Obama’s IRS is Still Running Wild!

This is getting bigger than Lois Lerner.

Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required – NYTimes.com.

In 2012 President Obama’s IRS confiscated the assets of 639 American small businesses and citizens without due process. Why? They did not make enough money to make cash bank deposits of over $10,000. Of those 639, only 1 in 5, about 128, were actually charged with any crime. The other 511 never got their money back, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. In 2005, President Bush’s IRS only went after a total of 114 businesses, about the same number that Obama’s IRS prosecuted. It looks like Obama’s IRS is using a legal loophole to steal money from innocent Americans. And it very much looks like a violation of the 1st, 4th, 5th,  6th, 7th, and 8th Amendments of the Constitution. The rule of law in America is dead.

The Death of Rule of Law – Part II of VI: Free Association, Free Speech, and Security in Our Personal Effects

Death of Free Association

In most nations on planet Earth participating in political opposition is extremely dangerous. Truly peaceful debate amongst political enemies followed by a vote of the people is the rare exception to the rule. In most nations elections, those in power rig the outcomes, terrorize the voters, and imprison or assassinate the opposition. This fundamentally means that, in those despot nations who purport to have free elections, every election cycle is really a minor civil war, and every change in power is a coup d’état.

Our Founding Fathers wanted a better system… a peaceful system where the people decide who leads and the rules are democratic and fair for the majority and the minority. A system where people of like mind could gather, speak their mind and attempt to effect change without fear of murder, imprisonment or harassment, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.” President Richard Nixon violated this fundamental tenet of democracy and ended up resigning the presidency as a result. That was forty years ago.

Now enter President Barack Obama. We already know that the NSA tracks all our individual communication networks… just in case. What you may not know is that once he was in office, Obama’s IRS began targeting and harassing many of his political enemies, such as Christine O’Donnell, to such an extent as to actually sway electoral outcomes. A parade of political conservatives have testified about the harassment before Congress, while former IRS official, Lois Lerner, in a tantamount admission of guilt, exercised her Fifth Amendment rights hoping to dodge responsibility for denying President Obama’s enemies their First Amendment rights.

I am confident there will never be any legal repercussions for President Obama and he will finish his term as president unscathed. His people will close ranks and no one of any import will go to prison because Congress will invariably conclude the abuse of power was not illegal. All Nixon did was have his minions break into the office of his opponents in the attempt to steal their playbook. Not even Nixon had the brass to attempt to use a government agency to bully his enemies into submission.

 

Death of Free Speech and the Death of Unlawful Search and Seizure

Freedom of speech is not about gossip or pornography or vulgar language or campaign donations or PAC dollars. Those are the evils of free speech. Our Constitutional guarantee of free speech exists so we can criticize the King and the British East India Company without being punished. Not only do we have a guarantee of free speech, U.S. and international copyright laws say we own the copyright for everything we say and write. Those laws are effectively dead, assaulted by arrogant leaders and rapidly developing technologies, and killed by our malaise.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In 2013, whistle-blower Edward Snowden, confirmed what everyone already knew. The Federal Government, along with giant corporations of all kinds were recording, tracking, and tabulating our every electronic movement. Our conversations, our correspondence, our purchases, our internet searches, everything. All without warrant or just cause, and without financially compensating us for illegally benefiting from our copyrighted materials. This massive database is then mined to create a profile in black and white of every American – our habits, attitudes, health, movements, associations and the like. Corporations are stealing the copyright of our lives for their own profit and the government is monitoring and storing the data, without warrant, to save for that rainy day some random, law-abiding citizen just might do something they do not like. With a few clicks on a keyboard our lives can be parsed, our characters assassinated and our futures crippled.

All this has a very chilling effect on real free speech – the kind of speech that criticizes the government or takes the rich and powerful to task. For instance, Obama’s IRS used its power to single out and assassinate the character of Delaware Republican senatorial candidate, Christine O’Donnell. In 2010 O’Donnell was in a close race against Democrat Chris Coons. Despite O’Donnell’s outspoken conservative views in a relative progressive stronghold, she was mounting serious threat to Coons’ election. The voters liked her… so someone in Obama’s IRS decided to place a fake tax lien on a property she no longer owned, made the information public to embarrass her, and swung the election in Coons favor. Those in power did not like what O’Donnell had to say, did not want her deal with her as a senator, and made sure she lost – all with a few clicks on a computer. This is not Larry Flint or Catcher in the Rye. This is about the core of our democratic process, and if no one goes to prison, if there is no significant government accountability, then we know for certain true free speech and free association are dead and our personal effects are no longer our own.

THE DEATH OF RULE OF LAW – Part I of VI: The Balance of Power

Introduction

The U.S. Constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in Congress, then ratification by thirty-eight states before it can be lawfully changed or overturned… or it can simply be ignored.

People who hate the Rule of Law fill our world, because, in simple terms, the Rule of Law stops them from getting their way at the expense of others. From its inception, the United States of America was Earth’s greatest legal experiment. The one nation founded on the Constitutional Rule of Law, a kingless nation created by the people, for the people, with a democratically elected government of the people. It lasted only 225 years. Before it quietly came to its end, America’s democratic system of Rule of Law gradually overcame many longstanding global injustices while still respecting each citizen’s right to self-determination.

The Founding Fathers built America in a world where, for the most part, democracy did not exist, human rights were not inalienable, governments controlled religious freedoms, slavery was endemic, women and children were chattel, the common man could be imprisoned for speaking his mind and The Law considered him guilty until proven innocent, and citizens feared their own military and police. Our Founding Fathers wanted something better. They wanted a free yet strong nation, where the citizens could be who they would be, and the Rule of Law was above all citizens.

• A nation where the Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Muslim, and the atheist could share the same public square.
• A nation where a citizen could speak out on the street corner as well as in the press, and like-minded citizens could freely gather.
• A nation where individuals had the right to keep and bear arms to insure the country against tyranny and defend the free state.
• A nation where the citizen had the right to protect his home, property, and private affects against the government, military, and police unless they possessed a lawful warrant.
• A nation where citizens could not be arbitrarily imprisoned, and were presumed innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers.
• A nation where federal powers were limited to those granted in the Constitution, and other powers are reserved for the individual states and citizens.
• A nation where a citizen’s rights were not limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, and the people had the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances.

Think on where these very basic rules have led this country. Slavery has been abolished. All citizens of the age of majority can vote in free elections. Women have the right to divorce. Children have rights. We achieved a desegregated society, a true international melting pot of races, cultures and beliefs, each having equal protection under the law, without becoming a homogenous blend of gray. Then, with the dawning of the new millennia, our Constitutional democratic republic began to collapse… and the majority turned a blind eye.

 

Death of Balance of Power

America is a constitutional democratic republic founded on the principle of balanced power with a ground up approach. Sitting atop our system of government is The Law, embodied in the Constitution of the United States of America. All citizens, including the President, are beholden to The Law. Only God resides above The Law. At the bottom are the citizens, with a right to free speech, a right to gather, a right to bear arms, and a right to vote, who elect a government of their peers. The citizens stand alongside an unfettered press who report when the powerful and rich violate The Law. The elected government consists of a legislative branch to make laws, a judicial branch to interpret laws and mete out equal justice to all, and an executive branch with a president who is the head of state and commander-in-chief. These branches of government are supposed to be autonomous in their areas of power, and any excesses are supposed to be held in check by the other branches.

I will not hazard to guess the day and hour when the Balance of Power envisioned by our Founding Fathers died. The power of the presidency has been steadily growing beyond its constitutional bounds for generations. The judiciary has become increasingly activist, legislating from the bench since at least the 1960s. The legislative branch has come almost completely under the sway of wealthy donors and corporate political action committees over the last thirty years. Approximately fifty percent of the electorate relies on government handouts while paying virtually no taxes, and the majority of the press is driven by the progressive agenda. All I can say is, that as of today, the balance of power in the United States is effectively dead.

The U.S. Presidency – No Longer Subject to the Constitution

Since 9/11/2001, the executive branch of our government has been chaffing against its Constitutional restrictions and ignoring the Rule of Law in general, always maintaining that the end justifies the means. For example, through the use of executive order, President Obama has made significant changes to the Affordable Care Act. While Senator Obama had the legal authority to propose those changes, President Obama does not. Being the head of the executive branch of government, President Obama is responsible for the actions of the IRS. Since Obama’s election, the IRS has engaged in illegal records tampering and willful harassment of conservative activists and political candidates, such as Christine O’Donnell, in a very effective campaign to stifle political free speech, chill the right to assemble and manipulate the election process.

In theory, the president cannot create The Law, yet he does. In theory, the president has the Constitutional responsibility to see that The Law be faithfully executed, yet he does not. The controlling legal authorities – the legislative branch, the judicial branch, the free press, and the citizens – have largely turned a blind eye for the sake of expediency. It is as though Due Process of Law no longer matters as long as the majority gets their way.

America has been turning Left since FDR’s New Deal. America’s Progressive Movement, commonly mislabeled as “Liberalism,” completely abandoned true liberal ideals, such as a dedication to quality education, generosity of heart, a love for literature, science and freedom of thought, embracing interests other than one’s own, and a general respect for Rule of Law, once they became the majority around the turn of the century. Those truly liberal voices, that for generations cried out for and won equal protection for all, have been drowned out by mean-spirited progressives who have destroyed public education, covet entitlements and redistribution of wealth, utterly despise religious faith, and generally refuse to be victimized by the notions of virtuous behavior. The new American majority, the ‘electorate,’ values expediency over nobility, politics over statesmanship, and largely believes that the end justified the means. We tolerate a gross level of political corruption, even encourage it, as long as we get our slice of the corruption pie. Good, old-fashioned Chicago politics on a national scale. The electorate is the ultimate Controlling Legal Authority, and if we encourage our leaders to break laws and violate the Constitution every time we vote, they will jump at the chance.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Seeing that President Obama has successfully exceeded his Constitutionally granted authority with no civil, criminal or political consequence, Oregon governor, John Kitzhaber, illegally suspended Oregon’s death penalty laws and waited for some controlling legal authority to stop him. Nothing happened. Seeing that President Obama and Governor Kitzhaber got away with ignoring state and federal constitutional laws, Washington State Governor, Jay Inslee, also illegally suspended his state’s death penalty laws. Once again, suffering no consequences. No legislative backlash. No voter recall. No investigation by the attorney general. Nothing. Why? Had these two governors, using identical justifications and rationalizations, attempted to suspend assisted suicide or abortion, their constituents would have torn them to political bits. Why? The answer is simple. The progressive electorate in both Oregon and Washington is very left of center. They love abortion and celebrate euthanasia, but they do not care much for the death penalty. They are entirely willing to suspend the Constitutional process if they get the result they want.

This, folks, is the real slippery slope. We are sliding down to a place where the Rule of Law is dead. There are literally hundreds of examples of federal, state and locals officials nationwide that overturn the will of the voters and dismiss the Rule of Law in favor of their personal agendas. As a reward, the electorate reelects them term after term after term. In the name of expediency, we have done it to ourselves. We have cut a swath through The Law to get at the Devil, and now the Devil has turned on us and we no longer have The Law to defend ourselves.