However, now lawmakers have taken to even confiscating these weapons.

The Daily Herald reports Arthur Lovi, a resident of Arlington Heights, Ill., who is also an Air Force veteran, was speaking to a VA psychiatrist about tragedies in his life, including the loss of his wife of 33 years.

Although she had died nine years before, Lovi said the wound from her death was still raw. Even to this day, he remained somewhat bitter after a doctor incorrectly diagnosed her as having a cold after she complained of being tired and bruising easily. The following day another doctor informed her she had leukemia, and she died a few weeks later.

“I’ll have hard feelings about it until the day I die,” Lovi told the Daily Herald. “Not that a day would make a difference, but maybe it would have. I’ll never know.”

Followings his appointment with the psychiatrist, the therapist contacted the police to tell them Lovi had made a threat against the doctor who made the first diagnosis. However, she went on to tell them she did not consider him to be a threat, but simply did so because it was part of her job.

Th report resulted in several officers showing up at his house later that night and confiscating his three antique firearms, which included a musket that was over 100 years old.

According to Lovi, two days later he asked about his firearms, and an officer came to his house to talk about it. He said after the officer turned the conversation to his wife, he became upset. The officer demanded Lovi undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Following the evaluation, it was determined he was not a danger to himself or others.

In spite of the clean bill of health, it was only after Lovi obtained a lawyer two months later that his firearms were returned. Lovi has since filed a lawsuit against the Arlington Heights Police Department alleging one of the weapons was damaged and citing emotional damages as well as violations of his Second and Fourth Amendment rights.

Lovi’s case is just the latest of a disturbing trend of government officials using mental health claims as an excuse to strip law-abiding citizens of the Second Amendment rights.

After the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Democrats attempted to pass a series of federal gun laws that critics say would have done nothing to prevent the shooting.

In both the Sandy Hook shooting as well as other mass shootings, including the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado and Virginia Tech, the shooters had a history of mental illness. However, in each of these instances health care officials did not think the individuals displayed sufficient signs of violence to report their patients to authorities.

This prompted calls from lawmakers, including Republicans who are normally opposed to gun control, to call for an examination over how to prevent the mentally ill from having access to firearms.

At face value, the issue resonates with the American people, primarily because for many the face of Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” comes to mind when they think of the mentally ill.

However, the problem is government officials often have a far different definition of who is mentally ill and should not have access to firearms than that of the average American.

“I think the gun control crowd, including legislators, are going to keep pushing on that area because they have successfully confused a lot of people as to whether it is a valid issue or not and whether it is useful for law enforcement,” said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. “As long as they can flummox people I think they’ll continue pushing. They’re very opportunistic and will do whatever it takes to move the ball forward for them. They’re pretty good about that.”

WND recently reported that under Operation Vigilant Eagle, the Obama administration has performed surveillance on military veterans who express views critical of the government.

Attorney John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, said the NSA is using its snooping authority to gather data on Americans, including posts to various website to provide a pretext for a later diagnosis of mental illness against veterans.

“The FBI and the Secret Service are showing up to request an interview to question specific Internet posts the veteran has placed on websites such as Facebook,” Whitehead explained, noting that the agencies are looking for “anti-Obama views that can be interpreted to reflect psychological problems of sufficient seriousness to disqualify the veteran from ever owning a firearm.”

The Veteran’s Administration has also begun taking action to declare returning veterans mentally incompetent and threatened to remove their decision-making authority.

In February, Investors.com reported a complaint by Michael Connelly, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation, over veterans getting letters from the Veterans Administration informing them they have been declared mentally incompetent.

The vet must provide evidence to the contrary within 60 days. If the vet desires a hearing, he or she must inform the Veterans Administration within 30 days.

“A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2),” the letter reads.

Gun confiscation using a broad definition of mental illness is not just a federal tactic; several states have also done so for mental conditions that most Americans would not consider to be a dangerous threat.

In New York, following the passage of the gun control legislation in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, the legislature passed a law prohibiting the mentally ill from owning firearms.

Under the state’s mental health provisions, law-enforcement officials confiscated the guns of David Lewis after they discovered he was on anti-anxiety medication. Following widespread media attention, local officials returned Lewis’ firearms an announced they had made a “mistake.”

Earlier this year California passed a bill allocating $24 million for officials to confiscate firearms from those who legally are not allowed to have them, including those who have received intensive treatment for a mental disorder.

The situation is even more alarming when considering exactly who is defined as being mentally ill.

The American Psychiatric Association’s new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has just expanded the list of mental disorders by declaring normal human actions and emotions as mental illness.

For instance, a child throwing a temper tantrum is now considered to be suffering from “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.” If a person is suffering grief over the death of a loved one he now has a “major depressive disorder,” while a person who eats more than he needs at a buffet restaurant now suffers from “binge eating disorder.”

Pratt said Republican lawmakers seem to believe that by calling for restricting the mentally ill from owning firearms they are standing for Second Amendment rights while also promoting public safety. However, he says they are sadly mistaken if they think they deflect the issue from the ultimate goal of leftists, which is gun confiscation.

“If they think this is going to deflect from the front of gun control they are actually walking right into a trap,” Pratt said. “It is as if they were the fly listening to the spider inviting them to come into his parlor.”

He said the media hypes the mental health issue.

“I don’t think it is an issue, I think it’s phony. Psychiatry is not an exact science,” Pratt explained. “It cannot predict with any certainty if someone is going off to do something violent. The people who have committed these mass murders generally don’t have any kind of a record of prior violent acts.

“It’s an extremely irrelevant issue, and conservatives make a big mistake by jumping on the mental health bandwagon. It’s not the first time we have used the enemy’s weapons and we pay for it every time.”

Now Democrats are advancing the White House’s green-energy agenda, which establishes a double standard for urban and rural consumers.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill that has been criticized as a benefit to the environmentalist lobby at the expense of rural residents.

“With the signing of the ‘Rural Foreclosure Relocation Act’ the governor is subsidizing special interests in the environmental lobby on the backs of rural Coloradans who already [are] experiencing unemployment rates nearly twice the national average,” said State Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono.

Democrats in the statehouse previously admitted that Vice President Joe Biden had pressed them to pass severe limits on guns without any support from the GOP.

In the last hours of the session, Democrats rammed through another bill without any input from Republican lawmakers. SB 252 requires rural electric utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020 while urban utilities in cities such as Denver and Boulder are required to get only 10 percent.

The new standard doubles the energy requirement from the amount agreed to by rural electric co-ops just three years ago when they adopted a 10 percent energy standard.

“Now we’re changing the standard on them, we’re changing the rules mid-stream and that’s not fair,” said House Minority Leader Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs. “It is once again, Democrats saying to the rest of Colorado, we know what’s better for you than you do.”

While wind and solar are defined as renewable energy that count towards the goal, hydro power, which many rural electric associations use, does not.

Democrats specifically rejected an amendment by Saine that would have included hydro power.

Supporters claim the bill is necessary to lower carbon emissions and insist the cost to rural customers will be negligible, but a report by Management Information Services says the law will be devastating to rural Coloradans.

The report, titled “The Economic and Jobs Impact of the Proposed Colorado RES,” predicts the law will significantly raise the state’s unemployment and electricity rates. The law is expected to cost rural co-op members $2 billion to $4 billion.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader John Morse, who may soon face a recall for the agenda he pursued in opposition to citizens’ desires, begrudgingly admitted under questioning from Republican Sen. Ted Harvey that Democrats never bothered to consult with rural cooperatives during the writing of the bill.

However, the bill could prove to be a windfall for utilities such as Xcel Energy, which serves urban customers in the state. In addition to the lower renewable energy requirements, former Public Utilities Commission member Ron Binz, who resigned under the cloud of an ethics complaint, admitted Xcel could benefit tremendously by selling “renewable energy credits” to the rural co-ops to help them comply with the law.

Democrats claim the bill will not significantly increase costs to rural customers, pointing to a 2 percent rate cap. Hickenlooper said the bill is expected to raise rates by only $2 for a typical customer’s bill and up to $40 a month for agricultural customers.

However, when pressed by Harvey, officials admitted the 2 percent cap provision was no guarantee of a limit on the total cost of a customer’s bill.

Pressed by Harvey, PUC Executive Director Doug Dean had difficulty explaining the actual total cost of the renewable energy bill and the cap. Dean was finally forced to acknowledge the 2 percent cap only applied to “incremental costs” rather than the entire cost of a customer’s electric bill.

He went on to say, “It’s pretty complicated.”

While lawmakers purport to be concerned about the environment, the law exempts Morse’s own utility owned by Colorado Springs. Dan Hodges, executive director of Colorado Association of Municipal Utilities, said the exemption was perfectly reasonable as the state constitution excludes municipal utilities from state regulation because they are owned by their citizens.

Additionally, Kent Singer, executive director of the Colorado Rural Electric Association, told the Denver Post that while Democrats may have gotten the bill signed into law, meeting the requirements will be impossible.

Singer notes that there is vast difference between urban utilities and the rural co-op system, which does not have the natural-gas-fired plants or transmission lines to balance the requirements of renewable energy.

“Twenty percent by 2020 is an impossibility,” Singer said.

Republicans criticized the governor and Democrats for the energy bill, saying it effectively amounts to a war on the state’s rural residents.

“Make no mistake about it, this is an attack on rural Colorado,” Saine said. “Municipal utilities are exempt while our Rural Electric Associates are required to double their renewable energy requirements in the next few years.

“Our REAs only have seven customers per line to recoup the loss for complying with this mandate, while the urban utilities have 35 customers per line,” he said. “Right there you can see what a huge disparity exists under the requirements of this bill.”

State Sen. Vicki Marble said proponents of green energy are displaying hypocrisy by advocating for wind power at the expense of other renewables such as hydro power.

“Look at our wind turbines. They are killing fields regarding the very environment they profess to want to protect,” Marble said. “The turbines kill massive amounts of birds, and I’m not talking about birds like sparrows, were talking … endangered species such as condors and bald eagles. However, if a rural farmer were to kill one of these endangered species [the] entire force of the government would be all over him.”

Saine warned that the bill ultimately will hit urban consumers, too, if they happen to eat.

“Not only will rural customers see their individual bills go up by 20 percent, but think of the schools in rural Colorado. Farmers with the pivot sprinkler system in their field could end up seeing their rates increase by $12,000-$15,000 more per month. This will affect the price of food in the state.

“I proposed an amendment that would have counted hydro power, which would have gone a long way to helping the REAs to meet this mandate, but they shot that down. This bill is a payoff to special interests.”

Saine also sponsored an amendment that would have required the cost of compliance with the renewable energy mandate to be listed on a person’s utility bill. However, Democrats didn’t want that information to be available.

Regarding abortion, Democrats adopted a bill that would prohibit the state from bringing a case against an abortionist for actions similar to those of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was recently convicted on multiple counts of murder for killing children after they were born alive.

Hickenlooper already was on record as expressing disdain for rural Coloradans. During his 2010 campaign for governor against WND columnist and former congressman Tom Tancredo, he accused rural citizens of having “backwards thinking” regarding moral values.

“I think a couple things, I mean, you know, the tragic death of Matthew Shepard occurred in Wyoming. Colorado and Wyoming are very similar,” Hickenlooper said. “We have some of the same, you know, backwards thinking in the kind of rural Western areas you see in, you know, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico … at the same time, Denver has, I think, one of the more robust, politically active gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities, really, in the United States.”

The attitude also was expressed in debate over the gun control measures.

State Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, scolded a witness opposing one of the gun restrictions.

Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was telling her story of being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.

“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak scolded. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”

Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”

Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].

“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”

A similar attitude was shown by state Rep. Joe Salazar.

He said that a woman who feels threatened by rape on a college campus doesn’t need to be armed because she can use a call box to get help.

Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.

“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “It’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.

“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”

State officials admitted they were doing the bidding of the White House. In February, Vice President Joe Biden flew to the state to strong-arm Democratic lawmakers who were feeling pressure from their constituents to vote against the bills.

“He (Biden) said it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills,” Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Denver Post.

House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino, an open homosexual who also pursued a “civil unions” agenda this year, admitted the gun-control bills introduced by fellow Democrats had national implications.

“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” Ferrandino said.

The goal of the 78-page packet apparently is to put a positive spin on the negative facts about the law, and House Democrats are planning to use it when they face difficult questions about Obamacare over the summer break.

While all its details are not yet public, it does have a knack for knocking down concerns, by simply stating they are “not true.”

A copy that was obtained by BuzzFeed has multiple pages completely blacked out and redacted. A section on “Small Business Association Points of Contact” has 19 pages that are completely blacked out, and another section containing information on district staff educational briefings is also redacted.

But some information is available.

For example, while Forbes.com recently reported that California residents can expect to see their individual healthcare premiums increase by as much as 146 percent, and rates in Maryland are projected to go up by a mere 25 percent, that’s fiction, the toolkit explains.

So is the fact that, realizing that Obamacare has the potential to vastly drive up costs for their health-care plans, the nation’s largest labor groups are now wanting special exemptions that would permit their members to obtain federal subsidies while remaining on their plans.

And so is the fact that top officers at the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and other large labor groups worry that without subsidies, planned to be available only for those who purchase insurance through the government exchanges, many union workers may drop their coverage because of the premium cost.

The toolkit states, in a section on frequently asked questions: “I have heard that some recent headlines of some insurers seeking big premium increases… mean that most Americans will be paying a lot more for health insurance next year. Is that true?”

“That is not true,” the document explains.

It claims the news accounts are not true because the rate increases only affect those who have individual plans and that those who choose to purchase insurance through the healthcare marketplaces, which are administered by the government, can expect their rates to go down.

It further goes on to say the reason the news reports are false is some people might see their premiums go down.

“In general, women in the Marketplaces will see their premiums drop,” it explains.

It does admit that a few may see increases, but that’s acceptable.

“A small group of young men may see somewhat higher premiums than in today’s dysfunctional individual market,” the toolkit says.

As more and more regulations are issued, multiple businesses have responded by cutting their workforce to part-time hours in order to avoid having to meet the stringent requirements under Obamacare.

Obamacare requires employers with more than 50 full-time workers to offer healthcare for employees. Under the law, a full-time worker is defined as anyone working more than 30 hours per week. For those who refuse to do so there is a $2,000 penalty per employee.

So many workers’ schedules now are 29 hours per week, or less, to help cut costs during these difficult economic times.

Among the industries fighting back in this fashion is the restaurant business.

Officials estimate more than two million workers at large restaurant chains and other companies with more than 50 employees face the prospect of having their hours cut to part-time status.

In May, Regal Entertainment, the largest movie theater chain in the U.S., announced it was cutting many of its workers to under 30 hours. In announcing the move the company explicitly stated its decision was based on Obamacare.

Even governments are doing the same thing.

The city of Long Beach, Calif., recently announced it was cutting all of its 1,600 employees down to 27 hours to avoid having to provide them healthcare.

Dearborn, Mich., also has cut many of its part-time employees to under 28 hours per week. Mayor John O’Reilly, Jr. said it is not realistic to expect the city to provide healthcare for all of its employees.

“If we had to provide health care and other benefits to all of our employees, the burden on the city would be tremendous. Health care is one of the largest budget items that increases annually due to the rising cost from insurance providers,” O’Reilly told the DearbornPatch.

However, Democratic lawmakers are told to tell those who may have had their hours cut that this isn’t happening.

“A recent report concludes that the vast majority of employers are unlikely to shift workers to part-time. This report released by U.C. Berkley suggests that the possible impact of the health care law on part-timers has been overblown,” the toolkit claims.

The toolkit comes at a time when even many Democrats are beginning to have buyer’s remorse about the bill.

Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a key supporter of the bill when it was adopted, now is warning that implementation of the 1,000-page bill was rapidly becoming a “train wreck.”

“I just see a huge train wreck coming down,” Baucus said during a hearing that featured Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Shortly after the statement, Baucus announced he would not be seeking re-election next year. The announcement caused some to speculate Baucus was fearful of facing voters over the health care law he championed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has gone on record saying he shares Baucus’ concerns.

“Max said unless we implement this properly it’s going to be a train wreck, and I agree with him,” Reid said.

Jeff Maehr, a Colorado chiropractor who has engaged in a number of business ventures, including PureHealthSystems.com, admits he has refused to file federal income tax returns since 2002, but he says the IRS is afraid to press criminal charges against him.

“They don’t want this to go to court, because there is so much information there that would blow them out of the water if this became public knowledge,” Maehr claimed.

“They are scared to death to bring this in front of a jury and give it a public hearing,” he said. “Instead, they know the IRS goes through administrative processes and ignorant judges and courts who all play this little game.”

Maehr insists he is not a “tax protester.”

“It’s not that I’m unwilling to pay my taxes. In fact, I acknowledge the principle of taxes is constitutional,” Maehr said. “However, I only want to pay the taxes that I owe.”

As WND previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed a case by Maehr in which he contended that while the government has constitutional authority to tax, the IRS has engaged in “unlawful, unconstitutional, unfair and biased” practices to declare salaries and wages to be income without any legal basis. Earlier this month, however, the high court declined to hear his case.

Maehr said there are questions he has asked the IRS that the agency has yet to answer.

“I am not talking about the answer given on their website, I am talking about a specific law or statute that defines income as wages,” he said. “They apparently cannot produce it, or they would’ve done so already.”

Maehr said that in 2007, the IRS attempted to gather the information from various sources such as PayPal and his mortgage company to prepare a $280,000 assessment it determined he owed for 2003 to 2006.

However, despite its claims, the IRS has made no apparent effort to hold Maehr accountable for refusing to pay.

Additionally, the agency has not attempted to go after Maehr for income from 2007 to 2011.

Maehr noted that the federal government’s unwillingness to prosecute him is particularly noteworthy because it has had no problem pressing charges against high-profile people such as actor Wesley Snipes.

Snipes was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for failing to file tax returns for 1999 to 2001. The three years are a fraction of the time Maehr has refused to file.

However, Maehr says he has a paper trail that has prevented the IRS from going after him as it did Snipes.

“There are certain parameters they have to follow when attempting to prosecute somebody for willful failure to file,” Maehr said. “They have to be able to prove that I knew I had a duty to file and I didn’t file.

“However, my paper trail clearly shows that I do not believe I had a duty to file and the reasons for my believing that – and here’s where I have asked the questions, and I want them to answer and show me where that duty is in the law in the Internal Revenue Code.”

Maehr insisted that for the IRS to prosecute him, it would have to answer his questions in court.

“They would need to prove their case in court that wages are income and they can’t possibly make the case,” he said.

Circular logic?

Maehr asserts the courts and IRS are engaging in circular logic.

“The IRS attempts to argue in court cases that my argument is frivolous. However, in each of these instances there has never been any evidence entered into court,” he said. “They then turned around and cited previous rulings as to why my case is frivolous. Essentially they are saying it is frivolous simply because they say so.”

He said, for example, courts say his case is frivolous “because everybody knows that when you get some finances for working from somebody that’s income and that’s all profit.”

“However, they don’t want to look at the original intent of the law. They don’t want to look at the Constitution, indirect or direct taxation or any of the facts. Instead they simply ignore it all,” he said.

Maehr began researching the issue in 2002 and discovered legal cases indicating that the definition of income excludes wages and salaries.

Asking for help to clear up his confusion, Maehr asked the IRS to provide the statutory authority that wages were, in fact, income. Instead, he says the IRS simply pointed to its own statements to back up its assertions.

“I started writing some letters to the IRS and asking them some very basic questions,” Maehr explained. “I told them there appears to be this question and I would honestly like an answer since a particular law would say something, while on the other hand, they were saying something completely different.

“I simply asked them to please clarify their statements. However, it was always non-answers coming back, and finally they sent me a letter saying they were not going to respond to any of my questions anymore, and if I wanted to find an answer I would have to find it in the courts.”

So that is exactly what Maehr did.

However, he soon discovered that the courts were unwilling to address his claims, despite his clearly having standing.

A copy of a ruling from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, before judges Michael Murphy, Bobby Baldock and Harris Hartz, was included in Maehr’s filing. The ruling appears to support Maehr’s argument, because the judges, without responding to his questions and challenges to the constitutionality of the issue, dismissed the claims as “frivolous” and ruled, without support its argument, that Maehr’s petition “contains no valid challenges.”

In his petition, Maehr cites a wide range of historical court and congressional statements that back up his assertions regarding taxes. For instance, Black’s Law Dictionary defines income tax as being “a tax on the yearly profits arising from property, professions, trades and offices.”

Maehr argues based on this and other references that wages are not “profits” but are instead the simple exchange of labor for money. To bolster his assertion, he notes that while businesses frequently pay taxes on their profits, they do not pay taxes on their expenses.

Likewise, the labor of an individual is the “expense” required to obtain the money, therefore it is not “profit,” and to declare otherwise would subject corporations such as Sears to “income taxes” on 100 percent of their cash register receipts, he argues.

The U.S. Supreme Court itself said an 1883 case, “It has been well said that, the property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.”

In 1969, the high court ruled: “Whatever may constitute income, therefore, must have the essential feature of gain to the recipient. This was true when the 16th amendment became effective. … If there is no gain, there is no income. … [Income] is not synonymous with receipts.”

And a 1946 case stated, “Reasonable compensation for labor or services rendered is not profit.”

Despite these references and the refusal of other courts to consider the merits of his case, the Supreme Court likewise turned down his petition.

Maehr said while he understands that the Supreme Court typically refuses to hear about 95 percent of the cases it receives, he believes his case met the criteria established because it involves an important issue of interpretation of the Constitution and federal law that directly affects every American.

“Based on their own criteria this is exactly the type of case that they should hear. It involves a constitutional issue and addresses a large segment of the population. A lot of their previous cases over the years and decades have always focused on constitutional law issues and due process.”

“With them refusing to hear this case and considering all the facts, they have basically stated I don’t get due process rights through the courts and I am not allowed to defend myself against the IRS. They will not hear it, none of the courts are willing to hear the case and adjudicate it.”

Maehr says while the news is focused on the IRS targeting of conservative groups, critics of the agency are missing a golden opportunity.

“The recent scandals coming out about the IRS shows the whole agency is corrupt, and what’s amazing is issues such as mine are not being jumped on,” he said. “What they have done with the targeting of the conservative groups pales in insignificance when compared to forcing every man, woman and child to pay a tax that they are not legally and constitutionally liable for.”

Steven Miller, the outgoing IRS commissioner who headed the agency’s Services and Enforcement Division since 2009 until the end of last year, reassured Congress on Friday that the agency would never again target conservative groups.

But Americans have reason to be skeptical over his statement, which came as part of intense grilling by Republican lawmakers over an inspector’s general report that revealed the IRS targeted tea party and other conservative groups with inappropriate questions as part of their non-profit application.

In one case, the IRS responded to the Christian Voices for Life non-profit application by asking officials for the content of their prayers and activities around abortion facilities. The Coalition for Life of Iowa was told it would need to certify under penalty of law that members would not picket or protest Planned Parenthood and that their application would not be approved until they did.

Members of the administration and the IRS have attempted to spin the issue as simply being the work of two “rogue agents” who went “off the reservation.” However, WND has long reported on IRS abuses that involved targeting groups opposed to the president.

Many of the WND stories involve not Obama, but rather his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton. During Clinton’s term in office, a audits were conducted against individuals and groups who caused problems for the administration.

Miller was a part of at least one of these cases during the Clinton years. In a brief filed by Judicial Watch over its audit by the IRS during the administration, the group specifically named Miller.

An agent told representatives from Judicial Watch, “What do you expect when you sue the president?” Miller noted that the IRS’ failure to respond to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests “had created at least the appearance of a problem.”

The Judicial Watch audit was not an isolated incident. During Clinton’s term of office several prominent conservative groups found themselves facing IRS audits following their criticism of the president and his policies.

Among the conservative groups targeted for audits were the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, Concerned Women of America, Citizens Against Government Waste, National Review, American Spectator, David Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the Western Journalism Center,

The Western Journalism Center was a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 by WND founder Joseph Farah, who was, at the time, editor in chief of the Sacramento Union. Its purpose was to encourage independent investigative reporting. After the New York Post pulled the plug on an investigation by Christopher Ruddy involving the death of former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, Farah funded a major ad campaign to keep Ruddy’s work in the public eye. In doing so, Farah deeply offended the White House.

In order to raise funds for Ruddy’s investigation, Farah had taken out full-page advertisements, first in the Washington Times, then subsequently in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Farah’s ads laid out the evidence of a cover-up and appealed for donations to keep the probe going.

In April 1996, IRS Field Agent Thomas Cederquist submitted to Farah’s Center an IRS “Information Document Request” which demanded, among other things, “Copies of all documents relating to the selection of Christopher Ruddy as an investigative reporter and how the topic was selected. Who was on the review committee?” In July, 1996, Cederquist formally began auditing the WJC.

During the targeting of WJC, Cederquist admitted officials were targeting the organization for political reasons.

During a meeting with WJC accountant John Roux, Cederquist said, “Look, this is a political case and the decision is going to be made at the national level.”

Asked for clarification as to what was meant by the statement, Cederquist doubled down, repeating, “This is a political case, and the decision is going to be made at the national level.”

When Farah later retained the services of civil liberties attorney Larry Klayman in 1998, his organization, Judicial Watch was immediately audited.

“As someone whose organization was a victim of this kind of illegal harassment and intimidation and political retribution during the Clinton administration – and who blew the whistle on it – my question is, ‘Who is going to be fired and prosecuted as a result of this admission?’” Farah said, referencing the latest attacks by the IRS.

“Apologies are nice. But they don’t excuse people of crimes. When government officials abuse their power and break laws, they need to be punished as certainly and severely as ordinary citizens. In fact, to maintain trust in government, we need to ensure they are held to a higher standard. So what happens now? Who’s going to take the rap? Which law-enforcement agency is going to investigate? It would seem that an independent prosecutor is necessary unless the Congress is willing to take the lead.”

Farah was not the only journalist to incur the ire of the IRS under Clinton’s watch. The Wall Street Journal reported how other dissident journalists were targeted such as Fox News Bill O’Reilly, who found himself audited for three years in a row.

Earlier this week, following intense media coverage over the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups and criticism by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, it was announced that Miller would be resigning a few weeks early.

Even that bears a similarity to the Clinton years. During that time, news of the IRS targeting of conservative groups began to spill over to where even left of center journalists began to ask questions, Then, just as now, a similar resignation took place when IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson, a friend of Hillary Clinton’s, quietly resigned in February 1997. However, despite her resignation the abuses continued.

While the targeting of conservative organizations was bad enough, the IRS also went after private citizens who had the misfortune of running afoul of the Clinton White House.

One of the first individuals to experience this was Billy Dale, a long-time White House Travel Office Director. Shortly after the Clintons assumed office, Dale was summarily fired by Hillary Clinton in favor of friends and relations from Arkansas. While the sacking was bad enough, Dale subsequently found himself the subject of an IRS audit.

While Clinton’s sexual indiscretions are well-known and have even been the subject of multiple jokes, for the women involved, the affairs were no laughing matter.

Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee said that in 1991 she was propositioned by then-Gov. Clinton in a Little Rock Hotel. In 1994, Jones came forward with the story, which subsequently led to a lawsuit against the president for sexual harassment.

Just five days after Jones rejected a settlement offer from Clinton attorneys over her sexual harassment claims, she found herself targeted for an audit by an IRS agent.

Another woman with ties to the Clinton administration, Elizabeth Ward Gracen also had the misfortune to receive an audit notice. Gracen had a fatal attraction to Bill Clinton prior to him becoming president. After she went public with news of her affair she received threats warning her not to talk about it before she too ended up receiving an audit notice.

Other citizens were targeted with notices from the IRS following their making statements that were critical of Clinton.

In 1997, California resident Margie Gray sent a simple e-mail to Clinton that politely lamented the moral example the president was setting for young children in America.

“It wasn’t “threatening,” she explained to WND, “I just told him how sad it was that parents today are not able to say to their children, ‘Maybe someday you can be president.’” Her reason for making the statement was “Because he was immoral, unethical and dishonest.” He had dishonored the office, she believed.

In just a few weeks, Gray was told in a letter by the IRS that she owed $3,500 in interest since 1991 due to a “mistake” made on her personal income tax return for that year. The letter was even more interesting when one considers that the Grays do not file separate returns.

Gray was also involved in contacting public officials, urging them to oppose Clinton policies, including stopping the giveaway of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to China’s COSCO company.

A similar event happened to a couple who insulted Clinton during a campaign stop in Chicago, Patricia Mendoza and her husband were attending a food festival when the president arrived.

Mrs. Mendoza shouted, “You suck, and those boys died,” referring to the 1997 truck-bombing at a U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 servicemen.

Mendoza and her husband were subsequently escorted away from the area by Secret Service agents and charges were filed against them for unruly behavior. A month after Mrs. Mendoza’s shout, her husband, Glenn Mendoza received an IRS notice stating they owed $200 in back taxes and if the amount was not paid immediately, their property would be seized.

Following a call by Mendoza’s attorney, the IRS quickly dropped the case claiming the issue was due to a “computer error.”

Attorney Kent Masterson Brown represented the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons in their lawsuit attempting to force the administration to open up records related to Hillary Clinton’s health care task force, the precursor to Obamacare.

Within a month of filing the suit, Brown received an audit notice from the IRS. Additionally, Brown charged that the White House pressured the National Park Service into refusing to reappoint him to a second term on the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission, an honorary post. Brown, a Civil War buff, was the commission’s first chairman.

It has been revealed that under the Obama administration that while conservative groups have been targeted with extra scrutiny, there are no reports of progressive groups such as Media Matters being singled out. A similar pattern occurred during the Clinton administration when there were no reports from that time of left wing groups such as Planned Parenthood of the Brookings Institute being singled out for audits.

“We did that deliberately,” David Kopel, an attorney with the Independence Institute, which is handling the case, said. “We wanted to catch our opponents who support gun control off guard.”

As recently as Wednesday, the Independence Institute was suggesting the filing was still a few weeks off. Appearing at a rally against another bill, Amy Oliver Cooke, wife of Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, said they were planning to file the suit in the next couple of weeks.

The suit, which was filed in federal district court, lists 54 out of the state’s 64 sheriffs as plaintiffs in the case.

Kopel says what is significant to note is that while not all sheriffs are party to the suit, not a single sheriff has come out in opposition to it.

Cooke had harsh words for critics in the media and others who questioned whether a government official should sue another government official.

“Some in the media … asked me if I think it’s a good idea or if it’s appropriate for [a] government official to sue another government official. My response is unequivocally yes. It is our duty and responsibility as sheriffs to protect the people who elected us and whom we serve.”

At a recent event in Fort Collins by the Independence Institute providing updates on the case, Cooke said he was proud that gun control supporters are nervous over the lawsuit.

“When we announced our opposition to these gun control laws, the Greeley Tribune ran a story titled, ’48 Sheriffs going Rogue on Guns,’” Cooke said. “They should be fearing us. What right does the state have dictating how many rounds of ammunition [a woman] can have to defend herself?”

The lawsuit isn’t just limited to law enforcement officials, but lists a variety of organizations including the Colorado Farm Bureau, which has expressed concerns about rural farmers and ranchers having to deal with predators, Women for Concealed Carry, and the Colorado Outfitters Association.

“We have a diverse number of plaintiffs in this case. We are celebrating diversity,” Kopel said. “The difference is we actually believe in genuine diversity.”

Cooke noted that the lawsuit was not a partisan issue, with Republican and Democratic sheriffs both taking part in the lawsuit.

“This is not about urban versus rural as the governor likes to portray it,” Cooke said. “We have rural and urban plaintiffs in this case. It is about the Constitution. It is about the 2nd and 14th amendments. The suit is about our way of life, our freedoms, our rights, our liberties which transcend political affiliation and place of residence.”

Within minutes following the announcement of the filing of the suit, Republican Atty. Gen. John Suthers, who will be defending the state in the lawsuit, finally issued a statement providing guidance to law enforcement on how they are supposed to enforce the new laws.

Under the existing laws, any magazine that holds greater than 15 rounds, or can be modified to hold greater than 15 rounds, is now illegal to purchase in the state. The problem is nearly all magazines are designed with features that make them readily expandable to hold more than 15 rounds. The law’s wording effectively bans all magazines in Colorado.

Suthers said in the guidelines that magazines “must be judged objectively” and that a magazine holding 15 rounds or fewer cannot be defined as “large capacity” just because it can be modified to hold more.

While those currently possessing magazines greater than 15 rounds, the law prevents the transfer of any of these magazines. The wording states the grandfather clause only applies as long as the holder “maintains continuous possession” of it. Cooke and other sheriffs have pointed out that based on this wording, anyone who gives their magazine to a gunsmith or asks for help on a shooting range with a jammed magazine is now violating the law.

Suthers said “an owner should not be considered to have transferred a large capacity magazine or lost continuous possession of it simply by handing it to a gunsmith, hunting partner, or an acquaintance at a shooting range.”

However, the problem is Suther’s statement is just what it says, guidance, and it does not hold the force of law. Any officer can choose to disregard Suther’s recommendations anytime he chooses in favor of the plain text of the law.

The lawsuit also claims the gun control measures violate the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as individual civil rights.

Dylan Harrell, one of the disabled plaintiffs in the case, said his disability, which confines him to a wheelchair often makes it more difficult for him to defend himself or his family. He also noted that as an outdoorsman, when exiting his vehicle he needs help.

“I often request the assistance for the safe handling of my firearms anytime I am transferring from a wheelchair to an ATV or another vehicle,” Harrell explained. “It is now against the law for me to even seek assistance anytime I am transferring my firearms for my wheelchair to another vehicle. I am filing this lawsuit on the half of all Coloradans with disabilities such as my own.”

The suit noted that disabled citizens often find it difficult to change magazines quickly, which could be a serious threat to their life if their weapon is needed for self-defense.

Colorado’s far left government this year is controlled by Democrats in the governor’s office, in the House and the Senate. They rammed through a number of gun restrictions and limits – at the behest of the White House.

During debate over the gun control measures, the vast majority of citizens testifying before the legislature were opposed to any new gun control laws. However, frequently their testimony was dismissed and treated with disdain by Democratic lawmakers who seemed to have already made up their minds about passing the laws.

State Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, scolded a witness opposing one of the gun restrictions.

Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was telling her story of being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.

“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak scolded. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”

Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”

Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].

“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”

A similar attitude was displayed by state Rep. Joe Salazar.

He said that a woman who feels threatened by rape on a college campus doesn’t need to be armed because she can use a call box to get help.

Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.

“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “It’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.

“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”

Perhaps the most surprising statement came from U.S. Rep. Diane DeGette, a Denver Democrat who displayed her perspective on gun magazines.

“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them; so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot, and there won’t be any more available,” she said.

The Denver Post said DeGette didn’t appear to understand that a firearm magazine can be reloaded with more bullets.

State officials admitted they were doing the bidding of the White House. In February, Vice President Joe Biden flew to the state to strong-arm Democratic lawmakers who were feeling pressure from their constituents to vote against the bills.

“He (Biden) said it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills,” Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Denver Post.

House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino, an open homosexual who also pursued a “civil unions” agenda this year, admitted the gun-control bills introduced by fellow Democrats had national implications.

“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” Ferrandino said.

“Now my question isn’t about who is going to resign,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. “My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Fox News, “We’re not interested in retirements and forced ousters, we’re interested in people going to jail.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “Whoever is responsible, whoever was complicit in the execution of this, those who participated in the cover-up, not only should they be fired, they should be prosecuted and thrown in jail. There is no way to defend this one. Using the IRS as a tool is just beyond reason.”

Twenty-nine House Republicans are co-sponsoring a bill by Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, that would make it a crime punishable by jail for IRS agents to launch politically motivated investigations.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., called for incarceration as well.

“There is a tone of direction that the IRS has taken, which was reflected by the tone of this administration,” Gardner said. “This led these staffers to believe this is what was expected of them. This type of thuggish behavior is exactly what the administration wanted.”

On Friday, the IRS admitted it was singling out groups applying for tax-exempt status that used the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, but insisted that the reasoning had nothing to do with the politics or message of these groups. The IRS also claimed the incident was limited to a small cadre of low-level agents at a single location in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The IRS issued a rare apology, insisting that the agents made the decisions on their own initiative and that senior leaders had no idea this was going on.

However, the story quickly began to unravel as news reports indicated it was actually several offices that were involved in the targeting of conservative groups. It has been revealed that, contrary to initial claims, senior officials were apparently first advised of the efforts to single out groups critical of the president as early as 2011.

President Obama said he wasn’t made aware of the issue until Friday. At a Tuesday press conference, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said “categorically” no one in the White House had any idea the IRS was singling out these groups. When pressed for how he could know that, Carney admitted he could not know for sure, but based his statement on personal knowledge.

According to Fox News, an internal timeline by the inspector general’s office revealed the IRS began looking at tea party and “patriot” groups as early as 2010, shortly after Obamacare was passed.

However, in 2011 the organizations scrutinized were expanded to include groups focused on government debt and spending, taxes and education on “ways to make America a better place to live” as well as those who criticized “how the country is being run.”

In early 2012, the IRS expanded the list even further to include groups that were educating people on the Constitution and Bill of Rights and involved in limiting/expanding government.

Gardner told WND that among the multiple conservative groups targeted by the IRS was at least one group from Colorado.

The group, which is asking that its name be kept private for now, applied for 501(c)(4) status and had its application illegally released to the public during the application process, which is a clear violation of federal law.

“The information on their application was confidential and the IRS was required by law to treat it as such, yet that information was leaked to ProPublica,” Gardner said. “Who’s to say the IRS didn’t give out confidential donor information either? This confirms people’s worst beliefs about government overbearance.”

The organization lists itself as being a center-right organization providing research and information to the public on policy issues, government behavior, voting records and legislation. During their application process, the group was sent a letter by the IRS asking for detailed personal information regarding its activities. Gardner’s office released a copy of the letter, which revealed that among other things the IRS demanded to know, under penalty of perjury:

• Copies of all research and informational materials distributed to the public
• A list of who in the organization conducts these activities and how and where they distribute the findings.
• A list of all outside organizations and “partners” they work or contract with to conduct research activities.
• A list of the meetings, conventions, promotional tours, media interviews and similar events they have participated in and/or conducted.
• Provide copies of the material distributed at events
• Provide copies of transcripts when talking with the media
• Provide a list of all media interviews conducted by anybody regarding the organization as well as a description of the purpose of the interview.

In addition, the organization was told it would need to provide copies of all educational training materials as well as who they target during their training sessions and when they take place.

Gardner promises confidentiality to any group that contacts his office with allegations of being targeted by the IRS for political reasons, unless the group specifies otherwise.

“I am making my office available to any group that has been wrongly targeted by the IRS,” he said. ”We are here to help in any way that we can.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., has said constituents in his district are also encouraged to contact his office if they feel they have been unfairly targeted by the IRS.

“It is important to understand how such a practice came about and who authorized its implementation,” Lamborn said. “Were you or your organization the victim of these inappropriate and illegal IRS activities? I encourage you to share your experience with my district staff. I appreciate your help in this matter and vow to hold those accountable within the government who acted inappropriately, or even illegally.”

While the revelations have evoked outcries from both the political left and right, some critics have attempted to temper the issue by saying that while the allegations are serious, no one was hurt by the requests and no conservative groups had their applications denied.

However, the argument fails to take into account groups that simply gave up because the detailed requests would require an overwhelming number of man hours and resources. The recently released inspector general report on the issue noted that while none of the nearly 300 applications were denied, some applicants stopped trying.

In a possible attempt to downplay the importance of the issue, CNN reported that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said the entire event was the fault of two “rogue” employees who were “off the reservation.” Miller claimed the two individuals had already been disciplined for their actions.

However, Gardner said if Miller thinks his statement will put an end to the controversy, he is sadly mistaken.

“This is not a matter of whether people get fired or not. It’s a question of how long they spend in jail. I do believe you are looking at jail time and heads rolling as they should.”

He went on to say Congress will continue to aggressively investigate to find out why the IRS lied to lawmakers.

“The IRS lied to Congress,” Gardner said. “Somebody knew this was going on, yet they reassured us there was no targeting of conservative groups. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said, ‘The buck stops here.’ We need to find out where the hell the buck stops with this administration.”

While it might be easy to point to fingers solely at individual IRS agents, Gardner said another issue to look at is the part Congress may have played in putting pressure on the IRS to investigate conservative groups.

“We need to look into whether members of Congress encouraged this type of discrimination against people based on their philosophical thought,” he said. “I think this investigation will be the type where no stone is left unturned. This is a sickening episode where the government was  acting far beyond its constitutional authority.”

USA Today backed up Gardner’s concerns that the IRS may not be entirely to blame for the targeting of groups opposed to the Obama administration.

“The same Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (Montana Sen. Max Baucus) who this week is calling for hearings into IRS activities, specifically called on the IRS to engage in that very conduct back in 2010. And he wasn’t the only one. Just last year, a group of seven Senate Democrats sent another letter to the IRS urging them to similarly investigate these outside political organizations.

“From Max Baucus to Chuck Schumer to Jeanne Shaheen, key Senate Democrats publicly pressured the IRS to target groups that held differing political views and who, in their view, had the temerity to engage in the political process. The IRS listened to them and acted. And other Democrat senators like Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor said and did nothing about it.”

Gardner said the whole episode proves Americans should not have any faith in government when it comes to their health care. Under Obamacare, the IRS will in charge of verifying individuals have obtained health-care coverage that is acceptable to the federal government.

“I think this is a clear indicator that we cannot trust the government, especially the IRS with information regarding our health care,” Gardner said. “You have an administration that thinks it can control guns and then gives us Fast & Furious. Then it believes it can administer and give us all health care, but now we find out the IRS cannot even manage nonprofit organizations.”

“The question is why is the military having meetings with [anti-Christian activist Mikey Weinstein] and how is it he appears to have easy access to individuals such as [former Ambassador Joe] Wilson.”

That’s from Brig. Gen. Doug Lee, now chairman of the executive committee for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

WND has reported how the Pentagon’s recent vow to punish Christian evangelism among military members, along with Weinstein’s assertion that such behavior is treasonous, has prompted a legal team to offer to defend any member of the armed services persecuted for expressions of faith.

The Liberty Institute has announced the launch of its Armed Forces Religious Liberty hotline – (972) 941-4543 – along with a petition to support Christian members of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.

“The Pentagon released an appalling official statement that I didn’t believe at first, but unfortunately it’s true,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the organization. “They are about to implement a new policy under which any members of the military ‘caught’ talking about their Christian faith will be subject to court martial or imprisonment!”

Shackelford said his group is establishing the emergency hotline “to protect our armed forces members, who can call and get free legal representation when they are persecuted for their Christian faith.”

Weinstein most recently has been criticizing others’ reporting on the dispute.

“Ever since the 4/26/13 Washington Post feature on [Military Religious Freedom Foundation] detailing our meeting with top-level Pentagon officials, a non-stop torrent of shamefully ridiculous coverage has been accusing Mikey and MRFF of being ‘Anti-Christian,’ ‘Extremist,’ ‘Atheist,’ and ‘Leftist,’” a fundraising email on his behalf said.

That, however, is nonsense, Lee said.

“It’s all hyperbole and exaggerations on the part of Mike Weinstein to get support for his worldview and his attempts to rid the military of what he calls an evangelical conspiracy,” Lee said.

The issue was unnoticed until Weinstein made the effort to bring attention to it.

On April 30, the MRFF sent out an email recommending a Washington Post article written by Sally Quinn. The organization encouraged recipients to read “this excellent Washington Post article.”

The recommended article claimed that Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Quinn that the biggest problems the military is currently facing are sexual assault and what he calls proselytizing by Christians who happen to share their faith with others.

Wilkerson’s comments were made to Quinn during an interview that also featured former ambassador Joe Wilson and Weinstein as they were on their way to a meeting at the Pentagon.

Wilson told Quinn that if a chaplain would proselytize, it would be a workplace violation. Weinstein went even further and said it was a national security threat and amounted to spiritual rape.  He said the chaplain’s role is to minister to spiritual needs.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines proselytizing as “to induce someone to convert to one’s faith; to recruit someone to join one’s party, institution, or cause.” This definition would include a Christian sharing their faith in any attempt to persuade them to become a Christian, no matter how benign the approach might be.

The article praised by the MRFF appears to have been intended to refer to this definition as it mentions an Air Force blue book which says, “Leaders at all levels must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.” It even suggested that noncompliance could result in court-martial.

The result of Weinstein’s promotion was that the issue got attention.

In a followup, Weinstein told Fox News the military needed to begin prosecuting Christians who shared their faith.

“Someone needs to be punished for this,” he said. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”

Pentagon officials issued a statement apparently backing up Weinstein, saying, “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense.”

Weinstein, according to Fox News’ Todd Starnes, told officials at the meeting that U.S. troops who evangelize are guilty of sedition and treason and should be punished, by the hundreds if necessary.

Lee said that’s not close to reality.

“The Washington Post article was one of the most awful, hateful, lying and spiteful articles I have ever read,” Lee said. “These types of stories are giving Weinstein exactly what he wants, which is attention and to question the patriotism of evangelical Christians who are faithfully serving in the military by making these outlandish statements.”

Following a public uproar and the filing of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Alliance Defending Freedom asking for records on the issue, the Pentagon quickly backtracked on its earlier statement.

A statement from Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen said the Department of Defense “never and will never single out a particular religious group for persecution or prosecution.”

Christensen’s statement went on to say the Department of Defense “makes reasonable accommodations for all religions and celebrates the religious diversity of our service members.”

“Service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs (proselytization),” he said.

The MRFF stayed on its fundraising focus.

“We’re under attack,” a May 3 fundraising email from the MRFF said. “Right-wing and fundamentalist blogs and news sites have begun ruthlessly attacking MRFF and shamelessly lying about the policies put in place to protect all servicemembers’ religious liberty.”

A few days later the organization sent out another fundraising email titled, “MRFF target of fundamentalist hysteria.”

Lee said contrary to what the MRFF is claiming, it was actually Weinstein who pushed for the situation to be a national incident.

“I have a copy of the Air Force document right here,” Lee said. “It’s not in hard copy yet, but everyone has been reading it since August. It is a fairly standard regulation that tries to cover all the bases.”

He went on to say the regulation has been around for years and on its face it is fairly harmless.

“It is actually a fairly good regulation,” Lee said. “All it says is a person in leadership cannot use their position to coerce a person into changing their religion. It has nothing to do with simply sharing their faith with someone.”

Lee explained that despite the Pentagon’s retreat on the issue, members in the military should still be concerned about recent trends against Christians.

“While this issue is a serious matter and we consider how we are increasingly seeing a culture in the military that is opposed to Christianity, this document does not do what has been claimed by Mike Weinstein. When the truth about it comes out he will be made to look like a fool.”

Lee also pressed the question of why the military is meeting with Weinstein.

“Weinstein is not a consultant for the military,” Lee said.

The Democrats are led by Senate President John Morse, majority caucus chair Jeanne Nicholson and House Speaker Mark Ferrandino. One opponent has come up with a striking name for House Bill 1154, which repeals certain state criminal statutes regarding the abortion procedure.

“Under guise of protecting pregnant women, this bill repeals the Colorado criminal abortion statutes, which in some respects, makes this the Kermit Gosnell Enabler Act,” Colorado Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, told WND.

“In addition, HB 1154 repeals part of the statute that protects freedom of conscience – severing the rights of hospitals, doctors and medical staff to refuse [to participate] in abortions.”

Gosnell’s case attracted attention from even the generally pro-abortion establishment media with its horrific testimony of babies born alive, left on shelves breathing for 20 minutes then summarily killed with the spinal column snip.

The testimony of cat feces, filthy instruments, nonworking instruments and other circumstances revealed the inner workings of a U.S. abortion industry that revolted almost everyone who heard it.

“This bill is an open invitation for abortionists like Kermit Gosnell to come and open up shop here,” said Gualberto Garcia Jones, legal analyst for Personhood Colorado.

The bill, a slap at the voters in Colorado who repeatedly have voted pro-life, “repeals the criminal abortion statutes” in the state. Democrats were able to adopt legislation virtually at will this year because they control a majority in both the state Senate and House. Gov. John Hickenlooper is a Democrat in support of the legislature’s left-leaning agenda of civil unions, gun control and abortion protection.

The White House also lobbied the state legislature for restrictions on guns, according to Colorado lawmakers, seeking to establish a precedent in a Western state.

The bill claims its purpose is to create new criminal offenses for crimes against pregnant women that terminate their pregnancies. The aim is to prevent what happened to Brady Surovik, an unborn boy who was killed by a drunken driver in Longmont.

However, since Brady was in his mother’s womb, no state charges applied, and Brady had no rights.

The bill states if an individual causes an unborn child to die because of a “highly provoking act of the intended victim,” the perpetrator has only committed a Class 6 felony, which is punishable by only 12 to 18 months in prison and/or a $1,000 to $100,000 fine.

To receive the approval of Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, the bill plainly specifies it does not consider the unborn child to be anything other than an inanimate object on a par with any other property that is destroyed by a criminal.

The bill states its rationale has nothing to do with the child but is the result of lawmakers “recognizing the woman as the victim of criminal conduct.”

To remove all doubt that the bill has nothing to do with the unborn child, it further states that “nothing in this act shall be construed to confer personhood, or any rights associated with that status, on a human being at any time prior to live birth.”

Cathy Alderman of Planned Parenthood told Denver’s  KDVR-TV that the organization is praising the bill because of its approach to ensure the unborn child does not have any rights.

“HB 1154 is a thoughtful and fair approach to a complex area of law that addresses crimes against pregnant women without restricting or infringing upon reproductive health care,” Alderman said.

However, some are concerned that the provisions prohibiting criminal prosecution of abortionists amounts to saying the state would welcome doctors such as Gosnell to come and set up their practices in Colorado without fear of consequences.

The bill states that “nothing in this article shall permit the prosecution of a person for any act of providing” medical, surgical or any other type of care. It also excludes from prosecution any abortion facility that provides abortions, whether it be at a clinic or using telemedicine procedures.

“Planned Parenthood’s backdoor attempt to repeal Colorado criminal laws has passed,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood Colorado. “No matter how negligent an abortionist may be, even if he is on par with Kermit Gosnell, he or she can no longer be criminally charged.

“Planned Parenthood has effectively created an abortion free-for-all in Colorado. Planned Parenthood’s deceptive new bill has created an infinitely more dangerous environment for pregnant women.”

At a recent fundraiser, Planned Parenthood Southeast Pennsylvania President and CEO Dayle Steinberg said when women came to the organization with concerns about what was happening, they decided to place the burden on the individual patients to report the incident.

“We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health,” Steinberg told noted feminist Gloria Steinem in an interview.

Commenting on the Gosnell trial, Steinem said: “It makes more clear why you need Planned Parenthood. There is nothing on Earth more important than what Planned Parenthood is doing.”

However, under the new Colorado law, if Gosnell had been operating his clinic in the state, there would be no trial.

Another danger in the bill is that abortionists cannot be held criminally liable if they perform an abortion against the will of an underage patient. If a minor is brought in by a parent or another adult and insists the child have an abortion against her will, the doctor cannot be charged for performing the abortion.

Saine said another troubling feature of the bill is how it creates different classifications of crime by allowing a person to face a lesser charge for killing a pregnant woman than any other person.

“The vague wording in this bill has many concerned, including district attorneys, that the language allows a murderer to face a lesser charge when killing pregnant women as opposed killing one that is not pregnant,” Saine explained. “The legislation also allows reduced charges for different circumstances: For example, if the victim caused irresistible passion that led an ‘unlawful termination of a pregnancy.’ However, this bill does not expressly include beatings or harm intended to induce abortions based on gender preference.”

She said the Democrat sponsors “twice refused an amendment to identify sex-selection abortion as a crime in the House and in the Senate. HB1154 dredges up the specter of the three-fifths compromise, promising not to confer upon unborn children the status and dignity of being qualified as human beings.”

Surovik has said the Democrats’ bill does nothing to ensure justice for her son because it refuses to acknowledge that he even has rights.

To ensure those like the drunken driver who killed Brady will face the proper consequences for killing a human life, Surovik has sponsored the Brady Amendment, which would enshrine fetal homicide in the Colorado constitution. The amendment, if approved by voters, would overturn the provisions in the Democrats’ bill exempting doctors from prosecution.

Surovik participated in making a video detailing the events surrounding Brady’s life and has launched A Voice For Brady to help pass the amendment. Supporters are currently gathering the required 86,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

“HB 1154 is a defining example of the lengths the abortion industry will go to garner more protection for abortionists like Kermit Gosnell than they will for pregnant women and the children they carry,” Saine said.

The Democrats propose simply not listing anyone as inactive and sending ballots to every person. Their plan also would allow people to register to vote as late as the polls are open.

With arm-twisting by Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrat majority in the state previously passed a long list of gun restrictions. They include limits on gun magazines that have prompted a couple of companies to move out of the state.

Now the Democrats are continuing to flex their political muscle with a plan to push through at the close of this year’s legislature an elections bill Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, warns will bring disaster.

It would send out mail-in ballots to every registered voter, whether it’s wanted or not, and allow registration on the day of the election. Democrats claim the bill is needed to help increase voter participation.

But Gessler pointed out that in the 2012 election, Colorado was one of the few states that increased its turnout. The state is currently rated third highest in voter turnout nationwide.

Colorado’s turnout rate surpasses even states that currently send ballots to every voter and outperforms six of the eight states that allow same-day registration.

Gessler says that with such strong participation, it makes no sense for Democrats to rush through a series of laws changing how the state does elections. He said the requirements in the bill may not be implemented in time for the 2014 election.

Currently, if a registered voter does not participate in an election, county clerks have the option of not sending the voter a mail-in ballot. However, prior to making the decision, clerks take a series of steps to avoid voter disenfranchisement.

Weld County Clerk and Recorder Steve Moreno explained the process his office takes prior to deciding whether or not to send out a mail-in ballot. First, inactive voters are mailed a card advising them of their status and outlining the steps to reactivate their status. If his office doesn’t hear back from the individual, several months later the name is run through the National Change of Address program to find out if the voter has moved.

After running the program, the department sends another letter out advising these voters of the current address the department has on file and again provides instructions on how to reactivate their status.

Prior to mail-in ballots being sent out, the department sends out still another card telling them the county is conducting a mail ballot election and advises them to sign and send the card back to reactivate their status. The county then sends out one final notification.

Moreno said if after all of this, a person still has not responded, he still has an opportunity to vote until 7 p.m. on Election Day.

A person also can re-register by going to the county or the Colorado secretary of state’s website. He can also call the elections department or go directly to the elections department to be placed back on the active list and the department will give them a ballot the same day.

Jenny Flannagan, executive director of Common Cause, said that regardless of how many mailings the county conducts, it should still send out ballots to all eligible voters. When asked about the voter’s responsibility, Flannagan said, “I think it’s a balance. In a mail ballot election voters who are eligible should receive a ballot.”

“Most Americans participate in their democracy. Not all of us are writing letters to the editor or going down to the statehouse to testify,” Flannagan said. “In Colorado, when you conduct a mail-in ballot, that right should be given to every eligible voter.”

The proposal would streamline the process, demanding that clerks send out ballots to the addresses on file for all voters, regardless of whether they have voted recently or not.

It would eliminate the concept of inactive voters entirely.

Gessler says that while the idea may sound noble, the system is ripe for abuse by groups wanting to pressure formerly inactive voters.

“During the last election, over 1 million Coloradans discarded their ballots, preferring instead to vote in person. Under the proposed law, voters will get a ballot even if they don’t want one or have any intention of voting.”

He suggested that policy would open the door to intimidation.

“Independent groups have access to voter information, and there is nothing stopping them from going to people’s homes and asking them to vote a certain way and fill out the ballot right then and there,” Gessler explained. “In the past the person could simply say they never requested a mail-in ballot and were going to vote in person. Now they cannot say that because the person knows they have gotten a ballot in the mail.”

Another Gessler concern is the provision for same-day registration, which can contribute to vote fraud.

“In Colorado simply producing a utility bill, which can be easily forged, is sufficient identification for a person to vote. This would easily enable a person to register in multiple areas around the state under different names,” he said.

“Even if we discovered the vote was fraudulently cast, we would have no way to locate and prosecute them if they used a fake address,” Gessler said.

“Suppose someone comes in and casts a ballot in another person’s name like what happened in Washington when a person came in and requested a ballot in Eric Holder’s name,” Gessler explained. “Then later, when it is closer to the day of the election the real voter comes in to cast his ballot. The system shows he has already cast a ballot, so he would not be allowed to vote. In effect he has been disenfranchised and prohibited from voting.”

If same-day registration is allowed, the requirements should be a minimum of a photo ID for verification, he said.

He notes there already is evidence of vote fraud activities.

“During the last election, El Paso County caught a person who registered five times using false information,” Gessler said. “While county officials caught him, it was only because they had 29 days before the election to investigate the registration fraud. Under an election-day registration scheme, this person would have been able to vote several times and it is unlikely he would be caught. Also in 2012, being a battleground state, Colorado saw instances of people from other states trying to illegally vote in the election.”

That even small numbers of vote fraud cases can have major impacts already is documented.

WND reported just days ago that two Democrats in Indiana have been found guilty of submitting unauthorized names on the petition that placed then-Sen. Barack Obama on the 2008 presidential election primary ballot, meaning he likely did not qualify.

Fox News reports the case in South Bend found guilty on all counts former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic Party chairman Butch Morgan Jr. and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe.

The two faced accusations of petition fraud and forgery, as well as falsely making a petition.

The verdicts raise anew questions about election fraud by Democrats, a subject that was analyzed after the 2012 election.

The report found vote fraud occurred in the 2012 presidential election and cumulatively was likely enough to decide the outcome.

“In reality, although no single instance or aspect of vote fraud was likely enough to tip the election for Obama, the aggregate of their [Democrats] corrupt activities – including illegal campaign donations, taking advantage of states without voter ID requirements, military ballots delivered too late … may well have been,” the analysis said.

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Fox News reported that two former Indiana elections board officials who pleaded guilty said Morgan told Democrat officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Hillary Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race.

Prosecutor Stan Levco told Fox News, “I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system. Their verdict of guilt is not a verdict against Democrats, but for honest and fair elections.”

Affidavits citing the testimony of former Board of Registration worker Lucas Burkett said the scheme was created in January 2008. Burkett reportedly was aboard the plan at first but later dropped out. Fox News reported he waited three years to reveal the scheme.

Fox News notes that if revelations about any forgeries were raised during the election, the petitions could have been challenged at that time.

A candidate who did not qualify with enough legitimate signatures at the time could have been removed from the ballot.

State law in Indiana requires candidates to have 500 signatures from each of the nine congressional districts to qualify. But in St. Joseph County, Obama qualified with only 534.

Prosecutors alleged that nine of the Obama petition pages apparently were forged, and each contained up to 10 names, bringing doubt on up to 90 names.

“If faked, [they] could have brought the Obama total below the legal limit required to qualify,” Fox News reported.

Fox reported it was told by “numerous voters” they did not sign their names, nor did they authorize their names to be used.

WND’s extensive report on fraud in the 2012 race looked at claims that Obama, in some districts nationwide, got 100 percent of the vote, questions about absentee ballots and efforts by Democrats to prevent poll watchers from observing the election.

Some of the issues that were uncovered:

• Seventy-five GOP vote inspectors were ordered to leave Philadelphia poll locations by Democrat poll judges. One judge was caught on audio. A court order sent them back but it’s unknown what happened when they were gone. These poll locations were all within the 59 precincts where Romney received no votes.
• In Philadelphia, the Community Voters Project, an ACORN clone that employs some former ACORN workers, shredded Republican voter registrations. It’s not the first time they have been in trouble.
• The Florida AFL-CIO threatened True the Vote and Tampa Fair Vote with legal action for submitting voter registration challenges.
• Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings issued a highly publicized threat against True the Vote and Election Integrity Maryland just for checking voter rolls. EIM found 11,000 questionable registrations, including 1,566 dead voters. The Maryland Board of Elections took no action.
• Cummings also attacked the Ohio Voter Integrity Project with the same baseless claims.
• Think Progress falsely claimed True the Vote was “under investigation” by Rep. Cummings, when in fact he has no legal authority to do so.
• Despite overwhelming nonpartisan public support for voter ID laws, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department and liberal jurists have delayed, emasculated or defeated ID laws in Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
• Holder has vowed to fight voter ID laws as restricting voters’ rights.
• The Obama administration “spiked investigations” of eight states that had major voter roll problems.
• The Holder Justice Department conspired with Project Vote on National Voter Registration Act (aka Motor Voter) enforcement lawsuits, which force state and local agencies to become, essentially, low income voter registration drives.
• In 2009 DOJ announced to its attorneys that it would not enforce voter roll maintenance laws because it wouldn’t increase voter turnout.

The report also found the election rolls nationwide in shambles. Pew Research Center published a report revealing election rolls in a shambles nationwide. It found:

• 24 million invalid or inaccurate voter registrations
• 1.8 million deceased voters
• 2.75 million registered in multiple states.

The WND report also focused on the mechanics of the election: voting machines.

There were a number of complaints about electronic voting machines that tallied votes for Democrats despite a Republican vote and a few instances of the opposite case.

• Voters in Pueblo County, Colo., complained that their votes were being changed to Obama, reported local NBC affiliate KOAA.
• Maryland congressional candidate and veteran investigative journalist Ken Timmerman reported many voters claiming this happened to them, lodging complaints with vote judges. Timmerman has requested to see voting machine records.
• Maryland Delegate Kathy Afzali and Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild have requested the FBI impound two electronic voting machines suspected of switching votes based on complaints from other voters, including a state official.
• Robert Ashcroft, a Republican poll watcher in Allentown, Pa., reported that about 5 to 10 percent of electronic votes would “change the selection back to default – to Obama.”
• EVM problems were also reported to have occurred in Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas.
• A 2008 Fox News report showed how electronic voting machines can be infected with a computer virus to change votes. A Princeton University study in 2006 found the same thing.

And the fraud didn’t go unnoticed. A few of the higher-profile cases:

• Patrick Moran, son of longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, was caught on video by James O’Keefe’s Veritas Project, telling an undercover journalist how to commit vote fraud.
• Other Veritas videos showed Obama campaign officials in Texas, New Jersey and New York providing multiple forms to journalists posing as voters so that they could vote in two or more states.
• On Election Day, Veritas reporters recorded poll officials on camera telling voters not to vote for Romney.
• The Obama campaign continues to accept illegal donations from other countries. WND’s Aaron Klein proved it by donating to the Obama campaign twice under the name “Osama bin Laden” using a Pakistani web address.
• WND has filed a complaint with the FEC demanding an investigation of overseas donations to the Obama campaign.
• In 2008, the Obama campaign accepted almost $30,000 from Palestinian donors.
• A Korean interpreter in Flushing, N.Y., directed Korean voters to vote Democrat. He was expelled from the poll.
• Two cases of forged votes were reported in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., by Republicans who discovered their votes had already been made.
• Non-citizens were charged with voting illegally in Austin, Minn.
• Cases of double voting in Ohio are being investigated.
• Non-citizen allegedly voted in Iowa
• Double voting is being investigated in North Carolina
• NBC reported dead voters voting in California
• Mentally disabled were coaxed to vote for Obama in North Carolina
• Widespread absentee vote fraud is being investigated in South Texas
• A non-English-speaking, under-18 youth reported he was “told he can vote.”
• Many other cases

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