Posted by Tina
Traditionally, Americans prefer a sporting contest. We want competing teams to meet on the playing field, abide by a set of rules, and play the best game they can right up to the last minute of the contest. A clean game makes the ultimate win all the sweeter and everyone goes home satisfied even if their team loses.
Politics has always been more like a slugfest than a sporting contest with opposing teams “pulling out all the stops” to influence voters as electionday draws near. Slugfests are one thing. Cheating and the blatant abuse of power in order to win is quite another.
As we know a large number of conservative organizations were harassed and denied tax exempt status by IRS officials in the years prior to the last election. We know that a few of them were singled out for extra scrutiny and harassment by other government agencies in addition to the tyrannical treatment they received at the hands of the IRS. This abuse of power unfairly limited the influence those groups had in the election. And while this abuse of power was occurring assistance to opposition groups was also going on by the same IRS officials and Eric Holder of the Justice Department.
According to Investors.com preferential, instructive aid was given to black organizations and churches during the same period:
…top officials with both the IRS and Justice Department — including the IRS commissioner and attorney general — met in Washington with several dozen prominent black church ministers representing millions of voters to brief them on how to get their flocks out to vote without breaking federal tax laws.
The “summit” on energizing the black vote in houses of worship was hosted by the Democrat-controlled Congressional Black Caucus inside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2012. …
…It’s not clear if the White House helped organize the unusual event, but two key Cabinet members — Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman — both spoke at length to the black church leaders.
Joining them was senior IRS official Peter Lorenzetti, who runs the agency’s tax-exempt organizations division. He gave a technical briefing in which he advised against endorsing from the pulpit any candidates by name or distributing voter cheat sheets.
Then Lorenzetti hastened to add: “It is important to note, however, that an organization exempt under 501(c)3 — in this case the church or a religious organization — can conduct educational election activities,” including holding political debates or even inviting candidates to speak to congregants.
Washington Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turly wrote that this activity represented a “raw” display of political favoritism and remarked that it was even more disturbing that “the two federal law enforcement officials who would be the ultimate decision-makers in future cases involving IRS tax fraud and exemption violations were front and center in counseling tax-exempt groups…”
Americans are reluctant to hold this administration to the same standard it has held other administrations for the simple reason that the President is black. Those wishing to put racism behind us will never be able to do so as long as people of color are given a pass when they abuse their offices and corrupt the very laws that bind us together as equals.
Is it any wonder Americans are disheartened and discouraged?