Free Republic

Tea party activists are heartened by a federal appeals court ruling that strengthens their legal push against the Internal Revenue Service for alleged targeting in past election cycles. A three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals chastised government foot-dragging while ordering the agency to give attorneys for tea party groups details on tax-exempt applicants. A U.S. district court judge in Cincinnati earlier this year certified the case as a class action. …

The IRS recently proposed a rule to weaken the effectiveness of non-profits. Under this proposal, the IRS would give 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, which includes charities, religious groups, and educational foundations, the option to collect the social security numbers of donors giving more than $250 so that they can be sent to the IRS. While optional at the moment, it is obvious that the rule is simply a way for the IRS to transition to mandatory collection of social security numbers. This rule should frighten all Americans because it opens up a whole pandora’s box of security concerns. Additionally, the IRS...

Chief Judge Garland to the IRS's lawyer: 'Go back and ask your superiors whether they want us to represent that the government's position in this case is that the government is free to unconstitutionally discriminate against its citizens for 270 days." In a highly unusual public thrashing of a government lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service by the second highest U.S. court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked: “You don’t really mean that the IRS is free to discriminate against its citizens, do you?” The judges asked this question several times in several different ways of the Department of...

. 2015-04-04 Facts are facts. "Treason" is still "treason" (despite how Obama's Press Secretary Josh Earnest spins it) "Abject Defeat" is still "Abject Defeat" (despite how America's tax-exempt Christian Pastors in their beautiful Mega-Churches spin it) "Bribery" is still "Bribery" (despite how Al Sharpton and MSNBC spin it) ========================================== America's "Gay Gestapo" have virtually won the battle for America's spiritual soul. Except for a few scattered political leaders, America's Gay Gestapo is a political Juggernaunt that marches from Victory to Victory. Yes, these are occasional "minor moral victories" (Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson and the $ 825,000 donations to the Memories...

Memo Reveals Plan of U.S.-Funded Groups to Influence the Israeli Elections Nonprofits targeting populations, such as Arab Israelis, opposed to Likud BY: Alana Goodman - The Free Beacon February 5, 2015 3:30 pm http://freebeacon.com/issues/u-s-groups-funding-liberal-gotv-effort-in-israel/ [For copy of the memo: http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/APDF-GOTV-Arab-Community-MK-12-17-14.docx1-1.pdf http://bit.ly/1DMu8RV http://bit.ly/1AzUEzP http://bit.ly/1FebGCF http://bit.ly/1zo2zOR ] A coalition of U.S.-funded progressive groups has planned a massive get-out-the-vote effort to influence the Israeli elections, targeting communities that are most likely to vote against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-leaning Likud Party, according to a confidential strategy memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The U.S.-based 501(c)(3) group Ameinu sent out the...

. To Rev. Franklin Graham "Watchmen on the Wall Conference" 2014 Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, J. Vernon McGee, Dr. James Dobson ... all great Christian leaders and bible teachers of America in the 1960s thru 1990s ... Or were they ? For all the great works they did for Christ's church in America, IS IT POSSIBLE they made one (1) grave mistake ? I declare that they did, to the detriment of at least TWO American generations ... And I respectfully challenge Rev. Franklin Graham (and the other Conference speakers) to ACKNOWLDGE THEIR MISTAKE and APOLOGIZE to their Church Congregations....

. America's Gradual Decline since President L.B.J. ... Today (2014-05-18) The Washington Post (George Will) included an article entitled: "The Slow Decline of America since LBJ launched the Great Society" Free Republic post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3157259/posts by SeekandFind. ==================================================================== George Will's article is a political lament on how LBJ's trillion-dollar (plus) "Great Society" gradually poisoned Amertica's family structure and strong work ethic. With all due respect ... George Will is WRONG, by several light years. Why ? George Will, singing in perfect harmony with most Washington DC Beltway Glee-Club "insiders" (Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, Juan McCain, ad nauseum) haven't a...

The Obama administration on Tuesday moved to issue new rules that would curtail political activity by tax-exempt nonprofit groups, with potentially significant ramifications for one of the fastest-growing sources of campaign spending. The proposed rules, announced by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, would expand and clarify how the I.R.S. defines political activity and then establish clearer limits for how much activity nonprofits can engage in. Such a change — long urged by government watchdog groups — would be the first wholesale shift in a generation in the regulations governing political activity. The move to curtail nonprofits follows...

The following are photos taken on Friday, September 20, 2013 at the Ronald Reagan Sports Park in Temecula, California. The Reagan statue and monument was likely vandalized either the night before or in the early morning hours of Friday September 20. The cause of the damage appears to be vandalism by arson. Local police were called to the scene and an investigation is ongoing. - Photo of the Reagan Monument with missing damaged tiles. - The missing/vandalized tiles were removed by city staff ... notice the burn marks at the base of the structure. - Burned/damaged tiles on both side...

Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt status. Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agency’s exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event. “We’re going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they...

Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt status. Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agency’s exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event. “We’re going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they...

The IRS outrages just continue. During the 2012 election season -- when conservative groups were being targeted and GOP donors were being audited and just being a GOP donor meant heightened scrutiny from the IRS -- Obama-friendly nonprofits, including black churches and black nonprofits, were regaled with special advice from the agency on how far they could participate in politics campaigning for the President and other Democrats, according to Paul Sperry writing in IBD. What's more, it wasn't just top officials at the IRS who were meeting, for example, with black churches -- it was also top officials at Eric Holder's...

At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats. This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president. But that same year, top officials with both the IRS...

At the Senate committee hearing today on the IRS targeting scandal Senator Mike Enzi said the IRS is even targeting Christian churches in Wyoming. Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, former Administrator Doug Shulman, and Inspector J. Russell George testified today in front of a senate committee. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)

"Can you see in your mind's eye a way that this might not have been political, that this was a misguided stupid way to sort, but that they didn't intend it to be some kind of political attempt to harass the Tea Party?"

In May 2011, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate the Barack H. Obama Foundation, which was soliciting tax-deductible contributions from the public although it was not tax exempt. The Foundation is named for Obama's father and is based in Kenya. Its founder and chairman is Abon'go Malik Obama, whose father is also the father of President Obama. The IRS not only failed to investigate, but in June 2011 it retroactively granted the Obama Foundation tax-exempt status. Click here to see the letter from Lois Lerner (in photo), Director of the Exempt...

The first time religious organizations were given an exemption from paying taxes was with The Wilson Tariff Act of 1894. The next year this act was overturned by the Supreme Court, but every tax code since has allowed the exemption to be part of the tax code. However, up until 1954 religious organizations still had the freedom to participate in political and lobbying activities. That is when, then Senator Lyndon B Johnson, introduced amendment 501(c)(3) to the tax code during a Senate floor debate on the 1954 Internal Revenue Code. Without hearings, testimony, or comments by any tax-exempt organizations,...

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution contains two clauses addressing religious liberty: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It's a shame that in their modern misguided zeal to read the first clause as mandating a complete separation of church and state, liberals do great damage to the second clause and defeat the overarching purpose of both: ensuring religious liberty. Ever since the so-called Christian right began its organized activism during the 1980s, liberals (and some others) have become increasingly nervous about (and critical of) Christian influence in politics,...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has unexpectedly and retroactively granted tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation following our formal Complaint that the Foundation was soliciting tax-deductible contributions without such status. The Foundation is headed by Abon'go Malik Obama, President Obama's half-brother, and named for their common father. It came under scrutiny earlier this year when NLPC raised questions about its tax status and what has happened to the money it has raised. It normally takes at least six months, and usually longer, for the IRS to grant tax-exempt status to an organization following its application....

Media Matters for America is organized as a tax exempt 501(c)3 organization. Under IRS guidelines, they must abide by several rules to maintain this status. Specifically, 501(c)3 organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. You can read an interesting article on this subject “Is Media Matters Breaking the law in its ‘war’ on Fox News?” The article strongly suggests that Media Matters is violating its exemption as an educational foundation by actively participating in partisan political activities. Specifically...