May 16, 2013

By: Kelly Diamond, Publisher

Dissenters are the low hanging fruit for any administration, and when you have one like Obama’s, which loves to print, tax and spend, you will be hard pressed to find the dissenting population behaving inconspicuously.

By now, it is rather obvious that, when it comes to dissenters, this administration doesn’t make mistakes and their actions are not done in isolation of other actions.

War on Dissent(ers)There are particular issues upon which the Tea Party and I agree.  I’m not necessarily a fan of some of the social issues they’ve spoken out about, but I share their fiscal frustrations.  I guess that makes me susceptible to IRS scrutiny?  DHS scrutiny?  Or perhaps it’s a little harder for me to get a Freedom of Information Act request processed by the EPA?

Marginalizing dissenters is risky business.  Not because of any physical threat of a coup, but because it becomes harder to hide as the net is cast wider.  I’m not talking about whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning or 35-year NSA veteran William Binny.  Their persecution is, tragically, expected.

A Singled Out Reporter?

Behold the latest account by reporter, Larry Conners.  He has a rather fair, but hard-hitting interview with President Obama last year, indicating that some of his followers find him to be out of touch, given his frequent and lavish vacations.  Conners indicates that since then, the IRS has been targeting him.  This was in his Facebook post.  Not a day later, Conners is pack-peddling, with sources at the station claiming his statement was scripted by someone else?  What happened? 

Targeting the Tea Party?

The Richmond Tea Party was, among other like-minded political organizations, targeted by the IRS (by the IRS’ own admission), not just for tax purposes, but prying well into the private information collected by that branch of the Tea Party from its specific participants and donors.  Why would the private information of volunteers be required?  How any of that is relevant to the money that travels in and out of the organization is unclear to me. 

Random Little Organization?

One tiny organization who is still awaiting “non-profit status approval” from the IRS is Linchpin, whose founder and director, Kevin Kookogey, is baffled because, despite the painstaking efforts to distance himself linguistically from the Tea Party movement, his organization still managed to get scooped up in the IRS’ conservative dragnet.  By tiny, I’m talking about drawing maybe $3,500 in private donations and spending over $7,000.  They are an extracurricular learning center that offers tutorials, lessons and training in “conservative political philosophy”.  They were poised to receive a $30,000 grant, but because their status was delayed, they lost that grant.  But what would the IRS want with them?  They’re operating in the red as it is.  They want the names of the students enrolled in their program, some of whom are MINORS.  The Inspector General, issued a list of SEVEN unnecessary questions asked by the IRS… among them was NOT the identities of the minor participants of Linchpin:

7 overreaching questions from the IRS

This is far bigger than the Tea Party, and it not isolated to JUST the IRS.  Conservatives, libertarians and anarchists have one major overriding thing in common with one another: they cannot STAND this current administration.  They may agree on some of the reasons… but they share the frustration and disapproval toward the Obama White House.  So, watch how the feds extend special mistreatment toward the anti-Obama crowd:

DHS Targets BitCoin

Recently, the DHS issued a “Seizure Warrant” to Dwolla for funds associated with the Mt. Gox account.  Dwolla is one of the major online proprietors who converts currency into and accepts……….. BITCOIN!  Mt. Gox is one of the largest trading platforms for………………….. BITCOIN!  No one is saying a word about anything other than the fact that there is no more BTC channeling through Dwolla right now: no purchase of BTC, no commerce in BTC.  It’s all halted. 

And now we know why… Evidently, Mark Karpeles, the president and CEO of Mt. Gox was transmitting money without a license!  So is BitCoin a currency now?  Well, technically ANYTHING can be currency.  I pay for things in time, trade, and labor all the time… so all of that is technically currency.  But is BitCoin “legal tender”?  I can’t pay back taxes in BitCoin.  I can’t buy stamps with BitCoin at the USPS.  I can’t even hold it in a bank or accrue interest on it.  So, since it’s not state sanctioned, it’s not really legal tender.  I mean it’s as legitimate as gay marriage Texas.  Texas doesn’t recognize the marriage.  And the US Government doesn’t recognize BitCoin as legal tender.  If it did, then they’d treat it in the exact same fashion as the USD.  So, really, for now, it’s just a good… a virtual good. 

That’s MY take on it.  I’ll be interested to see how this pans out, however.  In the meantime, this whole witch hunt hinges on a licensing technicality, which I believe Mr. Karpeles will be able to buy his way out of.  The scarier unknown is the future of BitCoin…

EPA Profiles FOIA Requests

Earlier I mentioned that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) showing preferential treatment to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from organizations who are more ideologically in line with the EPA’s agenda.  92% of requests submitted by so-called “green groups” received full cooperation and even had their fees waived. Those requests came from the National Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Of the groups denied Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the more vigilant think tanks trying to hold the EPA accountable, was denied over 90% of the time for various requests.  Similarly, requests from conservative groups Judicial Watch and National Center for Public Policy Research were approved half the time, and all requests from Franklin Center and the Institute for Energy Research were denied. “Their practice is to take care of their friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information,” said CEI fellow, Chris Horner.

The Obama administration along with Justice Department’s Eric Holder have both openly condemned the acts of the IRS.  They’ve lodged an investigation into this matter, which, so far, has absolved the political appointees in the Treasury Department and at the top of the IRS chain of command.  The Inspector General’s report makes no mention of anyone in the White House directing the IRS to target conservative groups.  The initial report seems to be pointing the finger at the mid-level bureaucrats for providing “ineffective management” and using “inappropriate criteria” to profile and single out these dissenting groups.  Interesting to note, however, that the Washington Post is on record as reporting, “Senior IRS officials in Washington, D.C. were notified of this practice back in 2011.”

Lew Rockwell puts the entire IRS scandal into a better perspective, when he posted on Facebook the other day, “Hey, folks. The IRS scandal is that they steal your money at the point of a gun — and doing more and more of it right now — not whether they give some conservative group a tax exemption.”

But even if the Obama administration explains the IRS thing away… how does he do the same for the DHS and the EPA?  Same administration.  Same political profiling.  When Atlas Shrugged and 1984 are met with a revisiting of the Woodrow Wilson Era we get tyranny and oppression, the likes of which none of those three have seen or known independent of one another!