Archives for October 2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin will do anything to accumulate and preserve power and the world will descend into greater and greater chaos unless the United States and other free nations stand up to him, according to legendary chess champion and Russian democracy advocate Garry Kasparov.

Kasparov has been fighting for greater freedoms in his native Russia for decades.  After 20 years as the top-ranked chess player in the world, he retired in 2005 to devote his full energies to be a leading voice against Putin and his assault on liberty.  Kasparov’s new book is “Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.”

In the book, Kasparov chronicles the stunning swiftness with which Russia embraced freedom, only to begin handing it back to Putin by the end of the 1990’s.  In the intervening 15 years, Kasparov says Putin has not revealed any grand goals or overarching principles.

In our subsequent interview, he said Putin’s modus operandi is actually quite simple.

“Putin’s strategy, if you may call it a strategy, in fact is the tactics of survival.  He must stay in power in Russia and to stay in the Kremlin, he must come up with a good rationale for the Russian public,” said Kasparov.

He says that gets tougher for Putin given the current state of Russia.

“The economy’s in terrible shape and nobody expects it to get better, especially with oil prices around 50 (dollars per barrel) and unlikely to rise dramatically in the near future.  Of course, that’s one of Putin’s goals, to create mass chaos and wars in the Middle East in expectation that could effect oil prices the way he wants it,” said Kasparov.

As Putin feels the heat economically, Kasparov believes the plan is to rally the Russian people around his response to manufactured threats.

“When you run out of enemies in Russia, as with every dictator he has been looking for enemies elsewhere.  His image as a strong leader who could defy the United States, who could send Russian troops abroad, who can annex territories of the neighboring countries; this is what he sells the Russian public,” said Kasparov.

He says the Russian public relations campaign is constantly working to burnish Putin’s reputation.

“Russia today, from the eyes of Putin’s propaganda machine that has been working 24/7 and is really poisonous and brainwashing, represents our country as a fortress of good surrounded by evil and Putin is the only savior who can protect Mother Russia against the global conspiracy,” said Kasparov.

In the book, Kasparov says Putin and his cronies are far different than the old Soviet regime, noting that Putin and his allies do not simply want to repress freedoms and have a vacation home on the Black Sea.  Instead, he says they want to get very rich and live the high life and gain influence throughout the world.

Kasparov says that approach is a greater threat than the USSR.

“It’s a greater threat because, unlike the Soviet Union, we’re dealing with a full-blown one-man dictatorship, and it’s much less predictable.  The Soviet Union was an existential threat, but there was the Politburo, there was the Central Communist Party and there was a system that tried to protect itself,” said Kasparov.

“Here you’re dealing with a situation where any threat to a dictator could be dealt with by the whole power of the Russian state,” he added.

He believes there are no limits to what Putin will do if he feels threatened.

“He thinks if it helps him to stay in power for another year, he will do absolutely anything,” said Kasparov.

Putin’s lust for power is only part of the story Kasparov tells.  He says the failure of the U.S. and our allies to confront Putin is a major problem and he spares no criticism for President Obama.

“Obama’s response to Putin, if you may call it a response, was very weak and I think it destroyed the reputation of the U.S. presidency globally.  It will take a considerable amount of time for a new president to restore this credibility,” said Kasparov.

“If you don’t have credibility and no one takes your word seriously, and who will after Obama’s infamous red line in Syria two years ago, then force remains your only argument,” added Kasparov.

He says Putin is taking full advantage of Obama.

“That’s what happened with all dictators in the past.  They have been growing in their strength and arrogance while seeing there was no adequate response from the free world,” said Kasparov.

Kasparov’s biggest frustration with the West is that once the USSR collapsed, the U.S. and others abandoned it’s firm demands for Russia to embrace a free society.

“I believe that many mistakes were made in the ’90’s.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, everybody was in a cheerful mood and nobody wanted to think about the right strategy for the future,” said Kasparov, who says every president since George H.W. Bush adopted “intellectual self-deception” and pursued a vague engagement strategy that has only enabled Russian leaders to consolidate power.

Even now he says those who refuse to stand up to Putin are offering a false choice.

“Some people say that if it’s not negotiation or diplomacy or concessions, then war is the only alternative.  Before we look at boots on the ground a as a last resort, there are so many economic and financial options to bring the Russian economy to the ground and to destroy the foundation of Putin’s power in Russia,” said Kasparov.

What would work?  Kasparov says the focus should be on energy.

“Creating alternative sources of oil and gas supply, which can be done by America and Europe, will hurt Putin badly,” he said.  Kasparov says the Russian economy is so dependent upon oil and gas that if the U.S. and Europe flooded the market with energy alternatives to the nations of western Europe that Russia’s financial health would implode.

Kasparov has been a strong, public critic of Putin for years.  Many others who have spoken out over the years have met mysterious deaths.  Does Kasparov worried that he may be targeted?

“Yes I do.  That’s why I work in New York, not in Moscow,” he said.

But he is quick to add that he feels he must continue to highlight what Putin is doing.

“I believe I have no choice.  It’s a moral imperative, especially after my close friend and colleague, great opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down in front of the Kremlin on February 27th of this year,” said Kasparov.

Kasparov is pessimistic that democracy will return to Russia anytime soon and he says whatever follows Putin will likely be messy.

“I don’t expect that the fall of Putin’s regime will lead to democracy.  Putin has steadily destroyed all democratic institutions.  You don’t have democratic components to rebuild democratic institutions instantly.  Most likely it will be chaos,” Kasparov.

That being said, Kasparov says playing nice with Putin and allowing him free rein in perpetuity simply cannot be an option.

“Even if the price of bringing down Putin looks high, tomorrow the price will be higher and the day after tomorrow it could be unbearable.  That’s why the sooner we can bring Putin down, the sooner we can start rebuilding Russia, the better the chance Russia will join the family of civilized nations and will start playing a constructive role, not a destructive one,” said Kasparov.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer Marco Rubio for defending his description of Hillary Clinton as lying about Benghazi and eviscerating Charlie Rose’s efforts to defend her.  They’re also worried that Pres. Obama is still not serious about wiping out ISIS with his very limited deployment of special forces to Syria.  And they react to the women of “The View” referring to Carly Fiorina’s smile as “demented” and a “Halloween mask.”

The fierce Republican backlash to the tone and tenor of questions to the 2016 GOP hopefuls on Wednesday night leaves the party no choice but to remove liberals from its debates and demand better work by the chairman to give conservative principles a chance to be expressed.

That’s the reaction from Richard Viguerie, chairman of conservativehq.com and a decades-long fixture in the conservative movement, in reaction to Wednesday’s explosive debate on CNBC.  Conservatives, moderates and plenty of non-Republicans all excoriated panelists John Harwood, Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick for repeatedly asking insulting questions that were seen as an attempt to antagonize the candidates.

Donald Trump was asked if he was running a “comic book” version of a campaign and was told he had as much chance of flapping his arms and flying as he did at balancing the budget.  Marco Rubio was asked why he cashed in a small retirement account.  Mike Huckabee was given the chance to denounce Trump as a bad choice to be the moral leader of the party (he declined).  The panelists also repeatedly interrupted the candidates and even seemed to debate them at times.

Viguerie was appalled.

“It was just outrageous.  It may be the most biased panel ever assembled for a presidential debate.  Republicans are used to having biased liberal panelists for these debates, but this was over the top and this was in a class by itself,” said Viguerie.

He points the fingers of blame in two directions, first at NBC News.

“NBC should be shamed.  NBC is owned by General Electric.  The president is Jeff Immelt, a very active liberal Democrat.  It just stinks of the hands of the Democrats,” said Viguerie. “This is a suicide for the Republicans to continue to go into the den of the enemy and turn the messaging of the Republican Party over to our sworn enemies, which is mainstream media.”

But Viguerie does not put all the blame on NBC.  He says Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gave the green light to that format and those panelists.

“Reince Priebus has put the job of identifying the issues that should be talked about in this campaign in the hands of liberal Democrats.  I mean it’s just outrageous,” said Viguerie.

He says it’s time for grassroots conservatives to demand better of Priebus or send him packing, as they just did to another prominent Republican.

“The grassroots just needs to take the same action regarding Reince Priebus’ ineptness and incompetence that they did with (former House Speaker) John Boehner.  It was the grassroots that forced John Boehner out of office and I think the grassroots’ voice needs to be heard loud and clear in the coming days to force Reince Priebus to change the format of the debates,” said Viguerie.

Viguerie also hated the venue.

“He close one of the most liberal college campuses in America, Boulder, Colorado.  There’s so many wonderful conservative colleges: Colorado Christian College, Hillsdale College, Grove City, many, many conservative colleges that would have been a nice backdrop,” said Viguerie.

While the left-leaning questions came early and often, the debate took on a new dimension when Sen. Ted Cruz unloaded on the panelists.

“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.  This is not a cage match.  You look at the questions.  Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?  Ben Carson can you do math?  John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?  Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?  Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?  How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?” said Cruz, to thunderous applause.

Viguerie was among those cheering.

“I hollered out when he said that, ‘Grand slam home run!’  It was just outstanding.  I thought Rubio’s comments regarding the panel was a home run.  Cruz’s was a grand slam home run,” said Viguerie.  “I think you’re going to see Rubio and Cruz significantly move up in the polls in the coming days.”

But now that the debates are underway, how much can Priebus and the Republican Party do to alter the format of upcoming events.  Viguerie believes there plenty of changes that can be made.

“It has to be a partnership with the networks and you have to pass judgment on the panelists.  That’s part of the game.  If not, then hold them on Fox and Let’s Fox’s numbers go up,” he said, noting that Democrats in 2008 and again this cycle refuse to allow any debates on the Fox News Channel.

While Viguerie says it’s crucial to fix the debates now so Americans can hear a clear exchange of conservative ideas, he considers it imperative to have changes in place for the biggest debates of all.

“Certainly, as we look at the fall of 2016 general election.  If they have people again like Candy Crowley asking questions, Republicans will be telling you they’re into the suicide business,” said Viguerie.

Crowley, then with CNN, famously interrupted 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney to claim President Obama had described the attacks in Benghazi as acts of terrorism from the very beginning.  Later, with tens of millions fewer viewers, Crowley admitted she had been wrong.

Viguerie is ultimately hopeful that the CNBC debate will serve as a wake-up call for the mainstream media, not out of a sense of fairness but for self-preservation.

“At some point here the media are going to have to clean up their act because they are a dinosaur.  They are a dying dinosaur.  Events like last night do nothing but damage the mainstream media’s reputation and it drives more and more people away from them,” said Viguerie.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are glad to see a unified GOP conference as Paul Ryan is elected speaker and are optimistic in his potential as speaker.  They also hammer CNBC for its horrible management of Wednesday’s GOP debate and loved the rebuke from Ted Cruz.  Jim calls out Ben Carson for lying about his connection to Mannetech.  And, of course, we have a blimp reference.

Decades of liberal indoctrination descended in a perfect storm upon the election of Barack Obama, and author David Kupelian says the left needs a nation of broken, dependent people to stay in power.

Kupelian, who is author most recently of “The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing A Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture,” also tells traditional Americans to resist the instinct to lash out at what they see as ugly takeover of our nation.

Kupelian says Marxists have been trying to infiltrate and indoctrinate critical American institutions since the years following the Civil War.  He says the past 50 years have been especially aggressive and America has changed far more than most people realize.

“The ‘blur’ is my metaphor for what we’ve lived through since the 1960’s, meaning we don’t really understand what has happened to us and what has been leading us and where it’s leading us to.  We’ve just been changing very rapidly over the past few decades and most people don’t really understand why,” said Kupelian.

He says the American people largely resisted major liberal changes, but the election of Barack Obama changed that.

“With the election of Obama and the re-election of Obama in 2012, we’ve moved into a new phase of this.  The cultural Marxists, the Frankfurt School and all the various players that said, ‘We’ll take over the institutions.  We’ll take over the colleges.  We’ll take over the news media, even many of the churches,’ which is undeniable that they have.  They said the last piece  to fall into place will be government itself,” said Kupelian.

He says the most accurate gauge of the “blur” is how many Americans are miserable.

“This madness that we’re describing in the country, the big strokes, the wealth redistribution, the change of our economic system and the change of our health care system, is reflecting in the individual problems and brokenness and pathology of individual Americans,” said Kupelian.

He says there are all sorts of statistics documenting America’s broken state, but listed two in particular he thinks paint a very frightening portrait of a nation.

“The statistics are absolutely heartbreaking: one hundred ten million Americans with a sexually transmitted disease, one hundred thirty million Americans that are dependent on mind-altering substances just to get through life.  I could go on and on.  The statistics are absolutely breathtaking.  It sounds like everybody in the country is addicted and miserable and depressed,” said Kupelian.

But rather than really trying to improve the lives of those people, Kupelian says that’s exactly the way liberals want them.

“The left is dependent on making people angry and dependent on them and needing them.  All you have to do is look at the most broken people in society and you see that’s the voting bloc.  You want to get really hard core?  That’s who is voting for people like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders,” said Kupelian.

Kupelian sees liberal loyalty to Clinton as an acute case of this concept.

“Everybody knows Hillary Clinton is a shape-shifter and just say whatever she to get elected.  She’s just a sociopath.  She has no principles.  She just loves power.  So how can people not see that?  How can they be so blinded?  How can Americans not see that?  I’m saying these are the most broken people in America.  The most miserable, dependent, damaged broken people are the ones that resonate with Hillary Clinton,” said Kupelian.

As more and more people become dependent upon the federal government, Kupelian says the left is more and more open about its true agenda.

“I would challenge people to go to cpusa.org, that’s the Communist Party USA’s website.  Just spend 10-15 minutes looking it over.  Click on the various tabs.  Read their positions on issues.  I defy you to find any significant difference today’s Communist Party…and today’s Democrat Party,” said Kupelian.

Kupelian says desperate people gravitate in that direction while the others have a very different view.

“The normal people are hoping to elect a truly decent person as president.  That is the spectacle we see on stage right now,” said Kupelian.

But Kupelian is quick to add that Americans who honor the Constitution and abide by Judeo-Christian values are not without hope.  He devotes much of his book to reversing the liberal tide but he says the most important point is to avoid giving the left exactly what it wants.

“We have hundreds of sanctuary cities and the borders are wide open and men cutting off their private parts and then proclaiming that they’re women.  We see all this sheer madness and we say, ‘What do we do?’  It’s very easy to be upset about it.  Don’t,” said Kupelian.

Why not?

“The modus operandi of the left is utterly dependent on people flying into  a rage and overreacting and becoming full of anger and fury at what is being done to them.,” said Kupelian.  “This is a war for them.  They cannot succeed over a virtuous people unless people become so angry and so broken,” said Kupelian, who says responding in anger gives the left a win by making conservatives look unhinged.

He also says responding in kind comes with an absence of grace, which is critical to long-term success.

“We need to find God’s grace.  We need to wake up from this trance and we need to stand up to it.  We need to do it with grace.  Think Ronald Reagan,” said Kupelian.

 

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud House Republicans for pursuing impeachment charges against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.  They also scold House Republicans for contributing to the resurrection of the Export-Import Bank.  And they have no patience for the campaigns griping about their green rooms prior to the presidential debate at Colorado University.

A select House committee will soon convene to investigate the connection between the abortion industry and the organizations that received organs and other parts from aborted babies and the medical practices behind the relationship.

In one of his final acts, House Speaker John Boehner announced the special committee and tapped Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, as the chairman.

Blackburn says the focus of the committee is straightforward.

“We want to look at the procurement organizations, the selling of baby body parts, and big abortion and see what the relationship is between the two and look at the abortion practices involved with the abortion providers and then look at the business practices of the procurement organizations,” said Blackburn.

Blackburn says the scope of the committee is set but the conclusions will only come after a dogged pursuit of the truth.

“We anticipate digging down into those issues, taking the time necessary to get to the facts and then following where the facts lead us,” said Blackburn.  “I certainly don’t want to do anything that would predetermine any outcome or any expectation of the investigation.”

However, there are specific questions within that scope that Blackburn says need to be answered.

“Let’s have an investigation as to exactly what has taken place and how it was taking place and how, under the existing law, they were able to establish a business model.  We’ll have the opportunity to review all of that and the committee members, for the sake of millions of Americans, want to get to the answers on this,” said Blackburn.

The special committee is the latest fallout from the series of undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress.  Blackburn says the videos played a key role on this issue, leading the public to demand answers.

“The videos brought to light to the American people that sale of baby body parts was taking place in the United States.  They have expressed concern about that and a majority of Americans feel like, especially when they see the videos, that there should be a review of this and get to the bottom of it,” said Blackburn.

On Tuesday, the group unveiled another, this one showing Texas abortionist Dr. Amna Dermish seeming to admit she performs illegal partial birth abortions in order to obtain intact organs for procurement companies while a colleague refers to the fetal organs that are harvested as “cute.”

Blackburn says the alleged and even admitted use of partial birth abortions will also be scrutinized.

“Business practices is one portfolio of issues.  The other is going to be the medical practices.  In looking at these second and third trimester, the partial birth abortions, some of these procedures (and) manipulations of abortions, all of that will come up for review,” said Blackburn.

Will the Republicans have any cooperation in this effort, either from Democrats or the abortion industry?  Blackburn says the Democrats should have nothing to fear.

“I would hope that everybody would want to get to the facts in this to see what has transpired with the sale of the baby body parts.  It’s not as if people are denying it has taken place,” she said.

She says the same motivation should apply to Planned Parenthood and the procurement firms.  In fact, Blackburn says those organizations should be just as mad as anyone else at how their employees conducted themselves in the videos.

“When you look at the videos and you hear the casual, callous nature of the conversations surrounding the sale of the baby body parts, it behooves you to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to work with you all to root out the bad actors and to make certain that we get the correct answers,'” said Blackburn.

Four of the eight Republicans on the panel are women.  While Democrats and the media often portray Republicans as anti-women, Blackburn says women deeply value life and they don’t like the grisly way the abortion industry operates.

“When you look at the opinions of the American public, an overwhelming majority are against late-term abortions and an overwhelming majority are against the selling of the baby body parts,” said Blackburn.

She says the committee will hold its first meeting next week and work until all the key facts are gathered.

A leading congressional voice on military readiness is slamming President Obama’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act as an act of “disrespect” to our military,believes the move could hurt our armed forces and suggests the president doesn’t really understand the legislative process when it comes to national security.

Obama recent vetoed the $612 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, over his frustrations on budgeting and not enough attention on his priorities.

“Let’s have a budget that properly funds our national security as well as economic security.  Let’s make sure we’re able, in a constructive way, to reform our military spending to make it sustainable over the long term,” said Obama, when he vetoed the bill.

He also made a pitch for some of his priorities.

“Let’s make sure, in a responsible way, we can draw down the populations in Guantanamo, make sure that the American people are safe and make sure we’re not providing the kind of recruitment tools to terrorists that are so dangerous,” added Obama.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, is chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.  He says despite the president’s rhetoric, the members of the U.S. military are the ones truly hampered by this veto.

“It’s a direct, I think, disrespect shown to our men and women in uniform to say, ‘I don’t support the efforts  that need to be put forward for our nation’s military,” said Wittman, who says Obama’s actions are based on simple politics.

“I think it’s absolutely abhorrent that the president decides to play politics with the armed services, especially the raises that are in there for our brave men and women in uniform, the dollars that go to restore readiness, which we know has been degrading on a significant scale, and making sure we have the proper training, proper equipping of our forces, to make sure we’re modernizing our forces,” said Wittman.

An attempt to override the Obama veto is set for next week, but Wittman says the longer this plays out, the worse it is for military readiness, particularly in terms of training personnel, repairing equipment and and updating our capabilities.

“Continuing resolutions are bad enough in not putting money out to start things new, but a vetoed NDAA grinds all these things to a halt, so you don’t do anything to advance the cause of training, equipping and modernization, all critical elements of readiness,” said Wittman.

While Wittman is frustrated by Obama’s actions, he is also baffled by them.  He says Congress was more than fair to Obama and the president doesn’t seem to grasp what the NDAA does.

“This authorization bill funds exactly to the president’s budget.  What he asked cannot be achieved in the authorization act.  You cannot change how dollars are appropriated in an authorization act, so the president’s got it wrong.  It’s unfortunate that he’s decided to play politics with this,” said Wittman.

“There is nothing that authorizers,the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, can do to direct dollars coming from different sources,” said Wittman.

The congressman says the president’s beef seems to be with a separate piece of legislation.

“He cannot achieve what he wants to achieve with additional domestic spending through an authorization bill.  If he wants to have that debate, have the debate with the appropriations bill,” said Wittman.

As for Guantanamo, Wittman says Obama is now balking at policy he’s embraced for several years.

“The same Gitmo language is in this bill as was in the 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 National Defense Authorization Acts.  He signed every one of those.  If it wasn’t an issue in the previous four years, why is it an issue this year/” asked Wittman.

The NDAA passed by a veto-proof majority in the Senate but narrowly missed that margin in the House.  Wittman believes there’s a chance to override the veto, because some of Obama’s usual allies are not pleased with this veto.

“This has always been a bipartisan effort.  I’ve talked with people on the other side of the aisle that have heartburn with what the president’s doing, with politicizing the efforts to do what’s right for our nation’s military,” said Wittman.

“What I hope, as a counter to this, is that the House overrides the veto, sends a strong message to the president to say, ‘Don’t play politics with our men and women in the military.  Don’t play politics with our national security,” he added.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review give credit to MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski for calling Hillary Clinton “pathetic” for playing the gender card against Bernie Sanders.  They also question the choice of liberal John Harwood to moderate Wednesday’s GOP debate on CNBC.  And they shake their heads as MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry tells her guests to be wary of using the term “hard worker” because she somehow connects it to slavery and single moms.

On Friday, the Justice Department announced it was closing it’s investigation of former IRS official Lois Lerner and would not be filing any charges, chalking up the scandal instead to mismanagement.

However, the head of one of the grassroots organizations that endured unwarranted scrutiny by the IRS says the decision is simply more proof of a “lawless administration” that is making a “mockery” of justice.

On Friday, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and ranking Democrat John Conyers, D-Michigan.

“Our investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia, leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted then based on their political viewpoints.  But poor management is not a crime,” wrote Kadzik.

“We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other in appropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.  We found no evidence that any official involved in the handling of tax-exempt applications or IRS leadership attempted to obstruct justice,” Kadzik continued.

“Based on the evidence developed in this investigation and the recommendation of experienced career prosecutors and supervising attorneys at the Department, we are closing our investigation and will not seek any criminal charges,” stated Kadzik.

True the Vote is one group that endured years of IRS harassment over its application for tax-exempt status.  It’s president, Catherine Englebrecht, is disgusted but not surprised by the Justice Department’s announcement.

“This is a lawless administration.  They write the rules and then play by those if they choose to follow.  It is certainly not a surprise at all that they’ve chosen to try to wipe the slate clean of the IRS scandal, as they have so many other scandals,” said Englebrecht.  “They don’t look to police themselves.  They’re not interested in the better interests of their fellow countrymen.  They’re interested in the survival of their party.”

According to Englebrecht, the refusal to prosecute is not only a slap in the face to her group and many others but to American justice at large.

“Justice in their hands is a mockery.  This is an arrogant and corrupt administration that holds no justice for the American people.  It is my great hope and prayer that the American people will reassert themselves, through their vote, to take back the reins of this country,” said Englebrecht.

Englebrecht also blasted the logic expressed by Kadzik, saying not only were crimes committed but there is a mountain of evidence proving it that Obama’s Justice Department ignored.

“I bet our organization alone submitted 500 documents or more that show clearly this was far more than ‘mismanagement.’  This was not only intentional targeting in an attempt to silence what they perceived to be a political threat, but, beyond that, there was collusion between the IRS and other branches of government.  We have the documentation that proves it all,” said Englebrecht.

In the specific case of True the Vote, Englebrecht says there was obvious collusion between two critical figures in this scandal.

“The IRS was working closely with select Democrat congressmen, particularly in my instance Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who sought and received from Lois Lerner information, that when I requested it myself about me, came back redacted.  So I can’t get the information that Lois and Elijah shared, but somehow that’s all excusable,” said Englebrecht.

She says other documentation proves the Justice Department was in on the collusion as well.

“Absolutely.  The Department of Justice, those are the attorneys that are defending the IRS in court.  The thought that they would be the ones to head up an investigation makes a mockery of the process,” said Englebrecht, who says the obvious decision should have been to appoint a special counsel to investigate that case but the Obama administration wanted no part of that.

“A special prosecutor should have been assigned to this at the outset and there is only one reason why that didn’t occur.  They didn’t want the answers.  If you don’t want the answers, you engineer the system to not ask the questions.  That’s exactly what we’ve seen play out,” said Englebrecht.

Is this the end of the scandal?  Englebrecht says no.  True the Vote is taking the IRS to court, but suffered an early setback when a federal judge ruled True the Vote did get approved as a tax-exempt organization and getting to the bottom of the controversy would be impossible since Lerner’s emails had been destroyed.  Since then, many emails have been recovered and Englebrecht hopes that will reinvigorate her legal options.

“That gave us an avenue for appeal.  We are anxiously awaiting being heard by the court, hopefully in the first few months of 2016,” she said.

Englebrecht says this entire ordeal has been miserable.  She says the greatest lesson learned is that she was right to speak out as the IRS closed in because the more she spoke the less power the federal government had to intimidate her.

She says the administration may think it has covered its tracks but she is confident the American people will have the last word.

“I think they are discounting too heavily that Americans will forget.  I think Americans have had enough and I think that’s going to be reflected next November,” said Englebrecht.