Robin SmithThe use of taxpayer-funded government agencies for political purposes at one time in our society was called corrupt. Today, it's called the Barack Obama administration, and is more apparent now than ever.
Of the agencies which have been weaponized for use against political adversaries and even the citizenry at large, the Internal Revenue Service is foremost in people's minds. The IRS created a target list to obstruct and delay nonprofit tax status of conservative organizations, pro-traditional marriage groups and pro-Israel coalitions and is still under investigation. If you are old enough to remember or you know history, the second article of impeachment forcing Richard Nixon's presidential resignation was the intent, not the actual use, of the IRS.
Specifically, the damning assessment declared that Nixon "has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law ."
Obama didn't "endeavor" to use the IRS; his administration actually used it against law-abiding citizens.
The Environmental Protection Agency has frequently used threats, bullying and regulation to take the property of individuals and businesses, but the level of activism seen in the Obama EPA is unprecedented. Most recently, three states and the Navajo nation's drinking water were poisoned with 3 million gallons of mining waste that carried 880,000 pounds of toxic metals during an EPA cleanup of a Colorado gold mine. Congress even issued a report revealing the "inaccurate and misleading" accounts of details submitted by the EPA and the Department of the Interior in an effort to minimize the massive environmental wreck.
Has there been any accountability in this situation? No. Hearings, reports and more "oversight" are about all our Congress has been able to muster. But a private company would likely face criminal charges in light of the facts now available that this, and other EPA-led disasters, could have been prevented.
But the most consistent agency that gets overlooked in Obama's fulfilled promise of 2008 to "fundamentally transform America" is the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Just last week, the DOJ declared North Carolina's law to protect the privacy of citizens in public bathrooms and locker facilities based on the biology of a human at birth rather than their emotional assignment of identity-for-the-moment as illegal. The highest estimate found in a review of U.S. Census data, The New York Times and the Williams Institute - a "gender-identity" think-tank at UCLA - has shown 0.3 percent of the U.S. population is being accommodated by this societal upheaval of individual identity called "transgender."
So, states, it's illegal to protect the privacy of your citizens in public facilities. Yet this same DOJ refused to prosecute Black Panther thugs dressed in paramilitary gear with witnesses identifying one member "brandishing a nightstick" who physically intimidated voters.
This Obama DOJ also acts as the defense counsel in the gun-running scandal "Fast and Furious," which released high-powered weapons into the hands of south-of-the border cartels in hopes of tracking their resale. In this scheme, both a U.S. Marine and a patrolman were murdered. Yet, the White House, evoking executive privilege for years, has slowed one more limp congressional investigation.
Speaking of the unenforced border, back in October the DOJ oversaw the release of 2,000 "foreign citizens" who were in U.S. prisons. Not only do we have a porous border, but we now have a revolving door for our prisons.
Why is America angry? She's been violated by her own elected leaders - the government.
Robin Smith, a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, is owner of Rivers Edge Alliance.