NEWS YOU CAN USE: Matt Groening Reveals the Location of the Real Springfield.
Archive for 2012
April 11, 2012
I.R.S. HARASSING TEA PARTIES? “Send Us Everything.”
The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”
To make the demands even more egregious, the over 30,000 pages of demanded information was to be compiled in just 14 days.
Is this harassment? Or is it just the usual run of business at the IRS? And if it’s the latter, isn’t that actually worse?
JOHN LOTT, ET AL., Trust But Verify: Lessons for the Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy.
I haven’t looked at it yet, but John Lott has a new book out.
TOM MAGUIRE: WaPo Media Watchdog Barks Up Wrong Tree, Protects NBC. “It looks as if Mr. Wemple was willing to follow the story until it actually led somewhere.” Media wagons, circled.
UPDATE: Associated Press “forgets” inconvenient part of Zimmerman story. “Funny how a major news organization could miss such a well-documented detail. It’s like they didn’t want to muddy the narrative with facts.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Winkler writes:
Interesting in parallel with the circling of wagons on EditGate is that Politico and WaPo are reporting today on John Edwards returning campaign cash. If you read the stories, you get the impression Edwards bailed out of his 2008 campaign because of the sex scandal covered by the press. But they didn’t report on it during the campaign, and he dropped out because he wasn’t winning. But that narrative is awkward and involves the National Enquirer. Another media failure down the Memory Hole.
IN THE MAIL: The Pillars of Hercules.
HIDING HIS LIGHT UNDER A BUSHEL: Mitt Romney, a ‘private man in a public world,’ is silent on tales of altruism.
By now, many voters have heard that Mitt Romney once put the family dog, Seamus, in a crate and strapped him to the roof of a station wagon. But far fewer have heard that Romney and his sons once raced across a dark, placid lake on Jet Skis, “Baywatch”-style, to rescue strangers and their dog, McKenzie, after their boat capsized.
Or that Romney once temporarily closed the Boston headquarters of his private-equity firm to round up his co-workers, accountants and lawyers and fan out across Manhattan to search for Melissa Gay, his Bain Capital partner’s missing 14-year-old daughter.
Or that as a volunteer lay pastor of his Mormon congregation, Romney spent years counseling neighbors on their marriages and adoptions, helping the unemployed feed their families, and ministering to the sick and the addicted.
The lesser-known stories have surfaced occasionally in profiles of the former Massachusetts governor. But they have not blossomed into any kind of gentler portrait of Romney, who emerged as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Tuesday after challenger Rick Santorum suspended his bid.
Gee, I wonder why they haven’t gotten more press?
UPDATE: Reader Glen Jones emails:
I saw the blurb about Mitt Romney and his altruistic efforts in the past and I am going to make a prediction on this.
Pretty soon the MSM will start telling us about all of the many charitable/altruistic things that the Obama’s do (I’m sure there are some, at least), with a little bit of effort in paragraph 9 or so to what Mitt has done in the past along these same lines, knowing that most people have quit reading by about paragraph 5 or so. That way they can consider this subject to be something that Obama at least matches Romney on (no advantage to Romney!) and this subject covered.
People are so cynical about the media these days. But to be fair, the Washington Post story quoted above didn’t do that. But we’ll see. Readers are encouraged to email me if they note an instance of the “Glen Jones rule” in actual coverage. . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:
How could a discussion of Romney and Obama’s altruism go without any mention of the country’s most pathetic benefactor: Joe Biden? Here’s a little something from the Instapundit archives.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, is showering donors with tax-payer subsidized “altruisism” while pissing in the Romney punch bowl.
Yeah, Joe Biden’s charitable contributions are pathetic. And Jay Nixon is just pathetic, period.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Ending The Poverty Blues. “One of the most important claims that the friends of the blue social model make is that it addresses the needs of the poor and the weak better than any other existing social system. This is a serious point that blue critics sometimes don’t think enough about, but the claim is more questionable than blues admit — and more to the point, from where we are today, the basic methods of the old social model aren’t likely to make things much better.”
A NATIONAL DATABASE to disable stolen cellphones.
UPDATE: Reader Johnnie Garner writes: “I am not happy about this. When I first heard of it yesterday, all I could think about is ‘If they can pick what phone to disable, how hard would it be to disable all dissenters’ phone?” Indeed what about a universal shutdown for some unspecified ’emergency’? Nowadays we know information is just about the people’s best weapon against despotic government, maybe even more than arms.”
GOING TO WAR AGAINST WIMPY VAMPIRES.
JAMES TARANTO: The Packers Can’t Beat the Lions: A law professor has trouble distinguishing the Supreme Court from the NFL. “Carrington’s political sense is even more defective than his legal understanding. FDR was unable to persuade Congress to enact a court-packing scheme even though his party had huge majorities in both houses of Congress and his legislative program–in sharp contrast to ObamaCare–was broadly popular and enjoyed bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. . . . A Democratic court-packing scheme, whether proffered this summer or in a hypothetical second Obama term, would be laughed right out of the Capitol.” Yes, I made the same point recently.
CONN CARROLL: Obama’s Weak Lead.
ROLL CALL: Cybersecurity Bill Faces Tough Odds.
After last year’s intense debate of an anti-piracy bill, any legislation dealing with Internet security faces an uphill climb.
That point was made clear today by House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, who was careful to point out differences between his bipartisan cybersecurity legislation and last year’s failed online piracy bill that was crushed after an all-out lobbying campaign from Internet companies and users.
Nice to know that they’re still scared by SOPA. But don’t trust them.
ANDREW MALCOLM: Rick Santorum Faces Reality. Now what?
MORE FOR SHOW THAN FOR GO: IRS’s Ballyhooed ‘SWAT Team’ to Audit Super-Rich Is a Dud.
THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING HERE, THE FLOW WILL SOON GO THE OTHER WAY: Michael Barone: Net Illegal Immigration From Mexico Falls To Zero. “For some years I feared that Mexico could not achieve higher economic growth than the United States since our economies have been tied so tightly together by NAFTA since 1993. But in the past two years Mexico’s growth rate has been on the order of 5% to 7%. It’s looking like Mexico’s growth rate is tied not to that of the United States but to that of Texas, which has been a growth leader because of its intelligent public policies.”
DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO: Obama attacks inequality while soliciting big-money donors.
BOB OWENS: Why I Called George Zimmerman a Murderer, and Why I Was Wrong. “I won’t get fooled by media again.”
ALEXIS GARCIA: IRS Insanity: Small Business Owner Takes IRS to Court Over Outrageous New Regulations. (Bumped).
HOW “STAND YOUR GROUND” LAWS PROTECT THE INNOCENT.
And they have nothing to do with George Zimmerman, though the New York Times and other gun-control activists would like to pretend otherwise. “Why inject an inapplicable, controversial issue? To inflame passions? To skew judgment? To take any opportunity/nonopportunity to push your pet issue?” I’m voting all of the above.
ED GILLESPIE LOOKS AHEAD AT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE. Plus: “Although Gillespie didn’t mention it, McDonnell also avoided getting bogged down in social issues in a race in which Democrats strained to raise wedge issues. That’s a wise pattern for Romney to follow as well.” Yes, focus on the economy — the one thing Obama doesn’t want to talk about.