Category: Accountability

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Accountability general freedom

Neither Left Nor Right

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head. 

Nathan Koppel, in an article at the Wall Street Journal’s online site, finds it odd that a former Bush administration attorney is now in private practice arguing against a prosecutor who fabricated evidence in a murder suit. A similar piece at law​.com, by Tony Mauro, proclaims that, “To Build Practice, Ex-​Bush [Solicitor General] Embraces Liberal Clients.”

Now, I’m not exactly a conservative, but I make common cause with conservatives all the time. Many of my best friends are conservative, and so are some of my best ideas. So I ask you: Since when is defending a wrongfully convicted man against a lying, unjust prosecutor any more “liberal” than “conservative”?

Does conservatism really mean letting governments cook up evidence to throw innocents into prison?

No.

And yet both of these writers characterized former Solicitor General Paul Clement as somehow liberal and un-​conservative for “embracing” — yes — “liberal clients.” 

Well, a hug was involved. But if a lawyer ably defended you against a malign, immoral agent of the state, mightn’t you offer a hug?

Embraces aside, the issue at hand is neither conservative nor liberal. Americans — of any party — oppose injustice. Right?

Or: left?

This is not a matter of left-​right disagreement. Or party politics. Or, even, America vs. other nations. It’s simple justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability insider corruption

Nutty Acorn Shenanigans Never Stop

ACORN, a government-​funded community activist group long noted for hard-​left stances, has been earning more and more notoriety for sundry shady practices.

During the presidential campaign, the organization got in trouble for voter fraud. ACORN officials blamed a few bad apples. But phony registrations filed by its employees have been discovered in a slew of states. In 2008, 14 states began investigating the group for fraud.

Then there’s the ease with which many ACORN employees are willing to advise sex slave traders on how to avoid taxes.

As you no doubt know, in September of this year, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe posed as a prostitute and a pimp at many ACORN offices. They pretended to seek advice on how to avoid paying taxes for income from the child prostitutes they said they were importing into the country. They recorded these visits with a hidden camera, and employees in all too many offices proved eager to help. ACORN responded by firing implicated employees … and suing Giles and O’Keefe.

Now it is coming to light that — to save money — ACORN bosses have been telling paid employees to work for them as volunteers, instead, and earn their pay by collecting unemployment insurance. This, as blogger Michael McCray notes, would be a form of fraud. 

A fraud to match other ACORN policies, I guess, and the handout mentality that permeates our nation’s capital. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Drop Out of the Bucket

Does $40.3 million seem like a lot of money to you? It does to me.

But to the Social Security Administration? It’s a drop in the bucket.

Or, a drop out of the bucket.

You see, while the federal government is scheduled to soon reinstate the estate tax on the wealth of deceased people, we now learn that it has also been giving money to the dearly departed.

Yes, an internal audit of the Social Security Administration revealed that it paid out more than $40 million to over six thousand dead people.

These benefits were given out weeks, months, years after receiving death certificates. The bureaucracy had been duly notified. And yet it went blithely on, continuing to send monthly checks.

Bureaucratic error. Hey, we all make mistakes. But it’s worth noting that this was an internal audit. Who knows what we’d catch if it were an external audit, with teeth?

Lately, the federal government has been talking over car companies and banks. Now the president and Congress plan to take control of the medical sector of our economy. They tell us they’ll cut medical costs by cutting waste. Yeah, right.

On a cheerier note, we needn’t fear the institution of those so-​called “death panels” to cut costs. The way the feds work, there’d be no savings — they’d still be paying for care long after the patients were dead and gone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability government transparency

Cuz You Constituents Work for Me!

This summer, many congressmen held town-​hall meetings about health care and other hot political topics.

Sometimes they were not entirely statesmanlike. Clips of their more embarrassing moments now reside on YouTube. For instance, you can watch Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee chat on a cellphone while a constituent is asking her a question — taking rudeness to congressional levels.

Congressman Baron Hill was determined to avoid this sort of thing. He wasn’t going to be on YouTube in any “compromising position,” not him. So he actually tried to ban any videotaping of his event. I kid you not. The evidence is on, uh, YouTube:

Constituent: “ — why can’t I film this? Isn’t this my right?”

Hill: “Well, this is my town-​hall meeting, and I set the rules, and I’ve had these rules— 

“Let me repeat that one more time! This is my town-​hall meeting for you. And you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office! Now, the reasons why I don’t allow filming is because usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

Oh, those pesky constituents!

Anyway, sir, too late. The technology is out there. The genie won’t go back in the bottle. Every audience you ever face will include folks who can record your words. With that in mind, you might want to, uh, watch your words from here on out. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability local leaders national politics & policies

Mysteriously Missing Politicians

I almost feel sorry for politicians so afraid of angry freedom-​loving constituents that they couldn’t even hold a townhall meeting this summer to spout reassuring lies about the Democrats’ medical reform proposals.

I say, “almost feel sorry” … well, not quite “almost” — Okay, I don’t feel sorry for them at all.

Neither does blogger Leslie Eastman. Recently, Leslie and 300 other nefariously well-​dressed California citizens visited the local offices of U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. They merely wished for these office-​holders — who until now have strenuously abstained from conducting public meetings to defend their plans for more government intervention in medical care — to emerge from their hidey-​holes and defend their notions. Live and in person.

No luck.

In fact, an office supervisor admitted that Senator Boxer had not graced her San Diego office with her presence in over two years. Says Leslie, “I think there was a revolution [once] because of taxation without representation, but I digress.”

Maybe we can help Leslie find the missing politicians. Another blogger, Ed Morrisey over at hotair​.com, is hot on the trail, being very helpful with a post entitled “Who Are Your Milk Carton Politicians?” During the August recess, many politicians across the nation headed for the hills, unwilling to squarely face constituents and defend their pro-​government takeover of American medicine. 

Is your congressman on the list?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies

The Rush to Non-Judgment

Politicians often don’t read the bills they pass. And what they do read they often don’t trouble themselves to actually understand.

There’s plenty of evidence for these claims in the cap-​and-​trade and healthcare debates. Lawmakers have been much more concerned about hurtling to the finish line than with making sure they can understand and explain what they’re foisting on the rest of us.

Some say they gotta rush because, otherwise, the economy would fall over the cliff. But what if what’s in these Tolstoy-​novel-​sized bills is what pushes the economy over the cliff?

Well, if lawmakers don’t read the murky and complicated, important bills, do they pause over the simple, unimportant ones? Heck no. Yet you can tuck poison into any bit of legislation. No matter how seemingly trivial.

Back in the ’70s, a Texas lawmaker named Tom Moore decided to play an April Fool’s joke on his colleagues. He sponsored a resolution to commend one Albert de Salvo for his impact on community and country.

The resolution talked about how DeSalvo’s “devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely … [to] achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future.” How the state of Massachusetts had “officially recognized” DeSalvo’s unconventional “population control techniques.” The lawmakers passed the resolution unanimously.

Just one problem. DeSalvo was the serial killer otherwise known as the Boston Strangler.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.