[…]

Hanauer, one of the first nonfamily investors in Amazon.com, shared this argument as part of a talk he gave at the TED University conference. Now, the organizers of TED — a movement aimed at bringing attention to “ideas worth spreading” — is refusing to share Hanauer’s talk on the internet, calling it too “political,” according to the National Journal.

Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, wrote in a post on his website responding to the allegations that the organization is inundated with requests to post talks on its homepage and only features those that are “truly special.” Anderson also claimed that once Hanauer found out the site would’t be posting his talk, he hired a public relations firm to promote the talk to progressive organizations like MoveOn.org. Anderson also released a video of Hanauer’s talk, providing a link to it in his post.

CHURCH ELECTIONEERING: FFRF Sues the IRS for Not Going After Politically-Active Churches

Posted on 11.15.2012 by AlwaysQuestionAuthority

We’ve known for a while now that when churches make political statements from the pulpit — like on “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” — the IRS hasn’t been pursuing them for violations of their tax-exempt status as they should be.

The reason? Because no one at the IRS is in charge of the issue.

Now, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing the IRS (PDF) for not doing their job. (How’s that forpayback?)

[…]

The most jaw-dropping part of FFRF’s lawsuit has to be this:

The preferential tax-exemption that churches and other religious organizations obtain, despite noncompliance with electioneering restrictions, amounts to more than $100,000,000,000 annually in tax-free contributions made to churches and religious organizations in the United States.

Read more . . .

h/t: Planet Atheism