IRS Watching Watchdog.org

White House, IRS show interest in Watchdog in January

President Barack Obama’s executive staff reviewed Watchdog’s news website in record numbers at precisely the moment when Internal Revenue Service visits to the same site spiked, Watchdog.org’s analytics show.

A similar report reveals that the Executive Office of the President and IRS were the source of a similar January traffic spike on the website of Watchdog.org, the online news network of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

The White House has said that IRS reviews of conservative nonprofits were procedurally “inappropriate on the part of fairly low-level agents.

This new data suggests at least a coincidence of interests in Watchdog. 

Read the full story here!

O'Brien For Congress - Bill O’Brien Comments on IRS Scandal of Targeting Conservative and Jewish Groups

O’Brien for Congress

Calls on Rep. Kuster to demand investigation into government abuses

Mont Vernon, NH – State representative Bill O’Brien offered the following comments today in response to the growing scandal involving the admission by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the agency targeted conservative non-profit groups. Later revelations show that the IRS also directed extra scrutiny towards non-profits affiliated with Jewish interests.

Representative Bill O’Brien

“With the latest chilling revelations of targeting of conservative and Jewish groups by the IRS, the specter of governmental tax persecution based on politics has now been exposed. It is highly disappointing that we in New Hampshire have not heard either of our House members join with those calling for a U.S. House investigation of these IRS abuses.

“As an attorney who should know the history of political abuse by federal agencies, Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster should not let party loyalty stand in the way of doing all she can to investigate and prevent the IRS targeting Americans, including her constituents, based on political and religious beliefs alone. She needs to speak out now on how this abuse is corrosive to our citizens’ trust in government.

“Given her recent tax problems, Representative Kuster must be aware of the awesome power of the IRS to use its authority over taxes to disrupt lives. She should be leading the call for an investigation. Not only her conservative and Jewish constituents, but all those who care about avoiding government abuse based on politics should call on her to file a resolution now to have the investigation begin.”

CEI Today: Internet gambling, antibacterial soap, and IRS abuse of power

INTERNET GAMBLING - MICHELLE MINTON

Wall Street Journal: Should Washington Allow Internet Gambling?

We shouldn't be debating whether Washington should legalize Internet gambling, because the federal government didn't have a right to try to ban it in the first place.

The debate over the morality of gambling has been over for a long time in the U.S. It is a widespread and popular activity: Research shows that more than 70 million Americans gamble in a given year, and some 85% of adults admit to gambling at least once in their lives. > Read more

> Interview Michelle Minton

ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP - ANGELA LOGOMASINI Openmarket.org: “Shocking” Truth about Government and Soap Is your hand wash slowly killing you as government regulators sit idly by? Sounds silly, but that’s what environmentalists seem to think about an antibacterial agent called triclosan, which is used in soap and other consumer products. > Read more > Interview Angela Logomasini

IRS ABUSE OF POWER - HANS BADER Openmarket.org: IRS Investigated Groups for Teaching about the Constitution The IRS didn’t just investigate groups based on their perceived political views, but also targeted groups for “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” or advocating limits on government. Such viewpoint discrimination is forbidden, even in allocating discretionary government benefits such as tax exemptions where certain types of content discrimination might be permissible. As the Supreme Court noted in a case involving a college’s discrimination against a religious magazine in access to student-activity funds, ”viewpoint discrimination is . . . an egregious form of content discrimination.” > Read more > Interview Hans Bader

More in the news... Sorry, Daily Beast: E-Verify Will Be National ID Milton Friedman, Immigration, and Birth Control

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

TODAY! Fixing America's Crumbling Infrastructure: How Competitive Bidding Offers a Way Out The problems besetting the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels, underground water pipes, and wastewater systems pose a direct threat to the health and safety of all Americans. Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm 1539 Longworth HOB Washington, DC >> RSVP to the event here.

I, Pencil Movie Screening The Union League Club Chicago, Illinois May 21, 2013, 6 - 7:30 PM

APPLY TODAY! Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellowship CEI offers a one-year fellowship for journalists seeking to improve their knowledge of the principles of free markets and limited government.  cei.org/warrenbrookes Contact: chall@cei.org

INTERVIEW A CEI EXPERT CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation

CEI Today: Immigrants and welfare, Senate vote on EPA nominee, and Big Gov't versus doctors

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER

Openmarket.org: Conservatives Must Reject the “Poor Are Parasites” Narrative

When Mitt Romney made his comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes and were supposedly “dependent on government,” many conservatives rightly condemned the remark, and Romney apologized. Now, a major conservative think tank is repeating his error, denouncing lower-skilled workers as a fiscal drain on the economy.

This week, the Heritage Foundation, the largest conservative D.C. non-profit organization, released a study intended to demonstrate that allowing the 11.5 million mostly lower-income immigrants who are currently in the country illegally to stay will harm America’s economy. The study focuses on immigrants, but its logic applies to millions of working Americans, almost half of whom had no income tax liability in 2011, according to the Tax Policy Center. > Read more

> Interview David Bier

 

EPA NOMINEE - MYRON EBELL Globalwarming.org: Senate Schedules Vote for EPA Nominee The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled a vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for the morning of Thursday, 9th May. The argument for blocking McCarthy’s confirmation is simply that it is one of the very few shots that Senators will have during the 113th Congress to push back the EPA’s ongoing regulatory onslaught against affordable energy. > Read more > Interview Myron Ebell

BIG GOVERNMENT - MICHELLE MINTON Real Clear Markets: The GOP Has a Blurry View of Free Markets In Medicine Bad ideas and special interest politics don't ever die in Washington, D.C. They get re-introduced in the next Congress. Earlier this month, Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., resurrected a plan to make it more difficult for optometrists (doctors of optometry who provide primary eye care) to compete with ophthalmologists (medical doctors who specialize in treating eyes). The perversely named Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013 (HR 1427), authored in previous Congresses by former Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., as the Healthcare Truth and Transparency Act, is aimed at hampering competition between these eye-care providers. > Read more > Interview Michelle Minton

More in the news... EPA Doubles Down on E15 — Literally The Doctor Is In, America: Get With the Estonian Program Twinkies & unions - Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Star Getting ‘The Kinks’ Out: Unions vs. Union Jack CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

ALG's Daily Grind - Neither Medicaid nor Head Start Work

May 6, 2013

Neither Medicaid nor Head Start Work

The effectiveness of both Medicaid and Head Start, two bulwarks of the left's belief that massive government spending could make a difference in the lives of the poor have been exposed as ineffective.

A Brave New World

Central banks are printing money to buy… stocks?!

Free Market Energy Policies can End Economic Malaise

Forty years ago, President Nixon announced "Project Independence," in response to the 1973 oil cutoff by Middle East and other OPEC nations, with the goal of ensuring that "Americans will not have to rely on any source of energy beyond our own." We're still nowhere close.

Washington Times: Silencing Internet Radio

"Washington, D.C., is a coin-operated world where lobbyists insert their nickels and politicians sing their song. Nobody is more in tune with the game than the music industry."