IN THE MAIL: A Cosmic Christmas.
Archive for 2013
June 25, 2013
NATIONAL JOURNAL: Ron Fournier: Why The IRS Scandal Needs A Special Prosecutor. “Why, after the agency’s massive breach of trust, would Obama think a Werfel-led investigation will restore the public’s faith?”
BUT REMEMBER, VOTING FRAUD IS TOTALLY A GOP MYTH: Indiana Dem official sentenced to prison for ’08 ballot fraud in Obama-Clinton primary. “So many names were forged — an estimated 200 or more — that prosecutor Stanley Levco said that had the fraud been caught during the primary, ‘the worst that would have happened, is maybe Barack Obama wouldn’t have been on the ballot for the primary.'”
PRESIDENTS IN TROUBLE OFTEN START WARS AS A DISTRACTION: WH Climate Adviser: ‘A War on Coal Is Exactly What’s Needed.’
UPDATE: A snarky reader emails: “Given the success of the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs, if I’m Big Coal, I’m praying for a War on Coal.”
AS LOW AN OPINION AS I HAVE OF MIKE BLOOMBERG, IT’S TRUE THAT HIS SUCCESSOR WILL PROBABLY BE MUCH WORSE:
As the Bloomberg era is ending in New York, teachers’ unions are licking their chops. More than ten years ago, Mayor Bloomberg wrested control of the public school system and embarked on an ambitious agenda of reform, instituting measures such as giving principals greater control over their budgets, making teacher tenure more difficult to obtain, closing non-performing schools, and opening scores of charter schools in their place. . . .
Michael Bloomberg hasn’t been a flawless Mayor—far from it, in fact. But the Dem party hacks lining up to take his place don’t exactly fill us with hope either. For all his shortcomings, we suspect that New Yorkers, especially New Yorkers with children, will miss Mayor Bloomberg when he’s gone, perhaps a lot sooner than most think.
New York’s dysfunctional governance will be much worse once it’s back in the hands of those hacks, even though Bloomberg is more annoying.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY, GUYS: European Press Now Questioning Obama’s Competence. Plus: “How in the world could the NSA allow a random employee of a contractor, Booz Allen, who had been on the ‘job’ for only a couple of months, such unfettered and apparently uncharted access to secret materials? The fact that the NSA did so is the best argument against that agency’s being a trustworthy custodian of Americans’ secrets.” Indeed. Also: “The NSA has wonderful technical capabilities to spy on everyone in the world, but can’t figure out how its own contract employee made off with a pocket full of secrets. Maybe that’s a sign that the U.S. would be ill-advised to go down the road of totalitarian, all-knowing government.”
As always, “totalitarian” is easier than “all-knowing.”
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN SECTION 4 OF VOTING RIGHTS ACT, according to ScotusBlog. “Holding: Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance. . . . “Our decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in [Section] 2. We issue no holding on [Section] 5 itself, only on the coverage formula. Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.”
UPDATE: Here’s the opinion, in PDF.
POLITICO: On Penny Pritzker, Where’s The Outrage? “Penny Pritzker has understated her income by tens of millions of dollars, clashed openly with organized labor, benefited from offshore tax havens and invested in financial instruments that helped precipitate the 2008 financial meltdown. And senators from both parties seem just fine with that.”
Which tells you a lot about the state of the Senate, and both parties. Rules and accountability are for the little people.
DID THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION mean to let Snowden go?
AT AMAZON, it’s the Fourth Of July Sale!
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 47. These roundups don’t seem to be getting any shorter. . . .
THEY’LL BE LIVEBLOGGING THE SUPREME COURT AGAIN TODAY, at ScotusBlog.
NO, THE IRS WASN’T TREATING “PROGRESSIVE” GROUPS THE SAME WAY IT WAS TREATING THE TEA PARTY: ‘Lookout List’ Not Much Broader Than Originally Thought, Contrary to Reports. That’s just spin in an effort to make the probe go away:
A November 2010 version of the list obtained by National Review Online, however, suggests that while the list did contain the word “progressive,” screeners were in fact instructed to treat “progressive” groups differently from “tea party” groups. Whereas screeners were merely alerted that a designation of 501(c)(3) status “may not be appropriate” for applications containing the word ”progressive” – 501(c)(3) groups are prohibited from conducting any political activities – they were told to send those of tea-party groups off ”to Group 7822″ for further scrutiny.
That means the applications of progressive groups could be approved on the spot by line agents, while those of tea-party groups could not. Furthermore, the November 2010 list noted that tea-party cases were “currently being coordinated with EOT,” which stands for Exempt Organizations Technical, a group of tax lawyers in Washington, D.C. Those of progressive groups were not.
But the press is still trying to protect Obama on this.
ARMS CONTROL: Treaty Cheating: Russia said to be violating 1987 missile accord. “Russia is engaged in a major violation of the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States by building a new medium-range missile banned under the accord, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Disclosure of the treaty violation comes as President Barack Obama last week called for a new round of arms negotiations with Moscow aimed at cutting deployed nuclear warheads by one-third.”
UPDATE: Reader Brett Rogers emails: “For the president who ignores laws in his own country at his whim, isn’t it karma that other nations ignore treaties with his country at their whim?” Yes, though it would be funnier if it were something he cared about.
Related: Victor Davis Hanson: If Only Our Foreign Enemies Were Republicans.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: U.S. Surveillance Is Not Aimed at Terrorists.
The debate over the U.S. government’s monitoring of digital communications suggests that Americans are willing to allow it as long as it is genuinely targeted at terrorists. What they fail to realize is that the surveillance systems are best suited for gathering information on law-abiding citizens.
People concerned with online privacy tend to calm down when told that the government can record their calls or read their e-mail only under special circumstances and with proper court orders. The assumption is that they have nothing to worry about unless they are terrorists or correspond with the wrong people.
The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.
Read the whole thing.
SHOCKER: Sneaky Anti-Gun Fanatic Bloomberg Spending NYC Tax Money on Gun Efforts in Nevada. This sounds like an investigation from the New York Attorney General is in order.
HOW TO KNOW WHEN you’re getting close to Oak Ridge.
#NARRATIVEFAIL: Bono: George Bush, Evangelicals Saved 9 Million AIDS Victims.
FIRST THEY DUMP ON RUSH LIMBAUGH, NOW THIS: Sebelius in talks with NFL on promoting ObamaCare insurance plans. On the bright side, maybe this will improve head-injury awareness.
UPDATE: Reader Bryan Woody emails: “Regarding the NFL, just a reminder that the targeting of Limbaugh during his attempt to purchase the Rams was led by the Executive Director of the NFL Player’s Association, DeMaurice Smith. In a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Smith previously worked as Eric Holder’s Counsel when Holder was Deputy Attorney General. The playbook never really changes, does it?”
LAW BIZ UPDATE: Major Cuts Come To Weil, Gotshal.