It’s hard to keep track of things. It helps to make a list.
I’m trying to follow all the IRS-scandal stonewalling, the latest example of which is how emails inculpating Lois Lerner and others have mysteriously disappeared; with, allegedly, no server backups (see my latest Townhall column, “The Dog Ate My Country”).
How many ways have fedgov officials fudged, fabricated, prevaricated, and otherwise non-cooperated with investigators after news broke that IRS had targeted for special harassment sundry conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status?
- When the head of IRS’s department overseeing nonprofit applications, Lois Lerner, felt compelled to admit that IRS had specially targeted right-leaning organizations applying for nonprofit status, she and others put the main blame on a few low-level clerks.
- Lerner twice formally refused to testify to Congress about the doings of her own department. Yet she also asserted, formally, that “I have not done anything wrong.”
- IRS says it’ll take many years to comply with congressional requests for relevant documents. IRS was prompter when it handed abundant confidential information on conservative nonprofits to the Justice Department so that they could be selectively prosecuted.
- DOJ selected an “avowed political supporter” of President Obama to lead a meaningless “investigation” of the targeting of Obama’s critics. No prosecutions of wrongdoers are in the works.
- Initially professing outrage at the IRS’s “inexcusable” targeting, Obama later airily dismissed the affair as a “phony scandal.” On which occasion was he lying? (Hint: both.)
- Major media outlets do all they can to abet the stonewalling.
What did I miss?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force.
We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
Certain big businesses also hate Tea-Party-style boat-rocking. In his article “Big Business Vs. Libertarians in the GOP,” 
On June 16, 1723, economist and social philosopher Adam Smith was born. The author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Smith’s influence on the theory and practice of limited government and individual liberty has been enormous.
Lord Byron read a collection of ghost stories to his house guests, on June 16, 1816. This inspired one guest to write the first modern vampire story, and another, Mary Shelley, to write “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” — a literary classic that some say started modern science fiction.