Media Ignoring IRS Scandal Creates Dangerous Precedent

Former IRS hack Lois Lerner targeted a Republican Senator, threatening an “examination.” The GOP Senator happens to be Chuck Grassley who sits on the Senate Finance Committee. In other words, Lerner wanted to target a Republican Senator who sits on a committee that oversees issues of taxation. No sir, there isn’t any political targeting of conservatives at the IRS! One can only wonder how many other examples of Lerner targeting conservative individuals or groups could be discovered in the emails allegedly lost forever by the IRS. Even 63% of rank and file Democrats think the IRS deliberately destroyed Lerner’s emails.

New IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has donated $85,000 to Democrats, including $5,000 to Obama in 2012. No doubt he’ll be able to right the ship at the IRS. What heavily invested Democrat political donor wouldn’t be able to hammer out the problems in an agency that targets conservatives and Republicans? The Obama administration has spent the last year lying about what’s going on at the IRS. First it was rogue agents in Cincinnati, then it was all Lerner’s fault without ties to the White House. Then we discover the head of the IRS was at the White House over a hundred times, no doubt enjoying organic snacks with the First Lady and nothing more.

All of the emails from Lerner, including any to the White House if they exist, are supposedly gone forever. The man who is going to right the ship is an entrenched Democrat. Hundreds of conservative groups were targeted by the IRS for their political views and no one in the media seems to care. It’s treated like a non-story. Chris Christie’s bridgegate scandal went on for weeks but the IRS targeting political conservatives is ignored. Because the media remains silent, there has been no mass call for an independent prosecutor. One would think that an independent prosecutor might be able to get to the bottom of who started the targeting and what exactly happened to Lerner’s email’s.

Frankly, it doesn’t even matter if Lerner’s actions can be traced to the White House. This is a significant enough scandal that it needs to be properly investigated whether it leads all the way to Obama or not. The IRS is an all powerful agency, it has the power to destroy people. It should never be used to target political opponents. If Lerner or a group of IRS employees used their powers at the IRS to target individuals or organizations based on their political views, that alone is worthy of an independent prosecutor. Especially so when all of Lerner’s emails magically get destroyed. Those destroyed emails don’t pass the smell test. If Eric Holder won’t properly investigate the matter, a special prosecutor is necessary.

There have been two other points in American history when the IRS was used to target political opponents. Throughout the 30’s, FDR used the IRS to destroy Republican newspapers as well as other political opponents. The precedent created by FDR led directly to Nixon using the IRS to harass Democrats. One of the potential impeachment points for Nixon was his abuse of the IRS. If the government does nothing about Lerner and the IRS targeting of political conservatives, it’s setting the precedent for everyone in the agency as well as the next President. The media doesn’t want to face the fact that there is a significant scandal in the Obama led executive branch. By not focusing on this at all, the media is allowing a dangerous precedent to be set.

Obama Lacks Introspection, Blames GOP For DC Dysfunction

At a Hollywood fundraiser President Obama declared the country dysfunctional. He complained that Washington isn’t working. This isn’t the first time Obama has made this or similar statements. Each time one has to wonder if he recognizes that he’s part of the problem. His solution is always to get rid of those trouble making Republicans. There’s never an acknowledgement that he or Democrats are part of the problem, if there is one. In reality Obama is a big part of the problem. He entered the White House declaring he won while refusing to work with Republicans. He set the tone during his first week, he should hardly be surprised when the now more powerful GOP doesn’t want to work with him.

There is no acknowledgement from the White House that they did anything wrong in the Benghazi matter. Even if we were to agree that the GOP investigation is politically motivated, that doesn’t absolve Obama from his political motivations in 2012. To this day the White House hasn’t released to Congress all the documents associated with Benghazi going so far as to suggest they would only cooperate with “legitimate” investigations. The death of an ambassador abroad apparently isn’t worthy of an investigation. Obama wonders why there is dysfunction in Washington, perhaps his cynical election manipulation concerning Benghazi aided the dysfunction. Instead it’s all Republicans fault for daring to investigate.

Lois Lerner may very well be headed to Congressional prison for Contempt of Congress. The IRS, under the leadership of the Obama administration, clearly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups. As many as 10% of donors to Tea Party groups were audited. That’s ten times the national average. It looks and smells like the Obama administration targeted conservative groups for harassment in the run up to the 2012 election. Of course, the dysfunction is all Republicans fault for having the audacity to question or challenge the Obama administration. If only conservatives had kept quiet and not created the Tea Party none of this would have happened. See, we really forced Obama’s hand here. He had no choice but to use the IRS as a weapon to silence us.

Democrat Senators Chuck Schumer and Thomas Udall have proposed a Constitutional amendment allowing the Federal government to regulate political speech. The government would ban speech by corporations, except of course the predominately Democrat media corporations. (wouldn’t every corporation or PAC then create a newspaper and claim they’re media outlets?) Trying to silence speech is a left-wing specialty. Universities across the country have banned or harassed conservative speakers. Condi Rice is the latest, having been harassed into not speaking at Rutgers graduation. Give money to opponents of homosexual marriage and you’ll lose your job at Mozilla. Of course all the dysfunction and disunity are the fault of conservatives and Republicans.

Republicans are not innocent when it comes to creating dysfunction in Washington. (less so when all they want to do is donate money to a cause or speak at a graduation) However the galling thing about Obama and the Democrats is that they genuinely believe they have no culpability when it comes to creating dysfunction in Washington. When we have a President who declares he won and then shuts out the other party for two years and then expects that other party to pass his entire agenda no questions asked it’s a recipe for dysfunction. Through the years Obama seems genuinely disappointed that his office isn’t dictatorial in nature. It seems the adjunct professor of Constitutional law didn’t quite realize everything that was in the Constitution prior to running for President. Of course, that’s probably the Republicans fault.

Abolish The IRS

The IRS targeting conservative groups is the biggest story that only the conservative press is paying attention to. The IRS was used for political purposes to favor Obama and the Democrats and for the most part the press is silent. Yes they feigned outrage for a week when the scandal first broke a year ago. However since then the press has largely ignored the story. They reported that it wasn’t just conservative groups targeted but interestingly they didn’t report that the Democrats were peddling a lie. In fact, no progressive groups were targeted for the politics. Only conservative groups enjoyed that bit of scrutiny.

Lois Lerner is the administration fall guy in the IRS scandal. She’s the one who oversaw everything, she’s the one who refuses to testify to Congress. She may find herself in Congressional prison in the near future as Congress is contemplating using their inherent contempt power against her. Perhaps a few days in the slam will get her to spill the beans. Or perhaps it won’t. Lerner is a true believer in the progressive cause, particularly in Obama. Last year she discussed working for Obama’s community organizing group Organizing For Action (OFA). Perhaps she imagines a few months in the clink will turn her into a progressive hero.

The problem in the IRS goes far beyond Lerner and the targeting of conservative groups. At the Dallas office employees actively campaigned for Obama. Government offices are supposed to be free of politics. Yet in Dallas, employees had Obama screensavers and other campaign paraphernalia in the office. Employees working on the help line encouraged people to re-elect Obama. These employees felt free enough to openly campaign in what would otherwise be considered a campaign free zone. It suggests the political nature of the IRS extended well beyond Washington and Cincinnati.

It’s hardly a surprise the Dallas office felt so free to campaign in the office when the DC office was funneling tax information to Democrats. Rep. Elijah Cummings received tax information from Lois Lerner regarding a conservative group called True The Vote. Between that and demand letters from Democrat Senators requesting scrutiny for Tea Party groups, it’s clear the Democrats viewed the IRS as their personal weapon against conservatives. One must wonder how Sen. Harry Reid got Mitt Romney’s tax information to read on the Senate floor in 2012. Reid could have been making it up but if not is there any doubt Lois Lerner is somehow tied to the information?

Democrats have a long history of using the IRS to target their opponents. FDR did it in near media silence back in the 1930’s. It’s more difficult to keep things quiet today. The problem isn’t simply that Democrats believe the IRS is their own personal financial weapon against conservatives. The problem is that we have an IRS in the first place. It’s very existence creates a temptation amongst government officials to use information against political opponents. We’re living in a fantasy land if we believe that if only good people worked at the IRS or if only Republicans were in power this problem would go away. Republicans have never been this brazen with the IRS but they’re hardly innocent. Until the IRS is abolished it will be used to funnel tax information to politicians and it will be used to target political opposition.