Christianity, Culture, Vocation
Lois Lerner, the IRS officer who first disclosed that the agency had been targeting conservative organizations, invoked the 5th Amendment’–”I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself”–in refusing to say anything at a Congressional investigation. [Read more...]
In the course of recounting an online argument, novelist Lars Walker gives an excellent account of how the Bible gave ordinary men and women the conceptual ability to question their rulers, thus, in his words, turning them “from subjects to citizens.” [Read more...]
The Senate reached a bipartisan deal on immigration reform. The measure must now go to the House, where we will see if the Republican agreement holds. Details after the jump. [Read more...]
It wasn’t just Tea Party groups that the IRS harassed, delayed, and audited. Some religious groups were too, including some that already had the non-profit exemption. See the list after the jump. [Read more...]
As I predicted, the news media is turning on the Obama administration. Not just because the Justice Department, trying to trace a leak, subpoenaed phone companies for a list of calls made and received over two months by 20 reporters from the Associated Press (including both office and personal cell phones). According to the Washington Post, tensions have been simmering between the White House and the press corp for some time. [Read more...]
It’s illegal to buy a car direct from the factory or over the internet. You have to go through a local dealer. The electric car company Tesla is trying to change that. But state and local governments are resisting. That, arguably, goes against the free market and against the trends of the new technology. But do we really want online commerce to kill off small businesses that are the backbone of many small town economies? [Read more...]
More increasingly alarming details are coming out about the IRS scandal. See this, for the kind of intrusive information the IRS demanded. See also this and this for how liberal organizations applying for the same status were routinely and quickly approved, no questions asked. And how as many as 500 conservative organizations were targeted. We are also learning that the IRS was harassing pro-life groups as far back in 2009! Not just making them fill out lots of forms and delaying approval for two years and more. But forbidding pro-life leaders from sidewalk counseling and from protesting in front of Planned Parenthood abortuaries! [Read more...]
The German government threatened to take away the children of a couple on the grounds that they were being homeschooled. So the family fled to the United States and applied for asylum, claiming that they faced persecution for their beliefs. Their application was first accepted, but later overturned, leading to a series of court battles, with the Obama administration arguing for deportation. Yesterday, an appeals court ruled against the family.
I thought the Obama administration wants amnesty for immigrants. Why not these immigrants, who–like many of the first settlers–came here specifically in search of religious, political, and personal liberty?
Maybe we need to start worrying about those black helicopters after all. The Obama administration keeps confirming the alarms over intrusive government and the violation of civil liberties. In an effort to track down the source of leaks, the justice department has secretly subpoened and seized two months of phone records of the Associated Press. David Schultz, lawyer for the AP, calls this crackdown on confidential sources a “dagger at the heart” of reporters’ ability to get the news.
Whether or not you are sympathetic to the plight of journalists here (and we must not let our dislike of the media distract from the First Amendment issues), this possible government overreach may have an unintended consequence: What if it turns the press against the Obama administration? Who knows what else they may dig up? [Read more...]
More malfeasance by the IRS. The progressive journalism site ProPublica admits that the IRS sent them confidential material from conservative groups. ProPublica had requested information about organizations whose tax exempt status was approved, but the IRS, in addition, sent them copies of applications whose approval was pending, in direct violation of the law.
From Progressive Group: IRS Gave Us Conservative Groups’ Confidential Docs:
The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.
The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.
ProPublica says the documents the IRS gave them were “not supposed to be made public”:
The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year… In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)
The group says that “no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”
For the ProPublica account (and give them credit for coming clean), go here.
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