English communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has proposed that the government may want to withdraw tax breaks for the Church of Scientology — noting controversies over the Church’s activities and alluding to the general view in England that it is more of a cult than a religion.
Scientology is not treated as a religion in England but still receives financial benefits as a charity. In 1984, the organization was described as a cult by a high court judge.
Yet, the City of London Corporation has asked Scientology to pay only one-fifth of the tax rates for its London headquarters near St Paul’s cathedral.
Pickles questioned whether Scientology can be described as beneficial for society to justify the saving of millions in tax payments: “The Church of Scientology is not a registered charity, since the Charity Commission has ruled that it does not provide a public benefit. Nor are its premises a recognised place of worship.”
Indeed, in 1999, the Charity Commission ruled that the church did not pass the “public benefit” test required for advancing religion as a charitable purpose. He also cited the negative views of Scientology by a majority of English citizens.
I am not familiar with English law on the subject but such a basis for rescinding tax exemption would be rejected in the United States – particularly the unpopularity of the Church with the majority of citizens. Such a test would invite a dangerous level of subjectivity and majoritarian control in the denial of benefits.
Source: Guardian
Tony C,
Re: In my view that is an authoritarian (not “authoritative”)…
I mistyped… 🙂
Best for me to stay on topic — I know that “we’re in a whole world of trouble” and, this isn’t about melodrama — it’s the real deal. If we don’t get the bottom of what’s going on domestically, there may not be any turning back.
Straw man, this isn’t about the Green Party. They are about voting for candidates they endorse. You on the other hand are about not voting and in fact not voting along party lines. Hmmmm. Those a diametrically opposed operating principles. And you call me a hypocrite with that mouth! You kiss your mom with that mouth?
This is about your revenge motivated nonsensical tactics and how come other people think you’re a troll and you spend so much time refuting it.
Or you can call me a hypocrite again, Ahab.
Because that’s really funny.
Obama’s Department of Justice has suddenly turned on a dime, becoming the great pro-active protector of voters’ rights:
Poll watchers in Harris County, Texas — where a Tea Party group launched an aggressive anti-voter fraud effort — were accused of “hovering over” voters, “getting into election workers’ faces” and blocking or disrupting lines of voters who were waiting to cast their ballots as early voting got underway yesterday.
Now, TPMMuckraker has learned, the Justice Department has interviewed witnesses about the alleged intimidation and is gathering information about the so-called anti-voter fraud effort….
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/doj-goes-after-tea-partiers-leaves-club-wielding-black-panthers-alone-105352178.html#ixzz12vBHJd1b
@anon nurse: See? He takes no offense, I take no offense, it is just a harmless little game. Sorry you misunderstood.
@Buddha: Hardly a voter suppression tactic, more of a choice tactic. Is the Green party engaging in voter suppression? Are libertarians engaging in voter suppression? I advocated not voting for liars of any party, and not donating to liars of any party.
And of course, as I said before, I am not talking about personal lies or little lies, I am talking about major policy-changing hypocrisy, promising you will do one thing and then doing the exact opposite. McCain is a liar like that “I’ll listen to the generals on DADT.”
See the hypocrisy? You should recognize it, you engage in it so often; mister manners.
Tony,
I don’t take offense at what you post. Like I said, I’m of the school of thought you’re just plain full of shit and have the persuasive speech skill of a chimp instead of being a proper troll. I think it’s hilariously ineffective, myopic and works against progressive interests while all the time trying so desperately to appear progressive when it fact its a voter suppression tactic that ignores the root causes and some of the prime movers of corruption within the government by being a blanket partisan attack that serves little purpose but massaging your own ego at the offense of being lied to by (gasp!) a politician.
But I take no more offense at what you say than I would at a chimp throwing his own feces. It’s your nature. You can’t help it. Just like it’s my nature to poke you with a stick, oh suspected troll. I just like seeing shit fly.
Not suspected of trollery by me, of course. I think I articulated what little impact you have quite well and it has nothing to do with trollery except that you are perceived by others as trollish. Multiple times. Which is simply funny.
Black Republicans offer hope after Barack Obama’s failures on race
The Obama presidency has not led to a post-racial America, says Toby Harnden, but black Republicans in Congress could help break down barriers
Barring a cataclysmic upset, Scott will be elected to Congress on November 2nd. There, he will be a ferocious opponent of Obama, to whom he gives a withering “failing grade” for his presidency.
“Obamacare’s an atrocity around the necks of average Americans,” he told me. “His intentions might be good but he’s leading us towards the brink of bankruptcy. Right now, the American people are simply saying they’ve had enough.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8053023/Black-Republicans-offer-hope-after-Barack-Obamas-failures-on-race.html
Let the truth pour out… (Thanks, Elaine.)
From Democracy Now (10/20/2010)
Amy Goodman speaks with Benjamin Todd Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP; and one of the authors of the report, Leonard Zeskind, the president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.
*****
NAACP Report Ties Tea Party to Militia and Racist Groups
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/20/naacp_report_ties_tea_party_to
“Less than two weeks before the midterms elections, the NAACP has published a new report that exposes what is calls links between various Tea Party organizations and racist hate groups in the United States. The report, Tea Party Nationalism, analyzes each of the six most active Tea Party organizations in the country and describes links between Tea Party factions and various white supremacist groups, anti-immigrant organizations and militias.”
*****
NAACP Tea Party Nationalism Report
http://www.teapartynationalism.com/
Sections of Report
– Foreword
– Introduction
– Origins of the Tea Parties
– Tea Parties – Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse
– Who Is an American: Tea Parties, Nativism, and the Birthers
– Correlation Between Unemployment Levels and Tea Party Membership?
Excerpt from the Foreword by Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP:
We know the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will. That is why the NAACP—an organization that has worked to expose and combat racism in all its forms for more than 100 years—is thankful Devin Burghart, Leonard Zeskind and the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights prepared this report that exposes the links between certain Tea Party factions and acknowledged racist hate groups in the United States. These links should give all patriotic Americans pause.
I hope the leadership and members of the Tea Party movement will read this report and take additional steps to distance themselves from those Tea Party leaders who espouse racist ideas, advocate violence, or are formally affiliated with white supremacist organizations. In our effort to strengthen our democracy and ensure rights for all, it is important that we have a reasoned political debate without the use of epithets, the threat of violence, or the resurrection of long discredited racial hierarchies.
This July, delegates to the 101st NAACP National Convention unanimously passed a resolution condemning outspoken racist elements within the Tea Party, and called upon Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use white supremacist language in their signs and speeches, and those Tea Party leaders who would subvert their own movement by spreading racism.
The resolution came after a year of high-profile media coverage of racial slurs and images at
Tea Party marches around the country. In March, members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported that racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by a Washington, DC health care protest. Civil rights legend John Lewis was called the “n-word” in the incident while others in the crowd used ugly anti-gay slurs to describe Congressman Barney Frank, a long-time NAACP supporter and the nation’s first openly gay member of Congress. Local NAACP members reported similar racially-charged incidents at local Tea Party rallies.
At first, the resolution sparked defensive, misleading public responses from the usual corners. First, Tea
Party leaders denied our claims were valid. Then Fox News repeatedly circulated the false claim that we were calling the Tea Party itself racist. Then their commentators and other media personalities said the Tea Party was too loosely configured to police itself.
Local NAACP volunteers and staff members around the country were barraged by angry phone calls and death threats.
Yet, amid the threats and denials, something remarkable began to happen: Tea Party leaders began to quietly take steps toward actively policing explicitly racist activity within their ranks.
Before the end of July, the Tea Party Federation had expelled Mark Williams, then-president of the powerful and politically-connected Tea Party Express for his most-recent racially offensive public statements, a move they had previously refused to make. The move was significant for three reasons: 1) it proved wrong those national leaders and news personalities who said the Tea Party was too loosely configured to insist its leaders act responsibly, 2) it sparked a rift among Tea Party leadership between those who are tolerant of racist rhetoric and those who would stand against it, and 3) it showed our resolution was having an impact. Soon after, Montana conservative Tim Ravndal was fired as head of the Big Sky Tea Party Association after local media published messages posted to his Facebook account that appeared to advocate violence against gays and lesbians.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting
The republicans are out in force on this blog today.
Who
@anon nurse: Buddha and I are playing a game in which he mischaracterizes me and I provide the same service for him. We have chosen this game because he doesn’t want to engage in actual logic or debate, so this passes the time.
I know full well his politics are not authoritarian conservative. In this case I am talking about his actions on this board, in which he thinks I owe him (and others) some sort of respect due to his “standing” in the community and he is attacking me for failing to provide it. Regardless of my logic (or lack thereof) or anything else, he takes offense at my “presentation skills.”
In my view that is an authoritarian (not “authoritative”) viewpoint; that respect, manners, politeness, or “standing” have anything to do with the truth.
Just wanted to clarify that. I read the Froomkin article you posted; thanks. It is depressing, right? I believe the term for the kind of government we now enjoy is “kleptocracy,” rule by thieves.
No “stroking”, Tony. And “an authoritative conservative?” Come on…
Hold Your Government to Account And Go To Jail by Jesselyn Radackon October 20, 2010
http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/31-2010/798-hold-your-government-to-account-and-go-to-jail
“Woodward’s book includes disclosures such as:
the code names of previously unknown National Security Agency programs, the existence of a clandestine paramilitary army run by the CIA in Afghanistan, and details of a secret Chinese cyberpenetration of Obama and John McCain campaign computers.”
We have something akin to “a clandestine paramilitary army” operating domestially, but who would believe it…
Oh Buddha, you are so transparent. You can’t help but respond, and respond, and respond again, and then claim with all this attention that you just don’t care what I think. But you keep reading to see what I think.
At least I am honest and do not attempt to mislead people. Now please, bask in the stroking of A.N. and the other citizens you so bravely defend, like the big authoritarian conservative you are.
anon nurse You are right anon nurse. Buddah does have a”great mind”, although he is on another path this election from Mike S and some the rest of us democrats.
And, of course, Buddha is here. Another great mind…
Speaking of Rove (Buddha’s previous comment0, I do believe that the Republicans will do almost anything to create their “permanent conservative majority.”
What I’m seeing is pretty evil — it’s akin to the Joe Miller garbage. It’s real and it’s ugly.
A Dan Froomkin article today:
Nine Stories The Press Is Underreporting — Fraud, Fraud And More Fraud by Dan Froomkin
10-20-10 11:28 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/20/nine-stories-the-media-is_n_769620.html
“What we are seeing all around us are the continued effects of a vast criminal enterprise that has never been brought to account, employing a process that, as University of Texas economist James Galbraith explains, involved the equivalent of counterfeiting, laundering and fencing.”
I’m seeing a much different side of this “criminal enterprise.” I know this. We’re eating ourselves up from within.
Swarthmore mom: Yes, I’ve noticed. We’ll have to do our best to hold our own in Mike’s absence — he is a brilliant one, isn’t he?
Elaine: Thanks for more on the “thuggery” that’s becoming more and more common. (I’ve experienced a different twist of this garbage, firsthand.)
Awwww.
Does Ahab think he hurt my feelings?
Tsk, tsk, tsk. That’s adorable!
“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” – Sun Tzu
As I prod you to ever increasing hyperbole and personal attacks with just the barest of effort, it seems that you don’t know me very well, much less yourself. Especially if you think this is about you “hurting my feelings”. First, you don’t have the tools. Second, I’d have to give a damn what you think for your opinion of me to matter, Tony. I don’t know how much clearer than that I can be on that issue.
So how’s that Rovian Big Lie working out for your whale hunt there, Ahab?
You seem to be taking on water.
What with your increasingly self-marginalizing behavior and all.