Author: Buck Banks

New Site Enables You to Make Sure You Are Registered to Vote

Buck Banks

Make it count: What with all the elections shenanigans the last couple of times around (remember, I live in Florida, where Katherine Harris annointed George Bush King of the World in 2000), it’s probably not a bad idea to make sure you’re still on the voter rolls and your name is spelled correctly (oh, and your face matches your photo ID). There’s a new site that enables you to check your voter registration status here.

Okay, it’s run by Democrats, but if you check your history, it was Democratic votes that didn’t get counted in the last two elections, not Repugs.

For the sake of democracy, check it out.

Is IRS Trying to Control Churches’ Speech?

Buck Banks

God is my co-defendant: There’s an interesting case in Pasadena, Calif., between the Internal Revenue Service and the liberal All Saints Episcopal Church stemming from a sermon delivered on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. According to the IRS, the sermon crossed the line from religious to political speech, and that could cause the 3,500-member church to lose its tax-exempt status. The church is refusing to knuckle under to the IRS’s bullying, characterizing the agency’s actions at a press conference yesterday as an attempt to quash speech critical of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

The San Jose Mercury News summed up the crux of the matter this way:

The dispute with All Saints centers on a sermon titled “If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush” that was delivered by guest pastor Rev. George Regas on Oct. 31, 2004. Though he did not endorse either President Bush or Sen. John Kerry, he said Jesus would condemn the Iraq war and Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war.

“I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: ‘War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq,'” Regas said, according to a transcript.

‘We smell intimidation, it smells rotten, and we should not allow any aspect of intimidation to be directed to any member of our great country’
— Maher Hathout of the Muslim Public Affairs Council

The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.

According to that article, the IRS claims it investigated 90 tax-exempt churches and charities in 2004 and found wrongdoing in 70 percent of the cases. Four — none of them churches — lost tax-exempt status. In 2005, the agency began audits of 70 churches and charities and has 40 cases pending in 2006.

The only church ever to lose tax-exempt status for partisan politicking was the Church at Pierce Creek near Binghamton, N.Y., which was penalized in 1995 after running full-page ads against President Clinton in USA Today and The Washington Times in 1992 during election season.

The dispute, which could cost the church its tax exempt status, has attracted the attention of religious leaders on the right and left, who say the IRS’ actions could make it more difficult for them to speak out on moral issues such as gay marriage and abortion during the midterm election campaign.

At Thursday’s news conference, church officials were flanked by about 40 representatives of mosques, synagogues and other churches.

“We smell intimidation, it smells rotten, and we should not allow any aspect of intimidation to be directed to any member of our great country,” said Maher Hathout, senior adviser of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

All Saints omewhat has the IRS over a barrel because church leaders refused to answer a questionnaire about church practices and policies, requesting instead to have the case reviewed in court before a judge.
[…]

Got a Good Quote?

Buck Banks

Quote, unquote: We have recently (like, yesterday and today) received an unprecedented number (two) of suggestions for the Quote du Jour, one of which we published today. Now, we could take that to mean that our resident quotemeister (me) is not serving our readership the creme de la creme of human thought, which has responded by co-opting the QdJ. Some of us here at Pensito Review (me) prefer to think that the inspiring quotations served up herein have been an inspiration to readers who desire to share their own favorite smart things somebody else said or wrote with the other thoughtful folk who visit our little corner of the Internet.

If you have a favorite quotation, quip, proverb or blurt, share it with us (and your fellow readers). Just send it to me (resident quotemeister) at buck@pensitoreview.com.

Note that all quotes will be moderated and sent to our crack fact-checking staff (did someone remember to feed them this morning?) for vetting prior to being posted for the whole world and your mom to see. Note too that we reserve the right to not publish your quote because Jon finds it offensive or Trish doesn’t “get” it.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.

— Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Submitted by “Jerome”

BONUS: Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

— Thomas Jefferson, second President of the United States

House Passes Voter ID Bill – Must Be White Male Landowner to Vote

Buck Banks

Poll text: In a move that Democrats are decrying as a return to the days of Jim Crow laws, Republican House members yesterday voted overwhelmingly to roll back voter identification laws nearly 100 years. If the bill passes the Senate, voters would be required to show photo identification, proof of Anglo-Saxon descent and proof of land ownership before being allowed to exercise the privilege of voting.

Democrats were quick to condemn the vote as election-year politics. “It’s just not fair,” said Thelma Green of Norfolk, Va. “Everybody knows that blacks, women and renters all vote Democratic.”

‘Border fencing and voter identification legislation are just the first two bills in what we believe is the dawning of a new era in the United States.’
– Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

But Republicans were quick to counter that the new requirements are not without precedent. “Look at our Founding Fathers,” said Biff O’Toole of Norwalk, Conn. “You don’t think George Washington shared the ballot box with his wife or slaves, do you?”

Election officials across the country greeted the bill’s passage with relief: “This should really cut down on our workload,” said Charles D. Classey, supervisor of elections for Trousdale Wilson County in Tennessee. “For one thing, there will be fewer people voting, and in my experience white landowners are more polite and less messy at the polls than other former voters, if you catch my drift.”

The Senate, which consists of almost totally rich white landowners, is expected to take up a similar bill which, with the swift application of cloture, could sail through the Senate with no discussion or amendments, and be on the desk of our rich, white landowning president by late next week.

“Border fencing and voter identification legislation are just the first two bills in what we believe is the dawning of a new era in the United States,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.