Federal Government: Criminally Insane or Dangerously Incompetent?

So, is Uncle Sam a fat, ugly bully who enjoys fear and intimidation and knows exactly what he is doing? Or is he a lumbering oaf too stupid to get out of his own way, crashing into things and causing serial mishaps because of his clumsy stupidity?

Catherine Engelbrecht—a nice woman, a citizen, an American. She and her husband live in Richmond, Texas. They have a small manufacturing business. In the past few years she became interested in public policy and founded two groups, King Street Patriots and True the Vote.

In July 2010 she sent applications to the IRS for tax-exempt status. What followed was not the harassment, intrusiveness and delay we're now used to hearing of. The U.S. government came down on her with full force.

In December 2010 the FBI came to ask about a person who'd attended a King Street Patriots function.

In January 2011 the FBI had more questions. The same month the IRS audited her business tax returns. 

In May 2011 the FBI called again for a general inquiry about King Street Patriots. 

In June 2011 Engelbrecht's personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. 

In October 2011 a round of questions on True the Vote. 

In November 2011 another call from the FBI. The next month, more questions from the FBI. 

In February 2012 a third round of IRS questions on True the Vote. In February 2012 a first round of questions on King Street Patriots. The same month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of her business. (It had a license to make firearms but didn't make them.) 

In July 2012 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration did an unscheduled audit.

In November 2012 more IRS questions on True the Vote.

In March 2013, more questions. In April 2013 a second ATF audit. 

Source:  WSJ - A Battering Ram becomes a Stonewall

Nice company ya got here...  Hate to see anything happen to it...

Need more information?  Ask the owner of Gibson guitars, who contributed to GOP candidates and had his factory raided and materials confiscated by Obama's jackboots.  Or maybe you could ask the owner of Martin guitars, who used the same wood products from the same sources, but avoided a similar fate by contributing generously to the Obama campaign.  

Our putridly obese government can spy on citizens and intimidate them, but it cannot perform its primary functions of maintaining infrastructure and securing us from enemies.

Either federal agencies are being used as tools of revenge by powerful people who hold the reins of government, or our government is so unwieldy that it is spilling over with unanswerable zealots run amok, and even a brilliant philosopher king like President Obama cannot do anything about it other than watch it all on the news and shake his head.  Which is it?

It has taken a the United States having a liberal hero at the helm of the ship of state for liberals to finally admit that government may be too big. Liberal Jonathan Turley gets it. His WaPo article takes dead aim at the dictatorial progressive state:

However, the suggestion that someone, even the president, is in control of today’s government may be an illusion.

The growing dominance of the federal government over the states has obscured more fundamental changes within the federal government itself: It is not just bigger, it is dangerously off kilter. Our carefully constructed system of checks and balances is being negated by the rise of a fourth branch, an administrative state of sprawling departments and agencies that govern with increasing autonomy and decreasing transparency.

The entire piece reads like that. It is a damning indictment of our bloated feral government, and it flows from the pen of an honest liberal who gets it.  As David Harsanyi writes, Liberalism is in Trouble.  The implosion of the progressive state will fall principally on progressive Democrat heads, since they have so aligned themselves with the overweening state.

See also:  Gallup: Majority of Americans believe Federal Government too Powerful