Congressional duel between McDermott and Ryan

First, here is a small segment of Congressman Jim McDermott, apparently attempting to educate individuals at the IRS hearings about whether or not the government was attempting to silence conservative groups through the IRS.

Yes, you heard that right. It’s not the fault of the IRS, but the fault of the organizations for attempting to get tax-exempt status in the first place. Most importantly, McDermott does not believe that the IRS targeted the groups because of their political beliefs, in spite of previous testimony to the contrary. But, at least Congressman Paul Ryan was next in line to speak:

Yes, at the beginning of that you heard McDermott attempting to get the attention of the Chair, presumably to call a point of order to silence Ryan. But, no need to pick on that here, since the content of Ryan’s statement is oh so much better. He asked the individuals from the organizations that were targeted whether or not they believed that they were investigated by the IRS simply because they applied for non-profit status – McDermott’s contention – or because of their beliefs. Of course we all know their reply. However, Ryan was kind enough to point out that there already testimony stating that terms often used by progressive organizations were not used to weed out potential organizations for IRS investigations.