Sunday, March 22, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 681

TaxProf Blog: The IRS Scandal, Day 681
American Center for Law and Justice, IRS Bureaucracy Continues to Target Conservatives’ Constitutional Freedoms:
The new IRS commissioner brought in to clean up the corrupt bureaucracy responsible for targeting grassroots conservative groups and infringing upon ordinary Americans’ constitutional freedoms admits that the targeting has not stopped.
Commissioner John Koskinen, testifying before the House Appropriations subcommittee this week, admitted that nearly a dozen grassroots conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status are still awaiting determination.
One thing is clear – the unelected and corrupt IRS bureaucracy continues to infringe upon our basic freedoms.
Commissioner Koskinen claimed that he has offered a path to tax-exempt status if these groups would agree to limit their overtly political activity. But the standard offered in this so-called compromise is arbitrary and continues to infringe upon fundamental freedoms. The offer asked our clients and other groups to agree to spend no more than 40% of their resources on political activity.
The Washington Times reported with more:
Mr. Koskinen's agency offered groups still awaiting approval a deal that they could get immediate approval if they promised to limit political activity to 40 percent of their budgets. 
Conservative lawyers, however, argue that the law and regulations suggest groups should be able to spend 49.9 percent of their money on political activity, and so agreeing to the 40-percent level would be ceding some of their rights to the government.

Trey Gowdy Threatens Possible House Action if Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Hand Over Her Server | TheBlaze.com

Trey Gowdy Threatens Possible House Action if Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Hand Over Her Server | TheBlaze.com:

"Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Friday officially asked Hillary Clinton to turn her private server over to a neutral party for an assessment of whether it still contains work-related emails dealing with the 2012 attack in Benghazi.

Gowdy also explicitly warned that refusing to comply with this request could lead to action by the House to force Clinton hand over the server."

Three Reasons Why Michigan Should End Film Incentives

Three Reasons Why Michigan Should End Film Incentives [Michigan Capitol Confidential]
1. No increase in film jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are fewer film jobs in the state today than when the film incentives began in 2008.
2. No permanent jobs. According to the Michigan Film Office (which distributes the subsidies), there were zero full-time jobs created from the program last year.
3. No money. According to the Senate Fiscal Agency, the incentives bring in only 11 cents on the dollar spent — a huge loss for taxpayers.
By all fair measures, the nearly $500 million devoted to the film incentive program has been a waste. It should be ended and the money redirected to better priorities.

Student Barred From Class For Disputing Rape Statistics

Student Barred From Class For Disputing Rape Statistics | The Daily Caller:
"A student at Reed College has been banned from class for denying the existence of “rape culture” in the United States and arguing that the oft-repeated statistic that one in five women are raped at college is bogus.
Jeremiah True, 19, received an email from professor Pancho Savery on March 14 telling him he was making his classmates so uncomfortable that he was no longer welcome to participate in the “conference” sections of his Humanities 110 class, a course which focuses on the art and literature of classical Greece, according to BuzzFeed News.
...“There are several survivors of sexual assault in our conference, and you have made them extremely uncomfortable with what they see as not only your undermining incidents of rape, but of also placing too much emphasis on men being unfairly charged with rape,” said Savery in an email True posted online.
“[Other students] have said that things you have said in our conference have made them so upset that they have difficulty concentrating in other classes.
I, as conference leader, have to do what is best for the well-being of the entire class, and I am therefore banning you from conference for the remainder of the semester.”
At least one student thinks giving True the boot was the right move, saying that True’s statements somehow represented a safety hazard.
“This is an excellent example of a professor taking initiative to take care of his students,” senior Rosie Dempsey told BuzzFeed.
“Of course, we are an institution that encourages dissent and active discussion, but there is a difference between stimulating discussion through opposition and making other students feel unsafe.”
Another student said that True’s ouster was necessary because he was “triggering” other students, suggesting that True was so bothersome he was activating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in others."

The Word ‘Taxpayer’ Tilts In Favor of Conservatives and Should Be Eliminated

New Republic Writer: The Word ‘Taxpayer’ Tilts In Favor of Conservatives and Should Be Eliminated
You don’t have to be Frank Luntz or George Lakoff to know that linguistic framing matters a great deal in politics. 
Sometimes, however, nuance is in the eye of the beholder. 
The New Republic’s Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig, for example, considers “taxpayer” an ideologically weighted term.
In a Thursday article pegged to the just-released House Republican budget for fiscal 2016, Bruenig claimed that the use of “taxpayers” (rather than “people”) when discussing fiscal and economic issues benefits conservatives for reasons including that it “seems to subtly promote the idea that a person’s share in our democratic governance should depend upon their contribution in taxes” and bolsters the makers-vs.-takers argument that became associated with the GOP during the 2012 campaign.
From Bruenig’s piece (bolding added):
In the 43-page budget, the word “taxpayer” and its permutations appear 24 times, as often as the word “people.” It’s worthwhile to compare these usages, because the terms are, in a sense, rival ideas. While “people” designates the broadest possible public as the subject of a political project, “taxpayer” advances a considerably narrower vision—and that's why we should eliminate it from political rhetoric and punditry.
…[A]s the Republican authors of this budget know well, the beneficiaries of welfare programs tend to receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, because they are in most cases low-income. The “taxpayers” this passage has in mind, therefore, don’t seem to be the recipients of these welfare programs, but rather those who imagine that they personally fund them. By this logic, the public is divided neatly into makers and takers, to borrow the parlance of last election’s Republicans…

Beck Eviscerates President Obama as a ‘Special Kind of Liar’ Who Has ‘Brought Lying to an Art Form’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

Beck Eviscerates President Obama as a ‘Special Kind of Liar’ Who Has ‘Brought Lying to an Art Form’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

“The proof is readily available for anybody who cares to look,” Beck said. “And the fact is, the president is a special kind of liar because he can lie about things that have long been proven to be lies. Then he has the nerve to tell you to look up the evidence. … That’s what he did this week.”

Beck played audio of the president saying: “It was one thing for them to argue against Obamacare before it was put in place. Every prediction they have made about it turned out to be wrong. See, it’s working better than even I expected. But it doesn’t matter. Evidence be damned.”

“Yeah, evidence be damned,” Beck repeated. “That was a special kind of liar. You have to almost sit back in awe and say ‘Oh, my gosh, he is an artist. He is a Rembrandt or the Monet of lies. He is so convincing, he may even have convinced himself!’ And I believe he has. But what a statement. ‘Evidence be damned.’ All of the evidence is on our side, and he makes the opposite claim. But we have seen it before, repeatedly.”

Militarize the place where you get your driver's license?!!!----Nevada DMV Requests High-Powered Rifles For Office Safety

DMV Requests High-Powered Rifles For Office Safety | Nevada Public Radio:
"If you’re driving on Nevada’s roads, chances are a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles may be in your future.
But, no matter how long the line is, try to keep your cool.
Because of large crowds and longer wait times, the DMV has requested funding that would prepare its security for the worst.
The agency’s budget request over the next two years includes funding for an “Active Shooter Program,” which would include the purchase of 12 semi-automatic rifles. 
Although compliance enforcement officers already possess handguns, deputy administrator Sterling Nixon says it may not be enough should an active shooter situation occur.
...“Handguns and firearms are prevalent in the state of Nevada,” Nixon said. We lean toward protecting the public with whatever means we have.”"

2015 Izzo & Spartans Tournament Run Graphic

2015 Izzo & Spartans Tournament Run Graphic

Khamenei calls 'Death to America' as Kerry hails progress on nuke deal

Khamenei calls 'Death to America' as Kerry hails progress on nuke deal | The Times of Israel
Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord.
Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands.
When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: 
“Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure.
...The politics of America is to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region.
...Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne. 
The talks, made “substantial progress,” he said, but “important gaps remain.
“We have an opportunity to get this right,” Kerry said, as he urged Iran to make “fundamental decisions” that prove to the world it has no interest in atomic weapons.

History for March 22 - On-This-Day.com

History for March 22 - On-This-Day.com:
Chico Marx 1887, Louis L'Amour 1908 - Author, Karl Malden 1913 - Actor 


William Shatner 1931 - Actor ("Star Trek" television series and movies), M. Emmett Walsh 1935 - Actor, Glen Campbell 1936 


James Patterson 1947 - Author, Andrew Lloyd Webber 1948 - Composer, Reese Witherspoon 1976 - Actress ("Legally Blonde") 


1457 - Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book. 


1841 - Englishman Orlando Jones patented cornstarch. 


1873 - Slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico. 



1903 - Niagara Falls ran out of water due to a drought. 


1906 - France lost the first ever rugby game ever played against Britain. 


1907 - In Paris, it was reported that male cab drivers dressed as women to attract riders. 











1935 - Persia was renamed Iran.
 

1941 - The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington began operations. 


1954 - The first shopping mall opened in Southfield, Michigan


1987 - A barge loaded with 32,000 tons of refuse left Islip, NY, to find a place to unload. After being refused by several states and three countries space was found back in Islip. 


1989 - The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee reported the class gap was widening. 


1990 - A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, found Captain Hazelwood not guilty in the Valdez oil spill.