As IRS admits it targeted Tea Party groups, remember IRS is Obamacare enforcer
A lesson also for blind faith in government to fairly enforce the Gang of 8 immigration provisions
Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation fought to expose IRS political abuses directed at Tea Party groups.
The NY Times reported at the time:
Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer known more for his stands on religious freedom than for his tax work, said he is representing 16 Tea Party groups that are claiming harassment by the I.R.S., and the number is growing. He said he intended to demand an explanation from the Treasury Department on Wednesday for what he called “McCarthyism” tactics and that he would contact Republican lawmakers this week.
“This is obviously a coordinated effort by the I.R.S. to stifle these Tea Party and Tea Party-affiliated groups, and to stifle free speech activities,” Mr. Sekulow said. “It’s as onerous as what they did to the N.A.A.C.P. in the 1950s, and I plan to make that point.”
Now the IRS has admitted it’s misconduct.
IRS FINALLY APOLOGIZES TO TEA PARTY GROUPS AFTER LANDMARK LEGAL FOUNDATION DEMANDED TREASURY DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATION fb.me/1ofP3qvI7
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) May 10, 2013
Via AP, IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups:
The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.
“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.
Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.
Remember, the IRS is the Obamacare mandate enforcer. What level of confidence do you have as to fair enforcement, and that “low level” IRS employees will not misuse information gained in connection with assuring compliance with the health insurance requirements? (I’ve been warning about that since August 14, 2009, IRS The New Health Care Enforcer.)
With the exposure of the Benghazi deceit and the IRS political attacks, I have zero confidence that the Gang of 8 border enforcement or other supposed protections actually will be enforced.
Updates:
Hey, low-level IRS workers in Cincinnati, way to validate right-wing conspiracy theories for the rest of the century! bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-ap…
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) May 10, 2013
AHEM ============>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> RT @instapundit: FLASHBACK:Obama jokes about auditing enemies:online.wsj.com/article/SB1242…
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) May 10, 2013
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Comments
“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the
communistparty that believes in the constitution as the law of the land?”Selective enforcement … no conservative Europeans allowed. (if there are any of those) 🙂
[…] Update 2: Legal Insurrection further notes… […]
The argument we keep hearing from Rubio and the other amnesty shills is that legalizing untold millions of low-skill, low-education, limited-English illegal aliens (and untold millions more of their chain-migrating family members) won’t have any adverse effect on our economy or our multi-trillion-dollar deficits — because the new amnesty law includes provisions that say amnestied illegals won’t get food stamp or other welfare eligibility for 10 years.
What Rubio and the other amnesty shills don’t tell people is that CURRENT federal laws prohibit illegal aliens from receiving welfare benefits like food stamps — but Obama refuses to enforce the law, and his administration hands out food stamps to illegals like Halloween candy. The Obama administration even uses millions of our tax dollars every year to advertise the fact (both here and in Mexico) that the U.S. government won’t ask food stamp applicants about their legal status (or lack thereof).
CURRENT federal law also prohibits the federal government from giving visas to immigrant applicants who are likely to become a “public charge.” Again, Obama refuses to enforce this law. Obama’s DHS has not denied a single visa application on the “public charge” ground since Obama has been in office.
Obama has been blatantly violating federal laws about welfare eligibility for illegal aliens for as long as he has been president. Congress is well aware of this fact, and simply ignores it (or occasionally sends him a letter complaining about it, which Obama ignores). But we’re all supposed to believe that Obama will magically transform overnight and start taking his oath of office seriously once a massive new amnesty law is passed, because . . . well, just because.
It’s hard to believe Rubio is this naïve. So he’s either incredibly stupid, or incredibly corrupt.
Levin and Sekulow deserve our kudos AND our contributions.
This is POWERFUL.
The Obamabanana Republic is the home of “selective enforcement”, or a nation of men, not laws.
I join Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades in asking these questions:
It’s that last one that concerns me the most. You know, you just know, that in a few years any person who displeases the government enough (e.g., a Tea Party worker) will all of a sudden have trouble getting their health care covered. Just a coincidence, of course.
Try getting the MSM to cover that story when (not if) it happens. Heck, the NYT will applaud, as they did this time.
If I were Mr. Sekulow, I’d proceed with the lawsuit anyway, and agree to settle only when the IRS agrees to name names, fire employees, and demonstrate just how high up (with all appropriate documents) this went.
@Steve – exactly: we need names, dates, memos and (above all) resignations.
I think Lois Lerner should consider an acting career. If she was able to say that this was not motivated by political bias, and keep a straight face, she has thespian talents that should be developed.
But this is just an isolated incident, folks. Nothing to see, move along. The government would never think of doing anything like this.
As to Gabriel Major’s question, who is going to be disciplined for it, my prediction is that a couple of real low-level people will be suspended for a time or something like that. Besides, to quote Jay Carney and Hillary Clinton, it was a long time ago and what difference does it make?
Not that the Obama administration is the first to use the IRS for its own purposes, but from the administration that was going to be bipartisan and transparent, it’s sort of funny..ha ha…oh,..
The left’s main goal is not this policy or that program–it’s power. Power to do good as they see it, of course, but power. Or as Margaret Thatcher put it, “They raise clenched fists and shout ‘Power to the People’ but what they really mean is power to the state, power over people.”
Seems to me any politician who comes up for election in 2014 or 2016 that says they’ll work to overturn the entire activity of the last two Congresses would have a good chance to win if he can keep folks eyes on the Blanco cartoon from today….
My real name is all over Tea Party documents in NC. I am so screwed.
An apology is patently insufficient. Criminal prosecution is required.
No justice no peace.
another witch hunt …
But there really is a coven of witches …
Yep. Not Wiccans, but Triccans.
[…] Joe does not know that Tea Party groups were targeted by Obama’s IRS in election year 2012 (complaints from Tea Party groups were airily dismissed by the New York Times). Somehow Joe missed […]
SIOW….tough shit cons.
And in Kolorado hickenfucker has said he’ll sign the democrat voter fraud enablement act.
Are the government IRS workers unionized?? Just wondering…
Damn near if NOT time to frog march Barry, his family and his ENTIRE staff, including members of his Politburo out of the White House! Son-of-a-Bitch should never have occupied the White House the first time, much less the second time!
SO WHEN HE WAS NEW IN OFFICE, BARACK OBAMA JOKED ABOUT TAX AUDITS FOR PEOPLE WHO DISPLEASED HIM. Now the IRS has admitted that it targeted conservative and Tea Party groups in 2012.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/168626/
Well, maybe the extra attention paid by the IRS to conservative groups like the Tea Party wasn’t a matter of political thuggery, but one of national security. After all, these groups are full of people already identified by Homeland Security as potentially dangerous, you know, like military veterans, religious people, folks like that. Perhaps we need to be lauding the IRS for its part in protecting us from, um, er, well… us.
[…] And not to freak y’all out even worse, but there’s also this from Professor William […]
It’s too bad that Jay Sekulow used the hackneyed term “McCarthyism” to mean a government attempt to censor opposing voices.
That isn’t what Joe McCarthy was trying to do. He was calling attention to the lax security standards that were allowing numerous people with allegiance to a foreign entity and/or a hidden aim of establishing totalitarian collectivism to gain sensitive and influential positions in the U.S. government. (See the work of Stanton Evans, who has studied the actual records of the events.)
IRS harassment of conservative advocacy groups is not remotely similar to McCarthy’s concerns about Communist Party infiltration of the government.
[…] The IRS’ targeting of conservative groups will cast a shadow of suspicion on the agency for some time. The most outstanding characteristic of this Administration and government today is that the scandals that have come to light only serve to confirm the worst suspicions and seemingly-paranoid ideas of the right. Whereas once someone might be labeled “paranoid” for believing that the government has been running guns to Mexican drug cartels to justify stricter gun control laws in America, the revelation that the Justice Department has been complicit in doing exactly that seems to validate what would have been called paranoid delusions a decade ago. […]
[…] II: A Public Service Announcement to the American People via Legal Insurrection … As IRS admits it targeted Tea Party groups, remember IRS is Obamacare […]
[…] As IRS admits it targeted Tea Party groups, remember IRS is Obamacare enforcer […]
[…] second term agenda, with the other being Benghazi. As William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection reminded us last Friday, the IRS will be the enforcement arm of Obamacare when it’s fully implemented in 2014. With […]