Tag Archives: Robert Stacy McCain

A Short Summary Of The Internal Revenue Service Scandal

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Robert Stacy McCain posted an article in the March issue of the American Spectator that summarizes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal and sums up where we are today. The article reminds us that Tom Perez, now Secretary of Labor,  was head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where his key aide Barbara K. Bosserman was chosen to head up the investigation of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. The first question regarding the investigation of the IRS is, “Why was Barbara K. Bosserman chosen?” Ms. Bosserman’s background is as a civil rights attorney–she does not have a background in tax law. It is also an incredible coincidence that Ms. Bosserman has historically been a major donor to Democrat party coffers.

The article reports:

During a January hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan raised that question with the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. In his 12 years of DOJ experience under three different administrations, did Horowitz “ever recall the civil rights division investigating tax law matters?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t recall that during my time,” Horowitz answered.

The article reminds us that conservative political groups who applied for tax exempt status had their applications held up for a year or more. In some cases, organizations were asked for lists of donors and those donors were harassed.

The article points out the media’s role in downplaying the IRS scandal:

The media has been complacent,” said Becky Gerritson of the Wetumpka (Alabama) Tea Party, whose group was one of those the IRS targeted. In a telephone interview, Gerritson mentioned that the traffic-related “scandal” involving New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie had gotten 17 times as much major network news coverage in a single 24-hour period as the IRS scandal had received in the previous six months. From July 2013 through early January 2014, ABC, CBS, and NBC had barely two minutes of coverage to IRS scandal, according to the Media Research Center’s Scott Whitlock.

Even a basic investigation shows that some very fundamental laws were broken by the IRS:

Perhaps the most egregious example of that “climate of hostility” was the illegal release of donor information from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Congressional investigators say the source of that leak was an IRS staffer in Lerner’s Exempt Organizations Division. NOM opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage and the IRS leaker, who cannot be named because of confidentiality laws, provided NOM’s donor information to a gay activist, who then gave it to NOM’s arch-enemy, the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign. The illegal IRS leak led to news stories in 2012 identifying GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a donor to the conservative group. NOM filed its own lawsuit against the IRS in October, and pointed out that former HRC president Joe Solmonese served as co-chairman of Obama’s re-election campaign. “This is a federal crime,” NOM president Brian Brown said. “Worse, the confidential information contained in the illegally leaked documents included the identity of dozens of our major donors and the HRC used this confidential donor information to harass our donors. This is a chilling set of circumstances that should ring alarm bells across the nation.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for the conservative organizations targeted by the IRS is the fact that the investigators have only actually interviewed one of two of the organizations that have registered complaints.

The only way the IRS’s abuses of power will be dealt with is if those people impacted by the crimes of the IRS continue to speak out. If the sort of abuse of power is allowed to continue, all of our freedom of speech is in danger.

 

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Following The Money In The Horse-Drawn Carriage Wars In Central Park

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New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has stated that one of his first priorities is to take the horse-drawn carriages out of Central Park. His argument is that asking the horses to pull the carriages in a setting where they must compete with automobiles is cruel to the horses. Various animal rights groups are backing him up. Well, there may be a little more to the story than meets the eye.

The American Thinker posted an article today which suggests that the idea behind removing the horse-drawn carriages may not be the welfare of the horses.

The article quotes an article in The American Spectator by Robert Stacy McCain:

The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is  Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company “employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor,” journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison’s businesses “have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed.” An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: “Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.”

The lesson here is that when you are trying to understand a politician’s decision, follow the money.

 

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Today is “Everybody blog about Brett Kimberlin day”

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You ask, “Who is Brett Kimberlin, and what is all this about?”

The two best sources for information on what this is about are The Blaze and Datechguy’s Blog. Both sites will give you all the details. I am just going to give you the general overview.

This is the description of Brett Kimberlin from The Blaze:

  • Drug dealer, alleged child molester, and convicted perjurer, forger and Indiana Speedway Bomber (who is also believed to have played a role in the assassination of a grandmother), Brett Kimberlin, spent 17 years in prison before his ultimate re-absorption into American society
  • He started a non-profit dubbed “Justice Through Music (JTM)” that has, since at least 2005, been funded by George Soros’ Tides Foundation and Barbara Streisand among other leftists
  • Along with his associate, Kimberlin also started an organization called “Velvet Revolution” that supports the Occupy movement 
  • JTM’s goal is to use music to foster “social justice” and fight Republican “voter fraud” (like the kind George Bush allegedly used to “steal” the Florida election)
  • Any blogger — conservative and liberal alike — who has written the truth about Kimberlin has come under vicious attack by either Kimberlin or his minions, suffering death threats (veiled and unveiled), multiple lawsuits, loss of jobs and worse
  • He has filed over 100 frivolous lawsuits against anything that isn’t nailed down and somehow is being allowed to continue unchecked 
  • This story has never been reported on in the mainstream media

Datechguy adds some recent perspective:

With all due deference to Stacy McCain and Lee I immediately recognize this as newsworthy and the bloggers inaction and the MSM’s inaction are the story today, much more than Brett Kimberlin himself. Think about it:

An American Reporter living in America has been forced to relocate himself and his family for their own safety and nobody wants to cover it except conservative bloggers despite great physical & financial risk.

It’s as if the entire right side of the blogosphere has become Pam Geller & Robert Spencer for a day.

To me this is story #1. It goes beyond political considerations. The Story of Stacy McCain’s flight, like the Molly Norris story, is a tale that has never failed to outrage the average American when I tell them face to face and would outrage the nation, yet thanks to the MSM inaction nobody has heard it.

To be sure there are other questions worth asking after today:

  • Will the organizations of the left that have funded Mr. Kimberlin continue to do so?
  • Will the online left back Mr. Kimberlin?
  • Will Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog continue to work with him?
  • And just how many bloggers will participate (and will there be any conspicuous by their absence)?

These stories are all newsworthy but none of them in my mind surpass what I am about to type:

At the start of the Memorial day weekend, when we celebrate and remember those who have died to protect our constitutional freedoms as elaborated in the Bill of Rights, an American Journalist and his family are in hiding for their own safety for daring to exercising those rights the men and women we honor died for.

That’s the bottom line.

Please read the articles at The Blaze and Datechguy’s blog for the entire story. It is chilling. It is time all Americans stood up and denouced thuggery in all of its forms.

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Under The Radar In The Blogosphere

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When I began this blog, my children asked me not to connect my name and address with the blog. They feared that someone would get upset at what I wrote and choose to attack a little old lady. I thought they were being ridiculous, but I have generally respected their wishes. Something has been happening lately that shows the wisdom of their request.

There are a few links to the story I am about to tell–Michelle Malken, Datechguy’s Blog, and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

Michelle Malken reports:

Over the past year, Aaron Walker (who blogged as “Aaron Worthing”), Patterico, Liberty Chick, and now Stacy McCain have been targeted by convicted Speedway bomber Brett Kimberlin because they dared to mention his criminal past or assisted others who did. The late Andrew Breitbart warned about Kimberlin and company.

I have spoken directly with both Patterico and Aaron about their ongoing battles.

The mainstream press, not just the conservative blogosphere, needs to hear and report their stories.

This is a convoluted, ongoing nightmare that combines abuse of the court system, workplace intimidation, serial invasions of privacy, perjury, and harassment of family members. McCain was forced to move with his family out of his house this week, and has just gotten a small taste of what Aaron and Patterico have been enduring over the past year. Aaron and his wife were fired from their jobs after their employer feared the office would be targeted next. Convicted bomber Kimberlin has filed bogus “peace orders” against Aaron, when it is the Walkers who are the victims, not the perpetrators.

And Patterico’s plight will send chills up your spine when he is ready to tell it.

Datechguy reminds us:

…Robert Stacy McCain is not just a blogger he is a reporter, he has chosen to cover a story and because he has and his family are in hiding for their own safety.

Run that through your head MSM. This is an American JOURNALIST forced into hiding IN AMERICA for covering a story and you don’t find that newsworthy?

I’d like to say I’m surprised at this but remembering Molly Norris (who is STILL in hiding) but the MSM’s silence doesn’t surprise me.

I stumbled on this story by accident. Where is the reporting in the major media? Have we become a country that routinely threatens and silences any speech that does not agree with those in power?

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air states:

I know what it’s like to find out that you’ve been targeted for violence — real violence, as in being targeted for death by an extremist who has picked out his target based on nothing more than writing about politics.  My situation got resolved, fortunately, but my life has not been quite the same since.  I had the good fortune of having friends who quietly made sure that my family had the security we needed for me to continue my work in American politics.

Looks like that time has come around for some of our friends in the blogosphere.  Aaron Walker, Patterico, Liberty Chick, and Stacy McCain have written extensively about a man named Brett Kimberlin and connections to violent political action.  I have only followed the story at a distance, and don’t hold myself out to be an expert on the subject.  The result of their investigations has prompted a flurry of legal harassment in some cases, and worse in others.  Today, the Boss Emeritus — who knows a thing or two about Unhinged reaction to free speech — rallies the blogosphere in defense of our friends:

…Institutional inertia, incompetence, and apathy among law enforcement officials on both coasts have exacerbated the victims’ suffering. It has moved far beyond a partisan or political story to a bottomless, Kafka-esque morass. And, via investigative journalist Matthew Vadum, it certainly doesn’t help that “progressive,” left-wing foundations that have funded Kimberlin continue to look the other way.

Ted Frank at Point of Law summed it up: “A scary tale of what can go wrong if one makes the wrong enemy of someone willing to persistently abuse the civil and criminal legal system, and how poorly the legal system protects those victims.”

This is an important story–our freedom of speech is at stake.

 

 

 

 

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