The IRS scandal which broke last Friday continues to grow by leaps and bounds every single day. We now know that the IRS targeted nearly 500 conservative groups and dragged their feet granting them tax exempt status if they granted it at all; some organizations gave up and others are still waiting over two years later to learn their fate while on average it takes about nine months for the IRS to make a decision. Coincidentally(?) that just happened to push the authorization out until after the 2012 election.
It is also being reported that in addition to donor lists the IRS wanted information from some of these groups about their members and officers which included things like Facebook posts, résumés, and reading material.
But the scandal is even deeper still because the IRS leaked confidential documents to the liberal group ProPublica and an Obama co-chair is accused of using this information to attack Mitt Romney during the campaign while others–including a religious leader and a member of the media–are also claiming they were unfairly audited and harassed by the IRS because of their political leanings.
And while all of this was going on the IRS expedited a request for tax exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a charity run by Barack Obama’s half brother. Less than one month after the charity requested tax exempt status it was granted even though it had been illegally claiming to be a tax exempt charity for several years, and the request was made retroactively to cleanse the organization from its former sins.
Now the IRS is claiming that some mistakes were made by low level employees but make no mistake about it; these were not mistakes, it was intentional and purposeful, done for political reasons to hurt the groups prior to the election, and there is no way in hell that this was the action of low level rogue employees in my opinion.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to this scandal and 9/10ths of the iceberg is still underwater and unseen. I would bet that what we do not know yet is even worse than what we already know and that should have all Americans up in arms no matter which side of the political spectrum you fall under.
The IRS demanded a list of donors to the Richmond Tea Party before it would grant tax exempt status
Once again we have to turn to the United Kingdom press in order to read about a scandal which the mainstream media in the United States should be covering.
According to this article it was over two years after the Richmond Tea Party applied for tax exempt status before the IRS sent the group a questionnaire asking, among other things, for a list of donors to the organization.
The agency wanted to know ‘the names of the donors, contributors, and grantors’ for every year ‘from inception to the present.’
It also demanded ‘the amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.’
‘How did you use these donations, contributions, and grants?’ the IRS asked. ‘Provide the details.’
And in addition to the names of board members, officers and employees, the nation’s taxing authorities insisted on knowing the names of everyone who helped the Richmond Tea Party without compensation.
‘Please identify your volunteers,’ the January 9, 2012 letter from the IRS read.
The agency also required the Virginia conservative group to provide copies of sections of its website that only its members can access.
According to this article it normally takes about nine months for an application to gain a response yet it is several years later and still some of these Tea Party groups are waiting for an answer.
Normally an application
for this kind of status takes 9 months, Dye explained.
In the case of Tea Party Patriots, the IRS followed up with a round of questions the group responded to a year ago.
“Almost every organization that applies for (c)(4) status is engaged in attempting to affect legislation and public policy. That is no different for Tea Party Patriots. There is really no reason why this should occur,” Dye said.
So why would the IRS be asking for a list of donors, contributors, and volunteers from these organizations if it was not for the purpose of creating a Nixonian style enemies list? And then there is that infamous right wing terrorist report released by the Department of Homeland Security several years ago, I guess we know who Barack Obama feels the real enemy is…..
Benghazi: Barack Obama claims he called the attack an “act of terrorism” on September 12th–again
When pressured by a reporter today Barack Obama stated that he acknowledged the Benghazi attack was an “act of terrorism” on September 12th.
“The day after it happened, I acknowledged it as an act of terrorism.”
He was referring to his Rose Garden speech where he used the word ‘terror’ and the word ‘Benghazi’ in the same speech, however he was referring to terrorism in general and was not speaking about the Benghazi attack when he mentioned the word ‘terror.’ This was the same speech debate moderator Candy Crowley used against Mitt Romney in a presidential debate to prove Mitt Romney did not have his facts straight. Later that night, when nobody was paying attention, Candy Crowley admitted she was wrong but it did not matter at that point because the damage was done and she achieved her goal of defending the indefensible.
But that didn’t stop Barack Obama from falling back on that misrepresentation of the truth today, but what the hell, let us give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt–even though he does not deserve it–and give him the point that he did in fact call Benghazi a terrorist attack on September 12th.
Benghazi: More whistle blowers could be coming soon
After the testimony of three whistle blowers last week, and with the revelation of emails which show the State Department was actively involved in changing the CIA’s talking points, it appears as if things might be getting even worse for the Obama regime in regards to Benghazi.
Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has stated that the House Intelligence Committee has been contacted and expects more whistle blowers to come forward in the future.
I do think we’re going to see more whistle blowers. I certainly know my committee has been contacted
Uh-oh! Now that three brave whistle blowers have come forward and testified it appears as if the floodgates might be about to open, and coupled with the fact that the mainstream media might now be beginning to question what happened that night in Benghazi and the weeks following the attack it could be a long second term for a president who is quickly falling into lame duck status.
And for those of you who are still trying to defend the president on Benghazi by claiming this is nothing but a political attack I would remind you that one key whistle blower from last week, Greg Hicks, is a registered Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary and voted for Barack Obama for president in both 2008 and 2012.
Drip, drip, drip…..
Here is the open thread for Sunday, May 12th; please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues may arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there in the blogoshere!
As always you can follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking on the links to the right, or you can subscribe to the blog to receive email updates and never miss a post again. And speaking of not missing a post, this is my second post of the day. Please don’t miss the first post of the day because it appears as if the IRS wa also targeting Jewish groups in addition to Tea Party groups.
This was a very productive week for the New Federalist Party: We have finalized Article I through Article XII of the platform. This is the version of these articles which will be voted on at the convention and you can check them out for yourselves on the Platform Page of the party. If you like what you see you can donate to the cause by following the first link above.
With Benghazi back in the news this week, and the memory of Hillary Clinton’s “what difference does it make” comment back in our minds this week’s musical selection was an easy one.
Here is The Smiths performing ‘What Difference Does it Make’ live in 1983.
“The devil will find work for idle hands to do
I stole and I lied, and why ?
Because you asked me to !”
Enjoy!
We already know that the IRS was “inappropriately” targeting Tea Party groups before the 2012 election because the organization admitted it last Friday. Now we also know that despite the fact the IRS claimed this was a program started by lower level agents unbeknownst to senior agency officials that senior officials within the IRS were aware this was happening last year. (Rogue agents in the field, very reminiscent of Fast and Furious isn’t it?)
Could the IRS also have been targeting Jews as well as Tea Party groups?
That is the claim being made by Z STREET and they have filed a lawsuit:
The passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.
In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.” . . .
And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
According to the lawsuit several organizations were scrutinized to determine if they held the same beliefs the president on Israel and were ordered to describe their religious beliefs. So now apparently the president’s minions in the IRS believe they can grant or deny a group’s tax exempt status based on its political positions or religious beliefs. Talk about stifling the opposition through fear and intimidation!
If the Tea Party and the Jews have been targeted by the IRS simply for holding beliefs at odds with the president how many others have as well that we don’t know about yet? Much like Fast and Furious and Benghazi I think there is much more here than meets the eye.
The Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight has demanded the IRS turn over all documents related to the Tea Party targeting scandal by Wednesday, it looks as though they may have to expand this investigation to see if Jews were “inappropriately” targeted as well.
Kirsten Powers hit back hard against those who are trying to make this Benghazi story about it being politicized by Republicans, saying that if nobody can cover it because it’s being politicized, then nothing in Washington can ever be covered.
And to those saying that because Fox News is covering something means they shouldn’t cover it, Kirsten points out that when MSNBC went nuts over Sandra Fluke, no one took that to mean they shouldn’t cover it.
Kirsten ended by saying “There is something just fundamentally really, really wrong with our media and they need to take a look at themselves and do some accounting.”
Welcome to the club Kirsten, better late than never. This is something the right has been complaining about for years so let me clue you in as to what the problem is: The mainstream media is nothing more than a propaganda machine which has been toeing the line for Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular for many years, this is nothing new.
The media is not interested in reporting the truth–as evidenced by the Benghazi attack, and look no further than Dan Rather if you need more proof–but rather is only interested in protecting the interests and the agenda of the Democrats, so yes there is something fundamentally wrong with the media but no amount of soul searching will help to alleviate the problem because in the end they are accomplishing what they set out to do in the first place.
Still, it is great to see a prominent Democrat questioning the role the mainstream media has played in the cover up of the Benghazi scandal; Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could not have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for the mainstream media’s desire to protect the anointed one and the woman who could potentially be the next president of the United States.
NH Tea Party Coalition
