Scrolling around...October 31, 2012

Why the IRS Has Stopped Auditing Churches—Even One that Calls President Obama a Muslim
...The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has officially halted tax audits of churches until it can adopt rules that clarify which high-level employee has the authority to initiate them.

"We are holding any potential church audits in abeyance," Russell Renwicks of the IRS's Tax-Exempt and Government Entities division told BNA.com this week.

While this is the first public announcement of the moratorium, the IRS hasn't been auditing churches since 2009, said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund)...

 

The Looming Shortfall in Public Pension Costs
The recent economic crisis has left many state and local governments with underfunded pension benefits for government employees. However, elected officials are unwilling to make the necessary cuts or tax hikes because both options are extremely unpopular...Some states will need to have taxpayers contribute more, such as New York, which would require an additional $2,250 per household over the next 30 years...


KLAVAN: Picking Losers, Why Cronyism Isn't Capitalism

UK: Schoolgirls, 13, given birth control jabs during lunch
Schoolgirls as young as 13 are being given birth control injections and implants without their parents’ knowledge during their lunch break.
Over the past two years school nurses have administered implants and injections to girls between the ages of 13 and 16 more than 900 times...

What Will Become of the Middle East’s Christians?
...Across the Middle East, affiliated Islamist movements have undertaken the systematic eradication of religious minorities, especially Christians. From Mali to Egypt, and from Syria and Iraq to Pakistan, millions of Christians find themselves threatened daily with humiliation, extortion, displacement, and murder. Yet where the Muslim world’s Jews had Israel to come to their defense, the region’s Christians have no protector state. These Christians have looked to Western governments, especially America, for moral leadership and advocacy. Yet as the violence of the Arab Spring escalated, America was retreating from its commitment to religious freedom—not only abroad, but at home as well...

Northeast back to business after Sandy's hard hit
Millions of people across the U.S. Northeast stricken by massive storm Sandy will attempt to resume normal lives on Wednesday as companies, markets and airports reopen, despite grim projections of power and mass transit outages lasting several more days... image

Chaplains deployed to Hurricane Sandy communities
...Chaplains are coming from across the US to serve in the Rapid Response Teams, which will be based initially in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

The chaplains are specially trained to deal with crisis situations and had only recently been withdrawn from Louisiana following Hurricane Isaac last year...

Sandy Relief Team: Worst Fears Were Realized in Massive Disaster
Christian relief organizations began to provide food and shelter along the U.S. East Coast to people suffering in the devastating aftermath of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday. By nightfall, the region's death toll reached nearly 50 people and millions remained without power or mass transit...

Hurricane Sandy photos ...more here

 Looters ‘swipe’ up the mess in chaos zones
Hurricane Sandy brought out the worst yesterday in some sleazy New Yorkers, who looted stores and homes across the city...