IRS weaponized Johnson Amendment to target conservative pastors

IRS weaponized Johnson Amendment to target conservative pastors while ignoring liberals, DOJ finds

Steven Richards

A new report released Thursday by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias reveals what investigators describe as a "stark contrast" and a systemic double standard in how the Biden Internal Revenue Service policed American churches. 

“The Biden IRS … [opened] multiple investigations into Christian churches focused on the content of their sermons. The IRS asked these churches for detailed information about their operations, not just about the alleged violations,” the task force wrote. 

“But during the same time, when other houses of worship gave sermons that reflected different scriptural interpretations on culture war issues, or prayed for Democrat candidates, the Biden IRS appeared to take no action,” the group added.

The task force, which was established by President Donald Trump in an executive order last year, reviewed internal administration discussions, case files and prosecutorial decisions from the Biden administration across 17 federal agencies. 

Beyond the IRS’s apparent targeting of conservative Christian churches, the task force concluded that the Biden administration’s prosecution strategy, internal policies and practices demonstrated an overall anti-Christian bias that permeated throughout the federal government during that period.  

“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who chaired the task force. “As our report lays out, the Biden Administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans. That devastation ended with President Trump.” 

The task force determined that the Biden administration used the Johnson Amendment – a 1954 provision added to the tax code which prohibits 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates – to probe churches that hold traditional Christian teachings, arguing those positions amounted to political support for Republican candidates. 

Though the amendment, in theory, limits what pastors whose churches have 501(c)3 nonprofit status can say in evaluating candidates running for political office, it has only been "sporadically enforced,” according to the Justice Department.

For example, under the Obama administration, when 30 pastors instructed their congregations in 2008 on how to vote according to their interpretation of scripture, the IRS appears to have only opened an investigation into one pastor. Even then, the IRS dropped the investigation and took no enforcement action. 

But, the Biden administration was different. The Justice Department task force documented several investigations opened by the administration into Christian churches for possible violations of the Johnson Amendment. 

In 2024, the IRS informed New Way Church in Florida that it was reviewing the organization’s compliance with the Johnson Amendment for hosting a candidate for a local school board race two years earlier. The candidate reportedly visited the church and addressed the congregation, talking about her faith and why she ran for office. The pastor reportedly also prayed for her. 

The IRS asked the church to provide information about the visit, including how many individuals were in attendance, for what purpose the candidate was invited, and whether the church participated in any other political events. 

After the church refused to answer the agency’s questions under the advice of legal counsel, the IRS ultimately dismissed the investigation. 

You can read the report below: 

That same year, another church in St. Louis, Missouri, received a letter from the IRS raising concerns about information on its website from 2022 that might “constitute political activity.” The congregation, Grace Church, published information on its website about “positions local candidates held” to educate the congregation about issues in the elections. The church also encouraged its congregation to take an active role in politics. 

The IRS wanted to know whether Grace Church published any “flyers or guides” that urged voting for or against candidates, invited any candidates to speak, and what function its “Civic Engagement groups” served in the church. 

Similarly to the prior case, the IRS dropped its probe of Grace Church after the organization obtained legal counsel.

In both of these cases cited by the Justice Department, the pastors of the churches felt that the IRS’s probe was the punishment, even if it resulted in no official actions, according to the task force’s review. 

The task force’s review also found that the Biden-era IRS also targeted Christian nonprofits that promoted civic engagement and assessed excise taxes on a church in Northern Virginia for alleged political expenditures after a sermon in which the pastor said the Republican Party platform aligns closer with Biblical values. 

In contrast, the task force found no evidence that the Biden administration ever pursued any nonprofits or churches considered liberal or that endorsed Biden for the election. In October 2020, more than 1,600 faith leaders endorsed the Democratic candidate. 

“At a minimum, there are questions with respect to the evenhandedness of the enforcement of the Johnson Amendment against particular viewpoints under the Biden IRS, which creates the appearance of disfavoring congregations and pastors whose doctrinal beliefs and related policy views did not align with the Democrat Party,” the task force concluded. 

The group also found that the Biden administration sought, but ultimately failed, to eliminate statutory protections for Christians in federal law. The administration then used policy and regulatory means to try to achieve the same goal.  

For example, the report cites the FBI’s targeting of traditional Catholics, the IRS’s probe of Christian churches for preaching aligned with conservative values, and the Department of Education’s unequal targeting of Christian universities for compliance settlements.

The task force criticized seemingly unequal prosecutions of pro-life activists charged with violations of the FACE Act compared to those who espoused pro-abortion views. The task force also pointed to Department of Health and Human Services rules to exclude Christians from being foster parents due to traditional views on gender and sexuality

Police officers are having to watch their own backs after the Met deployed Palantir’s AI

Police officers are having to watch their own backs after the Met deployed Palantir’s AI

Rhoda Wilson

The Metropolitan Police Service has deployed Palantir’s technology to investigate hundreds of its own officers, tracking their location and analysing employee data.

The Metropolitan Police Federation, representing over 30,000 officers, is considering legal action and has warned officers to be “extremely cautious” about carrying work devices off duty due to the intrusive nature of the tracking.

“[The] presumption of wrongdoing and attack on officers’ personal lives is unacceptable,” the federation said.  “Courageous colleagues across London do not deserve to be treated with this level of suspicion by their Big Brother Bosses.”

Met Police’s Palantir Deployment Has Its Own Officers Watching Their Backs

By SA Mathieson,

London cops are being told by their staff association to be “extremely cautious” about carrying work devices off duty, after the Metropolitan Police Service (“MPS”) deployed Palantir’s technology to investigate hundreds of its own officers.

The Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 MPS officers, is considering legal action over the force’s use of the US firm’s AI to analyse employee data, including location tracking.

“Courageous colleagues across London do not deserve to be treated with this level of suspicion by their Big Brother Bosses,” said Matt Cane, the federation’s general secretary, in a statement.

“For several weeks, the federation has known of Met’s intention to upgrade its Lawful Business Monitoring software, yet we were never informed that the upgrade would include the deployment of Palantir’s artificial intelligence. This continuous 24/7 geo-location tracking is highly intrusive and risks monitoring officers when they are off duty, on rest days or at home. This presumption of wrongdoing and attack on officers’ personal lives is unacceptable.”

The MPS said last week it had introduced new capabilities with Palantir – best-known for its military and security work – to consolidate professional standards data the force holds on its officers.

“This represents a significant step forward, enabling a stronger public health style approach focused on early identification, prevention and proportionate intervention,” it said, citing examples such as flagging staff who rarely attend work and yet have declared a second job.

The MPS said Palantir’s service has already helped identify serious corruption leading to the arrest of two officers and the suspension of two more. It is also investigating 98 officers for abuse of the shift roster IT system, with 500 others sent prevention notices, and is assessing 42 senior leaders for misconduct after they breached the hybrid working policy.

Additionally, 12 officers face gross misconduct proceedings for failing to declare Freemasonry membership, with 30 more sent prevention notices for suspected but uncorroborated links to the organisation.

“By bringing together the information we already lawfully hold, we can identify risk earlier, act faster and be fairer and more consistent,” said MPS commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in a statement.

“Alongside new vetting powers, this gives us the tools we need to remove those who should not be in policing and strengthen culture for the future.”

The deployment is part of a broader technology push under Rowley, who has expanded the force’s use of drones and live facial recognition (“LFR”). A legal challenge to the force’s use of LFR failed just last week.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, was not consulted on the Palantir contract, which fell below the £500,000 threshold requiring mayoral scrutiny, according to the BBC. A spokesperson said Khan nonetheless has concerns about “using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values.”

The Register has asked Palantir to comment.

Rapid-fire earthquakes rattle Nevada region slowly tearing apart as strongest nears 5.0 magnitude

Rapid-fire earthquakes rattle Nevada region slowly tearing apart as strongest nears 5.0 magnitude

STACY LIBERATORE

An earthquake swarm has erupted in a region of Nevada where the earth is slowly tearing apart.

The seismic activity kicked off with a 4.1 magnitude quake at 1.15am PT (4.15am ET) near Silver Lake, the epicenter of the swarm, followed by a 4.9 magnitude quake less than two minutes later.

At least four more earthquakes were detected, with the most recent striking at 3.35am PT. Nevada locals reported shaking in the early morning hours, with one resident saying on social media: 'Felt in Fernley, a little longer shaking time, things are moving below us.'

One woman in Nevada shared: 'My granddaughter and I felt it in NE Sparks, west of Sparks Blvd construction zone. It was a series of rolling waves. A hanging indoor windchime swung back and forth for 5 minutes afterwards, but not enough to actually chime.'

The shockwave, however, reportedly reached parts of California. One California local posted on social media: 'Rolled for a while in Auburn, CA, and sent my cat running behind the couch.' 

The epicenter lies in the Basin and Range Province, a vast region stretching across much of the western US.

In this area, the Earth’s crust is gradually being stretched and thinned, creating frequent faulting and seismic activity.

As the crust pulls apart, fractures known as faults form, and movement along these faults produces earthquakes. Silver Lake is also located in the Walker Lane seismic zone, a highly active area where tectonic plates pull apart land, creating numerous strike-slip faults.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has detected more than a dozen smaller earthquakes since the first hit this morning.

Shaking was centered near Silver Springs in western Nevada, where the strongest ground motion occurred close to the epicenter.

Moderate shaking was reported across nearby communities in Lyon County and extended into parts of the Carson City and Reno areas, where residents likely felt noticeable movement and rattling.

Lighter shaking spread farther west into northern California, including areas near Lake Tahoe, the Sierra Nevada foothills and parts of the Sacramento Valley, where tremors were felt but were generally weak.

The shaking also extended south toward areas near Yerington and the Walker River region, as well as north into more rural parts of western Nevada, showing how the energy from the quake traveled outward across a wide portion of the region.

Multiple earthquakes in Silver Lake can be caused by several factors, but the most common reason is movement along faults, which are fractures in the Earth’s crust where blocks of rock slip past each other.

When stress builds up in the crust and is suddenly released, it creates earthquakes. Another cause can be regional tectonic activity.

Because Nevada sits in an area where the Earth’s crust is stretching and pulling apart, this stretching creates frequent faulting and seismic activity.

New Digital ID Bill Ties Your Identity to Your Phone—and Everything You Do Online

New Digital ID Bill Ties Your Identity to Your Phone—and Everything You Do Online

The Vigilant Fox

Republicans are once again teaming up with Democrats to ram Digital ID through at the federal level.

The bill they’ve just introduced is, if you can believe it, worse than all the others before it.

HR 8250, deceptively named the Parents Decide Act, doesn’t just force everyone to link their identity to use apps on their phones, it mandates that they must do it to use ANY operating system. That means Apple, iOS, Windows, Google, Android, even Samsung—basically everything.

And once that’s in place, there’s nowhere to step outside of it.

But one brave group is refusing to go along.

GrapheneOS has made a statement saying: GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification, or an account. 

Glenn and Eric Meder from Privacy Academy have been working to educate people on how to escape the digital control grid, including how to put GrapheneOS on your phone—for free. And they have a solution to Digital ID right now.

You’ve seen this pattern before.

When the same thing starts appearing everywhere at once, it’s usually not random.

A new push for Digital ID laws isn’t happening in just one place. With bills like the Parents Decide Act (HR 8250), it’s now moving directly into the systems we use every day. It’s happening in a very coordinated way across countries, across platforms, and now, at the operating system level.

This isn’t about regulating a few apps anymore. The focus has moved underneath them—to the operating system itself—the software that runs your phone and computer. Glenn Meder described it plainly, they’re trying to “lock it down on an operating system level,” because that’s the one layer you can’t avoid.

Apps can be swapped. Accounts can be deleted.

But if access to the operating system requires Digital ID, there’s nowhere left to step outside of it.

That’s the inflection point.

Glenn called it “the hill to die on,” not because of how it looks today, but because of what it enables once it’s in place. In his words, this isn’t just verification, it’s the foundation for removing privacy and building a system that monitors “everything we say.”

He warned it would “change instantly,” the kind of shift you only recognize after it’s already locked in.

Access to your phone. Your apps. Your accounts. All tied to one digital identity.

And once that becomes the standard, stepping outside of it stops being an option

Most systems don’t announce what they are.

They start as something reasonable. Something easy to justify. And something temporary. At least on the surface. Eric Meder stripped that illusion down to its foundation.

If a social credit system is the end result, then Digital ID is “the dough.” The base layer. The part everything else gets built on top of.

Once that layer exists, everything connects to it. Activity, access, finances, all tied back to a single identity that can be measured and scored.

That’s when it becomes unavoidable.

Glenn pointed to what’s already happening as proof of direction, not theory. In the UK, users are being pushed to verify themselves with biometrics or financial credentials. And if they refuse, their devices are restricted into what’s essentially a locked-down mode.

The way it’s being rolled out matters. Glenn described it as “a collusion between Big Tech and Big Brother,” where enforcement doesn’t rely on one side alone.

Big Tech builds it into the devices. Government enforces it through policy.

And once that structure is in place, opting out isn’t as simple as switching apps or changing settings.

It means losing access altogether.

When GrapheneOS made its position public, it wasn’t vague. It would remain usable “without requiring personal information, identification or an account.”That alone puts it on a different path than everything else.

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Strait of Hormuz blockade achieves the goals of WEF and Agenda 2030 – coincidence?

Strait of Hormuz blockade achieves the goals of WEF and Agenda 2030 – coincidence?

Rhoda Wilson

On 13 April 2026, the United States imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz following the collapse of peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The true intentions behind the US’ blockade in the Strait of Hormuz are unclear, Charlie Howden writes. He speculates whether it may be part of a larger plan to create a new world order, aligned with the World Economic Forum’s goals and the UN’s Agenda 21/2030.

In an article published on Wednesday by Free Speech Backlash, Charlie Howden tries to make sense of what’s really going on with the war on Iran.

The US has blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to destroy Iran’s economy, but this move risks damaging the global economy, including the US’s own, he reasoned. 

The blockade has reduced traffic in the Strait to 10 ships a day, down from the normal 120-140 vessels, causing a huge impact on the world economy, with oil prices skyrocketing and food security teetering on the brink.

“So, let’s probe the ‘logic’ behind the US blockade,” he said. And continued:

Ostensibly, [the blockade is] to kneecap Iran’s economy, starving its war chest by choking exports. Sounds ruthless, right? Except … is it? Here’s where it gets ludicrous. Slamming Hormuz doesn’t just hurt Tehran; it hammers everyone from British pump prices to Chinese factories. The world’s economy is the real casualty, with International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) forecasts slashing 2026. Why torch the village to smoke out one house?”

If the goal was pure economic warfare on Iran, precision sanctions or targeted interdictions would do the trick without igniting a global bonfire. Instead, this blunt blockade reeks, at best, of overreach, begging the question: is it really about Iran, or something grander – and more destructive?

Is Trump’s fireworks display, wittingly or unwittingly, fuelling the World Economic Forum’s (“WEF’s”) dystopian dream and the UN’s Agenda 21/2030 blueprint for “sustainable” control? Recall the WEF’s infamous line: “By 2030, you’ll own nothing and be happy” – code for centralised overlords engineering scarcity to herd the masses into digital cages – universal basic income, asset grabs and supranational rule under the guise of climate and equity fixes. Agenda 21, that 1992 UN blueprint evolving into 2030’s sustainable development goals, pushes similar themes: interconnected crises as levers for global governance, from resource rationing to behavioural nudges.

The Hormuz blockade’s shockwaves are a near-perfect match. 

Sky-high energy costs? They erode savings, forcing folks from car ownership to communal transport, aligning with “own nothing” mobility mandates. Commodity crunches in food and fertilisers? They spike prices, hammering small farmers and pushing reliance on corporate or state handouts – echoing Agenda 2030’s food security pacts that centralise supply chains. 

Global growth dips? Cue the calls for “resilient” economies via green transitions, digital IDs and wealth redistribution – WEF wet dreams all. Trump’s “America First” bluster rails against Davos elites, yet his blockade is brewing the very brew they sip: interdependence turned weapon, crises as catalysts for reset. Europe’s energy woes? Priming the pump for supranational grids. US consumers squeezed? Softening resistance to universal controls. It’s ironic poetry – anti-globalist Trump, by fracturing the old order, accelerates the one where sovereignty shrinks and elites orchestrate from afar. Is it a coincidence? Or does chaos always pave the road for the “experts”?

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