Posted on 04/19/2012 7:20:25 PM PDT by SmithL
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 19 (Reuters) - California peace activist Cindy Sheehan has agreed to meet with Internal Revenue Service agents seeking to collect back taxes she refuses to pay as a protest of U.S. wars, but she vowed on Thursday to persist in her tax boycott.
Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in action in Iraq while serving in the U.S. Army in 2004, appeared before a federal judge as the government sought a court order requiring her to answer an IRS collection summons seeking information about assets that could be used to satisfy her tax liability.
The 54-year-old activist, who gained widespread attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest outside President George W. Bush's ranch in Texas, said she believes the government is persecuting her for her political beliefs.
"No matter if the government says I owe a penny or $100,000, I'm not paying one penny to them," Sheehan said outside the federal courthouse in downtown Sacramento after the hearing. Her lawyer, Dennis Cunningham of San Francisco, stood at her side as a handful of protesters looked on.
During the hearing, Cunningham acknowledged to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John Moulds that Sheehan has not filed a federal income tax return or paid any federal income taxes since her son's death, but that her failure to do so was an act of conscientious objection to the war in Iraq.
He argued that her constitutional rights to freedom of expression and protection from self-incrimination would be violated by answering further IRS questions about her assets.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
“Didn’t she have her fifteen minutes of fame some ten years ago??”
Yes, and they ended when Obama was elected; she continued protesting, but the cameras were ordered off her. Peace activists, like homeless people and the unemployed, disappear when a Dem is in the White House.
Obama should be concerned that the Masters of the Media have invoked her name again; they probably anticipated her return, and worked it into a tax protest (which won’t garner socialist support) rather than a war protest (since our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president had his own “troop surge”).
Why is this female being given this article in FR? Is this a prelude to hearing her rantings about President Bush? This is a woman who has my pity, but no interest in reading anything more about her or seeing her kiss people who hate our country, as she does.
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