Final Ironies in the Bush Sewer

With six days to go in the longest political nightmare in the history of Republic, the final moves, words, and scandals exuding from this Administration represent a perfect microcosm of the crimes, outrages, and base stupidity that have been the hallmarks of the Bush Reign. This week we found out conclusively that perjured racists have been running the Civil Rights Division at the U. S. Department of Justice. And this one, John Tanner, is being funded by the Justice Dept. to help other racists in Alabama to redraw voting districts to water down the black vote. From Talking Points Memo:




And yesterday the NYTimes carried a story of IRS plans to go looking for unpaid taxes at public and private universities. After all, the Feds are cash strapped after replacing all the money that the thieves who have wrecked our economy and stole with impunity as the SEC and other oversight agencies looked the other way. The universities should tell these jokers to go Cheney themselves:

The Internal Revenue Service is considering expanding its scrutiny of colleges and universities to focus on billions of dollars associated with academic research, federal financing and intellectual property, a senior agency official said on Tuesday.

The expansion of an investigation would put pressure on the schools to further disclose their inner financial workings as the I.R.S. undertakes a major effort to learn more about whether academic institutions are improperly using their nonprofit status to avoid paying certain taxes.

The expansion, while not yet certain, “is on the table,” Lois G. Lerner, the I.R.S.’s director of exempt organizations, said in a brief interview.

As part of its current investigation, which began last October, the I.R.S. sent unusually detailed questionnaires to 400 private and public universities and colleges about their executive compensation policies and their business activities.

While the institutions are not obligated to respond, not doing so can potentially lead to an audit.. . .