Across this great land, patriotic Americans are behaving subversively.
We’re quoting from our pocket Constitutions, starting reading groups to discuss our founding documents, even gathering together to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Uncle Sam is not amused.
As leaders of tea party groups have been painfully aware for years, the Internal Revenue Service has given “special” attention to conservative groups.
The IRS admits that in recent years it has zeroed in on organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. Further, The Wall Street Journal reports the IRS has also targeted groups that say they are “worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to ‘make America a better place to live.’” Fox News adds that organizations interested in doing “education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” made the list.
The goal was clearly to reduce the amount of anti-government speech by making it more difficult for these groups to achieve tax-exempt status. And it worked.
ABC News reports that Jennifer Stefano of Pennsylvania wanted to start a tea party group, but dealing with the IRS “was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”
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