Category: insider corruption

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insider corruption media and media people

Guerrilla Video Strikes Again

Even as many in mainstream media repeatedly insist that there’s nothing to see here, so let’s move on, cheeky activists like James O’Keefe continue to use new technologies to expose dubious doings (and worse) on the political left.

O’Keefe first earned notoriety by recording employees of Planned Parenthood seeming to endorse a racist agenda, and, later, ACORN workers seeming to endorse a criminal one. Planned Parenthood didn’t suffer much of a cost from the ensuing controversies. But ACORN lost congressional funding and eventually shut its doors.

Not entirely, however. Some elements of the organization continued under different guise. O’Keefe’s Project Veritas recently recorded admissions by a field organizer, Jennifer Longoria, for Battleground Texas (BT), an ACORN successor outfit. According to Longoria, BT routinely scrapes voter information from voter registration rolls on behalf of the gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Wendy Davis.

Longoria confesses the chicanery even though BT staff have been warned not to fall prey to O’Keefe-style inquiries about values and practices.

“[E]very time we register somebody to vote, we keep their name, number. . . .”

“And that’s from the voter registration form?” asks an O’Keefe associate.

“Right, from the form. That data collection is the key.”

The Texas Secretary of State makes clear that voter registrars are prohibited from copying telephone numbers from registration forms. It’s against the law.

A “news gathering” outfit like the Texas Tribune may downplay the revelations, but the cat’s out of the bag. As they say, data collection — and distribution — is the key.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
incumbents insider corruption

Incumbents2IRS: Beat Up Our Foes

You can’t get much more explicit about the desire to wield power against political opponents solely because they’re political opponents than Senator Chuck Schumer’s recent public demand, reported in The Hill (“Vulnerable Dems want IRS to step up”):

The Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government. There are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies — we must redouble those efforts immediately.


Set aside how Schumer lumps disregard for truth with “attacking government”; set aside the insinuation that efforts of Tea Party groups seeking redress of grievances are somehow nefarious, or that only right-leaning groups “funnel millions” into political discussion. Schumer wants government power to be exercised on behalf of politicians who are politically vulnerable precisely because of their own irresponsible policies and the consequences of those policies. He wants to squelch political debate, and not with an even-handed tyranny. (Not that he should try for an even-handed tyranny either.)

Politicians have long abused their power in order to get re-elected — one of many reasons I support term limits. But they are not always so overt about it.

Congressman Dave Camp is seeking to prohibit IRS from imposing Draconian new rules to restrict the political activity of non-profits until after the 2014 midterm elections. Good idea, except for the time frame.

The prohibition should be permanent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

IRS Clarifies Targeting: Yes

The Internal Revenue Service has proposed new regulations to restrict the eligibility of nonprofit organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

Per the proposal, nonprofits tainted by certain kinds of political activity will be ineligible, since those kinds ipso facto don’t do anybody any good. Forget that “social welfare” and “political” issues might overlap.

Association with a candidate or political party, communicating with or supporting or even mentioning the name of a candidate for office too close to a general election, even voter registration drives would be disqualifying.

Let’s say a nonprofit bookstore promotes a select set of books online. The author of several of those volumes runs for office. Would the store’s tax-exempt status now be in jeopardy unless it scrubbed reviews of his books? Well, according to the IRS’s own explanation, “content previously posted by an organization on its Web site that clearly identifies a candidate and remains on the Web site during the specified pre-election period would be treated as candidate-related political activity.”

Any chance that the strict new rules will be varyingly interpreted and selectively enforced?

Well, yeah, if the IRS’s decades-long track record, especially the recent targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, is any indication.

The agency is soliciting your comments on the proposed new tourniquet on political speech (here). The deadline is February 27. Proceed with pith if not vinegar.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture insider corruption

Disguised Corruption

Some things about government are eternal.

The latest New Jersey scandal a-brewing has it that Hoboken’s mayor was informed her city was to be denied federal aid following Hurricane Sandy unless she went along with a real estate project favored by Governor Chris Christie.

Shocking, but hardly . . . unheard of. Back in the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt distributed disproportionate “stimulus” funds to swing states for one reason: re-election.

Corruption is ancient.

Christie’s staff seems, well, merely a bit more honest than usual. For modern America. Take the “Bridgegate” scandal: Trying to “hurt” a mayor by shutting down bridge lanes to his city, thus severely inconveniencing the mayor’s constituents? This sort of pettiness in policitics is common, with one difference: Most players disguise the pettiness.

So how does the continuing scandal of misgovernment usually get hidden? Dishonesty? Evasion?

Or, just ideology?

In several cities throughout the United States — Portland, Oregon, in particular — top metropolitan bureaucrats have deliberately developed policies that make automobile traffic more congested. Why? To encourage ridership in public transportation, which is considered (for ideological reasons) somehow better. Thus billions are spent on infrastructure supporting light rail, which take lanes away from car drivers, and move fewer people at greater inconvenience.

So why is that policy not itself a scandal?

The intent of Chris Christie’s aides was, obviously, base and petty and wrong. And actionable.

The ideology driving today’s anti-automobile agenda, on the other hand, is said to be noble and altruistic. Even though the harms to the public in terms of hours lost in frustrating commutes far exceeds the recent New Jersey scandal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets insider corruption

Copper Tubes in Alabama

You’ve gotta be somewhere, so you might as well choose where that somewhere is in a non-random fashion.

That seems to be the rule.

One consequences of this is that we now have local government officials and functionaries jet-setting the world promoting their towns, counties, cities . . . their hills and their dales.

A fascinating report from The Economist tells how the mayor of Thomasville, Alabama, came to sit in a north China pipe-factory canteen talking up his town. “Sheldon Day was there to drum up investment,” the report explains. “Two years ago he convinced another Chinese company, which makes copper tubes, to build its first American factory in the county next door. The plant will create around 300 jobs when it opens next year. Mr Day wants more.”

It’s a charming tale, even if “the battle for Chinese attention” be “fierce.” And risky:

The mayor of Farmer City, Illinois, cancelled his plans after residents expressed anger at the idea of using city money to woo foreign businesses. Chad Auer, a mayor in a right-wing bit of Colorado, had to take to YouTube to explain that when Richard Nixon went to China in 1972, it turned out to be worth his while.

Nixonian prudence aside, there’s an even darker aspect to this practice: Bending over backwards to entice businesses to an area . . . at the expense of existing businesses, residents, and any concept of equality before the law.

I refer, of course, to “tax incentives,” loopholes, tax credits, regulatory workarounds, and the like.

Fine, you pillars of society, going off promoting your town — so long as no special deals are made.

But make special enticements, and you morph from “seller” of community to “sell-out.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Categories
insider corruption

Scandal Not Going Away

We’re past Day 195 of the IRS scandal.

I mean the one about how IRS agents processing applications for tax-exempt status gave an especially hard time to Tea Party and similar groups, asking endless intrusive questions and delaying legitimate tax-exempt status for years or never granting it at all.

The botches and disillusionment occasioned by the Obamacare non-rollout have pushed other Obama scandals off the front pages. But as Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice argues, the IRS scandal won’t be fading from memory any time soon.

First, details of the agency’s wrongdoing, initially said to be confined to a few renegade overworked Cincinnati agents, are still being revealed and at higher levels.

Second, the IRS is still being sued by Sekulow’s organization.

Third, the scandal reminds us of how mean, incompetent, and corrupt the IRS is in so many ways.

Fourth, the fish rots from the head. Even if President Obama didn’t call IRS and say, “Start targeting Tea Partier types,” his many condemnations of such groups all but explicitly invited the targeting.

Fifth, Obamacare and the IRS are joined at the hip, with the rogue agency charged with enforcing Obama-mandates. This is like treating food poisoning by clubbing the sufferer’s kneecaps. If you’re the guy getting your knees smashed, are you going to forget about the role and nature of the perpetrator any time soon?

Well, there are millions of people now with bruised kneecaps.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption local leaders

Talk of the State

All it takes for the triumph of overgrown government is for good men to shut up.

Eric O’Keefe is talking — despite a gag order.

He spoke to the Wall Street Journal, which relates that in recent weeks a special prosecutor has

hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders.

Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand “all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications” both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees.

Eric O’Keefe (I could call him “Mr. O’Keefe,” but that would be odd, since he’s been a trusted friend and colleague for decades) heads Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of the targeted groups. He’s risking a lot by defying the gag order.

But he believes the public has a right to know.

And, considering that gag orders of this type, especially as applied to what looks like a crazed, partisan political witch hunt, are as un-American as you can get.

In case you were not aware, Eric authored an important book Who Rules America: The People versus the Political Class, after having served as the master strategist behind the nation’s most successful co-ordinated multi-state initiative campaign, for congressional term limits, in the early 1990s.

Eric’s now in the hot seat. Under the state’s “John Doe law” folks have been imprisoned — yes, political prisoners in the United States. And, according to the Wisconsin Reporter, most of those under investigation have remained “tighter than a drum,” not daring to speak out.

It’s always easiest for rulers when their opponents (and victims) are forced to remain silent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
individual achievement insider corruption

TheHealthSherpa.com

Government incompetence is no mystery. It’s very similar to government competence: throw enough money at a problem and something will happen.

It may not be what you want, or what you expected, but something will indeed happen.

The ObamaCare rollout is a grand example of governmental hubris and incompetence, as I explained this weekend at Townhall.com.

But the story has a more amusing twist. Three young professional website technicians saw the fiasco of healthcare.gov and decided to try a different approach, cooking up a website in their spare time.

They found enough information and access to information buried in the multi-million dollar contractors’ code, and reconfigured everything.

Their insight? The main ObamaCare website had it all backwards. People want to be able to start shopping immediately. So that’s what they allow visitors to do, start shopping without sign-up.

On e-commerce websites, you can sign up at almost any point.

The young men’s TheHealthSherpa.com is up and running, allowing people not served by a state-led marketplace to check out the “competition,” select the policy that’s right for them, and go directly to the company offering the service.

So how could three guys working pro bono do a better job than the inside-the-beltway “Internet” professionals who were paid millions?

The well-connected insiders were thinking as insiders do. Instead of seeing that their job was to entice customers, they tried corralling citizens, requiring people to first “sign up.”

Of course, the real and enduring problems of ObamaCare are on the “back end,” behind the websites, where the regulations and taxes and mandates (and pride and hubris and incompetence) will do the most damage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies too much government

The Tyrants’ M.O.

Somewhere, recently, I saw the Lord Acton maxim about power (how it corrupts, and, if absolute, corrupts absolutely) referred to as a “cliché.”

Just because a phrase is common doesn’t mean it’s cheapened by repetition. Some expressed truths are that profound.

If anything, we need to repeat the Acton Axiom more often, and louder. For we live in a time when the federal government usurps power, denigrates, evades and undermines the rule of law, and appears “hell bent” (now that’s a cliché) on accumulating power in concentrated form . . . you know, like Sauron did with the ring of power in The Lord of the Rings. (Another possible cliché, eh?)

The NSA spying program story, as it unfolds, exemplifies the typical pattern:

  1. Information gets leaked.
  2. The government denies it.
  3. Further information comes out, establishing the lying nature of the denial and
  4. Adding more details of even more shocking nature.
  5. The government makes further denials . . .

And repeat ad nauseam.

Retired Lieutenant General James R. Clapper still serves the president as Director of National Intelligence, even after lying directly to Congress about the existence of NSA “metadata” collection system.

Meanwhile, the long arm of the secrecy establishment has retaliated against journalist Glenn Greenwald (who helped break Snowden’s first and subsequent leaks) by detaining the journalist’s partner without charge for the legal maximum of nine hours in Great Britain, upon coming home from a trip.

And the gentleman I reported on last week, who shut down his encrypted email service and erased his records rather than fork it all over to the government, says he has been repeatedly threatened with imprisonment.

Typical modus operandi of tyrant wannabes. Don’t worry about “cliché”; worry about tyranny.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Incumbency Protection Racket

While discussing the latest IRS scandal — the one about how the IRS has been (is still) stacking the deck against non-lefty nonprofits seeking tax-exempt status — the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto mentions another kind of deck-stacking: campaign financial regulation.

Seems that Hillary Clinton, still running for president, is using her serially disgraced husband’s 501(c)3 foundation as a launching pad or financial resource for political operations. Taranto wonders whether the IRS “would investigate the Clinton Foundation for evidently acting as a front group for a political campaign” — quickly adding that his question is “facetious” given the fact that “the Obama IRS only goes after little guys.”

Suppose, however, that there were in fact an inquiry into the relationship between Hillary’s incipient campaign and the foundation? The point Taranto wants to make is that whether we’re talking about the IRS code or campaign finance regulation, it’s easier to comply with “complex and burdensome regulations on political speech” when you have resources to splurge on lawyers who can ensure that you’re obeying the letter of the law. Thus, the regulations “give incumbents a huge advantage over upstart challengers.”

Though hardly the only problem with CFR, this bedrock truth about the regulatory regime undermines the claim that such regulations serve only to “level the playing field.” What they really do is make it impossible for an unknown, un-wealthy but otherwise viable challenger to quickly “level the playing field” by accepting large checks from donors convinced of the challenger’s electability and election-worthiness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.