IRS unfairly targeting Conservatives (Tea Party groups)

[American Patriot]

Homeland Security Spends $80 Million On Armed Guards for “Civil Disturbances”

IRS buildings to be protected; What is the federal government preparing for?

Paul Joseph Watson

October 21, 2013

The Department of Homeland Security is set to spend $80 million dollars on hiring a raft of armed guards to protect IRS and other government buildings in upstate New York during “public demonstrations” and “civil disturbances,” once again prompting concerns that the federal agency is preparing for food stamp riots, anti-tax demonstrations or some other form of domestic unrest.

[IMG]http://static.************.com/p/images/october2013/211013riot.jpg[/IMG]Image: Wikimedia Commons

According to a solicitation posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the Federal Protective Service (a unit of the DHS), is looking for a contractor to supply armed Protective Security Officers (PSOs) to guard a variety of government buildings in the region, including “IRS buildings(s) during tax season.”

“PSOs will be required to be armed and some posts may require screening of visitors using x-rays/magnetometers,” states the solicitation.

The armed guards will be used during “public demonstration(s),” as well as “civil disturbances, or other unanticipated events on an as-needed basis.”

“This acquisition is for approximately 380,000 hours of Basic Service, 20,000 hours of Temporary Additional Services and 3,500 hours of Emergency Security Services per year. Currently, there are an estimated 205 guards protecting approximately 95 posts at over 55 buildings. The estimated value of this Contract is between $75M and $80M,” states the solicitation.

Why does the DHS feel the need to blow $80 million dollars at a time of cutbacks on yet more armed guards to protect government buildings during “public demonstrations”? What is the federal agency preparing for? Food stamp riots? Anti-IRS demonstrations? Or some other form of civil disorder?

In June, it emerged that the DHS was purchasing top of the range body armor and helmets for FPS guards as part of preparations for “riot control situations.” This followed a controversial drill last year dubbed “Operation Shield,” during which FPS agents armed with semiautomatic guns were posted outside a Social Security office in Florida. The unannounced exercise centered around “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.” Residents were forced to show identification papers to the guards during the drill.

Could the increased security around IRS buildings be related to the introduction of Obamacare? The federal government has consistently denied that any fines pertaining to Obamacare non-compliance could be seized from bank accounts, despite reports last year that the IRS had hired 16,500 new agents to harass citizens who attempt to evade the new law.

As we reported earlier this year, Federal Protective Service officers were hired to guard an IRS building in St. Louis during a Tea Party protest against the federal agency’s discrimination targeting conservative groups. The FPS has previously been used to spy on protesters. In 2011, the DHS asserted that it had every right to spy on peaceful protest groups and had been using Federal Protective Service (FPS) agents to do so since at least 2006.

In March, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis admitted that the federal agency spies on Americans deemed to be “anti-government,” noting that the DHS concentrates on, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information,” so-called threats which included people, “putting political stickers in public bathrooms or participating in movements against the death penalty.”

[Malsua]

All these guards and armor and whatnot won't do much good if the public at large decides to stop paying the feral government.

[American Patriot]

Yeah... the plan is to force us to pay. Our plan is to force them to MAKE us.

[American Patriot]

Obama’s Fingerprints All Over IRS Tea Party Scandal





” It’s past time for the media to begin asking President Obama tough questions about the IRS conservative targeting scandal. After all he was involved, publicly, from the beginning.
Last Friday, the American Center for Law and Justice (where I serve as Chief Counsel) filed its Second Amended Complaint against the United States, the IRS, and a legion of IRS officials. This Complaint , in which we represent 41 organizations in 22 states, presents perhaps the most complete story yet of the IRS conservative targeting scandal.
What was sold to the American public as a low-level scandal perpetrated by a few rogue employees – a scandal stopped after senior officials became aware and asserted control – is now (to borrow a Watergate phrase) “no longer operative.”
Instead, we detail a long-running assault on the Tea Party, beginning shortly after its emergence in 2009, that is empowered, encouraged, and orchestrated not only by senior IRS officials in Washington, but also through outright targeting by the White House, Congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media.”


=========


Obama’s fingerprints all over IRS Tea Party scandal

By Jay Sekulow
Published October 20, 2013FoxNews.com


It’s past time for the media to begin asking President Obama tough questions about the IRS conservative targeting scandal. After all he was involved, publicly, from the beginning.


Last Friday, the American Center for Law and Justice (where I serve as Chief Counsel) filed its Second Amended Complaint against the United States, the IRS, and a legion of IRS officials. This Complaint, in which we represent 41 organizations in 22 states, presents perhaps the most complete story yet of the IRS conservative targeting scandal.


And it is an ugly story indeed.


What was sold to the American public as a low-level scandal perpetrated by a few rogue employees – a scandal stopped after senior officials became aware and asserted control – is now (to borrow a Watergate phrase) “no longer operative.”

Was Obama involved in the IRS scandal? He was the one who identified the targets – in the most public manner possible.

Instead, we detail a long-running assault on the Tea Party, beginning shortly after its emergence in 2009, that is empowered, encouraged, and orchestrated not only by senior IRS officials in Washington, but also through outright targeting by the White House, Congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media.


In fact, the IRS was doing little more than focusing its attention exactly where the president of the United States told it to focus – on the groups the president himself identified as a “threat to democracy.”


Consider President Obama’s aggressive public statements – made just as we now know senior IRS officials were intentionally and aggressively scrutinizing conservative groups’ applications for tax exemption.


On August 9, 2010 the president warned of “attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names” during his weekly radio address. The President said: We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them . . . you don’t know if it’s a foreign controlled corporation. ... The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.”


On September 16, 2010, President Obama once again warned that some unidentified “foreign-controlled entity” could be providing “millions of dollars” for “attack ads.” Less than one week later, he complained that “nobody knows” the identities of the individuals who support conservative groups.


On September 22, 2010, President Obama warned of groups opposing his policies “pos[ing] as non-for-profit social and welfare trade groups” and he claimed such groups were “guided by seasoned Republican political operatives” and potentially supported by some unidentified “foreign controlled entity.”


On October 14, 2010, President Obama called organizations with “benign sounding” names “a problem for democracy”; the next week he complained about individuals who “hide behind those front groups,” called such groups a “threat to our democracy,” and claimed such groups were engaged in “unsupervised” spending.


Next, consider the IRS’s actions following those statements. Not only did the IRS continue its targeting, it issued broad questionnaires that made unconstitutionally-intrusive inquiries designed to get answers to exactly the questions President Obama posed.


Who are your donors?


What is the political activity of your family and associates?


What are the passwords for your websites?


After all, according to the president, you’re only afraid to answer these questions if “you’ve got something to hide.”


The demagoguery is breathtaking. Not only does he raise the wholly-unsubstantiated possibility of shadowy “foreign” involvement in the Tea Party groups, a charge incredible on its face, but he goes the extra mile of calling such groups, a “threat to our democracy.”


When the president of the United States declares these groups a “threat to our democracy” is it any surprise that his enthusiastic supporters (and donors) within the IRS responded with an unprecedented campaign of selective targeting, intimidation, and governmental intrusion?


One grows weary of stating the obvious, but if President Bush had declared a specific category of citizen groups a “threat to democracy” potentially run by “political operatives” or “foreign-controlled,” and the IRS launched an unprecedented campaign of targeting and intrusive questioning, the mainstream media would have been relentless not only in its independent investigations but in its calls for accountability – at the highest levels.


Was the president of the United States involved in the IRS scandal? He was the one who identified the targets – in the most public manner possible.
A president singling out citizens groups for targeting and intrusive questioning merely because he dislikes their message and fears their political influence?
Now that is a “threat to democracy.”


Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Follow him on Twitter@JaySekulow.

[vector7]

IRS proposes “Tea Party” rules

Posted by Leslie Eastman Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 8:30am

As we enter Day 244 of the Internal Revenue Service scandal of suppressing conservative groups by the unfair application of tax-exempt status rules, there is a development that is chilling the hearts of citizen activists everywhere.

The IRS is planning to codify its tactics into truly heavy-handed regulations. Matt Kibbe of Freedom Works explains:

“While you were all celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends, the Obama Administration was quietly releasing a new set of draconian IRS regulations that would make it virtually impossible for tea parties that want to participate in the political process to do their business. They’re going after conservative groups, they’re going after libertarian groups, and they’re going after citizen groups that want to organize people based on the values of the constitution; based on the ideas of freedom and have an impact on the political conversation.”

In a nutshell, the agency will be using one of the administration’s favorite tactics: Redefining terms. There would be favorable rulings for groups promoting “social welfare.”

Meanwhile, the definition of political activity would be broadened. A snippet of the proposed rule:

These proposed regulations provide guidance on which activities will be considered candidate-related political activity for purposes of the regulations under section 501(c)(4). These proposed regulations would replace the language in the existing final regulation under section 501(c)(4)—“participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office”—with a new term—“candidate-related political activity”—to differentiate the proposed section 501(c)(4) rule from the standard employed under section 501(c)(3) (and currently employed under section 501(c)(4)). The proposed rule is intended to help organizations and the IRS more readily identify activities that constitute candidate-related political activity and, therefore, do not promote social welfare within the meaning of section 501(c)(4). These proposed regulations do not otherwise define the promotion of social welfare under section 501(c)(4). The Treasury Department and the IRS note that the fact that an activity is not candidate-related political activity under these proposed regulations does not mean that the activity promotes social welfare. Whether such an activity promotes social welfare is an independent determination.

So, while groups like Organizing for America will be deemed “social welfare” organizations and exempt from taxation, entities like the NorCal Tea Party will be classified as having some sort of “candidate-related political activity”.

Hal Bray, the 2nd Vice Chair for the Contra Costa Republican Party, expands on the likely consequences.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new rules will restrict the ability of 501(c)(4) groups to conduct nonpartisan voter registration and voter education; the organizations would also be forbidden to leave records of officeholder votes and public statements on their websites in the two months prior to an election.

Ultimately, the goal of these new rules is the intimidation of conservative donors though the disclosure of private information.

However, we have a chance for a little “insurrection”. You can comment on the proposed rules by clicking HERE before Feb. 27th, the end-date for the comment period.

“I find it interesting that Feb. 27th was the date chosen, as it marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the national Tea Party movement,” noted Dawn Wildman, President of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition.

Wildman explains that though the Obama administration said they had stopped the unfair treatment of conservative groups, it is obvious from this regulation, “…it is obviously business as usual. I look forward to see what conservative stalwarts like Darryl Issa, Rand Paul, and other Republicans championed by grassroots groups will do to get the message out so we can stop this regulatory travesty.”

Wildman also indicates that the California Tea Party groups, as well as others across the nation, are beginning the drive to push-back against these rules. She urges conservatives to add their comments, as well as contacting their congressional representatives.

[American Patriot]

Cruz to Holder: Appoint an Independent Prosecutor in IRS Scandal
By Andrew C. McCarthy
January 22, 2014 8:23 PM
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Senator Ted Cruz has written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for the Obama administration to stop stonewalling and for the attorney general to appoint an independent prosecutor to probe the IRS scandal. The letter can be found and shared at the senator’s site here.

The IRS harassment of the president’s political adversaries and the agency’s role in obstructing the participation of tea-party groups in the 2012 campaign are among the most egregious episodes of Obama administration malfeasance – and that’s saying something with this crowd.

For public consumption, as Cruz observes, both the president and the attorney general spouted indignantly about how “intolerable and inexcusable” and “outrageous and unacceptable” the IRS’s undeniable targeting of conservative groups was. But then they conducted an “investigation” under the direction of an Obama campaign donor in which law enforcement did not bother to interview the harassment victims. Meanwhile, the administration has not only stonewalled Congress (the familiar Obama M.O.) but, Cruz notes, is actively seeking new IRS rules that would validate and provide for systematic use of these “intolerable, inexcusable, outrageous and unacceptable” tactics.

Before the Justice Department’s attempted whitewash, I argued against an independent prosecutor – both because a completely independent prosecutor would be unconstitutional and because the congressional investigation stood the best chance of advancing the search for truth (a criminal DOJ investigation would just give suspected government officials a rationale for ignoring Congress’s inquiries). In the ensuing seven months, however, the Obama administration has not only obstructed the congressional investigation; it has commissioned an embarrassingly conflicted investigation in a blatant effort to tuck the scandal under the rug. If Justice is going to do an investigation, we must demand that it be sufficiently independent to have integrity.

Senator Cruz, a constitutional scholar and highly competent lawyer, is obviously sensitive to the problems posed by independent prosecutors. Prosecution is an executive power and, under the Constitution, may not properly be exercised wholly independent of the executive branch. Thus the senator takes pains to ask Holder to appoint a prosecutor “with meaningful independence” from Main Justice (emphasis added), not complete independence.

A Justice Department with integrity would not need to be told that. But a Justice Department with integrity would not have assigned Barbara Bosserman to run the investigation. Ms. Bosserman is a partisan Democrat who is a heavy Obama donor – reportedly $6,100 from 2008 through 2012, which is a considerable amount of money for a lawyer on a government salary (as opposed to a lawyer in a successful private practice).

In response to the entirely predictable and fully justified complaints about Ms. Bosserman’s appointment, the Justice Department contends that it is impermissible to take a person’s political leanings into account in doling out assignments. That is not just a specious claim; coming from this Justice Department, it is a claim that insults the intelligence.

First, as a matter of principle, ethical lawyers and ethical Justice Departments operate on the “appearance of impropriety” standard: A lawyer should not be assigned to, or accept, a case in which his or her participation creates the mere appearance of conflicted loyalties. The idea is we should never have to wonder if there is bias at work – upholding the integrity of the system is about assuring the perception of justice, not merely the concrete application of justice.

Thus it makes no difference whether Ms. Bosserman (whom I do not know and had never heard of before publicity about her assignment to the IRS case) is the most honest prosecutor in the history of prosecutors. She is, objectively speaking, an Obama partisan. This is a case with big-time political ramifications. Her political leanings thus create the appearance of impropriety.

Moreover, in my decades of experience in the Justice Department, the appearance-of-impropriety standard was broadly construed because it is not something any U.S. attorney’s office wants hanging over a case. For the sake of the subjects of the investigation (here, the Obama administration and other government officials), if they are truly innocent, they should want an investigation as to which no one could credibly suggest the fix is in. And for the sake of the lawyer, she should want no occasion for the raising of ethical questions. So even if recusal is not absolutely required (and I think the “appearance” standard requires it), the Justice Department usually recuses when it is prudent to do so. Here, it should have been a no-brainer.

As for insulting our intelligence, take a quick look at the series Hans von Spakovsky and Christian Adams did for PJ Media on the politicized hiring at Holder’s DOJ — it was aptly called “Every Single One.” They showed that, under Attorney General Holder, the Justice Department has systematically taken political leanings into account in its hiring decisions, as if “Radical Leftist” were part of the job description. This is the most politicized Justice Department in American history and the thought that Obama, Holder & Co. do not factor political considerations into virtually every significant decision is laughable.

But that’s not the half of it. Quite apart from Ms. Bosserman’s Obama partisanship is the fact that she is assigned to Main Justice’s notoriously politicized Civil Rights Division. The IRS investigation is a corruption case, not a civil-rights case or a tax case. The Civil Rights Division – Ground Zero of the Obama administration’s racially discriminatory practices, its unfathomable dismissal of the New Black Panthers voter-intimidation case, and its highly politicized lawsuits against several states – is no place for conducting a criminal government-corruption investigation.

That aside, the investigation should not be run from Main Justice at all, not even from its public-integrity section, which handles some political corruption cases. Except as minimally required (more on that below), Main Justice should be out of the IRS investigation, period. With rare exceptions, investigations should be conducted by district U.S. attorney’s offices; Main Justice’s task is to maintain national enforcement standards, not to conduct investigations and prosecutions.

In particular, when an investigation implicates Washington-based agencies (and especially when it involves Washington-headquarters-based officials of those agencies), it should not be run from Main Justice in Washington. Main Justice has regular collaborative dealings with these agencies regarding cases and policy matters. There are thousands of federal prosecutors across the U.S., the vast majority of whom have no political or operational conflicts of interests. There is thus no reason for Main Justice, which must regularly, and at the highest level, cooperate with an agency like the IRS, to be made responsible for criminally investigating the same agency.

The right way to handle the IRS case would be the way Attorney General Michael Mukasey handled the CIA “torture” investigation: Bring in a respected, non-partisan, highly experienced U.S. attorney from outside D.C. and put him/her and his/her office in charge of the investigation . . . answering only to the attorney general and, perhaps, the deputy attorney general.

As noted above, it would offend the Constitution for a federal investigation to be conducted completely outside the executive branch. Prosecutorial power is executive in nature, and it is fully reposed in President Obama. Attorney General Holder is the president’s Senate-confirmed representative for the exercise of that power. No matter who the prosecutor is, he or she must answer to the president (who appoints all district U.S. attorneys, subject to Senate confirmation), and it is only right for the prosecutor to answer to the cabinet official the president has chosen to execute his prosecutorial powers.

Nevertheless, were Obama and Holder to appoint an experienced prosecutor whose integrity and reputation for non-partisan law enforcement were above reproach, there would be powerful political incentives neither to interfere with the investigation nor to remove the prosecutor to avoid the filing of charges. Senator Cruz’s demand for a meaningfully independent investigation wisely recognizes this reality. Americans who care about getting to the truth, and who are offended by the administration’s efforts obscure the truth, should get behind it.

[American Patriot]

'I Don't Know Anything...' Holder Denies Knowing IRS Investigator Was Obama Contributor


January 30, 2014 - 11:26 AM

---

By Melanie Hunter


Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder denied knowing that a top Democratic donor is leading the internal investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups. “No, I don’t know anything about the political activities of any of the people who are involved in this investigation,” he said when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned him during a Justice Department oversight hearing.

“I must tell you I find it astonishing that the Department of Justice appointed a major Obama donor to head this investigation, so the first question I want to ask is did you know that the lawyer in charge of this investigation was a major Obama donor?” Cruz asked Holder.

On Jan. 8, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Holder, calling Bosserman’s involvement “highly inappropriate” and demanding that she be “immediately” removed from the investigation.

Issa’s letter detailed that Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS’s Civil Rights Commission, donated close to $7,000 to “Obama’s political campaigns and the Democratic National Committee” between 2004 and 2012.

Holder objected to “the characterization” of Bosserman as the lead lawyer on the case, saying the investigation is “being done by the civil rights division as well as the criminal division of the Justice Department, and if I had to assign a lead in this, I would say that the criminal division of Public Integrity section has actually got the lead.”

“General Holder, with all due respect, you did not answer the question I asked, which is did you know that this lawyer was a major Obama donor,” Cruz said.

After Holder denied knowing the “political activities” of anyone involved in the investigation, Cruz noted that the DOJ ethics guidelines instruct lawyers who believe their “impartiality might be questioned” must either “disqualify” themselves or “see an ethics officer.”

“And indeed it goes on to say, ‘In a case where your impartiality might be questioned, you may obtain a formal opinion that the department’s interest in your participation in this matter outweighs the concern that the integrity of the department’s operation would be questioned,’” Cruz added.

“Now, previously when you were asked about this, you made a reference to the fact that she has a First Amendment right to be involved in politics, and that’s surely right,” Cruz told Holder.

“No one’s talking about restraining her First Amendment right to be involved in politics,” Cruz added.

The fact that “a major Obama donor is playing this leadership role has resulted in the integrity of the department being questioned,” Cruz said. “Is it your position that out of the 117,000 employees at the Department of Justice the only lawyer available to head this investigation was a major Obama donor?”

“First we have 112,000 people, but beyond that, the people who are assigned to this case, the assignments were done by career people within the department to make sure that the best people with the greatest amount of experience would handle this matter,” Holder replied.

“Your repeated reference to her as the lead lawyer, as I said is not born out by the role she’s actually playing,” he continued.

Holder said he had no “basis” to believe that those involved with the investigation are doing so in a way that differs from the way investigations are normally done.

“That is by looking at the facts, applying the law to those facts, and reaching the appropriate conclusions. I don’t have any basis to believe that anything other than that is occurring,” he added.

Cruz noted that 280 days – nine months – have passed since the IRS scandal first broke, and “no one’s been indicted.” On top of that, “many if not all of the victims have not even been interviewed.”

“Apparently the anger and outrage that both the president and you expressed has utterly disappeared. Indeed, last night in the State of the Union address, the president did not so much as mention the words IRS, so that anger and outrage sees very little manifestation in actual action,” Cruz said.

“I would hope that the president would not discuss an ongoing investigation. I don’t know if you’ve ever conducted an investigation, Senator, but the fact that it’s taken – and I’ll just take you at your word – 280 days is not unusual for complex investigations,” Holder replied.

“We want to make sure that what we do is comprehensive and that at the end of the day we get it right,” he said. “I don’t ask people to do things on a short basis, I ask people simply to do them right.”

“Many of the victims” in the IRS scandal have not been interviewed, Cruz pointed out.

“Has the investigation examined the meetings between the head of the IRS and White House political operatives to determine the degree of political influence that was exercised from the White House over this political targeting?” he asked Holder.

“As I said to I think it was maybe Senator Graham, I’m not going to discuss an ongoing investigation and what steps have been taken in connection with that investigation, and that is not something I’m only doing for this inquiry,” Holder responded.

“This would be an answer you would get from me for any investigation that the Justice Department was involved in. It is not appropriate for an attorney general or any Justice Department person to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation,” Holder added.

Cruz asked Holder whether there has been an investigation into whether the IRS targeted individual donors to former Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign “at a greater rate” than Obama donors.

“I will tell you as I traveled the country, I have heard from dozens of financial supporters for Governor Romney who told me that they had never been audited in their life and within a week, a month of it becoming public that they were raising money for Mitt Romney, they discovered they were being audited,” Cruz said.

While Cruz said “those are anecdotal stories,” he said, “it would be relatively simple to examine the prosecution rates of Obama donors versus Romney donors, and if there were a sharp differential – if it were the case that Romney donors were being audited at a much higher frequency – that would raise substantial basis to investigate further.”

“Has the investigation inquired as to that?” Cruz asked Holder.

“Senator, I’ll give you the same response to the questions that you’re asking that are in many ways very similar, I am not going to discuss what we have done in ongoing investigation,” Holder replied.

“This is a matter that is presently being investigated. Interviews are being done. Analysis is being conducted, and it would be inappropriate for me to talk about the matter in the way that you have asked,” he added.



- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/....dWZeIdKA.dpuf

[Ryan Ruck]

Can someone Photoshop Sgt. Schultz's helmet on Holder?

[American Patriot]

Confirmed: IRS Gave Preferential Treatment to Malik Obama – Who Is Linked to Hamas

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, January 31, 2014, 9:09 AM

Obama’s IRS unfairly targeting hundreds of conservative groups, but President Obama’s radical half-brother “got a sweetheart deal” from the IRS.


According to the Daily Caller, 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. Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing.



Now there is evidence that the Malik Obama is linked to Hamas.

He was even pictured a Hamas scarf (keffiyeh) that bears a well-known Palestinian slogan – “Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE COMING!” and “There is no Israel.”



The IRS harassed over two hundred conservative groups but approved tax-exempt status for Malik Obama’s shady charity.

And, now we find out Malik is involved with Hamas.

Unreal.


Barack Obama welcomed his militant Muslim brother Malik Obama to the White House after his inauguration.



Proud family: US President Barack Obama greets members of his British and African-based family at the White House following his inauguration, including half-brother Abongo, far left, and stepmother Kezia, in yellow. The President’s 86-year-old paternal grandmother Sarah was also in Washington DC for his swearing-in ceremony, as well as his half-sister Auma, 49, and half-brothers Ben, 38, and Abo (or Samson), 40. (Daily Mail)

[MinutemanCO]

[American Patriot]

Not even a bad Schultz is he?

He's worse than bad.

[Ryan Ruck]

Awesome!

[American Patriot]

Obama Claims “Not A Smidgen” of Corruption At The IRS — But Many Say The President Is Totally Wrong

By Jay Sekulow
FoxNews.com

In the aftermath of an IRS targeting scandal that may have influenced the 2012 election, in the midst of criminal and congressional investigations, while civil litigation is pending in federal court, before a single deposition is taken and while the IRS clings to tens of thousands of documents, the president of the United States has spoken. His meaning is clear.
Move along, nothing to see here.
In his Super Bowl Sunday interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Obama declared that the IRS scandal was the product of “boneheaded decisions,” and there was “not even a smidgen of corruption.”

Singling out conservatives wasn’t an accident or mistake; it was an intentional act by lawyers who knew it was wrong.

I suppose that’s just another way of saying “phony scandal.”
While the easy and immediate response is to ask the president whether senior IRS officials typically assert their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when there’s not even a “smidgen of corruption,” his statement actually has deeper problems.
First, it is not remotely appropriate for a sitting president to make such a declaration in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Given that the FBI hasn’t even interviewed the victims of IRS targeting, it’s safe to say the president hasn’t seen all the evidence.
How can we trust the results of an investigation when Barbara Bosserman, one of the lead attorneys, is not only a large donor to Obama’s campaigns, but the president himself has publicly issued to that attorney his opinion about the outcome?
Next, he ignores the context. The IRS scandal was orchestrated not by young, inexperienced government employees but by attorneys with decades of experience in the IRS and in the federal government. They knew that singling out applicants for additional scrutiny merely because of their presumed politics violates the Constitution.
Viewpoint neutrality is a basic legal requirement for federal bureaucrats, one they’re made aware of from day one of federal employment.
In other words, singling out conservatives wasn’t an accident or mistake; it was an intentional act by lawyers who knew it was wrong.
Third, he downplays the extent of the wrongdoing. In addition to the initial targeting scandal, we know the IRS leaked confidential information to friendly leftist media outlets.
We know the IRS has engaged in targeted audits of the administration’s political enemies.
Oh, and we know that the targeting continues to this day – in spite of media coverage, multiple investigations and multiple lawsuits.
At the American Center for Law and Justice, of the 41 groups in 22 states that we represent in our federal lawsuit, 13 organizations still have not received tax exemptions despite waiting for years.
Finally, President Obama ignores the IRS’s own lies. When the IRS made its public apology, it told a series of lies to the American public.
It lied when it said the problem was localized in Cincinnati. In reality it involved IRS offices from coast to coast, with most action coming from IRS headquarters in Washington.
It lied when it said the problem was the fault of low-level employees. In fact, documents show the early and continued involvement of senior IRS officials.
It also lied when it said the misconduct had stopped. As stated before, the IRS continues to deny recognition to conservative groups, and now the IRS is compounding its wrongdoing by proposing new regulations that would unconstitutionally limit political speech.
These lies by themselves are strong evidence of corruption.
In reality, the question is not whether the IRS was corrupt. It was and is. The question is, how corrupt? How far up the chain of command does the corruption extend?
The intentional misuse of government office to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights and thereby sway the outcome of public debates is the very essence of corruption in a constitutional republic. Drafting the government bureaucracy into partisan politics is more than a “boneheaded mistake,” it’s a threat to the integrity of our democracy.
Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on the president to take action against the IRS.
Congress is intensifying its investigation of this targeting scheme. I will testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Thursday at a hearing entitled: The IRS Targeting Investigation: What is the Administration Doing?
At the ACLJ, our lawsuit – brought against key IRS officials – is still pending, and we are undeterred by political posturing.
In the heart of Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone,” the president tried to spin. But he can’t escape the truth, and, soon enough, his administration won’t be able to escape accountability.
Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Follow him on Twitter@JaySekulow.

[American Patriot]

IRS Official Lois Lerner, Took The Fifth On IRS Targeting of Conservatives, Then Worked Secretly On New IRS Rules “To Make Heavy-Handed Tactics Legal”


May 22, 2013: IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP



Lerner helped craft new IRS political crackdown


LERNER HELPED CRAFT NEW IRS POLITICAL CRACKDOWN The official at the center of the IRS scandal involving the targeting of President Obama’s political enemies secretly helped craft new rules for the agency that critics say would make such heavy-handed tactics legal. Emails obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee show IRS executive Lois Lerner working on the new rules in secret with Obama Treasury officials at the height of the targeting. Lerner has refused to testify before Congress amid the criminal investigation into misconduct at the agency. The regulations, which are currently pending, would allow the IRS to crack down on political activity by non-profit groups. A June 2012 email from a Treasury official to Lerner suggests that they work “off plan” –bureaucratic shorthand for keeping their meetings off of publicly available schedules – to devise the rules. Critics say the rules that resulted would permit agents to shut down dissent by non-profit groups.


[Daily Caller -“The American Civil Liberties Union… stated its ‘serious concerns with the [proposed IRS regulations]… from a First Amendment perspective,’ saying that ‘the proposed rule threatens to discourage or sterilize an enormous amount of political discourse in America.’”]

[American Patriot]

Email Reveals IRS, Treasury Conspired Against Conservative Groups

Posted 2 hours ago by Tad Cronn Filed under Congress, Constitution, Corruption, IRS, Scandals
1 Comment

Among the many Obama Administration scandals the mainstream media have chosen to ignore, the IRS targeting of conservative nonprofit groups is not only still an active investigation but a widening one.

Evidence is still mounting that the Administration has not been forthcoming in complying with congressional requests for information or in what it has told the public.
This week, the House Ways and Means Committee has released an email that indicates former IRS official Lois Lerner and the Treasury Department conspired to rewrite rules for nonprofits so as to hamper conservative groups and keep the changes out of the public view.

According to the Daily Caller, the email shows Lerner and the Treasury devised the rules changes "off-plan," meaning they would not be published publicly.

Despite what the White House has implied, the changes were not devised to "clarify" rules after the IRS scandal broke but in 2012, while the IRS was actively targeting Tea Party and other conservative organizations with intrusive questionnaires and procedural roadblocks to their requests for 501(c)4 nonprofit status.

The changes would have classified as political activities even nonpartisan efforts by groups to organize and educate the public, such as voter registration drives, candidates forums and issue information pamphlets. The IRS is accused of applying such restrictions to conservatives, while liberal groups have gotten away with openly ignoring the rules and still sailed through the application process.

Among the more obnoxious questions the IRS asked of conservatives in dragging out the application process during an election year were personal information on members, speakers at meetings, and in one case the content of members' prayers.

Treasury official Ruth Madrigal, in a June 14, 2012, email, wrote: "Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off -plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting. ..."

Ways and Means chairman Rep. David Camp said, "If Treasury and the IRS fabricated the rationale for a rule change it would tend to raise questions about the integrity of the rule-making process."

During a Wednesday hearing, Camp called for the new 501(c)4 rules to be suspended until criminal investigations of the IRS scandal are finished.

The Administration still hasn't provided all the documents requested by Ways and Means, and it is painfully obvious that there is a coverup in effect.

How high the coverup goes is an open question, but it's simply unbelievable that midlevel managers at the IRS and Treasury would simply spontaneously decide on their own authority to engage in such a blatant abuse of power.

This disdain for conservatives pervades the Obama Administration, which would tend to suggest that it all has a common root. If we ever get near the full truth in the IRS scandal, it would be no surprise to find that the trail ends in the Oval Office.


Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/14277/e...itA9TyFGVMG.99

[Ryan Ruck]

BREAKING: 100% Of The 501(c)(4) Groups Audited By IRS Were Conservative

February 11, 2014

Today Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, confirmed that 100% of the established 501(c)(4) groups the IRS selected for audit were conservative.

But Obama says their was not a smidgen of corruption in the IRS.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

A Republican House committee chairman said the Internal Revenue Service targeted tax-exempt conservative groups for audits, widening the scope of GOP ire over the agency’s oversight of political activities.

House Democrats pushed back, saying Republicans were seeking to use the IRS controversy to score political points with their conservative base in an election year.

The IRS has been under scrutiny since an inspector general’s report last May found that the agency had targeted conservative groups for lengthy and heavy-handed review of their applications to become tax-exempt organizations under section 501(c) 4 of the tax code. The controversy led to significant management shakeups at the IRS and generated a slew of congressional investigations, some of which are still going on.

On Tuesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) said his committee’s continuing investigation has found that the IRS also singled out established conservative tax-exempt groups for audits.

“We now know that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that were already operating as 501(c)(4)s,” Mr. Camp said in a statement. “At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information. Of these groups, 83% were right-leaning. And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning.”

Rep. Camp said more about the IRS targeting scandal in his opening statement today.

Additionally, we now know that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that were already operating as 501(c)(4)s. At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information. Of these groups, 83 percent were right-leaning. And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100 percent were right-leaning.

[American Patriot]

Fascists!

[American Patriot]

Sorta Breaking News. Lois Learner charged with Contempt of Congress.

[Malsua]

Well, now the Attorney General can get right on doing something about this. After all, the Contempt of Congress is a big deal! Heads will roll! Wait, you mean Eric Holder is in Contempt of Congress already and nothing has happened and he's the guy in charge of making sure she gets punished? Yeah, she's scot free.

[American Patriot]

Like I said... "Sorta Breaking News"

We all know this shit ain't going anywhere.