The Horrible Punishment Heaped Upon Tea Party Groups by the IRS

Let's overlook for just a minute that, even though they are screaming the loudest, Tea Party groups were a minority of those targeted, and that only one group lost its non profit status and that was Progress Texas, anything but a conservative group.

So what did the IRS do to these groups that has them screaming about being persecuted?

 Paperwork!

Yes, that's correct...The horrendous punishment wrought by the IRS was that Tea Partiers had to do more paperwork to complete their application for tax exempt status which they all received. I know you are thinking, "Really? That's what all this is about?" But you have to understand these people...No wonder they're screaming. It requires being able to read and write and that's totally unfair!

 Actually, the real scandal here, judging from what I know about the Roane County Tea Party group is that any of them got their tax exempt status.

Read this...I mean Really...Go Read This and think about it...

This is an NPR interview with Chris Hedges. He's one of those intellectuals you've been warned about. He learns and thinks about stuff...

if you go back and look at all of the writers on totalitarianism, whether it's Hannah Arendt, Fritz Stern, Karl Popper, they all talk about that despair as essentially driving you into a non-reality-based belief system. And the despair is only growing. I think we have powerful proto-fascist movements in this country, and I look at the Tea Party, the militia, the Christian right, where they celebrate the language of violence, they celebrate the gun culture. And they channel what I would describe as a very legitimate rage and a legitimate sense of betrayal towards the vulnerable, towards Muslims, towards undocumented workers, towards homosexuals, intellectuals, feminists, liberals. They have a long list of people they don't like. And I think that is a very - remains a very frightening and powerful undercurrent within American society.

The whole interview is here.

Blood in the Water?

Several trucking companies have banded together and hired former Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, to investigate the Haslam family business.

Senate Gets Things Done In a Hurry...Not Jobs Bill - Fishing

Lamar filibusters jobs bills, healthcare bills, spending bills, debt limit bills, background check bills, and nearly everything else, but by golly he will step up and protect a fisherman's right to break the law and  risk his life to fish at the base of a dam.

"The U.S. Senate has once again sent a clear message to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this time through legislation that would stop Big Brother in Washington from holding the hands of fishermen in Tennessee and Kentucky," Alexander said. "We're moving forward because the Corps continues to relentlessly pursue its unreasonable restrictions, wasting taxpayer dollars and ignoring elected representatives who are fighting to preserve the freedom to fish below publicly owned dams on the Cumberland River."

Story

Quote of the Day

Hatred of the "Other" is the puppet string upon which we dangle. When you hate someone you have never met for who they are or what they believe, you are doing the work of those whose joy is in your rage.

William Rivers Pitt       Read it!

About That Bible and Abortion Thing