Pee PARTY groups do not deserve tax exemption. Period. End of Controversy.
The wiretaps on the Associated Press are obviously yet another matter and are yet another of MY reasons that I have no respect for Obama - right up there with his straight-line continuation of Bush's global warfare agenda, his drone fleet, his "we can't look back" attitude toward Bush's criminalities (which you pee party people never raised a whimper about, incidentally), and his whistle-blower abuses, etc., etc. etc. - all far more substantive and damaging to our country than your petty little pee party imbroglios.
HA! Even Mitch McConnell is slinking away from the Benghazi tragedy realizing it's a poisonous issue now due to new revelations of Republican-backed lies and distortions fed to compliant corporate "news" bureaus.
The law has always been quite specific about who could legally get tax exemption and who could not. As Lawrence O'Donnell rightly and succinctly pointed out last week, the whole controversy revolves around the change of one word in the interpretation of the tax law pertaining to 501.c(4) non-profit groups.
The statute originally passed by Congress was written to say that groups had to operate "exclusively" to advance social welfare in order to get tax exemption.
It was then screwed up in 1959 when one word of the regs was altered by some pinhead to say groups had to operate "primarily" to advance the social welfare - a change in interpretation of the law that was never authorized by Congress and which allowed the political hounds at the gate a way to skirt the law.
Then, when the right wing Supreme court jesters passed Citizens United, basically subverting our democracy for the benefit of their corporate benefactors, it opened up the floodgates for total corruption of the intent of the law. Every little nest of right wing termites applied for tax exemption. Thousands of applications erupted during the pee party eruption. Any reasonable person could see that the purpose of their existence was to advance their political agenda (or that of their right wingnut-financed corporate puppeteers in FreedomWorks, etc.) so when they were quite properly closely scrutinized, in secret or not, it was their qualification for tax exemption based upon their political focus, hiding behind the word "primarily", that was at the root of the whole thing.
The law should be reinforced to exclude ALL groups - left and right leaning AND religious - from tax exemption, if their activities and operation cannot be totally divorced from advancing an activist political agenda. Anything less spells doom for American democracy - already obviously in its death throes.
People idiotically ranting about how the IRS violated the "constitutional rights of citizens" and kicking up a smokescreen of angry verbage to obfuscate the real issue for their own ends, conveniently ignore the original wording of the law on the books - passed according to the dictates of the Constitution. This simple act would clear the air - if only our dysfunctional, do nothings in Congress would just get off their arses and do it.
Now if Carta wants to invest in some radar guns and speed cameras, we could make our highways safe to drive on again. Can't imagine why Drew doesn't like it - privatization is always better, right?
Calm down now, Mr. West. There, there - the OWS radicals aren't out to get you. You can put down your poster with Mr. Obama painted up with a Hitler mustache labeled "Socialism Kills!" We know how committed you are to preservation of innocent life and traditional Judeo-Christian values but we wonder why nothing was said about how the founders were mostly deists, not christians and nothing about corporate greed and philandering Republican politicians and indescriminate drone warfare killing babies, and the decline of virtually every life system on Earth resulting from unbridled "free enterprise"; and how two-faced, radical pee party politicians are determined to ossify and destroy our government while saying they love America. Come on, let's get down off the lunch table and beck into your padded cell, it's time for your meds - here's your Bible; the TV's been tuned to Fox and Glenn Beck is about to come on. Everything will be OK.
Come on - sure, the American Empire's economy is teetering on the brink of economic collapse - Osama bin Laden's wet dream may yet be realized. But that cannot be laid at Obama's feet. You have to go back to the years post WWII and do some analysis. You have to give mountains of credit to saint Ronnie and Milton Friedman and the deregulated profiteers they unleashed. Heck, Obama is a product of that. That's why he surrounded himself with corporatist crooks like Geitner and now Penny Pritzker. Look at her resume and you will see all the faces of evil that Republican politics has foist on us for forty years.
No, I am no Obamanista - I regard him as as shady a character as any of the globalist, corporatist, capilatists - I just abhor what the teabaggers and cranks like Rick Perry and Ted "McCarthy" Cruz are doing to my country. Destroying the country to save it is not a prescription for success.
Gjuster - I simply stated facts - for some people facts are threatening. To me, a teabagger with a Glock on his belt or an AR-15 over his shoulder at a political rally is a threat.
Oh, "economic decline" ??? have you checked out the stock market this week? Of course, the "economy" reflected in the obscene profits of the corporate behemoth are entirely different from that of the shuttered storefront in a small town down the street from WalMart - point taken. But in the eyes of globalists, corporatists and capitalists - America is doing quite well.
Tea Party wackos revel in slinging verbal mud at Obama calling him 'socialist' and 'fascist' in the same sentence - displaying their vast ignorance.
Any corporatist like Obama knows that if you want to 'do business' you have to get out on the golf course. Nothing gets done within the halls of Congress. That's old hat.
Those founders the teabaggers are so fond of quoting, with their tri-corner hats, powdered wigs and 'reasoned debate' leading to 'compromise', just didn't do enough shouting, spitting and obstructing. They were 'old fashioned' to the core what with a desire to work to move their COUNTRY forward rather than to denigrate the popularly elected president at every turn. The will of the majority means nothing to this pitiful little band of miscreants.
The 'government of the people' has become an ongoing three-ring political circus that the entire world sees as brutish and quite horrifying because the American Empire it represents engages in indescriminate murder, torture and subterfuge that just might be directed at them one day. Actually, I think they quite rightly term it 'the great Satan'.
Every day the world is presented with a new pronouncement from these knuckle-draggers that, when examined, just makes more Americans wonder what it's going to take to shut up their idiotic pieholes. When the shooting starts, they should all remember that the majority knows where to find them.
Right on, Mr. Baker. That monstrous "disasterpiece theater" as Jon Stewart termed it, is a hall of lies and deceptions, masking immorality and global criminality. It seeks to put a smiley face on the most destructive 8 years of our country's political history from which it may never recover. It is a monument to national shame and disgrace - a real "lie bury".
The mere thought that one penny of American tax money was spent on it is a source of rage. To see all the living president's lined up in front of it, smiling for the cameras, was beyond disgusting.
The concept of State Parks and National Parks arose from a desire of the people to protect and preserve special places harboring cultural and NATURAL resources which, once lost to develoipment and commercialization, are gone forever. This responsibility was rightly placed in the hands of the government because the CONSERVATION departments created for those purposes were staffed by people knowledgeable about and devoted to the cultural and natural resources present there.
Tennessee State Naturalist Mack Prichard comes to mind as the one person most responsible for creating devotion to the purposes and values of Tennessee State Parks. Anyone who has known him knows what I mean. Sadly, it's apparent the editor has never met him.
Primary among the purposes of those parks was the education of the public about the fragility of those resources so they would support them as oases where the frenetic world of business, concrete and steel would give way to beauty and solitude - humanity's birthright.
I believe it is as a result of the poisonous propensity of politicans beholden to business, who have never had the benefit of any enlightenment to the natural world, that funds for parklands and environmental protection are among the first things cut during times of general economic decline. It is THEY who are responsible for "parks in decline". Resorts, golf courses and hotels geared toward "turning a profit" are like daggers in the heart to the very concept of parklands.
Nature has no need for "management companies". Their mere presence in parks shows that natural enlightenment is giving way to the belief that people have no need for nature.
“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”
― Henry David Thoreau
I would dare this editor to refer to Mr. Thoreau as a "confused nature lover".
Who's responsible? Give us some truth, Mr. President
Breitbart ???? C'mon April, really?
Pee PARTY groups do not deserve tax exemption. Period. End of Controversy.
The wiretaps on the Associated Press are obviously yet another matter and are yet another of MY reasons that I have no respect for Obama - right up there with his straight-line continuation of Bush's global warfare agenda, his drone fleet, his "we can't look back" attitude toward Bush's criminalities (which you pee party people never raised a whimper about, incidentally), and his whistle-blower abuses, etc., etc. etc. - all far more substantive and damaging to our country than your petty little pee party imbroglios.
HA! Even Mitch McConnell is slinking away from the Benghazi tragedy realizing it's a poisonous issue now due to new revelations of Republican-backed lies and distortions fed to compliant corporate "news" bureaus.
Who's responsible? Give us some truth, Mr. President
The law has always been quite specific about who could legally get tax exemption and who could not. As Lawrence O'Donnell rightly and succinctly pointed out last week, the whole controversy revolves around the change of one word in the interpretation of the tax law pertaining to 501.c(4) non-profit groups.
The statute originally passed by Congress was written to say that groups had to operate "exclusively" to advance social welfare in order to get tax exemption.
It was then screwed up in 1959 when one word of the regs was altered by some pinhead to say groups had to operate "primarily" to advance the social welfare - a change in interpretation of the law that was never authorized by Congress and which allowed the political hounds at the gate a way to skirt the law.
Then, when the right wing Supreme court jesters passed Citizens United, basically subverting our democracy for the benefit of their corporate benefactors, it opened up the floodgates for total corruption of the intent of the law. Every little nest of right wing termites applied for tax exemption. Thousands of applications erupted during the pee party eruption. Any reasonable person could see that the purpose of their existence was to advance their political agenda (or that of their right wingnut-financed corporate puppeteers in FreedomWorks, etc.) so when they were quite properly closely scrutinized, in secret or not, it was their qualification for tax exemption based upon their political focus, hiding behind the word "primarily", that was at the root of the whole thing.
The law should be reinforced to exclude ALL groups - left and right leaning AND religious - from tax exemption, if their activities and operation cannot be totally divorced from advancing an activist political agenda. Anything less spells doom for American democracy - already obviously in its death throes.
People idiotically ranting about how the IRS violated the "constitutional rights of citizens" and kicking up a smokescreen of angry verbage to obfuscate the real issue for their own ends, conveniently ignore the original wording of the law on the books - passed according to the dictates of the Constitution. This simple act would clear the air - if only our dysfunctional, do nothings in Congress would just get off their arses and do it.
Signal police should show some restraint
Utter bull puckey.
Parking changes long overdue
Now if Carta wants to invest in some radar guns and speed cameras, we could make our highways safe to drive on again. Can't imagine why Drew doesn't like it - privatization is always better, right?
Tea party bitter over Obama golf outing
Calm down now, Mr. West. There, there - the OWS radicals aren't out to get you. You can put down your poster with Mr. Obama painted up with a Hitler mustache labeled "Socialism Kills!" We know how committed you are to preservation of innocent life and traditional Judeo-Christian values but we wonder why nothing was said about how the founders were mostly deists, not christians and nothing about corporate greed and philandering Republican politicians and indescriminate drone warfare killing babies, and the decline of virtually every life system on Earth resulting from unbridled "free enterprise"; and how two-faced, radical pee party politicians are determined to ossify and destroy our government while saying they love America. Come on, let's get down off the lunch table and beck into your padded cell, it's time for your meds - here's your Bible; the TV's been tuned to Fox and Glenn Beck is about to come on. Everything will be OK.
Tea party bitter over Obama golf outing
Come on - sure, the American Empire's economy is teetering on the brink of economic collapse - Osama bin Laden's wet dream may yet be realized. But that cannot be laid at Obama's feet. You have to go back to the years post WWII and do some analysis. You have to give mountains of credit to saint Ronnie and Milton Friedman and the deregulated profiteers they unleashed. Heck, Obama is a product of that. That's why he surrounded himself with corporatist crooks like Geitner and now Penny Pritzker. Look at her resume and you will see all the faces of evil that Republican politics has foist on us for forty years.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obama_did_it_for_the_money_20130507/
No, I am no Obamanista - I regard him as as shady a character as any of the globalist, corporatist, capilatists - I just abhor what the teabaggers and cranks like Rick Perry and Ted "McCarthy" Cruz are doing to my country. Destroying the country to save it is not a prescription for success.
Tea party bitter over Obama golf outing
Gjuster - I simply stated facts - for some people facts are threatening. To me, a teabagger with a Glock on his belt or an AR-15 over his shoulder at a political rally is a threat.
Oh, "economic decline" ??? have you checked out the stock market this week? Of course, the "economy" reflected in the obscene profits of the corporate behemoth are entirely different from that of the shuttered storefront in a small town down the street from WalMart - point taken. But in the eyes of globalists, corporatists and capitalists - America is doing quite well.
Tea party bitter over Obama golf outing
Tea Party wackos revel in slinging verbal mud at Obama calling him 'socialist' and 'fascist' in the same sentence - displaying their vast ignorance.
Any corporatist like Obama knows that if you want to 'do business' you have to get out on the golf course. Nothing gets done within the halls of Congress. That's old hat.
Those founders the teabaggers are so fond of quoting, with their tri-corner hats, powdered wigs and 'reasoned debate' leading to 'compromise', just didn't do enough shouting, spitting and obstructing. They were 'old fashioned' to the core what with a desire to work to move their COUNTRY forward rather than to denigrate the popularly elected president at every turn. The will of the majority means nothing to this pitiful little band of miscreants.
The 'government of the people' has become an ongoing three-ring political circus that the entire world sees as brutish and quite horrifying because the American Empire it represents engages in indescriminate murder, torture and subterfuge that just might be directed at them one day. Actually, I think they quite rightly term it 'the great Satan'.
Every day the world is presented with a new pronouncement from these knuckle-draggers that, when examined, just makes more Americans wonder what it's going to take to shut up their idiotic pieholes. When the shooting starts, they should all remember that the majority knows where to find them.
Clay Bennett conveys severity of Iraq war, and more letters to the editors
Right on, Mr. Baker. That monstrous "disasterpiece theater" as Jon Stewart termed it, is a hall of lies and deceptions, masking immorality and global criminality. It seeks to put a smiley face on the most destructive 8 years of our country's political history from which it may never recover. It is a monument to national shame and disgrace - a real "lie bury".
The mere thought that one penny of American tax money was spent on it is a source of rage. To see all the living president's lined up in front of it, smiling for the cameras, was beyond disgusting.
Georgia state parks get new lease on life
The concept of State Parks and National Parks arose from a desire of the people to protect and preserve special places harboring cultural and NATURAL resources which, once lost to develoipment and commercialization, are gone forever. This responsibility was rightly placed in the hands of the government because the CONSERVATION departments created for those purposes were staffed by people knowledgeable about and devoted to the cultural and natural resources present there.
Tennessee State Naturalist Mack Prichard comes to mind as the one person most responsible for creating devotion to the purposes and values of Tennessee State Parks. Anyone who has known him knows what I mean. Sadly, it's apparent the editor has never met him.
Primary among the purposes of those parks was the education of the public about the fragility of those resources so they would support them as oases where the frenetic world of business, concrete and steel would give way to beauty and solitude - humanity's birthright.
I believe it is as a result of the poisonous propensity of politicans beholden to business, who have never had the benefit of any enlightenment to the natural world, that funds for parklands and environmental protection are among the first things cut during times of general economic decline. It is THEY who are responsible for "parks in decline". Resorts, golf courses and hotels geared toward "turning a profit" are like daggers in the heart to the very concept of parklands.
Nature has no need for "management companies". Their mere presence in parks shows that natural enlightenment is giving way to the belief that people have no need for nature.
“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” ― Henry David Thoreau
I would dare this editor to refer to Mr. Thoreau as a "confused nature lover".