How the IRS Launders Veterans Disability Checks

The IRS Has Not Only Been Singling Out Conservative Groups. They've Also Been Singling Out Disabled Veterans

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has come under attack for malicious treatment of certain U.S. citizens and groups by singling them out based upon their personal political preferences. At this time, it is still unclear where the direct orders came from to initiate such heinous activities, but what is crystal clear is that this type of activity is not new for the IRS.

The IRS has mastered the art of breaking their own laws, one case in particular; using banks to launder and then steal disabled veterans' disability checks.

The Veterans Disability Act of 2010 is a Federal law which exempts VA disability from withholding of any sort. Actually, existing code USC, Title 38, §5301 already protected VA disability from withholding, but this provision was re-iterated and included in the newer legislation of 2010, because too many civil court judges were legislating from the bench and including veterans' disability monies as earned income and granting it to ex-spouses (men and women) in divorce proceedings, at times, leaving disabled veterans without any safety net for self-care.

However, the IRS is still figuring out ways to get to a veteran's disability money. How do I know? Recently, it happened to me.

A couple of months ago, when I logged into my online bank account to make sure that my VA disability check had been deposited (I am a 60% disabled veteran of the Iraq War) I saw red and a negative balance, beside which read the word "hold."

I called my bank and was informed that the IRS had sent a letter demanding that the bank take all of the available funds out of my account on the first day of the month and then wire them to them. The bank gave me a telephone number at which to call the IRS. After being placed on hold for a very long time- long as in a biblical age- I finally spoke with an agent.

Long story short; they claim I made $157,000 in 2010 and that I owe them tons of money, and that until I pay it, a lien will remain on my personal bank account.

At the beginning of 2010, I was still in the hospital recovering from injuries I'd sustained while serving in Iraq. I was released early in the year, but still did not find employment until October, and even then, it was only part time. I can assure you, as I did the IRS, that I did not earn $157,000.00. Actually, I earned less than $10,000.00 in 2010.

I kindly read the federal code mentioned above to the lady I spoke with at the IRS, reminding her that VA disability money is 100% exempt. She placed me on hold for another age (I could see a man coming- bearing water- over the horizon) and then she came back on the line and told me, "We do not take veterans' disability money. We wait until the funds are deposited from the VA and then we take all of the funds from your bank account."

Um.

Isn't this called laundering?

I find it ironic, now, that only weeks before the IRS put this hold on my bank account, I'd been asked to be a contributing writer for key Tea Party personality "Joe the Plumber." I'd been writing freelance articles on veterans affairs for some time, publishing and distributing them mostly through Facebook, and I viewed the personal call Joe made to me as one of the greatest compliments I'd been paid in regard to those articles. I jumped at the opportunity to join his team and give my work, such as this piece, a wider audience. I can't help but think that part of my decision to join Joe's team may have played a part in being singled out by the IRS at this specific time and having my VA disability money taken from me in complete breach of federal law.

The good news is that through my persistence, and my refusal to accept their answer, that it is okay to launder VA disability money, I was able to get the IRS to refund all of the money they'd taken from my bank. I am working with the IRS to remedy their great misunderstanding of my earnings for 2010, and I am reaching out to all disabled veterans to let them know that if this is happening to them, they do have rights, and they need to stand up for them.

As many veterans know, our war does not stop once we make it home. Often, new battles begin, such as battles for the rights our government promised they'd provide for us upon our return from war that they often turn around and attempt to take away.

Currently in America, twenty two veterans a day are committing suicide. One of the biggest contributors to the suicide epidemic is our veterans' inability to find suitable work after serving and the inability to take care of themselves and their families financially. This is why VA disability is sacred- except in the eyes of the IRS. Too many disabled veterans in the U.S. are just a disability check away from being on the street and joining the already nearly 70,000 homeless veterans in America.

If you are a veteran receiving disability from the VA, and you are having it garnished, withheld, or having a lien placed upon it for any reason, please contact the entity who is withholding, garnishing, or who has placed the lien, and reference the federal code stated earlier in this article. You stood up for the rights of all people of a great nation in combat, but unfortunately, you must continue to stand up for yourselves to ensure that the promises of being taken care of upon your return are kept. But you can do it, because you are a warrior, and that's what warriors do.

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-irs-launders-veterans-disability-checks-12136745.html?cat=17

Obama Thinks Your Speech Is Illegitimate

A couple weeks back, Ross Douthat wrote a smart and incisive column on the Obama administration’s targeting of conservative organizations. He argued that it wasn’t necessarily a top-down endeavor—Obama wasn’t hopping on the phone and telling individual IRS agents to go get the tea party—but one inspired by the climate of fear and aggression that Obama and his allies himself nurtured. It was, Douthat wrote, a classic “brown scare”:

Even though an American Civil Liberties Union official described their excessive interest in right-wing groups as “about as constitutionally troubling as it gets,” the bureaucrats in question probably thought they were just doing their patriotic duty, and giving dangerous extremists the treatment they deserved.

Where might an enterprising, public-spirited I.R.S. agent get the idea that a Tea Party group deserved more scrutiny from the government than the typical band of activists seeking tax-exempt status? Oh, I don’t know: why, maybe from all the prominent voices who spent the first two years of the Obama era worrying that the Tea Party wasn’t just a typically messy expression of citizen activism, but something much darker — an expression of crypto-fascist, crypto-racist rage, part Timothy McVeigh and part Bull Connor, potentially carrying a wave of terrorist violence in its wings.

As I said, this strikes me as about right. This brown scare has been in the making for some time. Obama’s folks have a long track record of waging scorched earth campaigns against anyone who dares contradict him, as Kimberley Strassel points out in the Wall Street Journal today:

On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign and supporters were furious, and they pressured TV stations to pull the ad—a common-enough tactic in such ad spats.

What came next was not common. Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on the same day wrote to the criminal division of the Justice Department, demanding an investigation into AIP, “its officers and directors,” and its “anonymous donors.” Mr. Bauer claimed that the nonprofit, as a 501(c)(4), was committing a “knowing and willful violation” of election law, and wanted “action to enforce against criminal violations.”

AIP gave Justice a full explanation as to why it was not in violation. It said that it operated exactly as liberal groups like Naral Pro-Choice did. It noted that it had disclosed its donor, Texas businessman Harold Simmons. Mr. Bauer’s response was a second letter to Justice calling for the prosecution of Mr. Simmons. He sent a third letter on Sept. 8, again smearing the “sham” AIP’s “illegal electoral purpose.”

If you disagree with the Obama machine, they will attempt to destroy you: they will demonize and smear and work to make your opinion illegitimate and outside the bounds of normal discussion. Obama’s allies work to destroy the lives of those who oppose him and his policies because their opposition is simply illegitimate. Candidate Obama was limited to normal tools like nasty letters and threats of lawsuits. President Obama, meanwhile, has a federal government staffed with people sympathetic to his demeanor and policy positions.

This presumption of illegitimacy is why Obama’s most ardent flunkies, like dinner guest Andrew Sullivan, claim they are “genuinely baffled” by outrage over the IRS targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny. Obama has told us that these groups are illegitimate! And if they’re illegitimate, they must be stopped! And if they must be stopped, well, what’s wrong with the IRS target the president’s political enemies? It’s easy, if terrifying, to understand how this runaway train of illogic gets rolling.

Meanwhile, no one should be surprised that Obama’s DOJ is waging war on Fox News. We have been told, repeatedly, that the Obama administration doesn’t consider them a news organization. As the Los Angeles Times noted back in 2009, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel “said on CNN that Fox News isn’t even a news organization” and Obama adviser David Axelrod “told ABC that Fox News is ‘really not news. … Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way. We’re not going to treat them that way.’”

Why shouldn’t Holder personally sign off on a massively intrusive investigation into Fox News? And why shouldn’t he tell Congress that he wasn’t in favor of prosecuting journalists? He and his boss don’t consider Fox News to be a journalistic endeavor. Their reporting is illegitimate. It probably shouldn’t even receive First Amendment protections. Why shouldn’t the president’s minions use the power of their office to go after an organization that their boss (Holder) and their bosses’ boss (the Prez) consider to be little more than a propaganda outfit? The minions don’t need a directive to get the ball rolling; they already know what to do.
If you’re on the right, Obama and his lackeys consider your speech illegitimate and your destruction fair game. Keep that in mind the next time you think about speaking up.

http://freebeacon.com/blog/obama-thinks-your-speech-is-illegitimate-2/