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Why Liberals Should be Outraged that the IRS Targeted Conservatives
The IRS started targeting Tea Party members, "Patriots" and similar conservatives starting in 2010.
But the IRS' harassment of conservatives expanded way beyond those groups.
As United Press International reports:
U.S. Internal Revenue Service inquiry of conservative groups included those lobbying to "make America a better place to live," new details emerging about the IRS investigation indicated. That lever goes beyond what the IRS admitted Friday, which was that it targeted groups with "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their names, several media outlets reported Monday, based on draft findings from disclosures to congressional investigators by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration.
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At various points over the past two years, the Cincinnati IRS office, which is in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status, focused on groups making statements that "criticize how the country is being run" and those involved in educating Americans "on the Constitution and Bill of Rights," the draft report cited by The Washington Post indicated.
By June 2011 some IRS specialists were probing applications of groups focusing on "government spending, government debt or taxes [and] education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live,'" the report cited by the Journal indicated.
The inspector general's investigation also found the head of the IRS tax-exempt-organizations division knew as early as June 2011 conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted -- several months before Douglas Shulman, IRS commissioner at the time, denied to a congressional committee the agency was targeting conservative groups, the newspapers said
Liberals should not assume that this is the "other guy's" fight.
The targeting of conservatives under a Democratic administration could switch to a targeting of liberals under a subsequent Republican administration.
Congressman Mike Rogers is correct when he says:
I don't care if you're a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine.
Remember, governments always target the "out" group first, and - if we don't protest - spread the abuse to include everyone.
It is ironic - and downright Orwellian - that the IRS targeted people trying to educate Americans on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Unfortunately, this is not entirely surprising, given that the Bill of Rights have been fatally wounded by the Bush and Obama administrations, and that liking the Founding Fathers or being “reverent of individual liberty” could get one branded as a potential terrorist.
And the IRS is acting like Big Brother ... spying on our shopping records, travel, social interactions, health records and files from other government investigators. The IRS targeting those who try to educate people about taxes is analogous to the Federal Reserve using web-based counter-espionage to attack critics of Fed policies.
Welcome to modern America ...
Postscript: Those who assume that the Tea Party is made up of a bunch of crazies may be interested in learning that - despite the divide-and-conquer tricks that the mainstream media peddles - the Occupy movement and the Tea Party were originally protesting the exact same things: the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big government and big corporations, and the destruction to our economy caused by the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve.
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Hey Bernanke......FUCK YOU
oops, wrong thread ;-0
"Why liberals should wake up and be outraged that they are liberals."
It's just what liberals do, man. They contradict the altruism and philanthropy of their own position daily, it's like a merry-go-round of hypocrites.
Watch 10 minutes of Bill Mahr with his croonie Lawrence O'Donnell and tell me it's different.
I can't watch 60 seconds of those people - makes me physically sick.
The hypocracy of the left is so obvious. They don't care about 'rights' - they only care about THEIR rights. ACLU is pretty much in lock-step with that, too.
These posts are really tending to show a strong conservative bias. The extremists of both parties are equally at fault and equally hypocritical. I don't care to hear about a pot calling a kettle black. If the criticisms don't come from a generally moderate and fairly assessed point of view, I'm not listening. Your statement here could equally apply to Conservative groups so you really look like you're just on a partisan rant. Everyone expects the other side to submit the olive branch on underhanded strategical activities but to do so simply pretends to suspend the fact that this is an ongoing power struggle with two extremist groups looking to employ whatever tactics give them some leverage with the casualties of war being the middle class moderates.
And this is different from the "right" how?
Dude, take those red & blue glasses off. It's not really 3D.
Fuck you asshole. Dems are 10,000 times worse than Repubs. Fuck you.
The Democrats embraced socialism enthusiastically, the Republicans reluctantly.
Reluctantly only at first, then enthusiastically. Think NDAA or Patriot act.
the internet has created a world that is much smaller, perhaps .gov has gotten it wrong and we do not need massive central government..change to local government and self rule could be a solution, off shoring of jobs would be a local issue that would for most be self evident it makes no economic sense..I am for diversity, unlike the lefts mislabled diversity of common behavior and group thinking. our current tech offers us all a way out of the current NWO elite design for us. a hope while ZH is still a place to post with only a little censorship
Introducing... Green!
Well said.
because patriots know, an individuals pay check is not income, the irs was not ratified into existance properly,
maritime courts are not to be used in the prosecution of Citizens, ucc can be used as remedy to wrongs done by corperations,
taxes are obsolete, the federal reserve systems product is unconstitutional....ect
The term that was also used was "2nd amendment".
They are trying very hard to avoid disclosing that one by referiing to it as "constitutional education" and trying to keep it out of the IG report.
Way to go GW. TY.
Just wait until they start confiscating bean sprouts.
Well, looks like divide and conquer is alive and well.
I'd call you all a bunch of stupid statists, but for all I know, it's raycissssss.
I disagree with GW. Liberals should be dancing on the streets because their dream of big government is in full effect and the party is just getting started. They will not rest until we're all turned into government slaves.
Liberals celebrate their stand against the machine by quietly by reading their dissident poetry in tiny groups in their government issued apartments and holding discrete conversations in the bathroom with water running, all the while thanking heaven they are not like those fools who dared to speak out and are now in the camps.
"Liberal" = shit for brains fool. Traitor. Barry cocksucker.