Criminal Minds at the IRS

By Robert Knight

It’s pretty clear that the Internal Revenue Service acted illegally in its abuse of tea parties and other conservative groups and individuals since 2009.

Why else would Lois G. Lerner, director of the IRS’s division of exempt organizations, take the Fifth before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee?

She invoked it on May 22 after reading a statement in which she claimed, “I have not done anything wrong.”  My lying eyes conclude that the lady has something to hide but hates the idea that we think so. By contrast, most organized crime figures who are dragged before congressional committees shrug, look down, plead the Fifth, and don’t bother pretending that they’re innocent.  That’s why they have lawyers.  

For the past three years, the IRS has behaved like Soviet-style apparatchiks, using power and fear to stunt a grassroots movement that flexed mightily in 2010 but then mysteriously quieted down. Now we know why. When the IRS began carpet bombing conservatives with punitive audits and demanded to know things like what kind of prayers were uttered at meetings, the Big Chill was under way. 

In fact, it’s still going on despite misleading media reports that all that bad stuff was in the distant past, such as 2012. As Hillary Clinton might insist, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

A 40-page memorandum released on May 20 by Cleta Mitchell, a prominent attorney representing conservative nonprofit organizations, shows exactly why the IRS is still a threat to our constitutional republic. 

Read more.

Posted at TeaPartyUnity.org on May 29, 2013 

Taxing the American People's Credulity

By Robert Knight

Barack Obama says he is angry about the Internal Revenue Service singling out conservative and Tea Party groups for rough treatment, even though it may or may not have something to do with an anti-Muslim video.

He might want to check with Hillary again. There are so many scandals breaking over the White House that confusion is understandable.

Spokesman Jay Carney has gone to carrying a steel umbrella and wearing an Ironman suit, even though hip boots might be more apt. Between the Benghazi terror attack and coverup, the Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press journalists’ phone records, and the IRS’s authoritarian behavior, plus more scandals involving Obamacare, this stuff is getting deeper by the day.

Not everyone agrees that the IRS overstepped. So what if the agency targeted Billy Graham after he took out an ad defending marriage? So what if the IRS delayed and otherwise sabotaged applications from groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names?  So what if hundreds of conservative groups, from pro-lifers to people battling vote fraud, were treated badly?  

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell did not merely downplay the scandal; he made the IRS out to be as sincere and fair as the Dad in “Leave It to Beaver.”

 

“I do not believe what the IRS was reported to have been doing is an outrage,” O’Donnell said. “I believe that the IRS agents in this case did nothing wrong. Let me say it again, you won’t hear it anywhere else.” Could that be because, judging by his denial of irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing, he just did a swan dive off the Cliffs of Insanity? 

Read more.

The Benghazi Media Maze

By Robert Knight

You just knew press coverage of the congressional hearing on the Benghazi cover-ups last Wednesday would be nonexistent or squirrely, right?

It was mostly the latter, so break out the nuts.

After the hearing, an ABC radio segment utterly ignored the content. Three State Department whistleblowers had exposed alarming contradictions in the official White House account, but ABC News led with a clip of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who said the hearing was politically motivated, followed by a GOP spokesman who said it wasn’t. That was it.

Pay no attention; there’s nothing to see here, folks.

On NBC, veteran newsman David Gregory breezily blamed the intelligence community for the Obama Administration’s initial claims that the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate were a spontaneous uprising against an anti-Muslim video. U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, who on five Sunday talk show appearances on Sept. 16 falsely blamed the video, was a “peripheral player,” said Mr. Gregory.

Then, perhaps realizing he was being too obvious in carrying water for the Obama team, he finished with, “there was at least sloppiness with regard to why they were describing this in the way that they were when it very quickly became apparent that this was a terror attack.”

The White House knew through real-time communiqués that the attack had nothing to do with the video. Yet, days later, Ms. Rice, along with Hillary Clinton, continued to blame the video. This is “sloppiness?” A shorter word comes to mind. A couple of them, in fact. 

Read more. Posted on Tea Party Unity on May 14, 2013

Twisting Words into Doublespeak

By Robert Knight

America is awash in doublespeak.

Words such as "marriage," "conservatism," "bigotry," "tolerance" and "brave" no longer have universal meaning, and this is no accident.

When confusion replaces clarity, the devil breaks out the champagne. It's so much easier to push people toward the abyss when the stop signs are edited to say "whatever."

Doublespeak is "language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem unattractive, or at least tolerable," wrote William Lutz, author of the 1996 book The New Doublespeak.

The prize for doublespeak goes to the Post's "Right Turn" columnist Jennifer Rubin. Her hot buttons are "social conservatives" and the Tea Party. She frequently urges the Republican Party to throw them overboard or face oblivion.
Read more

Posted May 8, 2013 on Tea Party Unity

David Manuel: A Personal Remembrance

By Michael Huye

My friendship with David Manuel began inauspiciously; I dialed a number. “Hello,” a voice answered.

“Is this David Manuel, author of The Light And The Glory?” I asked.

“Why yes it is,” he replied.

“Mr. Manuel, this is Michael Huye, Project Manager of the Patriots Memorial Center in Baton Rouge Louisiana, and you’re going to be the guest speaker at this year's Freedom Weekend!”

“Wow, that sounds marvelous! Now who are you again?”

David headlined our Freedom Weekend that year and in the spring returned to lead a seminar based on his book Once Upon A Prayer.  His total reliance on the Holy Spirit and his candid honesty made him much loved by our congregation.

Over that weekend our friendship blossomed and over the next two years, grew deep and rich. Whether we were discussing his screenplay about Valley Forge, which I suggested be simply titled The Forge, or my writing projects, for which he was serving as editor, or even our debates regarding the Civil War, a debate which always centered around the sentence, If Stonewall hadn’t died... We always laughed and agreed that what was really most important was what the Father wanted us to do next.

When I received word last week that my beloved friend had died suddenly, my heart cleaved in two. This irreplaceable giant of American exceptionalism, this man whose novels proved our nation’s founding was built on nothing less than God’s grace and will, and my friend, was gone.

I am honored to have known David when his reliance on, and his faith in God were at their zenith. I urge all of you to read The Light And The Glory and discover that America, and her patriots, are a crucial part of God’s eternal plan.

By remembering our godly heritage, David Manuel kept the promise of our Founding Fathers alive, and in doing so, gave us the ability to secure it for the future, a future with one less giant to lead us.

Michael Huye is Project Manager with the Patriots Memorial Center at Christian Life Fellowship in Baton Rouge.

 

Posted on Tea Party Unity on May 7, 2013