When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone non-profit status, and he tried a new approach: Starting over. He applied for permanent non-profit 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 non-profit status in three weeks. When news broke last week that the IRS had applied heavier scrutiny to conservative groups seeking non-profit status from 2010-2012, Ryun said he became convinced that his second application was approved quickly because he applied under the Greenhouse Solutions title, which he called a "liberal-sounding name."

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A major Romney donor says he just happened to get audited three times after the Obama campaign attacked him by name, and that he's not alone:

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A pro-life group in Iowa alleges the IRS made their tax exempt status contingent upon signing a legally-binding statement foreswearing any picketing Planned Parenthood clinics

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"Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." - President Obama, late March 2009.

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“After we win this election, it is payback time. For those who supported us, there will be rewards, for the ones who opposed us, they will get what they deserve. There will be hell to pay. Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. With no election to worry about, we have two judges ready to go.” - Valeri Jarrett

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In one instance, the American Patriots Against Government Excess was asked to provide summaries or copies of all material passed out at meetings. The group had been reading “The 5000 Year Leap” by Cleon Skousen and the U.S. Constitution.

The group’s president, Marion Bower, sent a copy of both to the IRS. “I don’t have time to write a book report for them,” she said.

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the IRS targeting was completely foreseeable. Surely, it’s fair to hold the president to his own standard.

Consider: Obama’s “bitter clingers” remark, his statement that conservatives who want a “small America” are dragging America into “a race to the bottom where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards,” his calling Republican congressmen “hostage takers” for opposing his tax policies (does that ring a bell, i.e., those who criticize the government?), his despicable statement that Republican leaders are “willing to compromise (their) kids’ safety so some corporate jet owner can get a tax break,” Vice President Joe Biden’s saying Republicans “have acted like terrorists” and are using threats of shutting the government down as a “weapon of mass destruction,” Obama’s looking on with approval as Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa said of the tea party, “Let’s take these sons of b—-es out,” and his spiritual adviser the Rev. Jim Wallis’ saying, “And to be blunt, there wouldn’t be a tea party if there wasn’t a black man in the White House.”
In my book “The Great Destroyer,” which was published in 2012, I reported that there were “literally dozens of tea party organizations that (had) received intrusive information demands from the IRS” in response to tea party requests for tax-exempt status. These demands, I reported, “have not been in response to allegations of wrongdoing against the parties, but simply in response to their applications for tax exemptions.”

I reported that some were alleging that “the Obama IRS (was) ‘using the routine process of seeking and granting tax exemptions to undertake a sweeping, top-down review of the internal workings of the tea party movement in the United States.’” I added, “Recall that Obama’s own campaign organization, Organizing for America, once labeled tea party opponents of Obamacare ‘right-wing domestic terrorists.’ … If Team Obama views tea partyers as a dangerous threat, would it really be surprising to learn that it treats them as such?”

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What we have, then, is this: Under a Democratic administration, the IRS was under pressure from Democratic elected officials to investigate political enemies of the Democratic party. The agency did so. Its commissioner lied to Congress about its doing so. When the inspector general’s report was about to make these abuses public, the agency staged a classic Washington Friday news rollout at a sleepy American Bar Association tax-law conference, hoping to minimize the bad publicity. Lerner lied to the public about the nature, scope, and extent of the IRS intimidation campaign.

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Celia Roady, a partner in the Washington D.C. office of Morgan Lewis and a member of the the IRS’ Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities, said she got a call from Lois Lerner, head of the IRS’ tax-exempt organizations division, on May 9, the day before Lerner appeared on a panel at the American Bar Association tax section’s annual meeting.

“On May 9, I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the ABA Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks," Roady said in the statement, obtained by TPM. "I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day.

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President Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to reassure the American people that he has “played no role whatsoever” in the U.S. government over the past four years.

“Right now, many of you are angry at the government, and no one is angrier than I am,” he said. “Quite frankly, I am glad that I have had no involvement in such an organization.”

The President’s outrage only increased, he said, when he “recently became aware of a part of that government called the Department of Justice.”

“The more I learn about the activities of these individuals, the more certain I am that I would not want to be associated with them,” he said. “They sound like bad news.” ...
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...“If I find that any members of my Administration have had any intimate knowledge of, or involvement in, the workings of the United States government, they will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.

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"Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”

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Lerner is the supposedly “apolitical” official who first admitted her agency had been targeting conservative groups Friday before last.

Between 1986 and 2001, Lerner served as head of investigations for the Federal Election Commission. From that post, Hemingway relates, she launched a lengthy, very expensive and ultimately fruitless investigation of the Christian Coalition. And in Hemingway’s explanation of it, you might recognize some of the “investigative” tactics that have been mentioned in connection with the current IRS scandal.

[Actual FEC deposition of Ollie North - B]

Q: (reading from a letter from Oliver North to Pat Robertson) “‘Betsy and I thank you for your kind regards and prayers.’ The next paragraph is, ‘Please give our love to Dede and I hope to see you in the near future.’ Who is Dede?”

A: “That is Mrs. Robertson.”

Q: “What did you mean in paragraph 2, about thanking -you and your wife thanking Pat Robertson for kind regards?”

A: “Last time I checked in America, prayers were still legal. I am sure that Pat had said he was praying for my family and me in some correspondence or phone call.”

Q: “Would that be something that Pat Robertson was doing for you?”

A: “I hope a lot of people were praying for me, Holly.”

Q: “But you knew that Pat Robertson was?”

A: “Well, apparently at that time I was reflecting something that Pat had either, as I said, had told me or conveyed to me in some fashion, and it is my habit to thank people for things like that.”

Q: “During the time that you knew Pat Robertson, was it your impression that he had – he was praying for you?”

she was in charge of FEC investigations then, and she’s in charge of IRS exempt organizations now. So is it her, or does the entire bureaucracy routinely and systematically discriminate against Christians?

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[we can't tell you or you'll leak it] “When information is conveyed to the Hill, it is not aways retained by the Hill,” George testified

[they knew enuff in June to have been legally required to alert congress] “Field work on this audit is still ongoing,” was the Sept. 24 response.

[Dec. 18] “I was studying for and then taking a final.” “We will be able to offer a substantive briefing, i.e. the facts, findings and recommendations and outcomes, by March,”

Feb 20] “We are leaving no stone unturned as part of our due diligence," the IG responded. "As such, we won’t be able to provide a detailed, substantive briefing until late April/early May.”

At that time, Issa told George that the Inspector General Act requires that he report “particularly flagrant problems” to Congress within seven days.

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The Associated Press has turned up a collection of secret email accounts used by White House appointees. Yet another dark wall is revealed in the most "transparent administration in history."
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"most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago."
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Already we know that while she was the EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson used an email account in the fictitious name of Richard Windsor to hide her communications inside and outside of government.

Some of those emails have been seen by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which sued for them under the Freedom of Information Act. But, according to CEI, the "EPA has refused to produce — or produced only heavily redacted — documents in response to virtually all (of senior fellow Chris) Horner's requests."
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a shakedown element is connected to this latest — yes — scandal: "The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses."
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Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked. Yet that appears to be a widespread practice of this administration. That's illegal, which defines outlaw behavior.

- IBD

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