The IRS is making big news in annoucing the results of a comprehensive review of complaints of illegal electoral activity by non-profit, tax-exempt organizations, including churches, during the 2004 election season. Although the agency was scrupulously neutral in how it presented it's findings from the period leading up to the 2004 elections, and it's planned educational and enforcement activities for 2006, it stated as simply and plainly as possible:

"...all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

This is certainly bad news for the Christian Right, which has encouraged churches to bend if not break the rules proscribing electoral activities by non-profit, tax-exempt groups.

Big tax dodgers, both  individual and corporate, cost the U.S. Treasury billions each year--money that could instead ease the sting of covering grossly inflated Iraq-contractors' bills.  

Where has the IRS been spending some of its limited enforcement-resources?  Targeting tens-of-thousands of poor taxpayers most of whom apparently did nothing wrong.  

That's one way to look busy.

First, we learn that exec-branch staffers outed a CIA agent to punish her husband for criticizing President Bush.  Next, we learn that an exec-branch agency has been illegally spying on Americans with Bush's blessings.  

What's next, punitive IRS audits for Bush-critics?

From AP: Frist AIDS Charity Paid Consultants

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.

So who were the donors and political consultants?

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans -- Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.

The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel's wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist's Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich.

Kolarich's name recently surfaced in an e-mail involving Frist's controversial sale of stock in his family founded health care company. That transaction is now under federal investigation.