Category: Government

Apparently the IRS is being taken to court because of how it treats Scientology:

There has been a case working its way up through the federal courts challenging this special treatment that Scientology gets. (Why? Probably because Scientology is the religion of Hollywood, and this special treatment decision was reached during the Clinton Administration.)

In this case, a couple named Sklar are arguing that Scientology is allowed to do this, then should be allowed to treat Jewish school tuition the same way. If the courts actually treat the Sklars’ case the same way as Scientology, then they will effectively create a religious school tuition tax deduction.

I agree with Clayton that this exception should just be eliminated.  I believe this is something Bush could do through executive order, if I’m not mistaken.

Looks like trouble is afoot between Georgia and Tennessee.  There was, once upon a time, the same kind of problem between Virginia and Pennsylvania over who owned parts of what are now Western Pennsylvania (take that Virginia!  We won! ).

Read this, and be amused.  I was.

9:05 – Blah blah blah. Lots of greeting. On HDTV you get to see exactly how old some of our elected leaders really are.

9:07 – Obama and Kennedy are sitting with each other. I guess they are best buddies now. Just don’t let Ted drive home.

9:11 – Off the bat with a message of unity. Democrats and Republicans working together. I prefer when they bicker personally.

9:12 – Now it’s the economy, stupid. Bush is touting the agreement reached on the stimulus plan which will accomplish exactly nothing in terms of helping the economy.

9:14 – Lower taxes, I like lower taxes.

9:16 – Bush talks a tough talk on spending and earmarks. If he had done that two years ago maybe Republicans would still have their majority.

9:19 – Bush wants to make private health coverage deductible. I think this is a good idea to put private coverage on par with employer group coverage. The Democrats don’t seem to stand up and applause for choice and freedom from government control of health care. Kind of tells you how they think doesn’t it?

9:20 – Blah blah blah…. Education. What ever happened to abolishing the Department of Education, back when Republicans were cool? Last I checked my copy of the constitution, it doesn’t grant power to Congress to regulate education.

9:23 – We do need to pass free trade agreements. That should get more applause than it did. I worry free trade is going out of style.

9:25 – Apparently Bush’s copy of the constitution has something about the federal government being responsible for people’s jobs in it. I must have a copy that’s missing some things.

9:26 – Energy policy is probably the biggest snake oil selling going on these days. Clean coal and nuclear are at least real energy sources. Notably absent is ethanol and hydrogen. Good.

9:28 – I should note that I was never a fan of the Republican stem cell research provision, but I think it’s odd that the Democrats didn’t stand and applause for advancement of research that makes adult stem cells possible to use. Seems to me that’s a good thing no matter what you think about the issue.

9:30 – Confirm judges. I agree.

9:32 – Now it’s time for entitlements and immigration. I agree with Bush on entitlements. Bush touts his guest worker program again, which I support, provided we don’t offer amnesty for people who are already here unlawfully. Bush implied he was still on board with amnesty. This is a political mistake.

9:35 – Now it’s time for talking about terrorist killing. It doesn’t seem to get the applause it used to, sadly.

9:39 – Onto Iraq. The Surge. Our soldiers are doing great work. Yay! The surge is working. Democrats silent. Republicans applause.

9:45 – When it comes to supporting soldiers, Democrats seem to applause vigorously. When it comes to specifics on supporting their mission, silence.

9:47 – Everyone likes troops coming home. Democrats don’t like having basing withdraw on the recommendations of commanders and progress on the mission.

9:51 – Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. I’ll believe it when I see it.

9:53 – Bush send a warning to Iran. I’d prefer to send missiles, but this is why I’m not president.

9:55 – The Democrats don’t like warrantless surveillance. I don’t either.

9:57 – America apparently is number one in fighting famine, which is why we are busy driving food prices through the roof by turning food into motor fuel. The best anti-hunger initiative the US could undertake would be to end agricultural subsidies and stop using corn ethanol for fuel. But you won’t hear anyone suggest that.

10:01 – Lots of flowery language about “We the People”, and The Union being strong. Bush is actually pretty good on his delivery tonight.

All in all, a pretty boring and uneventful state of the union. Looks like I picked the wrong week to not drunk blog this, it would have made it a lot less dry.

UPDATE: E-gads!  Sibelius is awful.  If she’s a “rising star,” as the Fox pundits said, maybe I should be more optimistic about the future of the Republican Party.  She sounds and looks like she’s been lobotomized.

Ahab is confused as to why Liberty Dollars are illegal. At first I thought this was another case of the federal government acting outside its authority, but after more research I’m not sure. While I will still say that they should find better use of resources than picking on Liberty Dollars, the Liberty Dollar does appear to be in violation of federal law. The article mentions:

The U.S. Mint recently issued a statement saying “prosecutors with the Department of Justice have determined that the use of these gold and silver NORFED ‘Liberty Dollar’ medallions as circulating money is a federal crime.”

“Consumers who are considering the purchase or use of these items should be aware that they are not genuine United States Mint bullion coins and they are not legal tender.”

That would imply they are being charged under Title 18, Chapter 25 of the United States Code, titled “Counterfeiting and Forgery”. They certainly aren’t guilty of counterfeiting, but my guess is that they are probably being charged under this:

Section 486. Uttering coins of gold, silver or other metal

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

It says the coins were of gold and silver, so I’m guessing these guys are nailed. The power to mint currency is one reserved to Congress, so you can’t really argue that it’s outside the federal government’s purview.

UPDATE: Just noticed there’s more about this over at Reason. It seems to me that the argument that because you had to use federal reserve notes to pay for your liberty dollars, that they were fraudulent, seems off base to me. I have to use federal reserve notes to buy video game tokens, poker chips, or various other substitutes for currencies. Are these fraud as well? I will read through the affidavit. But it seems to me the only thing they could be guilty of, based on the limited information I have, is utterance of silver or gold coin.

UPDATE: After reading through the affidavit, I agree there is evidence of fraud.  It seems they were allegedly making claims that their currencies were backed 100% by silver, when that was not, in fact, the case.  There is also accusations of fraudulent marketing practices and such.

It seems there might be some problems here:

Because as Sullivan prepares to decamp for DC, taking with him his carefully cultivated reputation for relentlessly cracking down on street crime, he leaves in his wake a basket case of a U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judges are complaining of sloppy briefs and missed deadlines in Sullivan’s shop. Cases are taking longer to resolve than in any other state in the country. And bungling management and sometimes shocking instances of patronage have sunk morale. An estimated dozen assistant U.S. attorneys—the career professionals who do the important legal work—left the office during a recent 12-month stretch.

Given that track record, it’s fitting that Sullivan feels such warmth for Alberto Gonzales, his old boss at the ATF and U.S. Attorney’s Office, whose going-away party he marked with this dewy-eyed toast: “When I think of the attorney general, three words come to mind: discipline, duty, and honor.”

When I think of Alberto Gonzoles, I have a different image:

Hat tip to Red’s Trading Post for the story.

Apparently the TSA has caught several other potential shoe bombers, and various other potential terrorists, and just let them go.  And these are the boobs the Brady’s want me to rely on for my personal security?  No thanks.

Via Eric, who has more to say about it.

I’m sure someone will say that more laws needed.

Hmmm….

Maybe the problem is the proliferation of shoes. Especially the high-capacity thick-souled variety….

Worrying about the bombs instead of the bombers?  Where have we heard that one before?

After a bit of research and consideration, I’ve decided that I am opposed to ratification of the LOST treaty.  Tyler Cowen has a good post about why it doesn’t make sense economically, along with links to other critiques.  Tyler also brings up the argument that’s had me wavering on the issue:

The real issue these days is stopping the Russians from claiming most of the Arctic, at least the sea lanes, and this is why the Bush administration now supports the treaty.  We’ll then have international support, or at least the pretext of such support, for telling the Russians they can’t colonize the Arctic.  That’s it, that’s the whole real reason for supporting the treaty and jumping into bed with the UN.  But hey, I can sympathize with stopping the Russians.

But I think I agree with Tyler that stopping the Russians isn’t worth signing on to a UN boondoggle.  There have to be better ways to deal with the Russians.

Robb Allen finds out that Motor Voter can be used by illegal or non-citizen immigrants to register to vote, because immigration records are seldom checked. 8 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were registered to vote.

One thing that separates me from most progressives is that I do not worship at the altar of Democracy. I don’t find low participation rates in elections as a sign our Republic is about to crumble, nor do I believe in encouraging people to vote.

I do believe in encouraging people to pay attention and get educated about what’s going on our country, but I’d prefer people who can’t even be bothered enough to get a voter registration, fill it out, and send it in, not be voting in our elections at all. If you don’t care enough to spend the time to register to vote, you don’t care enough to educate yourself on the issues, get involved, or do much else other than ignorantly pulling a lever. Somehow progressives tend to believe that more participation is a good thing. I do not agree. I think we’re a much healthier public with a smaller pool of informed voters than we are if we just encourage everyone to ignorantly pull a lever for one fool or another.