Ellington

The NAACP has revealed that the U.S. government if probing it for crossing the line into politics. AFP reports:

If found guilty of political activities, the groups can lose their tax-exempt status or be forced to pay a tax.

The NAACP, however, said the probe, coming in the lead-up to the November 2 election, was "suspicious."

"It is regrettable that the Internal Revenue Service would seek to silence the voices of the nations oldest and largest civil rights organization for having done nothing wrong," the group's president Kweisi Mfume said in a statement.

NAACP officials pointed out that it might be singled out for its attempt to exercise free speech.

In its October 8 letter to the group, the tax agency specifically focused on remarks delivered by NAACP chairman Julian Bond during the group's national convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, last July, association officials said.

They quoted the IRS as complaining that "Bond condemned the administration policies of George W. Bush on education, the economy and the war in Iraq (news - web sites)."
Tax agency officials had no comment about the content of their letter.

In his address to convention delegates, Bond accused the Republican Party of "playing the race card in election after election" and of making appeals "to the dark underside of American culture, to the minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality."

Let's the hope the Feds are being "fair and balanced" in whom they're choosing to probe.