In a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation have posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in this headline:
“IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare.”
The source for the Fox Nationalists is a column in Tucker Carlson’s right-wing Daily Caller. You might expect that Fox could rely on Carlson to support their hallucinatory journalism. After all, Carlson is a Fox News employee. But the article in the Caller, while misleading on it’s own, doesn’t go anywhere near the Fox misinterpretation.
The Caller’s headline was somewhat less dishonest: “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws.” It does not make a declaration of fact that agents are actually being hired, only that the IRS is looking into it. But more importantly, there is no mention of these agents being armed. In all likelihood, any new hires are going to be accountants with calculators, not mercenaries with machine guns. That, however, didn’t stop the Caller from posting an accompanying photo of heavily armed soldiers in combat gear who have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And, of course, Fox Nation re-posted the same photo.
The Caller’s article is filled with falsehoods. Anyone who actually bothers to read the article will notice that there is no substantiation of its claim that Democrats are working with the IRS to hire new agents. The only confirmation comes from Republicans supplying their own speculation as to staffing requirements.
It is fair to assume that expanding efforts to collect revenue would require additional personnel. However, the article notes that the new hiring is aimed at collecting taxes unrelated to the health care bill. So are Republicans and the Fox Nationalists taking the position that tax cheats should not be pursued or held accountable? Should law abiding Americans have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats? Yes, that’s exactly their position. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even issued a report that criticized the administration for proposing $8 billion to fund tax compliance measures. It seems to me that an $8 billion allocation to recover an estimated $300 billion in delinquent taxes is a pretty good return on investment and an effective way to reduce budget deficits.
The content of the article in the Caller is misleading in many respects, but the Fox Nation version is delusional. It states flatly that the IRS is hiring “armed” tax agents. It states flatly that these new agents will be dispatched to “enforce Obamacare.” Neither of those statements are substantiated and they aren’t even in the linked article. Yet the Fox Nationalists post the photo of soldiers in combat attire, weapons at the ready, deployed in a search and destroy posture.
The obvious intent of Fox is to frighten their congregation of Psycho-chicken Littles into believing that the “revenuers” are advancing on them to take their money and send them to FEMA camps where they will be forced to have abortions and marry gay socialists.
After struggling for fourteen months to derail the President’s agenda, and failing, Fox is upping the ante. They want people to be so afraid that they will fortify their bunkers, stockpile weapons, hoard rations, buy gold (brought to you by Glenn Beck), and prepare for Armageddon. And the way they advance that goal is by disseminating lies like this story from the scare-meisters at Fox Nation.
Update: Fox News continues to pour on the fear mongering. They are now reprising a story originally posted at Fox Nation almost two months: Boob Bombs! Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes.
Back in February the story was sourced to the ultra-wingnut WorldNetDaily web site. This time Fox is sourcing it to The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid, but, hilariously, the article quotes “terrorist expert Joseph Farah.” In fact, Farah is no terrorist expert, he is the publisher of WorldNetDaily. The propaganda comes full circle.
It seems that they are just going to repeat this story every few months until either people are sufficiently terrified of titties, or until Al Qaeda decides to give it a try. I maintain my position that this could have a devastating impact on air travel. As I said in February:
We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list.
Update II: All of this is reminiscent of the hysteria Glenn Beck tried to trump up over what he said was a civilian national security force that Obama was supposedly amassing to assault him and his congregation. As it turns out it was just an initiative to expand the peace corps and similar organizations.
[Also…] FactChect.org debunked the claim of IRS hiring thousands of agents.
Stay scared America.
b…b…but…FOX framed the accusation as a question, didn’t it?
Mark, i don’t know about you but i am absolutely, positively ENJOYING watching the cons hyper ventilating over the passage of HCR..Next up, grabbing some popcorn and watching there heads explode…NICE..
Partly true. I certainly do get a fair measure of entertainment from watching these lunatics meltdown. But part of me is also very sad to see the depths of their dementia. And part of me is concerned that they will act out inappropriately.
Other than that, yeah, pass the popcorn. 😉
I find it quite interesting that you have not read the bill. Once again you use smoke and mirrors, lies and deception. Could we ask more for such in flight entertainment. To TheIrish Curse, I believe the term Con will be used for members of the current administration once they take their rightly place behind bars. I love this site, seriously, it’s very interesting to observe the depth of your knowledge. LOL I’m Jim.
>>>I believe the term Con will be used for members of the current administration once they take their rightly place behind bars.<<<
Excellent post!
What will these people have to say NOW that it’s out of the bag — IRS WiLL HIRE 16,000 employees to POLICE THE HEALTH CARE MANDATE!
A shame this site is misleading people and spinning the news with their own interpretation.
The truth and the facts will prevail.
The truth and the facts will prevail. Indeed. I challenge you to show any factual evidence that the IRS will hire 16,000 “police.”
Even the source article in the conservative Daily Caller only cites “estimates” by partisan politicians, not facts like language in the bill, or CBO reports, or even IRS analyses. Nothing.
What do you know that they don’t? Where is your truth?
Hey Jim, i find it quite interesting that you pulled your head out of Glenn Beck’s ass long enough to write a post on a blog…teabag away, Jim, teabag away……
And gee… I wonder what this is?
OMG. You really are watching out for those black helicopters, aren’t you?
That link goes to the Federal Business Opportunities web site and displays a request for bids to fulfill a contract for 60 rifles:
That’s a far cry from 16,000. Plus, it is for criminal investigators (i.e. law enforcement). Plus, it was issued two months ago, before there was a health care bill.
Please – PLEASE – turn off Glenn Beck. Your brain is rotting.
To prove that 16,000 people will be armed, a citation is given to fulfill a contract for 60 rifles? Seriously, the pjki’s of the world are beyond parody.
You see the kind of dementia we’re up against?
Even if the “IRS Hiring Thousands of Agents to Enforce” the health care bill piece was completely accurate (and as Mark has shown it isn’t), Fox Nation SHOULD still be criticized here for, in a very approving context, reposting that photo of armed Army personnel from the Daily Caller. The juxtaposition between the piece and the photo gives the impression that the IRS is being “militarized,” when I highly doubt that IRS agents, either of the armed or of the unarmed variety, wear anything other than standard civilian attire (either that, or the Daily Caller and Fox Nation bizarrely seem to think that ALL armed individuals who work for the government wear Army uniforms).
Doug Shulman admitted that IRS will need to hire extra workers, but not for enforcing or advising on health coverage, that’s for insurance companies to do. IRS was under a hiring freeze for a few years until granted approval in 2008 to hire 8,000 per year. During the hiring freeze they had to let some workers go, some retired… workers that remained were getting older, wanting to retire at a time when the deficit was mounting and tax gap increasing, so they began hiring and stepped up their audits. Fear mongering is dangerous, just look at the incident in Austin, thankfully the ‘Hutaree’ were arrested but how many good people must suffer because of lies created only for political gain?
I read this as a registered R that votes D nearly half the time.. The vitriol in the comments here seems misplaced. I too worry about the IRS’ involvement in enforcing HCR. Someone will get the job and I hope it is not the IRS. To lambast the GOP for doing exactly what the D party does is hypcritical. I get e-mails from both sides.. Does anyone with a brain (excludes most of the posters) really believe that one party is better or more honest than the other.. well, if you do, you are dumber than I thought.. Its a shame to see the left stooping as low as they feel the GOP is.. go on re-read the posts and you will see my point.. For what its worth, my neighbor is an IRS Special Agent and he has confirmed that the IRS is hiring 2000 Agents.. But, not just for HCR, but to fill backlogs due to budget cuts.. I just hope they are used to find people avoiding taxes, rather than picking on those of us that do.. Peace and “Try” to be nice to your fellow man.. (as if any of the mean spirited people here will even try)..
Armed …no
Needed to enforce an unconstitutional law …. Yes indeed
Hope n change
Hey Mary … Did the Beatles cause Charles Manson to murder?
Was Jodi Foster to blame for an assassination attempt ?
Was JD Salinger responsible for the death of John Lennon?
Was a neighbors dog the cause of the Son of Sam killings?
Grow up honey