10 crazy things the IRS asked Tea Party groups

HotAir

The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to improperly targeting conservative groups for aggressive applications processes for tax exempt status in 2012, using the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot” as flags. Here are some of the things they wanted to know about those groups.

1. We’re gonna need all your direct and indirect communication. “‘Direct and indirect communications’ is profoundly chilling of First Amendment rights, ” said David French, senior counsel for American Center for Law & Justice, which has been representing 27 conservative organizations met with IRS inquisitions. “It’s so vague as to be impossible to comply with.”

2. What do we need to know about your members? Nothing much. Just ALL THE THINGS!

3. Your present and past employees and their relationships, please.

4. No, family members of past and present board members and employees are not exempt, nor are their activities with other groups. Why do you ask?

5. If someone in this country’s free press has ever interacted with you in any way shape or form about your free speech activities, we’re going to need documentation of that.

6. By the way, all the insane, intrusive information we’re asking for is understood to be public once you’ve given it to us, so please include only the most flattering possible photos of your children and pets.

7. There are very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information we’re asking for. Does it feel like you’re running hurdles yet, Lolo?

8. Don’t forget to read the continued very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information.

9. If you do not comply with these very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive application, you will go directly back to Start, you will not pass Go, and let’s face it, we will probably collect $200.

10. Please predict the future reliably. Thank you for your time.

All of the examples above are taken from actual IRS correspondence received by ACLJ’s 27 clients. There were many versions of the in-depth questionnaire sent to different organizations, suggesting there was more than one agent or one office involved. Though IRS officials blamed “low-level” employees in the Cincinnati office, which is the central IRS office in charge of tax exemptions, French said the abuse was far more widespread. ACLJ’s clients dealt with inquiries from IRS offices from “coast to coast.” Of ACLJ’s 27 clients, 15 finally had their status approved after 6-7 months with legal help. There are 12 groups whose status remains in limbo.

Banner Week For Conspiracy Theorists…

Buy your Reynolds Aluminum early and often…

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf)  is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

Budget request denied, Sebelius turns to health executives to finance Obamacare

Robbing Peter to pay Paul…

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

The government has mandated speech codes on all campuses

LegalInsurrection

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2013—In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent.

“I am appalled by this attack on free speech on campus from our own government,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has been leading the fight against unconstitutional speech codes on America’s college campuses since its founding in 1999. “In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchet to due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Now the Department of Education has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to mandate campus speech codes so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them. The DOE and DOJ are ignoring decades of legal decisions, the Constitution, and common sense, and it is time for colleges and the public to push back.”

In a letter sent yesterday to the University of Montana that explicitly states that it is intended as “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” the Departments of Justice and Education have mandated a breathtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser while ignoring the First Amendment. The mandate applies to every college receiving federal funding—virtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.

Justice Department Failure: Suit Filed Over DOJ Refusal to Clean Up Voter Rolls

PJMedia

Filing the ACRU lawsuits against Jefferson Davis County and Walthall County were three former Justice Department lawyers: Christopher Coates, Christian Adams (the legal editor of PJ Media), and Henry Ross. As the complaints outline, the U.S. Census says Jefferson Davis County has only 9,536 residents of voting age. Yet the county has 10,078 registered voters, giving it a registration rate of 105 percent. (The national average hovers at about 70 percent.)

Walthall County rolls are even more astonishing. The Census counts only 11,368 voting-age residents there, but the county boasts 14,108 registered voters — a 124 percent registration rate.

County officials don’t seem too concerned about it, though. They refused to respond to the ACRU’s request for information on what Walthall County was doing to comply with the Motor Voter requirements.  Section 8 requires states and local election officials to make “a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters” when they die or move away.

That may seem to be a commonsense requirement, but the radical wing of the civil rights community loathes the provision.

Inhofe, Lucas Introduce Bill Limiting Federal Agencies From Stockpiling Ammunition

Inhofe.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK-3) today introduced in their respective chambers the Ammunition Management for More Obtainability (AMMO) Act of 2013. The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a report on the purchasing of ammunition by federal agencies, except the Department of Defense, and its effect on the supply of ammunition available to the public. The AMMO Act would restrict agencies from obtaining additional ammunition for a six-month period if current agency stockpiles are higher than its monthly averages prior to the Obama Administration.

“President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said Inhofe. “One way the Obama Administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition. As the public learned in a House committee hearing this week, the Department of Homeland Security has two years worth of ammo on hand and allots nearly 1,000 more rounds of ammunition for DHS officers than is used on average by our Army officers. The AMMO Act of 2013 will enforce transparency and accountability of federal agencies’ ammunition supply while also protecting law-abiding citizens access to these resources.”
 
“After hearing from my constituents about the shortage of ammunition in Oklahoma and the Department of Homeland Security’s profligate purchases of ammunition,” said Lucas. “We have introduced the AMMO Act of 2013 to curtail these purchases so Americans can exercise their Second Amendment rights without being encumbered by the federal government. I was surprised to find out the DHS has the right to buy up to 750 million rounds of ammunition over the next five years, while it already has two years worth of ammo already. This is an issue that must be addressed, and I am pleased this legislation provides us the opportunity to do so.”

If They Can’t Take the Guns, They’ll Take the Ammo…

Reps challenge DHS ammo buys, say agency using 1,000 more rounds per person than Army

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys.

“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.

The hearing itself was unusual, as questions about the department’s ammunition purchases until recently had bubbled largely under the radar — on blogs and in the occasional news article. But as the Department of Homeland Security found itself publicly defending the purchases, lawmakers gradually showed more interest in the issue.

Our Tax Dollars at Work…

Big Sis: Obama Admin Can Pick Which Laws to Enforce

During her testimony on the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that she, President Barack Obama and other political officials at the top of this administration have the authority to decide which laws to enforce, and which ones to ignore.

Napolitano made the declaration in an exchange with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) when he was questioning her on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have alleged that political officials in the Obama administration, including her, have blocked them from enforcing the law.

Not Exactly Great Media Entertainment For Obama To Exploit…

Awkward for President Obama?

“It was fine to dwell at length on the Newtown, Conn., shootings, because those could be blamed on the evil NRA. But writing about these dead innocents might be a political liability instead of a political asset. It might have been awkward for President Obama,” Glenn Reynolds writes in USA Today, as he applauds Kirsten Powers for helping encourage media coverage of the Gosnell trial.

Ed Henry helped expose that awkwardness yesterday.

Thank you, Ed Henry.

The Fox News White House reporter asked Jay Carney about the Gosnell trial. Carney said the president is aware of it and the details being reported are “certainly” “unsettling.” Given it is an ongoing trial, Carney, said, the White House could not comment further.

Henry continued with Carney, bring up the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act President that Obama opposed when he was a state legislator in Illinois (a position of the president’s that has long been largely ignored by the media). Carney had no comment. When Henry asked if the president might support any “commonsense reform” to “save lives,” Carney assured Henry that “the president’s position on choice in clear” and tried to get a lifeline from Bill Clinton, citing him and his “safe, legal, and rare” slogan.

As I put it in my syndicated column on the Gosnell matter, though, we’re in a different place today than when Clinton was president. Those were the days when Dems talked about “rare,” and had to, as we were horrified by mainstream descriptions of partial-birth abortions. Today, though, as the governor of New York chants about more abortion access – more abortions – abortion seems more like a preference and expectation than a last resort in medical emergencies. “Let women have abortions for whatever reason they choose,” the mother of a child with Down Syndrome recently wrote for the New York Times.

Representative Marlin Stutzman of Illinois Indiana asked an excellent question last week: “Has our national conscience been irreversibly seared by the deaths of more than 1.2 million unborn children every year in this country?” This is a problem beyond politics, but politics could help. I wouldn’t mind my president being asked and reflecting on the question. As I said in the column, the existence of the Gosnell case insists on a national examination of conscience.

Our choice is to do nothing in the face of this horror or actually protect lives and help women. Does anyone really want to be complacent or indifferent in the face of such inhumanity?

And the sound of crickets is heard from the MSM…

Wonder How Many of Obama’s Golf Trips/Family Vacas Could Pay For This?

It’s official: Navy grounds Blue Angels for 2013

Or how many green companies Obama funded could have gone to this? But concern is for the little guy. For three more years, its spend spend spend! Except for the things that the administration wants to take from every day folks…