Category: insider corruption

Categories
education and schooling insider corruption

Nixing Success

Newly elected New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made waves, recently. He nixed the establishment of two new charter schools and halted the expansion of another.

Widespread protest followed, with over ten thousand people showing up to express their frustration and ire. The charter chain under de Blasio attack, Success Academy, has been very successful increasing student test scores, and can boast a waiting list of five applicants for every school opening.

So why would the mayor be against them? What would make him so against this non-​radical form of education reform?

Well, de Blasio received the overwhelming support of teachers’ unions during his campaign for office. Teachers’ unions are no fans of charter schools, which gain some of their advantages by not being hampered by union contracts.

Sure, the mayor’s heavy-​handed slap at charter schools may simply be a political payoff to the teachers’ unions, but couldn’t there be something more to it?

Last May he directed his metaphorical guns at the head of the Success Academy, former New York councilwoman Eva Mosokowitz. “It’s time for Eva Moskowitz to stop having the run of the place,” he promised the United Federation of Teachers at a mayoral candidates forum. “She has to stop being tolerated, enabled, supported.”

Knee-​capping the less politically muscular charter school folks to please the immensely powerful public education unions is indeed classic patronage politics. But maybe de Blasio’s personal animus also shows his true colors, his commitment to undercut any successful competition to the governmental way of doing things.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment insider corruption U.S. Constitution

Fifth Dimension Feds

I like the Fifth Amendment.

I took it myself in 2007 when Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson was witch-​hunting with his grand jury. My attorney advised that I had more to fear from innocently misstating something and being vindictively charged with perjury than from the ridiculous indictments the AG would file against the “Oklahoma 3” — and then dismiss.

The Fifth Amendment protects the individual from government fishing expeditions, from browbeating by big, bad prosecutors — which includes congressional committees acting as such.

I don’t want to diminish our Fifth Amendment rights in any way, for any citizen.

Even when Citizen Lois Lerner asserts her Fifth Amendment privilege while the acting director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. And yes, even in yesterday’s repeat performance — having since retired with a pension — she still avoids congressional questions about official actions that appear to violate fundamental civil rights.

The House committee may charge Lerner with contempt (I already do). Admittedly, without her testimony, we may never know the full extent of the official campaign against certain political groups.

But we do know enough to take action.

Free and democratic participation in society requires a better system. Each non-​profit group that forms must file a tax return, so there is transparency and oversight. The time has come to shut down the IRS Exempt Organizations Division approval process for non-​profit groups and end the current prior restraint on participating in public policy.

We don’t need the Internal Revenue Service to stand as a censor bureaucratically or politically approving or dawdling to decide whether certain groups are permitted to organize.

A free society cannot tolerate it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access free trade & free markets insider corruption too much government

King Kevin and Company

Oh, how the other half lives!

And lies.

By “other half,” I don’t mean “the wealthy.” They’re as honest as any other group. No, I’m talking about those with their hands on the levers of government power … along with their subsidy-​seeking cronies.

Mayor Kevin Johnson, an all-​star in the National Basketball Association before becoming a politician, is splurging nearly $300 million tax dollars — roughly the city’s entire yearly budget — to build the owners of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings a brand new arena.

People objected, with 23,000 citizens signing petitions to put this lavish subsidy to a vote. Yesterday, a judge ruled that the measure would be kept off the ballot: errors in the wording of the petition “disqualified” it.

In a prepared sore-​winner statement, Mayor Johnson called the petitioners “outsiders” who “have tried to undermine the right of Sacramento to control the destiny of our Kings, our downtown and our future.”

Johnson doesn’t mean the right “of the people” to control. He means his right to dictate for Sacramento even against the will of the majority.

The leader of one group working against a public vote on the arena giveaway attacked local businessman Chris Rufer, charging that “Rufer’s funding … is supporting STOP’s effort to steal 4,000 jobs, steal a once-​in-​a-​generation opportunity to transform downtown and makes him an accomplice in Seattle’s attempt to steal the Kings.”

Who’s stealing? Those spending their own money so people can vote? Or those blocking a vote so they can spend other people’s money?

“I’m against subsidy, period. It’s simply a moral argument,” Rufer explains. “If it was a subsidy for a fish pond, I’d be against it.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
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.