Christian churches in Canada and Europe are empty because politics became embroiled in religion. Americans will see the same happen here.

IRS takes a step toward giving Christian pastors a bully pulpit. 
An article and opinion letter published in the Boston Globe:

Pastors who endorse political candidates shouldn’t lose tax-exempt status, IRS (Internal Revenue Service) says in filing. The Christian media group and others filed suit against the IRS last August, stating that the amendment violates their First Amendment rights to the freedom of speech and free exercise of religion, among other legal protections.

Maine Writer comment:  This decision, if allowed to stand will continue to divide an already bulkanized nation. Canadians long ago gave up on organized religion, even though every community has either a church, basicilica or a Cathedral, they are largely empty.  Canadians go to church for weddings, baptisms and funerals.  In Europe, the churches are empty tourist attractions. There is a reason for this abandonment of formal religion....because....the government was controlling the pulpit through the clergy.  There is no freedom of speech when the pastors are told what to preach.  

The recent IRS decision to allow religious organizations to endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status contradicts a change to the tax code passed in 1954 known as the Johnson Amendment (“IRS: Pastors who endorse candidates shouldn’t lose tax-exempt status,” Business, July 9). The amendment, named after Lyndon Johnson, then a senator, prohibits tax-exempt entities from participating in political campaigns.

This decision emerged as a consent agreement to settle a lawsuit by the National Religious Broadcasters Association and two Texas churches, which claimed the amendment infringed on their First Amendment rights. However, this policy shift disregards federal law, opens the door for misuse of tax-exempt status for partisan purposes, and creates another pathway for secret spending in our elections.

By interpreting political discussions during worship as private conversations, the IRS creates a loophole that will lead to organizations seeking tax breaks in exchange for political support and introduce hidden sources of money into elections. Any decision to invalidate the Johnson Amendment should be made through debate in Congress, not through back-channel agreements.

The IRS must adhere to the US tax code as established by Congress and ensure any modifications arise from transparent, democratic processes. We need less dark money in politics, not more.

From Cushing Anderson in Boston

Americans must learn what the whistleblowers are telling investigators

Echo opinion by Catherine Rampbell published in The Washington Post and in the Salt Lake Tribune- "There is a 'there-there"

Catherine Rampell: There’s another whistleblower complaint. It’s about Trump’s tax returns.

Daniel Ellsberg risked his career and his safety to expose the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He became one of the most famous whistleblowers in American history. The Washington Post’s Libby Casey explains what it means to be a whistleblower, what legal protections are and are not available, and what someone risks by speaking up. (The Washington Post)  

Hey, have you heard about this whistleblower complaint?

An unnamed civil servant is alleging serious interference in government business. If the allegations are true, they could be a game-changer. They might set in motion the release of lots of other secret documents showing that Donald Trump has abused his authority for his personal benefit.

Wait, you thought I meant the whistleblower from the intelligence community?

Nope. I'm talking about a completely different whistleblower, whose claims have gotten significantly less attention but could prove no less consequential. This whistleblower alleges a whole different category of impropriety: that someone has been secretly meddling with the Internal Revenue Service's audit of the president.

In defiance of a half-century norm, Trump has kept his tax returns secret.

We don't know exactly what he might be hiding. His bizarre behavior, though, suggests it's really bad.

Maybe these documents would reveal something embarrassing but not criminal (e.g., the relatively puny size of his fortune). Maybe they'd reveal that some of his financial dealings are legally dubious or even fraudulent, which would be consistent with past Trump-family tax behavior.

Most significantly, they might reveal that Trump has been profiting off the presidency. Among the relevant conflict-of-interest questions that Trump's taxes could answer: whom he gets money from, whom he owes money to (and on what terms) or how his 2017, tax overhaul enriched him personally.

Not that you’d know it from the administration’s stonewalling, but Congress actually has unambiguous authority to get Trump’s returns. In fact, it has had the authority to get any federal tax return, no questions asked, for nearly a century. Under a 1924 law, Treasury “shall furnish” any tax document requested by the House Ways and Means or Senate Finance Committee chairs.

That's exactly what the House Ways and Means chairman, Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., did in the spring. The statute doesn't require him to state any legislative purpose for his request, but he provided one anyway: He said that the committee needed to make sure the IRS, which it oversees, is properly conducting its annual audit of the president and vice president, as the IRS manual has required post-Watergate.

There is historical precedent for worrying about how rigorously the IRS might be auditing its own boss. In the early 1970s, the agency commended then-President Richard M. Nixon on his supposedly pristine tax filings, even though he owed about a half-million dollars in unpaid taxes and interest.

Since then, presidents have voluntarily released their tax returns. So Congress didn't really need to worry much about whether the IRS was going easy on the president.

"The concern about the IRS' audit is almost minimal or nonexistent if tax returns are public, because there are effectively a million auditors," says George K. Yin, University of Virginia School of Law professor emeritus and former chief of staff of Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation. "The public can see if there's any funny business going on."

Current circumstances are different, of course.

Still, from an optics standpoint, this IRS-audit-oversight rationale seemed a strange one for Neal to cite. Especially because it was the primary rationale offered, and there was no reason at the time to believe the IRS was actually being bullied. So, for the first time in history, the administration refused a Ways and Means tax request, on the grounds that Neal’s stated legislative purpose was “pretextual.” (Maine Writer ~ when in doubt, always interject a confusing, new and untested word!)

But now, in retrospect, Neal’s stated purpose looks either extremely ingenious — or extremely lucky.

That's because this summer an anonymous whistleblower approached the House committee to say its concerns had been justified. The whistleblower offered credible allegations of "evidence of possible misconduct," specifically "inappropriate efforts to influence" the audit of the president, according to a letter Neal sent to the treasury secretary.

We don't know the complaint details, including who allegedly meddled with the audit or how, and whether the IRS complied. The complaint hasn't been released, and Neal said last week that he's still consulting with congressional lawyers about whether to make it public.

But the exact details of the allegations matter less than the fact that they corroborate Democratic lawmakers' argument that oversight of the IRS' annual presidential audit is indeed a legitimate reason they — and hopefully, eventually, the public — should see Trump's taxes. It's hard to imagine how the federal judge in this case could now rule against the committee.

As is so often true with allegations of Trumpian wrongdoing, we’ve learned once again that there’s a there there — and there, and there, and all sorts of other places you mightn’t have thought to look.

By Catherine Rampell

Taxpayer Advocates report costs to recover $6.7 mill = whaaa?

The cost for reclaiming $6,7 million owed to the Internal Revenue Service cost the government (middle class tax payers) = $20 million?  ~ Roger Chesley in The Virginian-Pilot

Under the "echo" file labeled "Makes No Sense (MNS) ~

The Internal Revenue Service shouldn’t take the blame for mandates Congress throws its way. A few years ago, lawmakers forced the IRS to outsource collection of some tax debt to private collection agencies. The result has been lousy.

This week’s report by the Taxpayer Advocate, an independent organization within the IRS that assists citizens, showed the private debt collection program in fiscal year 2017 generated $6.7 million in payments. But it cost $20 million to recover.

Worse, the collections targeted some of the nation’s poorest: The returns of 4,100 taxpayers showed 28 percent had incomes below $20,000, and 44 percent had incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. Why didn’t collectors go after richer scofflaws?

Outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews he’d deck Donald Trump if the president ever tried to intimidate him, including if he “leaned on me and got in my space.”

(Mane Writer ~So, in other words, McAuliffe will fight back if Donald Trump's IRS collection agency tries to reclaim his back taxes...haha).

Isn’t that threat an invitation to federal agents to drop in on McAuliffe? The guv was wrong in even considering the silly hypothetical. Enough with the false bravado and displays of testosterone! It’s detrimental to political discourse — which is already in a bad place in the country.

By the way, I’m betting Haiti, El Salvador and the whole continent of Africa have some fairly profane descriptions of this president. 

You’ve probably read or heard about Trump’s comments regarding immigrants from those areas, referring to them as “s---hole countries.”

Maine Writer ~ Yes, unfortunately, the entire world has heard Donald Trump's horrific words, in glaringly embarrassing stereo.

Request for Donald Trump tax returns- leaks required

Mrs. Mary Anne MacLeod Trump (b. 1912, in Tong, a village on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland- d. 2000 in Hyde Park), was the Scottish immigrant mother of Donald Trump. She was born in the land of the mysterious and never found Loch Ness Monster; but that reality sure doesn't given Donald Trump, her son, the authority to make international intrigue about his hidden taxes.  

The late Mary Anne McLeod Trump - was a Scottish immigrant. 

It makes no sense, whatsoever, for Donald Trump to pretend his tax returns are his business only and play "hard to get" with the information.  His Press Secretary Sean Spicer says there's no "there-there" regarding any scandal or connection to Russia, but it's impossible to believe in "there" when Donald Trump will not prove he is innocent of financial collaboration with the Russians. Talk about a violation of the Constitution's "Emoluments" clause? 
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present,Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” (Wow! The framers of the US Constitution were clairvoyant!  Obviously, they foresaw Donald Trump in their visions.)
At this point, the tax debacle about Donald Trump's tax returns, the speculation about what's in the data are a greater myth than wondering if the Loch Ness Monster existed or if Big Foot is still roaming around in the Pacific Northwest?

Nessie- the shadow of the Loch Ness Monster! 

Like calling for Donald Trump's taxes.

(Maybe, we'd be better off asking for Russia to find the data?)

Moreover, with all the White House leaks (like a bathtub overflowing) gushing out, including what Donald Trump wears in the middle of the night, seems like somebody should be able to find his tax returns, laying around in a mayonnaise jar someplace.  Even the Clinton's long lost "White Water" billing papers eventually showed up, just like magic, sitting in plain view, on a White House table.
The New York Times archives report from eons ago, in 1996, shows how absolutely anything is possible:

After nearly two years of searches and subpoenas, the White House said this evening that it had unexpectedly discovered copies of missing documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's law firm that describe her work for a failing savings and loan association in the 1980's.

Well, here's the newest mysterious and never to be duplicated story of the 21st century. Where are Donald Trump's taxes? Apparently, there are nefarious reasons why he won't release the information. Otherwise, this mystery would be solved.  

Where's the leaks from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS?). I'd be willing to bet those tax returns are hiding in a dossier underneath
somebody's bed collecting dust bunnies, just waiting for the right time to appear - clandestinely, or course.  They exist someplace outside of the IRS but the exact location is yet to be determined.

Here's one open call for their disclosure:

NYT Staffer Urges IRS to Leak Trump's Tax Returns:

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is urging IRS workers to leak President Donald Trump's tax returns to him.

Kristof, a longtime staffer at the Times, made his plea to the IRS on Twitter:

But if you're in IRS and have a certain president's tax return that you'd like to leak, my address is: NYT, 620 Eighth Ave, NY NY 10018.  One response is as I've already demised: "I have been thinking that very thing. If only a certain tax return WOULD show up..." from a Twitterzin named Steven Tuit at

Of course, The Hill noted that releasing an individual's unauthorized tax returns is a felony.

"While reporters who publish illegally obtained information that they did not solicit are traditionally not prosecuted, the legal picture becomes less clear if the reporters are involved in the leaking of the information," it said. The Times received a portion of Trump's 1995 tax documents from a source last September and printed it a few days later, according to The Hill. It prompted a letter from Trump's attorney, who claimed publishing the documents was "illegal."

Times Editor Dean Baquet has said he would risk jail time to publish Trump's taxes returns. The Daily Caller reported the "unauthorized release of an individual's tax returns is punishable by a fine of $5,000 and up to five years in prison."

(Hmmm, seems like a small risk legal, IMO, to solve one of the greatest political mysteries of all time, after the missing and never found 18 minutes of erased Watergate tape conversations.)

(Nessie?  Hey Nessie? Where are you?)- Trump taxes are like calling up the Loch Ness Monster.  There's obviously something misty lurking in that "Loch Ness", metaphor tax returns. 

("Russia if you are listening?")  

Hypocritical Political Scandals - Republicans Have Short Memories (Among Other Problems)

Obviously, Republicans have no ideas about how to lead our nation. Otherwise, they'd be busy creating ideas to improve our human and economic conditions. Instead, they're busy muckraking scandals to make themselves look legitimate.  What's worse, the Washington DC scandals that Republicans are stoking, to spew up firestorms, expose their efforts as hypocritical.

Begin with hypocritical scenario number one: Benghazi a diplomatic mission in Libya, attacked on September 11, 2012.  Americans certainly don't know all there is to know about the tragic death of Ambassador Stevens and the security people who were sadly killed with him.  Nevertheless, the firestorm that killed the four Americans was one horribly incendiary incident. But, before creating a scandal about what we don't know, Republicans should look to the many thousands of deaths in Iraq and ask the very same questions they're raising about the Benghazi attack.  Thousands of Americans (and Iraqi citizens) have been killed in Iraq, in a baseless war, an invasion of a sovereign nation based on an assumption about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), that didn't exist.  I'm more interested to know how Americans wound up fighting the War in Iraq, when none of the questions raised about the invasion were sufficiently answered beforehand and an exit strategy wasn't prepared.  

Hypocritical political scandal two:  Associated Press reporters' telephone records subpoena by the Department of Justice.  In this scandal scenario, the Republicans refuse to look at how much they mistrust the "lame stream media" (Sarah Palin's memorable quote). Many acted self righteously when the subpoena of the reporters' information was announced by Attorney General Holder.  Nevertheless, any modern person, journalist or otherwise, must be delusional not to know how all electronic instant communications are subject to eavesdropping, especially so for those who are targeted for surveillance, like reporters can be, for any reason whatsoever.  Although I'm not defending the actions of Attorney General Holder in issuing the subpoena, I'm simply saying, the incident doesn't pass the straight face test among  Republicans, who want to enlarge the incident into a sinister scandal.  Certainly, the surveillance of news reporters is, honestly, nothing new.  

Finally, the Internal Revenue Service and the 501(c) 4 applications, for tax exempt status, received from right wing Tea-Party organizations. Apparently, a higher than usual number of these applications were targeted for special review for (presumably) political scrutiny. This third scenario is the most laughable of the three hyped and hypocritical scandals.  A 501(c) 4 tax exempt organization is a non-profit corporation created to be exempt from paying federal income taxes. Political organizations don't typically fall into the category of "non-profit", unless they demonstrate how the monies raised and expended are used to serve a public service "mission statement".  It's the job of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to sort through these applications, to determine whether or not they're legitimate.  If the IRS didn't do the job of thoroughly reviewing these tax exempt application, I suspect a special prosecutor would investigate whether or not the agency was being mismanaged, but for an entirely opposite reason than the one the Republicans are hyped about.  Of course, many right wing Republicans don't want anybody to pay taxes. Therefore, presumably, Republicans should advocate for all Americans to receive a 501(C) 4 status! Obviously, however, if no one paid taxes, the Republicans who screech about IRS over reach in the 501(c) 4 hyped scandal wouldn't receive any taxpayer subsidized salaries.  So, Republicans hypocritically gripe about the 501(c) 4 scrutiny of applications that, in my opinion, should never receive authorization.  Although it's just my opinion, very few, if any, political organizations should be non-profit, because somebody, somewhere, profits by a tax exempt designation.  In fact, the 501(c) 4 designation should be eliminated.  This "4" is a different designation than the 501(c) 3 that's required for an organization to be considered "charitable"; so, the "4" is simply not necessary.  An organization is either charitable or political, it can't be both.

Republicans in Congress get paid to support the US Constitution, which doesn't include creating or stoking scandals.  When it comes to scandals, Republicans have short memories, because their own political party certainly tried to hide a few in the recent past - Watergate being a paramount example.

Rather than continue their scandals attack, Republicans should apply their energy and money to communicating new ideas about how to lead and govern America.  Otherwise, the Republicans are a political party that needs to close for repairs. (Thank you Honorable Robert Dole).

Old Fashioned Political Scandals - Republicans Can't Get Votes but Smell the Power in Scandals

Republicans are dangerously close to becoming extinct, because their voting base is eroding, while the party alienates minority groups. Like cornered wild animals, the GOP can only use one offensive strategy - called the political scandal. 

Scandal muckraking is a old fashioned strategy that can demoralize voters.

A series of over reaching responses to Obama administration missteps gives the Republicans fodder to raise voter ire.  GOP rage over the Benghazi 9/11 tragedy, bolstered by an IRS response to 501(c) 4 non profit applications, submitted by conservative political groups, and fueled by a Justice Department admission to the subpoena of Associated Press reporters phone records, all contribute to the GOP strategy to demoralize voters, in advance of the 2016 elections.

Political scandals go deeper than the misuse of power. They accumulate and cause volcanic eruptions among voters. Now, the GOP, even in their last gasps of relevance, are given a gift in the Obama administration's mistakes.

CNN reports:  "News headlines of the past week portray an administration engulfed in potential scandal, providing opponents of President Barack Obama with plenty of ammunition to try to derail his agenda in the early months of his second term."

Meanwhile, in another, more politically significant story, a Hispanic Republican liaison in Florida has decided to abandon the GOP and became a Democrat. 

This Florida story should be news media leads. Instead, it's obviously become shrouded by the hype over a series of administration scandals.

Washington Post Politics reports: "The Republican National Committee’s former Hispanic outreach director in Florida has become a Democrat, citing the Republican party’s 'intolerance' and a general frustration with the party’s attitude toward immigration."

Therefore, while Democrats are growing in numbers, the Republicans have found the political fuel, fed by scandals, to demoralize energized voters.  When discouraged voters refrain from voting, the Republicans can win elections with zealous turnout and they who won't be outnumbered.

Obviously, the cluster of Obama administration scandals will build a relentless Republican response into the 2016 election. 

Political strategists know from past scandals how important it is for administrations to reveal ALL information about scandals, every shred of it, rather than allow these kind of stories to drip-drip-drip like an annoying metronome.

So, the only way to stop the Republican outrage is to be sure these cornered politicians have no new information to exploit.  Meanwhile, our news media has been desperate to fill the post election void, so any scandal fills their hungry air time and newsprint.  The news must be filled by facts to discredit scandals.

It's essential for the Obama administration to get ahead of these scandals and focus, instead, on how to win the 2016 elections!  Let's remove obstructionist Republicans from office, while eliminating the scandals that give fuel to their dwindling voter base.  Otherwise, old fashioned political scandals could define the 2016 elections.