Government Targeting Opposition Groups
'We know as fact: a) The Steele dossier was the sole evidence used to justify spying on the Trump campaign, b) The FBI knew the Steele dossier was a DNC op, c) Steele's source told the FBI the info was unserious, d) they did not inform the court of any of this and kept spying.
The FBI/etc spied on the 2016 Trump campaign using evidence manufactured by the Clinton campaign. We now know that all involved knew it was fake from Day 1 (see: Brennan's July 2016 memo, etc)...
We only learned the DNC paid for the manufactured evidence because of a court order. Comey denied on TV knowing the DNC paid for it, when we have emails from a year earlier proving that he knew.
This was true with everyone, from CIA Dir Brennan & Adam Schiff - who were on TV saying they'd seen clear evidence of collusion w/Russia, while admitting under oath behind closed doors that they hadn't - all the way down the line. In the end we learned that it was ALL fake.
-Darryl Cooper 
We were told the FBI did not use spies to infiltrate the Trump campaign. They did. We were told the FBI didn’t ambush and frame former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. They did.
We were told the FBI would not mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. They did. We were told the FBI wouldn’t doctor official reports or correspondence. They did. We were told the FBI would never use a sketchy Russian national to bolster the collusion case against Trump. They did.
Sadly, the FBI is one of the least trustworthy agencies in the federal government—and that’s saying a lot.
-Julie Kelly
Ohio Tea Party activist Justin Binik-Thomas noticed in 2012 that the IRS was asking Tea Party organizations if they knew him. The IRS denied that it was targeting people based on their political views, then admitted that it was doing so but blamed low-level employees in the Cincinnati office. -Glenn Reynolds
The new head of the IRS has apologized to those who suffered because of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, after he testified before a House subcommittee for the first time. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters after the hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee that the singling out of such organizations for special scrutiny would be “intolerable,” and vowed the IRS is not doing so now.
Government, Fascism, Teaparty
More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, the IRS has finally released a near-complete list of the organizations it snagged in a political dragnet... The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit.
That total is much higher than the 298 groups the IRS‘ inspector general identified back in May 2013, when investigators first revealed the agency had been subjecting applications to long — potentially illegal — delays, and forcing them to answer intrusive questions about their activities.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, Politics, Justice, Teaparty, Law
A federal appeals court judge dubbed the IRS not trustworthy during oral argument Thursday as he and his colleagues tried to figure out whether tea party targeting is still going on. Dozens of groups say the IRS not only treated them badly in the past, but the agency continues to subject them to special monitoring and intrusive scrutiny, damaging their reputation among potential donors and making it more likely the groups will face an audit because of their political beliefs.
The IRS insisted it has retrained its employees and instructed managers to behave better, but the panel of judges on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia did not seem convinced.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother
The GAO now says that IRS political “targeting is indeed possible in the audit process” for nonprofits, largely due to poor agency oversight and controls. “Unfortunately, the IRS has not taken sufficient steps to prevent targeting Americans based on their personal beliefs,” the GAO says. Specifically, The GAO found that “control deficiencies” do “increase the risk” that the IRS nonprofit unit “could select organizations for examinations in an unfair manner—for example, based on an organization’s religious, educational, political or other views.”
Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Bigbrother, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Regulation
Top Internal Revenue Service Obamacare official Sarah Hall Ingram discussed confidential taxpayer information with senior Obama White House officials, according to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and provided to The Daily Caller. Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations division, also received an email alongside White House officials that contained confidential information.
At a tax symposium at Pepperdine Law School last week, former IRS chief counsel Donald Korb was asked, "On a scale of 1-10 ... how damaging is the current IRS scandal?" His answer: 9.5. Other tax experts on the panel called it "awful," and said that it has done "tremendous damage."
Tax, Crime, Government, Fascism, Bigbrother, Teaparty
Another email, sent by Lerner in April 2013, includes a description of the criteria for targeting. The list is a “BOLO” (government lingo for “be on the lookout”) directive targeting any nonprofit applicant linked to the Tea Party.
The email specifically named “organizations meeting any of the following criteria as falling within the BOLO’s reference to ‘Tea Party’ organizations: 1. ‘Tea Party,’ ‘Patriots,’ or ’9/12 Project’ is referenced in the case file. 2. Issues include government spending, government debt and taxes. 3. Educate the public through advocacy/legislative activities to make America a better place to live. 4. Statements in the case file that are critical of how the country is being run.”
Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Fascism, Bigbrother
When the IRS targeting scandal broke last year, officials in Washington immediately pinned the blame on the Cincinnati office. This documentation proves not only that direction was coming out of Washington, but that Washington instructed Cincinnati about how to handle tea party applications. A new email from Lois Lerner also details how BOLO lists (be on the look out) were specifically created for tea party groups or groups with issues related to government spending, debt, taxes and "how the country is being run."
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Election, Government, Fascism, Bigbrother, Corruption
In an email exchange last May, Ms. Lerner tells Nikole Flax, then the IRS commissioner’s chief of staff, that she got a call from a high-ranking Department of Justice (DOJ) official who “wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folks could talk to” about Democratic senators’ push to prosecute conservative groups. “I think we should do it,” Ms. Flax replies, ” — also need to include [Justice’s Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to [the Federal Election Commission (FEC).”
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Obama, Justice, Corruption, Law
Corruption: New emails show that both the IRS and Justice Department were involved in a probe of Tea Party and other conservative groups. This is no mere scandal — it's a major breach of the law. -Investors.com
I suspect that, over time, this loss of moral legitimacy will cause many to base their tax strategies on what they think they can get away with, not on what they're entitled to. And when they hear of someone being audited, many Americans will ask not "what did he do wrong?" but "who in government did he offend?" This is particularly true since the Obama administration is currently changing IRS rules to muzzle Tea Partiers. -Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Democrat, Crime, Government, Fascism
An official with the Internal Revenue Service has admitted that legal opponents of former President Bill Clinton were singled out for tax audits, according to court documents made public this week. "What do you expect when you sue the president?" senior IRS official Paul Breslan told Judicial Watch, the Washington-based legal watchdog group that had filed 50-plus legal actions against the Clinton administration and subsequently found itself in the IRS's cross hairs.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Regulation
The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Obama, Fascism, Bigbrother, Politics, Corruption
Republicans investigating the IRS targeting scandal said Wednesday that the agency continued to conduct secret surveillance on tea party groups even after approving them for tax-exempt status. Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel said he shut down the monitoring program after he found out about it, and said he has halted all audits of tax-exempt organizations based on political activity as he tries to get a handle on the embattled agency.
Democrat, Government, Fascism, Bigbrother, Corruption
IRS lawyers flagged groups that they thought were connected to Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, and Newt Gingrich. Another five groups were "flagged as having 'anti-Obama' materials in their applications or on their websites."
[Redacted] saw a few applications that were Tea Party cases and he sent them to a special group to work. [Redacted] identified cases by seeing if they had the Tea Party name or had verbiage that lined up with the Tea Party beliefs. If he saw this, he sent it for development because he knew he could not approve the case.
Crime, Government, Fascism, Bigbrother, Teaparty
As she was considering a Senate run, Ms. O'Donnell said she was told by a prominent political figure in Delaware that if she challenged Mr. Castle, the IRS and others would “F with her head.”... On March 9, 2010, the day she revealed her plan to run for the Senate in a press release, a tax lien was placed on a house purported to be hers and publicized. The problem was she no longer owned the house. The IRS eventually blamed the lien on a computer glitch and withdrew it. Now Mr. Martel, a criminal investigator for the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, was telling her that an official in Delaware state government had improperly accessed her records on that very same day.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Character, Narrative, Oops, Fascism, Bigbrother
Refuting Democratic suggestions that progressive groups were also swept up in the IRS probe of the tax status of Tea Party organizations, the Treasury Department's inspector general has revealed that just six progressive groups were targeted compared to 292 conservative groups. In a letter to congressional Democrats, the inspector general also said that 100 percent of Tea Party groups seeking special tax status were put under IRS review, while only 30 percent of the progressive groups felt the same pressure.
Democrat, Election, Government, Character, Fascism
Carter C. Hull, the Washington-based Internal Revenue Service lawyer who oversaw improper targeting of tea party groups, is a registered Democrat. Hull, a resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, is a registered Democrat, according to the Real Voters Database. As The Daily Caller reported, Hull instructed Cincinnati-based IRS employee Elizabeth Hofacre to target tea party groups and provided her a copy of a letter he wrote to a conservative group requesting additional information in an audit.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Character, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.
Judicial Watch today released 294 pages of new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “302” documents revealing that top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting “Tea Party” and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public.
Crime, Election, Government, Obama, Fascism, Bigbrother, Censorship
Barack Obama is now using local law enforcement officials to carry out his campaign of legal intimidation by assembling a group of high-ranking Missouri police officials and prosecutors – including St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough and City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce – to identify and target anyone the campaign determines is producing “misleading” political advertisements.
Democrat, Editorial, Liberal, Crime, Election, Government, Obama, Scandal, Threats, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Corruption, Teaparty, Constitution
The signs keep accumulating that the IRS scandal is worse than liberals are willing to concede. On Bill Press's radio show yesterday, a reporter with left-leaning Politico told Press that the Internal Revenue Service dragging its feet on applications for tax-exempt status from tea party groups probably affected the outcome of last year's election.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Constitution
In what former Republican executive and activist Dylan Nonaka is calling a massive invasion of privacy that suggests a coordinated effort to target conservative groups, two IRS offices last year independently and simultaneously conducted costly audits and sought tea party-related training materials that they apparently believed could be tied to Nonaka. Nonaka, who is the former executive director of the Hawaii Republican Party and a faculty member of the Arlington, Va.-based conservative activist training organization the Leadership Institute, is little-known outside of Hawaii.
"Be afraid of your government."
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
The director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determinatons of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations. An inspector general’s report released yesterday concluded that the IRS improperly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups for undue scrutiny, and Paz heads the office in which the wrongdoing is said to have occurred.
At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information. Of these groups, 83% were right-leaning. And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning. -Dave Camp, chairman House Ways and Means Committee
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Constitution
Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) repeatedly pressed the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of specific conservative nonprofit organizations in letters to then-IRS commissioner Doug Shulman and director Lois Lerner in 2012.
Democrat, Government, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
2010: Congressional Republicans are pushing back against Democrats by warning about the possible misuse of the Internal Revenue Service to audit conservative groups….And the Republicans are also upset about an I.R.S. review requested by Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the Finance Committee, into the political activities of tax-exempt groups. ... Democrats dismissed the Republicans' complaints as groundless.
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Press, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bias, Constitution
Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency. Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
When a Tennessee lawyer asked the IRS for tax-exempt status for a mentoring group that trained high school and college students about conservative political philosophy, the agency responded with a list of 95 questions in 31 parts, including an ultimatum for a list of everyone the group had trained, or planned to train. 'Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide,' the IRS demanded. 'Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.'
Last May, IRS officials admitted that beginning in 2010, the agency had improperly targeted and hassled dozens of nonprofit groups for scrutiny based on their involvement in politics. Nearly all the groups opposed President Obama’s re-election in 2012 or his administration’s policies. The Justice Department acknowledged the impropriety of what the IRS had done and promised a thorough FBI investigation. It never happened.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
The Internal Revenue Service developed “inappropriate criteria” focused on conservative groups that stalled work on most of the organizations’ applications for nearly 13 months, according to a report issued by the Treasury Inspector General on Tuesday. The report, which is due to be released this week, said the targeting campaign would “stay in place for more than 18 months.” The disclosure of the IG report comes as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday announced a criminal investigation of the IRS’s handling of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Lie, Constitution
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.
Using The Force of Government
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." -Harry S. Truman
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
'We fully complied,' the group wrote, 'providing over 500 pages of documentation. We received no response for over a year. Eventually the IRS sent a letter dated January 9, 2012, thanking us for our "complete and thorough responses" from the first request,' but then asking 55 more questions in 12 parts – 'including the totally inappropriate request for a full list of our donors and volunteers. We were given the same two-week timeframe for completion.'
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.
The first sad lesson is that the notion of an impartial, professional civil service is a fiction. The big government designs of Democrats and the federal bureaucracy are aligned, and the bureaucracy often deploys its powers in ways calculated to frustrate Republican presidents and to protect Democratic ones. -Glenn Reynolds
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Teaparty, Constitution
Collins tells CNN’s “State of the Union” she doesn’t “buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees.” She says the targeting is “absolutely chilling” and contributes to the public’s “distrust” in government.
Government, Scandal, Oops, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Teaparty, Constitution
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views. “There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Government, Scandal, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Constitution
A recent IRS request of one of the liberty groups in the Cincinnati region moved into new and dangerous territory by asking about family members and specific individuals. Well, one individual: Me. The question asked:”Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas.”... This IRS query is directed to a liberty group nearly 30 miles away in another city and another county. I am neither a member nor a leader of their team, and I have never attended a meeting.
Liberal, Tax, Election, Government, Scandal, Threats, Oops, Fascism, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Corruption, Teaparty, Constitution
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.
Remember Bill Elliott, the cancer patient who said he'd be more likely to "let nature take its course," rather than pay his 900 percent premium increase under ObamaCare? The crestfallen Obama voter who said he voted to re-elect the President entirely because he believed the Big Lie about keeping your insurance and doctors if you liked them? The funniest darn thing just happened: he's getting audited by the IRS. Apparently his insurance broker is getting audited, too.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Funny, Brilliance, Oops, Smears, Crazy, AntiAmerican, Bigbrother, Demagoguery, Lie, Corruption, Teaparty, Ignorance
Rather than being a purely grassroots movement that spontaneously developed in 2009, the Tea Party has developed over time, in part through decades of work by the tobacco industry and other corporate interests. It is important for tobacco control advocates in the USA and internationally, to anticipate and counter Tea Party opposition to tobacco control policies and ensure that policymakers, the media and the public understand the longstanding connection between the tobacco industry, the Tea Party and its associated organisations. -The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is a government agency and a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI is fully funded by taxpayers. -Maggie's Notebook
Democrat, Liberal, Scandal
Michael S. Dukakis laid responsibility for the Pentagon fraud scandal at the feet of President Reagan and Vice President Bush today, asserting, ''A fish rots from the head first.'' ''Well, there's an old Greek saying -I suspect, Ron, the Italians have the same one. You know, 'A fish rots from the head first.' You know, it starts at the top.''
Government, Scandal, Fascism
The impeachment inquiry, which began seven months ago, was provoked principally by Watergate but other issues covered by a proposed Article II charging abuse of power cause more concern among some members. Some Republicans are most concerned about allegations that Mr. Nixon misused such sensitive agencies as the Internal Revenue Service and the Central Intelligence Agency for political purposes.
Democrat, Election, Government, Politics
According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, IRS employees donated over two-and-a-half times more to Barack Obama than to Republican challenger Mitt Romney. IRS employees donated $54,116 to Barack Obama versus only $20,991 to Romney. Overall, IRS employees contributed $115,726 to political candidates: $75,116 of which went to Democrats versus just $40,610 to Republicans.
US Government: Influencing Elections
The IRS was taking the Tea Party out of play for the 2012 election, as it looked to avoid a repeat of 2010 and another Tea Party landslide. -Larry Kudlow
Claims of Politically Motivated Harassment
Hal Scherz, a Georgia physician, also came to the government's attention. He told ABC News: "It is odd that nothing changed on my tax return and I was never audited until I publicly criticized ObamaCare." -Peggy Noonan
Leaking Private Information
"There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law."
Government Coordination of Targeting
''Well, there's an old Greek saying -I suspect, Ron, the Italians have the same one. You know, 'A fish rots from the head first.' You know, it starts at the top.''
US Government Thought Police
Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: "Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers."
Coverup of Opposition Group Targeting
The Associated Press reported Saturday that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011.