What is going on in New Mexico?

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 17, 2016 · 4:36 PM PDT

2016/10/17 · 16:36

The Republican Party has sent out flyers warning potential voters that their neighbors will know if they don’t vote Republican.

First of all, this is a lie. Who you vote for is not a matter of public record. Secret ballots are one of the bedrocks of our democracy!

Secondly, it’s illegal to intimidate voters like this!

Read the article by Ben Collins.

The front of the flyer shows a woman peeking through her window blinds and says, “When the Democrats win the election and you didn’t do your part… your neighbors will know.”

The back of the flyer shows an aerial view of a neighborhood with check marks above certain homes.

A technical question about NSA wiretapping

Ender

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday June 18, 2013 · 3:13 PM PDT

2013/06/18 · 15:13

I was on vacation when the NSA story hit the wire, so this question may have been asked.

Has anyone asked if the NSA is using speech-to-text to store our phone calls into a big database? I mean, specifically asked an Administration official if they are using speech-to-text technology?

If they are doing this, they can deny that they are listening to our phone calls because they are actually reading them.

Ender

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 22, 2013 · 2:01 PM PDT

2013/05/22 · 14:01

Was the F5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma caused by global warming? Probably not. There hasn't been an increase in tornado activity in recent years.

F4 and F5 tornadoes are extremely rare:

Graphs and most images are from Jeff Masters' Wunderblog.

Yes, there is more warm, moist air to power the tornado because of climate change, but there is also less wind shear because of climate change. This is great for hurricane development, but a tornado needs that wind shear. A tornado needs air going at a different direction on the ground vs. in the upper atmosphere in order to create that rolling barrel of air that gets rotated 90 degrees to create the tornado. (See one of Weatherdude's diaries for an excellent description of tornado formation.)

So we have two changes in the climate that are at odds with each other. On the one hand we have warmer, wetter air that helps tornado formation, but on the other hand we have less wind shear that hurts tornado formation.

At this time, we do not have enough data to know which change will have the most effect on tornado formation in the future. One theory is that the distribution over time of strong tornadoes will be less homogeneous. That is, one year will have a lot of tornadoes and another year will have very few. Another change could be to shift the peak tornado activity from June into May.

Ender

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday May 17, 2013 · 8:03 AM PDT

2013/05/17 · 08:03

The tax law requires 501(c)(4) organizations to operate exclusively to promote the "public welfare." In 1959 the IRS edited their tax codes to only require that they mostly promote the public welfare.

This loophole has allowed political activists to assume that they can spend up to 49% of their budgets on political ads, while still maintaining tax-exempt status that allows them to keep their donors secret.

This massive loophole was never authorized by Congress!

The current version of the Revenue Act of 1913 provides a tax exemption for:

Civil leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.

26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(4)(A)(emphasis added)

Then in 1959 the IRS redefined the term "promotion of social welfare" to depart radically from the statute:

[a]n organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the people of the community. An organization embraced within this section is one which is operated primarily for the purpose of bringing about civic betterments and social improvements.

Treas. Reg. § 1.501(c)(4)-1(a)(2)(i)(emphasis added)

The source for this information is the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Here is a link to CREW's rulemaking petition to the IRS.

If you have legal questions, please refer to the CREW pdf file. I am just playing stenographer here.

More below the fold.

Ender

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday April 24, 2013 · 9:55 AM PDT

2013/04/24 · 09:55

On their best day, Hitler and Hirohito never shut down a major American city. If two amateurs with makeshift bombs can cause a major city to go into lockdown, isn't this a signal to terrorists that a simultaneous shut down of every major city in the Northeast wouldn't take very many resources or that much sophistication?

If you prepositioned bombs to go off once a day, you could keep a city shut down for a week or more. The later bombs wouldn't even have to kill anyone. The follow up bombs would only have to damage some landmark like the Wall Street bull or create massive amounts of broken glass. Anything photogenic that will make it onto the news.

Once you have put the cities into lockdown, you could issue your demands. We will tell you where the rest of the timebombs are if you give us a basket full of money or release the Blind Sheik, etc. The cost to business to continue the lockdown would be so great that they would surely pressure government officials to settle.

Ender

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday January 26, 2011 · 4:02 PM PST

2011/01/26 · 16:02

I thought that George W. Bush served as president for eight years. Apparently not. If you count the red bars in the chart that Michele Bachmann displayed in her SOTU response, you will learn that Bush only served for seven years.

RSS

What is going on in New Mexico?

A technical question about NSA wiretapping

The Moore, Oklahoma Tornado and Global Warming

The IRS screwed up. No political group should enjoy 501(c)(4) status

Will the Response to the Boston Bombers Encourage More Terrorism?

How many years was Bush president?