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I first saw this story on Politico, but when Rubin on Tax took it up I knew it was serious:

According to pleadings filed in a civil action, Z Street is a nonprofit organization which educates the public about Zionism, and about the State of Israel and its battle with terror.  As a nonprofit educational organization, Z STREET has applied for certification that donations made to it are charitable, and therefore exempt from federal income tax, under Code §501(c)(3).

Z Street is contending that the IRS is asking improper questions and unduly delaying its exempt organization application. As part of its court filing, Z Street has indicated that an IRS agent has informed it that the IRS is “carefully scrutinizing organizations that are in any way connected with Israel,” and that there are such “cases… being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

If true, such inquiries by the IRS should not be permitted (as not relevant to the “educational” aspects of the organization). Further, it raises that the specter that the IRS may be denying exempt organization status because an organization’s activities are not in accord with the Administration’s policies – an improper, if not unconstitutional, politicization of what should be a policy-neutral exempt organization review.

So what happens when we change administrations, and get a new policy towards Israel?  Or is this administration planning to stick around longer than anticipated?  We all know that any non-profit organisation has one or more positions as part of its raison d’être, and we also know that our government is so all-encompassing that, somewhere along the line, one or more of these positions will contradict public policy.  That is, if the government has a clear understanding of what that public policy is…

I’d like to remind my Christian readers of this, from the Politico piece:

The IRS can deny tax exempt status to groups that work against “established public policy,” a precedent established in its denial of a tax exemption to Bob Jones University over racial discrimination, and Z Street is suggesting that the IRS has begun applying some such policy to pro-Israel groups. The State Department has complained of tax exempt contributions to groups that fund weapons and equipment for West Bank settlers, which Z Street co-founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus said Z Street has never come close to doing.

It’s not much of a stretch to see churches and other non-profit, tax-exempt organisations lose same tax-exempt status because what they advocate as part of their mission is against current public policy, such as being pro-life, opposing same-sex civil marriage (or civil marriage period), or any other myriads of causes.  It’s mostly a matter of  having a government with the will to oppose tax-exempt status for organisations such as Z Street which aren’t to its taste, and a judiciary which is in agreement with its idea.

David Cole at the New York Review of Books (along with many other on the left) would like to see some prosecutions:

In the face of overwhelming evidence that numerous US detainees were tortured during the Bush years, President Barack Obama has famously said he wants to “look forward, not back.” He prohibited the use of torture and cruelty in one of his first executive acts, but since then he has consistently resisted all efforts to hold accountable those who, under the prior administration, authorized such mistreatment. He has opposed a commission of inquiry, failed to order a criminal investigation of high-level officials who authorized—and concocted legal justifications for—torture, and successfully defeated all suits seeking damages for victims. Unacknowledged guilt, however, has a stubborn way of sticking around. In recent days, torture has been back in the national conversation, raising once again the issue of what we (and others) should do about it.

To be honest, I expected this kind of legal assault after Obama’s inauguration.  The plusses are as follows:

1. It would have appealed to his base, and Cole’s article is an example of this.
2. It would have filled the cable news time with the sins of his opponents, giving him cover to do many other things he would like to do.
3. It would have lessened his dependence upon Congress to further his agenda, which is the main source of the disaster of the 2010 election cycle.
4. It would have criminialised his opponents, which would make perpetuation of his legacy much easier.

But he hasn’t, and I think the reasons for this are as follows:

1. Using international law to criminalise opponents would have the long run effect of undercutting American autonomy and thus the power of the American state, which could backfire in future situations.  This is why the left, for all of its ostensible internationalism, is reluctant to “cross the Rubicon” on this; diluting the power of the American state dilutes their own power as well.
2. Going after torturers would make the use of torture yourself problematic.  And, for all of their moralism on the subject, I still think the left will someday use torture on their political opponents, given the opportunity and perceived need.  You just don’t get as self-righteous as they are on the left and then turn around and restrain yourself when you have your opponents where you want them.  A quick look back at the history of leftist states will confirm this.
3. Prosecutions under American law would be long and complicated and, with the complex rules of evidence and procedure we have, have an unpredictable result short of suspending the Constitution.  That’s the key lesson of the outcome of the Ghailani trial, which is why the Guantanamo detention facility exists and why the Obama Administration hasn’t gotten around to closing it.
4. He would need a stronger AG than Eric Holder to carry such a programme out.  To some extent this is a result of the reticence from (1) and (2).

If the left plans to put away their opposition via the use of war crimes trials, they’re going to need a lot more nerve at the top–and elsewhere–than they’ve got now.

It sure doesn’t look like it:

Now that a new government has finally formed, it is time for Maliki to switch his focus from trying to remain prime minister to fulfilling his duty as head of state to protect the most vulnerable among his population. But let’s be honest—without enormous pressure from his backers in the U.S., Maliki has little incentive to turn his attention to this problem. And yet the U.S. and the international community thus far have barely managed to muster the most muted response to anti-Christian violence in Iraq. This week the United Nations Security Council and the United States released a bland and utterly ineffectual statement condemning the attacks on Iraq’s Christians “in the strongest terms,” while at the same time reaffirming its support “for the people and government of Iraq.”

That is not nearly enough to get the attention of the Iraqi government. What is needed is a firm condemnation by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reacting specifically to al Qaeda’s explicit plans to rid Iraq of its Christian communities and warning the Iraqi government that there will be dire consequences to its continuing inaction on this urgent matter. A number of online petitions have sprung up on the Internet urging Clinton to do just that, but so far there has been no official statement by the U.S. government.

This silence cannot stand. Americans of all faiths must band together and pressure the State Department to do something about the wanton murder of Iraqi Christians before it’s too late and there are no more Christians in Iraq to protect. What is happening in Iraq is genocide, plain and simple. It must be stopped now.

I discussed the symbiotic relationship between liberals and Islamicists in Strange Bedfellows: Liberals and Muslims. I honestly think that the Obama Administration has swallowed hook, line and sinker the idea that the Middle East is the property of Islam and all others are intruders.  Never mind that, back when there really was an operating caliphate (Ottoman Empire),  the Porte had no problem until the very end using its Christian subjects to its greatest advantage.  Now ethnic and religious cleansing is the deal in the dar-al-saalam and that’s what’s going on in Iraq.

Be sure that Bibi Netanyahu and his colleagues in Jerusalem are taking note of this, which is one reason why the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are going nowhere.  But at least the Israelis have, person for person, the finest military in the world to defend themselves.  The Christians in Iraq don’t.

I think it’s also fair to say that the Obama Administration has a talent in convincing large populations of people that it has no intention of defending them against their enemies.  That’s part of the reason why we got the result we did earlier this month.  Jimmy Carter had the same talent and got to boot for it in 1980.  Whether this is possible in a country where so many are so dependent on so much government largesse remains to be seen.

As if the flap over full body scans–physical and otherwise–wasn’t enough, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) is about to have elections for union representation:

The Federal Labor Relations Authority on Friday accepted a petition from the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union to hold an election to determine which group will represent TSA workers. Petitions filed by AFGE and NTEU earlier this year were denied by an FLRA regional official, but Friday’s decision reverses that ruling. Both unions have been vying for exclusive representation of 40,000 TSA employees. FLRA will set the timeline for the election, count the votes and certify the results.

The next step is to grant whatever union wins this election–assuming that one will, which is almost a given–collective bargaining rights.  As the article goes on to note:

Created in 2001, TSA was excluded from federal regulations granting workers collective bargaining rights. TSA administrators have the authority to grant those rights but have chosen not to act on the issue.

My guess is that the Obama Administration (“Big Sis”) will grant these rights.

Government unions are always a conundrum.  One the one hand, government employees are more subject to be victims of favouritism and politics than private sector ones (companies which do this on a regular basis will eventually damage their productivity and go out of business). This both encourages and justifies the formation of trade unions in the government (I wouldn’t take the union pap about “…the morale of the TSO workforce is terrible as a result of favoritism, a lack of fair and respectful treatment from many managers, poor and unhealthy conditions in some airports, poor training and testing protocols, and a poor pay system” as seriously as they would like us to).  On the other hand, as with any union, over time one ends up with a rigid, seniority driven workforce where innovation is discouraged, something that is fearful when it comes to transportation security.  And, of course, one must factor into consideration how dreadfully expensive unionised labour forces have become, California being the poster child for this problem.

If the Republicans want to do something significant rather than silliness like dickering over earmarks, they will put pressure on the administration to block collective bargaining rights.

To some, it looks that way:

Winston Churchill may have been right about democracy’s being the worst form of government except for all the others, but he probably wouldn’t have guessed that the bar would fall so low. In his sweeping review of contemporary moral and political life, Kenneth Minogue contends that, as currently practised, democracy may not be compatible with the moral life as it has been traditionally understood in the West. Minogue, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics and a pre-eminent political thinker, acknowledges an ambivalence about democracy. It has been the cause of many improvements, he observes, but its flaws are increasingly evident. Democracy is prone to corruption: the immense amount of regulation and bureaucracy it requires to function opens limitless opportunities for abuse. Further, democracy’s inner workings compel it, paradoxically, to undemocratic results. The push for equality and ever more rights—two of its basic principles—requires a ruling class to govern competing claims; thus the rise of the undemocratic judiciary as the arbiter of many aspects of public life, and of bureaucracies that issue rules far removed from the democratic process. Should this trend continue, Minogue foresees widespread servility replacing the tradition of free government.

A long time ago (before 2005, when this blog began its transition from a static website to a blog) I made a statement in the introductory page that democracy was dying in the places where became viable in modern times.  Evidently I’m not the only one to think so.

The core problem with a system with occasional recourse to the electoral process is that those in power spend as much if not more time manipulating (and coercing when the occasion calls for it) the public and its idea than actually governing.  That turns the whole process into a self-defeating cycle.  That’s where we’re headed.

And, as the quote above implies, we should take a more jaded opinion about all of these “rights” and “equality” campaigns we see in our society.