talked about it on this program with me. for weeks now the washington political media have been writing about and talking on tv about 501c-4s, and every one of them who has not quoted the very simple law on 501c-4s literally does not have the vaguest idea what he or she is actually talking about. you should mark this moment in political punditry. the press corps has been given an intelligence test, and it is failing it miserably. the washington press corps s ignorance of 501c-4 law is breathtakingly relentless. the washington press corps s ignorance is a brick wall that shows absolutely no sign of cracking. and then comes salon today pretending that it is taking a brave and lonely stance against the washington media s brief
fake irs scandal did not include the following blow against the media. the washington press corps could ask darrell issa about that, but that would mean they d actually have to read the law, which so far apparently none of them have done except for ezra klein and a few others who ve talked about it on this program with me. for weeks now the washington political media have been writing about and talking on tv about 501c-4s, and every one of them who has not quoted the very simple law on 501c-4s literally does not have the vaguest idea what he or she is actually talking about. you should mark this moment in political punditry. the press corps has been given an intelligence test, and it is failing it miserably. the washington press corps s
group i helped organize and helped to raise moan for as a volunteer, the only people laughing would be liberal 501c 4s who have been acting exactly the way as crossroads gps. it was clear durbin wanted to target crossroads because we re a conservative group and he s a liberal. he said, they are boasting about raising a lot of money. that s not true. the only thing in the fall that came close to me boasting about the money we were raising, after he sent the letter to the irs, 2 days later, i wrote a wall street journal column that after president obama attacked our group as a threat to democracy, american crossroads and crossroads gps raised $14 mill globe two weeks. the democrats have had these kind of groups around forever. they didn t complain when the sierra club, planned parenthood,
a situation where i think the president should be absolutely infuriated because stupid, bonehead bureaucrats have done more to help the extreme conservative wing than the government ever could. absolutely. they ve just fed into exactly what i think this white house has been trying to rise above and build against. howard dean? i think he has. he has said the things he has to say. i m outraged. this is unacceptable. he s fired the one person he could fire. other people are going to be fired as a result of this. the inspector general report was really, really interesting. first of all, for those who don t know, the inspector general s report essentially is an independent office that can say anything they want. and they don t they re not subject to influence from the white house. so what the inspector general said was, this was a small group of people in cincinnati which is the headquarters for the irs group that does all these charitable groups, the 501c-4s. there was a small grou
all the political groups out there that are taking tax exempt status for being, quote unquote, educational? well, this is the issue. it just should be done in a completely nonpartisan way. but these are these 501c-4s, in order to be tax exempt, in order for people to give them money and also not be disclosed who they are, the 501c-4 has to spend at least 50% plus $1 on actual social welfare. so some of these organizations have been you foe, it looks like they ve been spending more an on just pure politics. it s a legitimate inquiry by the irs. what is in no way legitimate is this be bias in any way. the people responsible for this should be held accountable. senator al franken, thanks so much for your time and keep us up-to-date on your meeting with the securities and exchange commission. thank you, jake. come up later this hour, i