This past weekend, the Virginia Republican Party nominated Bishop E. W. Jackson for Lt. Governor.  Jackson’s nomination will be a test whether the Tea Party, conservatives and independents have enough clout to elect an honest outsider who also happens to be a very good man.

Mr. Jackson served in the Marine Corp and graduated from Harvard Law School.  He isn’t your ordinary politician.  He speaks the truth and doesn’t tie himself up in linguistic half-truths when asked a question.  His candor is refreshing.

A former Democrat, Jackson is intimately familiar with the tactics the Left uses to enforce racial solidarity, whether accusations of racism, big government dependency or the Justice Department’s use of the law in a racially selective way.

Jackson is already drawing the ire of the pro-abortion Left, and for good reason.  He accurately describes the nasty racist eugenicist pedigree of Planned Parenthood and their targeting of black communities.  Abortion advocates would be wise to leave well enough alone and keep quiet about Mr. Jackson’s views.  The vast majority of Americans oppose racially targeted abortion.  The more that the pro-abortion Left talks about Jackson, the more chances he will have to share the racist and villainous history of Planned Parenthood.

Jackson faces Democrat Aneesh Chopra.  Chopra served in the Obama administration.  President Obama, in announcing Chopra’s addition to his administration, made a statement sure to hound Chopra and provide laugh lines:

Chopra’s job will be to promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals such as job creation, reducing health care costs, and protecting the homeland. Together with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, their jobs are to make the government more effective, efficient, and transparent.

Heckuva-job Chopie.

Jobs are down.  Health care costs are up.  And the administration is the least transparent (and abusive) in history.

Jackson’s candidacy will provide the voting block constantly agitating for an outsider that speaks plainly a chance to show if there are enough of you to win an election.  His candidacy will test whether America has room for a genuinely honest man who loves the American idea an opportunity to rise to high office.  From everything I know about Jackson, and everything I know about Virginia, expect Jackson to win.

Franklin Graham, the Tea Party, and Larry Conners all faced the wrath of the Obama IRS.

You can add me to that list.

After Obama was elected, I faced my first IRS audit shakedown after decades of filing income tax returns. Overdue coincidence?  Perhaps.

Given the headlines of the past 48 hours, perhaps not.

My audit experience was a headache, as anyone who has experienced one can attest.  When it happened, a former IRS lawyer with whom I associated in private practice told me – “it’s no accident you were audited.”

I brushed it off.  But I wonder how many left-wing election lawyers and leftist bloggers were audited.  Any Media Matters drones face an audit in the last four years? Step right up and announce yourself if you did.

Now we are learning that IRS employees committed crimes to aid the Left – shaking down conservative groups for information, and leaking the results to the Left.

I saw the IRS letters to Tea Party groups years ago.  They read like an opposition researcher’s fantasy:  demands for the names of volunteers, money, content of speeches, donors, offices, on and on and on.

Last week President Obama addressed Ohio State University students.  He told them to ignore the voices warning them of big intrusive government.  In doing so, he gave the middle finger to the philosophy and people who launched this nation.

Ronald Reagan was the better of Obama in so many ways, including his understanding of human history. He rightly warned us of a danger as old as time – that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

This wild, disturbing and dishonest week makes clear which of the two presidents was right.

And about that IRS shakedown — after the audit and many hours of wasted time, the IRS ended up owing me $100.

(Thumbnail on PJM homepage based on a modified Shutterstock.com image.)

Related: Emails Show Holder Justice Department Colludes with Lefist Outfit to Attack PJM Writer

Update: To read how a Philly area Tea Party eventually shut down because of the IRS abuse, read this. 

The President’s Ohio State University speech was really all about Ronald Reagan.  President Obama has sought to undo Reagan’s legacy.  That’s always been Job One.  Compare.

” . . .always lurking just around the corner.”

“. . . never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Read George Will flay the Ohio State speech

Their work is in the news, so let’s meet the leadership team at the Internal Revenue Service that was in charge of reviewing those Tea Party applications for 501 (c) status.

Lois Lerner is the director of Exempt Organizations.  All of the mischief which occurred at the IRS took place under her supervision.

Prior to joining the IRS, Lerner was a bureaucrat at the Federal Election Commission.  Beginning in 1981, she served as an assistant general counsel, and was appointed in 1986 to head the Enforcement Division. Prior to joining the FEC, she was a staff attorney in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. She is a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston and received her Juris Doctor from Western New England College of Law in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Nan Downing is the director of Examinations.  She helped implement a “Fast Track Settlement” process for 501(c) applicants.

It must not apply to any conservative or Tea Party groups because they have been waiting for determinations for years after multiple intrusive questions about volunteers and donors.

The Internal Revenue Service has an interesting publication which might come in handy to Justice Department lawyers, assuming the Attorney General does his job.  It describes some of the many crimes it seems federal employees working at the IRS may have committed.  The big question now is whether Attorney General Eric Holder will do anything about it. 

Don’t hold your breath.  The most corrupt Attorney General since Warren Harding’s Harry M. Daugherty has distinguished himself by using his office to advance an ideological agenda, punish political enemies and reward friends. 

Describing the deja vu legacy of Richard Nixon, the IRS document notes:

By the mid 1970s, there was increased congressional and public concern about the widespread use of tax information by government agencies for purposes unrelated to tax administration. This concern culminated with the enactment of section 6103, passed as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1976.

Then the IRS document reminds us of Nixonian behavior that sounds so fresh and new:

Concern over tax return confidentiality remained after revocation of the two executive orders. The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (Watergate Committee) hearings revealed that former White House counsel John Dean had sought from the IRS political information on so-called “enemies.” Furthermore, it was disclosed that the White House actually was supplied with information about IRS investigations of Howard Hughes and Charles Rebozo. The Committee noted that tax information and income tax audits were commonly requested by White House staff and supplied by IRS personnel.

And here is the good stuff, which implicates whether or not Eric Holder will faithfully execute the duties of his office.  There are:

Criminal penalties, including a felony for the willful unauthorized disclosure of returns or return information and a civil cause of action for the taxpayer whose information has been inspected or disclosed in a manner not authorized by section 6103. I.R.C. §§ 7213 (criminal penalty for unauthorized disclosure) and 7431 (civil damages provision).

If the post-Watergate protections weren’t enough, there is the appropriately named Taxpayer Browsing Protection Act of 1997.  Again from the IRS document, it:

created a misdemeanor for the unauthorized inspection of returns or return information (section 7213A). In addition, in 1996, Public Law 104-294 provided that the unauthorized access of returns or return information in government computer files is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(B). Pub. L. No. 104-294, 110 Stat. 3488 (1996).

So snap to it Mr. Holder.  Officials at your own IRS have all but admitted someone on the GS scale has committed various federal crimes.  When will your Criminal Division open an investigation?  Given your administration is spinning that low level employees, some in Cincinnati, are responsible, I’m sure U.S. Attorney Carter Stewart will be right on the case.  After all, he has been so vigilant in prosecuting Meloweese Richardson, the woman who said on camera that she voted for your boss at least six times.

One of the reasons Labor secretary nominee Tom Perez is unqualified to serve in the cabinet is because he cannot represent all Americans fairly. To him, vast sections of the country represent oppressive backwaters that are culturally regressive, racist, and oppressive. The more removed a state is from his progressive ideal, the more it deserves kicks from the boot of government.

Few states have been kicked around by Perez as much as Alabama.

Perez formerly served as head of the pro-illegal alien group Casa de Maryland. As I wrote in my book Injustice:

Perez is a long-time advocate for illegal aliens who served as president of Casa de Maryland, a radical open borders advocacy organization that encourages illegal aliens not to speak with the police and urges local governments not to enforce federal fugitive warrants against them. He also fought to mandate that Mexican identification be recognized as valid photo ID in the United States, even though the documents are so rife with fraud that twenty-two of Mexico’s thirty-two states and districts refuse to recognize the documents.

Perez is proud of his service at Casa, so much so that once he had the power of the federal government behind him, he led the attack on Alabama’s efforts to make the Yellowhammer State inhospitable to those in the United States illegally.

When Alabama cracked down on providing government services to illegal aliens, Perez demanded otherwise: no illegal should be denied public education or benefits, he believes. Perez launched an information shakedown of the state, demanding through letters what should have been sought in litigation.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange rightfully opposed the demands.

When local sheriffs made the mistake of asking for guidance from Perez about how to implement the Alabama immigration law, Perez threatened them in a meeting. Memo to state and local officials everywhere: don’t ask for guidance from the DOJ Civil Rights Division. The radicals running the place will take advantage of your good faith and make demands of you that the law does not support.

Perez has also threatened election officials in Alabama, threatening to “bury” the state ”with paper” if Alabama did not give in. This is typical of the would-be Labor secretary. Under oath before Congress, he is all smiles, sunshine, and bluebirds; behind closed doors he is a thuggish progressive bureaucrat comfortable wielding power despite what the law says.

This is one reason Perez has resorted to using his Verizon email account at his Takoma Park, Maryland home to conduct Justice Department business. It insulates his behavior from the Freedom of Information Act. But even the Justice Department admits that Perez violated federal records laws in excess of 1,200 times by using his home email to conduct DOJ work. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed his emails, but so far Perez has refused to turn them over. Based on his past behavior, it would surprise nobody if the emails contain more threats to “bury” local government officials or business leaders.

Perhaps that’s why Perez and Justice are fighting so hard to conceal the work Perez conducted in the name of the United States, but behind closed doors in his home: we know how Perez threatens officials in Alabama when he thinks nobody else will hear.

Two men who built America into a great nation, Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon, helped build a great university — Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.  But like so many other American campuses, it has descended into rot.

Consider the products of the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon, commonly called CMU.

The first CMU student in the news seeking an art degree is the anti-Catholic bigot Katherine O’Connor.  O’Connor thought it would be edgy to walk around campus half-dressed as the pope, and half-dressed in nothing.  The order of those halves gave her the opportunity to creatively employ her art studies in a way you can read about here.  Her bottom half being naked allowed her to add to the “costume.”

There’s a problem with parading around campus half-dressed — it’s illegal in Pittsburgh.  O’Connor is going to learn the hard way that while her bigotry isn’t illegal, her antics were.  She was arrested along with Robb Godshaw, her criminal co-conspirator. She now faces charges of indecent exposure.

O’Connor is an art student at CMU (for now), and some Google work will reveal much about her life which I won’t reveal here.  It also reveals much about CMU’s art program.

The only thing dumber than conservatives and Republicans flinching from racial attacks is when they make them.  The latest example is the crucifixion of Jason Richwine, as Michelle Malkin calls it.

Borrowing the tactics of the racialist (and sometimes racist) Left, supporters of the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform have dug into the deep academic past of Jason Richwine.  Richwine processed some data for a study by the Heritage Foundation showing that immigration reform, as currently proposed by the Gang of Eight, would cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars.

Because the Heritage cost study dominated the immigration narrative for a few days and dimmed the prospects for legislation, the long knives came out.  And the Left has no longer knives than accusing someone of being a racist.

I’ve written extensively how charges of racism are the Left’s magic words to cause GOP panic.  In the past, merely accusing someone of being a racist earned you whatever policy you want.  Read Shelby Steele’s seminal book White Guilt for details.

The same things happened to Richwine, except this time the charges have been coming from a purportedly conservative group called the Hispanic Leadership Fund.  No matter where you stand on immigration, one thing that should unite genuine conservatives and believers in individual liberty is not to resort to smearing someone as a racist without cause.

For the last two days, the left-wing media has devoured the narrative stoked by immigration reform advocates that Richwine is a nativist racist.  Why?  Because of an academic doctoral dissertation he wrote which Harvard deemed worthy to approve.  Malkin summarizes his doctoral work:

Part One reviews the science of IQ. Part Two delves into empirical research comparing IQs of the native-born American population with that of immigrant groups, with the Hispanic population broken out. Richwine explores the causes of an immigrant IQ deficit that appears to persist among Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. through several generations.

When I read that Richwine’s scholarship involved empirical study of IQ levels across generations, I was reminded of my voting-rights litigation.  “Senate Factor Five” makes it relevant in a voting case the extent to which minorities “bear the effects of discrimination” as it relates to education and health such that it limits “their ability to participate effectively” in politics.

Tonight I heard Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin talk about his new book Mission to Mars.  Aldrin made numerous allusions to the fact he was not happy with the current direction of the space program.  But tonight he told a story about President Obama even more damning.

Buzz Aldrin (R) at National Geographic

On April 15, 2010, President Obama delivered his central speech on space policy at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  Aldrin was given a ride on Air Force One to the speech.  Aldrin said tonight in front of a packed house in a National Geographic auditorium in Washington D.C. that he presumed he might have a chance to speak with the President about options for space during the flight to Kennedy. 

But it didn’t happen. President Obama had nothing to say to the moonwalker and didn’t seem to want to hear anything from Aldrin on the long flight to Florida.  So Aldrin sat in the back of Air Force One and never saw Obama – until it landed.

When it landed, Aldrin said he was summoned to the front of the plane. But he found out it was not to talk about space policy.  Instead, President Obama wanted Aldrin to emerge from Air Force One next to Obama for a photo op.  The moonwalker was to be a mere prop.

Obama and Aldrin emerge from Air Force One at Kennedy Space Center

I do not believe Aldrin sought to embarrass the President tonight with this account, even if that was the result.  Obama’s in-flight snub of Aldrin and subsequent impressment as a prop became a recurring joke throughout tonight’s lecture. 

Aldrin’s son even asked in Q &A what he would do if he had 15 seconds to discuss space policy with the next President.  Aldrin’s answer alluded to Obama screwing things up.

Throughout the night, Aldrin made other comments sure to make the liberals in the audience squirm, such as complaining about “the unions” fouling up math and science education.

As the second man to walk on the moon, Aldrin rightfully enjoys a place in American (and world) history that few can match.  Even his accomplishments on Gemini 12 were historic.  He represents a time of unparalleled American greatness, when televisions carried black and white images of American can-do know-how to every corner of the globe.  Aldrin, now 83, is a fervent advocate of projecting America deeper into space because he is a fervent believer in America, even if some find him more useful as a prop.

(For PJ Media’s coverage of space see Rand Simberg’s page as well as my story on Apollo 8.)

The Department of Justice under Eric Holder can’t seem to help itself.  Truth and candor have gone extinct.  The latest lie involving the nomination of Thomas Perez to be Labor secretary is found in today’s Washington Post.  Naturally, the compliant reporter, Josh Hicks, appears to make no effort to challenge the lie, and probably never will.

This latest lie about Perez revolves around his illegal use of his personal Verizon email account to conduct Justice Department business at his Takoma Park, Maryland, home. I testified to the House Judiciary Committee last month that when he was confronted with the question whether he ever used his personal email account to conduct DOJ business, he said under oath he “could not recall.”

The reason the question is important is because it is against the law to conduct government business on a personal email account.  One reason for the law is to permit transparency, another extinct concept in the age of Obama.

When Perez was confronted with his emails conducting DOJ business on his home Verizon account, his recollection became less foggy.

Enter the liars at the Justice Department to cover for him further, courtesy of Josh Hicks at the Post:

The Justice Department said in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, that Perez used his personal e-mail account “to allow him to review or edit documents after normal working hours.”

So they admit the substance of Perez violating federal law, but offer up an excuse: he had to work at home.

Balderdash.

What Rep. Issa was not informed about by the DOJ are the robust DOJ protocols for doing DOJ work at home.  Each year, DOJ lawyers must undergo computer security training.  It is a nuisance because it diverts every DOJ employee, including me, from their regular duties.  But nevertheless, the training is clear — you don’t use personal email for DOJ business and you don’t do DOJ work at home on non-secure computers.