2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNeed examples of Bush targeting political foes
Not just the IRS, but other examples as well, thanks.
JHB
(37,128 posts)Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame
The US attorneys fired for NOT bringing cases to court that they didn't think there was evidence for (but would have made for politically useful headlines)
Peace activists and war protesters put on terrorist watch lists
Democrats Were Targets in Inquiries, Panel Is Told
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24prosecute.html?_r=0
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 Richard L. Thornburgh, attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, charged Tuesday that political reasons motivated the Justice Department to open corruption investigations against Democrats in Mr. Thornburghs home state, Pennsylvania.
This article mixes wider Republican dirty business with Bush abusing government apparatus, but still useful:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/10-examples-of-bush-and-t_b_3288007.html
7. The Bush IRS Collected Political Affiliation Data on Taxpayers. In 2006, a contractor hired by the IRS collected party affiliation via a search of voter registration roles in a laundry list of states: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. This begs the obvious question: why? Why would the IRS need voter registration and party affiliation information?
8. The Bush FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeted Civil Rights / Anti-war Activists. In 2005, an ACLU investigation revealed that both the FBI and the JTTF surveilled and gathered intelligence about a variety of liberal groups including PETA and the Catholic Workers, along with other groups that it hyperbolically referred to as having "semi-communistic ideology."
9. The Bush Pentagon Spied on Dozens of Anti-war Meetings. Also in 2005, the Department of Defense tracked 1,500 "suspicious incidents" and spied on four dozen meetings involving, for example, anti-war Quaker groups and the like. Yes, really. The Bush administration actually kept track of who was attending these meetings down to descriptions of the vehicles used by the attendees, calling to mind the pre-Watergate era when the government investigated 100,000 Americans during the Vietnam War.
10. The Bush FBI Targeted Journalists with the New York Times and the Washington Post. By now, we're all familiar with the AP situation in which U.S. attorney Ronald Machen subpoenaed and confiscated phone records from the AP as part of a leak investigation into an article about a CIA operation that took place in Yemen to thwart a terrorist attack on the anniversary of Bin Laden's death. Well, this story pales in comparison with the Bush administration's inquisition against the reporters who broke the story about the NSA wiretapping program. In fact, the Justice Department considered invoking the Espionage Act of 1917, the archaic sequel to the John Adams-era Alien and Sedition Acts. The Bush FBI seized phone records -- without subpoena -- from four American journalists, including Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez. How do we know this for sure? Former FBI Director Robert Mueller apologized to the New York Times and the Washington Post.
good material!
66 dmhlt
(1,941 posts)There are a few more (and some w/ overlap in this group).
"The New York Times" documenting Bush going after liberal blogger Juan Cole
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html
Salon has three - w/ the new one about targeting a church after an antiwar sermon against Bush
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/
"LA Times" exclusively about targeting the church
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/16/local/me-allsaints16
Multiple overlaps (Greenpeace, NAACP, etc.)
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/obama-presidency/irs-audited-liberal-groups-under-president-bush-no-outrage-gop
Aristus
(66,075 posts)"First Amendment zones."