It is true that plenty of groups claim to be non-political when most sensible people would say that politics is their main purpose. But on the evidence so far, it seems only right-wing groups were targeted - and more bizarrely still only small local ones, not the huge lobby groups.

This affair, along with the justice department's raid on the Associated Press, is likely to have a political impact. Conservative groups have long claimed an overbearing administration is targeting their freedoms and that abuses of power are ignored by a complacent media. The events of this week will strengthen their belief that someone is out to get them.

(Comment from Mark Mardell, BBC North America editor)

The next major wave of the economic collapse is already sweeping across Europe and Asia and it is going to devastate the United States as well. I hope that you are ready.

The following are 10 scenes from the economic collapse that is sweeping across the planet...

• 27 Percent Unemployment/60 Percent Youth Unemployment In Greece

• Detroit, Michigan Is Insolvent And Is Rapidly Running Out Of Cash

• Economic Despair In France

• 7,000 Abandoned Buildings In Dayton, Ohio

• Overwhelmed By Squatters In Spain

• The Collapse Of Chinese Power Consumption

• Horrible Economic Data Coming Out Of The Second Largest Economy On The Planet

• One Out Of Every Five US Households On Food Stamps

• Child Hunger In America

• The Tremendous Suffering Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Desperately Poor People That We Never Hear About

Sadly, things are going to get much worse. The economic and financial systems of the world are rapidly breaking down, and in a few years these are going to look like "the good old days". And a growing number of people are starting to realize the direction that things are headed. For example, according to a survey that has just been released, 48 percent of all Americans believe that the best days of America are now behind us.

He also conceded that the influx of arrivals meant the party’s traditional supporters are now unable to find work. By contrast, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said his party got it wrong on immigration but has refused to admit it was too high under Labour. Between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain totalled more than 2.2 million, more than twice the population of Birmingham.

Lord Mandelson’s remarks come three years after Labour officials denied claims by former adviser Andrew Neather that they deliberately encouraged immigration in order to change the make-up of Britain. Mr Neather said the policy was designed to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’. He said there was ‘a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural’.

"We have to change direction, otherwise this is going to bring down whole political systems," said Braulio Rodriguez, the Archbishop of Toledo. "It is very dangerous. Unemployment has reached tremendous levels and austerity cuts don't seem to be producing results," he told The Telegraph. "There is deep unease across the whole society, and it is not just in Spain. We have to give people some hope or this is going to foment conflict and mutual hatred."

Europe's Catholic bishops have been careful not to stray into the political debate or criticise EU economic strategy but the Archbishop said the current course is untenable. "The Vatican has always been an enthusiast for Europe, but a Europe of solidarity where we help each other, not a Europe of coal and steel. Whether this is possible depends on Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel," he said. The Archbishop said the COMECE forum of European bishops is spear-heading a push for change, drawing on social doctrines dating back to Pope Leo XIII.

The eminence grise is Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx, author of "Das Kapital: A Plea for Man". The firebrand cardinal has been picked by Pope Francis for his eight-man team of policy advisers at the Vatican. Europe's churches are emerging as a powerful pole of authority, filling a vacuum left by political parties of all stripes tainted by the crisis. German leaders may be more ready to heed criticism from the Vatican and their own clergy than from Club Med politicians.

Europe's ongoing economic crisis and lasting currency woes are beginning to rapidly erode faith among Europeans in the EU project. That is the result of a new survey undertaken by the renowned Pew Research Center in Washington DC and released on Monday evening.

The institute polled 8,000 people in eight European Union member states in March and arrived at some disturbing results. In just one year, the share of Europeans who view the European Union project favorably plummeted from 60 percent in 2012 to just 45 percent this year. Furthermore, only in Germany does a majority continue to support granting more power to Brussels in an effort to combat the ongoing crisis.

"The European Union is the new sick man of Europe," read the survey's opening lines. "The effort over the past half century to create a more united Europe is now the principal casualty of the euro crisis. The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe."

The most recent scandal to grip the Obama administration came Monday evening, when The Associated Press disclosed that the Justice Department sought its reporters’ phone records — including those of correspondents who sit in the Capitol. Within hours, House Republicans vowed to investigate. To make things worse for President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to be on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

That’s hardly the president’s only problem. Two separate committees — Oversight and Government Reform, and Ways and Means — will probe whether the IRS was treating right-leaning groups unfairly. Republicans moved swiftly to secure the IRS acting director for a Friday hearing, just a week after the news broke. GOP aides hinted Monday afternoon that widespread calls for the director’s resignation could come shortly.

There are currently five separate committee investigations into the attack on a US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, and a probe into Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius raising millions of dollars to promote Obamacare. Ways and Means is demanding answers to seven questions on this matter, as well.

All together, roughly one-third of House committees are engaged in investigating some aspect of the Obama administration.

Since then, a steady stream of male celebrities has been arrested on suspicion of sexual offences including comic Jim Davidson, DJ Dave Lee Travis, publicist Max Clifford, entertainers Jimmy Tarbuck and Rolf Harris, Coronation Street actor William Roache and the former BBC compere Stuart Hall. Nor is that all. Claims of groping by the Lib Dem grandee Lord Rennard seemed to raise the floodgates on a deluge of stories of sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The House of Commons Deputy Speaker and Conservative MP Nigel Evans has been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault against two men.

Eddie Shah, founder of the now defunct Today newspaper, is facing trial on six counts of rape in the Nineties against a girl aged between 13 and 15. Stuart Hall has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting 13 girls, the youngest aged nine. And from the details of that sordid case, we learn that the BBC effectively facilitated Hall’s crimes, with a member of staff shepherding a steady stream of girls and women to a ‘medical room’ in the BBC’s Manchester HQ where Hall’s assignations took place.

A number of people knew what was going on there; no one did anything. So should we conclude that the BBC was a den of vice, a kind of public service brothel of the air? Yet the BBC and entertainment industry were clearly not alone in this. No fewer than five distinguished music schools are currently facing investigations into claims of sexual abuse of their pupils by members of staff. And let’s not forget the relentless trickle of Christian clerics subject to such accusations. One reason this is all coming out now is that the social climate has dramatically changed from indifference about sexual permissiveness to panic about sexual abuse.

The real reason no one at the BBC did anything about Savile or Hall was not just the fear of destroying their lucrative stars. It was also that, especially during the Seventies and Eighties, sexual licence was considered acceptable and anyone who spoke against it was treated as a pariah. This was, after all, what the sexual revolution was all about. All constraints on sexual behaviour were removed. ‘Lifestyle choice’ meant the right to have sex with anyone.

So why are people now shocked by the debauchery that has been unleashed? If you remove constraints on sexual behaviour, this is precisely what you get. Permissiveness and sexual abuse are two sides of the same coin. We are now merely reaping what we have sown.

The meeting is reportedly being led by Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The public has been kept away from the hotel which is hosting the meeting. Other reported attendees include Michael Bloomberg of New York, Oprah Winfrey and Billionaire Warren Buffet. The potential Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush is also reported to be attending.

A similar meeting took place in 2009 in New York at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. Familiar names were in attendance including Bloomberg, Gates, and Winfrey. The London Times reported that the meeting discussed plans to “curb overpopulation.” As to the secrecy of this 2009 meeting, a guest said, “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government.”

In the meantime, the secretive Bilderberg group is preparing to host their 2013 gathering in Watford, UK.

Hershberger, whose trial begins shortly, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land this husband and father in county jail for up to 30 months with fines of over $10,000... The Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) targeted Hershberger for supplying a private buying club with fresh milk and other farm products.

DATCP has charged Hershberger with, among other things, operating a retail food establishment without a license. Hershberger repeatedly rejects this, citing that he provides foods only to paid members in a private buying club and is not subject to state food regulations.

Hershberger says: “There is more at stake here than just a farmer and his few customers - this is about the fundamental right of farmers and consumers to engage in peaceful, private, mutually consenting agreements for food, without additional oversight.”

This is a landmark precedent-setting case that could forever change food access rights. In addition, did you know that a Wisconsin judge who declared that we have no inherent right to the healthy foods of our choice retired and went to work for Monsanto?

Being out of the country means he’ll suffer less personal embarrassment from his party’s revolt. The amendment in question — framed by angry backbench Tories — regrets that a referendum on the EU wasn’t announced in the Queen’s Speech last week.

Labour and the Lib Dems will vote against the amendment. They don’t want a referendum. They fear the public would take advantage of the opportunity to vote against remaining in the EU. If the polls had suggested voters were warming to the EU — instead of making it clear we’re massively opposed — Labour and the Lib Dems would be urging a referendum to settle the matter once and for all.

By the same token, Eurosceptics would not be demanding a referendum if they thought they’d lose it. They’d be playing a longer game, softening up public opinion by publicising the iniquities of the EU. Such is politics.

The "Martyrs of Otranto" were 813 Italians who were slain in the southern Italian city in 1480 for defying demands by Turkish invaders who overran the citadel to renounce Christianity. Their approval for sainthood was decided upon by Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI, in a decree read at the ceremony in February where the former pontiff announced his retirement.

Shortly after his election in March, Francis called for more dialogue with Islam, and it was unclear how the granting of sainthood to the martyrs would be received. Islam is a sensitive subject for the church, and Benedict stumbled significantly in his relations with Muslims.

The pope didn't single out any country. But - Christian churches have been attacked in Nigeria and Iraq, and Catholics in China loyal to the Vatican have been subject to harassment and sometimes jail over the last decades. Christians in Saudi Arabia must worship out of the public eye because the ultraconservative kingdom does not officially permit churches and non-Muslim religious sites.

The Maine Republican said the disclosure that a government agency would go after groups with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names would only add to a growing sense of mistrust Americans have in their government. She was one of a number of Republicans who blasted the IRS on Sunday's talk shows.

"This is truly outrageous. And it contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government. It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review. And I think that it's very disappointing that the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out," Collins told CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley on "State of the Union."

Obama spokesman Jay Carney said Saturday the president believes the government should be staffed with "the very best public servants with the highest levels of integrity" and that "based on recent media reports, (the president) is concerned that the conduct of a small number of Internal Revenue Service employees may have fallen short of that standard." That doesn't go far enough for Collins, who said "the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America."

The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that on June 29, 2011, IRS staffers held a briefing with senior agency official Lois G Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the agency, raised objections and the agency revised its criteria a week later.

But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to groups that applied for tax-exempt status as “social welfare” groups, the document says. On January 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the appendix in the IG report, which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be released.

The new revelations are likely to intensify criticism of the IRS, which has been under fire since agency officials acknowledged they had deliberately targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their name for heightened scrutiny.

In 2002, Alex Jones covered school shooting police exercises targeting homeschoolers, a topic included in his film, Police State Trilogy. Since that time, the effort to malign homeschooling parents as extremists and terrorists has only increased. In 2004, cops in Muskegon, Michigan conducted a “mock attack” on a school bus as part of a terrorism response exercise. The terrorists portrayed in the exercise were not fanatical Muslims or even phantom rightwing extremists – they were said to be fanatical homeschoolers.

According to the Muskegon Chronicle, the exercise was a simulated “attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled,” Homeschool World reported in September, 2004. The simulated attack was funded by the Department of Homeland Security.

Stereotypes consistently propped-up by the media demonize homeschoolers as hicks, retards and extremists, despite the fact the local and national spelling bees are routinely won by homeschooled children. The ceaseless attack on homeschooling is an attempt to neutralize any alternatives parents have to placing their children in the state run re-education gulags known as the “public school system.”

The goal is to completely eradicate parent directed education and the threat it poses to public indoctrination mills that train children to passively participate in their own destruction while simulatenously worshipping government.