One of the largest super PACs active in Virginia’s high-profile U.S. Senate race last year has ceased operations and transferred its leftover funds to a Georgia-based nonprofit — though what the group plans to do with the money is unclear.

Rise and Shine America, Inc., the Georgia nonprofit, is organized as a “social welfare” organization under section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code. It received nearly $42,000 on April 30 from Independence Virginia PAC, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Ahead of the 2012 election, Independence Virginia PAC spent approximately $5 million attempting to boost Republican George Allen in his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid against Democrat Tim Kaine.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson accounted for $4 million of the group’s $5.2 million in receipts. Adelson was the top donor to super PACs during the 2012 election cycle, when he, along with his relatives, contributed more than $93 million to GOP-aligned super PACs.

Independence Virginia PAC’s donation to Rise and Shine America was first reported by Roll Call’s Kent Cooper, who posited that the funds might be used in connection with the state's upcoming U.S. Senate election.

However, Doug Chalmers, the attorney for Rise and Shine America, Inc., told the Center for Public Integrity that the nonprofit “does not intend to be involved in the Georgia U.S. Senate race.”

Trevor Potter — a Republican lawyer and president of the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for stronger campaign finance regulations — says that the Internal Revenue Service is right to be on the lookout for organizations with a “significant amount of political activity.”

“What they are trying to do is identify groups that intend to be politically active, which is the appropriate thing for them to do,” he told the Center for Public Integrity, adding an important caveat.

“It seems to me, personally, that using the name is a pretty weak indicia,” he continued.

There are about 90,000 organizations recognized by the IRS as "social welfare" nonprofits under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code.

Most don't have politically charged names, but scores do.  

For instance, there are 20 social welfare nonprofits with the word "Democrat" in their name, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of IRS data. Meanwhile, 18 social welfare nonprofits include the word "Republican" in theirs.

Twenty-one organizations use the word "conservative," while 31 use the word "progressive."

Sixty-nine social welfare nonprofits include the word "campaign" in their names. Just three use the word "politics."

Words such as "America" and "veterans" are far more commonly used by 501(c)(4) organizations, as our word cloud illustrates.

According to a recently released inspector general report, the buzzwords “tea party,” “patriot” and “9/12” were used by IRS employees to flag potentially political cases.

Tea party groups and other conservative nonprofits at the heart of a scandal rocking the Internal Revenue Service have, of late, largely avoided electoral politics, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of Federal Election Commission filings.

About five dozen groups with the buzzwords “tea party,” “patriot” and “9/12” in their names have been officially recognized by the IRS as "social welfare" nonprofits under Section 501(c)(4) of U.S. tax code. There are about 90,000 such organizations.

But only two of the buzzword groups reported overtly advocating for or against political candidates during 2012, or even mentioning political candidates in broadcast advertisements immediately before primary or general elections.

And one of those is, in fact, unabashedly liberal.

Both groups, which use a version of "patriot" in their names, offer contrasting perspectives into the nebulous world of politically active nonprofits.

One of these is Patriotic Veterans, Inc, a Chicago-based organization launched in 2008. Conservative political consultant Paul Caprio serves as its president.

Patriotic Veterans told the FEC that it spent $86,700 on radio ads that mentioned Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Republican House candidate Adam Kinzinger of Illinois ahead of during the 2012 election.

IRS records show automated phone calls have also been a regular expense of the group.

In 2004, Caprio worked with John O’Neill, co-author of the controversial book Unfit for Command, to design a voter-contact program aimed at veterans highlighting Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s “true record of service in Vietnam,” according to Caprio’s online biography.

An Iowa federal judge who frequently attends business-friendly judicial education conferences slashed a landmark $240 million verdict to $1.6 million for 32 mentally disabled workers who suffered abuse and discrimination at the hands of their employer.

It might appear that a pro-business judge made a predictably pro-business ruling. Turns out the judge had no choice. The 22-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act — designed to protect the rights of disabled workers — is to blame for the paltry award.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle of the Southern District of Iowa ordered Henry’s Turkey Service to pay $50,000 in damages to each of the workers involved in a discrimination lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In total, the judge ruled, the company must pay the workers $1.6 million.

Wolle’s decision came two weeks after a federal jury awarded each of the workers a total of $7.5 million in damages — $240 million in all. Jurors found that Henry’s, a now-defunct Texas company, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by subjecting the disabled workers to years of unfair treatment and harassment.

The EEOC’s complaint, filed in 2011, accused Henry’s of taking advantage of the workers’ mental disabilities, paying them substandard wages — $60 to $65 per month despite working at least 35 hours per week — failing to attend to the workers’ illnesses and injuries, and subjecting them verbal and physical abuse.

The company, jurors unanimously agreed, acted with “malice or with reckless indifference” to the workers’ federal civil rights. The jury awarded each of the 32 men $5.5 million to compensate them for their pain and suffering, and another $2 million in punitive damages.

Since U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins moved back home from Ottawa in 2009, he’s reclaimed his role as liaison between the U.S. and its northern neighbor.

But this time, Wilkins — the Bush Administration’s top diplomat in Canada from 2005 to 2009 — is working for the Great White North, lobbying the U.S. federal government on behalf of Canadian business and government entities.

And last week, Wilkins parlayed his former ambassadorship into a job lobbying Congress on behalf of the Toronto-based Investment Industry Association of Canada, according to reports filed with the U.S. Senate.

Does Wilkins’ latest circuit through the international revolving door create conflict of interest or the appearance of one? No, Wilkins told the Center for Public Integrity, saying he “respectfully disagreed” with such a notion.

“As U.S. ambassador, I advocated for the U.S.-Canada relationship,” Wilkins said. “I do the same thing today, but in the private sector.”

The South Carolina native has lobbied on behalf of handful of Canadian interests since 2009, when he joined the Washington-based firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP as partner and chair of the public policy and international law practice group.

Last year, the provincial government of Saskatchewan spent $400,000 to hire Wilkins and his associates to advocate for province’s energy exports and cross-border food safety. That same year, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers spent $240,000 for Nelson Mullins to lobby Capitol Hill regarding Canada’s oil sands industry, records indicate. 

The scandal-singed Internal Revenue Service could unwittingly generate a mountain of cash for Republican interests.

GOP politicians and party committees this week are soliciting supporters far and wide in attempts to capitalize on conservatives' outrage over IRS officials singling out tea party and other right-leaning nonprofit groups for enhanced scrutiny.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus blasted a missive to backers Wednesday asserting that this week has been a "complete disaster for the White House," citing the IRS imbroglio, congressional hearings on Benghazi and revelations that the Department of Justice secretly seized phone records of Associated Press journalists. He also snipes at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"Clearly he's hoping a Democrat-controlled House will let him off the hook. We can't let that happen," Priebus wrote. "Contribute $25, $50, $100, or whatever you can today to help us defend our House so we can hold President Obama and the Democrats accountable."

President Barack Obama collected more than $110,000 from employees of the Internal Revenue Service during his 2008 and 2012 campaigns — significantly more money than any other contemporary political candidate, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission filings maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The donations were split roughly evenly between Obama's two presidential bids.

Ahead of the 2012 election, IRS employees collectively gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about $25,000 — less than half the amount received by Obama. For his part, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008, collected only about $6,000 from IRS employees.

The IRS has become the center of attention following an apology Friday by Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, for what she acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative nonprofits for additional scrutiny since 2010. Obama himself said on Monday that offenders in the agency needed to be held "fully accountable."

On Tuesday, a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the IRS used "inappropriate criteria" when reviewing organizations seeking tax-exemption.

During the past two decades, individual employees of the agency have collectively increased their political giving, which has overwhelming benefited Democrats and liberal-leaning organizations.

Benghazi is a non-starter for professional lobbyists.

Despite this week's politicized fray on Capitol Hill, just two organizations have specifically lobbied the federal government about the Libyan city in the months after terrorists there killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, according to disclosure documents filed with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Of late, the families of people killed in Libya-related terrorist attacks from the 1980s brought to bear more formalized lobbying pressure, federal records indicate.

Among lobbying groups focused on Benghazi, ACT! for America spent $60,000 from October through March lobbying Congress on a variety of issues that include support for "legislation establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya," congressional disclosures show.