I suspected this as soon as Lerner plead the 5th

The Phone call:

Obama…"High Lois how are you"?

"Oh…Mr. President what a pleasant surprise." 

"Look Lois I'll get right to the point I want you to resign."

"Me …resign?"

"Yes Lois that's the shared sacrifice sometimes we have to make."

"Look Barry don't give me that shared sacrifice crap. If I go down you go down!"

"OK.. Lois calm down. Look…(Barry starts scratching his head) let me put you on administrative leave until I can come up with a plan to bullshit my way out of this."

"With pay... or a sing like a canary!"

"You got it Lois. Please…just keep your mouth shut."

Click

While You Labor . . . | National Review Online

Welcome back to work.

With a rare three-day weekend behind you, you may be reading these words on your office computer or perhaps on a mobile device en route to your workplace. After barbecuing, relaxing with loved ones, and remembering America's fallen GIs, it may be tough to focus today on meetings, deadlines, and distracting colleagues who drop by to chat.

Too bad you are not Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS's exempt-organizations office in Washington, D.C. She now has America's easiest job. Having pleaded the Fifth Amendment before the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee last Wednesday, Lerner was placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, Congress will sort out her role in the burgeoning scandal over the IRS's ideological profiling and political discrimination against at least 471 conservative groups and Tea Party organizations.

Since Lerner is on administrative leave, she will avoid her office. This means that she — unlike you — can sleep in until the crack of noon, savor breakfast in bed, visit the gym around 3 p.m., head home for a refreshing nap at 4:30 p.m., and then enjoy a long, boozy dinner. She can awaken on Wednesday morning with a throbbing hangover, roll over, and return to sleep. So, tonight: Waiter, make that one more bottle of Malbec! 

And on Thursday: Rise, rinse, repeat.

But wait. There's more.

Lerner is on administrative leave with pay.

According to the American Center for Law and Justice, Lerner signed intrusive letters to at least 15 groups that are suing the IRS for violating their First Amendment rights to free speech and their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection under law. ACLJ represents these outfits in litigation that will be filed presently.

Lerner's letters improperly demanded the names of these groups' donors, copies of materials distributed at their meetings, and even the content of speeches that these institutions hosted.

What is Lerner's punishment for her abuse and intimidation?

Her just-concluded three-day weekend now becomes a continuous seven-day weekend, with her paychecks still landing in her bank account.

And what is Lerner's ongoing reward for this total absence of effort?

Lerner will keep receiving her annual salary of $177,000. As Fox News Channel documented, this sum — which is $3,000 higher than the $174,000 paid to U.S. senators — translates to $3,403.84 each and every week. Compare this with the Social Security Administration's 2011 average annual wage of $42,979.61, or $826.53 weekly. Thus, Lerner makes more than quadruple the typical earner's pay, and now without even lifting a finger. As Yogi Berra might say: "Only in America."

So, why is Lerner still getting paid, even though she is a ringleader of the biggest scandal to rock the IRS since Watergate?

One could argue that Lerner is innocent until proven guilty. However, that might merit her being separated from her duties without pay while all of this shakes out. If she truly did nothing wrong, all of her wages can be restored. If she violated IRS procedures or regulations, however, all of her undeserved gains will remain in the Treasury.

There is another explanation for why Lerner is getting paid to slumber and watch game shows. Her paychecks are hush money. Lerner's uninterrupted compensation conveniently reminds her that she can keep paying her bills as long as she is a good soldier and keeps her mouth shut.

Did IRS higher-ups instruct Lerner to hammer conservative groups? Who else at Treasury knew about this? Did Lerner discuss this with anyone at the White House? What did Obama know, and when did he know it? Perhaps Lerner can answer these questions. But as long as she stays quiet, Washington's pillars of power will be less likely to buckle and fall.

I stand with you, Obama's approval of Lerner's paychecks signals. So, Lois, stand with me. Of course, this assumes that America's absentee-landlord-in-chief is aware of this arrangement. That may be an assumption too far.

Well, dear reader, it's back to work for you. Unless you are on staff at National Review Online, your boss does not pay you to read my words — no matter how flattered I am that you are doing so.

But before you turn to your duties, here's one more thing: Lois Lerner is enjoying the first of many days off with all the joys of a six-figure salary paid for with taxpayer dollars. So, as you slave away, you are financing Lois Lerner's still-lucrative and newly undemanding lifestyle.

Have a productive day. Lois Lerner is counting on you.

— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor, a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service, and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

I suspected this as soon as Lerner plead the 5th

Déjà vu...almost

Nixon and Obama: Like brothers from another mother

(If video won't load click post title)

Video 30


Barry steals a few pages from the Nixon playbook but won't any accept responsibility. 

Interesting to see  how he's gonna blame Bush for this one! 

Déjà vu...almost

Stedman should follow Mark Twain's advice...

Be Truthful:

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything- Mark Twain



Clearly Stedman has it ass backwards. Although he suffers from amnesia he seems to only remember those things that are out and out lies.

During his testimony to Congress Holder obviously lied and should face charges of perjury. 

There is NO WAY you can spin this:

“That is not something that I’ve ever been involved in or heard of or would think would be a wise policy. In fact my view is quite the opposite”

He is lying now just like he did with Fast and Furious and this time Barry can't save him. 

Watch this short video then compare it to the fact he personally signed off on the search warrant to obtain the communications of Rosen.

(If video won't load click post title)

Video 29

And we're going to trust him to investigate himself!

According to an interview with the Daily Beast, Attorney General Eric Holder felt a sense of "remorse" when the Washington Post ran a story about "how agents had tracked Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department, perused his private emails, and traced the timing of his calls to the State Department security adviser suspected of leaking to him."

Aides reportedly told the publication that Holder felt "a creeping sense of personal remorse" upon reading the affidavit obtained by the WaPo describing Rosen as "at the very least ... an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator." I guess Holder didn't feel a little uncomfortable when he actually signed the search warrant to obtain the communications of a journalist. 

Aides explained Holder's behavior: 

There may also be a cultural factor at the root of his decision. Prosecutors tend to have a somewhat insular mindset, not always able to see clearly beyond the walls of their cases. They are often dogged investigators, trained to vacuum up as much evidence as possible to sustain convictions in courts of law. That sometimes means taking maximum advantage of every law and procedural rule. It also can mean seeing every activity of those in their sights through a more sinister lens than may be justified.

It must be a very selective insularity. 

Stedman should follow Mark Twain's advice...

High school sweetheart finds WWII Marine's diary in museum 70 years later

A fitting story for Memorial day.

This photo provided by the National WWII Museum shows pages from the diary by 22-year-old Marine Cpl. Thomas “Cotton” Jones, who died in the bloody assault on a Japanese-held island during World War II. (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – Before Cpl. Thomas "Cotton" Jones was killed by a Japanese sniper in the South Pacific in 1944, he wrote what he called his "last life request" to anyone who might find his diary: Please give it to Laura Mae Davis, the girl he loved.

Davis did get to read the diary -- but not until nearly 70 years later, when she saw it in a display case at the National World War II Museum.

"I didn't have any idea there was a diary in there," said the 90-year-old Mooresville, Ind., woman. She said it brought tears to her eyes.

Laura Mae Davis Burlingame -- she married an Army Air Corps man in 1945 -- had gone to the New Orleans museum on April 24 looking for a display commemorating the young Marine who had been her high-school sweetheart.

"I figured I'd see pictures of him and the fellows he'd served with and articles about where he served," she said.

She was stunned to find the diary of the 22-year-old machine gunner.

Curator Eric Rivet let her take a closer look, using white gloves to protect the old papers from skin oils. It was the first time in his 17 years of museum work that someone found "themselves mentioned in an artifact in the museum," Rivet said.

The diary was a gift to Jones from Davis. They had met in the class of '41 at Winslow High School. "He was a basketball player and I was a cheerleader," she said.

Jones had given her his class ring but they weren't engaged, she said. They had dated through high school. They went to the prom together.

He made his first diary entry while a private at Camp Elliott in San Diego, a little less than a year before he was killed. He described it as "my life history of my days in the U.S. Marine Corps ... And most of all my love for Laura Mae for whom my heart is completely filled. So if you all get a chance please return it to her. I (am) writing this as my last life request."

A sniper's bullet between the eyes killed Jones on Sept. 17, 1944, the third day of the U.S. assault on the Pacific island of Peleliu, in Palau.

Peleliu was where U.S. forces learned the Japanese had changed their island defense tactics. Instead of concentrating units on the beaches and finishing with reckless banzai charges, the Japanese holed up in bunkers, trenches, pillboxes and caves -- many of them blasted into the island's hills and mountains -- that had to be taken one at a time.

Jones, nicknamed in high school for his blond hair, was in the 1st Marine Division's L Company, 3rd Battalion. He was among 1,794 Americans killed on Peleliu and nearby islands in a 2 1/2-month assault that Marine Maj. Gen. William Rupertus had predicted would be over in a few days. Another 7,302 Americans were wounded. An estimated 10,900 Japanese were killed; 19 soldiers and sailors became prisoners of war. Another 283 POWs were laborers, mostly Korean.

Burlingame said she didn't know why she never got the diary. It apparently went first to a sister of Jones whom she didn't know well, she said.

Robert Hunt of Evansville, the nephew who gave Jones' artifacts to the museum in 2001, told her he had received it several years after Jones' death and worried that passing it on to Burlingame might cause problems with her marriage. It wouldn't have, she said: "My husband and Tommy were good friends."

When she learned Hunt was collecting mementos for the museum, Burlingame said, she gave him photographs and the class ring.

Jones's last entry, written aboard the USS Maui on Dec. 1, 1943, described winning $200 at craps. He had a total of $320, he wrote, and if he were back home "Laura Mae & I would really have a wonderful Xmas." He wondered if he could wire the money to her as a Christmas present.

That didn't happen, Burlingame said. She said she was touched by the number of times he mentioned getting letters from his parents and her.

Burlingame's tour group had to leave but the museum scanned the diary and mailed a copy to her.

The diary's 4-by-7-inch back cover was nearly filled with her photograph. The picture itself was black and white, but the photographer had tinted her cheeks pink and her lips dark red.

She had signed it, "Love, Laurie."

High school sweetheart finds WWII Marine's diary in museum 70 years later

Gotta love this guy

America's oldest veteran to spend quiet Memorial Day at Texas home

World War II veteran Richard Overton, left, is seen in his Army uniform in an undated photograph provided by the City of Austin. Overton, 107, sits outside his Texas home earlier this month. (AP/Austin American Statesman)

Overton passes his time with up to 12 cigars a day and a little whiskey in his morning coffee. The hooch helps keep Overton spry, he said.

“I may drink a little in the evening too with some soda water, but that’s it,” he said. “Whiskey’s a good medicine. It keeps your muscles tender.”

Here's to you Mr. Overturn!

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published May 24, 2013

FoxNews.com


For his 107th Memorial Day, Richard Arvine Overton, who saw many of his fellow soldiers fall in the line of duty in World War II and even more die over the following decades, is planning a quiet day at the Texas home he built after returning home from World War II.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Overton, who is believed to be the nation's oldest veteran, told FoxNews.com he’ll likely spend the day on the porch of his East Austin home with a cigar nestled in his right hand, perhaps with a cup of whiskey-stiffened coffee nearby.

“I don’t know, some people might do something for me, but I’ll be glad just to sit down and rest,” the Army veteran said during a phone interview. “I’m no young man no more.”



“I’m no young man no more.”

- Richard Overton, 107



Overton, who was born on May, 11, 1906, in Texas’ Bastrop County, has gotten used to being the center of attention of late. In addition to being formally recognized by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell on May 9, Overton traveled to Washington, D.C., on May 17 as part of Honor Flight, a nonprofit group that transports veterans free of charge to memorials dedicated to their service. Despite serving in the South Pacific from 1942 through 1945, including stops in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima to name a few, it was Overton’s first time in the nation’s capital.

“I was really honored when I got there,” Overton said of his visit to the World War II Memorial. “There were so many people, it was up in the thousands. And we danced and we jumped … them people tickled me to death. It made me happy as can be.”

The entire experience gave Overton a “good thrill,” he said, and the significance of visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial at a time when an African-American holds the country’s highest elected office was not lost him.

“I was very, very happy,” Overton continued, adding that he wasn’t deterred by Washington’s expansive National Mall. “At my age and my strength, I’m able to stand up and do anything. My mind is good, so I’m able to do what I want.”

Overton credits his longevity to aspirin, which he takes daily, and the relatively stress-free life he’s enjoyed since getting out of the service in October 1945. He then worked at local furniture stores before taking a position with the Texas Treasury Department in Austin. He married twice but never fathered any children and still attends church every Sunday.

“I got good health and I don’t take any medicine,” he said. “I also stay busy around the yards, I trim trees, help with the horses. The driveways get dirty, so I clean them. I do something to keep myself moving. I don’t watch television.”

Overton also passes his time with up to 12 cigars a day and a little whiskey in his morning coffee. The hooch helps keep Overton spry, he said.

“I may drink a little in the evening too with some soda water, but that’s it,” he said. “Whiskey’s a good medicine. It keeps your muscles tender.”

Overton’s secrets may be unorthodox to some, but it’s hard to argue with someone approaching supercentenarian status — an individual aged 110 or older. There are believed to be just 57 people worldwide that meet that classification, including 114-year-old Jeralean Talley, of Inkster, Mich., who is the oldest person in the United States according to the Gerontology Research Group. (Talley, who was born in 1899, reportedly celebrated her birthday on Thursday and passes her time listening to baseball on the radio and watching television.)

Among U.S. veterans, it’s extremely difficult — if not impossible — to confirm Overton’s place as the oldest living former soldier since just roughly 9 million of the nation’s 22 million vets are registered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But that didn’t stop the city of Austin from recognizing him as the oldest veteran in Texas during his birthday proclamation at City Hall. Mayor Leffingwell, in a statement to FoxNews.com, said Austin is “honored” to call Overton one of its own.

“I’ve spoken with Mr. Overton on a few different occasions, and admire his spirit for life and his country,” the statement read. “He is truly one of our unsung heroes and we are privileged that he calls Austin his home.”

Overton, for his part, believes he’s the oldest veteran in the country, although he said he feels decades younger and doesn’t really embrace the part. He wishes he could spend a few hours this Memorial Day reliving war stories with fellow veterans, but he’s outlived most — if not all — of them.

“I know I had someone from my platoon until recently, but he passed so now I don’t have anyone that I know,” he said. “So I feel lonesome by myself sometimes. I would love to ask some of them some questions, but nobody is here. Everybody’s passed.”

Gotta love this guy

UPDATE: Barry calls Smokey the Bear for advice

Well here we are. Barry and his team of thugs are so preoccupied with putting out fires Barry thought it's high time to launch a counterattack. The definition of counterattack... divert the spotlight elsewhere. Barry's mind... I'll go on a long rambling speech about terrorism.... remarkably ripe from what just took place in England...diverting the attention from me.

Sadly, although it was long and meandering, it accomplished nothing. Obama stated he "rejects boundless global war on terror" probably because Bush first used the term "war on terror". You have to ask yourself this. Muslims have senselessly  killed people in America, England, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Afghanistan...well let me put it another way. Where haven't they killed anybody? But according to Barry its not global.

The recent atrocity in London a Muslim shouted Allahu Akbar while hacking a British soldier to death. Cameron immediately called it for what it was a terrorist attack.  Juxtapose Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, shouted Allahu Akbar and shot dead 13 soldiers and Barry called it workplace violence. If the terror speech and the Ft. Hood incident isn't a tip off to "massaging the message" over Benghazi then maybe you should invest in one of these.

Got to give the devil is due. I bet Barry could tell you how to make Marinara sauce without using the word tomato.

Wonder what Romney is thinking right about now?

UPDATE: Barry calls Smokey the Bear for advice

Obamaism

Is Carney told what to say?

Or does he just ad-lib as he goes along.

Barry and his thugs have created a government in which there is now no reality. Nobody is in charge of anything and senior people don't manage anyone. Nobody remembers anything. Nobody is accountable for anything. Nobody talks to anybody. Somebody unnamed somewhere is responsible for a plethora of scandals but nobody knows who they are. In short, the federal government, according to them, has no clue as to what is going on. A country governed so corruptly cannot possibly last. This is nothing but lie piled upon lie piled upon lie. We are now the government of North Korea on a larger scale. To avoid their corruption being outed, these crooks plead the "Idiot's Defense." We have no idea what the hell we are doing. We are poorly managed and therefore cannot possibly get a handle on anything. Nobody here has seen or heard anything. We wait to hear about what we have actually done throughout the work day when it is reported on the nightly news.

The arrogance of these bastards is truly astounding. I checked Wikipedia. Ken Starr is still sucking air. Better get him off the bench. BTW...Anyone see the backlash if this happened under Bush?

Thomas Jefferson words ring more true today then when he first spoke them  almost 200 years ago. 

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Obamaism

FBI spied on Fox News reporter, accused him of crime

What is this? The Gestapo?  I guess the despicable Joe Soptic ads and watching Paul Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair were just the tip of the iceberg.  Now we are getting a better feel for the depth of their... shall we say "improprieties". This administration is inundated with corruption from top to bottom and is lying through its teeth? In the manner of testimony  they're  all in concert. When asked a question the go to response is..."I don't know".    

Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Voter intimidation, MF Global, Benghazi, IRS, AP Wiretapping, etc. 

How many additional scandals must occur before Congress appoints a Special Prosecutor?

  BTW...they ought to try "Stedman" for terrorism. He's gotten more people killed then Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

-----------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON — The FBI obtained a sealed search warrant to read a Fox News reporter's personal emails from two days in 2010 after arguing there was probable cause he had violated espionage laws by soliciting classified information from a government official, court papers show.

In an affidavit, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate that the reporter had committed a crime when he asked a State Department security contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, to share secret material about North Korea in June 2009.

The affidavit did not name the reporter, but Fox News identified him as its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen. He was not charged, but Kim was indicted on espionage charges in August 2010 and is awaiting trial. He has denied leaking classified information.

The case marks the first time the government has gone to court to portray news gathering as espionage, and Fox News officials and 1st Amendment advocates reacted angrily Monday after the secret warrant was reported by the Washington Post.

"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter," said Michael Clemente, Fox News executive vice president of news. "In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

The development emerged days after the Justice Department notified the Associated Press that the agency used a subpoena last year to obtain phone company records for 20 telephone lines used by more than 100 reporters and editors in three cities. The subpoena was pursuant to a grand jury investigation of an alleged leak of classified information about an Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S. aircraft.

Neither Fox News nor the Associated Press was told in advance about the government actions or had a chance to challenge them in court, the usual practice. The government ordered Google not to disclose that it had given the FBI access to Rosen's Gmail account, and Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirmed in a September 2010 ruling that the government did not have to notify Rosen.

A federal statute, the Privacy Protection Act, normally bars the government from using a search warrant to seize a reporter's notes or communications as part of a broader criminal investigation. But the law allows an exception if the reporter is specifically accused of committing a crime.

"There is probable cause to believe that the reporter has committed or is committing a violation of [the Espionage Act] as an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator," FBI Agent Reginald B. Reyes wrote in a May 28, 2010, application for a search warrant. "Because of the reporter's own potential criminal liability in this matter, we believe that requesting the voluntary production of the materials from reporter would be futile and would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation and of the evidence we seek to obtain by the warrant."

Alan Kay, the magistrate judge in Washington who signed the search warrant, was not available for comment, his office said Monday. The warrant and application were unsealed in November 2011, but they escaped public notice until now.

"It's hardly clear cut that it violates the 1st Amendment," said Geoffrey R. Stone, professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a 1st Amendment expert. "If in private discourse you try to persuade someone to commit a crime, you can be punished for doing so. The question here is whether the motive for doing it changes things."

No reporter has ever been charged under the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that criminalizes unauthorized disclosure of "national defense information" with intent or reason to believe the information "is to be used to the injury of the United States."

Rosen's role stems from his Fox News story on June 11, 2009, that "U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test."

The story said the CIA had learned the information "through sources inside North Korea."

FBI agents subsequently determined that 95 people had authorized access to the highly classified intelligence that Rosen had cited. The FBI alleged that phone records, emails and other records showed Kim was in direct contact with Rosen.

"From the beginning of their relationship, the reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information … by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego," Reyes wrote in his affidavit.

He said the reporter "instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan ... to facilitate communication." The affidavit said they used nicknames in subsequent emails and asterisks as signals if Kim wanted to talk by phone.

"What makes this alarming is that 'soliciting' and 'encouraging' the disclosure of classified information are routine, daily activities in national security reporting," researcher Steven Aftergood wrote Monday on his Secrecy News blog. "The use of pseudonyms and discreet forms of communication are also commonplace. But for today's FBI, these everyday reporting techniques are taken as evidence of criminal activity and grounds for search and seizure of confidential email."

FBI spied on Fox News reporter, accused him of crime

When the order to "stand down" SHOULD have be given

What self respecting man would allow another to hold an umbrella over his head?

☟

Guess I answered my own question.

When the order to "stand down" SHOULD have be given

New scientific study says people have grown dumber

One further piece of evidence is Obama is POTUS.

The average intelligence level of a Victorian-era person was higher than a modern-era person, a European research team posits in a report published last week in the journal Intelligence.

The research flies in the face of current assumptions of the Flynn Effect, which states that basic intelligence levels — measured through IQ tests — have risen since the 1930s.

IQ tests have been criticized, however, for reflecting bias toward certain cultures and education levels, while reaction times to stimuli might reflect "true intelligence" — the shorter the reaction time, the smarter the person.

European researchers Michael Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis and Raegan Murphy compared reaction times to stimuli between people in the Victorian-era and modern-era people between 1884 to 2004.

The Victorian-era is a period of British history between the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 until her death in 1901.

In their study, the researchers found that reaction times have slowly increased over time.

"For men, the increase was found to be 183ms to 253ms; for women the increase was from 188ms to 261ms," Phys.org reported.

"The researchers claim this proves that people have grown 'less clever' over time," wrote the publication, noting that a possible explanation for the decline is that smart people reproduce less than less intelligent people.

New scientific study says people have grown dumber

'We could lose everything': Tea Party groups prepare to sue IRS

Prelude to the article below

Forget about resignations, people need to go to jail over this!

I have to plead ignorant about the existence of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). But it did turn my attention to the ACLU. 

I got this from Wikipedia: 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Watergate Era: 

The ACLU was the first organization to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

The ACLU supported The New York Times in its 1971 suit against the government, requesting permission to publish the Pentagon papers. The court upheld the Times and ACLU in the New York Times Co. v. United States ruling, which held that the government could not preemptively prohibit the publication of classified information and had to wait until after it was published to take action.

As the Watergate saga unfolded, the ACLU became the first national organization to call for Nixon's impeachment. This, following the resolution opposing the Vietnam war, was a second major decision that caused critics of the ACLU, particularly conservatives, to claim that the ACLU had evolved into a liberal political organization.

Where are they now? 

I guess the last sentence sums it up. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON – Jay Devereaux hadn't paid much attention to the daily drumbeat of partisan politics in D.C. He wasn't a Washington nerd, and didn't know who said what during congressional hearings -- nor did he care.

But when news broke that the government was using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks, he started paying attention and didn't like what he was hearing.

So the Florida father and information technology specialist decided to form a group, Unite in Action, to educate people in his area about the issues, he said. It was originally formed as a corporation before Devereaux decided to apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS. 

That was two years ago. It was never approved.

"It's all but killed us," Devereaux told FoxNews.com. "We could lose everything. Today, it's me and my organization, but tomorrow it could be you."

Devereaux is among a group of activists, being represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, who are preparing to sue the federal government for the practice of targeting Tea Party groups. ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow told FoxNews.com he'll likely file the civil suits next Wednesday or Thursday on behalf of more than a dozen Tea Party groups who say they were singled out by the IRS and had their tax-exempt status severely delayed or denied altogether.

The suits, combined with congressional inquiries and an FBI probe, signal that the heated hearing on Capitol Hill Friday – with the outgoing IRS chief – was just the start of a protracted legal and political battle over the scandal. 

Sekulow said the number of plaintiffs in the civil suit are growing as is the list of who his organization wants held accountable. It's still unclear whether the organization will file as a class-action or individually in the 17 different states where the complaints originate.

Litigation could take months or years and for some like Devereaux, time isn't on their side.

While initially waiting for IRS approval, Devereaux dipped into his own bank account, maxed out credit cards and even borrowed money from friends so his group could put on a civic-engagement training session at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington. His goal was to eventually set up a steady stream of revenue for a tax-exempt nonprofit.

The next time Devereaux heard from the IRS, they had requested details and credentials on every single speaker and all the educational materials provided in the 78 classes held at the hotel. The IRS also wanted information on all 45 vendors, their credentials and a donor list.

Devereaux refused.

Five rounds of IRS letters later, and United in Action's tax-exempt status is still in limbo.

If they are denied, Devereaux's group would owe the federal government "somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 in back taxes," he said, referring to money he would owe the government on donations.

"It's more than we have in our bank account," he said.

He's not alone.

Waco Tea Party President Toby Walker said her group applied for a 501(c)(4) status in July 2010. She'd call the IRS from time to time to check on the progress but was basically told, 'Don't call us, we'll call you,' she said.

Then in February 2012, the IRS finally made contact.

Walker said she was asked questions that went well beyond the purview of the agency's authority. They wanted to know everything about the Waco Tea Party group, their relationships with public officials, lists of volunteers and every single news story the group had ever been mentioned in.

Walker said the request was so lengthy and intrusive that had she complied with the demands, she "would have needed a U-haul truck of about 20 feet."

While Walker's group was finally granted tax-exempt status in March 2013, she said a lot of damage has already been done. She said people were afraid to support her group financially because they had not received the IRS-stamped status. 

Others were afraid that they might be targeted by the IRS if they supported Walker's group publicly. Having one of the most powerful government agencies angry at them wasn't a risk many people were willing to take. And so the group suffered, she said.

"We spent thousands of our own dollars fighting this," she said. "If this happens to one organization in America, we should all be outraged."

Allegations that the IRS had been targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status date back years but a government report released Wednesday backed up the claims. The White House has spent most of the week trying to contain the fallout from the scandal. "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," President Obama said earlier this week.

By Friday, two of the agency's top tax officials had been removed from their posts. One, outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, was grilled Friday morning in the House Ways and Means Committee by Republican and Democratic lawmakers who demanded answers on why the unfair practice of targeting conservative groups was allowed to continue on his watch.

'We could lose everything': Tea Party groups prepare to sue IRS