This infuriating story, which we quote almost in full, is about a victim of the Obama administration, showing how it zealously, even sadistically, implements its leftist policy, through the IRS and other government agencies, to target conservative groups and persecute individuals who form them. It comes from National Review, written by Jillian Kay Melchior.

The Engelbrechts were not, until recently, particularly political. They had been busy running a tiny manufacturing plant in Rosenberg, Texas. After years of working for others, Bryan, a trained machinist, wanted to open his own shop, so he saved his earnings, bought a computerized numerical-control machine, which does precision metal-cutting, and began operating out of his garage. “That was about 20 years ago” he says. “Now, we’re up to about 30 employees.” 

For two decades, Bryan and Catherine drove to work in their big truck. Engelbrecht Manufacturing Inc. now operates out of a 20,000-square-foot metal building on the prairie just outside of Houston … They went back to their country home each night. Stress was rare, and life was good.

But the 2008 elections left Catherine feeling frustrated about the debates, which seemed to be a string of superficial talking points. So she began attending tea-party meetings, enjoying the political discussion. A spunky woman known for her drive, Catherine soon wanted to do more than just talk. She joined other tea partiers and decided to volunteer at the ballot box. Working as an alternate judge at the polls in 2009 in Fort Bend County, Texas, Catherine says, she was appalled and dismayed to witness everything from administrative snafus to outright voter fraud.

These formative experiences prompted her to found two organizations: King Street Patriots, a local community group that hosts weekly discussions on personal and economic freedoms; and True the Vote, which seeks to prevent voter fraud and trains volunteers to work as election monitors. It also registers voters, attempts to validate voter-registration lists, and pursues fraud reports to push for prosecution if illegal activity has occurred. …

In July 2010, Catherine filed with the IRS seeking tax-exempt status for her organizations.

Shortly after,the troubles began.

That winter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation came knocking with questions about a person who had attended a King Street Patriots event once. Based on sign-in sheets, the organization discovered that the individual in question had attended an event, but “it was a come-and-go thing”,  and they had no further information on hand about him. Nevertheless, the FBI also made inquiries about the person to the office manager, who was a [King Street Patriots] volunteer.

The King Street Patriots weren’t the only ones under scrutiny. On January 11, the IRS visited the Engelbrechts’  shop and conducted an on-site audit of both their business and their personal returns, Catherine says.

“What struck us as odd about that,” she adds, “is the lengths to which the auditor went to try to … find some error. She wanted to go out and see [our] farm, she wanted to count the cattle, she wanted to look at the fence line. It was a very curious three days. …”

Bryan adds: “It was kind of funny to us. I mean, we weren’t laughing that much, but we knew we were squeaky clean. … ” 

Two months later, the IRS initiated the first round of questions for True the Vote. Catherine painstakingly answered them, knowing that nonprofit status would help with the organization’s credibility, donors, and grant applications. In October, the IRS requested additional information. And whenever Catherine followed up with IRS agents about the status of True the Vote’s application, there was always a delay that our application was going to be up next, and it was just around the corner …

As this was occurring, the FBI continued to phone King Street Patriots. In May 2011, agents phoned wondering “how they were doing”.  The FBI made further inquiries in June, November, and December asking whether there was anything to report.

The situation escalated in 2012. That February, True the Vote received a third request for information from the IRS, which also sent its first questionnaire to King Street Patriots. Catherine says the IRS had “hundreds of questions, hundreds and hundreds of questions.”  The IRS requested every Facebook post and Tweet she had ever written. She received questions about her family, whether she’d ever run for political office, and which organizations she had spoken to.

“It’s no great secret that the IRS is considered to be one of the more serious [federal agencies],” Catherine says. “When you get a call from the IRS, you don’t take it lightly. So when you are asked questions that seem to imply a sense of disapproval, it has a very chilling effect.” 

On the same day they received the questions from the IRS, Catherine says, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) launched an unscheduled audit of their machine shop, forcing the Engelbrechts to drop everything planned for that day. Though the Engelbrechts have a Class 7 license, which allows them to make component parts for guns, they do not manufacture firearms. Catherine said that while the ATF had a right to conduct the audit, “it was odd that they did it completely unannounced, and they took five, six hours. It was so extensive. It just felt kind of weird.” 

That was in February. In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid a visit to Engelbrecht Manufacturing while Bryan, Catherine, and their children were out of town. The OSHA inspector talked with the managerial staff and employees, inspecting the premises minutely. But Bryan says the agent found only “little Mickey Mouse stuff, like, ‘You have safety glasses on, but not the right kind; the forklift has a seatbelt, but not the right kind.’” Yet Catherine and Bryan said the OSHA inspector complimented them on their tightly run shop and said she didn’t know why she had been sent to examine it.

Not long after, the tab arrived. OSHA was imposing $25,000 in fines on Engelbrecht Manufacturing. They eventually worked it down to $17,500, and Bryan says they may have tried to contest the fines to drive them even lower, but “we didn’t want to make any more waves, because we don’t know [how much further] OSHA could reach.” 

“Bottom line is, it hurt,”  he says. “[$17,500 dollars] is not an insignificant amount to this company. It might be to other companies, but we’re still considered small, and it came at a time when business was slow, so instead of giving an employee a raise or potentially hiring another employee, I’m writing a check to our government.” 

A few months later, True the Vote became the subject of congressional scrutiny. In September, Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) wrote to Thomas Perez, then the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice (who has now been nominated for labor secretary): “As you know, an organization called ‘True the Vote’, which is an offshoot of the Tea Party, is leading a voter suppression campaign in many states,” Boxer wrote, adding that “this type of intimidation must stop. I don’t believe this is ‘True the Vote’. I believe it’s ‘Stop the Vote’.”

And in October, Representative Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, attacked True the Vote in a letter. He wrote that: “Some have suggested that your true goal is not voter integrity, but voter suppression against thousands of legitimate voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.”  He added that: “If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated, and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.”  He also decried True the Vote on MSNBC and CNN. …

The next month, in November 2012, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, showed up for an unscheduled audit at Engelbrecht Manufacturing. Catherine says the inspector told her the agency had received a complaint but couldn’t  provide any more details. After the inspection, the agency notified the Engelbrechts that they needed to pay for an additional mechanical permit, which cost about $2,000 per year.

Since then, the IRS has sent two further rounds of questions to Catherine for her organizations. And last month, the ATF conducted a second unscheduled audit at Engelbrecht Manufacturing.

Catherine says she still hasn’t received IRS approval for her nonprofits, though she filed nearly three years ago. …

On behalf of the True the Vote and King Street Patriots, Representative Ted Poe (R., Texas) sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF, inquiring whether the organizations were under criminal investigation. A statement on Poe’s website states that “the reply from these agencies was that none of these individuals were under criminal investigation. Well, if they’re not, why are they being treated like criminals? Just because they question government?” 

… Other Tea Party groups decided not to form nonprofits at all after learning about her experience, [Catherine] says. “They were scared,” she explains, “and you shouldn’t be scared of your government.”

Meanwhile, Catherine says the harassment has forced her to seriously reconsider whether her political activity is worth the government harassment she’s faced.

“I left a thriving family business with my husband that I loved, to do something I didn’t necessarily love, but [which] I thought had to be done,” she says.”But I really think if we don’t do this, if we don’t stand up and speak now, there might not [always] be that chance.”

Her husband offers an additional observation: “If you knew my wife, you’d know she doesn’t back down from anybody. They picked on the wrong person when they started picking on her.”

*

The Washington Post reports that Steven T. Miller, the Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, appearing today before the Senate Finance Committee, denied that he misled Congress about the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.  He said –

I’m not going to disagree at all with the characterization of bad management here, but the actions were not politically motivated.

!!!

The bolshie Democrats are hating Scott Brown’s victory. They think Republicans, conservatives, independents, tea-partiers are gloating too much over it.

But when the freedom of America is at issue, there is no point in being gracious in victory. Press on, rather, to administer the coup de grâce.

This whimpering article shows how much they’re smarting from the blow.

It also shows that though they hear what the voters are saying they still don’t ‘get it’.

From the Washington Post:

If Republicans turn up the volume any more in the gloating over their Senate victory in Massachusetts, Americans are going to need hearing protection.

At a Wednesday-morning news conference called by House GOP leaders, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) claimed to speak for the American people when she asked: “Mr. President and the majority, can you hear us now?”

“The American people spoke in Virginia,” she continued, imitating the Verizon commercial that has been adopted by conservative “tea party” activists. “Can you hear us now?”

“The American people spoke in New Jersey. Can you hear us now?”

“And they certainly spoke last night in Massachusetts,” she concluded. “Can you hear us now?

Of course they can hear you, Congresswoman. A deaf man could hear you.

What the American people don’t hear is any offer by the Republicans to compromise with Democrats on health care, climate-change legislation, fiscal matters or much of anything else.

Nor should they.

If anything, Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday seems to have left Republicans with the belief that their “party of no” strategy is working. After the Republican House leaders pronounced all the things they don’t want to do — “end . . . scrap . . . reject . . . has to be stopped . . . no to this . . . no . . . not to embark . . . isn’t working” — they cut off questioning after a couple of minutes and left.

“Is there any specific area of health-care reform where you could cooperate with Democrats?” NBC’s Luke Russert called out to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Boehner muttered something unintelligible and continued walking.

Even if Republicans were inclined to cooperate with Democrats, there’s little political incentive for them to do so. Only 24 percent of Americans have a good amount of confidence in congressional Republicans, according to this month’s Washington Post-ABC News poll. With that lowly standing — even worse than the Democrats’ — Republicans’ best hope is that Democrats achieve nothing this year and are punished by voters in November as do-nothing legislators.

Yet the Democrats, predictably, are falling into the GOP’s trap and trimming their ambitions. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), in a statement calling on his party’s leaders to suspend further health-care action before Brown is seated, calling it “vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders.” As if that could be accomplished by the November midterm elections.

The Republican reaction to the Massachusetts results could be summarized in four words: nana nana boo boo….

On the House floor, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) likened Tuesday’s vote to the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. “The people of Massachusetts have fired a second shot heard around the world,” he said. “Our government, like the British, would do well never to underestimate the American people.”

The Republican National Committee issued a research briefing titled “O-bandon Ship!” The voluble RNC chairman, Michael Steele, informed the viewers of “Good Morning America” that “the country is sighing a sigh of relief.”

The office of Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House minority whip, issued a gloating e-mail titled “Dems in Chaos.” In an underground TV studio in the Capitol complex, Cantor was among a quintet of Republican House members who climbed the podium Wednesday morning for the first round of bragging. …

Michigan’s Miller, also avoiding the “graceful winner” label, took the opportunity to call Obama “the most partisan president that America has ever seen” and said Democrats got their comeuppance because they “rammed” the economic stimulus plan “down the throats of this Congress.”

And she spoke the truth.

It was time for the next gloat session, in another studio on the third floor of the Capitol. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Senate Republican leader, led half a dozen colleagues onto the stage and flashed a grin. The gesture, a rare one for McConnell, looked more like a grimace. “This was in many ways a national referendum principally on the major issue we’re wrestling with here in Congress,” he announced.

So is the health-care bill dead?

“I sure hope so,” McConnell said.

And the cap-and-trade plan to limit carbon emissions?

“I would say there is minimal enthusiasm, to put it mildly,” he said.

A deficit-reduction commission?

“I’m not going to decide today what we’re going to do in the future,” he said.

Obama’s choice to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel?

“A significant number of my conference . . . have not felt she should go forward.”

“So what are you prepared to work with the Democrats on?” ABC’s Jonathan Karl inquired….

Until all attempts by Obama and the Democrats to take America down the road to serfdom have stopped, the answer should be ‘Nothing’.