The Nation

It's been slowly building for quite some time, but now the mainstream media is finally flashing a Red Alert concerning the Obama administration's anit-leaks campaign.  They used to refer to it as simply a "war on whistleblowers."   Now, after the Associated Press and Rosen/Fox News probes,  they see it as a "war on the press"--with consequences already quite apparent.

Consider just the following.

A New York Times editorial today declared, "the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news."  It concluded: "Obama administration officials often talk about the balance between protecting secrets and protecting the constitutional rights of a free press. Accusing a reporter of being a 'co-conspirator,' on top of other zealous and secretive investigations, shows a heavy tilt toward secrecy and insufficient concern about a free press."

Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, added on Tuesday that going after “routine news-gathering efforts as evidence of criminality is extremely troubling and corrodes time-honored understandings between the public and the government about the role of the free press.”

And Greg Sargent at The Washington Post interviews Mark Mazzetti, one of the chief Times' investigative reporters, who tells him,   “There’s no question that this has a chilling effect. People who have talked in the past are less willing to talk now. Everyone is worried about communication and how to communicate, and [asking if there] is there any method of communication that is not being monitored. It’s got people on both sides — the reporter and source side — pretty concerned...

It certainly seems like they’re being very serious about hunting down people talking to reporters. All we know are the results. The fact that you have so many [cases] now, it scares people who talk to us. [Sources] who might have talked to us once may not talk to us now...Those of us doing national security reporting feel it’s a very difficult climate to work in right now.

Greg Mitchell’s current books are So Wrong for So Long (on media failures and Iraq war) and the wild tale of MGM and Harry Truman scuttling a 1947 anti-nuclear epic, Hollywood Bomb. His personal blog, updated several times day, is Pressing Issues.

What happens when the New York Police Department is given free rein to stop and frisk suspects based on their own hunches? According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, it creates an environment in which African-American and Latino New Yorkers are stopped at disproportionate rates, with predictable results for suspect’s lives and on community trust.

Check out this brand new music video—featuring Yasiin Bey (a k a Mos Def), produced by CCR and featuring footage from The Nation’s exclusive report, “Stopped and Frisked: ‘For Being a F***king Mutt’”—to learn more.

Visit the Center for Constitutional Rights and Communities United for Police Reform for resources on Stop-and-Frisk and the Floyd v. City of New York case.

Bishop E.W. Jackson publicity photo

The Republican Party knows it cannot continue to compete nationally if it remains the party of old white men. In order to not be the party of old white men, it cannot afford to look racist. It’s not so much interested in distancing itself from the racist elements within the party or abandoning racist policies, but it would like to not appear racist. To that end, it has come up with a solution wherein the few black and brown faces that dot the party are deployed to regurgitate the staid policy and rhetoric.

The newest member of this club is the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia, Bishop E.W. Jackson. He’s a pastor from the Chesapeake area of Virginia with extreme right-wing views on homosexuality and abortion. In other words, he fits right in with the modern Republican Party. But he’s also joining the ranks of Herman Cain, Allen West and Ben Carson as the next great black hope of the GOP, the singular figure that will provide a counterweight to the Democratic monopoly on the black vote. It’s a long shot, as Jamelle Bouie points out, “African Americans have yet to give support to anyone from this wing from the Republican Party, but this hasn’t stopped white conservatives from embracing them.”

Republicans fail to grasp that the rejection they experience from black voters is not due solely to the lack of black faces but because of their actual record. Despite the attempts by conservatives to cherry-pick Republican Party history to highlight the good times (they’re the party of Lincoln, don’t ya know), they refuse to atone for their misdeeds.

Law and order, welfare queens, the war on drugs, Willie Horton and Hurricane Katrina aren’t ancient history. These are the living memories of the Republican Party’s engagement with black America. Republicans are still pulling from the discarded playbook of Lee Atwater, as if Atwater himself didn’t leave a warning before his death about where that path would lead. They are also still running away from the legacy of the last Republican elected president, one George W. Bush, though a generation of voters were politicized during his presidency and are now living in the wake of the wars and financial crisis over which he presided. Some cosmetic changes are in order, but they will hardly be sufficient.

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50!

Ironically, the person they should turn to in order to understand how to sell conservatism to black people is the same person they so desperately have tried to defeat: President Obama. They can take notes from the commencement address Obama gave at Morehouse College this past weekend. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Aura Bogado and Kiese Laymon have done a great job of explaining what was problematic in Obama’s speech, but I think it’s also worth looking at why he feels comfortable delivering personal responsibility lectures to black people. First, on issues of race, Obama has never been particularly progressive. Even his famed Philadelphia race speech from the 2008 campaign trafficked in the kind of false equivocation between black radical politics born out of a reaction to racism and actual racism that we generally associate with the Fox News wasteland.

But beyond that, he knows this kind of message will, generally, play well in front of black audiences. As Kai Wright notes, “There’s always been a deeply conservative strain of black politics that embraces the American ideal that we get only what we earn.” Whether we’re talking about Booker T. Washington, the Nation of Islam, Bill Cosby or Condoleezza Rice, there is long tradition of prominent black public figures and organizations touting lifestyle “improvements” as an adequate rejoinder to systemic racism. As wrongheaded a philosophy as it is, it continues to resonate in black communities, as it appeals to the intellect and sense of self-determination. It also makes for rousing speeches that touch the ethereal, especially when coupled with the bravado of the black Southern Baptist church. It shouldn’t be mistaken for a substantive critique of white supremacy, but it is anyway and Obama has mastered it. He makes it sound almost revolutionary.

This is where the GOP could find its opening if it was willing to talk to more than one black person at a time. The party’s black representatives have made the mistake of insulting black folks, like when they call the Democratic Party a “plantation,” and they’ve been using the issue of racism, which to their minds is no longer relevant, to keep blacks on that plantation while never seeing any actual benefits. In the process, Obama has beaten them to the right, tapping into the conservatism of black communities that recognizes racism but positions it as simply an extra hurdle on the path to black achievement. But he’s only one man, and he won’t be running for elected office again, so a window of opportunity will eventually be open.

If I had it my way that wouldn’t be the case, but I also only one man and can’t force the whole of black America to adopt my politics. The GOP, however, won’t win over many black voters if even their black representatives behave as if black folks don’t have eyes, ears and minds of their own.

Voting Rights Watch takes readers past the ballot box and into the community.

The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The additional questions provided by the IRS to Tea Party and some Democratic-leaning groups seeking social welfare 501(c)(4) status appears to have been an inappropriate level of scrutiny. But is the current controversy swirling around Washington obscuring much, much bigger issues around the 501(c)(4) tax status?

The real scandal has been the blatant abuse of 501(c)(4) status by dozens of lobbyists and operatives who have set up such tax-exempt organizations as political slush funds to conceal money in political campaigns. Since the Citizens United decision, 501(c)(4) groups,  have operated as Super PACs—raising and spending tens of millions in corporate funds—without disclosing a dime of their contributors. IRS rules state that the primary activity of such groups cannot relate to political advocacy, yet examples abound of 501(c)(4) groups spending well over 50 percent of their funds on attack ads, political action committees and other clearly political expenses. These potential violations of the law have gone on for several years now, with very little interest from the Beltway media or Capitol Hill Republicans, many of whom owe their election to spending by bogus 501(c)(4) organizations.

Here are just five examples of bogus 501(c)(4) groups that deserve more scrutiny under the law:

The American Action Network is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit run by corporate lobbyists like Vin Weber (of Sallie Mae) and Tom Reynolds (of Goldman Sachs). Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that on its tax returns, “AAN reported spending a total of $27,139,009 on all activities from July 2009 through June 2011—$1,446,675 on its 2009 tax return and $25,692,334 on its 2010 tax return—making political activity 66.8 percent of its total spending.” Since IRS rules for primary activity have been interpreted to mean that 501(c)(4) groups cannot spend more than 49 percent of their funds on political endeavors, American Action Network appears to be skirting the law. The group spent more than $745,000 to help elect Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), one of the lawmakers now calling for hearings into the IRS narrowly on grounds that the agency inappropriately targeted Tea Party groups.

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50!

The Commission on Hope, Growth and Opportunity is a 501(c)(4) organization reportedly set up by lobbyist Scott Reed, which told the IRS when it applied for social welfare status that it would not spend money on political campaigns. In fact, Reed boasted to reporters that he had sought big donations from the health insurance, energy and banking industry to run ads against Democrats. According to disclosures, CHGO broke the primary activity threshold and spent 53 percent of its funds during the midterm elections on political advertising. The group spent big on defeating lawmakers like John Spratt (D-SC).

The American Justice Partnership is a 501(c)(4) group run in part by Republican consultants Dan Pero and Cleta Mitchell. In 2010, the group spent 77 percent of its funds moving money to political attack ad groups like the American Future Fund or to political action committees like the “Michigan Republican Party Admin Account.” Part of the remainder of the funds appears to have been spent on consulting fees to the board members of the group.

The American Future Fund is a 501(c)(4) group set up by a number of Republican operatives, and has aired millions of dollars in attack ads against President Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress. In 2010, the group spent 15.3 million of its 21.3 million expense budget on media consultants. AFF reportedly used its funds on television attack ads, direct mail against candidates and political telemarketing. In other words, the group spent 71 percent of its funds on political purposes.

The 60 Plus Association is a front group designed by Republican operatives to appeal to senior citizens. The group’s budget swelled during the 2010 midterm campaign. Through June of 2010, the group spent about $15.5 million, $11.5 million of which went to media-buying and direct mail firms for campaign advertisements—74 percent. One set of ads deceptively claimed congressional Democrats voted to cut $500 billion from Medicare, failing to note that actual cuts were to Medicare Advantage, not to regular Medicare beneficiaries. As Jim Martin, the head of the group told me last year, though the organization touts itself as a voice for seniors, the group openly solicited corporate donors as well.

It’s clear why these Republican operatives used 501(c)(4) organizations as tools to move millions in political money. Big publicly traded corporations have been eager to exploit the Citizens United decision but have avoided Super PACs because Super PACs face regular disclosure requirements. 501(c)(4) never have to disclose donors. For instance, health insurer Aetna accidentally revealed that it had provided $3 million to the American Action Network, a fact the company apparently wanted to keep secret.

The IRS 501(c)(4) system is horribly broken, but it seems the scandal surrounding added scrutiny for Tea Party groups will not fix any of the problems. The IRS should focus on big players that skirt the law, especially the ones proven to have passed the 50 percent threshold, as I’ve documented above.

And there are many ways to fix systemic issues with the IRS that go beyond investigating sham groups. For one, the minimal disclosure system for 501(c)(4) groups is only in paper/CD format and is displayed to the public over a year after the money is spent. That’s why we still have little to no data on new Democratic groups, like Priorities USA, that recently began mimicking Republican 501(c)(4) organizations that were so active in the 2010 election cycle. Moreover, PublicResource.org’s Carl Malamud has a proposal to digitize all the 501(c)(4) disclosures so the public and press can review them, and well, make a decision about “primary purpose” for themselves.

Mad at the IRS? Blame congress!