Posted on 05/30/2014 8:19:02 PM PDT by smoothsailing
May 29, 2014
Interest in the Internal Revenue Service’s outrageous practice of subjecting politically conservative groups to discriminatory treatment has died down a bit since the revelations about this scandal first hit the news a year ago. But a court decision that was handed down earlier this week about a similar instance of potential government misconduct may shed more light on the way the Tea Party and other right-wing organizations were given the business by Lois Lerner and the rest of what appears to be a highly politicized bureaucracy at the heart of our tax collection system.
On Tuesday, Federal Judge Ketanje Brown Jackson issued the first substantive ruling in any suit that challenged the IRS’s pose of political neutrality under the Obama administration. The case concerns Z Street, a Philadelphia area-based pro-Israel organization that filed for tax-exempt status in December 2009 because of its role in educating the public about Israel and the Middle East conflict. The group’s founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus wrote in the Jewish Press this week about what followed:
On July 19, 2010, when counsel for Z STREET spoke with the IRS agent to whom the organization’s application had been assigned, that agent said that a determination on Z STREET’s application may be further delayed because the IRS gave “special scrutiny” to organizations connected to Israel and especially to those whose views “contradict those of the administration’s.”
Z Street subsequently sued the government and rightly argued that its constitutional rights had been violated because of the “viewpoint discrimination” that the IRS agent had openly displayed. Now after years of delays, Judge Jackson has ruled that by asserting that Z Street had no right to sue, the government had tried to “transform a lawsuit that clearly challenges the constitutionality of the process … into a dispute over tax liability.” She similarly dismissed the government’s claims of sovereign immunity.
What has this got to do with the Tea Party and its complaints? Plenty.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial page noted yesterday:
This ruling will force the IRS to open its books on the procedures it used and decisions it made reviewing Z Street’s tax-exempt application, procedures it has tried to keep shrouded. As the case proceeds, Z Street’s attorneys can seek depositions from many who have been part of the larger attempt to sit on similar applications by other conservative groups.
In other words, this case may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of the IRS’s politically prejudicial policies. If an IRS agent can reject or stall a pro-Israel group’s application on the grounds that “these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies,” then no group, no matter what its political orientation or cause is safe from being subjected to a political litmus test designed by any administration of either political party.
Z Street’s Marcus deserves praise for having the guts to persist in her challenge to the government for years even though the media had little interest in publicizing what appeared to be an outrageous example of how the IRS had become politicized under the Obama presidency. Last year Marcus learned she wasn’t alone when the news about the Tea Party broke. Now, as her legal process unfolds, Americans may get a better idea about how broken the system has become.
Using the IRS to punish political foes is blatantly illegal. If, as we suspect, the Z Street case reveals the sort of internal email traffic that will reveal how widespread this practice has become in the last five years, perhaps even a liberal mainstream press that still thinks the problems at the IRS are a “phony scandal” will start to pay attention.
” - - - whose views “contradict those of the administration’s.”
On the topic of Obamacare that means that the IRS will be used by Obama to harass 80 % of all taxpayers.
And this ruling from the DC District Court of all places.
By a young Obama appointee to the Federal bench, no less.
Liberals should be VERY concerned about this, right now - because they definitely will be two and a half years from now, whether they like it or not.
I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that. The judge is new to the bench, a 2013 Obama appointee.
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/dcd/kjackson
I bet Obama, Holder, Reid and Schumer are all fit to be tied! LOL!
How is it that almost every lawsuit seems to be in a courtroom of an Obama appointee?
Obama has been in office a little over 5 years...Where are all the judges appointed by Bush over 8 years?
One of them is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and he recently ruled in favor of Obama.
If you disagree with us, we will shut you down.
I sure hope Darrell Issa is taking notes om this case.
this case may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of the IRS’s politically prejudicial policies.
One can always hope!
It would be nice to finally get the truth exposed.
The MSM will only be outraged as long as they aren’t hurt by their defiance of the Obama Regime. Obama has something on EVERYONE at this point. It will be tough to stand up to him. For EVERYBODY.
Two words. Judge Shopping.
Thanks for posting this. This is very important.
Here’s a fantastic link with an interview with the woman who started Z Street.
http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/07/31/z-street-vs-the-irs/
What was and is going on here with the IRS is very serious.
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