"Will No One Rid me of this Turbulent Tea Party?"

The quote of course, refers to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who challenged King Henry II for control over the Church in England at the time.  The folklore has it that King Henry II uttered these words in irritation at Becket, and a group of his knights took this as a call for direct action, and killed him as he was praying.

St. Thomas Becket in stained glass

Did a similar thing happen with the IRS, with the Tea Party playing the role of troublesome Archbishop, and Obama playing the role of King Henry II, whose knights at the IRS sought to bring the Tea Party to heel by denying them the tax exempt status?  Or will there turn out to be more active direction from the White House.

Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "Tea Party," `'Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.

The good news in all this it that in 2014 Obamacare will start the process of federalizing health care information, with all citizens taxpayers having to prove whether or not they have healthcare and if so, what:

As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”.

So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information?

Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme. Every January, health insurance companies across America will send out tax documents to each insured individual. This tax document—a copy of which will be furnished to the IRS—must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.

This new tax information document must, at a minimum, contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s “exchanges.”

But we can sleep assured that the IRS would never consider using such knowledge to investigate citizens with an eye towards punishing those who resist government edicts.  After all, as King Henry II President Obama says, we have no reason to fear tyranny from our government.