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Report: Man Sues IRS For Tripping On Phone Wire In Their Office And Is Awarded $862,000

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Photo Credit: Opposing News A 66-year-old New York man was awarded a generous payout after suing the IRS for a fall at their Long Island office nearly six years ago.

According to William Berroyer, back in 2008, he went to an IRS office in Hauppauge for an audit and to figure out a plan to pay the $60,000 that he owed them. While at the office, Berroyer claims he tripped over a telephone wire and severely injured himself.

“I really can’t say whether I hit it with my shoulder, hand or elbow, but I broke my fall on the cabinet,” said Berroyer in his testimony.

Read more from this story HERE.

Schumer Calls on Obama to Use IRS to Curtail Tea Party Activities

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) proposed using the Internal Revenue Service to curtail Tea Party group funding during a speech on how to “exploit” and “weaken” the movement at the Center for American Progress on Thursday.

Arguing that Tea Party groups have a financial advantage after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, Schumer said the Obama administration should bypass Congress and institute new campaign finance rules through the IRS.

“It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies—we must redouble those efforts immediately,” Schumer said.

“One of the great advantages the Tea Party has is the huge holes in our campaign finance laws created [by] the ill advised decision [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission],” Schumer said. “Obviously the Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government.”

The Obama administration proposed new IRS restrictions on campaign related activity by tax-exempt groups last November. The rules would crack down on “candidate-related political activity,” which includes advocacy “for a clearly identified political candidate or candidates of a political party” and communications that are “made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Joe Miller: These Two New Facts Should Give Everyone Pause

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Photo by Joshua Doubek

Photo by Joshua Doubek

This week we’ve already learned at least two facts that should give pause to anyone who cares about the liberty and prosperity of this country. First, an FBI investigation into the IRS scandal has so far determined there was no criminal wrongdoing and therefore no one should be held accountable. In other words, after investigating itself, the Obama Administration announced, “There is nothing to see here. Move along, Move along.”

This “investigation” was led by a political supporter of Barack Obama, who gave several thousand dollars to his campaign over both cycles. The probe, which reportedly did not even involve interviewing members from most of the targeted tea party and other conservative groups, found the IRS employees implicated were simply ignorant as to the rules. They did not have any particular political motive.

Really? I am not making any of this up.

The “investigation” cleared this atrocious abuse of government power by the IRS, which blatantly violated Americans constitutional rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech.

These are the kinds of unlawful or immoral actions we have come to expect from this Administration. Yet Senator Mark Begich has no intention of standing up for Alaskans’ constitutional rights or the cherished freedoms of all Americans. You only need look to the IRS scandal, the NSA surveillance scandal, the Associated Press wire-tapping scandal, or Benghazi.

Or how about the liberal Politifact’s number-one rated lie of 2013: “If you like your healthcare, you can keep your healthcare”? Senator Begich joined with President Obama in making that promise, yet thousands of Alaskans have seen their plans cancelled.

If you are tired of the lies, and the countless scandals with no one being held accountable, stand with me and help me remove Obama-enabler Senator Begich from office.

The second piece of news is that, for the first time in the history of Index of Economic Freedom published each year by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the United States does not rank in the top ten nations. Denmark and Ireland moved ahead of the U.S., causing us to drop out of the top ten. We are now the only nation in the history of the index to fall for seven years in a row.

The United States has earned the dubious distinction of being only “mostly free” while other nations enjoy the ranking and benefits of being “free.” The main issues that caused America to lose its place include: new and onerous regulations, including ObamaCare; quantitative easing, where the fed prints money out of thin air; and out of control deficit spending.

If you agree it is time to begin restoring America to the “city on hill” she is meant to be, I need to hear from you today. We can’t win this effort without your help. One thing is for certain, Mark Begich and my Establishment primary opponents will not move America off the path that leads to continued decline.

Rest assured, I am committed to making the United States once again the beacon of freedom, both politically and economically, but I need your help today!

In Liberty,

Joe Miller, Candidate
United States Senate

IRS ‘Horribly Harassed’ Sarah Palin’s Father Six Times Since 2008

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Chuck Heath, Jr. wrote on Facebook that his father had never heard from the IRS before 2008. Since then, he said, the IRS has tried to “dig up something on him but he’s always operated above board.”

“Coincidence? You decide,” he wrote.

He continued:

My father, who worked multiple jobs and faithfully and honestly paid his taxes for fifty years, had never heard a word from the IRS. In 2008, his daughter was tapped to run for vice president of the United States. Since that time, he has been, in his words “horribly harassed” six times by the agency. They’ve tried to dig up something on him but he’s always operated above board.

Read more from this story HERE.

Watch Out Tea Party! Obama Weaponizing the IRS (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

“Non-profit groups must prepare to fight back [against] the IRS on yet a second front,” warns Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, well-known for providing expert legal advise to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

In discussions throughout the Capitol, Mitchell has expressed her concern new rules proposed by the IRS demonstrate once again the Obama administration is determined to keep tea-party groups from having the type of impact on the mid-term elections this November that they had in 2010, when Republicans grabbed majority control of the House of Representatives.

“This is a real assault on the First Amendment rights of American citizens, and we need to do everything we can to stop the IRS from implementing these new rules,” Mitchell says.

Mitchell has produced in a YouTube video a briefing in which she explains the goal of the IRS is to limit the free speech of conservative groups:

She is urging conservatives groups and individuals to file comments with the IRS right away, arguing it is “impractical, burdensome and unacceptable for the IRS to interject itself into the workings of every citizens group in the country.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Significant Obama Donor to Head IRS Tea Party Targeting Investigation

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The attorney heading the internal investigation into potential unfair targeting of conservative groups by the IRS is a frequent and significant donor to both the Democratic National Committee and President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa revealed today, in what he calls a “startling conflict of interest” that jeopardizes the investigation.

Rep. Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder revealing new information that reached the committee on who is conducting the internal investigations at the IRS regarding the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups. Seeking an explanation as to why the FBI has been unresponsive to the committee, Rep. Issa noted that current and former IRS officials revealed Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS’s Civil Rights Commission, is leading the internal investigation.

Bosserman’s leadership raises all sorts of questions about the investigation’s fairness. Rep. Issa’s investigations revealed that she has been a loyal financial backer of the DNC since 2004 and has donated multiple times personally to President Obama’s two campaigns. Her personal donation total reaches $6,750 to both the party and President Obama.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ordinance Challenged for Targeting Pro-Lifers

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A team of pro-life advocates who like to try to intervene when women head for an abortion business in West Palm Beach say they unfairly are being targeted by police because officers enforce a noise ordinance only against them.

Not passersby. Not Wendy’s. Not a Pollo Tropical restaurant. And not the abortion business itself.

On appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Susan Pine and Marilyn Blackburn are asking that a noise ordinance be struck down, or otherwise changed to make it constitutional.

Right now, Pine and Blackburn, who offer to help women facing crisis pregnancies outside the city’s Presidential Women’s Center abortion business, say the city’s enforcement of an ordinance is selective.

According to officials with Liberty Counsel, which is representing the women, the city ordinance “bans all ‘shouting’ and amplified sound within 100 feet of the [abortionists’] property line, regardless of the volume or whether the sound causes any disturbance.”

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Proposing New Regulations That Would Silence Obama’s Critics

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service was caught this year targeting conservative groups with harassment that included invasive probes into the content of prayers and unwarranted delays.

That issue is being worked out in court. But the IRS, nevertheless, remains on the attack, proposing new regulations that would silence the president’s critics.

Mathew Staver, founder and chief counsel of Liberty Counsel, said that after “being caught intentionally targeting conservative groups in the prior two elections, now the president wants his IRS to totally silence the voices of his political adversaries.”

New rules proposed in the Federal Register, Staver said, are “designed to silence and greatly restrict the activities of Liberty Counsel Action and other 501 (c) 4 nonprofit organizations during the upcoming election year.”

The rules were announced quietly in late November. They haven’t received much attention, Staver said, yet because the news cycle has been occupied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to change Senate rules to let Democrats approve radical judicial and administrative appointments and the reaction to “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson’s comments about homosexuality.

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Senate Invokes New Filibuster Restrictions to Confirm IRS Chief

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Senate voted Friday to confirm President Obama’s pick to head the beleaguered Internal Revenue Service, which has been under intense congressional scrutiny over its treatment of Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status.

John Koskinen was confirmed in a 59-36 vote, below the 60-vote approval threshold that would have been required before Senate Democrats changed the chamber’s rules to prevent Republicans from continuing to block presidential nominees.

Obama immediately praised the confirmation, but Republicans mostly opposed it, in part because they are angry over the rules change and want a greater say in deciding who will next head the troubled tax agency.

In May, a Treasury Inspector General report found that the IRS had issued a “Be on the lookout” order for groups seeking tax exempt status with names that signaled a conservative bent, like “Tea Party” or “Patriot.”

Many of the Tea Party groups that applied for tax exempt status had their applications delayed ahead of the 2012 presidential election, prompting some to suspect the targeting was politically motivated.

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Using Google Maps to Spy On Taxpayers

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are using Google Maps as part of their tool kit to audit taxpayers and organizations, The Daily Caller has learned.

A redacted IRS letter dated Sept. 8, 2011 reveals that at least in one case the IRS’s examiners used photos of a property, obtained through Google Maps, as evidence to revoke the 501(c)(4) status of a homeowner’s association.

“The road consists of a two-mile loop around the inside of the property. It goes not have any sidewalks or bicycle lanes. The examining agent printed and copied a map from Google Maps (www.google.com) into this report,” states the letter.

501(c)4 is a tax-exempt status that includes certain “social welfare organizations,” “local associations of employees,” “homeowners associations,” “volunteer fire companies,” and certain lobbying organizations.

The IRS became mired in scandal in May 2013 after a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that IRS staffers had singled out tea party groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny.

Read more from this story HERE.