The White House Scandals: The Reeking Odors Pervading Our Government

"I'd rather be waterboarded than audited by the IRS." Tweet by David Burge

Note: Since this posting in June, we now know the government lied about Obamacare.

• If there is anything becoming increasingly clear regarding the current White House scandals, it appears our government is using government agencies as political weapons against its own citizens. All you need to do is listen to the testimony going on today in Congress, and the stories of government intimidation are clearly apparent. "Americans are affected by the culture of political intimidation and discrimination that was cultivated by this targeting," said David Camp, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
• One Tea Party witness after another testified about intimidation and harassment in addition to having to wait up to three years for answers to their tax exempt applications. This information comes on the heels of reports in the last two weeks that auditing by the IRS of these conservative organization included, but were not limited to, demanding membership lists, contributors, contents of all speeches given, names of books members are reading, Facebook posts, minutes of all meetings, prayers said, etc.

• As Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, wrote this week: "The IRS's targeting of conservatives is a scandal of administrators and bureaucrats, of otherwise faceless people endowed with immense power over their fellow citizens." 
• And Lowry makes another point that should be disturbing to every American when he wrote, "Obama has greatly enhanced their influence and reach by augmenting the power of regulatory agencies that are an inherent offense against self-government...The administration's corruption isn't bags of cash or lies about interns; it is the distortion of our form of government." As I and many have written on countless occasions, it's the Obama administration that set the tone for this corruption and these scandals.
• We also know from recent reports that this targeting was not the result of "low-level" employees. It was systemic. It was not restricted to several employees in Cincinnati as first reported.
• In addition to these scandals, there are now stories breaking of the IRS spending millions of dollars on conferences and training sessions for its employees. In one case, a $4 million training conference where attendees were in luxury rooms and enjoyed free drinks---on us. For example, from 2010 to 2012, the IRS spent $49 million for conferences. One conference in Philadelphia costs over $2 million. Another in Atlanta costs taxpayers $1.2 million. AP
• Keep in mind that the higher-up administrators in government testified they knew nothing. Holder played Dumb regarding the media intimidation and Lois Lerner pleaded the 5th. By the way, this obfuscation also extended to the Benghazi and Fast and Furious scandals.