Hundreds of pastors back political candidates, defy tax rules
By Nanette Byrnes, October 7, 2012
Baptist Pastor Mark Harris stood before his flock in North Carolina on Sunday and joined hundreds of other religious leaders in deliberately breaking the law in an election-year campaign that tests the role of churches in politics.
By publicly backing candidates for political office from the pulpit, Harris and nearly 1,500 other preachers at services across the United States were flouting a law they see as an incursion on freedom of religion and speech.
Under the U.S. tax code, non-profit organizations such as churches may express views on any issue, but they jeopardize their favorable tax-exempt status if they speak for or against any political candidate.
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....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................CEO to Workers: I May Fire You if Obama Wins
By Robert Frank, October 10, 2012
David Siegel, the owner of Westgate Resorts, sent a surprising email to his employees Monday.
It said that if President Barack Obama wins re-election and raises Siegel's taxes, he will have to lay off workers and downsize his company - or even shut it down.
"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company," he wrote. "Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."
In a version of Romney's "47 percent" remarks, Siegel added that "people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for."
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....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Mitt Romney's fact-free foreign policy
By Dennis Jett, October 10, 2012
Fact checking the things that Mitt Romney says is like shooting at an elephant with a shotgun from a distance of five feet. The target is too big to miss, but hitting it also won't slow it down.
The effort to make him appear presidential just keeps lumbering on, like that elephant, unconstrained by the truth. One of his pollsters even said: "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."
His foreign policy speech on Monday to a group of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute was the latest example of inventing the facts to fit the message. The speech had the usual share of half-truths, plus a generous helping of foreign policy fantasies.
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