This is a follow up to two earlier posts about a local TV Reported who asked Obama why he is spending so much money on vacations while the economy is in such bad shape.

In April 2012 St. Louis News 4’s Larry Conners grilled President Barack Obama on his extravagant vacation schedule and on bullying the Supreme Court.

“The economy is a big concern for folks, I mean the unemployment, trying to make ends meet, gas prices, food prices going up. Some of our viewers are complaining that they get frustrated and angered when they see the first family jetting around different vacations and so forth…”

It was one of the few hard-hitting interviews the president sat through last year.

On Tuesday Larry Connors revealed that after his interview with Barack Obama the IRS targeted him. He posted this on his Facebook page.

Last weeky Larry Connors was taken off the air until further notice.

KMOV posted a statement moments ago.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/reporter-larry-connors-is-fired-was-targeted-by-obama-irs/

KMOV Channel 4 Larry Conners reportedly had a meeting scheduled with network brass May 20, 2013. Later that morning his Twitter account was gone:

His Facebook page is gone too

related:

http://danaloeschradio.com/larry-connerss-lawyer-my-client-is-muzzled/

http://danaloeschradio.com/kmov-boots-larry-conners-off-air/

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http://danaloeschradio.com/kmovs-larry-connerss-disappears-from-twitter/

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By Michael Allen, Sun, May 19, 2013

KMOV-TV anchorman Larry Conners is no longer on the air after he claimed in a Facebook post that he was audited by the IRS following an interview with President Obama.

“He’s not suspended. We just all thought it made sense [for him] to take a few days off,” news director Sean McLaughlin told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We take this very seriously, and we don’t expect this to drag on. We’re still looking into the situation and weighing our options.”

Last Monday night, Connors posted on Facebook that he had been getting “pressure” from the IRS after his Obama interview in April 2012 (video below).

“I don’t accept ‘conspiracy theories,’ but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me,” Connors wrote on Facebook. “Can I prove it? At this time, no. But it is a fact that since that April 2012 interview … the IRS has been pressuring me.”

His Facebook post has been since taken down.

On Tuesday, during a KMOV-TV broadcast, Conners walked back his original claim: “To be fair, I should disclose that my issues with the IRS preceded that interview [with Obama] by several years” (video below).

According to St. Louis County records, a federal tax lien has been placed on Conners’ property in Clayton, Missouri because Conners and his wife Janet owe more than $85,000 in taxes.

“His Facebook post and his Twitter posts, as a result, were inappropriate,” Michael Valentine, vice president of content for Belo Corp., KMOV’s parent company, told BuzzFeed.com. “And we don’t condone personal posts that jeopardize the journalistic nature of our business. It’s really that simple.”

COMMENT:
I believe that if Conners’ views supported Obama then he would still be on the air and have twitter and Facebook accounts.

This is the interview that has Obama in a knot.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/obama-presidency/st-louis-newsman-larry-conners-claims-irs-targeted-him-after-obama

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Conners BIO from KMOV website today:

Larry Conners
Anchor, News 4

Larry Conners came to KMOV Channel 4 in December 1986 and is Co-Anchor of “News 4 St. Louis” at 6 and 10 p.m. on weekdays, joined by Sharon Reed.

Since moving to St. Louis in 1975, Conners has won numerous awards and honors for his work both in the community and in local broadcasting. In 2000, he was awarded the “Quest Award” by the local chapter of the National Press Women in Journalism, recognizing outstanding achievements in journalism. In addition, Conners has received special recognition from Saint Louis University, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Lifeseekers and the St. Louis Toastmasters.

Conners has also received five prestigious Emmy awards for exceptional news coverage, including two Emmys as host of “The Flood of ’93,” a KMOV-TV documentary. In 1991, he won for hosting a KMOV one-hour documentary from the Yunque Rainforest in Puerto Rico titled “Rescuing the Rainforest.” This show featured a botanist from the Missouri Botanical Garden and a zoologist from the Saint Louis Zoo. In 1990, Conners co-hosted another KMOV one-hour documentary, “Gateway Arch Silver Anniversary,” which commemorated the 25th anniversary of the St. Louis Arch. Conners earned his first Emmy award in 1985 for “Best Spot News Story” for his “DC-3 Plane Crash” feature.

Conners serves as Honorary Chairperson of KMOV’s annual “Kids Caring 4 Kids” toy and food drive, which benefits children served by the Homeless Resource Bank. In 1996, Conners was host of a video and Master of Ceremonies for the YWCA’s annual “Partners with Youth Campaign,” a character education project.

Conners has accepted invitations as speaker and master of ceremonies for many major St. Louis events. He has served as the Master of Ceremonies for the St. Louis Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast for years. Conners was also the Master of Ceremonies at the Gubernatorial Ball following the Inauguration of John Ashcroft.

Since 1994, Conners has been the producer, writer and narrator of “American Radio Programs,” a 2-1/2 minute syndicated daily program heard on radio stations in Missouri and Illinois. These programs contain positive messages that emphasize the importance of the American family and community values. In addition, Conners is often on KMOX Radio for news or special programs.

Prior to his return to “News 4 St. Louis,” Conners was the primary Anchor at KTVI Channel 2 in St. Louis. He joined their staff in 1979 after establishing himself in the St. Louis television market as an Investigative Reporter and Weekend Anchor at “News 4 St. Louis.”

Conners came to the St. Louis area from Houston, Texas, where he was an Anchor and Investigative Reporter for KTRK-TV. During his three years at KTRK, he received two awards from the Associated Press and United Press International for his series of reports on the prostitution problem in the Houston area. While in Houston he also produced two documentaries, “Lessons of Huntsville” and “Mass Murders.”

Prior to joining KTRK-TV, Conners was a Reporter and Co-Anchor for KVII-TV in Amarillo, Texas, and a Director of News for KIXZ Radio in Amarillo. He received a total of five awards from the Associated Press and United Press International for outstanding news coverage while at KIXZ.

His interview with special Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, the first television interview Jaworski gave after assuming his duties in Washington, D.C., won Conners recognition from the American Bar Association.

Conners was also the recipient of the nationally prestigious “George Washington Freedom Foundation Award” for his essay about a soldier killed in Vietnam.

A graduate of West Texas State University, Conners holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. In his spare time, he is a pilot with a commercial, multi-engine, instrument-rating license. This gives him an extensive background for aviation stories. Conners also enjoys playing golf and riding his Harley Davidson Heritage Classic.

http://www.kmov.com/on-tv/bios/64776117.html

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Previous related posts on this blog:

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/video-news-anchor-who-interviewed-obama-re-family-vacations-targeted-by-irs/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/kmovs-conners-barred-from-facebook-interviews-on-irs-controversy/

As the House Oversight Committee commenced its hearing on the IRS Scandal Wednesday, it was clear that Democrats, visibly angered by the decision of IRS Exempt Organizations director Lois Lerner to answer questions, turned on the agency. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

In a fiery statement, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), cited the State Department’s annual human rights report, and the practice of tyrannical regimes that enact human rights on paper but fail to honor them in practice. He compared the conduct of the IRS in singling out Tea Party and conservative groups to those regimes.

The witnesses were then sworn in. Lerner read an opening statement in which she denied providing false information to the committee or any other body: “I have not done anything wrong,” she said defiantly.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) demanded that Lerner be made to testify, arguing that she had waived her Fifth Amendment rights by telling her side of the story. In a courtroom, he said, she would have been regarded as having waived her rights–and, he pointed out, Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had said he wished to conduct the hearings like court proceedings. The hearing room broke out in applause.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) noted that because Lerner had asserted her innocence in her opening statement, “I believe you have not asserted your rights but have effectively waived your rights” and took her refusal to answer as a refusal to testify.

An incensed Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) spoke up that Lerner should testify, agreeing that she already waived her constitutional privilege.

“You don’t get to tell your side of the story and not be subjected to cross-examination. That’s not the way it works. She waived her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an opening statement, she ought to stand here and answer our questions,” Gowdy said, earning applause from the audience.

Confusion Plagues Lois Lerner IRS Hearing

More at the hearing……

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/22/Democrats-Turning-on-IRS-Compare-IRS-Scandal-to-Totalitarian-Regimes

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) chastised his colleagues on Tuesday, during in opening remarks at Senate hearing examining tech giant Apple’s avoiding tens of billions of dollars in taxes. Instead of “bullying” one the country’s best “success stories,” Paul suggested the Senate panel bring in a “giant mirror.” Congress, not Apple, should be on trial, he charged.

Yesterday, reports said a Senate panel found that Apple “avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries”… Congressional investigators found that some of Apple’s subsidiaries had no employees and were largely run by top officials from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. But by officially locating them in places like Ireland, Apple was able to, in effect, make them stateless — exempt from taxes, record-keeping laws and the need for the subsidiaries to even file tax returns anywhere in the world.

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) criticized the company for successfully seeking “the holy grail of tax avoidance.” But Paul didn’t see it the same way.

“Frankly, I’m offended by the tone and tenor of this hearing,” he said in his opening statement. “I’m offended by a $4 trillion government bullying, berating, and badgering one of America’s greatest success stories.”

Paul chided the “spectacle” of bringing in executives from a company that did nothing illegal — a fact he said the committee admits.

“If anyone should be on trial here, it should be Congress,” Paul added. “I frankly think the committee should apologize to Apple. I think Congress should be on trial here for creating a bizarre and byzantine tax code that runs into the tens of thousands of pages, for creating a tax code that simply doesn’t compete with the rest of the world.”

The senator’s recommendation was bringing in a “giant mirror” so Congress could see that the problem is of their own creation. The poorly crafted tax code is what drives companies overseas, so the solution would be to realize that ours is “set too high.”

Repeatedly touting Apple as a success story, and a job creator, Paul railed against the “abominable” hearing — arguing instead for “better, fairer, and more competitive” tax legislation.

Paul further hammered home his point on Twitter, where he took another jab at his colleagues, contending, “Apple has done more to enrich people’s lives than politicians will ever do.”

A veteran reporter is warning that members of the news media aren’t the only Americans who should be concerned about the privacy of their telephone conversations.

Gregory J. Millman of the Wall Street Journal, who says his telephone records were targeted by the IRS many years ago, writes that the communications of citizens could come to the attention of the government in a number of ways, including by getting a call from someone in whom the government has interest.

The issue has arisen because of the admission by the Department of Justice that it obtained records of Associated Press telephone lines in the House Gallery at the U.S. Capitol over a period of months.

WND reported the Obama administration said it pursued AP’s records because a double agent in the war on terror was compromised by a story. However, the news wire’s reporting on the issue didn’t mention the agent.

It was CIA Director John Brennan, who then was President Obama’s terror adviser, who told members of Congress that the U.S. had “inside control” of the situation. Media then reported on the use of a double agent, according to a profile of the government’s justification for pursuing the reporters’ telephone records published in the Los Angeles Times.

Millman writes that his records were targeted in 1991 when he wrote a story citing an Internal Revenue Service memo.

However, he pointed out that when his records were taken by the IRS, he wasn’t the only one

“That’s how they happened to scoop up the phone records of a home builder, a trade association of corporate finance officers, an old friend who happened to live in Washington, D.C., and the Alicia Patterson Foundation, which supports investigative journalism and which I had called to discuss a fellowship.”

Millman says none of those people or organizations “had anything to do with the story at issue, and none learned until long afterward that IRS investigators had been secretly riffling through records of all their phone calls.”

Millman explains he learned only by accident that the records had been given to the government.

“In what may be another good example of government waste and duplication, several months after the IRS had started going through the phone records, the Department of Justice launched its own investigation,:” he writes. “In keeping with the DOJ’s policy, in mid-January of 1992 I got a notice that it wanted my records. … In the course of our fight, my attorney learned from my phone company that it had already turned the records over to the IRS months before.”

Millman reported Michael Altschul, a lawyer for the CTYIA-The Wireless Association, estimated industry-wide, companies respond to up to 2 million requests for phone records per year.

The DOJ net for records also is widening.

The Washington Post noted the latest scandal for the White House is the Justice Department’s use of security badge access records and other information to monitor three Fox News journalists.

They were identified as reporters William La Jeunesse and James Rosen and producer Mike Levine.

The report said court documents reveal how they were was monitored.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin told the Post.

Reports say their emails showed up in an inspector’s general report regarding the Fast and Furious gun-tracing scandal.

Breitbart reported: “What we have here is a case of the Obama administration criminalizing reporting. In June of 2009, James Rosen of Fox News reported that North Korea might respond to an increase in United Nations sanctions with even more nuclear tests. Rosen added that the CIA had learned this information from their sources within North Korea. According to the Washington Post, upon hearing … of Rosen’s report, the White House launched what many believe is an unprecedented leak probe that went so far as to criminalize standard newsgathering.”

Shockingly, the report continues, “FBI agent Regineld Reyes claimed there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.’”

Rosen said the Obama administration never contacted him.

“It is called everyday journalism; and the Obama administration is attempting to criminalize everyday journalism,” the report said.

Here’s a list of news media members who have been under Washington’s watch:

The Associated Press: Telephone records for a number of lines over a period of weeks were taken by the feds. WND reported that the Obama administration said it pursued the news wire’s records because a double agent in the war on terror was compromised by a story. However, the news agency’s reporting on the issue didn’t mention the agent. It was CIA Director John Brennan, who then was President Obama’s terror adviser, who told members of Congress that the U.S. had “inside control” of the situation. Media then reported on the use of a double agent. That’s according to a profile of the government’s justification for pursuing the reporters’ telephone records published in the Los Angeles Times, which was one of the publications that reported on the double agent after Brennan documented the situation to Congress. Government officials told the newspaper that it was an AP story May 7, 2012, about a foiled plot to blow up a passenger jet that prompted the controversy. AP held the story for five days at the request of the CIA. But the report said the story did not mention the informant.

Fox News reporter James Rosen: The network’s chief Washington correspondent was the subject of a DOJ probe because he was considered a possible criminal co-conspirator by the federal government. The Washington Post reported Rosen was the subject of a Department of Justice probe over his reporting on North Korea’s reaction to United Nations sanctions. An FBI agent alleged in an affidavit that Rosen had broken the law “at the very least, either as an aider, abetter and/or co-conspirator.” The government did not let him know he was being investigated. But his phone records, emails and security badge access records were investigated.

Fox News reporter William La Jeunesse: He was targeted in a DOJ investigation into leaks about the scandal-plagued agency program that shipped guns to Mexican drug lords. The plan was that authorities would track the guns to the chiefs of Mexico’s narcotics gangs, but it didn’t happen. The federal government lost track of thousands of firearms, which later were linked to more than 300 deaths, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. La Jeunesse broke stories about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Fox News producer Mike Levin: Levin was caught up in the same probe that targeted LaJeunesse.

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson: She reported her personal and work computers were compromised, but few other details have been released. “There could be some relationship between these things and what’s happened to James [Rosen],” she said. She reported that the irregular activity on her computer was identified first two years ago while she was reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal.

See the list of news media members under Washington’s watch at the link below:

http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/reporters-in-the-governments-bulls-eye/

http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/veteran-reporter-nobodys-data-safe-from-feds/

The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen – the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News – is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit:

Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama’s campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation’s political radar, according to campaign finance records.

Furthermore, in June of 2012, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Attorney General Eric Holder about the appointment of Mr. Machen to head-up the leaks investigation. During the questioning Sen. Cornyn revealed that not only was Machen a donor to the Obama campaign, he was also a volunteer for Obama for America. Cornyn called into question whether he could conduct the leaks investigation in a fair and non-partisan way.

Watch the exchange here:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/21/US-Attorney-Investigating-Fox-News-Big-Obama-Donor

Recently, you may have heard that the Internal Revenue Service came under some considerable fire for targeting certain groups seeking tax-exempt status while green-lighting others (such as one run by the brother of President Obama), but did you know that the National Football league, an organization that currently rakes in about $10 billion per year in revenue, is also a non-profit organization in the eyes of the government? While you’re trying to figure that one out, we’ve got another one for you. Did you know that the league has been a non-profit organization since 1966, when the NFL merged with the American Football League, and then-commissioner Pete Rozelle folded in the request for an exemption with the request for an anti-trust exemption?

Yes, it’s all true. Technically, the NFL is a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization. That part of the Internal Revenue Code “provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

It’s an interesting wrinkle, because while the NFL’s member teams essentially act as a group of individual entities with an overarching partnership governed by the league, the league itself has not always argued so when it was against its benefit. In the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission vs. National Football League et al dispute argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1983, the league argued that it was a single entity, thus exempting it from certain antitrust statutes. The Coliseum Commission (and the Raiders franchise on whose behalf the Commission was responding) said that the league was instead a group of legal entities that act independently. The Court agreed with the Commission and the Raiders, finding that Rozelle had acted in bad faith in Al Davis’ attempted move out of Oakland.

When Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ruled against the NFL in the American Needle case in 2010, he more specifically outlined how NFL teams actually operate in practice, as opposed to pure theory.

NFL teams do not possess either the unitary decision-making quality or the single aggregation of economic power characteristic of independent action. Each of them is a substantial, independently owned, independently managed business, whose “general corporate actions are guided or determined” by “separate corporate consciousnesses,” and whose “objectives are” not “common.” Copperweld, 467 U. S., at 771. They compete with one another, not only on the playing field, but to attract fans, for gate receipts, and for contracts with managerial and playing personnel …

[...] The fact that the NFL teams share an interest in making the entire league successful and profitable, and that they must cooperate to produce games, provides a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions. Because some of these restraints on competition are necessary to produce the NFL’s product, the Rule of Reason generally should apply, and teams’ cooperation is likely to be permissible. And depending upon the activity in question, the Rule of Reason can at times be applied without detailed analysis. But the activity at issue in this case is still concerted activity covered for [the ruling's] purposes.

While member teams obviously operate for profit, the interesting wrinkle here is that the league itself claims not to. And one way to avoid profitability is to pay your current and former executives up the wazoo, which the NFL has done. In 2012 alone, the league paid approximately $53.8 million to its big -ticket execs, including $11.6 million to Commissioner Roger Goodell and $8.5 million to former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who replaced Rozelle in 1989 and ran the league until Goodell replaced him in 2006. In 2011, Goodell received a $22.3 million bonus after negotiating several enormously lucrative extensions with the television networks that provide the predominant percentage of the league’s revenues.

Pete Rozelle in 1966. (AP)Nothing about the league is non-profit, with the possible exception of its charities. How is the NFL able to pull this off? Well, the definitions of acceptable 501(c)(6) organizations are pretty broad, and one in particular may be the best match.

According to the Revenue Code, “A trust established for the purpose of monitoring and coordinating business league activities of its member business leagues and collecting, administering, and disbursing funds to the member business leagues for business league purposes qualifies for exempt status under IRC 501(c)(6). The trust was created pursuant to collective bargaining agreements between a labor union and several business leagues that promote the home building industry in a particular geographic area.”

Dave D’Alessandro of NJ.com recently wrote about one way in which the league sets this up.

The league collects $6 million in annual membership dues from each team, the teams write off those dues as “charitable donations,” and the NFL in turn takes that $192 million and puts it into a stadium fund that gives owners interest-free loans as long as they secure public financing for their new or renovated stadiums. That means we’re left with two bills: Not only do taxpayers lose out on federal tax revenue, we pay for new stadiums that generate profits which enrich only the owners.

As Andrew Delaney pointed out in the Vermont Law Review in 2010, those stadium funds don’t do much to benefit the cities that house the structures.

Technically, the city owns the stadium. Personal seat licenses or PSLs are sold through a public agency, tax-free. Profits are then used to pay down the owner’s share of the NFL loan. The money from the PSLs never goes directly to the teams, though the teams save millions of dollars in taxes and the loan from the NFL is paid down significantly, providing a very significant benefit to the owners.

Now, it would appear that the government is reviewing how this all came about. On April 24, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R.) introduced an amendment to the Marketplace Fairness Act that would end the practice that allows professional sports leagues to qualify for tax-exempt status.

In his 2012 “Waste Book” tome, which chronicles government waste, Coburn outlined his theory.

The National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) classify themselves as non-profit organizations to exempt themselves from federal income taxes on earnings. Smaller sports leagues, such as the National Lacrosse League, are also using the tax status. Taxpayers may be losing at least $91 million subsidizing these tax loopholes for professional sports leagues that generate billions of dollars annually in profits. Taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize sports organizations already benefiting widely from willing fans and turning a profit, while claiming to be non-profit organizations.

Teams in the NFL especially would have a hard time meeting the standards of organizations that, per the Revenue Code, have a setup in which “[n]o part of a business league’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual and it may not be organized for profit to engage in an activity ordinarily carried on for profit.”

Sen. Tom Coburn is unimpressed with the NFL’s arguments

Coburn’s amendment makes an important delineation — professional sports leagues are not out for the betterment of their sports as a whole; they’re out for the betterment of their own leagues. Anyone familiar with the NFL’s battles with the AFL and USFL, or Major League Baseball’s fights with the Federal League and other rogue organizations, or any number of other antitrust-related bullyings in the last 100 years, could tell you that. By the way, Major League Baseball surrendered its own tax-exempt status in 2007, in part because it didn’t want to reveal the salaries of its top executives.

It’s also worth mentioning, as D’Alessandro reported, that NFL employees don’t have to pay taxes on hotel stays and restaurants at the Super Bowl. Keep that in mind the next time you’re asked to vote on a hotel/restaurant tax to fund an NFL-related mega-building in your municipality.

Would taxing the NFL in line with its actual profitable purpose impact America in a major way? Most likely not — even if Coburn’s estimates are correct, “at least $91 million” can be carved up rather quickly by any government. But fair is fair, and the NFL’s claim that it operates as anything but a near-bulletproof money machine is ludicrous as best, and near-criminal at worst.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/congress-may-review-nfl-tax-exempt-status-004521453.html

I have some experience with politically motivated tax audits.

I wrote the “Tea Party Manifesto,”which I am making available for a limited time for 99 cents because it is more relevant than ever. I was a headline speaker, along with Sarah Palin, at the first national tea-party convention, and you can see what I said there that I knew – and predicted – would lead to politically motivated audits of my tax returns.

I predicted this would happen in a column in March 2010.

I wrote about it when it came to pass in November 2011.

I don’t claim the gift of prophecy.

I just know the nature of people like Barack Obama and those he places in positions of authority. I know this because I was just like him. I even had some of the same friends and acquaintances as a misguided youth – people like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

But my experience with politically motivated tax audits goes back long before the Obama administration.

I was a prominent target of Bill Clinton’s reign of Internal Revenue Service hell on individuals and tax-exempt organizations. And I was the guy who broke the story about it – long before there was a WND. Back then, I had to get the help of the Wall Street Journal, which, to its credit, gave me commentary space to lay out the whole story and turned the sordid tale into an 11-part series of editorials.

But in this day of historical forgetfulness, no one in the media seems to remember how Bill Clinton used the IRS to terrorize Paula Jones and many other women who had the misfortune of crossing his path along with a virtual who’s who of those who made his “enemies list” like me.

In my case, we finally got the evidence from the Treasury Department years later that showed it wasn’t some “rogue agent” who instigated the audit. It was Bill Clinton personally who dispatched a letter to the head of the IRS tax-exempt division.

Bill Clinton was allowed to skate for that kind of abuse.

And that’s why I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it would happen again under the watch of Barack Obama.

It’s been three years now that Obama has gotten away with targeting his enemies using the IRS. I’ve heard the horror stories from many friends – most of whom don’t want the limelight. Tax-exempt organizations hate to admit they are being audited because it tends to dry up donations. That was the problem telling the story in the 1990s, and it’s a problem now.

You will hear many horror stories about politically motivated audits now because people and organizations are starting to see it as a badge of honor to be audited by Obama – now that the story has legs.

Some will be tempted to discount these stories. Don’t make that mistake. They’re true. The abuse is far more than anyone can imagine. That’s why Obama publicly dispatched a sacrificial lamb, his IRS commissioner, so quickly. He thinks he may be able to cut his losses by finding a scapegoat.

Whether he’s right remains an open question.

Sadly, it depends primarily on two institutions that have a less-than-stellar track record in holding him accountable – the Republican Party and the media establishment.

I’m not holding my breath.

But I can say this without any equivocation: If Obama serves out his second term by merely blaming others beneath him, this will not be the last administration that uses the IRS to target its enemies. It will become a matter of course for leaders without scruples and integrity to continue the harassment and abuse Obama ensured would happen.

I’m not suggesting we will find any written authorization from Obama to do this – as we did with Clinton. As Rush Limbaugh so aptly pointed out, Obama didn’t need to do that. In politics and government, personnel is policy.

He hired people who would do his bidding. They didn’t need to be told by Obama to do it. All they needed to do was listen to what he said publicly about his enemies in the tea-party movement, the patriot movement and all those who crossed him.

Lastly, let me say this: Not only does Obama have to be chased from the Oval Office to ensure the IRS doesn’t victimize others in the future, but the IRS also has to go. It has proven once again to be the U.S. version of the Gestapo – there for future would-be fuehrers to abuse.

Farah’s March 2010 column at the link below:

http://www.wnd.com/2010/03/128028/

Farah’s November 2011 column at the link below:

http://www.wnd.com/2011/11/365217/

Previous related posts on this blog:

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/video-news-anchor-who-interviewed-obama-re-family-vacations-targeted-by-irs/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/video-sen-ted-cruzs-solution-to-the-irs-abolish-it/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/video-irs-scandal-hearing-rep-mike-kelly-receives-standing-ovation-lerner-to-take-5th/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/video-multiple-agencies-involved-with-irs-in-intimidation-as-potential-scandals-pile-up/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/video-irs-tell-me-what-you-pray-blackmailing-and-targeting-pro-life-groups/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/video-irs-cant-be-trusted-to-implement-obamacare-gop-rock-stars-rip-into-irs/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/liberal-group-propublica-says-irs-leaked-documents-to-them-who-is-going-to-jail/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/video-ingram-tea-party-targetor-new-head-of-obamacare-office-paid-103390-in-bonuses-watch-parts-of-today-hearing/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/scandals-comparing-and-contrasting-nixon-and-obama-administrations/

http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/video-protecting-the-throne-er-white-house-shed-cut-your-throat-and-your-childrens-throat-to-protect-the-president/

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http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/hey-i-got-audited-too/

Leftist truth to power

Lefties just LOVE to think of themselves as speaking truth to power. JournoList types become journalists for the express purpose of using the printed and spoken word to change the world for the Left. Self-important neurotic pot-heads like Obama get themselves voted into power and then rail against their vision of the powerful – oil & coal industries, big corporate barons who “oppress” their workers and bring home money in large sacks every day, Christian terrorists who impose their extreme vision on helpless populations, and so on.

But really, truth to power? When you are a leftist reporter, with the full weight of a major TV network and the government behind you, and you criticize and smear Tea Party faithful — who’s the powerful one? When an ordinary citizen makes your leftist president look bad, and you have buddies in government bureaucracies who deliver to you this citizen’s tax, employment, and financial histories which you then post on national news — who’s the powerful one? When you use your position to stoke up hatred toward corporate leaders, then make known their home addresses so that mobs of union thugs come to their homes — who’s the powerful one?

And when the entire monolith of news reporting (except Fox News) believes one way and can completely bury a story forever to protect your favored political allies, and do so — who’s the powerful one?

Looks to me like a whole lotta POWER, and not much interest in TRUTH.

At this point in America, it takes no courage whatsoever to criticize conservatives and ordinary Americans, white Anglo people, Christians, or people who think the Washington Redskins are entitled to keep their name. It frankly takes no courage to “come out” as a homosexual athlete. It takes no courage to make a movie about homosexual cowboys. What’s hard about that? The entire pop culture and political force are behind you, and are in fact geared to effectively attack those who might speak against you.

This fantasy that any leftist is speaking truth to power is a delusion. They are the power. And they aren’t generally the truth.

Real courage

Information has now come to light about the way the Obama government conducts its business. Much of it was known or suspected by conservative activists, but the abuse of power has become so public and problematic that even the sympathetic leftist press has been forced to cover it.

Now we know that as an individual, you can find yourself attacked, scrutinized, criminalized, and bankrupted by the IRS, DOL, EPA, FBI, DHS, or any number of state or federal agencies if you become identified as an opponent or a threat to the Obamanistas in any way. If you: donate to a Republican candidate for office; join or donate to a Tea Party group or any advocacy group that practices or preaches conservatism or Constitutional governance; operate as a newsperson or blogger whose words might hinder the agenda of the Left; join or donate to a group that opposes Leftist programs and institutions such as Planned Parenthood or Obamacare; or in any way act privately or publicly like a conservative.

Real courage? Well, that’s a group called Patriots Against Government Excess applying for tax-exempt status as a conservative group, and when the IRS comes down on you with obviously intrusive questions about what material you teach from, you send them a copy of the Constitution. Real courage? In a committee hearing devoted to beating up on Apple for justly paying only the taxes they were obligated to pay, Senator Rand Paul taking his turn to savagely berate his Senate “friends across the aisle” for doing so. Real courage? True the Vote and other groups, who are now filing lawsuits against the IRS for their political oppression.

Big and small, public and private, people are now coming out of the woodwork, and instead of cowering in fear, are standing up and speaking real truth to real power.

Now that we know that the Obamanistas will grab phone records and emails of news reporters critical of them, and now that we know they will vindictively audit and deny rights to conservative citizens, real courage is speaking out against them even more than you did before.

http://joeforamerica.com/2013/05/truth-vs-power-the-real-game/

One man is reported dead and two others injured amid reports of a shooting incident close to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich this afternoon.One witness reported seeing a man beheaded in the street in an attack by two men.

Local MP Nick Raynsford said he had been told the man attacked in the street was a soldier serving at the Royal Artillery Barracks near the attack.

Mr Raynsford said the soldier had been returning to the barracks after a day out when he was attacked.

The report also said that police officers opened fire after the attack in John Wilson Street in Woolwich.

There were reports that shots were fired after an apparent sword attack near the army base.

Pictures posted on Twitter appear to show two men lying on the road in Woolwich.

The air ambulance landed at the scene and paramedics treated victims in the street.

David Dixon, the head of Mulgrave Primary School, told the BBC that he walked out of the school gates and saw a body lying in the street. “We shut all the gates and made sure all the children were inside,” he said.

Mr Dixon also confirmed hearing gunshots.

The Metropolitan police would only say officers had been called to reports of ‘an assault’ on John Wilson Street.

Wellington Street has been sealed off and an air ambulance has arrived on the scene.

John Wilson Street is currently shut in both directions between Artillery Place and New Ferry Approach.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10073910/Soldier-beheaded-in-Islamist-terror-attack-oustide-barracks-in-Woolwich.html

The Supreme Court will hear the the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, a case out of New York in which the Second Circuit held in an opinion by Judge Guido Calabresi that the town’s practice of allowing volunteer private citizens to open town board meetings with a prayer violated the Establishment Clause.

The last Supreme Court decision to address this precise issue was Marsh v. Chambers (1983), where the Court in a majority decision by Chief Justice Burger upheld the particular practice at issue in Nebraska. Courts of appeals have taken different approaches to the issue post-Marsh, even within the same circuit (see, e.g., the Fourth Circuit’s very different approaches in Joyner v. Forsyth County, Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, and Simpson v. Chesterfield County) so I suppose it was on the Court’s radar. But one never knows exactly why the Court decides to take up an issue.

For some discussion of the Second Circuit decision, see the link below:

http://clrforum.org/2012/05/18/second-circuit-adopts-intermediate-test-for-legislative-prayer/

Download the Appeals Court Ruling at the link below:

http://clrforum.org/2013/05/20/certiorari-granted-in-legislative-prayer-case/