Does anyone really believe?

You can take the politician out of Chicago, but you can't take the "Chicago" out of the politician. Intimidation is the Chicago Way. It works, as long as everyone lets it. As long as everyone accepts it as a way of doing business.

Lets look at a few things:

When the Obama administration revamped the dealer network for GM during the Auto bailout, the overwhelming percentage of closed dealers were conservative. Most of them were donors to the GOP or to conservative causes. No one really said anything, but we all noticed it.

Companies like Gibson guitars got hassled by, and shut down by the Justice Department. To this day, no one has stated exactly how Gibson ran afoul of the law. It has cost them millions of dollars and many jobs. Interestingly enough, they too are big contributors to conservatives.

The latest scandal is, of course, the IRS and their treatment of Tea Party and other conservative groups in their quest to follow the law regarding 501 tax exemption.

Now, I have no doubt that Obama can truthfully state that he gave no orders regarding the treatment of these (and other) conservative supporters by any of the arms of our government. I am sure that he never gave orders requiring that conservatives be hassled or held up to special scrutiny.

Remember though: King Henry II of England never gave any orders to have Thomas Beckett killed by his four knights either. While he may not have uttered the phrase "Will no one rid me of this meddling priest", Historians do say that he questioned "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?". Four knights took this as an order and killed Beckett with swords and knives.

The knights were not arrested by the king....their actions were, instead, ignored.

Notice any parallels with todays actions by the government, with Obama as the head?

We need to pressure the Republicans to MAKE THIS STOP. They are, at this time, making a lot of noise and spending a lot of our money with their "investigation". At the least, people need to be in jail.

We need to pressure them to not, as they have in the past, made a lot of noise but , at the end, done nothing, but rather convene not only an investigation, but file charges and prosecute to the fullext extent of the law..

The persecution of conservative groups may well have had an impact on the election (and then again, with Romney running, maybe not). But squelching of dissent by the government, the damage to the political process, the stifling of free speech MUST STOP.

And while you, and I and all of our friends may lack the power to stop this, our elected officials do have the power. Sadly, I think that they lack the backbone.

If each of us that called them over gun control would call them over this debacle, we could inspire them to grow enough spine to stop this. If the response was as impressive as it was over gun control, they'd grow some backbone, just like they grew backbones over gun control when they heard from their constituents then. IF each of us took enough time, and called and wrote and emailed our representatives and Senators, we can make a difference. They like their jobs, and when we hold their feet to the fire, they do the right thing. We can make it happen.

It's better than the alternative.