Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II (Utterly Sickening)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 07/20/12 | Kimberly Strassel

[MissesBush]

This column has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney. An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records.

Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.

Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).

Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.

Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.

The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three.

[MissesBush]

Can you imagine the media furor if Bush had done this to a political opponent? We'd never have heard the end of the media uproar. David A--hole-rod recently compared Romney to Nixon. It's not Romney who's engaging in a cover up hiding documents from Congress in Fast and Furious (while hypocritically demanding Romney release tax returns irrelevent to the public trust), whose attorney general is acting like a rogue entity above the law and subverts congressional power to abuse exec. branch power and also targets his political enemies with IRS audits and other acts of government harrassment as we see here.

[lightman]

I have had an IRS “issue” each and every year since he took office, the worst being an audit for over $35K of business expenses...all resolved in my favor, but still a lot of time, photocopying, etc.

Never happened before the Kenyan took over.

[Ancesthntr]

David A--hole-rod recently compared Romney to Nixon. It's not Romney who's engaging in a cover up hiding documents from Congress in Fast and Furious (while hypocritically demanding Romney release tax returns irrelevent to the public trust), whose attorney general is acting like a rogue entity above the law and subverts congressional power to abuse exec. branch power and also targets his political enemies with IRS audits and other acts of government harrassment as we see here.

How very Leftist of him...I used to know EXACTLY what the Soviets were up to, because they'd hysterically accuse the US or NATO of doing just what they were doing or had done. Obama's just living down to his ideological roots.

[paul51]

the only hope...force congress to pass a version of the fair tax and dismantle the IRS.
Any politician or government bureaucracy that abuses a citizen should be put out of business.

[Twinkie]

Yeah. We got a notice a few months ago telling us that some of the income we had received in our work was WAAAAY under-reported. Fortunately, we had kept our originals in a tax file; copied them and sent them back. It was resolved in our favor, but had we not kept originals or if they’d been lost or burned up - we’d be liable for the boo boo their errors had caused.

[justa-hairyape]

Any politician or government bureaucracy that abuses a citizen should be put out of business.

The IRS came after me last year for thousands. And they made it very personal. Wont describe how, but it was very, very personal. Unfortunately for the IRS, they had no idea what they were getting into you. Got them to wave all the penalties. The State of California also came after me last year. Had a representative of the State force their way into my business and physically audit my sales and use tax reporting. They basically hate small business and anyone who owns any business. Which of course explains why these particular governments are all broke and heavily in debt.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

FBHO

[lightman]

They wanted me to sign off on about $14K in taxes, interest, and penalties.

[bert]

LTN

[PMAS]

*

[Twinkie]

The “forms” they (the IRS) provided that were alleged to be the “correct” forms seemed to be pretty clearly manufactured. I’m just thankful we had the originals; if we hadn’t, we’d have allegedly owed thousands that there was little way we could have paid. - Guess we’d have had to declare bankruptcy and give up what little property we have. - Husband always gives them the benefit of the doubt, which I guess is best; but I couldn’t see how it could have possibly been a “typo”. I suppose it could have been a data entry error, but who knows.

[CORedneck]

Our imperial dictator at work.....