Posted June 17, 2016, by Mary Grabar and Jane Robbins: This week the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed a resolution to censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, "furthering the GOP-led push for his impeachment," according to The Hill. Koskinen, who replaced the notorious Lois Lerner, continued her pattern of lying and obfuscation.
In May 2013, when Lerner was "apologizing" for targeting conservative groups, we were expecting the response promised us three months after our February 2013 application date. Ms. Lerner apparently was not that sorry because our application was held up another year. My blow-by-blow (short version) account of being in the IRS net appeared in PJ Media yesterday: "Here's How the IRS Treated Me Because I'm Conservative" (and was picked up at the Capital Research Center; you should subscribe). Stacey Dash sent out a Twitter blast too. My interview about my experience will air on USA Radio News throughout the weekend.
In Good Company. That's one consolation for being on the IRS Enemies List. Dissident Prof board member Jane Robbins, who is senior fellow at the American Principles Project, points out that Citizen Impact, which fights for religious liberty, also appeared on the list.
Jane offers her take on the whole thing. Jane has made me laugh at the Chamber-of-Commerce bought-off politicians as they "testified" about how wonderfully Common Core would prepare "the children" for a "21st century global economy" with "21st century skills" and did so again in this short essay:
Dissident Prof "Place of Honor" by Jane Robbins: Mary posted last week about Dissident Prof’s place of honor on the IRS enemies list. Apparently the IRS was irritated by DP’s exposure of the idiocy of Common Core, which apparently disqualifies a group for a tax-exemption, at least without a fight. (Warning to bureaucrats: Don’t pick a fight with Mary Grabar. She doesn’t give up.)
In scanning the IRS list, I noticed several other targeted groups whose leadership I know. One was Citizen Impact USA, an organization devoted to educating Christians about and involving them in public policy. Citizen Impact and its founder, Paul Smith, have been influential in the battle in Georgia to enact broad-based religious-liberty protections in the face of increasing government threats. The feds, of course, couldn’t let them get away with that. Onto the list they went.
So these 400+, mainly conservative, organizations were required to jump through extra hoops and wait extra months and years to get their 501(c)(3), tax-exempt status. So what? No one was jailed, no one was sued – is this much ado about nothing? (For those “educated” under Common Core, that’s a reference to Shakespeare.) Why is Congress making such a fuss? Why was the chief IRS malfeasant forced out of her job (albeit into a cushy retirement), and why is Congress so intent on a full investigation that it’s threatening to impeach the stonewalling IRS commissioner?
Simply put, because what the IRS admittedly did in this case is a fundamental threat to freedom and the rule of law.
Recall that Article 2 of the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon cited his use of the IRS against his political enemies. That is exactly what happened here. President Obama’s henchmen (and henchwomen) in the IRS discriminated against people they deemed enemies of his radical agenda, and they made sure those groups were handicapped in their operations – at least through the 2012 campaign season. Without a tax-exemption, the organizations couldn’t raise funds. They were effectively silenced.
The IRS is one of the most feared agencies in the government. Even when it operates within the law, it can ruin citizens who don’t have the resources to fight back. Dragooning the IRS into politically motivated targeting of dissident individuals or groups, as the Obama administration did here, is characteristic of a banana republic or, worse, a totalitarian state.
Dostoevsky famously said that if there is no God, everything is permitted (Common Core students: Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist). In political terms one could say that if there is no rule of law, everything is permitted. The destruction of the rule of law allows the Left free rein to pursue their goals by any means necessary. And that is the end of freedom.
Engaging in such misconduct got Nixon impeached. But then, Nixon was a Republican.