Astroturf Groups News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

From your perspective, you write a lot about campaign finance. what w was the old school system better in terms of governance? heritage action does more these days to gum up the works than the old-school heritage action. >> the tools at the disposal of special sbrinterests in the capl are more vast and sophisticated. these new avenues, social media, the laundering of public opinion through astroturf groups, become even more important to lobbyists. the scale of what is required to

Put out a blog post the other day in which they called this out. said, you know what, astroturf groups, republican consultants who are springing up, tea party organizations all over the country, that were phony, that weren't really part of the tea party grassroots movement but which were ways for these guys to raise money. you do draw a salary when you're the head of a pac. they were saying they brought that on themselves by springing up astroturf versions of the tea party all over the country. that's from a tea party coalition, themselves. >> indeed it is. goldie taylor, joy reid. i wish we h...

The attorney general has just announced that he's ordered the justice department and the fbi to investigate whether irs officials broke any criminal laws by singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny. the heart of this scandal involves something called a 501c4 commonly referred to as a social welfare organization. they allow a group to raise unlimited amounts of money without reporting donors. and while some lobbying is allowed, political activities cannot be its primary function. nor may it participate directly or indirectly in political campaigns. unfortunately, policing that is e...

Nobody likes the irs. it's the meanest, it's the cruelest agency out there. nobody wants to get a letter from them. so you're not going to have anybody coming to their defense. so, you know, it will have a blowback in a couple of ways. one is, right, it is going to be tougher for the irs to implement elements of health care reform. also, it's groups like priorities usa, the koch brothers, crossroads. those are the ones that are really celebrating because they were in carl levin's crosshairs. he was launching a two-year investigation into how the irs has just let them behave however they wanted...

>> i didn't realize apologies were sufficient in irs-related issues. >> this elevates the story to almost watergate status. >> if, in fact, irs personnel were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous. >> if the president really is outraged by this, someone should lose their job. >> what we don't know is whether it jumped the fence from the irs to the white house. >> one of the most egregious abuses of government power that i can think of. >> there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. >> the "atp" is accusing the obama administration of...