Government Corruption Archives

Government corruption and minority rule

November 21, 2016 by Bookworm 15 Comments

I’m leaving soon for the airport, but wanted to make two quick points about government corruption and minority rule before it becomes too difficult to write.

Government corruption. It was easy for Obama to corrupt the Department of Justice. He simply put in place people who had no respect for the rule of law and, instead, ran things purely through a political filter.

Sadly, un-corrupting the DOJ (not to mention other government agencies that became equally corrupted) will be a more difficult task. It’s not just a matter of cleaning out the bad employees and replacing them with good ones. The corrupt employees created vested interests, and those who benefitted from the corruption will fight tooth and nail to protect those interests — and they’ll do so, moreover, by accusing the new broom of itself being politicized.

As a private citizen said on Facebook (and I won’t name him lest he be harassed), it was the Left that politicized everything. Further, that writer pointed out that by doing so the Left forced everyone to have an opinion about everything, whether they wanted to or not. I’ll add that this same politization means that even the act of returning to the rule of law is a political one that the Left will viciously challenge.

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Bookworm Beat 8-11-15 — the illustrated edition, devoted to excavating the Leftist mind through Facebook posters

August 11, 2015 by Bookworm 33 Comments

One of my Facebook friends is an uber-Leftist, although he does staunchly support Israel. He never puts up personal posts. Instead, his Facebook feed is filled with posters, some inspirational, some funny, some pro-Israel, and most pro-Left and anti-Republican.

I thought that for this illustrated edition, instead of the usual conservative-oriented posters, I’d take a peak at, and run some comments by, the stuff coming from the Left. In each case, my commentary about a poster will be below the poster.

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Is the IRS scandal the worst political scandal in American history? I say “yes.”

May 18, 2013 by Bookworm 56 Comments

When it comes to the IRS’s ongoing, repressive behavior against conservative groups, you’re likely to hear different verdicts: The hard Left says, of course, that this is a molehill that the Republicans are scandalously trying to turn into a scandal. (The New York Times perfectly exemplifies this line of thinking.) Others on the Left admit incompetence, but refuse to assign moral blame. Conservatives are willing to assign moral blame but think that no one really cares.

I believe that everyone should care because what we’re seeing now is a new type of scandal in American history, and the biggest crime a sitting administration has ever committed against the American people. I wrote about it at Mr. Conservative, although the headline there focuses on the IRS’s probing into people’s prayers. (Thinking about that, its worth remembering that Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled in an age when church and state were one, refused to “make windows into men’s souls.” The IRS is not so doctrinally picky.)

Anyway, here’s the post I wrote for Mr. Conservative:

**************

There’s been a lot of debate swirling amongst the pundits lately. Is the Watergate cover-up worse than the Benghazi cover-up or vice versa? Is the only scandal that matters the Justice Department’s decision to tap Associated Press phones, because that’s the only one that the media will care about? What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Ignore all that. The absolute worst scandal that’s emerged lately, and the worst administration scandal in American history is the IRS scandal. Why? Because you, the People, became the targets of a comprehensive federal government effort to stifle dissent, one made using the government’s overwhelming and disproportionate policing and taxing powers.

All of the other scandals, going back to Andrew Johnson’s post-Civil War scandals, Warren G. Harding’s 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, Nixon’s Watergate, Reagan’s Iran-Contra, and Clinton’s Oval Office sexcapades have actually been narrowly focused acts of cronyism, garden-variety political chicanery, or personal failings. It’s been insider stuff.

The IRS scandal, by contrast, is a direct attack on the American people. Right now, Progressives throughout America are pretending that this scandal doesn’t matter: “Obama wasn’t involved.” “Tea Partiers had it coming because they’re all corrupt.” “Obama would have won the election anyway.” “It was just a coincidence that the only groups that had their applications scrutinized, sometimes for years, were politically conservative. It means nothing that, when one group changed its name to sound Progressive, its application was approved in only three weeks.” “This is just a bureaucratic snafu.” “It’s a few rogue agents in Ohio.”

Those who offer these excuses are either morally flawed themselves or delusional idiots. Pastor Martin Niemoller, who once supported the Nazi party, finally and famously figured things out after World War II:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Once a government gets the bit between its teeth and starts targeting special interest groups, that is the end of freedom, not just for those first groups targeted, but for everyone.

Okay, that was the throat-clearing. Now it’s time to add the latest chapter in the long list of examples showing that the IRS engaged in a politically motivated witch-hunt against people who don’t toe the Progressive/Democrat party line:

The Thomas More Society (a Catholic organization) says that an IRS office in California ordered a group called “Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County, Texas” to detail the meaning and content of the prayers they offered. That was not an isolated event. IRS agents demanded the same information from “Coalition of Life of Iowa,” which was required to explain what went on at the group’s prayer meetings.

When Rep. Aaron Schock (R., Ill.) asked outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller whether these were appropriate questions, Miller didn’t even have the courage to say “no.” Instead, he said meaninglessly that “It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either.”

Here’s thumbnail sketch of just a few of the other politically-motivated attacks the IRS has made against American citizens. We can expect many more revelations to come:

1. The IRS official who over saw the agency’s effort to stifle political dissent is now in charge of enforcing ObamaCare, which will account for up to one-sixth of the American economy.

2. The IRS gave confidential financial documents from conservative non-profit organizations to a far-Left political activist group.

3. The IRS (which will police ObamaCare) stole 10 million medical records, including the records for all California judges.

4. The IRS blocked applications for or otherwise harassed almost 500 conservative non-profit groups – and there’s every reason to believe that this number will continue to rise.

5. The IRS insisted that, for a pro-Life group to obtain tax-exempt status, it would have to promote abortion.

6. The IRS has been mining Facebook for private data about people who dissent from Obama’s party line.

7. The IRS tried to force a conservative non-profit education group to turn over the names of students (mostly minors) who benefited from its services.

As for those who say that the whole IRS affair becomes irrelevant if no one can prove that Obama is not directly involved, that’s completely wrong. Of course, if the president was involved, it shows that he is the most corrupt, tyrannical leader in American history, and that every branch of the executive division in our government has been tainted and must be cleaned out. And as far as Obama is concerned, if he wasn’t involved, he is a man too incompetent and weak to hold the job of national chief executive.

But think about what it means if Obama wasn’t involved, and the IRS, an agency that has the power to destroy every person in America, did all of this on its own initiative. What we’re seeing in that case is the fall-out of a complete Leftist takeover of American institutions. We will have become a tyranny by bureaucracy (in no small part due to the fact that federal agencies are heavily unionized, and always with a Leftist slant), with the entire federal government irredeemably corrupt.

Here’s one last thought for you about an American president who, wittingly or unwittingly, presided over the single worst scandal in American history:

On May 5, at Ohio State University (the same state in which the IRS scandal was headquartered), Obama gave a speech that was viewed then as yet another in the endless list of examples showing Obama painting his political opponents as loony paranoids:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

Reading those same words now, it’s clear that, like the rattlesnake’s warning, Obama was previewing the reality of a Leftist government’s total control over the people who have naively consigned themselves to its care.

Obama and Henry II; Obama and Martin Niemöller; and Obama and Al Capone

May 13, 2013 by Bookworm 49 Comments

Congratulations, folks! When it comes to the IRS audit scandal, you are about to get three apt historical comparisons in a single post.

The background, of course, is the cascading downpour of news stories revealing that the IRS deliberately audited Tea Party groups, patriot groups, small government groups, and pro-Israel groups. The auditing started in 2010, but reached a crescendo during Obama’s campaign for re-election. The result was that several groups hostile to Obama and his policies were completely broken or rendered paralyzed during key moments in the Obama administration. Obama’s responsibility, and the reaction to this true witch-hunt made me think of three historic parallels.

1. Obama and Henry II. I’m willing to bet you never thought of Obama in connection with Henry II (1133-1189). Henry was the lusty, rowdy, all-conquering (at least initially) 12th century English king who married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the richest, most beautiful woman in Europe; ruled large sections of France; fathered sons who went off on crusades and set put a signature to the first “rights” document ever written; and generally set the stage for England’s prominent role on the world stage for so many centuries.

Obama is the exact opposite — not lusty, not rowdy, terrified of conquest, married to a woman whose primary claim to beauty is her arms, etc. And yet, there’s a thread that binds them. I thought of it when I read about the defense Obama-ites are offering when it comes to the really horrible scandal about the IRS targeting conservative groups and Jewish groups, essentially disabling them during Obama’s first term and, especially, in the lead-up to the election.

According to Obama’s defenders, even if one concedes that what the IRS did was a bad thing, Obama shouldn’t be touched by the scandal. It was not Barack’s fault. Leave Barack alone!! The IRS’s version of events is that “low level” employees committed these tyrannical acts. The New York Times goes so far as to blame the whole thing on the GOP (and certainly wins the George Orwell “1984” Reporting Award for doing so). Message: this is not Obama’s fault. Barack Obama himself has gone on record as being surprised and dismayed.

You know what? This may be true. I’m perfectly willing to believe that Obama didn’t personally order these audits. But I can’t help thinking of Henry II. Once upon a time, early in his reign, Thomas Becket was Henry II’s closest friend. The relationship lasted right up until Henry elevated Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury. It was then that Becket, who had been a priest for years, finally had his “come to Jesus” moment. He began opposing Henry vigorously on government policies that affected the Church, so much so that he became a thorn in Henry’s side.

Eventually, goaded beyond bearing, Henry cried out rhetorically “Will no one rid me of this turbulent (or meddling) priest?” (or, perhaps, the wordier “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?”). It’s important to note that Henry never ordered Becket’s death. He just whined about the fact that Becket’s existence interfered with his goals. Four of Henry’s knights heard these words and decided to help out. They rode to Canterbury and stabbed Thomas to death inside the Cathedral itself.

Although the facts made it impossible to hold Henry guilty for having ordered Becket’s death, everyone understood that his attitude caused it. Henry was castigated throughout Europe. Four years after Becket’s death, he donned a sack-cloth and walked barefoot through Canterbury’s streets as eighty monks flogged him with branches. Henry then spent the night in the martyr’s crypt. Henry also promised the Papacy that he’d go crusading in Becket’s memory, although never did so. As it happened, Richard I, Henry’s oldest son, more than made up for his father’s broken promise.

Obama has made it plain in almost every speech he’s given that Republicans must be destroyed. He has not treated them as partners in governing America. Through straw men arguments, slanders, and insults, he has painted them as the other and made it clear that the only way for him to achieve full greatness is for his enemy to be wiped out. Small wonder that party loyalists, whether at the upper level of the IRS or in the Ohio office too him seriously.

Even if Obama is not practically culpable, he is morally culpable, just as Henry was for Becket’s death.

2. Obama and Martin Niemöller. The IRS scandal has been brewing for a long time. Conservative bloggers and pro-Israel groups have been complaining for years about their targeting. The mainstream media completely ignored these complaints, or, alternatively, contended that they occurred because the GOP politicized everything, so every conservative organization was political. The media and the White House would have happily continued along this path if Lois Lerner, for reasons that are still unclear, hadn’t blown the story wide-open by admitting that targeting happened.

The Obama administration’s and the media’s responses, reminded me forcefully of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous statement after WWII, when he was strongly regretting his Nazi past:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

3. Obama and Al Cap0ne. The press has been ignoring Benghazi as much as possible. They’re starting to wake up a little bit to the fact that they were played (or rather, they let themselves be played), but it’s been a slow boil, one that took eight months and enormous pressure from the GOP, conservatives generally, and the families of those who died. Even the recent hearing haven’t gotten them too excited, as they try to exculpate Hillary and Obama, downplay the credentials of the whistle-blowers, and generally hew to their “nothing to see here; move along” attitude. Most reasonable thinkers admit that, while embarrassing for Obama, nothing that has yet been revealed about his defalcation and cover-up will justify legal action or impeachment claims against him.

It’s been different with the IRS scandal. Once it couldn’t deny the story any more, the media has really gone after it. Even Morning Joe, one of the normally complacent Obama Administration shows on MSNBC, was upset by this tyranny. We now know what really puts the fear of Gaia into Leftists: They’re not worried about terrorist attacks; they’re afraid of an IRS audit. That’s pathetic, of course, but there’s a good side. If the IRS audit scandal exposes the corruption running deep and wide through the Obama administration, I guess that’s good, with the end (the administration’s downfall) mattering more than the means to achieve it.

All of which made me think of Al Capone. He was the biggest mob boss in the 1920s. In addition to the direct hits he ordered, one cannot count the numbers of lives lost to the moral degeneration and violence that flowed throughout American society because of Capone’s rum running and prostitution businesses. The problem for the Feds was that Capone kept his fingerprints off these grossly illegal and immoral activities. Everybody knew he was involved, but prosecutors couldn’t prove it. What they could prove, though, was that Al Capone lied on his tax returns — and that’s how he ended up spending years in federal prison. Capone emerged from Alcatraz broken, broke, and rotting inside from the syphilis that eventually killed him.

Thinking of Al Capone, there is some irony to the fact that it might be taxes that bring down one of the most corrupt administrations in American history.

(This post has been updated to clear away a totally embarrassing typo that saw me confuse Richard I’s and Richard III’s numerical designator.)