Corruption: After a year's
stalling by the IRS, the Senate Finance Committee has released its
bipartisan report, denouncing the tax-collection agency's partisanship
and incompetence. When are these people going to jail?
The Senate
report wasn't entirely satisfactory, given that its criticism was
primarily in the compromise language of "gross mismanagement" to
describe the agency's targeting of Tea Party dissident groups.
Using
legal technicalities to silence and repress political dissent under the
color of the nation's most feared enforcement agency isn't
mismanagement. It's a crime.
It's incompatible with democracy and
it shatters public confidence in the rule of law. It's the very crime
the State Department is now condemning in Venezuela: the use of legal
technicalities to halt popular opposition candidates from running for
office. Until now, this kind of activity has had no precedent in our
country, and it must be stopped before it becomes the standard.
This
is far from mere incompetence or gross mismanagement. It was a highly
competent operation to silence dissent. Yet no one has been sanctioned
or punished, despite there being laws on the books dating back to the
beginning of a professional civil service, that forbid and punish
partisan motives in what should be impartial law. Already some observers
believe the IRS swung the last election for the Democrats with these
activities.
Not only did the IRS target Tea Party groups with
unconscionable delays and intrusive questions, it went for their
families, too. Young Bristol Palin learned yesterday that just being the
daughter of former Alaska Gov. and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin put
her in the IRS' sights. Sarah Palin's father was targeted, too.
The
agency also obstructed justice, first falsely claiming that its illegal
targeting was only the work of rogue agents in its Cincinnati office.
Then, as that lie fell apart, IRS moved to destroy evidence in the
thousands of missing emails on IRS tax exempt organizations chief Lois
Lerner's computer. Conveniently for them, it was declared lost forever
in a hard drive crash — until it wasn't.
Now it's relying on its
allies in the Senate and among anti-Tea Party Democrats in the House for
cover, having them declare it incompetence, not a crime.
Allies?
Yes. IRS top executive John Koskinen is a major financial contributor to
Democrat campaigns, having donated nearly $100,000 to Democrats since
1979. And the National Treasury Employees Union, the IRS agents' union,
is an even more notable donor to Democrats, with 94% of its members
donating to leftists, and the 150,000-strong union itself endorsing
Obama for president both in 2008 and 2012.
Lerner herself called Tea Party members "crazies" and spewed other anti-GOP insults in her emails.
To
say that the IRS didn't have an interest in repressing dissent and was
just unwittingly incompetent is ridiculous. IRS bureaucrats saw an
illicit advantage for their Democrat friends — and wrongly took it.
That's
illegal, and it demands a strong response from the law if the agency
ever expects to recover public confidence. If it doesn't care enough
about that, well, then what difference is there between the U.S. and a
lawless banana republic?
OUR COUNTRY IS TOO PRECIOUS TO LEAVE IT TO THE BUREAUCRATS, RINO's, TALKING HEADS. REPUBLICANS MUST READ THE 'DECLARATION OF INDEPENDANCE' AND OUR 'UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION..
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