The Internal Revenue
Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it
improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million
Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a
report by
Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is
suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10
million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health
information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling,
gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical
treatment data.
“This is an action
involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue
Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the
seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these
records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known
criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no
relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a
HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the
searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents
of these privileged records,” it continued.
According to the
case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining
to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, “it did not
authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any
persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter,”
the complaint read.
The class action
lawsuit against the IRS seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages “per
violation per individual” in addition to punitive damages for
constitutional violations. Thus, compensatory damages could start at a
minimum of $250 billion.
Click HERE For Rest Of Story
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It’s an Obama world...
The IRS told a pro-life group that it had to promote abortion or they wouldn’t qualify for nonprofit status.
The Internal Revenue
Service already has confessed to targeting and trying to injure tea
party, Constitution and patriot organizations, by demanding answers to
arbitrary questions and delaying their applications for a tax status so
they could operate.
Now WND has learned
that the IRS also put an organization in its bull’s-eye that wanted to
do nothing more than share its pro-life message with churches.
Cherish Life
Ministries was created to be a non-profit under the IRS 501(c)3
provision so that churches would feel comfortable working together...
...Shinn said the IRS contacted him regarding his application for nonprofit status, and was told he didn’t qualify.
“The representative
was telling me I had to provide information on all aspects of abortion, I
couldn’t just educate the church from the pro-life perspective,” he
said. “Every time I pressed her on this issue and asked her to clarify
her position, she would state that it wasn’t what she was saying, and
then, she would repeat it almost the same way.”
The IRS agent did not respond to a WND request for comment on the ministry’s position.
But Shinn said he was accused of setting up a political organization.
“I asked her why she
said we were political organization and she said it was because we had
said in our application that we did less than 5 percent political
activity. I explained to her that this was what was stated in the
application and all we were doing was acknowledging that we were doing
less than 5 percent political activity,” he said.
Click HERE For Rest Of Story
.
When a Tennessee
lawyer asked the IRS for tax-exempt status for a mentoring group that
trained high school and college students about conservative political
philosophy, the agency responded with a list of 95 questions in 31
parts, including an ultimatum for a list of everyone the group had
trained, or planned to train.
‘Provide details
regarding all training you have provided or will provide,’ the IRS
demanded. ‘Indicate who has received or will receive the training and
submit copies of the training material.’
‘Can you imagine my responsibility to parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?’ he asked MailOnline.
It’s ‘an impossible
question to answer fully and truthfully,’ he said, ‘without disclosing
the names of anyone I ever taught, or would ever teach, including
students.’
Like the leaders of
many tea party-affiliated groups whose tax-exemption applications have
become the subject of angry complaints, Kookogey called the IRS’s
inquisition an overreach, ‘especially considering that my organization
mentors high school and college students.’
It ‘should send
chills through your spine,’ he told MailOnline, ‘that the government
would ask me to identify those I teach, and to provide details of what I
teach them.’
The 13-month delay,
while burdensome, was far shorter than those some other groups endured.
According to a report released late Tuesday by the IRS’s Office of
Inspector General, the average delay at one point was 574 days.
But Kookogey said a
$30,000 grant was canceled as a result of the IRS’s months-long radio
silence, when he couldn’t tell his donor that Linchpins had earned its
501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
That money would
have made a significant difference to the group, judging from its public
filings in Tennessee. In 2011, Linchpins of Liberty reported collecting
just $3,460 in contributions, and spending $7,328 on its programs.
The group’s online
materials refer to it as ‘an American leadership development
enterprise.’ Its stated purpose is to mentor high school and college
students, placing an emphasis on Western civilization and an old-style
core curriculum – what previous generations called the ‘great books.’
‘Our ideas are opposed to the Obama administration, but we’re not tea party,’ Kookogey told
The Tennessean.
It’s that lack of a tea party connection, he said, that makes his predicament so maddening.
He told MailOnline
that nothing about his group – ‘not our name or our description or our
website, or anything’ – should have placed it among the organizations
the IRS chose to scrutinize closely by using key words like ‘tea party,’
’9/12,’ and ‘patriots’ as qualifiers.
‘I’m not a Tea Party group. I’m not a Patriot group by name’ he told
NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.
‘We mentor high school and college students in conservative political philosophy. It’s a one on one relationship.’
Kookogey summed it
up in an interview with MailOnline as ‘unethical, unconstitutional, and
unfair,’ later asserting in an email that ‘[w]e were targeted by the IRS
based on our political beliefs and the content of our speech.’
The American Center
for Law and Justice, which represents 27 conservative groups including
Linchpins of Liberty, is planning to file suit against the IRS.
Jay Sekulow, that organization’s chief counsel, wrote on Tuesday that ‘the IRS abuse is ongoing.’
‘Even though the IRS admitted wrongdoing,’ Sekulow wrote in an essay for
FoxNews.com,
even though the Inspector General’s report indicates that wrongdoing
was widespread, the IRS still hasn’t withdrawn its overbroad and
unconstitutional questions, and it still hasn’t granted the exemptions
it should grant, despite the fact that some applications have been
pending for more than two years.’
The Inspector
General’s report includes a list of ‘the seven questions’ the IRS asked
right-wing groups that were later ‘identified as being unnecessary.’
Its request for the list of students trained by Linchpins of Liberty was not among them.
The report also
largely exonerates political appointees in the Treasury Department and
at the top of the IRS, instead blaming mid-level bureaucrats for
providing ‘ineffective management’ and using ‘inappropriate criteria’ to
red-flag conservative groups.
It makes no mention
of anyone in the White House directing the IRS to play political
favorites. But The Washington Post has reported that ‘senior IRS
officials’ in Washington, D.C. were notified of the practice in 2011.
In December of that
year, Kookogey says, he called the IRS’s nonprofit evaluation arm in
Cincinnati, Ohio, to find out why his group’s application had taken so
long.
The agent on the
other end of the line, he said, told him, ‘We are waiting on guidance
from our superiors as to your organization and similar organizations.’
Attorney General
Eric Holder has said that he ordered the FBI to initiate a criminal
probe on Friday, when he learned about the IRS’s practices.
The IRS’s actions,
he said, were, ‘certainly outrageous and unacceptable, but we are
examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations.’
Holder is expected
to testify in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday in
Washington. On Friday the House Ways and Means Committee will hear
testimony from acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and Treasury
Inspector General J. Russell George.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio has called for Miller to lose his job.
‘At a bare minimum,
those involved with this deeply offensive use of government power have
committed a violation of the public trust that has already had a
profoundly chilling effect on free speech,’ Rubio wrote Monday in a
letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. ‘Such behavior cannot be excused
with a simple apology.’
‘It is clear the IRS
cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence
under the current leadership,’ Rubio continued. ‘Therefore, I strongly
urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner’s
resignation, effective immediately.’
On Friday, Sekulow
demanded that the IRS immediately approve the tax-exempt status
applications of his organization’s 10 legal clients, including Linchpins
of Liberty, that are still waiting. He issued the agency an ultimatum:
Grant the requests by noon on May 17, or prepare to fight in court.
‘We are demanding
that the IRS grant our remaining clients tax-exempt status immediately,’
Sekulow said in a statement. ‘If that does not occur by Friday, we will
advise our clients of their right to sue the IRS for the redress of
their grievances.
. Click HERE For Rest Of Story
.
.
By all accounts she did a splendid job targeting anti-Obama groups.
Lois Lerner, the
senior executive in charge of the IRS tax exemption department and the
person at the center of the exploding scandal over the IRS targeting
conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel non-profits, has been given
$42,531 in bonuses since 2009.
That figure was
included in data provided by the IRS in response to a Freedom of
Information Act request by The Washington Examiner. Lerner is director
of the IRS exempt organizations division, which processes and approves
or denies applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Lerner received
$17,220 for 2009, $24,691 for 2010 and $10,620 for 2011, the most recent
year for which the I(RS said data was available.
.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
The Treasury
Inspector General’s damaging report on the IRS-Tea Party scandal has
destroyed the administration’s claim that low-level workers in a
Cincinnati, Ohio office are to blame, revealing that 10 of 12 agency
offices referenced in the affair are in Washington.
The report
repeatedly references actions taken by the Washington-based Exempt
Organizations unit and guidance specialists also in Washington. What’s
more, the report was researched in the Exempt Organizations offices and
the Cincinnati-based Determinations Units, which has received the blame
for targeting Tea Party groups.
The audit, for
example, probes into how the Cincinnati-based Determinations Unit
developed its plan to pay attention to groups with the words “Tea
Party,” “Patriot,” and other phrases used by anti-Obama groups during
the 2010 election.
Washington-based
offices denied involvement, but did change the “criteria” for groups to
target in July 2011. Instead of looking for “Tea Party” groups seeking
tax exempt status to investigate, the criteria was broadened to
“political, lobbying or [general] advocacy.”
However, “the team
of specialists subsequently changed the criteria in January 2012″ back,
apparently without telling their bosses. “Specialists” are both
Washington- and Ohio- based.
Popular talk radio host
Mark Levin, one of the first to post the
IG report online, suggested that the House committees investigating the
scandal use the IG’s “High-Level Organization Chart of Offices
Referenced in this Report” on page 29 in picking who should testify. He
suggested that the heads of all 12 be called to testify.
Click HERE For Rest Of Story
..
In the midst of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
scandal,
individuals and groups, alike, are continuing to come forward with
ever-startling allegations. On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout
Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively
told TheBlaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s
targets.
According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”
It all started with a
phone call she received at her home in May of that year – a call during
which Hendershott was told she would be audited. A letter that followed
on May 19, 2010 solidified the IRS’s request to meet her in person two
months later in July. While IRS investigations are certainly not
uncommon occurrences, the professor believes that the situation
surrounding hers was more-than-curious.
“The IRS calls my
house and says... ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to be
auditing your business’ and I said ‘My businesses?’ and he said, ‘You
know the expenses you take off for writing,” the academic recalls.
Hendershott was
surprised she was being audited on business grounds considering she does
not operate an entrepreneurial endeavor in the traditional sense. In
addition to her academic work, she told TheBlaze that she occasionally
freelances for Catholic outlets and for the Wall Street Journal. But can
this really be considered “business” activity?
“I don’t make a lot of money from writing. In fact most years I don’t show a profit,” she told TheBlaze.
Hendershott said some of the outlets and organizations she has written for haven’t paid her a cent.
But the
circumstances surrounding the irregular nature of the experience don’t
end there. Hendershott noted it was particularly surprising that she,
alone, was audited. Her husband, who brings in the vast majority of the
family’s income, was not included in the IRS’s inquiry – even though the
Hendershotts always files jointly.
So when the agent
explained that she would need to come alone and in person to discuss her
“business” activity in July of 2010, the professor was perplexed.
“[The IRS agent]
didn’t even let me decide when it would be good for me... He didn’t want
my husband to come,” she said of the meeting, which was held at an IRS
office in New Haven, Connecticut.
The process was a
grueling one, including many questions that Hendershott felt were
political in nature. Numerous records were requested before the
in-person meeting, as well as during and after.
“Every question had
to do with bank deposits we made. Every single question,” she said.
“What is this money? And I didn’t know a lot of it. We had to go to our
bank and get deposits back. We had to get records showing where the
money came from.”
While asking about
the deposits, the agent wanted to know if the monies came from groups
and, if so, what the organizations’ politics were.
The mention of
groups, Hendershott notes, is particularly interesting, as she had been
writing for numerous Catholic outlets and organizations at the time. In
addition to Catholic World Report and the Catholic Advocate, she also
penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. Many of these writings were
critical of President Barack Obama and his policies.
And the plot
thickens. Among the organizations she targeted in her writings were
progressive groups highly supportive of Democratic causes, including:
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Catholics United, and
Catholic Democrats.
At the time, one of
the founders of Catholics United, Chris Korzen, had become a target of
her work, as she exposed, in her view, his true leftist agenda and some
of the complicated theological stances the left-of-center organizations
he associated with were taking. Plus, there were alleged financial ties
with billionaire liberal George Soros. Here’s
just two paragraphs from an article she wrote in March 2010, just months before her meeting with IRS officials:
On its website,
Catholics United describes itself as a 501(c) (4) non-profit
organization – eligible to accept donations. But, Catholics in Alliance
for the Common Good emerged in 2005 as a kind of sister organization to
Catholics United. A 501(c) (3) organization, donors can claim a
deduction against personal income tax when they donate money to
Catholics in Alliance. Reviewing the 2007 IRS 990 forms for both
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United raises
some questions, because Chris Korzen is listed as having received
$84,821 in compensation for 40 hours per week from Catholics in Alliance
on the group’s 990 Form – even though the Catholics United website
claimed he was the director there during the same time period. [...]
Despite their
inability to engage in extensive lobbying, Catholics in Alliance has
been extremely successful in attracting large donors. Never a friend to
the Catholic Church, George Soros, one of the earliest donors,
contributed $50,000 to Catholics in Alliance in 2005 and another
$100,000 in 2006 through his
Open Society Institute.
Likewise, Smith Bagley, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser, whose
wife, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, is Chairman of the Board of Catholics in
Alliance, came close to matching Soros with grants from his family’s
Arca Foundation.
With a long history of supporting progressive organizations like ACORN,
the Gamaliel Foundation, People for the American Way, and Planned
Parenthood, Arca contributed $50,000 to Catholics in Alliance in 2007
and another $75,000 in 2008.
Hendershott can’t
help but wonder if her writings against progressive groups played a role
in her audit. It’s obvious that before she was notified by the IRS she
was commenting regularly about matters of faith and politics and, in
particular, Obamacare. While she doesn’t have proof that the IRS
investigation was political in nature, she has strong suspicions that it
was.
“I started writing
articles like crazy saying these are fake Catholic groups,” she said of
the aforementioned organizations, noting that Korzen would often target
her work and rail against her assertions.
Hendershott noted
that the progressive leader once called into a radio show she appeared
on to challenge her contention that he had accepted Soros money.
“I had the tax
return in front of me and read off the amounts that Chris Korzen was
getting paid from Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good – a Soros
supported fake Catholic group,” she told TheBlaze, noting that, through
Catholics in Alliance, he had received $85,000.
While Korzen denied
this on the air, Hendershott read from the 990 form in an effort to
prove he wasn’t telling the truth. This, she believes, may have sparked –
or played a role – in spawning the IRS audit.
“He was getting paid
by one organization and working for another,” the professor said of
Korzen. ”The IRS should have gone after them.”
Her writings for the
Catholic Advocate soon ceased because, Hendershott admits, the IRS
audit silenced her. If her suspicions are true, this may have been its
chilling intention.
“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared,” she said (records show
her last article for the organization was on July 10, 2010 – the same month the IRS audit unfolded).
So far, she has only
shared her story with friends and those close to her, but in light of
the recent IRS scandal, she has decided to speak out.
“It was clear they
didn’t like me criticizing the people who helped pass Obamacare,” she
said of the audit,” later adding, ”The IRS is very frightening.”
In addition to
creating stress and fear, Hendershott said that the experience came at a
great emotional and financial expense for the family, noting that even
after the audit the government sought more information from her.
“It was like they just couldn’t find what they wanted because they wanted more and more and more,” she said.
.
In March of 2012
Democratic Senators sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service
demanding that Tea Party groups get extra scrutiny (harassment). The
Democrats even threatened legislative action if the IRS did not act.
A group of seven
Senate Democrats urged the Internal Revenue Service on Monday to impose a
strict cap on the amount of political spending by tax-exempt, nonprofit
groups.
The senators said
the lack of clarity in the IRS rules has allowed political groups to
improperly claim 501(c)4 status and may even be allowing donors to these
groups to wrongly claim tax deductions for their contributions. The
senators promised legislation if the IRS failed to act to fix these
problems.
“We urge the IRS to
take these steps immediately to prevent abuse of the tax code by
political groups focused on federal election activities. But if the IRS
is unable to issue administrative guidance in this area then we plan to
introduce legislation to accomplish these important changes,” the
senators wrote.
The letter was
signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon
Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken. It
follows an earlier letter, sent to the IRS by the same of group of
senators last month, that also urged the IRS to better enforce rules
pertaining to 501(c)4 organizations.
A copy of the letter is here.
This week Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana
vowed congressional hearings and
called the IRS actions “an outrageous abuse of power.” But, over the
last three years, Democratic senators repeatedly and publicly pressured
the IRS to engage in the very activities that they are only now
condemning today.
By Brent Parrish
Yesterday I was
overwhelmed by the number of reports coming out about the IRS singling
out conservative and Tea Party groups for intense scrutiny over their
applications for tax-exempt status as 501 (c)(4) organizations. It
appears the current administration is committed to waging all-out war
against its political adversaries.
Not one Tea Party
group was approved by the IRS for tax-exempt status for two years and
three months, yet Democrat groups were approved regularly.
For example, the
Barack H. Obama Foundation, founded by Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik
Obama, was fast-tracked for tax exempt status and received it in one
month’s time.
Lois Lerner, the
senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party
groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt
status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the
president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.
Malik Obama’s
“shady” foundation was collecting donations illegally for “years,” yet
tax-exempt status was made retroactive to shield Malik Obama’s prior
illegal activity. Barack Obama’s Organizing for America (OFA) was
speedily granted tax-exempt status as a 501 (3)(4) organization as well.
The IRS required conservative groups to answer a
plethora of questions, demanding the names of donors, contributors, grantors—and insisted: “Please identify your volunteers.”
An Ohio woman,
Marion Bower,
formed an educational group, American Patriots Against Government
Excess (PAGE), and was asked by the IRS to provide a “reading list” and a
synopsis of books read. Bowers claimed she sent them a copy of the U.S.
Constitution.
One Tea Party group seeking non-profit status was required to provide details of a rally with
Newt Gingrich.
29.) Provide details regarding the townhall(sp) planned on February –, 2012 with Newt Gingrich.
Click to enlarge (Credit: Gateway Pundit)
St. Louis News 4 anchor
Larry Conners asked
the president some tough questions about his extravagant vacation
schedule and on bullying the Supreme Court in an interview back in April
2012. Conners soon found himself a target, claiming in a Facebook post
he was being “hammered” by the IRS.
Interestingly, Conners later made the following statement regarding his treatment by the IRS:
“Those were my
personal views, not those of KMOV TV, second to be fair, I should
disclose that my issues with the IRS preceded that interview by several
years. As a journalist I understand the importance of keeping my
personal matters separate from my professional work, sometimes you have
to do that to retain your independence as a news man. Those lines might
have been unintentionally crossed yesterday by my post.”
There may be more to Connors’ statement than meets the eye.
Dana Loesch reports that a well-placed source divulged to her, on the condition of anonymity, that Conners was
“... handed the statement that he is being forced to give at the end of the 5:00 and 6:00 news today on KMOV-TV 4.”
Even filmmakers are under the heavy-handed scrutiny of the federal government. Joel Gilbert directed the blockbuster film, “
Dreams from My Real Father,” which was critical of Obama’s communist connections and Marxist philosophy.
The revelations
about the IRS targeting voices opposed to Barack Obama’s political
agenda came of no surprise to filmmaker Joel Gilbert. His
private financial accounts were hacked into and the information used by a
George Soros-linked journalist, Seth Rosenfeld, before the presidential
election. Gilbert wants to know who provided Rosenfeld with his private bank records. Was it someone at the IRS? Or at the White House?
Groups applying for
tax-exempt status containing the words “Partriot,” “Conservative” or
“Tea Party” were specifically targeted by the IRS for intense scrutiny.
But not only were conservative Tea Party organizations singled out, but
Jewish groups as well.
A representative of Z
Street, a small Jewish educational group, spoke to Fox News’ Greta Van
Susteren on the IRS harassment her group had received:
“They told us
terrorism happens in Israel. Therefore, they had to look into our
organization because they thought we might be funding terrorism. We’re a
purely educational entity. We didn’t fund anybody; we barely funded
ourselves.”
What is absolutely
beyond belief to me is the fact Z Street was informed by the IRS their
application for non-profit status would be turned over to a “special
unit.”
During WWII, the Nazis formed units—specifically, death squads—known asEinsatzgruppen, which translates to “Special Units” in English. Einsatzgruppen were
charged with hunting down and killing Jews en masse. Whether or not the
use of the term “special unit” by the IRS was intentional or not, it
certainly brings back painful memories of an awful time in history that
resulted in the murder of millions of Jewish people.
ProPublica, a liberal non-profit group, admits the IRS sent them
confidential applicationsfrom
conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. These confidential
documents were allegedly unsolicited by ProPublica. If true, it provides
ample evidence the IRS was going way out of its way to provide private
information to liberal groups for strictly partisan purposes.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
rejects the
claim by the Obama Administration the IRS shenanigans were simply
relegated to low-level employees. McConnell believes it extends all the
way to the top.
“The Obama effort to
shut up opponents isn’t limited to the IRS. It applies to the FCC
[Federal Communications Commission], SEC [Securities and Exchange
Commission], FEC [Federal Elections Commission], HHS [Department of
Health and Human Services] .... And you remember, the Obama campaign
last year published a list of eight businessmen who it believed were
enemies,” McConnell said.
So not only are conservative and Jewish groups being singled out for “special treatment,” but individuals as well.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl (video
here) dropped a bombshell, alleging the West Wing of the White House authorized the IRS targeting:
In addition to the
IRS scandal, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric
Holder, who was found in contempt of congress during the Fast and
Furious probe, is now embroiled in a controversy over the DoJ’s seizure
of phone records from the Associated Press (AP). The news organization
called the action a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”
The Associated
Press announced Monday that the DOJ obtained two months of telephone
records of reporters and editors without the news organization’s
knowledge. The records obtained by the department listed outgoing calls
for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for
general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn.,
and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press
gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
While the
subject of the probe remains unknown, the news organization suggests it
may have been related to a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror
plot. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S.
attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who
may have provided information for the AP’s story, which disclosed
details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al Qaeda plot in the
spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the U.S.
These new
developments concerning the AP and the DoJ threaten to undermine any
confidence in the Justice Dept. to conduct a thorough and unbiased probe
into the matter. Holder’s FBI is
conducting the investigation of the IRS, both of whom are answerable to the attorney general.
Amazingly, Eric Holder is
defending the
DoJ’s seizure of the Associated Press’ phone records, yet disclaims any
knowledge of certain details of the probe because he has recused
himself from the investigation—which, to some, appears as if the
attorney general is
pleading the Fifth.
Ironically, the president was
hailing “World Press Freedom Day” at the same time his DoJ was seizing the phone records of AP reporters and editors.
The reaction from the left has been starkly divided.
Joe Klein, who is no friend of the right,
wrote that “the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups is outrageous.”
The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated the DoJ’s
spying on the Associated Press was an “unacceptable abuse of power.”
Astonishingly, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell
reacted strongly to the IRS scandal, calling it “one of the most outrageous excesses I’ve seen in all my years of journalism.”
Even people like
John Stewart,
David Gregory and
Charlie Rangel expressed
a measure of incredulity and outrage at the actions of the IRS
targeting specific groups based solely on political affiliations.
Naturally, not all on the left are disturbed by the administration’s heavy-handed approach in silencing its political opponents.
Former Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod
attempted to
minimize the IRS and AP scandals by claiming the “government is so big
... so vast.” The implication being the president cannot possibly keep
tabs on all the machinations of all federal government agencies—which
literally makes the Tea Party’s case for limited government.
Additionally, Axelrod’s comments implied the Obama Administration had no
knowledge of what the Obama Administration was doing
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went even farther in trying to
excuse the actions of the IRS, claiming it once targeted liberal groups:
“What the IRS
did, of course, is inexcusable, but this is not the first time we’ve
seen this. It wasn’t long ago that the IRS inappropriately targeted the
NAACP, Greenpeace and a California church that was really progressive,
called the All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif.”
The
Los Angeles Times postulated that the IRS scandal was nothing more than lax oversight and a confused staff.
Breitbart News
editor-at-large Ben Shapiro countered such notions that the IRS scandal
is nothing more than bad management by stating:
“Insufficient
management means somebody burned the burgers at McDonald’s. When the IRS
politically targets, something else is at work.”
Dana Loesch brings up a disturbing point in regard to the IRS scandal:
“What this
scandal also exposes is that there are no guarantees that the IRS
wouldn’t deny health care to Americans based on beliefs.”
The Affordable Care
Act (Obamacare) requires the hiring of some 16,000 new IRS agents to
enforce the law. Furthermore, Obamacare puts the IRS in charge of
building the largest ever database of personal information. What could possibly go wrong?
Mitch McConnell pointed out the abuse of federal power is not limited to just the IRS.
Obama’s EPA is waiving fees for liberal groups 92% of the time, but
denies conservative organizations 93% of the time.
Health and Human Services (HHS), headed up by Kathleen Sebelius, is currently under investigation for illegally
soliciting donations from the same companies that it would then regulate.
A recent report has also revealed the IRS told a pro-life group it had to
promote abortion in order to receive tax-exempt status.
Shortly before the
Benghazi, IRS and AP scandals broke, Barack Obama spoke to an audience
of college graduates and stated the following:
“They’ll warn that tyranny [is] always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”
Considering these
recent developments, many would be hard-pressed to reject the fact that
using federal government agencies to intimidate and silence ones’s
political foes is, in itself, the quintessential definition of tyranny.
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