One of the Senate's top three most obnoxious Democrats just got a serious thrashing by the editorial board of the home state's largest newspaper. No, it wasn't Chuck Schumer or Barbara Boxer. It was Dick Durbin and the Chicago Tribune.
The editorial board started by throwing his own words in his face:
"It is absolutely unacceptable to single out any political group - right, left or center - and say we're going to target them. That is unthinkable. That goes back to some of the worst days of the Richard Nixon administration."
-U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on IRS targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny, May 13, 2013.
We were surprised in the early days of this spring's Internal Revenue Service scandal to see Durbin voice indignation with the IRS for apparently behaving just as he had urged it to: In an Oct. 12, 2010, letter to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman - we have Durbin's press release, including his letter - the senator urged an investigation of "several 501(c)(4) organizations that appear to be in violation of the law." But Durbin's letter only cited one group by name: Crossroads GPS, a conservative group that has spent heavily on advertising to promote fiscal responsibility, limits to government regulation and national security.
Durbin said this year on Fox News that he hadn't sicced the IRS on any liberal groups because ... an investigation of Crossroads would put them, too, on notice. (snip) We've seen no evidence that Durbin's accusation of crimes was accurate, but he surely achieved one goal: He made potential donors think twice about contributing to a group a U.S. senator had publicly named as an illegal operation.
This would be bad enough, but there is more. The title of the editorial is "Durbin's enemies list," and it is the racial demagoguery involved that is most outrageous. Read the rest of the indictment here.
One of the Senate's top three most obnoxious Democrats just got a serious thrashing by the editorial board of the home state's largest newspaper. No, it wasn't Chuck Schumer or Barbara Boxer. It was Dick Durbin and the Chicago Tribune.
The editorial board started by throwing his own words in his face:
"It is absolutely unacceptable to single out any political group - right, left or center - and say we're going to target them. That is unthinkable. That goes back to some of the worst days of the Richard Nixon administration."
-U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on IRS targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny, May 13, 2013.
We were surprised in the early days of this spring's Internal Revenue Service scandal to see Durbin voice indignation with the IRS for apparently behaving just as he had urged it to: In an Oct. 12, 2010, letter to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman - we have Durbin's press release, including his letter - the senator urged an investigation of "several 501(c)(4) organizations that appear to be in violation of the law." But Durbin's letter only cited one group by name: Crossroads GPS, a conservative group that has spent heavily on advertising to promote fiscal responsibility, limits to government regulation and national security.Durbin said this year on Fox News that he hadn't sicced the IRS on any liberal groups because ... an investigation of Crossroads would put them, too, on notice. (snip) We've seen no evidence that Durbin's accusation of crimes was accurate, but he surely achieved one goal: He made potential donors think twice about contributing to a group a U.S. senator had publicly named as an illegal operation.
This would be bad enough, but there is more. The title of the editorial is "Durbin's enemies list," and it is the racial demagoguery involved that is most outrageous. Read the rest of the indictment here.
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