Coordinated Targeting

I continue to watch for further information to come out about the various scandals swirling around this administration. Today I want to take a further look at the targeting of conservative groups, focusing on True the Vote, which I have participated in personally. [I’ve written about TTV here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.]

This will lead to a question about how the administration goes about business: Who is doing the targeting, and how do they go about coordinating?

There are two nonprofit organizations started by Catherine Engelbrecht, here in Houston, Texas, in 2010 that have grown nationwide since that small beginning. One is True the Vote, with the mission of helping people learn how to verify free and fair elections. Its purpose is nonpartisan and educational and should qualify as a 501(c)3 organization, which would allow donations to be tax deductible. The other is King Street Patriots, a nonpartisan but conservative group helping to share information and advocating on specific issues. KSP has been holding weekly meetings, with speakers, and annual conferences. It does not endorse candidates or parties, and welcomes all interested comers. KSP should qualify as a 501(c)4 organization—nonprofit for the organization’s tax purposes, but donations would not be deductible.

Filing for nonprofit statuses for these two organizations was done in July 2010 (almost three years ago). I have applied for nonprofit status before. We organized a homeschool support group in December 2005. We were able to apply online and qualify as a Texas nonprofit organization while the organizing meeting was still underway. It took a few months to put together the paperwork (a few pages) to apply for federal 501(c)3 status, with educational purposes. We received that status about two months after applying. There were no IRS visits, phonecalls, or examinations of our personal IRS filings. Our organization handled very little money—enough dues to cover basic insurance and facility rentals; there were no employees, and most activities were paid for by participants. So it was simple—also quick. (We also didn’t have a president then who makes it clear he believes parents do not have a natural right to school their own children.)

TTV and KSP are much bigger, and more complex. But their purposes are no more nefarious or suspicious than our homeschool group. I can understand a few additional clarifying questions, to make sure the group does what it claims to do. But those could have been simply answered by IRS people visiting the website, where videos of meetings are archived, or having someone drop in to observe. Meetings are open. Rolls aren’t taken, although there is always a sign-up sheet to get emails, if you want to get announcements.

These organizations have done everything required by the law—as well as everything required by the harassing IRS. And still they have not received their nonprofit certification.

It’s odd enough that the IRS has taken three years, has acknowledged knowing about the targeting for well over a year, and still hasn't ruled on the status—either way, granted or denied. So clearly the IRS problem isn’t cleared up yet.

But the real scary part is how many other federal agencies got involved. The full timeline of encounters is available. (This article is also a good summary. Also, watch the 13-minute interview on Huckabee, above.) Besides multiple encounters with the IRS, and the hundreds and hundreds of pages of answered questions still not qualifying as enough, there has been scrutiny from the FBI Domestic Terrorism Unit, twice, asking about attendance by a specific person. (Don’t know who this person was, but no information was available except that this person had attended, according to a sign-in sheet.) Plus there were four additional FBI general inquiries.

Then there were personal audits by the IRS of the Engelbrecht’s small business. Let me say that, in the dozens of times I have attended events at King Street Patriots, Catherine Engelbrecht has never even said the name of her family business or what it did. All she has said was that she stepped away from the family business to do this volunteer citizen work, and her husband stands behind her and continues without her. I have never been aware of his attendance at any event; if he’s been there, he has remained anonymous. I saw her children only once, at an all-day presentation by another organization, educating on the US Constitution.

Her family has stayed very separate from the nonprofit work. She has done nothing to connect her private life with the nonprofit organizations. The personal audit ended up giving them a small refund—that’s how squeaky clean they were, even under scrutiny.

Then came unscheduled visits and audits by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. The business has a class 7 license, which would allow them to manufacture gun parts, if they chose to—which they do not do. They were required to open their safes and provide serial numbers of any personally owned firearms. ATF made more than one visit.

OSHA dropped in unannounced, even though they’d never found the need to make contact in the first 20 years the family business was in operation. They wanted to see the family farm, count animals, examine fence lines, and a great many things unrelated to running a small manufacturing business. Violations were found: the seatbelt on a forklift was the wrong kind. They were using safety goggles as required, but not the right kind.

Result: fines of $25,000. They were able to talk those down to $17,000. They feared arguing further, because who knew how much further the persecution would go? It was not an insignificant amount for a small business of 30 employees.

The cost for the nonprofits has probably reached into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for accounting and attorneys. Note that this is all in response to questioning, with no accusations of crime or wrongdoing. They do not have that kind of money; they do not even have employees. I believe (not sure) that much of the legal help has been provided pro bono; Jay Sekulow of American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has been involved with this and another couple dozen similar cases.

Another agency, puzzling to me because the name makes it appear to be a state agency, not federal. In November of 2012 was an unscheduled audit by the Texas Commission on Environment Quality. In response to yet another unrevealed complaint?

Only the IRS and FBI made contacts related to the nonprofits and their activity—pretty intrusive, but at least related. But the family and family business got harassed by the IRS, OSHA, ATF, and TCEQ. Never happened before, but at the same time scrutiny follows the nonprofit applications. Coincidence?

On radio yesterday a caller reached Sean Hannity’s radio show (around 3:45 PM CDT, 5-30-2013), saying a similar harassment happened to him a few years ago. He and his wife own a small mom-and-pop business. They support traditional marriage and made a donation to the Prop 8 campaign; within a month they also made a donation to a church. Shortly later they were suddenly targeted by OSHA, the IRS, and another agency I didn’t catch. It cost them considerably in accounting and legal fees, fighting accusations like “you have too much money in your account,” when they kept only three months of working capital. Sean Hannity responded that there are a great many untold stories. Some of them he has collected in a studio audience for Friday’s show (TV show, on Fox News, I believe). These are people who have reason to believe they have been targeted purely for their political views.

There are three possible explanations:

1. There is no targeting based on political beliefs; this is all just coincidence (which pretty much no one believes anymore; even the IRS has admitted to targeting).
2. There has been targeting based on political beliefs, but it was limited to low level rogue employees in a specific IRS, acting on their own (pretty unlikely, considering all the evidence from various places and various agencies).
3. There has been targeting, beyond the IRS nonprofit office, beyond even the IRS as a whole, coordinated among various agencies, including private citizens and their businesses aside from their nonprofit activities.

I think the evidence grows stronger that it’s the third explanation. So the question is, who coordinates, and how do they accomplish it? Over and over the White House declares it knew nothing. But all of the federal agencies involved come under the executive branch; the President is ultimately responsible for their behavior.
 

Technically, it’s possible the President remains hands off, but it’s hard to imagine he maintains his ignorance in any other way but with a wink-wink, “we never had this conversation,” “you know what to do without it being spelled out; that’s why you were hired—for your initiative” kind of machination. It’s also possible that there’s some specific coordination going on that is being covered up and lied about. The Chicago Way (which our president is much more qualified to teach than he ever was Constitutional law) includes both versions.

Questions are arising concerning an unusual number of White House visits by the former IRS Commissioner, now counting up to 157 (compared to one by his predecessor during the eight Bush years). He’s not supposed to be a policy maker. So what is there to talk about? And we’re supposed to believe neither he nor any White House person knew anything about the targeting? Just another odd coincidence?

I don’t want scapegoats. I want truth about what is actually happening, so we can learn from this history and never suffer repeating it.

You Might Be Living Under Tyranny If... Part II

In Wednesday’s post we covered three scandals in the news right now revealing the tyrants running our federal government. I hadn’t planned on a part II, but there is some follow-up information on these scandals, as well as a couple of additional issues exemplifying the tyrannist attitude.

Romeike Family Update

You might be living under tyranny if the administration makes arbitrary decisions about who can be allowed to enter the country, regardless of the law or natural rights.

We talked about the Romeike family from Germany (recently on March 22 and earlier in October 2011), here in the US legally since 2008, based on seeking asylum when their native Germany severely fined and threatened the parents with jail time and loss of custody of their children. In 2010 a US circuit judge granted their asylum, along with a strong statement about parents having a right to make decisions like education and religion for their own children. Out of the blue (no apparent request from Germany), the DOJ insists on overturning the ruling and kicking this law-abiding family out of the country. Why? To declare to the American people and the world that there is no inherent right to parent your own children; government reserves the “right” to impose its decisions on parents and their children.

This should be an easy win for the family, as it had been the first time. But this week the ruling came out against the Romeikes; they lose their right to be in the US, because the judicial system has decided the threat of losing their right to parent and maintain custody of their children is not sufficient to gain asylum. To paraphrase, "We can’t go willy-nilly granting asylum to people just because they could lose their family and their freedom from imprisonment; bad stuff happens all over. We don’t want to encourage people to come here for freedom, or we’d get some kind of unmanageable influx."

Meanwhile, if someone comes here illegally, because economic conditions are inferior where they come from (or not), even if they commit a crime, the DOJ feels so strongly that they should be allowed to stay that it sues states (Arizona, for example) for any effort to protect its own borders.

The road hasn’t ended quite yet for the Romeikes. There are still a couple of levels of appeal. And then, if all continues to go against them, I hope they will be allowed to find another less tyrannical country that will accept them, rather than be turned over to the oppression facing them in Germany. 

Sibelius Obamacare Overreach

You might be living under tyranny if the government tries to control your health care decisions. The IRS, already proven untrustworthy, is put in charge of health care financing. (Note: a single judge decided the government had the right to force Americans to buy health insurance if you called it a tax, even though the monstrous bill passed by the slimmest of margins, following various shenanigans, only because of the insistence it was not a tax.) If things weren’t bad enough, the IRS happened to seize some 60 million personal health records.

Further, you’ve got the head of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, pressuring health care industry providers, over which she has oversight, to do her bidding to recruit participation in Obamacare. This does not convince anyone of the intention to provide more and better health care at lower, fairer prices. Prices might actually be 100%-400% higher than predicted.  

Targeting for Political Reasons

You already know you’re living under tyranny when you’re a target for being a patriot. Targeting of organizations because of their pro-Constitution (and therefore presumably anti-regime) beliefs, is bigger than the IRS policy of tagging organizations applying for 501(c)4 status. Individuals have been targeted for IRS audit as well. And corporations have also been targeted—being forced to publicly announce any of their political or issue-related donations. The purpose here is the chilling of First Amendment freedom to express ideas.

I wanted to point out that 501(c)4 status implies that there will be political and issue advocacy purposes, including lobbying related to the organization’s mission. Donations to such an organization are not tax deductible. The advantage is only to the organization; it has a cultural, social, or educational benefit and purpose rather than making a profit, and therefore it does not have to pay taxes on money going through the organization. This is the kind of organization Obama spent his career years creating. So he knows what they can accomplish—and that is why he wants to ensure that those he considers ideological enemies are prevented from succeeding in their missions.

screen shot from Glenn Beck's 5-15-2013 show

Glenn Beck sought input to name the combination of scandals. His news people will start saying “Intimigate,” but for his purposes, he is changing the spelling to “IntimOgate,” with the O being the Obama logo. 

Implausible Deniability

You might be living under tyranny if your tyrant combines a claim of leadership skill with a claim of unawareness of the behaviors of rogue underlings. Why would the underlings so frequently behave in tyrannical ways, if the tyrant’s leadership didn’t create the spoken or unspoken understanding that oppression against the enemy is acceptable, even expected—as long as you don’t get caught?

Thursday the president held a brief and pointless press conference, repeating that he knew nothing about the IRS problem. Actually, what he specifically said was, “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the [inspector general] report.” He didn’t say he didn’t know about the policy or practice of targeting political enemies. He specifically denies knowing only the findings in the report. And his swift action to hold people accountable? Accept the resignation of the acting IRS Commissioner, who was stepping down in June anyway. Take that, IRS! That is what the wrath of an outraged president feels like, when he’s out to protect our freedoms.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, that division that targeted Tea Party groups the last couple of years? Their leader was promoted to run the Obamacare office of the IRS—because Obama was so outraged. Yeah, that’s it.

He didn’t know what happened in Benghazi. And his Secretary of State was out of touch as well, both of them unaware it wasn’t a spontaneous response to an internet video, even though all the rest of us knew it was a terrorist attack.

His DOJ head didn’t know about the AP phone record overreach either. (And of course can’t be blamed for the collection of data related to phonecalls from the AP that just happened to connect to the legislative branch.) He knew it was in response to one of the most crucial leaks of classified information in our lifetimes, a clear danger to the American people, and therefore worth getting the legal permissions for the invasive move. But it wasn’t important enough to mention such a threat to the president, who remained unaware entirely until he heard about it on the news. Nor did Attorney General Eric Holder remember any details, because he recused himself from the case early on, for reasons that he couldn’t recall.

Did we mention that this administration, in five years, has prosecuted more whistleblowers (for leaking classified information that endangers the country?) than all of the previous presidencies combined? It’s an everyday event for the DOJ, but the AG wouldn’t know about that.

If any more scandals pop up in the coming days, be assured the president will hear about it on the news, just like the rest of us. Comedian/commentator Jon Stewart put together a collection of the president’s new favorite buck-stops-somewhere-else explanation about knowing nothing before the news reports. It’s a 5-minute clip; the part about the president getting his briefings by the news starts at about 2:40 in:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

This much scandal is upsetting. But it also could be a good thing. We’re hearing about the news. In such a flood that it’s hard to take in, but at least these things are being reported. And, because of the AP scandal, some news sources might actually begin to make assumptions other than, “those are just right-wing conspiracies,” and think, “maybe the president hasn’t been entirely truthful up till now.”

All along it has been my hope we could have clarity. Let truth prevail, and not deception. I still believe people who know the truth choose freedom and civilization, rather than tyranny and savagery.

You Might Be Living Under Tyranny If...

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy makes lists, mostly about being a redneck, but sometimes also about the culture and inside jokes about various locations. I thought we’d do a similar list (less funny) today, about living under tyranny. Because this has been quite a week for news.

We’ll take them individually.

Benghazi

You might be living under tyranny if your government scours the internet to find an American citizen to serve as scapegoat, to cover up its relationship with Islamist terrorists. We covered this in more detail Monday, specifically about that search for a scapegoat and the continued lying about it—with the hint that the purpose must be to cover up something much worse, which we don’t know about yet. I did link speculation by Glenn Beck from last October. Here’s a second, shorter clip (5th one down in this collection) from that same week in October 2012. In addition, Geraldo Rivera let slip that his sources currently corroborate what Beck has been saying (to the sound of crickets) for half a year.

I don’t know what Benghazi was really about. I do know that the tyrannists we are currently subject to went to great lengths to lie about what they were doing, about what happened, and why. They use obfuscation, repeated lies, and eventually claim, “That happened so long ago; what difference does it make now?”—a pattern we can count on. And there’s not much from these tyrants that one can count on. 

IRS Thuggery

You might be living under tyranny if the most powerful collection agency in the world creates an enemies list—and if you love your country, you’re on it.

I’ve been aware of the IRS enemies list for some time. I couldn’t locate the date in my notes, but it seems like within the last year that King Street Patriots let us know, at one of the Monday meetings, what was happening to them, which sounds very much like other stories this week. (King Street Patriots was mentioned on Rush Limbaugh’s Tuesday show; they’re definitely on this list of targets.) The amount of information required by the IRS was impossible to obtain, and ridiculously short-time-limited. They were getting the help of lawyers to help with the effort, in addition to the various other lawsuits they suffer pretty continually.

King Street and other groups were given impossible requirements, including having to provide copies of every email, text, tweet, or post given out or received, since inception of the organization; list of speakers, detailed subjects (including transcripts of what was spoken  in some cases, as if anyone hoping to become qualified for tax exempt status already has transcribing technology at the ready), and lists of participants, and in some cases the affiliations of family members of participants. It was horrendously intrusive, impossible to provide, and intended (I believe, as do many others) to intimidate and extinguish voices at odds with this administration.

What we know is that high level officials in the IRS, which is the collection arm of the executive branch (the Obama administration), sent the directive to flag for extra scrutiny any organization applying for tax exempt status if they had certain characteristics: the words tea party, patriot, or had as a purpose educating about the Constitution, or showing disagreement with the current government. Hmmm.

And that is not all. Oh, no, that is not all. Besides harassment based on patriotism and good citizenship, the IRS also provided the application materials—private documents—to enemy organizations.

The president is shocked, SHOCKED! After leadership in his executive branch has come out and apologized (claiming it was rogue underlings, which they’ve since had to walk back), so the actual deed is known and admitted to, the president says, if the allegations turn out to be true, that would be outrageous. But let’s be cautious and not assume they’re true just because the executive branch has already come out and said so (possibly to do damage control for what would be worse revelations if they waited?)

And Jim Carney, his spokesperson, also claimed the president was unaware and therefore guilt-free. But he was certain, if it turns out to be true, the president will be appropriately outraged. So the president, while cautiously not outraged yet, is preparing to be so if the need arises. And then appropriate action will be taken. Rest assured. (For some reason, I’m not resting well on that assurance.)

If you think targeting political enemies is unconscionable, if might not be comforting to learn your political enemies have a totally different moral take on it: Former NAACP chair, for example.

Media Control

You might be living under tyranny if the government has an unusual number of incestuous relationships with members of the media, but feels the need to place secret wiretaps on wide swaths of major media organizations, in case something is said they don’t like.

These relationships were pointed out as reasons the mediahas hesitated to cover Benghazi:

·         CNN president is married to Hillary Clinton’s deputy secretary.

·         CBS president is the brother of Obama adviser on Benghazi.

·         ABC president is the brother of a top Obama adviser/speech writer.

·         Senior ABC correspondent Claire Shipman is married to WH Press Secretary Jay Carney. (She also happens to substitute anchor on Good Morning America and World News Tonight, and shows up on ABC News’ This Week with Christiane Amanpour, and previous worked as a White House correspondent for NBC News.)

But the administration didn’t think it had enough control, so it claimed, supposedly, that in order to find a leak of some possibly classified information (you know, like the New York Times used to print regularly to endanger our troops during the Bush administration), they needed all correspondence for two months of some 20 AP reporters and editors, not just anyone related to actually leaked material, and not just office phones, but private cell phones, emails, texts—you know, just in case.

Carl Bernstein, who helped take down Nixon, wasn’t moved by Benghazi, or the IRS scandal. But this! This is outrageous!

National Journal’s Ron Fournier, once the AP Washington bureau chief, finally sees the situation with clarity, not that it has hit home:

One common thing with Benghazi and the IRS scandal, is were being misled every day. We were lied to on Benghazi, on the talking points behind Benghazi, for months. We were lied to by the IRS for months. And now they’re sending a clear message to our sources: Don’t embarrass the administration, or we’re coming after you. 

The president’s response is, “Don’t ask me; that’s up to the Department of Justice” (which is particularly ill-named right now).  

The list isn’t complete. Scandals are coming fast and furious (yes, pun intended). The question is, now that we know we’re living under tyranny, is recognition the first step toward changing course? Will the tyrants be held accountable? We’ll see. 

I came across this list of 100 reasons the president could be impeached. I haven’t been through them all, but you might want to take a look for yourself anyway. Personally, I don’t see impeachment as a likely outcome.  

I’m thinking of The Princess Bride, near the end, where Westley decides to leave Prince Humperdinck intact but alone his cowardice (instead of wallowing in freakish misery as previously threatened). Self-disgust with no more power over the people—that would be a just end to the long list of injustices perpetrated against a Constitutionally free people.