I support free speech for Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Rogan, Roseanne Barr, J. K. Rowling, Gina Carano, Ann Coulter, Ilhan Omar, Milo Yiannopoulos, Louis Farrakhan, David Duke, Bill Maher, Paul Joseph Watson, Cenk Uygur, Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Chris Rock, George Carlin’s ghost, Muhammad cartoonists, American flag burners, communists, socialists, fascists, Nazis, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, abortion activists, anti-abortion activists, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Proud Boys, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, you, me, and everyone else

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

February 2, 2022

The purpose of free speech isn’t to protect speech that is pleasant, agreeable, kind, nice, friendly, and popular.

Instead, the purpose of free speech is to protect speech that is rude, offensive, unpleasant, vulgar, unpopular, and controversial, and which goes against the narrative of the people who are in charge.

Therefore, I support free speech for Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Rogan, Roseanne Barr, J. K. Rowling, Gina Carano, Ann Coulter, Ilhan Omar, Milo Yiannopoulos, Louis Farrakhan, David Duke, Bill Maher, Paul Joseph Watson, Cenk Uygur, Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Chris Rock, George Carlin’s ghost, Muhammad cartoonists, American flag burners, communists, socialists, fascists, Nazis, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, abortion activists, anti-abortion activists, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Proud Boys, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, you, me, and everyone else.

February 2, 2022. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Abortion, Antifa, Black lives matter, Cancel culture, Donald Trump, Flag burning, Ilhan Omar, Joe Biden, Milo Yiannopoulos, Political correctness, Religion, Social justice warriors, Zero tolerance. 1 comment.

Here’s a detailed summary of Obama’s IRS scandal, explaining how his administration illegally used the IRS to harass conservative organizations.

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

June 14, 2020

In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had illegally targeted conservative groups for additional reviews. Organizations with the words “tea party” or “patriot” were singled out for harassment, such as requiring them to provide a list of donors, details about their internet postings on social networking websites, and information about their family members.

When this was first reported by the media in May 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that had conducted these illegal activities, claimed that only low level employees had known about it, and that no high level IRS officials had known about it. However, soon afterward, NPR reported that an Inspector General report showed that Lerner had been lying, and that she herself had actually been aware of it since June 29, 2011. Even worse, during March and April of 2012, Lerner herself had actually written such letters to fifteen different conservative groups. One of these letters can be read here.

While testifying in May 2013, Lerner said:

“I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

However, afterward, Lerner invoked her fifth amendment right to remain silent. The Washington Post reported that there was disagreement as to whether or not Lerner’s statement constituted a waiving of her fifth amendment right to remain silent. Soon afterward, she was placed on paid administrative leave. At a later hearing in March 2014, Lerner again invoked her fifth amendment right to remain silent.

In September 2013, a House committee released several of Lerner’s emails, which showed that she had targeted tea party groups, and that she had asked that their applications be delayed. In one of the emails from 2011, she had written “Tea Party Matter very dangerous.”

In September 2013, after having been on paid leave for four months, Lerner had still not been fired by Obama.

In September 2013, Lerner retired with a full pension.

In October 2013, it was reported that newly discovered emails proved that Lerner had violated federal law by giving the Federal Election Commission confidential tax information of several Tea party groups.

The Washington Post reported that IRS officials at the IRS headquarters in Washington D.C. had sent such letters to conservatives groups. Reuters reported that higher level IRS officials had taken part in discussions about it as early as August 2011. However, 21 months later, on May 10, 2013, the Washington Post reported that President Obama had not done anything to investigate or fire the IRS employees who had engaged in this illegal harassment. As of May 14, 2013, none of the IRS employees who engaged in any of this illegal behavior had been disciplined, despite the fact that higher level IRS officials had known about their illegal behavior at least since August 2011. Despite all of these media reports about the involvement of high level IRS officials, in February 2014, Obama said that these things had come from “a local office.”

On May 15, 2013, it was reported that Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, had resigned. However, it was also reported that his assignment would have ended in early June anyway. He resigned – Obama did not fire him.

The IRS gave out confidential information about conservative groups. ProPublica wrote:

“The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.”

“In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public.”

“No unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”

President Obama either lied about when he first knew about this – or was too busy playing golf and attending fundraisers to read the memos that were sent to him. The Daily Caller wrote:

“White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a press conference Tuesday that the White House was notified about the IRS targeting tea party groups ‘several weeks ago.’ This comes a day after President Obama said he found out about it from news reports on Friday of last week.”

“During a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday, President Obama was asked about the IRS scandal. He responded, ‘I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday.’

“However, Carney said Tuesday that first a report had to be compiled by the IRS’s inspector general and then when it was completed, it was passed on to the administration.”

“‘A notification is appropriate and routine and that is what happened and that happened several weeks ago,’ Carney said.”

When Media Trackers, a conservative organization, applied to the IRS for non-profit status, after waiting 16 months, it got no response. But when it reapplied with a liberal sounding name, it got approval in just three weeks. Yahoo wrote:

“In May 2011, Drew Ryun, a conservative activist and former Republican National Committee staffer, began filling out the Internal Revenue Service application to achieve nonprofit status for a new conservative watchdog group.”

“When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone nonprofit status, and he tried a new approach: He applied for permanent nonprofit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.”

“The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions’ request for permanent nonprofit status in three weeks.”

Politico reported:

“The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.”

“The trouble for the Israel-focused groups seems to have had different origins than that experienced by conservative groups, but at times the effort seems to have been equally ham-handed.”

The IRS asked conservative groups what books they were reading.

Although the IRS went 18 months or longer without responding to conservative organizations’ applications, the IRS demanded that these same organizations answer the IRS’s intrusive questions within a few weeks.

After the Waco Tea Party sent an application to the IRS, the IRS waited 19 months to respond. In its response, the IRS asked for printouts of its web page and social networking sites, copies of all of its newsletters, bulletins and fliers, and copies of all stories written about it. The IRS also asked for transcripts of its radio interviews.

As one example of how the IRS treated conservative organizations differently from liberal ones, Politico reported:

“Chris Littleton, one of the co-founders of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, said the group got a grilling from the IRS when it submitted its application, in letters the group has posted on its website. The IRS also gave him so much grief when he tried to apply for tax-exempt status for another group, American Junto, that ‘we just gave up on it,’ he said.”

“But when he submitted an application for a third group — Ohioans for Health Care Freedom, now renamed Ohio Rising — ‘it went through just fine,’ Littleton said. ‘They never asked a single set of questions.’”

After the Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots sent in their application, it took two years for the IRS to respond. The IRS response included 35 questions. When the group’s cofounder called the IRS, the IRS agent claimed that he had their group’s file right in front of him. But when the group’s confounder asked the IRS agent a question, the IRS agent asked, “What’s your group’s name again?”

Tea Party groups who spoke with each other said they were all getting the same questions from the IRS.

The Washington Post reported that some IRS employees were “ignorant about tax laws, defiant of their supervisors, and blind to the appearance of impropriety.”

In 2012, the IRS leaked confidential information about Mitt Romney to the co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee.

For a 27 month period that began in February 2010, the IRS gave exactly zero approvals to Tea Party organizations that had sent in applications. During that same time period, numerous liberal organizations with names including words such as “progress” or “progressive” did get approval.

After True the Vote, a conservative organization which was founded by Catherine Engelbrecht, sent its application to the IRS, the IRS went three years without responding. During that three year period, Engelbrecht and her family’s small manufacturing business were audited by the IRS, and were investigated by OSHA, the ATF, and the FBI.

Democratic U.S. Senators pressured the IRS to target conservative groups. In May 2013, U.S. News & World Report wrote:

“Over the last three years, Democratic senators repeatedly and publicly pressured the IRS to engage in the very activities that they are only now condemning today. At the same time, Republicans repeatedly and publicly warned against this abuse of government power and pointed to a series of red flags that strongly suggested conservative political organizations were being targeted by the IRS. Those warnings were deliberately ignored by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress.”

“From Max Baucus to Chuck Schumer to Jeanne Shaheen, key Senate Democrats publicly pressured the IRS to target groups that held differing political views and who, in their view, had the temerity to engage in the political process. The IRS listened to them and acted.”

In order to get approval, the IRS required members of Coalition for Life of Iowa, a pro-life organization, to sign a promise to avoid protesting in front of Planned Parenthood.

The IRS asked Christian Voices for Life, a pro-life organization, questions about its prayer vigils.

According to the official White House visitor’s log, during Obama’s first four years as President, IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman made 157 visits to the White House. This is more visits to the White House – by a very large margin – than any other cabinet member during Obama’s first term. By comparison, during the four years that Mark Everson was IRS commissioner when Bush was president, Everson made only one visit to the White House.

Shulman donated $500 to the Democratic National Committee in October 2004.

During Congressional testimony that had taken place in March 2012, Shulman falsely said that the IRS had not targeted conservative groups.

Shulman’s wife, Susan L. Anderson, is the senior program advisor for Public Campaign, a liberal organization. The Dailer Caller wrote of this group:

“Public Campaign receives “major funding” from the pro-Obamacare alliance Health Care for America NOW!, which is comprised of the labor unions AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, and the progressive activist organization Move On, among others.”

“Public Campaign also receives funding from the liberal Ford Foundation, the Common Cause Education Fund, and Barbra Streisand’s The Streisand Foundation, among other foundations and private donors.”

Stephen Seok was one of the IRS agents who wrote threatening letters to conservative groups. After doing so, he was given a promotion.

In June 2013, it was reported that two IRS employees had violated government ethics rules at a 2010 conference when they received $1,100 in free food and other items. One of them was Fred Schindler, the director of implementation oversight at the IRS Affordable Care Act office. The other was Donald Toda, a California-based employee. Obama did not fire them. Instead, he gave both of them paid leave. By comparison, in 1981, President Reagan fired 11,359 air-traffic controllers who had been illegally striking.

In June 2013, it was reported that The National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization, had forensic evidence which proved that its donors’ private information had been illegally leaked by the IRS. The IRS employees who illegally leaked this private information could get five years in prison. However, Obama refused to file any charges against these IRS criminals.

The IRS illegally leaked the private information of Christine O’Donnell the same day that she announced that she would run for U.S. Senate as a tea party candidate.

According to White House visitor logs, Obama met with Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, on March 31, 2010. The very next day, IRS employees who belonged to that union union started to target tea party organizations.

In June 2013, Associated Press claimed that the IRS had targeted liberal groups, but refused to actually name any of those liberal groups.

In July 2013, it was reported that Obama had met with a key IRS official who was involved in the targeting just two days before the key official had told his colleagues how to target tea party groups. The Daily Caller reported:

“The Obama appointee implicated in congressional testimony in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.”

“IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, visited the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.”

“On April 25, 2012, Wilkins’ office sent the exempt organizations determinations unit “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS inspector general’s report.”

In May 2013, Jon Stewart said of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups:

“Well, congratulations, President Barack Obama. Conspiracy theorists who generally can survive in anaerobic environments have just had an algae bloom dropped on their f***ing heads, thus removing the last arrow in your pro-governance quiver: skepticism about your opponents.”

In May 2013, Michael Macleod-Ball, chief of staff at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups:

“Even the appearance of playing partisan politics with the tax code is about as constitutionally troubling as it gets. With the recent push to grant federal agencies broad new powers to mandate donor disclosure for advocacy groups on both the left and the right, there must be clear checks in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”

In January 2014, it was reported that the Obama administration had chosen Barbara Kay Bosserman to head the investigation of the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups. Bosserman had donated more than $6,000 to Obama’s two presidential campaigns.

In January 2014, it was reported that since Sarah Palin had announced her candidacy for vice-President in 2008, the IRS had harassed her father six different times. Prior to that, the IRS had never contacted him during the 50 years that he had worked. The report did not specify how many of these six incidents happened under President Bush, or how many happened under President Obama.

In January 2014, it was reported that during the FBI’s so-called “investigation” of the IRS’s harassment of tea party groups, the FBI had not actually interviewed any tea party groups.

In January 2014, it was reported that the IRS had demanded that Friends of Abe (a conservative organization whose members work in the entertainment industry) give the IRS enhanced access to its security protected website (which included its secret membership list), even though such a demand was not standard IRS procedure. In addition, even though the organization had applied to the IRS for tax free status two years earlier, the IRS had still not made a decision regarding the application.

In February 2014, Obama said that there was “not even a smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS’s actions.

In February 2014, it was reported that during Obama’s presidency, 100% of the established 501(c)(4) groups that had been audited by the IRS were conservative.

In February 2014, when Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Obama about the IRS harassment of tea party groups, Obama said “These kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.”

In May 2014, it was reported that tea party donors had been audited by the IRS at ten times the rate of the general population.

In May 2014, it was reported that the IRS had illegally ignored four Freedom of Information requests from Judicial Watch between May 2013 and October 2013. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in October 2013, and was finally able to get the information in May 2014. It showed that the orders for the IRS to harass tea party members had come from IRS headquarters in Washington D.C. It also showed that U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) had pressured the IRS to shut down tea party organizations.

In June 2014, the IRS claimed that Lerner’s emails to outside agencies from January 2009 through April 2011 had been “lost” when her hard drive “crashed.” Also in June 2014, the IRS claimed to have “lost” the emails from six additional IRS employees who were relevant to this scandal when their hard drives “crashed.” One of these IRS employees was Nikole Flax, who had been chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Flax had made 31 visits to the White House during the time that the IRS had been targeting tea party groups. However, a private company called Sonasoft had a contract with the IRS since 2005 to back up all of the IRS’s emails. The company keeps multiple and redundant backup copies of all the IRS’s emails. The company advertised itself by saying “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to back up their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?” In addition, Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who had worked in intelligence, and who had also worked as a program manager at Microsoft, listed six reasons why the IRS’s claim about “losing” the emails must be false. Also, federal law requires the IRS to keep permanent, backup copies of all of its emails at an external location. And finally, the NSA has copies of all of the emails.

Although federal law requires the IRS to keep permanent, backup copies of all of its emails at an external location, in June 2014, it was reported that the IRS has canceled its email archiving contract with Sonasoft weeks after Lerner’s computer “crashed.”

In June 2014, it was reported that emails showed that Lerner had suggested that the IRS audit U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

In June 2014, the IRS admitted that it had illegally given out information about the conservative group National Organization for Marriage.

In July 2014, it was reported that Lerner had called Republicans “crazies” and “assholes” in her emails.

In July 2014, it was reported that after Lerner’s hard drive “crashed,” the IRS deliberately destroyed it, without making any attempt to recover her emails. Top IRS officials told Congressional investigators that the hard drive was irreparably damaged before they destroyed it. However, IRS technical experts who had examined the hard drive before the IRS destroyed it said that this was not true, and that the data could have been recovered. Bruce Webster, partner at Provo, Utah-based IT consulting and expert witness firm Ironwood Experts, who has served as a consulting and IT expert in more than 80 civil lawsuits, said of this:

“… the IRS has no excuses for having handled this so poorly… This happens all the time… There are little storefront companies in just about every major city that can do this and there are forensic companies that can restore files and even do higher end recovery of data.”

In August 2014, the IRS admitted in a court filing that it had deliberately destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry after her computer “crashed.” In addition, an IRS official admitted, under penalty of perjury, that Lerner’s Blackberry had contained the same emails that had been on her computer.

In August 2014, the IRS finally admitted, under penalty of perjury, that Lerner’s emails had never really been “lost.” The IRS said the “missing” emails had been on its backup system all along.

On November 5, 2014, it was reported that the IRS had admitted to the court that it had not even tried to find Lerner’s “missing” emails in its backup system.

On November 21, 2014, it was reported that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration had obtained as many as 30,000 of Lerner’s “missing” emails from IRS disaster recovery tapes.

In February 2015, it was reported that Lerner had received a total of $129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013.

As of April 2015, no criminal charges had been filed against Lerner.

On June 12, 2015, when the IRS missed a court ordered deadline for releasing 6,400 newly found emails from Lerner’s hard drive, the IRS said it would not be able to release those emails for another three months because it needed those three months to remove any duplicates.

In June 2015, government investigators said the IRS had “mistakenly” erased 422 backup tapes of IRS emails.

In July 2015, the House Oversight Committee released information which showed that in 2011, when Lerner’s hard drive was examined by John Minsek, a senior investigative analyst with the IRS Criminal Investigations unit, it contained “well-defined scoring creating a concentric circle in the proximity of the center of the disk.”

In July 2015, the House Oversight Committee released information which showed that the IRS had avoided searching five of six possible sources of electronic media for Lerner’s emails.

In July 2015, the House Oversight Committee released information which showed that some IRS officials, including some who were supervised by Lerner, had used a “wholly separate” instant messaging system called “Office Communication Server” that automatically erased its messages. None of these messages were archived. In an email conversation, Lerner had asked if the Office Communication Server archived its messages, and when she was told that it did not archive its messages, she responded by saying “Perfect.”

In July 2015, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan threatened to hold IRS employees, including IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in contempt because they had illegally ignored the judge’s orders to release some of Lerner’s emails and other IRS documents. These same IRS employees had previously illegally ignored Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits for those same emails and other documents.

In August 2015, a report by the Senate Finance Committee said that during the 40 month period from February 2009 through May 2012, only one conservative group had been granted non-profit status by the IRS. The Senate Finance Committee report stated:

“Due to the circuitous process implemented by Lerner, only one conservative political advocacy organization was granted tax-exempt status between February 2009 and May 2012. Lerner’s bias against these applicants unquestionably led to these delays, and is particularly evident when compared to the IRS’s treatment of other applications…”

“Although applications from the Tea Party and conservative organizations languished at the IRS, this was not the case for all groups that applied. In cases where the IRS wanted to act quickly, it did – particularly for other high-profile applications that attracted political attention…”

“The IRS’s treatment of these organizations was almost universally consistent with Lerner’s personal political views – this is, supporting Democratic candidates and opposing conservative tax-exempt organizations…”

The Senate Finance Committee report also said:

“We found evidence that Lerner’s personal political views directly resulted in disparate treatment for applicants affiliated with Tea Party and other conservative causes…”

“Her influence led not only to indefinite delays in the processing of these groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, but also to audits. During that same time, the IRS generally responded quickly and favorably to nonprofit organizations that were affiliated with progressive causes…”

In June 2016, the IRS released a list of names of 426 conservative organizations that it had targeted.

In June 2016, it was reported that in October 2010, at Lerner’s request, 1.25 million pages of confidential tax returns had been transferred from the IRS to the Department of Justice’s criminal division. The only way that this transfer could have been legal would be if the Justice Department had specifically requested it, and the only circumstances under which the Justice Department is legally allowed to make such a request is when the parties in question are under criminal investigation by the Justice Department. However, the Justice Department never requested these documents, and there was no criminal investigation of these organizations by the Justice Department. Therefore, Lerner’s action was illegal. Included in this transfer were the names and address of donors to these organizations – information which is supposed to be private and confidential. Of course, as always, Obama refused to file any charges against Lerner for her illegal activity.

On July 29, 2016, a Freedom of Information lawsuit by Judicial Watch resulted in more documents being released. These documents showed that top IRS officials in Washington D.C., including Lerner, had known as early as the summer of 2011 that the IRS was targeting conservative groups because of their ideology and political affiliation. Judicial Watch wrote of this:

“These documents show that the Obama FBI and Justice Department had plenty of evidence suggesting illegal targeting, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Both the FBI and Justice Department collaborated with the Lois Lerner and the IRS to try to prosecute and jail Barack Obama’s political opponents. These documents show the resulting compromised investigation looked the other way when it came to Obama’s IRS criminality.”

On August 1, 2016, Judicial Watch released additional documents, which showed that the IRS targeting of conservative groups had been happening since 2010, and that it had lasted though the November 2012 election. Multiple IRS employees said that applications from conservatives groups had been automatically denied approval, and were placed in a special “inventory” while IRS employees awaited further instructions from IRS headquarters in Washington D.C. Multiple IRS agents said that these IRS policies guaranteed that these applications from conservative groups would not be approved before the November 2012 election.

On August 2, 2016, Judicial Watch released more documents, which showed that Justice Department attorney Barbara Bosserman, who had spent more than 1,500 hours “investigating” the IRS targeting of conservative groups, had donated a total of $6,750 to Obama’s campaigns and the DNC between 2004 and 2012, including 12 separate donations to Obama for America between 2008 and 2012. In addition, it was Attorney General Eric Holder who had assigned Bosserman to oversee this “investigation.” No charges were filed as a result of this “investigation.”

In August 2016, it was reported that the Albuquerque Tea Party was still waiting for approval from the IRS more than six years after it had filed its first application.

In September 2016, Judicial Watch reported:

A 2013 study by scholars from the American Enterprise Institute and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University found that, “had the Tea Party groups continued to grow at the pace seen in 2009 and 2010, and had their effect on the 2012 vote been similar to that seen in 2010, they would have brought the Republican Party as many as 5 – 8.5 million votes compared to Obama’s victory margin of 5 million.”

In November 2016, U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett said that the IRS was still targeting tea party groups because the IRS was still not processing applications that the tea party groups had submitted several years earlier. He ordered the IRS to process an application that the Texas Patriots Tea Party had submitted four years earlier. He also ordered the IRS to stop targeting tea party groups. Judge Barrett said:

“The evidence strongly suggests that the IRS initiated the delay because TPTP’s application was perceived at the screening stage to be a Tea Party case.”

Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:

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Note from Daniel Alman: I’d like to recommend that you visit Whatfinger News. It’s a really awesome website.

June 14, 2020. Tags: , , , , , , , . Barack Obama, IRS, Police state. 5 comments.

Kimberley Johnson’s recent racist comment is more offensive than Roseanne Barr’s. Colion Noir’s response is awesome.

Huffington Post writer Kimberley Johnson recently made the following tweet:

“Out on the road the other day I saw an affluent black man driving a BMW with two bumper-stickers. One was pro-NRA and the other one was a Tea Party sticker that read, ‘Don’t tread on me.’ This left me very confused.”


In my opinion, that’s a lot worse than what Roseanne Barr said six weeks ago. Barr was commenting on what she perceived to be a certain physical resemblance. Johnson’s comment is about what she believes people are supposed to think. What a person thinks is a lot more personal than their physical appearance. Barr’s comment was offensive. Johnson’s comment was dehumanizing.

Fortunately, in one of the best commentaries ever on the subject of racism, Colion Noir went on Fox News, and invited Johnson to appear on his own show to have a discussion about this. I encourage everyone here to watch his appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lUnHsOQYOI

 

July 12, 2018. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Racism. 1 comment.

“Among those who Strongly Approve of the president, more fear the Tea Party than radical Muslims.”

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2013/26_of_obama_supporters_view_tea_party_as_nation_s_top_terror_threat

26% of Obama Supporters View Tea Party as Nation’s Top Terror Threat

June 27, 2013

Half of all voters consider radical Muslims the bigger terrorist threat facing the nation, but supporters of President Obama consider the Tea Party to be as big a danger.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters consider radical Muslims to be the bigger threat to the United States today. Thirteen percent (13%) view the Tea Party that way, and another 13% consider other political and religious extremists to be the larger danger. Six percent (6%) point to local militia groups. Two percent (2%) see the Occupy Wall Street movement as the bigger terrorist threat. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

However, among those who approve of the president’s job performance, just 29% see radical Muslims as the bigger threat. Twenty-six percent (26%) say it’s the Tea Party that concerns them most. Among those who Strongly Approve of the president, more fear the Tea Party than radical Muslims.

As for those who disapprove of Obama’s performance, 75% consider radical Muslims to be the bigger terrorist threat. Just one percent (1%) name the Tea Party.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 22-23, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Interestingly, while the Occupy movement was allegedly targeting the “one percent”, upper income Americans are more likely than others to see the Tea Party as the bigger terror threat. Among those who earn six-figure incomes, 21% consider the Tea Party the bigger threat, while just two percent (2%) say the same of the Occupy movement. Among Americans who earn less than $30,000 a year, 12% see the Tea Party as the bigger threat, and seven percent (7%) say that description best applies to the Occupy movement.

The Tea Party received a boost in popularity earlier this year following revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted it and other conservative groups. Most voters believe the targeting was politically motivated and that the decision was made in Washington.

Conservatives overwhelmingly see radical Muslims as the greater terror threat. Liberals are fairly evenly divided between radical Muslims and the Tea Party.

Twenty percent (20%) of government workers see the Tea Party as the nation’s bigger terror threat. Twelve percent (12%) of private sector workers hold that view.

Most voters today believe the federal government is a threat to individual rights.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters think it is at least somewhat likely that terrorist groups will soon gain access to nuclear weapons, including 34% who feel it is Very Likely.

However, 57% believe economic challenges represent the biggest threat to the United States. Half as many (27%) see terrorist attacks as the biggest threat.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

June 16, 2016. Tags: , , , , . Barack Obama. 3 comments.

Attention Dr. Blake Armstrong of South Texas College: here’s why your comparison of the Tea Party to the Nazis is inaccurate

The Blaze recently reported:

Prof. Tells Students Not to ‘Tell Anybody’ About His Vexed Tea Party ‘Analogy’ — He Didn’t Know It Was Already Caught on Video

Dec. 8, 2014

A psychology professor at South Texas College in Weslaco, Texas, was seemingly caught on video last month comparing the tea party to the Nazis of the 1930s in Germany.

He then told his students not to “tell anybody” about his remarks — but one of his students had already started filming after he allegedly called Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a “bastard” for using the name “Cruz” to win his election.

“In 1931, which was really interesting, the Nazis — people were kind of tired of them. They’ve been around since 1920, 11 years now. They’ve won seats — they’re like the tea party! That’s such a good example,” the professor said. “Don’t tell anybody I said that though.”

He continued: “But in the sense of how they politically came to power, there’s a good analogy there. That eventually people realized, ‘Oh, these Nazis are a bunch of nuts,’ ‘These tea party people are a bunch of nuts.’ I mean, the analogy really is a good analogy.”

The student responsible for recording the comments, who asked to remain anonymous, identified the professor as Dr. Blake Armstrong. The video was recorded during a Nov. 17 class and uploaded on YouTube the same day.

The student told TheBlaze he recorded his professor because he feels strongly that “it’s wrong for him to use his position as a soap box for his beliefs, especially with young, impressionable students.”

“This semester, [Dr. Armstrong] insulted Republicans about three times before this video was recorded,” he added. On this day, he called Sen. Ted Cruz a bastard for using the last name Cruz to win his election. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I decided to start recording.”

While the student said Armstrong’s Nazi-tea party reference is the most “severe” rhetoric he’s heard in the class so far, he argued “it’s very easy to see that he has a vendetta against Republicans and religion with an emphasis on Christianity.”

Here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX-U3jj39_I

Dr. Armstrong, if you are reading this, I would like to explain why your comparison of the Tea Party to the Nazi is inaccurate.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Germany was considered to be one of the most civilized and most advanced countries in the world. At the time, no one thought that a genocide could have been possible in Germany.

But then in 1938, Adolf Hitler confiscated all the guns from the Jews.

Hitler explained his action with the following:

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”

By comparison, the Tea Party believes that everyone – including Jews – has the right to own guns.

The Nazis supported bigger government in every area of life. They supported wage and price controls. They supported having the government tell businesses what to produce and how much of it to produce. They supported strong federal involvement in health care and education.

By comparison, the Tea Party is against all of these things.

In 2004, when Barack Obama was an Illinois state Senator, he voted against allowing people in their own homes to use guns to protect themselves and their families from rapists and murderers. Hitler agreed with Obama on this issue, at least as far as Jews are concerned. Dr. Armstrong, did you vote for Obama when he ran for President?

Here are some other things that Obama has done, which Hitler would have been proud of, and which the Tea Party is against:

* Obama had four U.S. citizens killed without judicial process.

* In May 2011, Obama signed a renewal of the Patriot Act.

* In December 2011, Obama signed a bill that gave the U.S. government the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without any charges being filed or any trial taking place.

* President Obama has defended warrantless wiretapping.

* In Germany in 1938, Adolf Hitler outlawed homeschooling. He said “Give me a child when he’s seven and he’s mine forever.” Hitler’s ban on homeschooling is still in effect today. In 2006, Katharina Plett was arrested for homeschooling her own children. Her husband and their children fled the country. In 2008, Juergen and Rosemary Dudek were sentenced to 90 days in jail for homeschooling their own children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their homeschooled children fled Germany after the police showed up at their house to enforce Germany’s ban on homeschooling. They came to the United States in 2010 and were granted political asylum, which gave them legal permission to live in the U.S. as political refugees  However, in March 2013, the Obama administration argued in federal court in favor of deporting them and sending them back to Germany. This means that Obama does not consider them to be political refugees, and that he does not consider Germany’s policy of jailing homeschooling parents to be a form of persecution.

Dr. Armstrong, the Nazis supported bigger government. The Tea Party supports smaller government. The two philosophies have absolutely nothing in common.

For the record, in the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

Dr. Armstrong, did you vote for Obama? If so, besides having done the horrible things that I mentioned above, I also would like to draw your attention to these hundreds of other horrible things that Obama has done.

Anyway, if there is any one thing that I hope you get out of this, it is the following: the Nazis supported BIGGER government – the Tea Party supports SMALLER government.

December 9, 2014. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Education, Guns, Police state, Politics. 9 comments.

Summary of Obama’s IRS scandal

In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had illegally targeted conservative groups for additional reviews. Organizations with the words “tea party” or “patriot” were singled out for harassment, such as requiring them to provide a list of donors, details about their internet postings on social networking websites, and information about their family members.

When this was first reported by the media in May 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that had conducted these illegal activities, claimed that only low level employees had known about it, and that no high level IRS officials had known about it. However, soon afterward, NPR reported that an Inspector General report showed that Lerner had been lying, and that she herself had actually been aware of it since June 29, 2011. Even worse, during March and April of 2012, Lerner herself had actually written such letters to fifteen different conservative groups. One of these letters can be read here.

While testifying in May 2013, Lerner said, “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.” However, afterward, she invoked her fifth amendment right to remain silent. The Washington Post reported that there was disagreement as to whether or not Lerner’s statement constituted a waiving of her fifth amendment right to remain silent. Soon afterward, she was placed on paid administrative leave. At a later hearing in March 2014, Lerner again invoked her fifth amendment right to remain silent.
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June 21, 2014. Tags: , , , , , , . Barack Obama, IRS, Police state, Politics. 13 comments.

Obama’s IRS audited tea party donors at ten times the rate of the general population

The Washington Times reports:

House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors audited by IRS

Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn’t destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans

Investigators last year reported that the IRS singled out tea party and other conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and gave them special scrutiny, including asking inappropriate questions about their activities and membership. The request for donor lists was among the inappropriate activities.

The IRS initially denied to Congress that it was singling out tea party groups, despite vocal complaints from groups that had their applications delayed for years.

Obama administration officials deny that the targeting was politically motivated

Republicans said 24 conservative groups were asked for their donor lists. The IRS initially told Congress that those lists were destroyed, but when they went through their files they discovered three lists that weren’t destroyed.

10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.

May 14, 2014. Tags: , , , , . IRS, Politics. 2 comments.

Associated Press claims IRS targeted liberal groups, but refuses to actually name even one of them

The Associated Press is now claiming that the IRS targeted liberal groups. The article begins:

Democrats are unhappy that newly revealed Internal Revenue Service documents show the agency screened for progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status, not just the tea party organizations for which the IRS was already under fire.

Democrats also want to know why the Treasury Department inspector general who investigated IRS targeting of conservative groups didn’t mention that terms like “Progressives” and “Healthcare legislation” were on the same lists agency workers used to find applications to review closely.

“The Inspector General seriously erred in not making clear in both the audit report and his testimony on this matter that ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Progressives’ were included” in the lists IRS workers used to screen applications, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., wrote Monday in a memo his aides distributed. Levin is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Despite continuing for an additional 22 paragraphs, the article does not name even one liberal group that was allegedly targeted. The article does not cite even one specific example of a liberal group being treated badly by the IRS. The article does not quote even one person from one liberal group claiming to have been treated unfairly.
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June 25, 2013. Tags: , , , , . IRS, Media bias, Politics. 2 comments.

Why is the Obama administration using the IRS, OSHA, ATF, and FBI to harass tea party member Catherine Engelbrecht?

Catherine Engelbrecht  is a tea party member who lives in Richmond, Texas. She and her family own a small manufacturing business. As far as I’m aware, Ms. Engelbrecht and her family are law abiding citizens who work hard and pay their taxes.

Ms. Engelbrecht founded a conservative organization called True the Vote. After she sent the group’s application for nonprofit status to the IRS, the IRS went three years without responding.

But it’s much worse than that.

During those three years, Ms. Engelbrecht, her family, and their small business have been audited by the IRS, and investigated by the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

If just one of those agencies had investigated Ms. Engelbrecht, her family, and their business, it might or might not have been due to random chance – although even one such investigation could be the result of political motivations.

Two such agencies based on random chance? Highly unlikely.

Three such agencies based on randomness? No way.

Four agencies? For a small, family owned business? That goes well beyond anything that’s necessary to prove that these investigations are politically motivated, and not the result of random chance.

President Obama is the big boss of all of these agencies, and he once said “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.” Obama has the authority to hire and fire the people who work at these agencies. They follow his lead.

Obama once said (the bolding is mine):

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.”

As I’ve pointed out before, Obama has told a huge number of lies. But in this case, he told the truth – he is indeed using these government agencies to “punish his enemies.”

Going even further, I’d say that just about everything that Obama has done, he did either to “punish his enemies,” or to “reward his friends.”

When looked at in this context, almost everything that Obama has done is explainable (but never excusable). He’s always busy either “punishing his enemies” and/or “rewarding his friends.”  That, as stated by Obama in his own words, is his entire political philosophy.

And it is a philosophy which is contrary to every principle and idea upon which the United States was founded.

It goes against the Constitutional oath that Obama took when he was inaugurated.

It’s a philosophy that has no place in a free and civilized country.

May 22, 2013. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Barack Obama, Police state, Politics. Leave a comment.

Poll: man who created 7,000 jobs tells his employees what he’ll do if Obama gets reelected and raises taxes

David Siegel is the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, a real estate and timeshare company. In a recent letter to his 7,000 employees, he wrote:

Who is really stimulating the economy? Is it the Government that wants to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not, or is it people like me who built a company out of his garage and directly employs over 7,000 people and hosts over 3 million people per year with a great vacation?

I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

That’s really quite good – I like that. Perhaps he’s read Atlas Shrugged.

October 9, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Politics, Polls. Leave a comment.