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Newly released documents appear to further undermine the idea that Tea Party groups were the only ones given extra scrutiny by the IRS for potential political activity.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, obtained and has released a PowerPoint presentation and minutes from an IRS workshop on July 28, 2010, instructing agents to flag applications for tax-exempt status from "progressive" groups as well as those with "Tea Party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names. Another document shows that "Occupy" groups were later added to a list of organizations to be tapped for extra scrutiny.

In a letter to the committee's chairman, California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, Cummings says the documents "raise serious questions about the Inspector General's report, his testimony before Congress, and his subsequent assertions in letters to Members of Congress."

In mid-May, the IRS inspector general's audit found the agency used "inappropriate criteria" that singled out "Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions" rather than looking at their activities. Groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status can engage in only a limited amount of campaign activity, and those seeking charitable 501(c)(3) status can't get involved in campaigns at all. In testimony and subsequent letters to members of Congress, Inspector General J. Russell George said his team found no evidence that "progressives" was a term used to refer cases for potential scrutiny.

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President Gerald R. Ford, the only American to serve as both vice president and president without ever being elected to either office, was born 100 years ago Sunday.

Ford will be remembered for his role in the turbulent post-Watergate era. But a little-known story from his college days might also serve to define Ford's character.

The Gerald Ford We Know

In 1973, Ford was a congressman from Grand Rapids, Mich., who had risen through the ranks to become House minority leader. In those days before C-SPAN, Ford was barely known to most Americans.

But that all changed in December of that year, when President Richard Nixon selected him to replace Spiro Agnew as vice president because of Agnew's bribery scandal. By the following August, Nixon was out, and Ford inherited the Oval Office.

The Picture Show

Presidential Access: Unguarded Moments, Captured On Film

NPR's Uri Berliner is taking $5,000 of his own savings and putting it to work. Though he's no financial whiz or guru, he's exploring different types of investments — alternatives that may fare better than staying in a savings account that's not keeping up with inflation.

My taste of the commodities market started with a headline I read a few weeks ago: Cooling Coffee Prices Hit A 3 1/2-Year Low.

I like coffee. Most people like coffee. That's not going to change. So maybe, just maybe, I could buy coffee low and sell high, not by hoarding sacks of actual coffee beans but with a bet on the futures price.

The futures market largely determines the price of the most basic commodities used in everyday life — oil, wheat, soybeans, corn, hogs, cattle, coffee and much more. Despite their significance, futures are a mystery to most people, including many investors and journalists. I caught up with Jack Scoville at the Price Futures Group in Chicago. He's a futures broker who analyzes the market for agricultural commodities, including coffee. He ticks off reasons why coffee prices have tumbled.

More Coffee Reading

The Salt

Exploring Coffee's Past To Rescue Its Future

On Jesus as a political figure

"[In one story,] Jesus walks into the temple, and he begins to cleanse it. He turns over the tables of the money-changers, who are exchanging the foul foreign currency of the Roman Empire with the Hebrew shekel, which was the only currency that the temple would accept. And then, of course, in a loud, booming voice, he says, 'It is written that my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations, and you have made it a den of thieves.'

"Now, as all historians recognize, this was the action that precipitated his arrest, his torture and his execution by the state. And there's a very simple reason for that: The temple was not just the center of the Jewish cult; it was, in many ways, the representation of the power and the presence of the Roman Empire."

On using The Bible as a source

"I see the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament very much the same way that I see the scriptures of the Quran or the Gathas or the Vedas or what have you. I think that these scriptures are inspired by individuals who, in a moment of metaphysical contact with the divine spirit, have been able to communicate something about God to us.

"But I also recognize as a historian that this is sacred history. ... They are valuable in the sense that they reveal certain truths to us, but that the facts that they reveal are not as valuable as the truths are."

On Jesus as the Messiah

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