IRS was used to intimidate political opposition in the U.S.

During my decade in the U.S., my tax returns got audited at least twice – both of them had to be fixed when I was already back in Europe and Obama was in charge (2009, for 2007); one was federal and the other one was a Massachusetts tax audit under Deval Patrick (related to 2006, done in 2010). The number seems high to everyone and I view it as rather strong evidence that it's no coincidence.

A scandal in the U.S. strengthens the case:

IRS official knew in 2011 of 'Tea Party' targeting: watchdog report

In 2011, the tax-collecting organization was specifically harassing tax-exempt social welfare charities with keywords indicating that they were Tea Party-affiliated or conservative in general. Their applications were selectively delayed, they were ordered to publish the names of all the sponsors, and so on, and so on.




I am amazed that this is not a much bigger scandal in the U.S. because it puts America almost on par with various semi-totalitarian regimes such as Belarus etc. But maybe it has become a mainstream belief in the U.S. that conservatives may be harassed in this way? Note that 80 years ago, the German Nazis began to burn "un-German" books and most of the population in that cultural nation supported those policies, too.




Everyone who values democracy in the U.S. should make his or her contribution to the hunting of the left-wing criminals behind the monstrous scheme so that they may spend many, many years in the prison. I have no idea how high in the hierarchy one has to go to see the main people who were making something like that possible but these highest-positioned folks should be punished to increase the chances that similar things won't be repeated.

Before 1989, communists were doing similar things in our country and while I was often proud about the Velvet that associated our anticommunist revolution, I was also often sorry that we couldn't punish the people responsible for the wrongdoings somewhat more visibly than we did. A few thousand lives in prison could have been more appropriate.



When your humble correspondent endorses every word (not only by Glenn Beck but also) by Dennis Kucinich who talks about the IRS, something special is going on.

Some revelations look like something that would be called conspiracy theories a few years ago. For example, it turned out that Noam Chomsky himself and a few comrades of him were behind Stephen Hawking's boycott of of the Israeli Presidential Conference. Wow.