Day: September 22, 2006

AZ-08: GOP All But Concedes Former Rep. Kolbe’s Seat to Dem

Jon Ponder

To gain control of the House, Democrats need to take 15 seats — or maybe just 14 now:

National Republicans canceled local television advertisement reservations Thursday — slots that would have been used to back 8th Congressional District candidate Randy Graf through the Nov. 7 election…

Graf is running against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords in a race that has held national significance since Rep. Jim Kolbe announced last November that he would not run for re-election…

According to Giffords’ bio, she is a “third generation Arizonan and the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona State Senate.” She also dates a shuttle astronaut.

Kolbe is one of two openly gay Republicans who have served in Congress. (The other was Steve Gunderson, who retired in 1996.) Kolbe was first elected to the House from Arizona in 1985, and has represented the 8th District since it was created in 2004. That same year, the district split its vote, with majorities voting for both Republican President George W. Bush and Governor Janet Napolitano, who is a Democrat.

Campaigning for the Republican primary on Sept. 13, Graf ran on the single issue of immigration. The National Republican Congressional Committee supported his opponent, Steve Huffman, a more liberal Republican with views that are similar to Kolbe’s.

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.
[…]

Feinstein Opponent Finally Gets Front Page Coverage – Misstated Service Record

Jon Ponder

Until this morning, I’d wager that the number of Californians who could name Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Republican opponent in her reelection bid this year was limited to the candidate, his family and staff — until this morning when his name appeared on page 1A of the Los Angeles Times.

I’m a political junkie, obviously, and I couldn’t have dredged Richard Mountjoy’s name — even if I had been waterboarded. Well, he’s got publicity now:

U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mountjoy has claimed in his campaign biography that he served aboard the battleship Missouri during the Korean War, but his military record shows no assignment on the famous vessel, The Times has found.

In an interview Thursday, Mountjoy acknowledged that he did not serve on the Missouri. Last week, when first asked about his record, he said his Missouri stint had been “very brief” and that he otherwise served on the U.S. heavy cruiser Bremerton, which has a less celebrated history.

He said later that he occasionally boarded the Missouri during the Korean conflict and was on the ship for “a couple of days at a time.”

But his name does not appear on the ship’s muster rolls for those years, according to a researcher engaged by The Times. Asked about this, Mountjoy said, “I would have never answered a roll on the Missouri” because he wasn’t assigned to the ship.

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”