Well, I read the comments over on Smith’s piece, and I’ve seen far worse in many other places. In fact, there are a lot of pro-Israel commenters.

I still think that if Z Street was told that, it was by an idiot who thinks that she or he makes policy for the IRS, when in fact, that person is paid to do a job. I think we’re going to find out that it was a lone moron, not the IRS, trying to examine a pro-Israel lobbying group that way.

Have you ever had any dealings with the IRS? They’re not staffed with the brightest bulbs on the tree. Many of them are low-paid staffers who give terrible advice, and woe to the person on the other end of the phone who listens to them. I am speaking from personal experience, as well as from the experience of my father, who worked for the Newark IRS office for some time.

Tempest in a teapot. The IRS will be shown to have no such policy.

What sounds strange to me is not that such a policy exists but that anyone at the IRS would be dumb enough to admit it.

Anyone with the price of a filing fee can walk into court and file a lawsuit, but an attorney who signs a complaint without good ground to support it is subject to sanctions, including payment of the other side’s legal fees. And an attorney who signs a false affidavit can be disbarred and even imprisoned, so it is not something that many attorneys would do lightly. I guess we’ll learn more as the case progresses. As dumb as the IRS rep would have to be to make the alleged statement, Z Street and its lawyers would have to be even dumber to make something like this up.

By the way, if you feel a serious need to vomit, take a look at the comments on this story at Ben Smith’s site on Politico.com.

> STREET, a pro-Israel non-profit corporation, filed a lawsuit in federal court today charging that the IRS violated the organization’s First Amendment rights. The suit was filed after Z STREET was told by an IRS official that its application for tax-exempt status has been delayed because an IRS policy requires consideration of whether a group’s views on Israel differ from those of the current Administration. <

More at
http://www.zstreet.org/
First saw the story at Solomonia today.

Kesiva v'chasima tovah.