Military Spending

Near the end of February of this year the Pentagon announced that they were "grounding: the new jet fighter fleet-the F-35-due to a "cracked engine blade".  That's 51 planes.   I can picture the scene in the war room.  One general turns to another and says, "do you know what this means?".  "It means the fucking thing doesn't work", as Christopher Lloyd said in the movie Back to the Future.  This "is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program at a cost of nearly $ 400 billion".  I wonder what we could have gotten with $ 400 billion?  Maybe some classrooms and teachers for them, or hospitals in inner cities, or road construction and bridge repair, maybe more police or more libraries.  No.  Instead we got zilch, nada, bupkis, squat, zero.  But you can bet  some CEO's walked away with millions in bonus money or stock options.  

(Source:  "Pentagon Grounds Fighters: in The Record on 2/23/13)

Tea Party, the IRS and Tax Exemption

Since this issue came up I have tried to get a feel for the issue of tax exemption.  What kind of group can claim such a status and how it might impact the taxes an organization owes (if any).

A site called fgfservices.com noted on 5/20/13 that the IRS has revoked tax exempt status of 275,000 organizations due to failure to file annual information forms.  It also seems that these type of organizations-or some of them-are referred to as 501c3 organizations.

Ask.com on the same date stated "tax exempt organizations may endorse candidates for public office w/o losing tax exempt status (according to) the type of organization it is".  This seems to mean that some such organizations don't qualify for the exemption.

Ask.com on 5/20/13 and I asked if the ACLU qualified for the exemption.  The answer was "yes".  This site also noted that the organization must be "non-partisan" to get the exemption".  This site also said that there is a limit a tax exempt organization can spend on lobbying.

More research will be needed.

Plutocrats

I read recently on NPR that Apple company CEO-Tim Cook-was holding a charity auction with the prize being an hour with him over a cup of coffee.  It also appears that the cafeteria at Apple serves a type of coffee called "poop coffee".  This is coffee made from beans that have passed thru the "digestive system of animals" must likely something called a civet or sometimes an elephant.  When I last read of this-a few days ago-an offer had been made for $ 600,000 for that one hour drink of poop coffee.  The beans themselves are suppose to be worth $ 50,000.  I went online to at NPR and found an article titled "Two way breaking news from NPR" by Bill Chapell on 4/27/13. 

Could this be true?  Or maybe they are shitting me.