Lois Lerner's "Surprising" Collusion With the FEC by Bill Brown

 

Lois Lerner’s “Surprising” Collusion With the FEC.

 

In a Townhall Magazine ‘Tipsheet’ article published September 15, 2013, Carol Platt Liebau wrote about revelations from the emails of Lois Lerner while she was actively employed for the IRS:

 

Perhaps one of the most sinister statements in the newly-released Lerner emails is the following: After receiving an article about Democrats complaining about anonymous donors financing attack ads against them, Lerner wrote, ""Perhaps the (Federal Election Commission) will save the day." 

Hm.  So is it a coincidence, as reported here on Townhall, that Lois Lerner colluded with a lawyer from the FEC to try to influence the record before the FEC -- at least twice -- and illegally sharing confidential information?  The answer has always been obvious; now it is increasingly so.

The more the facts in the IRS targeting scandal emerges, the more obvious it becomes that this was a partisan operation, in which law-abiding Americans were discriminated against based only on their political views.

 

The following is an article that appeared in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper Sunday edition August 12, 2013, on its editorial page:

 

IF there was any doubt that IRS officials' recent partisan activities threaten citizens' free-speech rights, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin just eliminated it.

Durbin, D-Ill., is on a witch hunt targeting financial supporters of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators across the country who promote free markets, limited government and federalism. Durbin has mailed a letter to those whom he believes financially support ALEC, demanding they reveal whether they support “Stand Your Ground” laws. ALEC helped develop model legislation on that topic that was subsequently adopted by numerous state legislatures. Durbin vows to make those responses public at a congressional hearing later this year.

ALEC doesn't publicly identify its funders. It doesn't have to. American citizens have the right to associate and engage in free speech without government interference. This clearly upsets Durbin. Apparently, free speech is only for those who share his liberal views.

In light of the IRS's recent abuse of conservative groups, Durbin's threats take on added meaning. Officials with the National Organization for Marriage have reported their group's tax records were illegally leaked to help opponents harass donors. Durbin's letter may signal a new effort to do the same thing to other people for the “crime” of engaging in the U.S. political process. The implied message is clear: Exercise your constitutional rights at your peril.

Durbin's efforts could have repercussions in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a free-market think tank, is active in ALEC. Jonathan Small, fiscal policy director for OCPA, serves on ALEC task forces and is a regular contributor to ALEC policy. Numerous state lawmakers participate in ALEC. Gov. Mary Fallin is a former ALEC Legislator of the Year.

If Durbin is successful in intimidating ALEC's backers and suppressing conservative advocacy, what's to stop similar vendettas against Oklahomans who financially support groups like OCPA or even local churches whose teachings oppose abortion?

 

 

Now.  I’m going to make one more attempt to explain the symbiotic relationship between Illinois Democrat Senator Dick Durbin, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Election Commission and Lois Lerner.

In the Illinois Senate election of 1996, challenger Democrat Dick Durbin sought and obtained the assistance of the Federal Election Commission in defeating a well-funded and popular Republican candidate.  Lerner, who headed up the Enforcement Office of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) that investigated allegations of wrongdoing and sought prosecution of those she deemed guilty, at the behest of Dick Durbin began an investigation of his Republican opponent, Al Salvi.  Salvi’s campaign had to answer many lengthy and invasive inquiries and prepare to defend the candidate in court, thereby leaving little time for trivial matters like running a campaign for Senate.  As a result, an election that appeared to favor Salvi became very close, and eventuated in a runaway victory for Durbin.  Salvi was out more than $100,000 in legal fees before a judge dismissed all charges..  He stated he was unable to get his message out to voters because the Chicago newspapers and other media were full of items about the FEC investigation.

There is an excellent article on this event in the May 31, 2013 Illinois Review.

 

So, does it come as a complete surprise to Republican officials that Lerner should be up to her old tricks—that she should have excellent and cooperative contacts at the FEC, willing to launch investigations at her suggestion or direction?

That tactic worked wonderfully well in the Illinois Senate race in 1996 (and I’ll wager in other years and races as well), so why get off a winning horse?.

The Democrat Party does not play fair. Why should they?  There is nobody to stop their unethical, yes, and often illegal practices.  The back-alley media have their own agenda, and it has nothing to do with the protection of conservatives’ rights.

When are the Republicans going to catch on and fight back?

WILL they ever do that?

The IRS targeted 471 conservative groups seeking 501( c )4 status ; those with “Tea Party” or “Vote” or any word that could have a conservative connotation in the title of the applicant.

Three (3) liberal groups were allegedly targeted.  I say “allegedly” because none of these three complained about wrongful treatment.

That, for the Obama Administration, comprises parity—471 to 3.

You see, everybody is equal under the law.  It’s just that some are more equal than others.

 

Allow me to ponder in print whether President Obama and his sidekick Eric Holder, the inestimable Attorney General of the United States, have ever considered the aftermath of an unequal application of the law.  Is either of them intelligent enough to recognize that an unfair application of the law invites defiance of the law?  I am not in any way attempting to encourage such defiance, but the most cursory study of world history would corroborate the accuracy of that statement.

 

This President and his Attorney General see no violation in gun-running to the Mexican Cartels, find absolutely nobody culpable for any part of the Benghazi massacre of four Americans, find no fault with the IRS slow-walking approval for conservative groups seeking to band together in support of conservative causes, and see nothing wrong in the Attorney General lying to a judge to gain his approval of a search warrant for James Rosen’s (a Fox News reporter) telephone records.  But they arrest producer Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, who made a cheap movie critical of Islam and seen by tens—not thousands, or millions—of people, and accused him of being the instigator for the Benghazi terrorist attack.  Almost a year later, Nakoula was still in jail.  Shameful. 

The government of the United States is being run (ruined?) by children.  Is there an adult in the Obama Administration?  Just one? Someone capable of and motivated to making a reasoned decision based upon doing what is right—in the interests of America and its citizens!

Conservatives stand by and allow the progressives to steal elections, build unsustainable debt and rule by executive fiat rather than the rule of law—equally applied. What does that say for the compliant majority which simply follows along and does nothing to end the travesties that this government is foisting upon its citizens?

‘Conservative’ politicians—either make a principled stand for what is moral, ethical, honest and in the interests of our country, or get the hell out of the way so that principled leaders who will at least TRY to accomplish the people’s will CAN be elected!  

 

 

 

 

 

How Can America Win The War Against Radical Islam?

 

Has it dawned on you yet that we have enemies out there—people who do not love us at all?  Quit trying to figure out what we have done to deserve this hatred; you must accept that it is so.  Those who detest us are an unreasoning group, many of whom have grown up knowing nothing about America except that she is the Great Satan, its citizens deserving only of death.  Forget about educating these misanthropes concerning the many altruistic acts Americans have performed.  Our President seems unaware of any benevolent acts this nation has done.  How should we expect foreign radicals to be aware of them?  No, you must not try to convince Muslim extremists that America and Americans have any right to live; to survive.  Their minds are irretrievably closed on the matter. 

While you are digesting that, consider also that these people who, so far as I can tell, do only two things well—hate and destroy—have absolutely no regard for human life.  Their object is to drive terror deep within the soul of their enemies, causing them to eventually capitulate to the establishment of a world-wide Islamic Caliphate rather than have more of their people killed or maimed by indiscriminate bombers who draw no distinction between the soldiers who are our front line of defense against these monsters and the women and children out shopping or enjoying a game of tag on the playground.  One victim is as good as another.  In fact, they likely feel that killing our women and children might convince us to more readily surrender rather than see more of our precious loved ones sacrificed.  

I assure you, this is exactly what our enemies are counting upon.  You see, while these Muslim terrorists have been teaching their children in Madrasas, in America and all over the world, that the ultimate service they can perform is to kill Jews and Americans in particular, all infidels in general, we in America have preached a very different theme.   

 American children have been taught, “It is not polite to hit!  All wars are unjustified, and it is never right to kill another person”.  We exercise extreme care—something euphemistically called ‘political correctness’—lest we hurt someone’s feelings, let alone maim or kill them. Beginning with George W. Bush, we have been implored not to consider all Muslims the same. The vast majority of them are “practitioners of a peaceful religion, posing no threat to America”. It is only a small minority who would consider harming us, we are told.  Our policy seems to be treat them with respect, don’t retaliate when they demonstrate a hatred for America, and they’ll leave us alone.  Fighting?  Many Americans have lost what little taste they ever had for war. “Nothing is worth fighting for”, we say.  If you were to poll a significant number of Americans regarding whether they would choose to do whatever is necessary to “secure the blessings of freedom to ourselves and our posterity” or allow the radical Muslims to go ahead and establish their Caliphate, I would be afraid to examine the results.   

I hesitate to write my next point, knowing it will be misconstrued to mean something far different than I intend, but let me call to your remembrance what happened September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya.   

Our consular establishment and its employees there were under a sustained attack that continued for more than 7 hours, from one location to the other in that city.  The United States had Special Ops teams nearby that could have responded to the attack within a couple of hours. 

Did they have knowledge of what was going on?  Of course!  It was being streamed live from the establishment that was initially attacked.  Our Special Forces groups desperately wanted to respond—that is what they train for!  And for those proud groups, it is a point of vast pride that they will not abandon their own people in their hour of need.  It must have been a bitter pill for them to swallow when they heard calls for help and were told they could not respond. 

They were not called upon.  They were instructed to ‘stand down’.  Four Americans, including the U S Ambassador to Libya, were murdered—and we did . . . nothing.  While our President promised afterward we would hunt down and punish the perpetrators, there have been no arrests to date, and we’ve been given no progress updates regarding the ‘investigation’ into those murders.  What is that old saying—“justice delayed is justice denied”?  That cuts both ways. You can say, “We’re going to hunt you down and bring you to justice”, but if you don’t follow through on that threat . . . well, inmates in prisons all over America would accuse our President of selling “wolf tickets”.  If you are not familiar with that term, I suggest you look it up. 

Has the way that the United States conducts war changed?  Dramatically.  Much of it for the better.  But we have lost sight of what it takes to win a war.  To do that, you must inflict more punishment upon your enemy than that enemy is capable of enduring.  You of course realize that entails making prosecution of a war against the United States and its people very, very costly.  In money—and particularly in the number of your people we will kill in order to preserve our liberties and way of life. 

Terrorists, be they foreign or homegrown, must be made to understand that there is a high price to pay for declaring jihad against America.  

 The thrust of what I am saying is nothing new to me.  I’ve been saying it for more than 10 years.  This is a different kind of war from any we have ever fought.  Among the fighting men with whom we are engaging are an extraordinary number of fanatics—men willing to die to accomplish a goal only partially understood by them, not at all comprehended by Americans.  Perhaps life for them is not pleasant enough for them to consider it something to be valued.  In any event, they recruit young children and make martyrs of them by persuading them to wear vests loaded with explosives into a crowd of folks to kill and maim as many as possible; women, children—no matter. 

Americans need to make up their minds whether they want to win this war with radical Islam—or abdicate.  There is no third option.  Do you remember in games of tag we played as children, when you were about to be tagged you could shout, “Tick-a-lock all around!” and the “it” couldn’t ‘tag’ you?  Maybe that was only a local rule we played by. 

Well, there is no “Tick-a-lock” in war; particularly with the radical Muslims.  They fully intend to wipe you—us—from the face of the earth.  You fight or you die.  Or you lose all the freedoms our forefathers fought to secure for us, and you agree to worship Allah as you are told and be ruled by Sharia law as the Prophet Mohammed instructed his followers.  Some might rather die.  Others might soon wish that they had selected another option.  

The only choice that the radical Muslims leave to us if we are to survive as a Christian nation—and yes, Mr. President, we ARE a Christian nation—is a very dirty, disgusting, and highly repulsive one, to civilized people.  But it is also absolutely necessary.  That option is to locate those terrorists who are coming after us—planning attacks on U S targets—and wipe them out.  To the man.  Whoever they are, wherever they are.  We have the ability to identify these people, and locate them.  The moment it is determined that jihadists at a given camp, wherever it is in the world, are conducting training in preparation for an attack on America, we must obliterate that camp and its inhabitants from the face of the earth.  If that camp is in Iran or Libya, we can and we should blow it up.  We go after them. We may have to kill thousands, even hundreds of thousands of these radicals before we persuade them they cannot defeat us.  We have more weapons, and should be more determined because we have a way of life to fight for, AND . . . right is on our side.  We have the right to live in peace and security, to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers purchased for us at great cost.  THAT’S the way the America I know would handle this problem. 

Are we up to the task?  Or have we become so ‘civilized’ that we can’t bring ourselves to do what is necessary for the preservation of our own freedoms?  Are we too squeamish to take the lives of those whose primary aim is to slaughter us, even though our goal would be simply to do unto others before they have a chance to do unto us?  Perhaps there are too many of those “hate America first’ progressive secularists who feel our nation does not deserve the freedom and prosperity that has been ours almost from the time of this country’s inception.  By the way, beware of the liberals who protest so strenuously when their patriotism is challenged.  To take journalistic liberties with a line from a Shakespeare play, “Methinks the progressive doth protest too much!” 

Unlike some of our Progressive secularists, I believe that there are certain things worth fighting for, worth dying for.  Only a coward or someone with no purpose in his life, no reason for living, will just stand meekly and allow his enemy to kill him, without putting up a vigorous defense.  If we are going to win this war that Progressives don’t even recognize as a war, we are going to have to make the radical Muslims pay the maximum price for their jihad.  (Isn’t that the penultimate oxymoron—holy war?)  Maybe you believe with the Progressives that the Iranians and most Arab neighbors are only joking or perhaps bluffing when they rant about wiping Israel off the face of the earth.  Perhaps you have also convinced yourself that America would not then replace Israel as the primary focus of hatred and destruction for radical Islam.  I take them at their word. 

The creed that folks from the era in which I grew up lived by was to get along with everyone, avoid arguments and live in peace--insofar as that was possible.  But if someone would not be placated or appeased, if you could not talk your way out of a fight, if you were backed into a corner, by all means, win that fight!  

 If someone struck you, you did your best to strike him back—only harder and many more times than he hit you.  Your goal is to make your attacker rue the day he ever allowed himself to even THINK about picking a fight with you. 

That’s the way fights are won, and . . . the best way to discourage future attacks.  

And while it sounds terribly simplistic and naïve, that’s the way wars are won.  

 

God bless America!