The Right Lane update 5.24.13

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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The IRS, America's version of the Gestapo

If you have been reading these pages and others including the now awakened lame street media, the IRS has emerged as the modern day Gestapo of Nazi Germany.  It has the power to ask and do whatever it pleases without any fear or concern.  This is not new nor is it just now being found out about this administration.  The current administration maybe using the IRS more militantly, but they are not the first and likely not the last.  The IRS has grown to become anti-freedom and democracy; the most feared government agency.  Sound familiar?   It should.  What to do?  Put in place a tax system that does not require and enable an agency like the IRS.  How do we do that?  You!  Become an activist.  Raise hell in no uncertain terms with your representatives and whomever else will listen.  The spineless political class will respond out of fear!

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IRS Targeted Conservative College Interns

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) demanded information about conservative groups’ college-aged interns, prompting outrage from one of the country’s top conservative activist organizations and leading one former intern to wonder whether his family’s pizza parlor would be endangered.  The IRS requested, in an audit, the names of the conservative Leadership Institute’s 2008 interns, as well as specific information about their internship work and where the interns were employed in 2012, according to a document request the IRS sent to the Leadership Institute, dated February 14, 2012. The IRS requested:

“Copies of applications for internships and summer programs; to include: lists of those selected for internships and students in 2008.
– In regards to such internships, please provide information regarding where the interns physically worked and how the placement was arranged.
– After completing internships and courses, where were the students and interns employed?”

The Arlington, Virginia-based Leadership Institute is a conservative activist training organization founded in 1979 by Virginia Republican National Committeeman Morton C. Blackwell, the youngest elected delegate to the 1964 Republican convention that nominated Barry Goldwater. The institute was audited in 2011. As The Daily Caller has reported, at least two different IRS offices made a concerted effort to obtain the group’s training materials. The Leadership Institute’s audit, which was conducted by the IRS’ Baltimore office and which ended with no determination of wrongdoing but cost the conservative group $50,000 in legal fees, only covered the year 2008, leading employees to speculate that the IRS’ primary interest was figuring out how the group operates during a presidential election year. “They were very interested in seeing what conservative organizations were doing in 2008, and where the interns from 2008 were now employed,” Leadership Institute vice president of programs David Fenner told the Daily Caller, adding that he “absolutely” believed the IRS audited information from 2008 because it was an election year. “We declined to give them the names” of former interns, Fenner said…

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Dem Rep Rips IRS Officials: 'There Will Be Hell To Pay' If Stonewalling Continues  by Michael Miller

Pull up a chair, folks, this is getting really interesting. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would cheer on a Massachusetts liberal, but Rep. Stephen Lynch took the IRS to the woodshed this morning.

Lynch was clearly agitated as he tore into former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman and Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax-exempt organizations division, who read a prepared statement, declared her innocence – and promptly proceeded to invoke her 5th Amendment rights. (Which begs the question, Lois: If you’re so innocent, why did you invoke the 5th?) “If this committee is prevented – by obstruction, or by refusal to answer – the questions that we need, to get to the bottom of this, you will leave us no alternative but to ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor. This is a very serious matter; we would like to handle it in this committee. I watched the last hearing … where the IRS basically stonewalled the committee. That cannot continue … we know where that will lead.

I hope that’s not the approach of the IRS going forward, because there will be hell to pay if that’s the route that we choose to go down.” And so it goes. The Obama Administration’s “We didn’t do it, you can’t prove it, we weren’t even there!” defense is wearing thin. Even with liberals. Incidentally, the looks on the sullen faces of Shulman and Lerner were priceless.

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IRS Chief Met With Obama 100+ Times During Tea Party Attack

The Obama administration’s handling of the IRS scandal is essentially one huge bet that Americans will believe whatever they’re told — even if it’s obviously not true to anyone who looks at the facts. For example, the current story is that Obama’s staff knew about the IRS scandal for weeks, but he didn’t. Now, we’ve found out that the former IRS chief personally met with Obama 100+ times during the time that the IRS was targeting Tea Party and libertarian/conservative groups. During this time, the former IRS chief claims he “absolutely” never told Obama about the attack on the Tea Party.

In other words, an incredibly important aspect of what the IRS was doing that could swing the election was never brought up after 100+ meetings with the president. The idea that this is even plausible is simply an insult to common sense.  The person who initiated the IRS attack on the Tea Party met with Obama the day before she began. She went to the White House, had a meeting with Obama  went to the office the next day, and initiated the very beginning stages of the attack on the Tea Party. Who is to blame? The White House still claims “low level” employees at a Cincinnati office. So what do the employees at the Cincinnati office say? They claim that the orders always come “from the top”. In other words, the idea that they even had the authority to call the shots is simply wrong. They’re being thrown under the bus by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the person who ran the unit doing the Tea Party attacks was moved up — to the Obamacare enforcement unit. You can’t make this stuff up. The IRS helped rig the election, and everyone is lying about it. This isn’t just politics as usual. Don’t worry, the truth will come out. Many Democrats are turning on Obama, and Republicans are starting to talk impeachment for the first time. We just have to stay focused, spread the truth, and stick with it. The truth will set you free — or maybe land some people behind bars.

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History made as Unborn Victims of Violence Act used to indict man accused of killing own child?

History may have been made last week when federal prosecutors used the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA) to indict a man who is alleged to have killed his own unborn child.  It is quite likely that this is the first use of the UVVA. The news of this terrible crime spread across the nation after the federal government announced an indictment of John Andrew Welden in Tampa, Florida.  Welden tricked his pregnant girlfriend, Remee Lee, into taking a drug, misoprostol (Cytotec^®), which produces abortions in early pregnancy.  Lee was six weeks pregnant and refused to have an abortion as Welden had demanded.

Welden’s father is an obstetrician-gynecologist who performed the ultrasound and blood tests that confirmed Lee’s pregnancy.  (Welden’s father, apparently, was not involved in the crime.) After confirmation of the pregnancy, John Andrew Welden told Lee that her blood tests revealed that she had an infection.  He gave her a bottle of pills in an orange plastic bottle of the type one receives from a pharmacy.  Welden falsified a label somehow to indicate that the bottle contained amoxicillin and that a prescription from Welden’s father called for her to take the medicine three times daily.  So, how is it legal to abort (kill) a baby at six weeks, yet this guy is prosecuted for doing the same thing with an FDA approved drug to induce abortions? See below to get more confused.

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Appeals Court Strikes Down Arizona Law Banning Abortions at 20 Weeks

After a federal judge upheld an Arizona law that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, one of the most liberal appeals courts in the nation has struck is down. In July 2012, a federal judge in  Arizona  issued a ruling upholding that state’s new law that goes into effect on Thursday and bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The ACLU sued to stop the law after legislators passed the bill to ban abortions after that period of time except in very rare cases of medical emergency. The bill also requires abortion facilities to allow women to have an ultrasound of their unborn baby at least 24 hours prior to having the abortion. In many cases women change their minds about a planned abortion after seeing the images of their developing child. Now, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion, including Roe v. Wade. The ruling does not affect similar laws passed in other states except the law in Idaho, which is also covered under the jurisdiction of the appeals court.

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The Political Ground Is Shifting Under the President  By Scott Rasmussen

Despite a tough couple of weeks, President Obama's job approval ratings are holding up fairly well. As I write this, 47 percent of voters nationwide offer their approval. That's little changed from attitudes of late and essentially the same as the president enjoyed during most of his first term in office.  But if you dig just a bit beneath the surface, it becomes clear that the controversies dogging the White House have had an impact. So far, there are three major issues -- the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservatives, the Justice Department's secret media probe and the circumstances surrounding the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in Benghazi last Sept. 11.  White House press secretary Jay Carney, speaking on CNN, dismissed "the premise, the idea that these were scandals." However, voters see it differently. Just over half believe each of the three qualifies as a scandal. Only one out of eight sees them as no big deal.

Voters also reject the notion that the IRS targeting was the work of some low-level rogue employees. Just 20 percent believe that to be the case. A slightly larger number (26 percent) thinks the decision came from IRS headquarters. But 39 percent believe the decision to target conservative groups was made by someone who works at the White House.  This isn't just a case of people believing politicians always behave this way. Only 19 percent think the IRS usually targets political opponents of the president.  Skepticism is so high that few are convinced the IRS acted alone. Sixty percent believe that other federal agencies also were used to target the tea party and other conservative groups. Ominously for Democrats, two out of three unaffiliated voters share that view.

So, why hasn't it hurt the president's overall job approval? Some believe it has. The theory is that with a recovering economy, his ratings should be higher. Another possibility is that the president's base may have doubts, but they are still sticking by their man.   It also may be that the doubts are popping up in other ways. For example, at Rasmussen Reports we regularly ask voters which party they trust to deal with a range of issues including government ethics and corruption. Before the scandals broke, Democrats had an 8-point advantage on this particular issue. But there has been a 10-point swing, and the GOP now has a 2-point edge.  Among unaffiliated voters, Republicans enjoy a 23-point advantage on the ethics front. Before the controversies, it was a toss-up.  The last week has seen serious slippage in the president's numbers when it comes to national security. From the moment Obama took office, he has always received better ratings on national security matters than he did on the economy. However, just 39 percent of voters now give him good or excellent marks in this area. That's down 7 points from a week ago and the lowest ratings he's had on national security since Osama bin Laden was killed two years ago.  There is obviously no way of knowing where things will lead. At this point, however, it's fair to say that the controversies have had an impact, and the political environment is shifting against the president.

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50% Think Tax Increases Hurt Economy

Voters continue to believe raising taxes and increasing government spending are bad for the economy, but they still expect both to go up under President Obama.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 31% of Likely U.S. Voters say that, generally speaking, increases in government spending help the economy.  Forty-seven percent (47%) believe spending increases hurt the economy. Twelve percent (12%) think they have no impact.

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"There’s a fly in my soup"  By Charles Krauthammer,

“Horrible customer service.” That’s what the newly fired IRS commissioner averred was the agency’s only sin in singling out conservative political groups for discriminatory treatment. In such grim proceedings one should be grateful for unintended humor. Horrible customer service is when every patron in a restaurant finds a fly in his soup. But when the maitre d’ screens patrons for their politics and only conservatives find flies paddlewheeling through their consommé, the problem is not poor service. It is harassment and invidious discrimination. And yet two IRS chiefs (Steven Miller and Douglas Shulman) insisted that the singling-out of groups according to politics was in no way politically motivated. More hilarity. It’s definitional: If you discriminate according to politics, your discrimination is political. It’s a tautology, for God’s sake.

The IRS responds that this classification was for efficiency, to cut down on overwork. Ridiculous. How does demanding answers to endless intrusive and irrelevant questions, creating mountains of unnecessary paperwork for both applicant and IRS, reduce workload?  We are further asked to believe that a cadre of Cincinnati GS-11s is a hotbed of radical-left activism in America. Is anyone stupid enough to believe that? That’s why the IRS scandal has legs. And because pulling the myriad loose ends of this improbable tale will be the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Democrat Max Baucus. So much for any reflexive administration charge of a partisan witch hunt.  On Wednesday, however, the issue was in the hands of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It allowed Lois Lerner, the IRS official who had already apologized for targeting tea party groups, to read an opening statement claiming total innocence: “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.” She then refused, on grounds of self-incrimination, to answer any questions. Perhaps not wanting to appear overbearing, Chairman Darrell Issa gave her a pass, pending legal advice on whether she had forfeited her Fifth Amendment shield by making a statement. Then again, Lerner’s performance may not have endeared her to the average viewer. Her arrogance reminded anyone who needed reminding why the IRS is so unloved. Try saying what she said — I deny, I deny, I deny, and I refuse to answer any of your questions — when you’re next called in for an IRS audit.

Does the IRS scandal go all the way up to the top? As of now, doubtful. It’s nearly inconceivable that anyone would be stupid enough to have given such a politically fatal directive from the White House (although admittedly the bar is rapidly falling). But when some bureaucrat is looking for cues from above, it matters when the president of the United States denounces the Supreme Court decision that allowed the proliferation of 501(c)(4)s and specifically calls the resulting “special interest groups” running ads to help Republicans “not just a threat to Democrats — that’s a threat to our democracy.” It’s especially telling when it comes amid letters from Democratic senators to the IRS urging aggressive scrutiny of 501(c)(4) applications.  A White House can powerfully shape other perceptions as well. For years the administration has conducted a concerted campaign to demonize Fox News (disclosure: for which I am a commentator), delegitimizing it as a news organization, even urging its ostracism. Then (surprise!) its own Justice Department takes the unprecedented step of naming a Fox reporters a co-conspirator in a leak case — when no reporter has ever been prosecuted for merely soliciting information — in order to invade his and Fox’s private and journalistic communications.  No one goes to jail for creating such a climate of intolerance. Nor is it a crime to incessantly claim that those who offer this president opposition and push-back — Republicans, tea partyers, Fox News, whoever dares resist the sycophantic thrill-up-my-leg media adulation — do so only for “politics,” power and pure partisanship, while the Dear Leader devotes himself exclusively to the nation, the middle class, the good and just. It’s not unlawful to run an ad hominem presidency. It’s merely shameful. The great rhetorical specialty of this president has been his unrelenting attribution of bad faith to those who disagree with him. He acts on principle; they from the basest of instincts. Well then, why not harass them? Why not ask the content of their prayers? Why not read their e-mail? Why not give them especially horrible customer service? Waiter! There’s a fly . . .

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Lois Lerner Directly Involved in IRS Targeting, Letters Show By  Andrew Stiles

A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity. Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS was “unable to make a final determination on your exempt status without additional information,” and included a list of detailed questions of the kind that a Treasury inspector general’s audit found to be inappropriate. Some of the groups to which Lerner sent letters are still awaiting approval.

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Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says By Michael Isikoff

Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to a review of Justice Department guidelines for investigations involving journalists, President Barack Obama said Thursday. Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday. The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists. "I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs." Again, plausible denial of responsibility by the President.

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‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fifth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm

Youth gang riots in the Swedish capital Stockholm have entered fifth straight night. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in years. Leaders of immigrant communities were out on the streets in a bid to stop young people from rioting. Despite their efforts, as soon as the night fell, groups of arsonists took to the streets to set cars on fire. RT's Peter Oliver witnessed rioters throwing stones at police and journalists alike. For years, Sweden – one of Europe’s most tranquil countries, famous for its attractive immigration policies and generous welfare system – has been accepting an influx of immigrants, which now make up about 15 per cent of its population. These migrants have failed to integrate into Swedish society, and are only in the country to enjoy the country’s social benefits system, Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist told RT. “The problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people,” the editor in chief of Dispatch International said. “The last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don’t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on.” “The people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing. They don’t have to work, they don’t have to pay taxes – they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem,” Carlqvist added. Young Muslims who enjoy tolerance, social institutions and welfare while living in Sweden nevertheless refuse to integrate into the West, Gerolf Annemans told RT. Annemans is the parliamentary leader of Vlaams Belang (‘Flemish Interest’), a Belgian far-right nationalist political party. “They [Muslim youths] have always sought excuse to show that they are not agreeing with the basic values of Western society,” Annemans said, pointing to the recent cases of the Boston Marathon bombing in the US and yesterday’s beheading of a British soldier in the UK. “It’s always the same problem. There is a massive refusal by Muslim youngsters of the basics of Western society...  and they take any excuse whatsoever to show that with violence – that is where the problem is,” he said.

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Obama’s speech a victory speech for terrorists?

The senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said President Obama’s national security speech will be “viewed by terrorists as a victory.” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) made the remarks in a statement released moments after Obama’s speech. He focused his criticism on Obama’s plans to move toward closing the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp.  “We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work,” Chambliss said. “Yet, today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen.”

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Evolutionists Confess to Lying By David Coppedge

If lying evolved as a fitness strategy, can we believe anything an evolutionist says? In his blog entry “The Evolution of Lying” on The Conversation, Rob Brooks, a professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Director of the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at University of New South Wales, gave half-hearted credit to a new theory on deception as a by-product of the evolution of cooperation.  The open-access paper by two Irish evolutionists, Luke McNally and Andrew L. Jackson, was published by the Royal Society this week.  It posits lying as an evolutionary strategy:

Our results suggest that the evolution of conditional strategies may, in addition to promoting cooperation, select for astute cheating and associated psychological abilities. Ultimately, our ability to convincingly lie to each other may have evolved as a direct result of our cooperative nature.

Brooks agrees that lying evolved, but feels the model of McNally and Jackson is too simplistic.  “I would like to see if it can help us understand the fine-scale tensions between cooperation and dishonesty in human affairs,” he said.  “There is a lot more to lying than simply misrepresenting the world.”  The liar can deceive himself as well, for instance, in order to make the lie more believable….

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"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Tyler, 1804

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