Looking at the “IRS letters to Tea Party groups“, J. Christian Adams found that they “read like an opposition researcher’s fantasy: demands for the names of volunteers, money, content of speeches, donors, offices, on and on and on.”
An opposition researcher’s fantasy. . . . Wonder if any allies/associates of the president have an expertise in that kind of work.
The Internal Revenue Service asked tea party groups to see donor rolls.
It asked for printouts of Facebook posts.
And it asked what books people were reading.
A POLITICO review of documents from 11 tea party and conservative groups that the IRS scrutinized in 2012 shows the agency wanted to know everything — in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking. The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.
Question for Obama’s fanboys (who’ve been a bit quiet the last couple of days), when an administration is using Government agencies to harass and stifle opposition voices, how is it not tyranny?
I listened to a bit of Sean Hannity’s show yesterday. Several liberals called in to say they were happy Obama was using the IRS against his “enemies.”
V the K, I love that some liberals are actually doing that. Good to see them showing their true colors. To be sure, I don’t think most liberals are jerks who don’t care about the rights of their conservative friends, but there are obviously many liberals who have the free-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee attitude toward the 1st Amendment. It’s good that they are taking off the masks.
I know that I have to “tiptoe” around this this because of “Godwin’s Law” —
The IRS is being jacked up with tons of agents who will administer Obamacare. Here is a caller comment to Rush from yesterday:
I take the caller’s point. If the IRS will compile a list of political enemies for the purpose of harassing them with bureaucratic delays, audits or scaring them off, how big a stretch is it to worry that your health concerns are being audited and addressed according to your politics?
For a number of years, politicians have toyed with the idea of a national identity card. They always extol its virtues. But the IRS has now demonstrated that the government is just as capable of using its power for compiling research against its political opponents.
How big a leap does it take to worry about the sinister Big Brother messing with your medical care because you are not loyal to the party?
The liberal “Intelligentsia” agrees: Tea Party groups had it coming to them.
“To be sure, I don’t think most liberals are jerks who don’t care about the rights of their conservative friends”
That’s because most “liberals” don’t have conservative friends.
Maybe they just don’t get-it inside the Beltway, but Middle America’s distrust of the Guv’mnt stems in-part from the fear that America doesn’t need a Secret Police—it has the IRS. And just with US Census, doesn’t really trust that their honest answers will be held back from other organs of state despite the explicit legal-promise of confidentiality.
At least the ‘gun control’ agenda isn’t moving forward. (Because of these scandals.)
@V the K…. It IS tyranny except to liberals/progressives .
Liberals don’t oppose tyranny; they oppose not being in charge of it.
Wow, the ‘fanboys’ are still quiet, aren’t they?
According to a recent IRS retiree who has been calling Mark Levin’s show frequently since retiring, form questionnaires like those sent to Tea Parties, are approved only by fairly high
level executives at the IRS, meaning they were political appointees who would have approve the questionnaires.
It’s worth pointing out that the Obama campaign is noted for its skill at data-mining and connecting databases in order to infer a person’s political leanings. (Particularly evident in the 2012 campaign, with the ability to do things like target a specific message to a voter based on the intersection of Facebook activity, zip code, gender, etc.) This questionnaire sounds very much like an attempt to do further data-mining based on activities, connections, who’s related to whom, who does business with whom, etc.
I would not be a bit surprised if all that data went directly to the DNC.
‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’
Watergate: breaking into political rival’s headquarters to obtain oppo research and stymie political organization and strategy.
IRS scandal: give political rivals choice to shut down operations or to hand over extensive, documented oppo research on self under threat of federal felony conviction.