I don't think any groups involved in politics should be tax exempt period. When conservative groups pop up with tons of money to run ads and such, it does raise questions. The IRS has every right to scrutinize applications for tax exempt status if a group seems to be too political to be deemed tax exempt. No organization is entitled to tax exempt status, there are specifications.

The point. Political groups can style themselves as 'educational' when the only 'educating' that they do is to give hints that certain politicians are to be preferred.

If I give money to a political party or the campaign fund of a politician, then I rightly get no tax break. It is not as if I am making a donation to a welfare hospital or famine relief because such is charity from which I have little cause for expecting benefits.

To allow people to take tax deductions for contributions to political campaigns subsidizes people trying to buy political influence. A tax-exempt organization also gets a break on state sales taxes, also a subsidy.

You can call a bull a cow, but it will still not give milk. 

Most of the political-leaning organizations organize as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations.  While the organizations themselves are generally tax-exempt, contributors are not allowed a tax deduction for their contributions and amounts spent on direct political activity (i.e. advocating a particular candidate) are taxed.

I am not aware of any Occupy Wall Street candidates or Occupy Wall Street Super PACs.  Are you sure you know what Occupy Wall Street is... was?

Yes.  Occupy Wall Street was a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) radical liberal group that violated the law in the name of civil disobedience.  Five of their members were arrested for planning to blow up a Cleveland bridge.   

There was at least one attempt at an Occupy Wall Street Super PAC.  And there were plenty of candidates who called themselves Occupy Wall Street candidates or tried to ingratiate themselves with the movement in its hey day.

[radical liberal group?]

What if it had been a Republican-controlled IRS doing the same thing to a radical liberal group?

Name one.

Occupy Wall Street.  Radical liberals, some of whom thought it would be a good idea to blow up a bridge in Cleveland.

There is no excuse for what the IRS did here, which is add an additional level of scrutiny to groups that likely oppose the Obama regime.  Using the IRS to attack political enemies is a disgusting misuse of power.

Charleston just went to Sanford. It's over.

Colbert-Busch won the absentee vote in Charleston County, but is losing an overwhelming majority of the election day precincts.

That New York State Senate map that DINO Cuomo signed into law certainly has some population deviation issues.

None of the New York Senate (or Assembly, for that matter) districts had a deviation of more than 10%.  It is well within the safe harbor of permitted deviation.  Kentucky's old map isn't within the safe harbor after the 2010 census.

What's the island in the upper left inset?  Guam?

Anthony Weiner must have granted interviews with every local TV station today, laying the groundwork for a run for mayor.  It looks like he's in.

[Official Ballot]

Official Ballot

Assembly

[1] Goldwater (Federalist Party - Delaware)
[4] bore (Labor Party - Rhode Island)
[3] Snowball (Labor Party - New York)
[2] Write-in:Matt from VT (Federalist Party - Massachusetts)

[AT-LARGE SENATE]

AT-LARGE SENATE

[  ] Alfred F. Jones of Puerto Rico
^{Labor Party}

[1] HagridoftheDeep of South Carolina
^{Federalist Party}

[  ] Kalwejt of Vermont
^{Liberal Party}

[2] Matt from VT of Massachusetts
^{Federalist Party}

[  ] MaxQue of Colorado
^{Labor Party}

[4] Mr. X of Ohio
^Independent

[3] Napoleon of Connecticut
^{Liberal Party}

[5] Poirot of New York
^Independent

[  ] Write-in:______________________________


[  ] None of the above

I don't want to delve into conspiracies here, but I'm concerned that, if this turns out to be more than an accident, there could easily be a connection with the ricin letters and Boston bombing.

There is no connection between the alleged ricin letters and the Boston bombing.  The ricin letters were allegedly sent by Paul Kevin Curtis from Mississippi, who has been arrested.  There is no evidence that Curtis was anywhere near Boston on Monday and he's in police custody now, so there is no way he had anything to do with the fertilizer plant explosion near Waco.

Judging from his Facebook and Meetup pages, any grand conspiracy involving Paul Kevin Curtis would be that of a mentally unbalanced Democrat who is interested in the environment and social movements, not some vast right wing conspiracy that has something to do with avenging Waco.

This must be just an unfortunate coincidence, but should things get worse, it would begin to look like a novel I read a few years ago, called "The Overseer" (By Jonathan Rabb)

I initially thought it was a coincidence (as I mentioned in the OP), but thinking about it more, it seems like foul play has got to be considered a strong possibility if not likely, given that we are just two days away from the 20th anniversary of the Branch Dividian raid, which took place in Waco, Texas....and this plant is near Waco.  I mean, what are the odds that a fertilizer plant would accidentally go off like this in this particular part of the country at this particular time?

Odds that this was just an accident are high.  Fertilizer factories are inherently unstable.  Accidents happen all the time - often with deadly results.

There reportedly was a fire at the plant that firefighters were trying to put out before the explosion.

BREAKING: Arrest made in ricin mailings, federal officials say; suspect IDed as Kenneth Curtis of Tupelo, Miss.

(NBC News)

Now they're saying the suspect's name is Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Mississippi.

I'm guessing that this isn't related to the bombings, but it is a possibility that someone who didn't like Wicker's vote for cloture decided to go psycho over it.

Or it simply was was a false positive.  The envelope was reportedly tested three times, supposedly coming up positive once and negative or inconclusive twice.

Plus, the sender is someone who frequently writes to lawmakers, per Senator McCaskill via Politico.  So if real, I doubt this is part of some grand conspiracy or had anything to do with a particular vote.

The Saudi suspect story has been removed.

No it hasn't:

Authorities ID suspect as Saudi national in marathon bombings, under guard at Boston hospital
New York Post

New York has special-purpose districts with elected commissioners, like fire districts in areas outside of cities and villages and grandfathered elected garbage, water and sewer districts, particularly on Long Island.  Virtually no one but firefighters and their relatives vote in the fire district elections, which aren't held on regular election days, further minimizing turnout.  As a result of this bizarre system, fire districts tend to buy everything under the sun, and Long Island has more fire apparatus than New York City and the city and county of Los Angeles combined.

It's a system Torie would love to hate, and one of the reasons why property taxes on Long Island are so high.

Much larger CSA (Philadelphia-Reading-Camden CSA).

Sussex is part of the Salisbury metropolitan area.

Sussex's inclusion in the Salisbury MSA is a relatively new development.  Last decade, Sussex County was part of one of the largest micropolitan areas in the country, named after the Sussex County town of Seaford, IIRC.  It wasn't even part of Salisbury's larger CSA, which only included counties in Maryland.

I just got called by Quinnipiac (for some reason we still have a land line) and decided to do my civic duty and answer it.  Took ten minutes.

Mostly about NYC stuff; the top-line Dem primary question only included four prompts: Quinn, DeBlasio, Thompson, Liu.  Not Albanese, boooo.  

Also approval/disapproval of several figures (one of which even a political junkie like me didn't recognize), stop and frisk (disapprove, of course), Bloomy (I approved), and several Bloomy initiatives:

* adding more skyscrapers to Midtown (I VERY VERY strongly approve of this, cannot be overstated)
* the soda ban (I said I disapprove, but wasn't an easy choice)
* the initiative to hide cigarettes behind the counter (I approve of this)

And of course all the standard demographic stuff.

Partial results are here, for some reason, not including the mayoral horse race question.  NYC voters don't approve the soda ban, adding more skyscrapers to east Midtown (there's a gender gap on that one, with women most opposed) or stop-and-frisk.  NYC voters approve hiding cigarettes behind the counter.  

I guess the mayoral horse race question will be released another day, perhaps tomorrow.  Without Weiner, it's really not that interesting, anyway.

Edited to add: No, the horse race results were released on Wednesday:
Quinn 32% (her lowest number in 5 months)
de Blasio 14%
Thompson 13%
Liu 7%

It would be interesting to see if including Weiner changes things much.

Lhota leads on the Republican side, 23% to 11% for McDonald (who?) and 8% for Catsimatidis.     

Every Democrat kills Lhota in the head-to-head matchups.

[Official BallotRepresentative:]

Official Ballot

Representative:
[1] Kalwejt (Liberal Party-Vermont)
[2] Zacoftheaxes (Light Party-New York)
[] Write-in:________________

Nay

Kent County isn't suburban. It's a small (capital) city county. Very few Wilmington suburbs even on the northern fringe of the county.

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal bisects New Castle County and generally serves as the boundary between the suburban and more rural parts of that county.  It is about 15 miles north of the New Castle-Kent line.  While I can't exactly pinpoint the canal on homelycooking's precinct map, it appears to be near where O'Donnell started to be competitive and actually won a few New Castle County precincts.

Kent County is actually in its own metropolitan area, the Dover, Delaware MSA.  Wilmington (New Castle County) is part of Philadelphia's metropolitan area.  The Dover MSA is part of Philadelphia's larger Combined Statistical Area, though.

Joe Miller is looking at running in 2014 as well.

Aye

[AT-LARGE SENATE (1 vacancy to fill)]

REPUBLIC OF ATLASIA - In Dave We Trust
Official Ballot

AT-LARGE SENATE (1 vacancy to fill)

[1] Clarence of Florida
^{Federalist Party}

[3] Kalwejt of Vermont
^{Liberal Party}

[2] Snowguy of North Carolina
^{Labor Party}

[  ] Write-in:______________________________


[  ] None of the above

There are a few things that have held back Wyoming's growth:

--Snip--

2. An extraction-based economy. Oil, natural gas, coal, agriculture (ranching)....these sectors don't really lend themselves to population growth the way industrial and commercial sectors do, for obvious reasons.

3. The climate. Wyoming is a place of extremes. Summers and winters can be brutal. Most people aren't really willing to move to such a place.

--Snip--

Some of the fastest-growing counties and metro areas have extraction-based economies and terrible climates.  I don't think U.S. winters get much worse than those in Williams County, ND (Williston), the fastest-growing county over the past two years.  And there's nothing there but shale oil and ranches.  Summers in the Midland and Odessa, Texas metros are oppressive, yet the oil boom has boosted population in the Permian Basin, putting both in the top ten fastest-growing metropolitan areas over the past year.

Wyoming has oil and natural gas in addition to coal.  There's oil in the Casper area, which is one of the top ten fastest-growing metros over the past year.  Sublette County, Wyoming has a natural gas boom, which has put it in the fast-growth pile in recent years.  I wouldn't count Wyoming out - and wouldn't doubt that growth there escalates further, especially in the eastern part of the state, as the shale oil boom spreads out from Williston to the fringes.

 The 10 Fastest Growing Metro Areas from July 1, 2011, to July 1, 2012
1.    Midland, Texas    4.6%
2.    Clarksville, Tenn.-Ky.    3.7%
3.    Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, Fla.    3.6%
4.    The Villages, Fla.    3.4%
5.    Odessa, Texas    3.4%
6.    Jacksonville, N.C.    3.3%
7.    Austin-Round Rock, Texas    3.0%
8.    Casper, Wyo.    3.0%
9.    Columbus, Ga.-Ala.    2.9%
10.    Manhattan, Kan.    2.8%

5 of the fastest-growing metro areas have significant military installations.  3 are in oil producing regions.  The Villages is a growing retirement community.  Austin is the high tech capital of fast-growing Texas.