Articles: The IRS Scandal -- a Basic Primer

Articles: The IRS Scandal -- a Basic Primer

May 18, 2013

The IRS Scandal -- a Basic Primer

By Jonathon Moseley

Confusion about the IRS scandal is distracting from its importance, so that thinking conservatives should be prepared to debate the issue. Some basics matter. Conservatives may need to share a summary such as this article to help convince moderate friends.

Callers to C-SPAN badly misunderstood these details when Jenny Beth Martin, Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, appeared on C-SPAN television last week. I interviewed Keli Carender of Tea Party Patriots on the radio on May15, who helped clarify some of the pushback and distractions from liberals.

First, don't let people forget: the IRS scandal is not about conservative accusations. The Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury issued a report finding that the Internal Revenue Service sharply discriminated against conservative organizations. This is confirmed by Treasury's Inspector General.

Second, a group's political beliefs and positions ought to be totally irrelevant. Tax exemption must be based on what an organization does, not what it believes or what positions it supports. Whether a group teaches the Constitution or teaches union tactics doesn't matter, it is educating either way. Therefore, the IRS should not have been looking at the name of the organization, whether liberal or conservative, but on the substance of the organization.

Third, many people don't realize that nearly all liberal political organizations are tax exempt. There has been a lot of distraction and diversion focused on whether or not the IRS should have scrutinized tea party groups. However, MoveOn.org, NARAL Pro-Choice America, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood (which has been active in partisan election campaigns), Media Matters, etc., are all tax exempt. Organizations on the Left similar to tea party groups have had tax exempt status forever.

Fourth, don't allow people to wander away from the central point that the scandal is about a double standard -- not whether people believe political organizations should be tax exempt. Conservatives seeking tax exempt status were treated very differently from similarly-situated liberal organizations. Sure, some liberal groups were scrutinized. But conservatives were treated differently.

IRS official Lois Lerner fast-walked the tax-exempt application of Barack Obama's half-brother, the best man at President Obama's wedding. Abon'go "Roy' Malik Obama got tax-exempt status in a bureaucratic breakneck speed, in only 30 days, in May 2011, even though it is unclear what if anything the Barack H. Obama Foundation actually does or has done since being approved.

When a conservative organization Media Trackers couldn't get approved after 8 months, it changed its project to the liberal-sounding name "Greenhouse Solutions." With the new name, the exact same project was approved within 3 weeks.

Liberal groups -- even with very political activities -- were systematically approved, and quickly, with relatively little burden or scrutiny, as reported by USA Today.

Groups supporting Israel were discriminated against. In August 2010, a pro-Israel group "Z Street" filed a Federal lawsuit when an IRS staff member admitted that all Israel-related groups were singled out by the IRS for extra scrutiny. There will be a hearing this July 2013, after the case was transferred to the Federal district in Washington, D.C.

The IRS demanded that a Pro-Life group promote abortion in order to get tax-exempt status. No liberal group has such a requirement. NARAL and Planned Parenthood are not required to promote abstinence, adoption, or Pro-Life Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

It is the law that the IRS must answer within 270 days for 501(c)(3) organizations, yet the IRS delayed conservative organizations for more than 540 days.

Fifth, there are many different types of tea party organizations. Some tea party organizations are Political Action Committees (PAC's) which are directly involved in election campaigns. Others focus purely on training tea party organizers and members on how to be effective in organizing events and lobbying on legislation. Some purely educate about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, etc. Others lobby on pending legislation.

So when the public hears about tea party organizations applying for tax exempt status, they often imagine only campaigning for or against a candidate. That is not tax exempt. Some tea party groups qualify. Some don't.

Sixth, many have questioned whether the IRS wasn't doing the job it should have done by asking questions of tea party groups seeking tax exempt status. No one objects to the IRS obtaining basic information and asking reasonable questions. The problem is that the IRS bombarded tea party and conservative groups with multiple waves of a huge number of very intrusive questions. And the wave after wave of questions seemed aimed at never getting around to finishing the process or persuading groups to simply give up and abandon their application.

Seventh, many don't recognize what 'tax exempt' means. It means that if someone donates to a tea party group, the donations are not taxed as income. Otherwise, any political organization would have to pay income taxes on donations.

A tax-exempt organization may still have to pay taxes on other income, such as sales of products or services. Some C-SPAN callers imagined that people in such groups don't pay income taxes. Of course, people running or working in tax-exempt groups pay income taxes on their salary the same as everyone else.

There are four important categories:

1. A 501(c)(4) organization is tax-exempt (they don't pay income taxes on donations). A 501(c)(4) organization is allowed to lobby for or against legislation, but is not allowed to advocate for or against a candidate. A 501(c)(4) also can do anything a 501(c)(3) can do.

2. A 501(c)(3) organization is both tax-exempt and tax-deductible. That is, contributors can deduct their donations from their income taxes. It is much more difficult to qualify for 501(c)(3) status. A 501(c)(3) cannot lobby for or against legislation (except to an insignificant extent) and may not engage in any partisan' (campaign) activity. A 501(c)(3) can educate the public on policy, issues, the advantages and disadvantages of various political policies and topics like the Constitution, concepts of our Founding Fathers, etc. or train citizens.

3. A Political Action Committee (PAC or Super-PAC) intervenes directly in partisan campaigns and does not qualify as tax exempt.

4. A 527 organization is a recent development, which also intervenes directly in partisan campaigns and does not qualify as tax exempt.

Eighth, many are not aware of the difference between 'political' and 'partisan.' Tax exempt organizations are allowed to engage in public discussion and lobbying of 'political' issues affecting society. That is very different from 'partisan' activity. 'Partisan' means influencing a campaign -- that is, advocating for or against a candidate in an election (not necessarily just discussing policy or issues).

An example is the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). CREW is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, tax deductible foundation. Its head Melanie Sloan earns $230,000 per year. CREW does nothing but slander conservative Republicans and a few Democrats who get out of line with mostly false accusations.

Christine O'Donnell won the Republican primary for United States Senate from Delaware. This was learned at 8:00 PM on September 14, 2010. By about 11:00 AM on September 15, 2010, CREW started attacking Christine O'Donnell and publicly declaring that Christine belongs in jail not in the Senate.

Advocating for or against a candidate is the test of 'partisan' (campaign) activity that is prohibited for a tax-exempt organization. CREW ignored Christine until she won the GOP Primary. But within hours CREW started attacking her. CREW explicitly referenced her status as a candidate, and specifically that she does not belong in the Senate. Melanie Sloan explicitly said that the voters should know all this when they go to vote in November 2010.

I noticed this pattern and conceived, developed, planned, and drafted the complaint against CREW to the IRS, which ChristinePAC later filed with the IRS in July 2011. Yet two years later, the IRS has done nothing. Melanie Sloan's parents are big donors to former Delaware Senator Joe Biden and CREW attacks conservatives. Don't expect the IRS to hold liberals responsible for anything.

The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online

The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online

MAY 17, 2013 5:00 PM

The Autocrat Accountants 
Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life, a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious. 

By Mark Steyn

• 

 

Mark Steyn 

Speaking at Ohio State University earlier this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who “incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity.” Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.” Like you, all he knows is what he reads in the papers. Which is odd, because his Justice Department is bugging those same papers, so you’d think he’d at least get a bit of a heads-up. But no doubt the fact that he’s wiretapping the Associated Press was also entirely unknown to him until he read about it in the Associated Press. There is a “president of the United States” and a “government of the United States,” but, despite a certain superficial similarity in their names, they are entirely unrelated, like Beyoncé Knowles and Admiral Sir Charles Knowles. One golfs, reads the prompter, parties with Jay-Z, and guests on the Pimp with a Limp show, and the other audits you, bugs your telephone line, and leaks your confidential tax records. But they’re two completely separate sinister entities. So it’s preposterous to describe Obama as Nixonian: Beyoncé wouldn’t have given Nixon the time of day.

If you believe this, there’s a shovel-ready infrastructure project in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. In April last year, the Obama campaign identified by name eight Romney donors as “a group of wealthy individuals with less than reputable records. Quite a few have been on the wrong side of the law, others have made profits at the expense of so many Americans, and still others are donating to help ensure Romney puts beneficial policies in place for them.” That week, Kimberley Strassel began her Wall Street Journal column thus:

Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.
Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. . . . The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.

Miss Strassel wrote that on April 26, 2012. Five weeks later, one of the named individuals, Frank VanderSloot, was informed by the IRS that he and his wife were being audited. In July, he was told by the Department of Labor of an additional audit over the guest workers on his cattle ranch in Idaho. In September, he was notified that one of his other businesses was to be audited. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never previously been audited, attracted three in the four months after being publicly named by el Presidente. More to the point he attracted that triple audit even though Miss Strassel explicitly predicted in America’s biggest-selling newspaper that this was exactly what the Obama enforcers were going to do. The “separate, sinister entity” of the government of the United States went ahead anyway. What do they care? If some lippy broad in the papers won’t quit her yapping about it, they can always audit her, too — as they did to Miss Strassel’s sometime colleague Anne Hendershott, a sociology professor who got rather too interested in Obamacare and wrote about it in the Journal and various small Catholic publications. The IRS summoned Professor Hendershott to account for herself, and forbade her husband from accompanying her, even though they filed jointly. She ceased her political writing.
A year after he was named to the Obama Dishonor Roll, the feds have found nothing on Mr. VanderSloot, but they have caused him to rack up 80 grand in legal bills. This is what IRS defenders (of whom there are more than there ought to be) mean when they assure us that the system worked: Yes, some rich guy had to blow through the best part of six figures fending off the bureaucrats, but it’s not like his body was found in a trunk at the airport or anything, if you know what I mean, Kimmy baby. 
Mr. VanderSloot is big enough, just about, to see off the most powerful government on the planet. Most of those who’ve caught the eye of the IRS share nothing in common with him other than his political preferences. They’re nobodies — ordinary American citizens guilty of no crime except that of disagreeing with the ruling party. Yet they were asked, under “penalty of perjury,” to disclose the names of books they were reading and provide the names and addresses of relatives who might be planning to run for public office — a kind of pre-enemies list. Is that banana-republic enough for you yet? Not apparently for Juan Williams, fired from NPR for thought crime a couple of years ago, but who was nevertheless energetically defending the IRS exertions on Fox News on Thursday evening.
Left-wing groups had their 501(c)(4) applications approved in weeks, right-wing groups were delayed for months and years and ordered to cough up everything from donor lists to Facebook posts, and those right-wing groups that were approved had their IRS files leaked to left-wing groups like ProPublica. The agency’s commissioner, a slippery weasel called Steven Miller, conceded before Congress that this was “horrible customer service” — which it was in the sense that your call is important to him and may be monitored by George Soros for quality control.

A civil “civil service” requires small government. Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious. The U.S. tax code ought to be an abomination to any free society, but the American people have become reconciled to it because of a complex web of so-called exemptions that massively empower the vast shadow state of the permanent bureaucracy. Under a simple tax system, your income is a legitimate tax issue. Under the IRS, everything is a legitimate tax issue: The books you read, the friends you recommend them to. There are no correct answers, only approved answers. Drew Ryun applied for permanent non-profit status for a group called “Media Trackers” in July 2011. Fifteen months later, he’d heard nothing. So he applied again under the eco-friendly name of “Greenhouse Solutions,” and was approved in three weeks.
The president and the IRS commissioner are unable to name any individual who took the decision to target only conservative groups. It just kinda sorta happened, and, once it had, it growed like Topsy. But the lady who headed that office, Sarah Hall Ingram, is now in charge of the IRS office for Obamacare. Many countries around the world have introduced government health systems since 1945, but, as I wrote here last year, “only in America does ‘health’ ‘care’ ‘reform’ begin with the hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents tasked with determining whether your insurance policy merits a fine.” So now not only are your books and Facebook posts legitimate tax issues but so is your hernia, and your prostate, and your erectile dysfunction. Next time round, the IRS will be able to leak your incontinence pads to George Soros.
Big Government is erecting a panopticon state — one that sees everything, and regulates everything. It’s great “customer service,” except that you can never get out of the store.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn

Articles: The Senate's Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Law

Articles: The Senate's Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Law

May 17, 2013

The Senate's Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Law

By Gene Schwimmer

In a perfect world, where Republicans actually exercise their principles, this essay would be called "The Democrats'Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog-Law."  Sadly -- but let us agree, surprisingly -- Republicans are complicit with Democrats in passing the travesty known as the Marketplace Fairness Act.  This Heather has two mommies.

The purported logic behind the MFA is simple: the ability, via the internet, to buy products and services across state lines without paying a state sales tax puts in-state businesses, who must collect state sales tax from their customers, at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

Nonsense.  First, where is it written that business competitors must be fair?  Open and transparent, yes.  Honest, yes.  But fair?  Business, like politics, ain't beanbag.  Indeed, one could argue, the goal of every businessman, to the great advantage of us consumers, is to be un-fair -- to gain a competitive advantage over his competitors in the only way a businessman can get such an advantage in a capitalistic system: by offering some combination of better and cheaper products and/or services.  It is by doing this that the businessman hopes to entice you and me to buy his stuff instead of his competitors'.

Second, if the logic behind the Marketplace Fairness Act truly is to "level the playing field" among competing businesses, why stop at the internet?  Wanna see some real "unfair competition"?  Then visit Midtown New York, where you will see brick-and-mortar restaurants paying stratospheric rents (I'm a commercial real estate broker in NYC, so trust me on this), plus utility bills, license fees, salaries for multiple workers, and taxes and/or benefits on all of the above.  Oh, and don't forget to include, starting in 2014, for businesses with 50 or more employees working 30 hours per week, health care premiums, or ObamaCare.  And on the same block, perhaps even right in front of these brick-and-mortar businesses?  Guys in pushcartsand food trucks, who have none of those expenses.

And yet, astonishingly, New Yorkers still eat in restaurants.  New Yorkers are still willing to pay as much as $5.75 (!) for a hot dog, even though there are pushcarts selling hot dogs for as little as $1.00.

What we have here, with the internet-to-brick-and-mortar comparison, is the same thing we have with the pushcart/food truck-to-brick-and-mortar comparison: the age-old choice between price and service and price and quality, with either choice equally likely to get the upper hand, depending on one's mood -- and wallet -- at any particular time.  If one desires a hot dog, is in a hurry, and/or has only a buck to spend, I can personally attest to no dearth of pushcart vendors who would be happy to serve you.  And if one prefers a more upscale (and indoor) hot dog experience, Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud, at the corner of Broadway and 65^th, will sell you one of their celebrity-chef hot dogs for...well, the menu doesn't list a price, which, in NYC, should tell you something.

Same with the internet.  So while, yes,  I have examined a product in a brick-and-mortar store and then gone online to see if I could get that product cheaper on the internet, there have been other times when I have, for example, stood before a line of inkjet printers at Staples and brought up Amazon.com on my BlackBerry not to look for a cheaper price online, but to read the consumer reviews of particular models to help me decide which one to buy from Staples.  In this case, then, the internet helpeda brick-and-mortar business to make a sale.

Even better, why not enjoy the advantages of both worlds as, indeed, Staples does?  Like so many modern businesses, Staples has brick-and-mortar stores and a website.  If selling over the internet is so much cheaper than selling on-site, why don't all of those businesses create their own online storefronts?  Oh, you say, your particular product or service won't work on the internet?  Then let me suggest that that product or service won't work for anyone else, either.

And for those businesses whose products or services are equally well-suited to both on-site and website sales, one would think that the ability of a local brick-and-mortar business to expand its reach beyond its small, local market to the entire country, if not the entire world, and pay no state income tax would be a good thing.  And not to have to charge a state sales tax for those sales could be a greatadvantage.  All that's needed is for a business to be willing to change its business model from circa 1913 to circa 2013.

And if a brick-and-mortar-only business is unwilling to change?  Then what we have here, I would suggest, is an Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Law, straight out of Atlas Shrugs.  The best response I can offer to such businesses is "too bad."  This is America, not France, and in America, there is no constitutional right to continue doing the same thing, the same way, forever, as in European countries, with their quaint little shops and small, inefficient postage stamp-size farms.  Sorry to be blunt -- I know it sounds harsh, and I can certainly understand how some brick-and-mortar operators love running their brick-and-mortar businesses and not want to change a lifestyle and business model to which they have become accustomed -- just as I can understand how some candle- and buggy whip-makers may have loved what they did, too.

But I can also envision how someone who enjoys making candles and buggy whips by hand, who could not have made a living 20 years ago, could make a very good living today -- by selling over the internet.  It's certainly worked for handmade duck calls.

So let's just say that my sympathy for the brick-and-mortar store whiners owners is as wide as the Grand Canyon, but considerably less deep.  Still, that's several magnitudes' wider and deeper than my sympathy for the senators -- and, especially, the GOP senators -- who voted for the Marketplace (Anything But) Fairness Act.

So what say we chuck the red herring of "marketplace fairness" overboard, cut to the chase, and be honest, which, as a non-politician, I am free and able to do.  The Marketplace Fairness Act has nothing to do with marketplace fairness and everything to do with politicians -- of both parties -- sticking their fingers into every nook and cranny, searching for additional revenue to shovel into the voracious maw that is government today, at all levels, instead of doing what  they should be doing: cutting spending.

Let us hope that when this misconceived bill reaches the House, that House Republicans will show more sense than their colleagues in the Senate did.

Follow Gene Schwimmer on Twitter.  Visit Gene at geneschwimmer.com.

Blog: Anger? Wait 'til people do their taxes next year?

Blog: Anger? Wait 'til people do their taxes next year?

Democrats who voted for Obamacare will shut off their phones next spring.

May 16, 2013

Anger? Wait 'til people do their taxes next year?

Silvio Canto, Jr.


In about 9 months, Americans will come face to face with ObamaCare. It will happen when they sit down to fill out their tax returns.  My guess is that most people will be angry.
ObamaCare and the IRS will work hand in hand in the implementation of the law, as Byron York points out today:
"A look at the text of the health care law reveals that much of it consists of amending the Internal Revenue Code to give the IRS more power. When Obamacare goes fully into effect in January, every American will have to prove to the IRS that he or she has "qualifying" health coverage, meaning coverage with a list of features approved by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That will be done by submitting a document to the IRS, something like a W-2, to confirm coverage."
There is more. In simple language, the IRS will be the manager of the new law. 
The IRS will ask you questions that you thought heretofore belonged in the very confidential relationship between doctors and patients. 
The IRS will also need to hear about "raises" and changes in your financial condition. 
Didn't a bunch of colonists throw tea in the harbor the last time that something like this happenned?
The IRS and HHS will monitor the people through a "database," or a huge intrusion into your personal, financial and health information.
Again, my good guess is that most Democrats who voted for this monstrosity will shut off their phones next spring. They won't like what voters are telling them. 
Many shocked Democrats will likely introduce bills in the US Senate to stop the implementation. 
Others will blame their "staff" for not telling them everything that was in the bill.  
Some will blame Bush for invading Iraq.
Some will insult our intellegence, like Mr Axelrod this morning:
"The government is simply too big for President Obama to keep track of all the wrongdoing taking place on his watch, his former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC. "Part of being president is there's so much beneath you that you can't know because the government is so vast," he explained."
So let me get this straignt.  The government is too big for one man to keep track SO we want to make the government bigger SO that he has more trouble keeping up with it?
Welcome to the era of big government.  This is what big government looks like. Now let the Democrats explain why this is better than what we had before.

Blog: The twelve minute video that could make Jay Carney curl up in the fetal position

Blog: The twelve minute video that could make Jay Carney curl up in the fetal position

The twelve minute video that could make Jay Carney curl up in the fetal position

Thomas Lifson
May 12, 2013

Saturday night on her Fox News show, Judge Jeanine Piro spoke out with eloquence and righteous indignation over the Benghazi affair. It was a tour de force presentation of the issues in bold and commonsense language. I have always enjoyed Judge Piro's work, but in the past few weeks, she has come into her own. Perhaps it is her years as a judge that enables her to speak with such moral clarity about the fundamental issues.

This under-12 minute video segement is a must see. For low information voters, it is a primer on why they should be outraged. Perhaps your friends who are not yet up to speed would benefit from an emailed link.

It is going to take time for the magnitude of this scandal to sink in: brave men sacrificed on the altar of political convenience. That is not a happy thought for any American. But sink in it will, especially with advocates like Judge Piro laying out the case.

Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide - WSJ.com

Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide - WSJ.com

In Defense of Carbon Dioxide

The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature.

By HARRISON H. SCHMITT AND WILLIAM HAPPER

May 8, 2013

Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a "pollutant" in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

Using energy from sunlight—together with the catalytic action of an ancient enzyme called rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth—plants convert carbon dioxide from the air into carbohydrates and other useful molecules. Rubisco catalyzes the attachment of a carbon-dioxide molecule to another five-carbon molecule to make two three-carbon molecules, which are subsequently converted into carbohydrates. (Since the useful product from the carbon dioxide capture consists of three-carbon molecules, plants that use this simple process are called C3 plants.) C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton and many forage crops, evolved when there was much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than today. So these agricultural staples are actually undernourished in carbon dioxide relative to their original design.

Enlarge Image

Corbis

At the current low levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rubisco in C3 plants can be fooled into substituting oxygen molecules for carbon-dioxide molecules. But this substitution reduces the efficiency of photosynthesis, especially at high temperatures. To get around the problem, a small number of plants have evolved a way to enrich the carbon-dioxide concentration around the rubisco enzyme, and to suppress the oxygen concentration. Called C4 plants because they utilize a molecule with four carbons, plants that use this evolutionary trick include sugar cane, corn and other tropical plants.

Although C4 plants evolved to cope with low levels of carbon dioxide, the workaround comes at a price, since it takes additional chemical energy. With high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, C4 plants are not as productive as C3 plants, which do not have the overhead costs of the carbon-dioxide enrichment system.

That's hardly all that goes into making the case for the benefits of carbon dioxide. Right now, at our current low levels of carbon dioxide, plants are paying a heavy price in water usage. Whether plants are C3 or C4, the way they get carbon dioxide from the air is the same: The plant leaves have little holes, or stomata, through which carbon dioxide molecules can diffuse into the moist interior for use in the plant's photosynthetic cycles.

The density of water molecules within the leaf is typically 60 times greater than the density of carbon dioxide in the air, and the diffusion rate of the water molecule is greater than that of the carbon-dioxide molecule.

So depending on the relative humidity and temperature, 100 or more water molecules diffuse out of the leaf for every molecule of carbon dioxide that diffuses in. And not every carbon-dioxide molecule that diffuses into a leaf gets incorporated into a carbohydrate. As a result, plants require many hundreds of grams of water to produce one gram of plant biomass, largely carbohydrate.

Driven by the need to conserve water, plants produce fewer stomata openings in their leaves when there is more carbon dioxide in the air. This decreases the amount of water that the plant is forced to transpire and allows the plant to withstand dry conditions better.

Crop yields in recent dry years were less affected by drought than crops of the dust-bowl droughts of the 1930s, when there was less carbon dioxide. Nowadays, in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it's a wonder that humanitarians aren't clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide. Instead, some are denouncing it.

We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth's atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.

Mr. Schmitt, an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. senator from New Mexico. Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy.  

A version of this article appeared May 9, 2013, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.

File under:  GoreBull Warming

The Truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup | SparkPeople

The Truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup | SparkPeople

The Truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup

Sweet Surprise or Health Demise?

-- By Becky Hand, Licensed & Registered Dietitian

Is there something unique about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that could lead to weight gain or health problems? Does your body really know the difference between corn syrup, sugar and other sweeteners? That may depend on who you ask. Some people think it's different and prefer to avoid it. Others say that it's no different than other sugars, but we should be limiting our intake of all sugars anyway. So either way, most people think it's good to cut back on all sweeteners, regardless of type.

I once believed that HFCS was different, and therefore a key player in the obesity crisis. But after reviewing the published, peer-reviewed scientific research on HFCS, today my view is different. Read on to find out whether high fructose corn syrup deserves its bad rap and how it really compares with regular sugar.

What is High Fructose Corn Syrup? 
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a calorie-providing sweetener used to sweeten foods and beverages, particularly processed and store-bought foods. It is made by an enzymatic process from glucose syrup that is derived from corn. A relatively new food ingredient, it was first produced in Japan in the late 1960s, then entered the American food supply system in the early 1970s. HFCS is a desirable food ingredient for food manufacturers because it is equally as sweet as table sugar, blends well with other foods, helps foods to maintain a longer shelf life, and is less expensive (due to government subsidies on corn) than other sweeteners. It can be found in a variety of food products including soft drinks, salad dressings, ketchup, jams, sauces, ice cream and even bread.

There are two types of high fructose corn syrup found in foods today:

• HFCS-55 (the main form used in soft drinks) contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose.
• HFCS-42 (the main form used in canned fruit in syrup, ice cream, desserts, and baked goods) contains 42% fructose and 58% glucose.

Sugar & High Fructose Corn Syrup
Table sugar (also called sucrose) and HFCS both consist of two simple sugars: fructose and glucose. The proportion of fructose and glucose in HFCS is basically the same ratio as table sugar, which is made of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Both sweeteners contain the same number of calories (4 calories per gram).

But the fructose and glucose in table sugar are chemically bonded together, and the body must first digest sugar to break these bonds before the body can absorb the fructose and glucose into the bloodstream. In contrast, the fructose and glucose found in HFCS are merely blended together, which means it doesn't need to be digested before it is metabolized and absorbed into the bloodstream. Because of this, theories abound that HFCS has a greater impact on blood glucose levels than regular sugar (sucrose). However, research has shown that there areno significant differences between HFCS and sugar (sucrose) when it comes to the production of insulin, leptin (a hormone that regulates body weight and metabolism), ghrelin (the "hunger" hormone), or the changes in blood glucose levels. In addition, satiety studies done on HFCS and sugar (sucrose) have found no difference in appetite regulation, feelings of fullness, or short-term energy intake. How can that be?

Well, the body digests table sugar very rapidly, too. And both HFCS and table sugar (sucrose) enter the bloodstream as glucose and fructose—the metabolism of which is identical. There is no significant difference in the overall rate of absorption between table sugar and HFCS, which explains why these two sweeteners have virtually the same effects on the body.

HFCS and Obesity
HFCS hit the food industry in the late 1970s, right when the waistlines of many Americans began to expand. During this time, many diet and activity factors where changing in society. It is a well-researched fact that the current obesity crisis is very much a multi-faceted problem. The American Medical Association (AMA) has extensively examined the available research on HFCS and obesity. This organization has publicly stated that, to date, there is nothing unique about HFCS that causes obesity. It does not appear to contribute more to obesity than any other type of caloric sweetener. However, the AMA does encourage more research on this topic.

But Is It Natural? 
High fructose corn syrup has received a lot of blame and bad press lately. Recent marketing campaigns funded by the Corn Refiners Association have tried to improve the reputation of high fructose corn syrup, calling it "natural" among other things. However, it's important to note that the word “natural” doesn't mean much. This common food-labeling term is NOT regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Let’s face it: Neither table sugar nor HFCS would exist without human interaction and processing. You cannot just go to a field and squeeze corn syrup out of corn or sugar out of sugar beets or sugarcane. "Natural" or not, too much sweet stuff can't be good for you—even if it comes from what you might think of as natural sweeteners like honey, agave syrup (which is also highly refined and actually higher in fructose than HFCS) or raw sugar.

What about Fructose?
Much of the research cited to demonize HFCS is done specifically on fructose. But as we've already learned, fructose is just one component of HFCS, and it is found in table sugar and other sweeteners, too. Fructose also occurs naturally in fresh, whole fruits. So when a study comes out saying that increased "fructose" consumption leads to health problems, weight gain, cancer or other problems, that doesn't mean that those findings can be applied specifically to HFCS—or to any other fructose-containing food or sweetener. Put simply, what happens in a lab or in animal tests cannot be applied to humans, and definitely doesn't imply you'd have the same outcome (weight gain, cancer, etc.) by consuming other foods or sweeteners of which fructose is a component.

There is some emerging research showing that high intakes of fructose can lead to a host of health problems. But who consumes that much pure fructose—and all by itself? Does this mean we should avoid fruit? Honey? All things that contain any amount of fructose? Clearly more research needs to be done in this area, but the bottom line remains: We should all be eating fewer sweets, regardless of the source of sweetness.

It's important that we be wise consumers of health information and read studies like this critically, asking important questions, and making sure not to apply a small lab study to other real-world scenarios that might not fit. For more information on being a savvy reader of nutrition research, click here .

Spark Action: What This Means for You
For years, SparkPeople's position (and my position as a registered dietitian) has always been that we are eating too much of the sweet stuff, no matter what the source. When it's added to your morning coffee, hidden in your can of soda, or baked into your chocolate brownie, sweetened foods are everywhere. The typical American over the age of two consumes more than 300 calories daily from sugar and other caloric sweeteners (including HFCS). That's 19 teaspoons of sweetener (75 grams) a day! One-sixth of our calorie intake is coming from a food ingredient that provides absolutely no nutritional benefit! This is definitely affecting our weight and overall health. It is time to take charge and cut back! The most recent recommendations suggest:

• Healthy adults who consume approximately 2,000 calories daily should limit the amount of all caloric sweeteners to no more than 32 grams (8 teaspoons) of sugar daily.
• For SparkPeople members who are consuming approximately 1,200-1,500 calories daily, this would equate to about 19-24 grams (5-6 teaspoons) of sugar each day.

Please note that doesn't only apply to sugar that you to your morning coffee or oatmeal; it applies to all "hidden" sugars, too, which are found in other processed foods and drinks that you may purchase.

To help curb the sugar monster so you can keep your weight and health in check, follow these tips.

• Always read the ingredients list. Foods you might not even realize are sweetened (like bread, dried fruit and crackers) might be hiding added sugars. Learn to identify terms that mean added sugars on the ingredients list, including sugar, white sugar, brown sugar, cane sugar, confectioner’s sugar, corn syrup, crystallized fructose, dextrin, honey, invert sugar, maple syrup, raw sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, corn sweeteners, evaporated cane juice, glucose-fructose, granulated fructose, high fructose corn syrup, fructose, malt, molasses, and turbinado sugar. Try to limit foods that have any of these “sugars” as one of the first three ingredients.
   
• If you take your coffee with sugar, try adding a small piece of cinnamon stick or vanilla bean to your cup. It adds flavor without adding caloric sweeteners.
   
• When baking, reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. Most of the time you can reduce the sugar by up to one-third without noticing a difference in the taste or texture of the final product. Now that's sweet!
   
• Sweeten other food items with vanilla extract or other "sweet" spices instead of caloric sweeteners. Many times cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice can naturally sweeten a recipe.
   
• Substitute homemade fruit purees for sugar and syrups in recipes. Applesauce (look for varieties made without added sugar) can be substituted for some of the sugar in muffins, breads and baked desserts.
   
• Top your breakfast waffles or pancakes with fresh fruit compote instead of syrup.
   
• Limit the amount of regular soda and caloric-sweetened beverages. While artificially sweetened "diet" beverages aren't exactly health foods, they are one way to cut calories. The healthiest choice is always water. To add a splash of flavor to your water, add lemon or lime juice, other types of 100% fruit juice, or pieces of frozen fruit.
   
• Skip the calorie-sweetened yogurts that use sugar, honey, syrup, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate, sugar and HFCS. Buy plain, natural yogurt and sweeten it yourself with fresh fruit, frozen fruit or fruit canned in its own juice.
   
• Select breakfast cereals with 5 grams of sugar or fewer per serving. Add sweetness with fresh, frozen, or fruit canned in its own juice. Try sliced bananas, canned peaches, frozen blueberries, or fresh strawberries.
   
• If you're a juice drinker, buy 100% fruit juices and limit it to 1 cup daily for adults and ½ cup daily for children. Beware of juice "drinks," fruit punches, and juice cocktails; these contain only a small amount of juice and the rest is water and added caloric sweeteners.

Selected Sources:
American Dietetic Association. Use of nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2004. 104:255-275.

American Medical Association. Report 3 of the Council on Science and Public Health. The health effects of high fructose syrup. July 23, 2009.

American Medical Association. AMA finds high fructose syrup unlikely to be more harmful to health than other calorie sweeteners. American Medical Association Press Release. June 19, 2008.

Forshee RA, Storey ML, Allison DB, Glinsmann WH, Hein GL, Lineback DR, Miller SA, Nicklas TA, Weaver GA, White JS. 2007. A critical examination of the evidence relating high fructose corn syrup and weight gain. Critical Review Food Science Nutrition. 47(6):561-82.

Melanson KJ, Angelopoulos TJ, Nguyen V, Zukley L, Lowndes J, Rippe JM. Dec. 2008. High-fructose corn syrup, energy intake, and appetite regulation. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 88(6):1738S-1744S.

Soenen S, Westerterp-Plantenga MS. Dec. 2007. No differences in satiety or energy intake after high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, or milk preloads. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 86(6):1586-94.

Articles: Cultural Warfare

Articles: Cultural Warfare

Cultural Warfare
By Jeffrey T. Brown

May 11, 2013

Imagine a closed, regressive, sometimes violent culture. Freedom of thought brings punishment. One is not encouraged to consider alternative views. One's place in the culture is determined by circumstances of birth, and he can never be otherwise defined than by such things as race, gender, and social status. Strict adherence to the code is enforced at the risk of severe repercussions. Only carefully cultivated and proscribed beliefs are acceptable, and others are strongly, even violently discouraged. The beliefs are not grounded in truth, and often are the product of bigotry and overt prejudice. Intolerance and self-righteousness are hallmarks of the culture. Only dogmas approved by the hierarchy are permitted to be repeated. Those who chant and believe them, while punishing those who do not, are faithful. They are rewarded with acceptance, financial benefits, and even fame. They are held up as examples of virtue. They are deemed heroic.

Opponents of the closed culture, however, are portrayed as dim-witted and slow-thinking, motivated by malice rather than wisdom or experience. Those who presume to profess a different faith have earned the privilege of being slandered and defamed by the culture. In this culture, religion and law are hopelessly blurred, so that the tenets of the culture's religion become policy. There are core beliefs which cannot be challenged or limited. Nonbelievers are infidels, and those who convert to conflicting beliefs are apostates.

The dishonest beliefs of the culture are forced into the minds of its children from the earliest age. Indoctrination motivates the educational system as well, which encourages prejudice against those who think differently while encouraging self-congratulation for one's own prejudices and false beliefs. The culture has decided it owns the children and will form them as they should be.

Those who do not adapt themselves to the closed culture are shunned, ostracized, publicly humiliated. They are treated as unworthy of existence alongside the virtuous practitioners of the closed culture. They are labeled the cult's "enemy".

Perhaps, by now, you have concluded I was referring to an intolerant religious culture generating news by making its presence felt, and I was, but not the one you might have thought. I was speaking of the culture and religion of Liberalism, sometimes also called Progressivism. It has sacraments, such as abortion, socialized medicine, gay rights, green energy, wealth redistribution, gun prohibition, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, among others. Its high priests are treated as infallible. The religion actively seeks to reduce and replace all other religions with which it competes. It is enmeshed with the state, so that the religion and government have become virtually indistinguishable.

The practitioners reveal themselves whenever they must defend the faith from any risk of exposure as a fraud. They wage their own form of jihad upon the nonbelievers and apostates.

We saw them advance the faith when they fabricated and then railed against an imaginary war on women, smearing and destroying as they crusaded. We watched them attempt and sometimes succeed in falsely criminalizing guns and gun ownership, at the expense of citizens who had done no wrongs. We have seen them willfully tell lies on the Senate floor, in White House press conferences, or on television news shows, regarding matters about which we already knew the truth. We saw them consciously conceal examples of their ideology fully realized, as with the Gosnell trial. We have seen them coldly attack and smear blacks and Hispanics who dared speak against their own repression and exploitation by the scions of the cult. We have seen them sprint from the muck whenever there is a tragedy they can falsely pin on their enemy, and slither back when it is revealed that one of their own, or one they enabled, was the perpetrator.

However, we see them at their most dishonest, and their most vicious, when the high priests of their culture are in danger, as exemplified presently by the Benghazi hearings. Terms like "witch hunt" and "politicize" and "liars" are deployed to damage those who would expose cult leaders who have engaged in evil or criminal actions. Bomb-throwers limber up, eager to lob verbal incendiaries for the faith. Lies must be told loudly and in unison to drown out or erase truth. The followers who accidentally learn of the proceedings must be reminded of their duty to the cult. To stray is to invite damnation. They must blind themselves to evidence and facts. Logic is an enemy. Believe only what the cult approves.

Those who saw the cult's malice practiced first-hand in Benghazi and at home, and who have the courage to risk their names and their life's work, are marked by a liberal fatwa. The integrity of truth-tellers must be publicly attacked. Their honor must be murdered. Defenders of the faith chant as one, and none can speak out against the lies and damage done to their own country unless they too wish to be afforded the 'apostate' treatment. Ideology trumps country. It trumps truth, integrity and honor. Ideology trumps God. The infidels must be destroyed. The cult comes first.

So it will be for the next several weeks or months, as those who were repressed by the hierarchy of the culture escape their bonds and, in the light, tell the truth about what happened in Libya. Their names and reputations have been sentenced to death by the cult. Nonbelievers must be fundamentally transformed into failures and malcontents for their sins, as must we all. There can be no accountability, no truth and no consequences to the cult from this process. The cult must be protected, even at the expense of the collective soul of a virtuous nation.

When truth is punished, and honesty is condemned, all members of a society are obliged to look clear-eyed at those whom the cult protects, and question why any of us would permit such people to rule us. It is long past time to protect our honorable nation from the soulless culture that seeks its destruction from within. God bless those whose courage is on display in these hearings, both the elected representatives and the witnesses who understand the evil that has been done, and which will be done to them for telling the truth. The dishonesty and vitriol of their detractors could not more clearly illustrate the differences between the cult and the rest of us.

Those who have testified, and who will endure the gauntlet to come, remind us that we can defeat the cult, and that at our core, we are still a nation in which integrity and virtue matter.