The weaponized IRS

It is the Chicago way. Use the power of government to attack and punish ones political enemies

Shocker: IRS targeted conservative groups before 2012 election

Wait, what??? Obama tells students not to fear all-powerful big government....days before IRS scandal emerges

Will no one rid me of this turbulent group

Outrageous, intrusive questions IRS asked of conservative groups

These actions were illegal and un-American. We are now finding out that this was not the result of rogue low-level individuals in one regional office; this happened nationwide and Washington knew about it. The information that was inappropriately obtained by the IRS was then illegally provided to a liberal media organization. The information was then used to attack these conservative organizations. This is not some sort of isolated case of rogue agents. This was obviously an organized campaign to gather information on conservative groups for use against them in electoral campaigns. This is tyranny. This is not what we expect from an American government. This must be fully investigated and EVERYBODY involved must be brought to justice.


Head of IRS had unprecedented number of visits to the White House preceding IRS targeting of conservatives

It seems awfully strange that the head of the IRS, a supposedly non-partisan agency that shouldn't have much interaction with the White House, would have more visits to the White House than any cabinet secretary. It is also odd that the majority of these visits also happened when the IRS was actively engaging in a partisan campaign against conservative groups seeking 501(C)3 or 4 status. The head of the IRS for most of the Bush administration only went to the White House one time. So why would Shulman be one of the most frequent visitors to the White House? The only people that visit the Obama White House that often are the political operatives and union bosses (same thing). Why would the head of the IRS have to personally go to the White House more than any cabinet secretary? Why is it that all the various other branches and agencies could go about their business without visiting the White House? It's almost like they needed to discuss things in person so their wouldn't be any sort of electronic or paper trail. I guess it could all be one big coincidence. Or it could just be the Chicago way. Using the instruments of a powerful, bloated and corrupt government to advance a political cause and punish ones enemies.



IRS asked for back-end access to TEA Party group's websites

I think this goes beyond excessive delays and bureaucratic hurdles to inconvenience and intimidate groups that are thought to be enemies of the administration. There is only one reason for the type of demands that the IRS made on these conservative groups; intelligence gathering. This is opposition research. This isn't the action of some rogue agents who got overly enthusiastic. This is a political operation. For that reason we must assume that it goes back to the DNC or the White House. Either way, this far exceeds anything that happened during Watergate. Every American, regardless of political affiliation, should be concerned that anybody in the government would feel justified in doing something like this. That it was something obviously involving government agents from low level to at least division level and that the agency leadership, as a matter of policy, decided to withhold knowledge of and lie to Congress about this should make everybody deeply suspicious of and distrusting of the government as a whole. You have to ask yourself if this is happening in other agencies. Well, if you have been paying attention for the last five years you will know that this is not an isolated incident. Obama's administration has a long and sordid history of abusing the power of government to achieve political gains.

Worse than Watergate

So let's look at the differences:
Nixon's subordinates carried out a break-in at the office of political opponents and was involved in a cover-up of the events. Nobody was killed by the actions of Nixon or his subordinates. Nixon was a Republican, reviled by the liberal news media. The media banded together like a pack of baying hounds to bring Nixon down (and just by a happy coincidence the Republican Party). To this day they still revel in their ability to take down a sitting president (whose policies they just happened to vehemently oppose).

Obama subordinates in the IRS have violated the 1st and 4th Amendments protections of conservative groups while providing preferential treatment to liberal groups.

Obama subordinates failed to provide adequate security to the consulate in Benghazi, failed to provide any response to save the personnel at the consulate and CIA Annex after they came under attack and then lied to the American public to hide their actions. Obama and his administration then blamed the attack on a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video. The blatant lies about the cause of the attack caused Libyan leadership to withhold vital cooperation in investigating the attack. Cost: 4 American lives and one man jailed for exercising his 1st Amendment rights.

Obama's subordinates in the BATFE and Phoenix US Attorney's office deliberately allowed thousands of weapons to be straw purchased and delivered to Mexican drug cartels under the Fast and Furious program without any means of tracking the weapons once they passed into Mexico. Even though this was a direct violation of Mexico's sovereignty and was sure to result in deaths of Mexican citizens, the Obama Administration incredibly claims that nobody above the Phoenix BATFE/Attorney's offices knew about the operation. Attorney General Holder then acts in contempt of congress to lie and cover up substantive details of Fast and Furious. The Obama Administration withholds and suppresses delivery of most Fast and Furious documents to congressional investigators. Obama then declares executive privilege to shield himself and Holder from any further scrutiny on the issue. Cost: US Federal Agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and at least two hundred Mexicans are killed with weapons the BATFE allowed to go to the drug cartels.

Obama subordinates approve (in some cases fast-tracking over the objections of financial advisers) billions in government secured loans to green energy companies. 80% of the recipients just happen to be Obama campaign donors. Even though it was known that many of these companies were not in strong financial condition or did not have viable business plans, the DoE still provided the loans. Many of the companies have since failed or declared bankruptcy. Cost: the DoE has given $5.01B to the 19 companies that have failed to this point.

In every one of these scandals, as well as numerous other incidents, Obama has always claimed to have no knowledge and has blamed underlings. The news media has been very effective to this point in suppressing any news of these scandals. They have gone the extra mile to ensure that Obama's image remained unsullied and that he not be touched by any of the corrupt, immoral and illegal actions he has taken. For the last five years conservatives have been asking the question; "What would the media say if a Republican had done this?" The news media has created a constitutional crisis by their decision to support the government in spite of ample evidence of numerous deadly, illegal and unconstitutional acts committed by Obama and his administration. This is what happens when a country does not have a free media. Tyranny


More evidence of IRS targeting of conservative groups

Tyranny....pure and simple.

These graphics tell the story. We need a flat tax and a drastically simplified tax code, so that we can drastically downsize the IRS. This agency has too much power, as we are now finding out. We cannot allow such an enormous, bloated bureaucracy with no accountability to have this much control over our lives. And we need to repeal Obamacare, because we cannot allow a government that will use it's institutions of power to attack political enemies to have control of something as basic and important as our health care.

Those of us conservatives who have been sounding the alarm for years on this out-of-control government should be doing a little victory dance right now. The recent actions by the IRS, HHS, EPA and DoJ have proven that we were correct. But we cannot celebrate that we were right about our government violating our constitutional freedoms. That would probably get us audited. No; we need to strengthen our resolve to fight this tyranny. The government has become so powerful and bloated it has its own inertia; a survival instinct if you will. Everything about our government is focused on increasing its size, reach and power. We now have a political class, constituted of both elected officials and career bureaucrats, who feel that they and the government they control is above the average citizen. While the Democrats obviously have as part of their DNA increasing the size of government, establishment Republicans are not much better. We, the people, need to wrestle back power from our government. We need to restore the government of our founding fathers, as Abraham Lincoln so succinctly described it on the hallowed ground of Gettysburg; "of the people, by the people and for the people."


Stasi IRS

The larger and more intrusive our government becomes, the greater the chance that its power will be abused. It doesn't matter which party is in power; the larger and more powerful the government the more it infringes on our freedom. This is the danger of the statist agenda of the Democrats. They exist to increase the size and power of government. Their entire ideology revolves around growing government. We cannot allow this trend to continue. We need to return to the principles on which our nation was founded; individual freedom and limited government.


The Lois Lerner Defense


IRS as an example of runaway organizational culture

Absolutely brilliant. This piece really cuts to the heart of the matter.

The government is an implacable leviathan whose enormous reach and scope crushes individual freedom. The very process of governance has become a weapon that is used to control and coerce. If we value the principles on which our nation was founded, we must restore the concept of limited government.

And what this little info-graphic doesn't mention is that the head of the IRS and his subordinates made a completely unprecedented number of visits to the White House. The head of the IRS under George Bush only went to the White House only once in 5 years. There were hundreds of visits by senior IRS executives to the White House during Obama's first four years in office. Since the IRS began acting in a highly politicized manner right after the major Republican victory in 2010 and the unprecedented White House interaction started at the same time you can draw your own conclusions over what might have been discussed at those meetings. The evidence suggests that it wasn't all coordination of Obamacare. Given all this damning evidence, is there any reason we should allow the IRS access to and control over our health insurance decisions? Of all government agencies it is imperative that the IRS be the one with absolutely no partisan activity. Our government cannot stand if the actions of its revenue gathering agency is guided by partisan politics. Well, that's already happened. Do we really want the IRS to get its partisan hooks into our health care?



Lerner basically admits the process is the punishment

This should not be a surprise to anybody who has been watching our government for the last thirty or forty years, but it is chilling to see such a blatant admission from somebody within the IRS