Ok, so the IRS has apologized for harassing Tea Party groups by admitting that they singled them out for analysis, especially in southern Ohio. Big deal! Where do the people slandered by the IRS go to get back their reputations? Where does the leadership of these Tea Party groups go to retrieve all their countless hours of correspondence with the IRS in an attempt at compliance? And where do I go to get back an entire Saturday that I had to spend on a stupid IRS compliance demand? But more than anybody harassed by the IRS was my friend Justin Binik-Thomas. Justin told me of his ordeal first at a special meeting we had for some of my most intense Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom readers a year ago at a local pizza place where we blocked off the entire back room and discussed what to do about the harassment of the IRS. Click here to review and see pictures from that event.
As Justin communicated with me his thoughts on the IRS revelation on May 10, 2013 he had just wrapped up a very busy day with the media finishing up with ABC World News Tonight, among many other television news programs. He was far from “satisfied” and I couldn’t blame him. Here is the prior article about the issue with the IRS and Justin.
· http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/377566
Here is an article from The Cincinnati Enquirer about the apology from May 10th.
· http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130510/NEWS/305100131?nclick_check=1
In essence, Justin was telling the media:
* Reaching out to liberty groups and tea party groups is political in nature – an affront to liberty. I accept the organization (IRS) has a policy against it, but would like to know what actions are taken to assure this does not recur.
* Asking a group about a tax status, unless politically motivated, is ok. What leadership does in their free time is of no relevance to what the organization does. Asking about an individual, particularly an unrelated individual, is troubling. What purpose could it serve? Why was that individual, me in this case, not contacted or informed of outreach?
* As of writing I have not received anything in writing from the IRS besides the initial denial. It would be nice to receive an apology and to receive assurance it will not happen again and that responses, if any, will not be held against me the individual.
The IRS had attacked the Liberty Township Tea Party out of blind speculation that they were involved with Justin Binik-Thomas as he was a founding member of the Cincinnati Tea Party and the assumption was that the Liberty Township group had a way of getting to Thomas. So Liberty Township was maliciously selected for “enforcement.” This essentially meant that the leadership at Liberty Township had to jump through any hoops the IRS decided like mere animals doing tricks for their livelihoods. One of the targets of this IRS inquiry were videos I made featuring Sheriff Jones discussing immigration reform and another I put together featuring the current congressional violations against the 10th Amendment.
I felt bad that my videos were under scrutiny and that some of my antics had gotten other people in trouble with the IRS. At one point in the early winter of 2013 I told some of that leadership just to blame the videos on me, that I was the sole owner of their content, and that I’d deal with the agents on my own. The Liberty Township group did a stand-up job of dealing with the IRS and took care of the situation, which was much more gracious than I was willing to provide, which probably saved a lot more headache. I provided the information the IRS was looking for, and once all those leads went nowhere, the IRS backtracked.
The entire witch hunt started as a direct assault on Justin, and the IRS was simply using mass peer pressure to force Thomas to comply, or back off his Tea Party actions. The IRS was essentially harassing the Liberty Township Tea Party as a way to get at the nerves of Justin Binik-Thomas, and that is not just wrong, it was criminal. So the apology from the IRS is nice, but way too late. It also hints at something else that is amiss.
I am very suspicious of government. I think of even the best of their representatives as habitual liars and con artists. I wouldn’t trust them to walk a dog on an empty leash. So their timing on this apology is actually alarming. The first thought that came to my mind is why are they doing it? And, why now?
Using pure deduction, based on the behavior of government in the past, the same government that lied under oath many times in the past declaring that the IRS did not do the things they just admitted to doing, I would say that the IRS as a member of the federal government is employing the old “bend but don’t break” defensive football strategy. The government knows that they are guilty over the Benghazi situation and are caught in a serious lie. They know that the Tea Party is still full of members that are very active and highly charged even after the re-election of Barack Obama. The government knows that there is an active campaign to remove Republican Governor Kasich from office in the next primaries for turning against the Tea Party, so they fear what might happen to them if the Tea Party gets even more detail out of the Benghazi hearings, which have been carried on Fox News, and extensively by The Blaze Network. The Blaze is a huge supporter of the Tea Party movement and it is getting bigger by the day. The IRS of course knows all this since they have the ability to pry into all our lives at will in the name of “revenue” for the always hungry government. During the Benghazi hearings The Blaze website had over 15 million unique visitors, which is a lot of Americans looking for the truth. So I contend that the IRS is taking a calculated move in relation to the rest of the government and yielding a little to the Tea Party in hopes of taking the edge off the really bad stuff coming out of the modern-day Watergate—which is Benghazi.
This is the trouble with a “collective” organization who thinks more like an ant colony protecting the “queen” than a society of free individuals. The IRS understands what their brothers and sisters are going through in Washington D.C. regarding Benghazi, and they are hoping to take the edge off the story with a nice little monumental revelation that seems so scandalous that it sucks the life out of the Benghazi story. But so what—what is anybody going to do to the IRS? So what if the IRS breaks the law and pisses off the Tea Party, what do they care if they make anybody angry? They revealed they lied in testimony, and that they actually target individuals whom they politically disagree with. So their admission means nothing, it gets played on the news and it makes many Tea Party members believe—falsely—that “the government” is coming around, that they are trying to be good, and honest for a change wishing to redeem themselves for sins of the past—which is far from the truth.
Experience tells me that the behavior of the IRS indicates a bigger fish to fry just outside of perception, and the attempt to throw the world off the scent is the real strategy of this sudden revelation by the IRS. So it would be my advice to those who read here frequently to not take your foot off the throats of those who seek to rule over you. Instead, push down and do not become distracted with this petty admission. I know Justin doesn’t feel happy about spending the last two years targeted personally by the IRS just because he existed. I know the Liberty Township Tea Party would like to have back the dozen or so 2 hour meetings they had to deal with just IRS compliance measures. And as for my time, where do I get back my Saturday that I wasted making DVD copies of my published videos so some pin head at the IRS can have hard copies of evidence gathered from the Liberty Township Tea Party? The answer is that I don’t, the IRS stole my time for no reason, and they don’t care one bit about it. Their apology is not one of sincerity, but of further cover-up of the many sins coming out of Washington D.C. One of my Saturday’s is more valuable and productive than the entire IRS building full of people over any given year. Every minute of my life creates jobs, hopes, and fulfills dreams for others, so wasted time on the IRS takes those things away from others which are why they are such a bad organization whose only primary role is wealth-redistribution.
The shocking revelation by the IRS is not out of goodness, but to cover up further deceit. For them to show humility toward Justin Binik-Thomas who was the real target behind the Cincinnati IRS probes is in the hope that the Tea Party becomes too compassionate to press on with the much more destructive injustices that are hidden just beyond sight. The General Petraeus affair was made of the same type of distractions. The tactical General was planning to retire anyway, so why not throw a juicy story to the hungry wolves hunting a guilty government in order to throw them off the trail? But the Tea Party didn’t take the bait and run back to their caves to eat the meat as hoped. Instead they sniffed and determined that the target was insignificant—and pressed on toward the real villain. Just the other day Obama declared to students at Ohio State that they “should not listen to these anti-government” groups. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain—was essentially what he meant. Government is feeling the pressure from the Tea Party and the strain is showing. Government knows they are guilty—all of them—of serious crimes, much more so than the situation of targeting Tea Party groups of tax exempt status then lying about it. And it is on those crimes that everyone must remain focused—which is what’s happening.
One of the Liberty Township Tea Party members in that leadership group most affected by the IRS inquiry released a statement which I will now provide on the matter. It’s from Mark Etterling, and articulates the problem very well, and provides insight to the next steps that are to come. Mark’s thoughts reflect my own.
An IRS spokesperson recently issued a verbal apology to the various Tea Party and Patriot groups whom they had specifically targeted for extreme scrutiny over their applications for 501C3 tax exempt status. Even though I can’t speak for our group, which happened to be one of those that was targeted, or any of the other groups for that matter, I can at least issue my own personal response. Your apology is NOT accepted. In fact, I’m willing to go so far in my response as to say that I would personally like to see those responsible not only fired, but also brought up on both criminal as well as civil charges for violating our civil rights via a direct abuse of power.
Exactly one month ago I wrote a commentary stating that I was fed up with all the bogus mea culpa’s. An apology based on an accident is one thing. However, an apology that is derived solely from being caught committing overt actions related to a political agenda is something else entirely. An apology isn’t enough after a school suspends a kid over eating a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun just so that the administrators can push a gun control agenda. Using the IRS to exercise extreme scrutiny against specific political groups is nothing more than an overt attempt to curtail the opposing voices of those groups. Therefore, an apology doesn’t cut it there either.
Those that are currently in power like to scoff at those of us who protest against what we view as tyrannical actions by claiming we are simply being paranoid. However, if you look up the Merriam-Webster definition of Tyranny it’s easy to see that bringing the full power and weight of the IRS to bear on a specific political group for the sole purpose of stifling their oppositional viewpoint fits the very definition of tyranny.
3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force
4: an oppressive, harsh, or unjust act : a tyrannical act
I’m not acting out of hypocrisy just because this happens to be an incident that struck home for me. In fact, in the book I wrote two years ago I specifically stated that even though I disagree with almost everything liberals like Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow ever say, I would still fight for their right to speak no matter how much I disagree with them. The reason is that freedom and censorship cannot coexist. The presence of one will automatically destroy the other. A person cannot profess a love of freedom and yet practice a tolerance of those things that destroy freedom at the same time. Therefore, your choice is to either tolerate the abuse of tyrannical censorship, or be as outraged about this as I am. I would suggest that no matter what your political leanings you should think about this carefully and choose wisely. Otherwise, the next time you might find yourself being on the wrong end of such tactics yourself where the tyrants will have already chosen for you.
Mark Etterling, Liberty Township
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
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