Onward Republican Christian soldiers!
The Friday Letter / No. 446 / Orlando, Florida
The IRS Exempt Organizations unit is notable for its consistency. While constant changes in regulations and revenue rulings well serve the interests of tax lawyers and accountants, the department that picks winners and losers in the non-profit Section 501 arena hasn't wavered from its mission to prevent constitutionally conservative organizations from taking part in the national discourse.
As a weapon, IRS thuggery has a storied history. Nixon tried but failed to sic the IRS on his enemies, but Bill Clinton succeeded. Obama raised it to a new art form in 2012 when Lois Lerner, as Exempt Organizations director, denied tax-exempt status to tea party and other conservative organizations, a move that effectively knocked them out of the 2012 election. We don't have the exact number, but the American Center for Law and Justice alone represented 37 victim plaintiffs challenging the rulings. Some reports say the IRS denied exemption to more than 300 conservative organizations.
Lerner was never prosecuted for her crimes that included lying to the Treasury Inspector General and obstructing an official investigation, and possibly disclosing confidential taxpayer information. She took the IRS far beyond its chartered authority to collect taxes by denying tax-exempt status to non-profits that offended her leftist sensibilities. She never spent a single day in prison and was allowed to retire on a full pension.
Now this corruption continues with disclosure of a May letter of denial of tax-exempt status to an organization called Christians Engaged from current Director Stephen A. Martin. His grounds: Christians are too closely aligned with Republicans. He really said that.
“Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the (Republican) party and candidates,” he explained. Christians Engaged, he said, engages “in prohibited political campaign intervention” and “operates for a substantial non-exempt private purpose and for the private interests of the (Republican) party.”
Formed in 2019 as a Texas non-profit, Christians Engaged describes itself as “a nonprofit organization that exists to educate and empower Christians to pray for our nation and elected officials, vote, and be civically engaged.”
Says a Red State headline: “The IRS says if you believe in God and the Bible, you are working for the GOP.”
And what is Christians Engaged's crime? Just as Google and Facebook censor language offensive to the state, the IRS diligently guards against threats to the state's divine right. We suspect the catalyst here is the Christians Engaged mission statement that includes the P-word: “Pray for our nation and elected officials regularly. Vote in every election to impact our culture. Engage our hearts in some form of political education or activism for furtherance of our nation.”
We are comforted to know that the IRS diligently guards against Americans (but not Hungarians, apparently) engaging in “prohibited political campaign intervention.” Our only question is, what constitutes prohibited intervention? Obviously Planned Parenthood's political activity – demanding that taxpayers pay for abortion on demand and even infanticide – is allowed. And so we looked at the League of Women Voters for some clarity.
The League formed after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote. Its initial purpose was to help women understand the process and issues of the upcoming election between Warren Harding and James M. Cox. Today the League's mission is more ambitious: Elect Democrats.
The League overtly engages in partisan Democrat politics with no threat to its tax-free status, regardless of who occupies the White House.
“In recent years, the League has embraced more esoteric causes,” John Gizzi wrote in a 2015 piece at the Capital Research Center. “It has been a steady voice for legislation to deal with climate change, establish stricter gun control and environmental legislation, and make the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) the law of the land. Almost since the Roe v. Wade ruling by the Supreme Court overturned state restrictions on abortions in 1973, the League has embraced the pro-choice position.”
More recently, Gizzi reported, “the League has been a vociferous opponent of school vouchers and laws requiring photo identification to vote. In 1999, the League joined in a legal challenge to Florida law, strongly backed by Gov. Jeb Bush, that permitted the vouchers.”
Michael Brown gives the IRS a backhanded compliment in this piece at the Christian Post: “While the IRS ruled quite wrongly in denying Christians Engaged tax-exempt status,” he writes, “it ironically got one thing right: If you teach the Bible accurately, by and large, you’ll end up siding with the Republicans rather than the Democrats.”
2020 election fraud update
Just the News is reporting a possible link between 2020 election fraud in Fulton County, Ga., and an organization affiliated with Democrat operative Stacey Abrams, who ran unsuccessfully for governor. Developing.
Short takes on the news
Retail lumber prices have dropped 45% since the May peak, as home builders retake control from the sawmills and demand for immediate delivery drops, Bloomberg reports. The future price of 100 board feet fell from a high of around 1700 to under 900. That means an 8-foot 2x4 which sold for $17 in May now brings a still-insane $8.50 or so. In May 2020 the price was around $4. . . .
All the news that's fit to distort. It's important to read propaganda closely. Sometimes government house organs like The New York Times couch their lies so cleverly that the reader doesn't notice. Take this recent quote:
“Republicans on Tuesday blocked the most ambitious voting rights legislation to come before Congress in a generation, dealing a blow to Democrats’ attempts to counter a wave of state-level ballot restrictions and supercharging a campaign to end the legislative filibuster.”
Your average semi-informed reader takes this to mean that Republican-controlled state legislatures want to keep the proletariat from voting. This is like saying that airlines require photo identification in order to keep people from flying. . . .
Your tax dollars at work. So that students aren't bothered with having to think for themselves, the Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Office at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls posted this title on its recommended reading list: “A Guide to Allyship: Black Lives Matter and Why All Cops Are Bastards.” In case its snowflake charges don't already know, the Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Office added this helpful explanation: The notion that individual cops can be good is “rooted in white supremacist mythology.” – from a story at Campus Reform.
How to eradicate problems. In a recent “anti-racist” training seminar, graduate teaching assistants and instructors at the University of Oklahoma learned how to remove problematic speech from their classrooms, because “In the classroom, free speech does not apply.” One workshop leader said students in freshman composition classes are often “emboldened to be racist, like overtly racist.” — from dispatches at Campus Reform and F.I.R.E.
Newsspeak at work
Our nomination for the Non Sequitur Hall of Fame is this exchange between an unnamed reporter and White House flak Jen Psaki, at a press briefing. Reporter: “Does the president believe that a 15-week-old unborn baby is a human being?” Psaki: “Are you asking me if the president supports a woman's right to choose?” – reported at Daybreak Insider.