Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Archive for the ‘Bureacracy’ Category

If you’re opposed to the idolatrous cult of the Messianic Nanny State, beware…the Obama administration has you in their cross-hairs.

John Boyle writes at The Citizen-Times:

In a blistering letter to President Barack Obama, the Rev. Franklin Graham said the IRS targeted the two non-profits he heads with an audit last year after the organizations took out ads urging people to support biblical principles on marriage and in choosing political candidates.

In the letter, dated Tuesday, Graham said in light of recent revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, he does not believe the audit was “a coincidence — or justifiable.” Graham, son of famed Christian evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, now heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association based in Charlotte, N.C., and Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide relief organization headquartered in Boone.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” Graham concluded in the letter. “This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Read more at The Citizen-Times

Steven Ertelt writes at Life News:

James Dobson, the pro-life family advocate disclosed today that he was a victim of IRS discrimination, in a revelation that adds to the growing Internal Revenue Scandal.

Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, says he faced discrimination from the federal agency when trying to start a new group.

Family Talk Action Corporation is a Christian ministry that was formed for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ; of providing Christ-oriented advice and education to parents and children; and of speaking to cultural issues that affect the family. Dobson is the president and CEO.

On September 2, 2011, Family Talk Action filed a Form 1024 with the Internal Revenue Service requesting § 501(c)(4) status. The attorney completing this form had submitted scores of similar applications over his 26 year career with none being rejected.

In January and February 2013, Family Talk Action’s counsel called the IRS reviewing agent, R. Medley (ID no. 52402), to inquire regarding when there would be a determination of the application. Her voice mail box was full on each of these calls so no message could be left. On March 6, he called Ms. Medley again and got routed to her voice mail again. This time, he was able to leave a voice mail message and requested a return call.

Medley did not call back until March 19. Family Talk Action’s attorney asked her when the IRS would issue its determination letter. Ms. Medley responded saying, I don’t think your Form 1024 (application for exemption) will be granted because Family Talk Action is “not educational” because it does not present all views. She continued, saying that Family Talk Action sounded like a “partisan right-wing group” because, according to Ms. Medley, it only presents conservative viewpoints.

She then added, “you’re political” because you “criticized President Obama, who was a candidate.”

Read more at Life News

Dobson and Graham weren’t the only targets during the 2012 campaign:

The Biblical Recorder, the official news journal for North Carolina Southern Baptists, found itself in the same situation in March – audited for the first time since the Baptist newspaper was founded in 1833.

The newspaper garnered national attention last summer after Editor Allan Blume published an interview with Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy. In reference to his support of the traditional family, Cathy said he was “guilty as charged.”

The Biblical Recorder also published the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s ads affirming traditional marriage.

And then – came the telephone call from the Internal Revenue Service.

“It raised some red flags and made me wonder why we were being targeted for an audit when we have been around since 1833 and have never been audited before,” Blume told Fox News. “Putting it all together made me wonder.”

Blume said the timing may have been coincidental – but “it didn’t seem that way.”

“There seems to be a very anti-Christian bias that has flowed into a lot of government agencies – oppression literally against Christian organizations and groups,” he said. “It makes you wonder what’s going on.

Blume said the newspaper was eventually cleared, but the audit consumed time and money.

“It was a lot of time and energy that we didn’t have,” he said. “It took some of our staff literally several weeks of doing nothing but that (the audit),” he said.

Read more at Red State

It’s also come to light that the IRS was targeting pro-Israel groups and pro-life groups:

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”

Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The IRS also pressured another pro-life group about its religious activities. “The IRS withheld approval of an application for charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the group’s involvement with ’40 Days for Life’ and ‘Life Chain’ events,” according to the law firm. “The Fort Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner

With this much coordination against his “enemies,” there’s NO WAY Obama didn’t know about it.

“Very Frightening”: Prominent Catholic Professor Claims IRS Audited Her After Speaking Out Against Obama And Demanded To Know Who Was Paying Her

Why Would the IRS Target Billy Graham?

Surprise!  Director of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office Is Obama Donor

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

IRS Tried to Swing 2012 Election Towards Obama

Why is the IRS Regulating Speech In The First Place?

At this point, I’m not the least bit surprised.

The Investors Business Daily editorial board observes:

[A]s details of the IRS scandal emerge, it’s increasingly giving the appearance of a wide-scale effort to tilt the playing field against conservative activist groups who might have been helpful to Republican candidates in the 2012 election, while at the same time coddling liberal groups helpful to Obama.

Consider what we now know the IRS did:

• Gave preferential treatment to liberal groups. On Tuesday, USA Today reported that while the IRS was hounding conservative groups and holding up their applications for tax-exempt status, it was quickly ushering liberal groups with names like “Progress Florida” and “Missourians Organizing for Reform” through the process.

USA Today found that in the 27 months after Feb. 2010, the IRS did not approve a single Tea Party application. Over those same months, however, dozens of applications submitted by liberal groups that were engaged in the same type of activities and were seeking the same tax status as the conservative ones sailed through the agency.

[...]   • Made unusual document requests. Not only did the IRS target conservative groups for extra scrutiny, it also asked for massive amounts of information that it couldn’t possibly need to determine tax-exempt status.

[...]   • Engaged in selective leaks. This week, ProPublica, a liberal-leaning nonprofit journalism organization, revealed that the IRS had leaked it nearly a dozen pending applications, including one submitted by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.

Read more at IBD

Tea Party groups reported waiting up to 3 years to get approval for their tax-exempt status, while liberal groups were approved in a matter of weeks.   One Tea Party group claims that, after waiting for over a year with no response, they changed their name to one that sounded more “liberal” and were approved in 3 weeks.

Another Tea Party group in Ohio said that the IRS effectively shut down their efforts in the 2012 election:

Tom Zawistowski, executive director of the Portage County Tea Party, said donors stopped contributing to causes and candidates because of the confusion and fear that the IRS created.

“They succeeded in preventing us from doing what we were trying to do in 2012,” Zawistowski said. “Groups literally stopped fundraising in the summer of last year.”

The IRS is under investigation for the excessive scrutiny it gave conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status, a practice that elicited complaints from the Portage County Tea Party and other groups during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

Read more at Newsmax

In addition, the IRS audited and intimidated large donors to Romney’s campaign, such as businessman Frank VanderSloot.  He says that he wasn’t the only one:

Billionaire businessman Frank VanderSloot, a major Mitt Romney super PAC donor who was subjected to three federal agency audits after being slimed by the Obama campaign, says he isn’t the only one of his peers who was audited after donating to Romney.

VanderSloot, who was also national co-chair of the Romney campaign’s finance committee, was described in an April 2012 Obama campaign Web posting as one of eight “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.”

Shortly after the post appeared, VanderSloot was subjected to two Internal Revenue Service audits — one focusing on his personal finances, the other related to his business interests — and a Labor Department audit of one of his businesses. When asked about whether any of the other seven donors who appeared on the list were audited as well, VanderSloot spoke cautiously, but did say he “wasn’t the only one.”

“I talked to only a handful of them since,” VanderSloot said. ”I’ve reached out to all of them. But only got calls back from a handful and most of the responses were they’re just laying low, you know, they took their own beatings and they don’t want any more of it and they don’t want to even talk about this.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

We also know that the IRS leaked confidential documents which were used by Obama’s re-election campaign to attack Mitt Romney.

Conclusion: the IRS was turned into the mafia intimidation arm of the Obama campaign.

Are we finally ready to abolish a corrupt agency who’s powers can be so easily weaponized against innocent citizens?

Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General’s focus on Cincinnati employees

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

Mark Levin: The Democrats are up to their eyeballs in this IRS scandal; their fingerprints are all over it

IRS Employees Donated Over Twice as Much to Obama in 2012

Romney Donor On Obama’s ‘Enemies List’ Now Harrassed By IRS, Labor Dept.

Obama’s Enemies List: Targeting Private Citizens Who Support His Opponents

Another day, another Obama scandal.

Erin McCann reports at Healthcare IT News:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

Read more at Healthcare IT News

John Hayward remarks:

How much money is on the line in this suit?  Oh, a mere $25,000 in compensatory damages.  Per violation.  Which adds up to “a minimum of $250 billion.”

Has Congress begun those emergency sessions to shut down ObamaCare yet?  What else do they need to hear?

Read more at Human Events

Lawsuit Accuses IRS of Stealing Medical Records of 10 Million Americans

Who Trusts The Scandal-Ridden IRS To Not Abuse Access To Confidential Patient Health Information?

Big Brother Healthcare: Obamacare Includes Random Health ‘Inspections,’ Mandatory Reporting Of Your Health Stats To Gov’t

Farewell, Personal and Medical Privacy: ObamaTax is Here

No, You Can’t Google My Private Health Records: Obamacare’s Intrusive Data Grab

New HHS Regulation Creates Government Database of Your Private Health Information

The dam has broken, the curtain has been lifted, and the flood of scandals coming to light this week is finally beginning to open people’s eyes.

1. Benghazi.  Four Americans were abandoned to die in the middle of a terrorist attack.  In the aftermath the administration changed the talking points, lied about a stupid video being to blame, and spent months trying to hide the truth as they intimidated and blocked access to witnesses.

2.  The IRS admits to targeting Tea Party groups.  It turns out they were also targeting pro-life groups, pro-Israel groups, religious groups, and pretty much anybody who dared to criticize Obama’s policies.   They were also leaking confidential information about the opposition to their political friends.

3.  The Department of Justice secretly obtained months of phone records from over 100 AP reporters and sources, including Congress.   Guess the Obama administration likes to keep a jealous eye on his favorite mistress.

4. HHS Secretary shakes down companies she regulates for “donations” to implement Obamacare.   It’s the Chicago way.

5. The EPA applies a double standard when dealing with conservative vs. liberal groups.   If you’re “green,” you’re clean.  If you oppose EPA power grabs and agenda, you’re treated as an enemy.

Lest we forget, there is also Sestak, Solyndra, Pigford, and Fast & Furious.

So how is Obama trying to squirm his way out of trouble?

One unique excuse being offered by David Axelrod is that the government is simply too big for Obama to know what’s going on.  Yes,  you heard that right…the liberals’ favorite argument that more government is the solution to every problem has suddenly turned into an excuse for ruling class ignorance and incompetence.

Another approach has been to claim that Obama is simply a passive and aloof leader who tends to distance himself from the nitty gritties of governing, and therefore has no clue what his underlings are up to.

Obama’s consistent claim that he always finds out about these scandals the same way that we do – when they first appear on the news – has become such a running joke that even Jon Stewart tore into him over the absurdity of it all.

Whoever created this meme summed it up beautifully:

Yep.  That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

Scandal-Ridden Obama: Republicans Are Making Americans “Cynical About Government”

Obama Scandal Scorecard

A Quick Guide to the Four Major Scandals that May Bring Down the Obama Administration

And Then There Were Five Obama Scandals…?

Scandals Here, There and Everywhere

What we know Obama doesn’t know grows daily

What does the scandal cascade teach us about trust in government power?

Barely a week ago, President Obama stood before a crowd of new graduates and told them to reject the voices which warned them to be wary of government tyranny and oppression.

His remarks are all the more ironic, given the explosion of scandals which have been exposed this week, not the least of which involves the Obama administration using the IRS to intimidate and harass political opponents.

The Associated Press reports:

The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

Read more at AP

Conservative applicants were forced to answer bizarre and intrusive questions, provide mounds of paperwork, and wait as the IRS stalled on their applications for up to three years.   For some groups, these hurdles prevented them from fully participating in the 2012 election.

The criteria for targeted groups was expanded over time to include nearly anyone who dared disagree with Obama’s policies:

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting “Tea Party” and “patriot” groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas.

[...]   The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.”

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.

Read more at Fox News

It wasn’t just Tea Party groups being targeted.  The IRS also targeted pro-life groups, Jewish groups, and individuals who dared to challenge, question or criticize Obama or his policies, including Billy Graham, columnist Todd Starnes, news anchor Larry Conners, businessman and Romney donor Frank VanderSloot, and  Wayne Allyn Root, who describes the ugly ordeal:

I am the face of Obama’s IRS attacks. I am proof of how bad it is, when it started, that it was directed at individuals as well as groups, and that it did not involve only “low level IRS employees.”

[...]  Most importantly, I’m living proof it was directed at individuals — with the intent of ruining our lives. It almost ruined mine. This is important because the American public needs to see the faces of the targets. I have a wife and 4 children. I didn’t deserve this.

Here is my personal story. I’m a small businessman, but also a national media personality with a megaphone. I’m an outspoken critic of Obama. My views are seen by millions on Fox News Channel, and read at web sites like The Blaze and FoxNews.com. And in almost every media appearance its pointed out that I’m Obama’s Columbia Class of ‘83 classmate. You don’t think Obama noticed?

The result? In January, 2011 an unprecedented IRS attack was launched against me. My personal story of IRS attack was covered extensively by conservative media.

In 30 years of doing business, I’ve had a spotless tax record. And I had never heard a peep from the IRS. The attack was so over-zealous and out of bounds, I was forced to hire one of this nation’s top tax attorneys, who took my case to court where we won a 100% victory.

My relief at being vindicated lasted five days! Then the IRS announced a new tax audit against me.

My attorney had never heard of such a thing and, before me, assumed it wasn’t possible.

The many legal and accounting experts (who drained my savings)  all agreed this could only happen if I was on “Obama Enemies List.”

The attack was chilling and intimidating, affecting every aspect of my life. It was meant to bleed me dry, and teach me a lesson — if you dare to criticize Obama, get ready to lose everything.

Read more at Fox News

Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld claims that the IRS has been used to retaliate against businessmen who dared to speak out, as well:

“Having been in the position of a chief executive officer, I can understand why a businessman might be reluctant to speak out against the actions of federal agencies that have the power to harm their enterprises,” he wrote in Rumsfeld’s Rules, which goes on sale Tuesday.

“By doing so, corporate leaders could expose themselves and their companies to government retaliation–from the IRS, the SEC, congressional committees, or the many other agencies of the federal government that regulate and oversee their operations,” he added.

Criticism of presidents, he said, is hard. “I suppose if more business leaders defended capitalism, there might not be quite as many smiling photos with politicians.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner

As if this weren’t bad enough, it appears that not only was the IRS targeting conservatives for additional scrutiny and investigation, but they were also handing over their confidential information to progressive groups that could use the information against them:

The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.

Read more at Breitbart

It didn’t stop there:

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

Eric Holder’s corrupt Department of Justice has promised to investigate the IRS scandal.   Congressman Issa scoffed at the idea of the Executive branch legitimately investigating itself, promising a thorough and transparent congressional investigation.

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight is already demanding all IRS communications which contain conservative buzz words such as “tea party” or “patriot,” along with the names of anyone involved in the scandal.

With full Obamacare implementation only months away, who wouldn’t want the same agency that recently admitted to targeting dissidents to have access to all of your personal health info?

Repeal the 16th Amendment. Abolish the IRS.

The IRS Is The Internal Retaliation Service

Mark Levin Forces IRS Apology for Targeting Conservative Groups

IRS targeted conservatives as early as 2010. Read I.G. report.

IRS Intimidation Forced Founder To Shut Down Tea Party Group

IRS Lied to Congress about Targeting Tea Party

Republicans slam IRS targeting of Tea Party as ‘chilling,’ a form of intimidation

Ted Cruz: IRS Scandal “Harkens Back To The Days Of Nixon,” Proof Obama Keeps An “Enemies List”

A Reminder of How the Obama Government Has Repeatedly Targeted Conservatives

IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups

McConnell warned IRS was ‘demanding attendance lists, meeting transcripts, and donor information’ from tea party groups

Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter: A president shouldn’t even joke about abusing IRS power

Chuck Todd on IRS targeting right-wing groups: “Why aren’t more Democrats jumping on this? It’s outrageous…”

George Will: If Bush Had IRS Going After Progressives ‘We Would Have All Hell Breaking Loose’

IRS Employees Donated Over Twice as Much to Obama in 2012

Obama’s Enemies List: Targeting Private Citizens Who Support His Opponents

If they’ve already proven themselves capable of targeting conservatives with only their tax information, what will they be capable of when they have even more information on their targets?

If they’ve already illegally released conservatives’ confidential tax information, what’s to stop them from leaking dissidents’ personal health information as well?

Peter Suderman warns:

Obamacare is not merely a massive overhaul of the health care system. It is also a substantial expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s because the law relies on the tax collection agency to both enforce its individual mandate and administer the tax credits the law offers to subsidize the purchase of health insurance. Following recent revelations that agents in multiple IRS offices, including tax officials in Washington, targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, a number of former and current Republican legislators are already counseling caution about the agency’s role in administering the law.

Concerns about the agency’s oversight of the health law are well-founded—and not only because of general concerns about the agency’s judgment.

For one thing, the IRS appears to have specifically targeted groups that opposed the health care law. According to The Washington Post, “although some of the groups were explicitly labeled ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot,’ others that came under intense scrutiny were focused on challenging the Affordable Care Act — known by many as Obamacare — or the integrity of federal elections.”

In other words, the agency has singled out Obamacare opponents for unusual treatment. That does not speak well of the agency’s ability to fairly carry out its duties under the law.

Read more at Reason

Indeed it does not.

The editorial board at Investors Business Daily is similarly concerned:

[O]bamaCare’s individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income-tax returns must deal with and report personal health information to the IRS.

The IRS will require the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer, the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company, the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan and whether the plan was purchased in one of ObamaCare’s “exchanges.”

Heavy fines will be levied for failure to jump through all the government’s hoops.

The new tax mandates and penalties in ObamaCare will require up to 16,500 new IRS personnel to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses, according to an analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the then-minority GOP staff of the House Ways & Means Committee in 2010.

Will the IRS enforce the mandate rules impartially, or will it go after only those who support individual liberty and oppose government encroachment on it?

Will ObamaCare resisters also be considered enemies of the state?

Read more at IBD

The IRS Targeting Scandal Could Disrupt Obamacare

Gingrich: IRS Targeting Scandal Raises Issues About Obamacare

IRS Claims It Can Read Your E-mail Without A Warrant

IRS Goes On Hiring Frenzy To Enforce Obamacare Penalties/Tax Hikes

Get Ready For More Taxes, More Intrusive IRS

Nice health care company you’ve got there…would be a pity if anything happened to it.

Welcome to pay-to-play health care.  It’s the Chicago way.

Sarah Kliff reports at the Washington Post:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

Over the past three months, Sebelius has made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and asked that they contribute whatever they can to nonprofit groups that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law, according to an HHS official and an industry person familiar with the secretary’s activities. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about private discussions.

[...]  Federal regulations do not allow department officials to fundraise in their professional capacity. They do, however, allow Cabinet members to solicit donations as private citizens “if you do not solicit funds from a subordinate or from someone who has or seeks business with the Department, and you do not use your official title,” according to Justice Department regulations.

Read more at the Washington Post

Guy Benson observes:

This has all the hallmarks of a shakedown.  DrewM at Ace of Spades snarkily summarizes: “Hi I’m HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. You may recall I have tremendous discretionary power over your company and entire industry. Would you like to donate to my favorite cause? You would? Thank you so much.”  Obamacare vests Sebelius with an enormous amount of regulatory power; she has the ability to make life exceedingly difficult for any company that crosses her (recall her “zero tolerance” quote).  “Friendly” requests for “voluntary” donations may not seem optional for companies who sense the HHS Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.   [...]

Harry Reid recently grumbled about Republicans’ refusal to pump more taxpayer money into Obamacare’s implementation phase.  The GOP has stood firm against committing even one more penny to the extravagantly expensive, enduringly unpopular and logistically shambolic program.  The administration’s apparent solution to this problem of their own making is to coerce private businesses into financing a bailout.

Read more at Townhall

Senator McConnell argues:

“That’s absolutely improper if not illegal. This administration will stop at nothing to get its way. It will do anything it can to silence its critics.”

Read more at Breitbart

Now begins the investigation into yet another Obama administration scandal:

House Republicans are starting a probe into Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius soliciting donations from companies her agency might regulate, to help sign up uninsured Americans for ObamaCare.

[T]he solicitations, through speeches and phone calls, have raised questions about whether a federal official can ask for money from groups he or she oversees.

The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee began a probe by sending a letter Monday to Sebelius and groups that she might have contacted.

The letter to Sebelius asks her to provide several pieces of information by May 27 related to the solicitations, including names of those contacted “in this unusual fundraising pitch” as well as phone logs and whether other agency officials were involved.

Read more at Fox News

Committee Investigating HHS For Illegally Soliciting Funds

Sebelius Shakes Down Companies She Regulates for Cash to Implement ObamaCare

Sebelius Under Fire for ObamaCare Fundraising Bypassing Congress

GOP probing Sebelius’s fundraising push: “Clear appearance of a conflict of interest”

Lamar Alexander: Sebelius fundraising ‘arguably an even bigger issue’ than Iran-Contra

HHS Sticks Taxpayers With $20 Million Bill For Propaganda Promoting Obamacare

Sestak, Solyndra, Pigford, Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting, AP phone records, HHS soliciting funds, and now the revelation of EPA double standards.

With this administration it’s just one lawless scandal after another. When will the American people finally say ENOUGH!?

Michael Bastasch reports at the Daily Caller:

The IRS may not be the only federal agency singling out conservative groups. Records suggest that the Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for environmental groups to file Freedom of Information Act requests than conservative organizations.

According to EPA records obtained by the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, since January 2012 the agency has granted fee waivers for 75 out of 82 Freedom of Information Act Requests sent by major environmental groups, denying only seven of them — meaning green groups saw their fees waived 92 percent of the time.

At the same time, the EPA frequently denied fee waivers to conservative groups. EPA records show that the agency rejected or ignored 21 out of 26 fee waiver requests from such conservative groups as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Energy Research, and Judicial Watch — an 81 percent rejection rate.

[...]  “This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI senior fellow Chris Horner, author of “The Liberal War on Transparency.”

Horner described the EPA’s actions as “a clear pattern of favoritism for allied groups and “a concerted campaign to make life more difficult for those deemed unfriendly.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

Bryan Preston observes:

This kind of favoritism springs from a worldview. The EPA that authored this bias was the same EPA led by Lisa Jackson. She left office last year amid her own scandal involving the use of personal, secret email accounts to conduct agency business — the “Richard Windsor” scandal.

It’s time to ask a serious question. In light of the IRS targeting conservatives and the EPA denying conservatives at the same time, do liberals even believe that conservatives are due fair treatment under the law?

Read more at PJ Media

The EPA has become an unaccountable, tyrannical weapon wielded by unelected bureaucrats to abuse unconstitutional powers to advance their agenda.

It’s time for the EPA to be abolished, along with every other agency that doesn’t fall under the specific, enumerated powers granted in the constitution to the federal government.

Note To Republicans: Don’t Just Rein in the EPA, Abolish It

Report: EPA followed double standard for conservative groups too?

EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, denies conservative groups

EPA Administrator Resigns Amid Investigation for Using Fake Emails to Hide Info

EPA’s Official Position On Oil Companies: “Crucify Them”

Just Freeze! EPA Says Burning Wood Is Bad, but so Is Natural Gas, Coal, Oil

EPA Punishes Companies For Not Buying ‘Green’ Fuel That Doesn’t Exist

EPA Uses Drones To Spy On Mid-Western Farms, Cattle Ranches

EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property

THIS is why we need the Parental Rights Amendment!

Parents don’t even realize that the state now considers their parental rights something that are delegated to them by the state, rather than being unalienable rights endowed by Nature and Nature’s God! If a doctor decides to play god or someone decides to make a false accusation, your rights as a parent can be suddenly revoked, and you’re considered guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

A Sacramento family was torn apart after a 5-month-old baby boy was taken from his parents following a visit to the doctor.

The young couple thought their problems were behind them after their son had a scare at the hospital, but once they got home their problems got even worse.

It all began nearly two weeks ago, when Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took their 5-month-old boy Sammy to Sutter Memorial Hospital to be treated for flu symptoms, but they didn’t like the care Sammy was getting.

For example, one day Anna asked why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.

“I asked her, for what is that? And she’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like, ‘you’re working as a nurse, and you don’t even know what to give to my baby for what,’” Anna explained.

According to Anna, a doctor later said Sammy shouldn’t have been on the antibiotics.

Anna said Sammy suffers from a heart murmur and had been seeing a doctor at Sutter for regular treatment since he was born. After Sammy was treated for flu symptoms last week, doctors at Sutter admitted him to the pediatric ICU to monitor his condition. After a few days, Anna said doctors began talking about heart surgery.

“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.

Anna argued with doctors about getting a second opinion. Without a proper discharge, she finally took Sammy out of the hospital to get a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente.

“The police showed up there. They saw that the baby was fine,” Anna said. “They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought that this baby is dying on our arms.”

Medical records from the doctor treating Sammy at Kaiser Permanente said the baby as clinically safe to go home with his parents. The doctor added, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”

“So police saw the report from the doctors, said, ‘okay guys, you have a good day,’ and they walked away,” Anna said.

Read more at News 10

That SHOULD have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.   Many doctors are no longer recognizing the right of parents to disagree with their recommendations and/or seek a second opinion.  With god-like arrogance, they seek to intimidate, threaten and punish any patient that dares to question them, and the law allows them to do it.

Political Outcast continues:

Evidently the doctors and staff at Sutter were offended that Anna wanted to seek a second opinion because the day after the two hospital visits, police and Child Protective Services showed up at their house.  Alex met them outside the door and says that the police pushed him against the house and then smacked him down to the ground.  The police then opened the door without asking permission and entered the house.  Anna, who was frightened to death, turned her camera on to record what was happening.  She recorded one of the police officers telling her:

“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?”

The policeman took Sammy from them and turned him over to the CPS agent.  They told the shocked and frightened parents that they had a report that Sammy had been severely neglected and that an investigation was being launched.

Alex and Anna have retained an attorney to help them sort the whole thing out.  Their attorney says that there are absolutely no signs of neglect and that the exact opposite is true.  The parents have never missed an appointment and they have the doctor’s records from Kaiser indicating that Sammy was okay to go home and that he was not in any danger.

Read more at Political Outcast

Even though the baby shows no signs of neglect and the parents have not been charged with any crime, CPS forced them to agree to restrictions on their parental rights in order to regain custody.   They have lost their right to disagree with the doctors over their son’s treatment, and must allow  intrusive “follow up” visits into their home.  ”Follow up” for what?  Further proof that the parents have done nothing wrong?  These parents are being treated as if they are guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

Five-month-old Sammy, who was removed from his parents’ custody by Sacramento County Child Protective Services last week, will be transported to Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, a Sacramento County judge ruled Monday. The baby has been in protective custody at Sutter Memorial Hospital.

The Nikolayevs have since been fighting to get their baby back and talking with local and international media to explain their case.

The court also ruled Monday the parents must following all medical advice from now on, including not taking their child from Stanford without proper discharge.

A county social worker will make regular house visits to check on Sammy once he is returned home.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Paul Seave said he believed all of the attorneys involved worked in the best interest of Sammy.

Read more at News 10

The “best interest of Sammy” was to be left with his parents the minute the cops saw he was in no danger, investigate the first hospital’s false reports to CPS, and investigate CPS’s unlawful abuses of power to harass and tear apart an innocent family!

ParentalRights.org explains why the Parental Rights Amendment is desperately needed:

Traditionally, the Supreme Court has recognized the “fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child,” found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Due Process” clause. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982) This protection, however, has been lost on Sacramento CPS. It is also being weakened through judicial erosion in the courts.

Passage of the Parental Rights Amendment will provide parents an explicit constitutional protection; otherwise, they’ll have to rely on the courts, hoping they will continue to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as they traditionally have (but increasingly no longer do). And the PRA will allow organizations like CPS to know exactly what the rules are that they must follow.

“The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their child is a fundamental right. Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.”

These two sentences would make clear that CPS cannot take a child away unless it is prepared to prove that the child was in danger caused by abuse or neglect. In this case, it would increase the chances that common sense would prevail and baby Sammy would have gotten to stay home safe and sound with his mom and dad.

Read more at ParentalRights.org

Imagine how many more incidents like this we are likely to see with a government takeover of health care!

Confiscating the baby: Obamacare and Parental Rights

Calif. Parents Whose Baby Boy Was ‘Snatched’ by Police Tell Their Unbelievable Story; Lawsuit ‘Absolutely’ Forthcoming

Couple calls for CPS reforms after reuniting with baby

The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation

MSNBC Host: Kids Don’t Belong To Their Parents, They ‘Belong To Their Communities’

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

DOJ: Children Do Not Need – and Have No Right to – Mothers or Fathers

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Who will raise kids: Mom, Dad or state?

The ATF, along with the DOJ, allowed hundreds of American guns to fall into the hands of dangerous drug cartels.

But don’t worry.  I’m sure they’ll be much more responsible when it comes to your personal information.

Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr. reports at CNS News:

A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a “massive” online database capable of pulling up individuals’ personal information, connections and associates.

On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled “Investigative System.”  The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes.

The document says that the system will be utilized by staff “to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.”

The system is described as a “massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds.”

[...]   The system “provides a means to rapidly check records across the country” and is “necessary in assisting investigators, agents and analyst to find people, their assets, relatives, associates and more.”

The ATF says they will use this system to provide information to Intelligence Analysts, Special Agents, Inspectors, Financial Investigators and Law Enforcement.

Read more at CNS News

Who needs a warrant anymore?  Don’t you feel safer?

JUST PERFECT: ATF seeks ‘massive’ database to track U.S. citizens, but not the weapons it sent to Mexico’s drug cartels

Obama’s Gun Plan: Arm Drug Cartels And Terrorists, Disarm Americans?

Feds Launch Intrusive New ‘Common Core’ Student Tracking Database – Time To Opt Out!

U.S. To Allow Spy Agencies To Snoop Through Americans’ Financal Records Without Warrants

New HHS Regulation Creates Government Database of Your Private Health Information

What 4th Amendment? Gov’t May Now Collect, Catalog, and Store All Private Information

Citizens Opposed To Taxes And Regulations, Concerned About Online Privacy Now Classified As Potential Violent ‘Extremists’

Common Core is a federal attempt to nationalize curriculum.  We MUST oppose this, from every school board!

Americans For Prosperity is sounding the alarm:

Critics of the Common Core State Standards had our fears confirmed on Monday when Education Week reported that the Department of Education will oversee the assessment test design for the new national standards. This is no April Fool’s joke: Washington will soon be directly regulating what America’s schoolchildren learn and on what they are tested. This massive expansion of federal power is concerning considering the federal government’s failed history of intervening in public education.

As I recently explained in AFP Foundation’s school choice policy report, the federal government has had its meddling hands in America’s public schools for decades. From the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to No Child Left Behind today, Congress has provided Title I federal funding to schools with low-income student bodies for the past half-century. But, this money is by no means free. As is often the case with federal funds, Title I comes with strings attached – which explains how Washington has been such a major player in American education despite the fact that public schools are function of the states.

[...]  After decades of failed federal intervention in America’s public schools, Common Core’s similar approach of centrally planning public schools has worried education reformers since the initiative was launched in 2009. For years, proponents of the standards have tried to soothe these fears by emphasizing that they are not administered by the federal government. Common Core’s official website, for example, downplays the protests by claiming “[t]he federal government had no role in the development of the Common Core State Standards and will not have a role in their implementation.”

Perhaps this claim could hold water four years ago, but today it’s evident that Common Core is nothing more than a federal ruse to exert even greater control over America’s classrooms.  [...]

[I]t looks like Common Core is poised to repeat and amplify the federal government’s failed educational interventions by giving the central government even greater control of what American schoolchildren are learning. If the success of school choice has taught  us anything, it’s that education is most effective when controlled by actors on the local level, like teachers with freedom in how to teacher their students at charter schools, or parents with options of where to send their child to school through opportunity scholarships. Choice from the bottom, not force from the top, leads to effective learning.

Read more at AFP

Attention, parents: Common Core opt-out form now available

Six Reasons Why Conservatives Should Object to the Common Core

‘Common Core’ Threatens Homeschooling Freedom

Feds Launch Intrusive New ‘Common Core’ Student Tracking Database – Time To Opt Out!

‘Common Core’ Banishes Literature, Replaces With Government Propaganda

CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

Obama Takes Over Public Schools With ‘ObamaCore’ Curriculum

Rotten to the Core: Reader feedback from the frontlines

Rotten to the Core, Part 1: Obama’s War on Academic Standards

Rotten to the Core, Part 2: Readin’, writin’ and deconstructionism

Rotten to the Core, Part 3: Lessons from Texas and the Growing Grassroots Revolt

Rotten to the Core, Part 4: The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Database

Support School Choice!

Boomtown 2: The Business Of Food Stamps

View on YouTube

For the Left, this is all part of the Cloward-Piven strategy to overwhelm the system with impossible demands, bringing about an inevitable collapse that will set the stage for a Communist revolution.

For corporations vying for their turn at the taxpayer trough, this is a dance with the devil…and they don’t even realize it.

Tim Brown reports at Freedom Outpost:

“Boomtown 1: Washington, The Imperial City” exposed the cronyism and luxurious lifestyle of Washington, DC’s power elite. On Friday “Boomtown 2: The Business of Food Stamps” Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon exposed how politicians and corporations have used the country’s food stamps program to profit on the backs of tax payers.

Though the food stamps program was always meant to be a “safety net” to provide temporary assistance, Schweizer pointed out that it has “become an insider game of power and profit” for corporations who are attempting to get a slice of the $75 billiion provided by the taxpayers.

[...]  The GAI president points out that the food stamps program was intended to provide basic foods, but has grown to include all types of things including soft drinks and fast food. We have also pointed out that the food stamps program has been used to purchase guns, drugs and pay for strippers and massage parlors, not to mention that the USDA has targeted illegal aliens for the program.

The fraud of the food stamps program has grown since EBT cards were issued in 2002, which gave no reason for either government or corporations to look to reform the system or limit the fraud.

Read more at Freedom Outpost

Tom Fitten warns at Breitbart:

The Obama administration is proudly shattering welfare records with an astonishing number of people collecting public benefits long term, especially food stamps.

In fact, as I discussed in a special to be aired on Hannity tonight, Obama and his friends have actually found a way to meld corporate cronyism with food stamp abuse to line their pockets while undermining our election systems at the same time.

Under Obama, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, has exploded with a record number of people – 46 million and growing – getting free groceries from the American taxpayer. Adding insult to injury, a federal audit revealed last year that many who don’t qualify for food stamps now receive them under a new “broad-based” eligibility program that disregards income and asset requirements.

Obama says the food stamp extension is part of his intention to eradicate “food insecure households.” However, it’s really part of a massive redistribution of wealth. Last year, taxpayers were forced to pay more than $80 billion, including an estimated $750 million a year in outright fraud.

[...]  According to the study, the current food stamp Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card industry is dominated by three main players: J.P. Morgan Electronic Financial Services, Affiliated Computer Services, and eFunds. Together they collect money from 49 states and three territories. In fact, since 2004, 18 of 24 states that contract with J.P. Morgan have paid more than $560 million to the financial monolith.

There is little wonder then that those three companies appear to be perfectly content with the exploding food stamp rolls – and wholly unconcerned about rampant fraud and abuse. As the GAI study observed, “The more persons enrolled in the program, the more money the EBT industry makes.” That may also help explain why, when the state of Florida initiated an eight-month program to detect and prevent fraud among its three million EBT card users, J.P. Morgan saw fit to assign just one employee to the program.

And then there is this: During the 2008 election, Barack Obama received more than $800,000 from J.P. Morgan alone. After his election, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, initiated by Obama and passed by a compliant Congress, made two major changes to existing food stamp policies. First, it increased benefits by 13.6 percent. Second, it actively encouraged states to add more recipients to their food stamp rolls.

And the corporate cronyism and political payoffs don’t end there. The House and Senate Agricultural Committees have jurisdiction over all food assistance and distribution programs, including the food stamp program. So, just as one might expect, analysis by the GAI uncovered a clear trend of increasing contributions to Agriculture Committee members of both the House and Senate on the part of J.P. Morgan that clearly coincides with their entry into the lucrative EBT card, food stamp market.

Between 1998 and 2002, JP Morgan’s total contributions per election cycle averaged $82,897. After the bank entered the EBT services market until the 2010 election cycle, their average donation per cycle more than doubled to $215,120. And the Agriculture Committees, in turn, have broadly expanded the number of food stamp recipients.

Of course, the more recipients that are added to the food stamp rolls, the more voters Obama can count on at election time. And the offshoots of Obama’s former client and campaign partner ACORN not only assure that those voters are registered but also that they know to whom they are beholden for their government handouts.

Read more at Breitbart

Food stamps recipients double under Obama; Result? Selling food stamps for an iPhone 5 is all the rage

15% of Americans Now Receive Food Stamps

Boomtown 2: Taxpayers Have Spent 15 Trillion On The War on Poverty

Taxpayers now fund 126 separate federal anti-poverty programs

Schweizer: ‘No One Representing Taxpayer’ In Food Stamp Program

Homeland Security ‘Welcome’ Materials Recruit New Immigrants Onto Overburdened Welfare Programs

Government Launches $3M Ad Campaign To Recruit More People Into Food Stamp Dependency

EBT: How The Culture of Welfare Creates A Parasitic Class That Devours Its Host

How Food Stamps Morphed From Temporary Relief to Permanent Entitlement

Government Benefits Are Destroying The Family, Creating More Poverty

Boomtown: New Series Exposes D.C. Ruling Class Living High On Taxpayer Money

What the Left Misunderstands about Poverty and Dependency

The foundation for the housing crisis was laid with the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, where the government took it upon itself to encourage home ownership by pressuring banks to lend to lower-income buyers, often to meet arbitrary racial quotas. Obviously they haven’t learned a thing from where that got us.

Would it surprise anyone to learn that as a lawyer, Obama sued banks to force them to issue subprime loans?  He also worked for ACORN, which specialized in using the Community Reinvestment Act to shake down banks and pressure them to loan money to low-income minorities or face “discrimination” charges.

David Harsanyi reports at Human Events:

According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration is pushing big banks to make more home loans available to Americans with bad credit – the same kind of  government guidance that helped blow up the housing market:

In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Think about this statement. The administration is asking banks – banks that Washington bails out; banks that Washington crafts regulations for — to embrace risky policies that put the institution and its investors (not to mention, all of us) in a  precarious position. So precarious, in fact, that banks have to ask government if they can be freed of any legal or financial consequences.

Read more at Human Events

What could possibly go wrong?

John Perazzo warns at Front Page Magazine:

These types of government policies initially emerged the mid-1970s, when “progressive” Democrats in Congress began a campaign to help low-income minorities become homeowners. This led to the passage, in 1977, of theCommunity Reinvestment Act (CRA), a mandate for banks to make special efforts to seek out and lend to borrowers of meager means. Founded on the premise that government intervention is necessary to counteract the fundamentally racist and inequitable nature of American society and the free market, the CRA was eventually transformed from an outreach effort into a strict quota system by the Clinton administration. Under the new arrangement, if a bank failed to meet its quota for loans to low-income minorities, it ran the risk of getting a low CRA rating from the FDIC. This, in turn, could derail the bank’s efforts to expand, relocate, merge, etc.  From a practical standpoint, then, banks had no recourse but to drastically lower their standards on down-payments and underwriting, and to approve many loans even to borrowers with weak credit credentials. As Hoover Institution Fellow Thomas Sowell explains, this led to “skyrocketing rates of mortgage delinquencies and defaults,” and the rest is history.

The CRA was by no means the only mechanism designed by government to impose lending quotas on financial institutions. For instance, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) developed rules encouraging lenders to dramatically hike their loan-approval rates for minority applicants and began bringing legal actions against mortgage bankers who failed to do so, regardless of the reason. This, too, caused lenders to lower their down-payment and income requirements.

Moreover, HUD pressured the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest sources of housing finance in the United States, to earmark a steeply rising number of their own loans for low-income borrowers. Many of these were subprime mortgages—loans characterized by higher interest rates and less favorable terms in order to compensate lenders for the high credit risk they were incurring.

Additional pressure toward this end was applied by community organizations like the pro-socialist ACORN. By accusing banks—however frivolously or unjustly—of having engaged in racially discriminatory lending practices that violated the mandates of the CRA, these groups commonly sued banks toprevent them from expanding or merging as they wished. Barack Obama, ACORN’s staunch ally, was strongly in favor of this practice. Indeed, in a 1994 class-action lawsuit against Citibank, Obama represented ACORN in demanding more favorable terms for subprime homebuyer mortgages. After four years of being dragged through the mud, a beleaguered Citibank—anxious to put an end to the incessant smears (charging racism) that Obama and his fellow litigators were hurling in its direction (to say nothing of its mounting legal bills)—agreed to settle the case.

Forbes magazine puts it bluntly: “Obama has been a staunch supporter of the CRA throughout his public life.” In other words, he has long advocated the very policies that already have reduced the real-estate market to rubble. And now he is actively pushing those very same practices again.

Read more at Front Page Magazine

Housing Crisis Redux: ‘Community Reinvestment Act’ that caused mortgage crisis is back, as if 2008 never happened

How Obama Enabled Unscrupulous Banks to Foreclose on Innocent Homeowners

How Government Caused The Mortgage Crisis

Democrats in their own words: Covering up the Fannie/Freddie scam that caused our Economic Crisis

The Free Market Was Framed: Government Intervention Caused The Financial Crisis

The Law of Unintended Consequences: How Government Created the Subprime Mess and Led Us to the Brink of Financial Disaster

Terrifying Chart Proves Obama’s Policies Lead Towards Catastrophic “Cloward-Piven” Orchestrated Financial Crisis

Obama Pushing Banks to Offer Sub-Prime Mortgages Again

Holder Launches Witch Hunt Against ‘Racist’ Banks That Won’t Lend To Minorities With Bad Credit

Short answer: because if they acknowledge parents’ fundamental right to educate their children, they will have to recognize it for all parents here, as well.

Dell Tackett warns at Truth Observed:

Uwe and Hanna are home-school parents from Germany. But Germany doesn’t tolerate home schooling. Those who do are harassed, fined, imprisoned, and can lose custody of their children. Uwe and Hanna had such a religious and moral problem with what German government schools were teaching that they chose to school their children themselves, just as millions in this country do every day. But Germany’s laws, based upon a 1938 law signed by Adolph Hitler, believe that Germany’s children belong to the State from an educational standpoint. The law prohibits parents from educating their own children so that Germany can prevent a different worldview, or “society” as the law states, from arising.

After increased persecution from the German state, Uwe and Hanna fled to the United States. A Federal judge heard the arguments and granted them asylum, stating that Germany’s law and policy was “Nazi-esque”.

Immediately, the Obama Administration filed suit against the ruling and will bring the case before the United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Court on April 23. They are seeking to deport the Romeike family, which would send Uwe and Hanna back to Germany to face jail and possibly the loss of their children.

Why does the administration seek to do this?

Because it agrees with the German law. It doesn’t believe that parents have a right to educate their children. It is more in line with the National Education Association that homeschooling shouldn’t be allowed. It believes that the government can best educate “America’s children”. It doesn’t want another worldview taught in this country. It wants America’s children to have one worldview and one worldview only.

That is why they don’t want to grant asylum to the Romeike family. That would affirm parental rights—rights that have been fought for by so many courageous parents over the last 40 years in this country. Rights that I believe will take a serious hit if this case is won by the Administration.

Think of it this way: if the Administration wins this case, the legal statement and precedence will be set that parents do not have a fundamental right to educate their children and if the State were to ban home schooling, it would not be a violation of parental rights at all.

Read more at Truth Observed

A plea from abused homeschoolers

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

German Homeschooling Family Flees to US

Flashback: US grants home schooling German family political asylum

Crackdown on Homeschooling in the Near Future?

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

In Oregon, there’s a big push to automatically register people to vote when they apply for drivers’ licenses.   Not coincidentally, there’s also a push to issue drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens.   Oregon is typically a test case for liberal policies that the Left wants to implement nationwide.

Earlier this month, Obama issued an executive order to create a presidential commission “to address issues including long lines at the polls, voter registration and voter access.”   Translation: to make sure they register everyone under the sun whether eligible or not, and never check ID to make sure they’re legit.

Paul Bedard reports at the Washington Examiner:

The 61-page online Obamacare draft application for health care includes asking if the applicant wants to register to vote, raising the specter that pro-Obama groups being tapped to help Americans sign up for the program will also steer them to register with the Democratic Party.

On page 59, after numerous questions about the applicant’s identity and qualification for Obamacare, comes the question: “Would you like to register to vote?” The placement of the question could lead some to believe they have to register to vote to get health care.

[...]  In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Monday, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., chairman of the House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee, said HHS is overstepping its bounds by a mile.

[...]  Boustany, a Louisiana Republican, said the application raises two alarming issues: What does HHS plan to do with all the information it collects on each applicant, and will pro-Obama groups like AARP and Families USA — which might be tapped as “navigators” to sign people up to Obamacare — steer them to register as Democrats. Others have indicated that groups like Planned Parenthood and ACORN could also act as navigators.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

Remember – illegal aliens are not ineligible for Obamacare, so they can easily register using this application, and their legal status will likely never be checked.

Brandon Darby warns at Breitbart:

“This is classic community organizing on steroids — with the taxpayer footing much of the bill,” ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief told Breitbart News. MonCrief further stated:

ACORN solidified its power in whatever community it was in by helping people with government assistance applications and voter registration. After we processed your public assistance application, we knew where you belonged to each government program. When it came time to fill a bus to the polls, the same person that helped you get food stamps or tax advice could show up and press you to go vote.  Simply put, your local SEIU chapter or spin-off organization of ACORN will receive government funds and private donations to transition as many people into the Obamacare exchanges as possible – all while keeping tabs of your voter registration data to later run get-out-the-vote efforts. In California alone, the cost of navigators is expected to be in the ‘hundreds of millions of dollars.’

True the Vote and its Latino initative, Voto Honesto, expressed unease with the new arrangement Obamacare navigators will bring, citing the risk of increased voter intimidation in future elections.

“Voter intimidation can take many forms, all of which are felonies,” Engelbrecht said. “This navigator system brings with it the unabated risk that community organizers will attach strings between the public benefit and the recipient’s vote – especially in the minds of the most economically vulnerable among us.”

The election watchdog said it would be expanding efforts in emergent communities to expose such coercive activity in election cycles to come.

“We base our concerns over reports already received from the 2012 Election,” Engelbrecht said. “Our Voto Honesto initiative met a startling number of naturalized Americans in south Texas and Arizona who said their newly-minted citizenship was threatened if they did not vote correctly. The same people who helped register them to vote at the naturalization ceremony later showed up at their doorstep as part of a GOTV effort, pushing them to the polls. That’s unacceptable.”

Read more at Breitbart

The White House is mocking the idea that anything untoward is going on here.  Of course.  Mockery is a weapon for trying to disarm your opponents and put them on the defensive.

Help Fight Voter Fraud With ‘True The Vote’

The left’s ongoing assault on election integrity

Special Report: ‘The Rebranding of ACORN’

How The ‘Motor Voter Law’ Has Opened The Door To Rampant Voter Fraud

Mandatory Voting: Is This The Obama Administration’s Goal?

Why The GOP Won’t Fight Voter Fraud: Party Is Legally Barred From Doing So

Was the 2012 Election Stolen?

Ex-Dem Congressman: Voter Fraud Is Commonplace, Voter ID Is The Cure