Category: Accountability

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Accountability folly national politics & policies

Weiner’s Place in History

Anthony Weiner, sexting, twitter, folly, sex, scandal, Clinton, election, Huma Abedin

As if to finalize the Great Derailment of 2016, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner pleaded guilty in federal court to felony sexting: transferring obscene materials to a 15-​year-​old girl.

Prosecutors are asking he serve 21 to 27 months in federal prison, register as a sex offender and continue mental health therapy.

Also Friday, Huma Abedin, Weiner’s long-​suffering wife, quietly filed an “Anonymous v. Anonymous” petition for divorce. 

Though, apparently, not anonymously enough.

Personal train-​wreck? Sure. But as I wrote yesterday at Townhall, because it so deeply affected last year’s presidential contest, the wreck is also very public.

Back in 2011, Anthony Weiner made Andrew Breitbart a hero, propelling Breitbart​.com into the limelight. Weiner had tweeted a picture of his underwear-​clad crotch to a woman … who was not his wife. Though quickly deleted from his Twitter account, a screenshot was shared with Breitbart, who ran with the story.

Weiner claimed a hack, challenging Breitbart’s credibility. This spurred Andrew Breitbart to commandeer a news conference called by Weiner — with more evidence to share. Soon, Rep. Weiner admitted his bad behavior and officially resigned his congressional seat.

Fast-​forward to 2016, with wife Huma Abedin busy helping Hillary Clinton run for president. Weiner again becomes the subject of a sexting scandal — this time with an underage North Carolina girl. The FBI investigates, seizes Weiner’s laptop and discovers emails on it from Hillary Clinton to his wife, Huma. Then-​FBI Director James Comey reopened his investigation of Hillary’s emails just ten days before Election Day. 

Upshot? Trump is the 45th U.S. President, with Breitbart​.com Editor Steve Bannon as key advisor.

Thanks to Weiner.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo of “Anthony Weiner cut-​out by the port-​a-​potties” by Katjusa Cisar on Flickr

 

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Accountability insider corruption moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

Cronyism Pays

CATO, FEE, crony, cronyism, Washington, corruption, elites, lobbyist, politicians, privilege, power

Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow in fiscal policy at the Cato Institute, is a nice guy. But he’s sort of depressing, too.

Weeks ago, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Mitchell offered that “The Washington, DC Gilded Class Is Thriving.” He even provided a “depressing chart” graphing “median inflation-​adjusted household income for the entire nation and for the District of Columbia.”

There is a graphic divide: while “the nation’s capital used to be somewhat similar to the rest of the nation … over the past 10 years, DC residents have become an economic elite, with a representative household ‘earning’ almost $14,000 more than the national average.”

Dan Mitchell highlights that “the entire region is prospering at the expense of the rest of the nation.” Among the nation’s counties, the top four wealthiest are in suburban Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital region boasts nine of the country’s top 20 richest counties. 

Now Mitchell’s back with another FEE column exclaiming more bad news: “The ROI for Cronyism is Huge.” (ROI is “return on investment.”)

Mitchell cites a study entitled, “All the President’s Friends: Political Access and Firm Value,” conducted by University of Illinois professors Jeffrey R. Brown and Jiekun Huang. “Using novel data on White House visitors from 2009 through 2015,” they explain, “we find that corporate executives’ meetings with key policymakers are associated with positive abnormal stock returns.…”

The authors find a lot evidence showing that “political access is of significant value to corporations.”

None of this should surprise. Cronyism pays, and it sticks close to power, even geographically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Feckless, Indeed

House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, Justice Department, information, Congress, Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, checks and balances, secret, secrets

Last night, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R‑Utah) appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, where Chaffetz was asked how he would know if the Justice Department fully complied with subpoenas issued by his committee for documents. 

“Look, we have a storied and horrific background on this,” explained the Utah representative, retiring after this, his fifth term in Congress. “You can go from everything from Fast and Furious to the Benghazi investigation, email, IRS, anything pretty much over the last eight years, which I’ve served in Congress, and I don’t believe we ever got a full production out of the Department of Justice or the State Department.”*

“I can issue a subpoena unilaterally. It’s part of my constitutional responsibility to provide that check and balance,” argued Chaffetz. “But that subpoena is only as strong as its ability to be enforced.” 

Problem? Enforcement requires Congress to work through the DOJ, part of the executive branch. Tricky … when the Department of Justice** itself is being subpoenaed. 

“You’ve seen, for instance, Judicial Watch,” Rep. Chaffetz noted. “Tom Fitton has much more power using a Freedom of Information Act, because he can get to the courts and the courts can force them.”

“The Department of Justice is afraid of a court; they’re not afraid of Congress.”

He added, “And we don’t use the power of our purse; we don’t beat it over their head and we don’t enforce it. And so it’s somewhat feckless, and it’s very frustrating as somebody who is chairman of the oversight committee.”

“Congress should have an expedited way to get to the courts to enforce those subpoenas,” Chaffetz offered. 

Why, then, doesn’t Congress enact such a process?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* “And that continues, by the way,” Chaffetz added. “One of my frustrations, with all due respect to the Trump administration, is that they have not loosened up the documents that we have been requesting for years.”

** Or, for that matter, any another executive branch agency.

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom local leaders media and media people nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility tax policy too much government

Ballots & Books

New York Times, taxes, tax, libraries, tax cuts, big government, public services, free markets

The people of Roseburg, Oregon, aren’t paying enough in taxes. That’s the upshot of Kirk Johnson’s recent New York Times article, “Where Anti-​Tax Fervor Means ‘All Services Will Cease.’”

“For generations in America,” readers are informed, “small cities … declared their optimism and civic purpose with grand libraries that rose above the clutter of daily life and commerce.” 

And then, the unthinkable: “last fall, Douglas County residents voted down a ballot measure that would have added about $6 a month to the tax bill on a median-​priced home and saved the libraries from a funding crisis.”

How dare voters so vote? Didn’t they know the Times wanted those libraries fully funded? Where was the “optimism and civic purpose” of Roseburgians?

“We pay enough taxes,” said auto mechanic Zach Holly.

“The trust is gone from people who are paying the bills,” acknowledged an elected commissioner one county over.

Even Jerry Wyatt, who voted for the library tax, decried that, “There’s no end of waste” in government, adding, “We need less people on the county payroll.”

Meanwhile, the Times reporter explained that “few places” are confronting “the tangled implications … more vividly than in southwest Oregon.” It’s not merely “lights out, one by one, for the [library] system’s 11 branches.” There have also been “cuts to the sheriff’s budget … [ending] round-​the-​clock staffing.” 

“If a crime is reported after midnight there,” Johnson wrote, “best not hold your breath for a response.” 

This is “what happens when citizens push the logic of shrinking government to its extremes.” 

To the extreme, eh? Hmmm. Doesn’t seem bad at all. 

Douglas County voters made a free choice about libraries and taxes. 

Close the book on it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* There have also been worthwhile innovations in county government due to the budget cuts. Nearby Curry County combined its juvenile justice department with its parks department to save scarce funds. Then, the parks department began using juvenile offenders to clean up the parks. By engaging teenagers in meaningful work, the policy pushed recidivism rates way down and now Curry County has one of the lowest rates of youths committing a second offense.

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Accountability crime and punishment incumbents local leaders national politics & policies term limits

One Incumbent Falls

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, corruption, term limits

When former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D‑Fla.) was indicted last July on 24 felony counts of fraud and obstruction, she suggested that if the FBI hadn’t wasted time investigating her for milking a charity for personal gain, they might have prevented the Orlando massacre. 

“These are the same agents that was not able to do a thorough investigation of [Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen],” Brown screeched at reporters, “and we ended up with 50 people dead.”

Last week, the former congresswoman* was convicted of 18 felonies related to fraudulently raising $800,000 for the One Door for Education Foundation, which only spent $1,200 on two small college scholarships — 0.0015 of what was raised … for college scholarships. 

As the Feds put it, Congresswoman Brown and her congressional chief of staff “used the vast majority of One Door donations for their personal and professional benefit, including tens of thousands of dollars in cash deposits that [her chief of staff] made to Brown’s personal bank accounts.”

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on “events hosted by Brown or held in her honor, including a golf tournament in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida; lavish receptions during an annual conference in Washington, D.C.; the use of a luxury box during a concert in Washington, D.C.; and the use of a luxury box during an NFL game in the Washington, D.C., area.”

The 70-​year-​old Brown spent nearly a quarter of a century in Congress. Now she awaits sentencing to as many as 277 years in prison — a quarter of a millennia. 

It’s yet another good argument for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* As I explained in greater detail at Townhall, out of 435 congressional seats up for election in 2016, Congresswoman Brown was one of only five incumbents defeated in the 2016 primary elections. Two of the five defeated — Brown and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D‑Penn.) — faced multiple-​count felony indictments. Two others were victims of redistricting that pushed them into new districts. Only one incumbent who was un-​indicted and running in an incumbent district was defeated.

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies property rights responsibility

Juicer Choosers

juicer, juice, silicon valley, innovation, risk, luxury, free markets, government waste, freedom

We all have our complaints about this company or that, this product or that.* And it is popular to rag on “consumerism” and the emptiness of “capitalism.” But put it into perspective: me “wasting money” on, say, an expensive juicer is nowhere near as offensive — that is, worth a rant, an excoriation, a philippic — than the government wasting money on … anything else. 

Or, for that matter, on juicers.

At this point, you may be wondering, “what’s with this juicer business?” 

Well, it is all about the hullabaloo regarding, er, a juicer business!

Juicero, to be precise.

The well-​funded-​at-​startup Silicon Valley biz makes the expensive Juicero Press. And news. Newsweek and Washington Post were just two major media outlets to lay into the company. They characterized Juicero and its product as a symbol of all that’s wrong with Silicon Valley.

Wow. What weight for one niche-​market company to bear.

While journalists in print and online fret over how Silicon Valley offers up empty gewgaws and gadgets for the “temporarily rich” — a few decades ago members of this class were excoriated as Yuppies — over at Star Slate Codex Scott Alexander reminds us that Silicon Valley does all sorts of things. 

One juicer cannot stand for everything else.

Besides, when “Capitol Hill screws up, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis get killed,” Alexander writes. When “Silicon Valley screws up, people who want a pointless Wi-​Fi enabled juicer get a pointless Wi-​Fi enabled juicer.”**

Forcing many people to pay for dubious-​at-​best products, or enticing a few people to pay for harmless luxuries? You see why I prefer the latter. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* You should listen to me curse my computers! Or, on second thought, no. You shouldn’t.

** “Which by all accounts,” Alexander concludes, “makes pretty good juice.” Even if squeezing the company’s frozen packets yourself works just as well.

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