. ;^)
    That’s fair. I probably shouldn’t have been as callous with my description of his piece. Honestly I was just trying to encourage people who didn’t like the style to soldier on to get to the good bits.
    I guess this just fits into one of my broader pet peeves, which is that mocking and hyperbole seem to be the standard of discourse far too often.

  167. NV:
    Arm duly twisted, I found the Bacharach piece to be a facile, pithy froth.
    Sorry for leading you down that hole, than. Different strokes, as you say.

  168. mocking and hyperbole seem to be the standard of discourse far too often.
    I think that, in general, it’s the handiest alternative to shrieking, rending your garments, and beating your head against the wall.
    But yeah, probably not so productive as a means of persuasion.

  169. I still can’t figure out what the IOZ is.
    Bacharach used to have a blog called “IOZ” where he posted his pithy fulminations. I can understand how some don’t appreciate to his writing style, but he is not putting out “journalism” or “studies” or “position papers”. If you don’t like his style, then OK, but I found some of the dismissals of his efforts, well, unduly dismissive, because he is a superb practitioner of the over the top skewing broadside.
    Thanks.

  172. Good point. I retract all comments comparing the findings of the IG to McCarthyism.
    Thank you. About time you took that back 🙂
    None of that could be construed as an argument that violations of tax-exempt status should remain unpunished.
    An observation that was not directed at any of your observations.
    But if I didn’t think any of that, this would be utterly unconvincing.
    The unconvinced are not his audience.
    …what evidence (links, citations, detailed facts) is offered that ISIL is differentially treated because, as put by the author “But then again, those guys aren’t . . . The Muslims . . .”
    To ask such a question is to answer it.
    Further, it made the point that the US has had a role in breaking the region, and in fostering an environment conducive to ISILs rise, which should give us pause before breaking the region again.
    On this we agree.

  173. IMHO (hah!), in this world, as filtered through this medium (Gentleman, stop this fighting at once. My God, this is the war room. Have some respect!) … I’m already up to two exclamation marks … whether its the finely whipped froth of mockery and hyperbole, or the shrieking and the rending the garments, or the sober, calm, reasoned discourse*, persuasion is an elusive product in all cases.
    If you’ve ever added a little vinegar to a slow-cooked braise on the stove top that seems on tasting a little mundane, it’s use as a metaphor is, whatschamacallit, a savory bit.
    *I do appreciate thompson’s patient doggedness in getting to the productive bottom of things.
    Now carry on. Who do we kill first, ISIS or the IRS? I’ve lost track.

  174. Quite. As always, Count, it all comes down to priorities. And what someone’s priorities are says a lot. (For example, what do we conclude about in interests of members of Congress from the bits of legislation that they have chosen to bring to a vote first….)

  175. Thank you. About time you took that back 🙂
    I refuse to withdraw my comparisons to the red scare, however. I’ll die on that hill!
    An observation that was not directed at any of your observations.
    My mistake.
    The unconvinced are not his audience.
    That much is obvious.
    To ask such a question is to answer it.
    I have no idea what this means in this particular context.
    On this we agree.
    I’ve noticed this happens occasionally. Personally, I welcome it.

  176. Count:
    I do appreciate thompson’s patient doggedness in getting to the productive bottom of things.
    Thanks. FWIW, I think you tend to raise insightful points and provide good sources, underneath your entertaining flair for the dramatic.

  177. ” malicious partisans ” do not equal liberals. this is my pet peeve, the translation is your bias.. There is a whole paragraph somewhere in this thread specifying their actions as the result of conscious and unconscious bias.

  178. Speaking of drama queens, get a load of the American public:
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/american-public-becoming-ever-more-rabid-war-against-isis
    Obama needs to attach a large tax increase/surcharge at the top of his concession to the American public’s lust for what ISIL is lusting for — more Americans sent back home, in pieces, in separate body bags, from a re-broken Mideast.
    Pay for it, ya piker deadbeats.
    But we’ll see the usual suspect fat lady divas bring down the house with soaring arias calling for the killing of the IRS first.
    I’m telling ya, it’s a two-front war, one there, one here.

  179. There are only 30 thousand or so ISIL warriors, killing them all might be a little problematic but surely we have enough bombs in stock to do the job without going nuclear. But what to do with the other 1,800 million muslims? It seem to me the main thing ISIL has going for it is intimidation and those folks who are anxious for the end of times. Obama needs more time to build a muslim consensus on how to end this conflict. I vote for the slow bleed.

  181. killing them all might be a little problematic but surely we have enough bombs in stock to do the job without going nuclear
    and if they would all go to one spot and stand still, it would be easy.

  182. and let’s not forget: we fought ISIS for ten years, when they were called “Al-Qaeda In Iraq”. and we didn’t beat them then.

  183. I was fairly pleased with the way W’s war in Afghanistan was going until he fumbled at the battle of Tora Bora. I sensed the attempted conquest of Iraq was playing right into Osama’s hand, even if it had not been totally bungled. We need to be more careful this time not to play ISILs game.

  184. What is the threat that ISIS poses to the US?
    What would have to happen for that threat to be eliminated, or at least mitigated to a point that is acceptable?
    Is ISIS sufficiently dangerous that we need to act against them, whether they threaten us directly or not?

  187. What is a good reason (or are good reasons) to go to war?
    There isn’t one, we need an authorization to deploy a minimal ground force to provide black ops on the ground, to support our missile and drone forces.
    If nothing else the oil market is telling you they don’t believe its necessary either.

  188. Other than the possibility of ‘end of timers’ in the Middle East and ‘end of timers’ in the US making their dreams come true, the main worry (treat) I see of ISIS v US is what the future holds for the House of Saud.

  189. What is ISIL’s game? Good question. A big part of ISIL’s game it appears to me is to convince the US we need to fight another ground war in Iraq, the last one worked to their advantage.

  190. What is the threat that ISIS poses to the US?
    From a national security standpoint? None. From a domestic Presidential politics standpoint? Plenty.

  191. and let’s not forget: we fought ISIS for ten years, when they were called “Al-Qaeda In Iraq”. and we didn’t beat them then.
    Well, in defense of pro-interventionists, they were an insurgency when we were last fighting them. Now they’re a state. States are much, much easier to fight than insurgencies.

  193. Mostly what keeps them from going back is that it would be a step back. Part of their attraction is that they appear to be winning. If they had to go back to being an insurgency, they would appear to be losing. They could do it, but recruiting would become much harder.
    It may be worth noting that, while the “control” large swathes of territory, most of that territory is empty desert with just a few roads here and there. Which means that they are much more concentrated targets than a superficial glance at a map might suggest.

  194. Is ISIS sufficiently dangerous that we need to act against them, whether they threaten us directly or not?
    IMO, they’ve shown no capacity to threaten any state except corrupt, sectarian regimes (Iraq and Syria).
    Their brutality is of a scale that, again IMO, works against them building a permanent state.
    They are currently camped in a resource poor part of the world, and seem to be trying their hardest to alienate all their neighbors.
    In short, as horrible as their tactics are, they aren’t really a threat to the US, or even to nearby states like Jordon, Israel, or Saudi Arabia.
    This is why I’m incredibly hesitant to support military action against them. On one hand, I understand the need to avert the humanitarian catastrophe that is ISIL. But on the other, I see US military involvement as likely laying the groundwork for the next ISIL and directly fanning the flames and boosting ISILs recruitment.
    I just don’t see what we *can* do, beyond accept the refugees and help them rebuild productive lives away from ISIL.

  196. The other thing we can do is lean on the neighboring countries to cut off ISIL’s ability to export oil (and get paid). Part of their attraction is that they are actually running a government — at least sort of. If their income gets slashed, that becomes difficult. Not to mention that troops who don’t get paid tend to stop fighting.
    It’s an economic (and diplomatic) action, so it won’t satisfy many of those who want to DO SOMETHING. But it actually is doing something, and something useful at that.

  197. ISIS is a small bunch that has taken advantage of a power vacuum over a large territory that is mostly empty desert (as pointed out above).
    I would tend to agree with Thompson above at 2:25, but I think we could do a whole lot more in the way of humanitarian aid. And I mean orders of magnitude more.
    As for military adventures, why not just “take out” the Saudi royal family? The longer they hang on to power, the worse it will be when the sh*t hits that fan.

  198. unfortunately, there are plenty of black-market oil dealers in the area.
    we should probably continue to destroy any refineries they get their hands on, though.

  199. but I think we could do a whole lot more in the way of humanitarian aid. And I mean orders of magnitude more.
    Sounds good, but I’m curious what you’re thinking. The region isn’t loaded with great governmental and NGO partners to safely and fairly distribute aid.
    Much as I don’t see great military options, I’m not seeing good humanitarian or nation building options either.
    But if you had some workable specifics, I think that’s exactly the sort of salts the earth for future extremism.

  201. there may be lots of black market oil dealers in the area. But dealing in black market oil, and actually delivering that oil, are quite different things. In an area with a very limited road network, it really ought to be possible to severely limit the amounts that get out to buyers — to amounts too small to support ISIL’s activities.

  203. but when Kurds and Turks and Iranians and Jordanians and Syrians and everybody else are quietly buying ISIS oil, it’s probably going to be tough.
    It’s the free market at work!

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