To paraphrase an old Christmas song “You better not shout/You better not cry/You better not donate to Romney and I’m telling’ you why/ The IRS and the Labor Department are comin’ to town. “
Submitted for your consideration, one Mr. Frank Vandersloot.* He came up the hard way from rural Idaho. He wore second hand clothes and through a great deal of hard work became the CEO of Melaleuca, a company that markets a line of healthcare products. A visit to Melaleuca’s website does not reveal a ruthless, heartless corporation, laughing maniacally and twiddling it’s moustache as it ties legions of 99 percenter maidens to the railroad tracks. To the contrary, the company offers non-toxic cleaning supplies, concentrated products to cut down on waste, and has spent 25 years being eco-friendly. The company also offers plans to help stay at home moms earn extra money and a program to help families get out of debt.
All in all, Frank Vandersloot sounds like a model citizen and exactly the kind of millionaire the president would hold up as an example of successful people giving something back.
Maybe it is because Mr. Vandersloot makes more than $250,000 a year, or maybe it is because he “got there on his own”, or maybe it is because he wrote a check to a Romney super PAC, but Mr. Vandersloot is on President Obama’s enemies list. (Not from nothin’ but my money is on the super PAC donation.) Obama is not the first president to have such a list and maybe it is just a funny coincidence that he is also being audited by the IRS and investigated by the Labor Department.
According to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal, in April an Obama campaign website sent out a message targeting Vandersloot and seven other Romney donors by name, stating that they had less than reputable records. 12 days later Vandersloot discovered that a former Senate Democrat was snooping around for his divorce records. In June he was informed that he and his wife were targeted for an IRS audit for 2008 and 2009. Two weeks later he was informed that he would be the target of an investigation by the Department of Labor, who would perform an audit of the employees of his cattle ranch in his home state. The employees in question are temporary agricultural workers that are here under a federal visa program. He has a grand total of three workers under the H24 program and they have worked for him for five years.
The implicit message from the Left, the Democrat Party (I will not call it “Democratic“ for those of you picking nits.) and now from the Obama campaign is clear: “Oppose us and we will come down on you like a wrecking ball. Cross us and we will make you pay. And to those of you considering donating to our opposition, take a good look and what we are doing to Frank Vandersloot and think long and hard before you mail that check.”
Enemies lists are nothing new, and neither are dirty politics. Candidates on both sides of the aisle have used them for years, and will continue to do so, provided people can still actually vote after this November. And perhaps it was not the President himself that called down Zeus’s lightning on Frank Vandersloot, but somebody did. And in an era in which the rule of law allegedly prevails, and in a party that positions its members as moral intellectual and cultural superiors to anyone who is not one of them, it should send chills down your spine that any person at any level of any administration can bring to bear the regulatory and punitive power of the government on a private citizen for backing the candidate of his choice.
The President of the United States has an obligation to use the agencies of the government to “promote the general welfare.” Not to use them as a hit squad to teach law abiding citizens a lesson. The fact that someone connected to the Obama Campaign had the power to use civil servants as campaign enforcers is beyond the pale. But as Darth Vader said “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side!” The Empire is indeed striking back.
*Source: Rob Bluey at The Heritage Foundation