A1A South

Surprise, surprise, surprise! Per the IG, the IRS targeted ALL groups with the name of Tea Party, Patriots, etc.

Salient points:

•70% of applications for tax-exempt status by all organizations of any kind were approved in fiscal year 2010
•Over an 18-month period, all applicants with the words “Tea Party” in their names were reviewed; later, “Patriots” and “9/12″ were added; other names included “We The People”
•58% of the groups chosen for review received requests for information from the IRS that were “unnecessary,” including the names of donors and “the type of conversations and discussions members and participants” had at meetings
•Because of the additional scrutiny applied to these groups, many experienced significant delays that entitled them to sue the IRS
•Because of the selection criteria based on names and conservative policy positions, some other politicized groups were missed by the IRS
•Senior IRS officials claim the wrongdoing was not instigated “by any individual or organization outside the IRS”
•There was “ineffective oversight by management” over the review process
•Officials in the Exempt Organizations division disagreed with some of the findings of the Treasury IG.

Rogue employees going off on their own? Still believe in fairy tales, too?

Gateway Pundit brings us this from Senator CHUCK SHUMER’s website:

A group of seven Senate Democrats urged the Internal Revenue Service on Monday to impose a strict cap on the amount of political spending by tax-exempt, nonprofit groups.

The senators said the lack of clarity in the IRS rules has allowed political groups to improperly claim 501(c)4 status and may even be allowing donors to these groups to wrongly claim tax deductions for their contributions. The senators promised legislation if the IRS failed to act to fix these problems.

“We urge the IRS to take these steps immediately to prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities. But if the IRS is unable to issue administrative guidance in this area then we plan to introduce legislation to accomplish these important changes,” the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken. It follows an earlier letter, sent to the IRS by the same of group of senators last month, that also urged the IRS to better enforce rules pertaining to 501(c)4 organizations.

These are the people that are now in charge of your health care. They decide, not you, not your doctors, whether you, your spouse, your child, or your mother gets a lifesaving operation. Think about it.

It seems that IRS employees have been busy busy busy under Obama. Why, those sneaky pro-Obama minions have been (independently) gathering tax (and other) information on groups that are subversively promulgating small government and teaching the constitution. They are (indepedently) singling out GOP business leaders, doing abusive audits, and (independently) releasing information (often false) to the press which have been running to make it front page information like the lapdogs they are (go fetch the tax return information, boy. Now print it! Good boy!)

The IRS is also improperly (and illegally) accessing allegedly confidential medical records. Electronic medical records make this sooooo much easier.

“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, “it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter,” the complaint read.

So. The IRS was (allegedly) looking for the financial data of a former employee of a health care records company. In order to look for that financial data, they illegally seized what are supposed to be the completely confidential health records of 10,000,000 people. They did not have a search warrant for the medical records. The medical records had nothing to do with what they were searching for. And the people with the medical records were not being investigated and, even if they were, the medical records were supposed to be off limits. Can you see the potential for blackmail here? I know I can.

Starting next year, we’re supposed to be providing the IRS with information with which they can access our health records. I’m VERY uncomfortable about complying with this. “Oh, no, you’re just WRONG!” you might say. “The government would NEVER abuse their power that way!” Really?

Operation Fast and Furious: Providing guns to narcoterrorists in order to overturn the 2nd amendment of the Constitution of the United States. U.S. citizens were killed. This was done BY THE GOVERNMENT. Prosecutions: Zero. Accountability: Zero. How about targeted tax audits and information gathering by the IRS? Government employees did this. Government agencies know who worked on these. If anybody foolishly thinks this was just a few low-level employees striking out on their own, you’ve never worked for the Federal government. This was ordered and approved. Names and accountability? Zero. Let’s go to the very tippy top of the government where a U.S. ambassador’s security was deliberately removed in a *very* dangerous location. Calls for help were ignored except by two ex-Navy SEALs who saved the lives of 30 to 40 people at the expense of their own. The ambassador and a diplomat were killed. Names of the people that were responsible? Accountability? Swept under the rug. It happened SUCH a long time ago, you see. Where was Obama? Who ordered the rescue teams to stand down? *crickets* Who approved the information gathering of every single phone call made by and to AP employees on their personal and private lines? *crickets*

It is waaaaaay past time that our tax code was replaced with a flat tax where there are no special favors or dispensations for the politically well connected (and punitive taxes for those who aren’t), everybody pays taxes, and the IRS isn’t a bully agency gathering information for the government. And, no, I don’t like the idea at all of the IRS being in the healthcare business.

I’m also way past being patient with government agency heads and the people that work for them not being held accountable and/or prosecuted by the (in)Justice Department for said abuses. Most of Obama’s appointees have committed egregious abuses of power and/or actually broke the law and Obama, of course, knows absolutely nothing about any of it. Oddly enough, he’s also not asked for any resignations over it. The press is acting like none of these things ever happened. The only reason I can think of is it is because they didn’t want to jeopardize his ability to abuse his power for a second term.

Is Obama really that disengaged, that intellectually incurious, that much of a dumbass that he doesn’t know what his underlings are doing (completely independently with no direction whatsoever from him), or did the orders for these multiple abuses of power originate from his office? Either way, the man should not be the President.

I haven’t been paying too much attention to sequestration because, frankly, I’m more than a little tired of the incompetent drama queens running the country and getting attention by screaming about the crises that are politically created. “Look at me, look at me! See what I’m doing NOW if somebody doesn’t stop me!” is not an attractive trait in somebody older than, say, three.

So when I finally started looking at sequestration and found that all the hoo ha was not about actual cuts, but a 2% reduction in spending growth for the government, I was pretty much gobsmacked. After all, didn’t all the working folks in America just get an involuntary 2% pay cut in January via social security taxes? I got a 3% pay cut last year, too, in REAL pay cuts, not a 3% cut out of a raise. That added up to a 5% REAL pay cut.

Must. Be. Calm. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! How DARE you screw with the livelihood of people, AGAIN, for (expletive deleted) political advantage? You’re ALL a bunch of corrupt thieves and the whole country would be far better off if Washington, D.C. was hit by an asteroid and you all perished in a fiery death! Hell, cutting off the first family vacation allowance as well as Nancy Pelosi’s liquor allowance would go a long way toward making up budget shortfalls. Make a (expletive deleted) budget and (expletive deleted) follow it and make some REAL (expletive deleted) cuts and don’t come whining to ME about imaginary cuts! Hell, don’t come whining to me about cuts at all. Shut up and do your (expletive deleted) job.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Wish I could say what I really think.