Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel noted on Friday that Barack Obama and the IRS have a new plan to target Tea Party groups in advance of the 2014 elections.
During Thanksgiving week, the Treasury Department announced a proposal to limit the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups. The Obama Administration claimed that the plan was necessary to clarify confusing tax laws.
The House Ways and Means Committee investigators believe that the proposal was designed by examining Tea Party group applications, figuring out exactly how they proceeded, then limiting those very actions in the new proposal, thus shutting them out of the political process.
House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp said, "The committee has reviewed thousands of tax exempt applications. The new regulation so closely mirrors the abused tea-party group applications, it leads me to question if this new proposed regulation is simply another form of targeting."
Tea Party groups, just as other tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations, have to prove that the majority of their work is for "primary" social-welfare purpose if they want to keep their tax-exempt status. The primary purpose of most Tea party groups is illuminating for Americans the size of government and the erosion of the Constitution. They do so through nonpartisan voter guides, speakers forums, pamphlets, or voter-registration drives.
Now, however, the IRS is planning to recognize those very activities as "political activity," not "social welfare," thus rendering Tea Party groups unfit for 501(c)(4) status.
Thus, the new proposal is not about clarifying tax laws but rather, as Dave Camp stated, "to put Tea Party groups out of business."
The new rule only applies to 501(c)(4) groups. The League of Women Voters Education Fund, a Democratic stronghold, is registered as a 501(c)(3), considered a "charity" that is strictly limited regarding its political activity. That same organization claims on its website that it holds "candidate debates and forums," and its "educational activities" include "understanding candidate views and ballot initiatives."
The League can still issue its voter guides, registrations, and candidate forums. Any conservative social-welfare organization acting similarly will probably lose its tax-exempt status. And guess which groups are unaffected by the new rule, because they are 501(c)(5)s?
As Strassel writes:
The same president who in May was "outraged" by the IRS's actions now says it was all just some confusion over tax law (which his new rule fixes). He told Chris Matthews last week that the media had hyped what was a few poor IRS souls in Cincinnati who were "trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret... And they've got a list, and suddenly everybody's outraged."
[POLITICKER] Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio went down to Washington, D.C. today to meet with President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... , emerging emboldened that a "progressive movement" was sweeping the nation.
Speaking to news hounds after the meeting, which included 15 other newly-elected mayors, Mr. de Blasio said it was clear to him that the fight against inequality--which formed the centerpiece of his campaign--was gaining steam far beyond the five boroughs.
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12/15/2013 00:00 ||
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Gimme that olde tyme religion
gimme that olde tyme religion,
gimme that olde tyme religion it's good enough for me.
It was good enough for the Russers,
it was good enough for the Russers,
It was good enough for the Russers and it's good enough for me.
[NJ] Gov. Chris Christie's top appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey resigned Friday amid questions over whether he ordered a traffic jam at the world's busiest bridge as political payback.
The Republican governor accepted the resignation of Bill Baroni, the agency's deputy executive director, effective immediately, and praised the former state senator's four-year stint at the bi-state agency.
"Bill Baroni is a friend of mine, has been an outstanding public servant both in his time in the Legislature and his time at the Port Authority and I have no reason not to believe him," Christie said at a Statehouse news conference, noting their 20-year relationship dating back to the governor's days as a Morris County freeholder.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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Wik: Since 2002, Baroni has been an Adjunct Professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he teaches classes on Professional Responsibility.
[SUNTIMES] For the past dozen years, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., hasn't reported paying any rent for his campaign office, records show, in what experts say could be a violation of federal election law or House ethics rules.
It's one of a series of questionable practices an investigation by the Better Government Association and reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... Sun-Times found involving Citizens for Rush, the South Side congressman's campaign committee. Rush's campaign also has:
◆ Subsidized the South Side church founded by Rush, who is the congregation's pastor, giving Beloved Community Christian Church more than $196,000 since June 2004.
◆ Paid Rush's wife Carolyn Rush a year-round salary since January 2007 totaling $404,000 as a consultant. That's nearly a quarter of the $1.6 million the congressman's campaign fund has raised in that time.
Jesse Jackson Jr. had a similar arrangement for his lovely wife, who was also a Chicago alder-critter...
The 11-term congressman and former Chicago City Council member said through an aide he "tries to comply with all applicable House ethics, codes of conduct and campaign rules and regulations."
No. Do, or do not. There is no try...
Through his spokeswoman Debra Johnson, Rush answered a few questions about the campaign office in the Lake Meadows strip mall at 3361 S. Martin Luther King Drive by email. Asked about not having reported paying rent -- currently pegged by his landlord at $20,958 a year -- he suggested there's a loophole in the law that allows him to use the storefront for free or at a discounted rent -- though he did not say whether he gets the office rent-free or at a discount.
Can I get the same loophole?
He also said he doesn't think he needs to include the campaign office -- which he has used since he was 2nd Ward alderman and which has his name on the glass and his campaign posters from the 2012 election in the windows -- in his campaign-finance reports because he uses it largely for storage.
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For obvious reasons, the 'Separation Of Church And State' does not apply here.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NJ] Gov. Chris Christie's top appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey resigned Friday amid questions over whether he ordered a traffic jam at the world's busiest bridge as political payback.
