Corruption in the IRS? Say it isn't so.

Corruption in the IRS? Say it isn't so. Who would've thought that people who work for the government would show an intolerance toward those who want to eradicate their careers. The IRS has always been a blood=sucking leech on society. What would we do without big government programs to redistribute our money to their friends? This is the same IRS that is hiring 13000 new agents to ENFORCE Obamacare (with emphasis on "enforce").

The IRS denies having conducted a partisan witch-hunt against tea-party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, arguing that its improper targeting of conservative groups was the result of a series of procedural errors rather than a political attack with malice forethought.

But the IRS is keeping the relevant evidence secret, so you will just have to take the agency’s word for it. Lois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of handling tax-exempt organizations, made what appeared to be an impromptu confession Friday during a tax conference hosted by the American Bar Association, saying that groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names were improperly targeted for additional levels of tax-status review by the agency. Those actions, she said, were “wrong” and “inappropriate,” but she denied that they were the result of political bias against tea-party groups.

When asked how the IRS determined that the actions were not the result of political bias, Ms. Lerner could only say, “That is not how we do things.

Does Ms. Lerner really expect us to believe that these low-level grunts at the Cincinnati IRS decided on their own with no orders from above to target conservative groups? 

" The IRS also stresses that our employees—all career civil servants—will continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues."

The funny thing is that the IRS thinks this is a comforting statement. Methinks the "career civil servants" need to be fired. While we're at it, fire the person they reported to. It's high time to name names. 

Apologies? Sorry, but we need more than weak, half-hearted apologies. Please provide the list of those fired from the IRS and confirm that their pensions have been forfeited. Every IRS employee knows what is permitted and what is not. These are serious crimes. Who in the Cincinnati office targeted these groups. Give us the names and stop your efforts to paper over the IRS' criminal behavior.

The Wall Street Journal concludes their editorial on Saturday with this sober reminder: 

Other than the power to prosecute, the taxing authority is the most awesome power the government has. It can ruin people and companies. When wielded for political purposes, it is a violation of the basic contract the American people have with their government. The abuse admitted by Ms. Lerner can't be dismissed in a casual apology on a casual Friday as no big deal. It's a very big and bad deal.

'Gangsta' Government: Stringing Up Gibson Guitars

For my final installment on government regulation strangulation, here's what happens when you are not making contributions to Obama's re-election bid, when you're not bundling $500,000 in campaign "donations"  to the Democrat coffers:

Last August 24, without warning,  30 federal agents with guns and bulletproof vests stormed the Gibson guitar factories in Tennessee. They shut down production, sent workers home, seized boxes of raw materials and nearly 100 guitars, and ultimately cost our company $2 million to $3 million worth of products and lost productivity. Why? Because Gibson imported wood from India to make guitars in America.
Can you believe that? This was a SWAT team raid on an American business--this was a police raid with the government agents acting like they were storming the doors of murderers, drug dealers, or dangerous criminals instead of a respected guitar factory in Nashville, Tennessee.
Growing businesses face a number of hurdles in today's economy. For Gibson Guitar—a company that has created more than 580 American jobs in the last two years—the largest hurdle is the federal government.

The Aug. 24 raid was authorized under the Lacey Act. Originally enacted as a means to curb the poaching of endangered species, the law bans wildlife and plants from being imported if, according to the interpretation of federal bureaucrats, the importation violates a law in the country of origin.

The fingerboards of Gibson guitars are made with wood that is imported from India. The wood seized during the Aug. 24 raid, however, was from a Forest Stewardship Council-certified supplier, meaning the wood complies with FSC's rules requiring that it be harvested legally and in compliance with traditional and civil rights, among other protections. Indian authorities have provided sworn statements approving the shipment, and U.S. Customs allowed the shipment to pass through America's border to our factories.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to enforce its own interpretation of Indian law, arguing that because the fingerboards weren't finished in India, they were illegal exports. In effect, the agency is arguing that to be in compliance with the law, Gibson must outsource the jobs of finishing craftsmen in Tennessee.

In America alone, there are over 4,000 federal criminal offenses. Under the Lacey Act, for instance, citizens and business owners also need to know—and predict how the U.S. federal government will interpret—the laws of nearly 200 other countries on the globe as well.

Many business owners have inadvertently broken obscure and highly technical foreign laws, landing them in prison for things like importing lobster tails in plastic rather than cardboard packaging (the violation of that Honduran law earned one man an eight-year prison sentence). Cases like this make it clear that the justice system has strayed from its constitutional purpose: stopping the real bad guys from bringing harm.

Here's what Mr. Juszkiewicz is the CEO of Gibson Guitar Corp has to say about the government raid on his factory:

Policy makers must stop criminalizing capitalism. This begins by stopping the practice of creating new criminal offenses, or wielding obscure foreign laws, as a method of regulating businesses.

Especially in a bearish economy, entrepreneurs need to be able to operate without the fear that inadvertently breaking an obscure regulation or unknowingly violating a foreign statute could shut down their company and land them or their employees in jail.

These kinds of actions, enforcing these obscure and often unncessary regulations which stifle American business and sometimes force them to go overseas or go out-of-business, end up costing you the taxpayer over $200 billion dollars annually.

The Lacey Act is the product of environmentalist whackos who care more about endangered species  than about the livelihood of over 500 workers at Gibson's Nashville factory. If these Gibson employees lost their jobs because of burdensome regulation like the Lacey Act, it wouldn't change the thinking of these environmentalist crazies whose one goal is to destroy the U.S. economy and turn America into a 3rd world country because these environmentalists worship creatures like spotted owls, snail, fish, etc. rather than Almighty God who created us in His image. Their skewed view of the world and the order of creation has placed creatures on the top of the food chain and man at the very bottom.