by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
One month ago (in June), the topic of immigration was at 5%.
Today? It’s 17%. According to a Gallup poll released a few days ago, immigration has surged to the top of the list as “the Most Important U.S. Problem”. This replaces “dissatisfaction with government” (16%).
Two other tidbits to glean from this poll: (1) the issue is higher among Republicans (23%) than Democrats (11%); and (2) older Americans (over 50) are more likely than younger Americans (under 50) to cite immigration as the top issue.
So, while this poll shows us what Americans are now talking about, even more importantly is what they aren’t talking about anymore — major scandals such as those involving the IRS, the VA, and even the situation in Iraq, among others (most of those can probably be filed under “dissatisfaction with government”).
The IRS and VA scandals are particularly scathing to the administration. Is it any wonder why, at the very time when the heat began to turn up on these two issues, the immigration surge began. Those very demographics — Republicans and older Americans — who are most likely to be incensed at the IRS and VA scandals are now the ones even more incensed at the immigration issue…so that they are no longer focused on the IRS and VA.
The poll concluded: “the fact that the issue is of particular concern to Republicans and older Americans — both groups that Republicans need to turn out in force in the midterms — could be critical to the outcome.”
The poll is likely correct, but in a different sort of way. Even the IRS scandal and the VA scandal made many Democrats squirm as well as Republicans, so there was no way to pit one group against the other for political gain. With the immigration surge, however, it is a bit more partisan, and creates a better opportunity for the Democrats to target the Republicans on this issue (and vice versa) — precisely in time for election season.
In fact, the Washington Times noted last week,
“Perhaps one particular decision by the White House highlights how concerned the administration is about public reaction: As of now, not a single illegal-alien detainee seems to have been sent to Louisiana or Arkansas, the states bordering Texas that are closest to the site of the border deluge. This is no accident. Those two states have Democratic senators up for re-election who are vulnerable enough to lose, but who might still be able to prevail. The White House appears to have decided not to send any illegals there to avoid the potential for political damage.”
The White House is keenly aware of not “letting this crisis go to waste”. They have carefully chosen not to send immigrants to states with vulnerable Democrat elections so that they will avoid arousing the Republican/elderly electorate on Election Day.
On the other hand, those who are concerned about the immigrant surge are already being painted as “anti-children”, “heartless”, etc. Those sentiments are certain to be repeated during the election cycle.
At least one group thinks that this crisis is contrived. The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO), which issued a statement in early June, essentially stating that surge of immigrants, including minors, crossing our border “is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor illegal alien children at risk for purely political purposes.”
The immigration surge is less about immigration than it is about deflection. If the Obama Administration can have a large part of the electorate — especially Republicans and elderly — refocus on something big other than the IRS scandal, VA scandal, and more, then they can be out of scrutiny on those particularly damning issues for at least the time being.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, CONSTITUTION, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
A federal appeals panel handed down a ruling this morning that could be problematic for Obamacare. As just reported, “A judicial panel in a 2-1 ruling said such subsidies can be granted only to those people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run exchange HealthCare.gov.” You can read the entire appeal here.
This is the eagerly awaited Halbig case. The crux of the case lies in the wording of the actual bill of Obamacare, which specifically lists state exchanges as a source of subsidies.
There is no mention of federal exchanges in Obamacare. This was created merely by an IRS rule authorizing the subsidies in federal exchanges. If upheld, it could affect millions of Obamacare enrollees. The article notes,
“the ruling could lead many, if not most of those subsidized customers to abandon their health plans sold on HealthCare.gov because they no longer would find them affordable without the often-lucrative tax credits. And if that coverage then is not affordable for them as defined by the Obamacare law, those people will no longer be bound by the law’s mandate to have health insurance by this year or pay a fine next year.
If there were to be a large exodus of subsidized customers from the HealthCare.gov plans, it would in turn likely lead to much higher premium rates for non-subsidized people who would remain in those plans, who are apt as a group to be in worse health than all original enrollees.”
The government will most certainly file a full review in U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Regardless of the eventual outcome of the case here’s the salient point to take away.
When you look at the plain wording of the actual bill, it really doesn’t make any sense (e.g. common sense). Here we have a perfect example of the Democrats trying — and ultimately succeeding — to push something through without looking at it or even carefully thinking through the implications of the words and provisions. That is not a “glitch”. That is disdain.
Obamacare was drafted badly, and they couldn’t even get it corrected the proper way because of the crookedness by which it was passed. Now we have a stupid mistake that the judiciary is being asked to fix. And that’s the problem.
What the government is asking the courts to do is to ignore the literal wording of the law. On the other hand, if the literal wording is indeed upheld, the immediate effect of a reversal is going to be extremely terrible.
Think about it: the IRS will have to go after people for refunds of tax credits. That will be a messy and slow and heated endeavor. Many people, especially poor people, are going to argue that they wouldn’t have used Obamacare insurance if it wasn’t for the subsidies. From a tactical perspective, such a scenario is not necessarily good for conservative or libertarians either, because it sets up the sound-byte narratives that conservatives and libertarians are “taking away your health care”, “they hate the poor, etc”, which will most certainly be used ad nauseam by the Democrats. Is it worth it?
My heart of hearts wants literal side to win, but at the same time, I’m not entirely convinced that its the best thing in the long run. Yet, if the government wins, it reinforces the precedent we’ve been seeing that it is okay to ignore the actual wording of the law passed by Congress. That most certainly is not okay.
This case perfectly highlights the stupidity and utter contempt for which the Democrats have of procedure and law, as seen in the problems with the entire Obamacare bill.
UPDATE: Allahpundit reminds us that the 4th Circuit upheld the Obamacare subsidies for federal exchange consumers.
So…which is it? Is it the intent of the law or the text of the law? Stay tuned on this one.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
First Lois Lerner’s home computer crashed. Then it was seven IRS employees, many who had important positions. You can read about them here. Now, according to the Daily Caller, the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane reported in congressional testimony that even more IRS officials succumbed to computer crashes. He estimated that the number was no more than 20. Kane also stated that the IRS does not know yet if those lost emails are backed up anywhere.
Last month in June, the IRS commissioner John Koskinen testified that he did not know of any way to get missing IRS emails back, which was in contrast to his March testimony that IRS employee emails are saved on servers. In that interim time between the two testimonies, it was learned that in September of 2011, the IRS canceled its contract with an email archiving firm after 6 years.
The names of the newest IRS crash victims include: “David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens”.
The IRS computer crashes happened in both Washington DC and Cincinnati. Additionally, it appears that the IRS violated the The Federal Records Act, which required IRS employees to save and also print out all of their emails related to IRS business — in the unlucky event a hard drive crashed or was deleted in an improper data recycling procedure.
UPDATE: Even as the IRS scandal continues to worsen, the IRS brazenly put out a new solicitation on Monday for “media destruction” services to destroy at least another 3,200 hard drives.
You can’t make this up.
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
Charles Krauthammer’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post this past week was a succinct and cogent piece of writing on the Gaza-Israeli conflict. Where many news organizations have been wont to blame Israel, Krauthammer calls it like it is.
This piece was so excellent, it is worth it to reprint in its entirety below.
MORAL CLARITY IN GAZA
Israel accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas keeps firing. Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them, actually telephoning civilians in the area and dropping warning charges, so-called roof knocking.
“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”
Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.
Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.
And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.
The Israel Defense Forces released a video on Thursday that they claim shows a tunnel that Hamas militants planned to use to attack Israel.
The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that, simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank as well and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution.
This is not ancient history. This was nine years ago.
And how did the Gaza Palestinians react to being granted by the Israelis what no previous ruler, neither Egyptian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever given them — an independent territory? First, they demolished the greenhouses. Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead of building a state with its attendant political and economic institutions, they spent the better part of a decade turning Gaza into a massive military base, brimming with terror weapons, to make ceaseless war on Israel.
Where are the roads and rail, the industry and infrastructure of the new Palestinian state? Nowhere. Instead, they built mile upon mile of underground tunnels to hide their weapons and, when the going gets tough, their military commanders. They spent millions importing and producing rockets, launchers, mortars, small arms, even drones. They deliberately placed them in schools, hospitals, mosques and private homes to better expose their own civilians. (Just Thursday, the U.N. announced that it found 20 rockets in a Gaza school.) And from which they fire rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Why? The rockets can’t even inflict serious damage, being almost uniformly intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. Even West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas has asked: “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?”
It makes no sense. Unless you understand, as Tuesday’s Post editorial explained, that the whole point is to draw Israeli counterfire.
This produces dead Palestinians for international television. Which is why Hamas perversely urges its own people not to seek safety when Israel drops leaflets warning of an imminent attack.
To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense.
In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, the depravity of Hamas begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the killers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war criminals while incessantly condemning Israel, a state warred upon for 66 years that nonetheless goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid harming the very innocents its enemies use as shields.
It’s to the Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have the minimum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear.
by | ARTICLES, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, QUICKLY NOTED, TAXES
A federal judge authorized two of three tea party complaints against the IRS to move ahead, despite a plea for dismissal from the accusations of discrimination.
“In her ruling Thursday, Judge Susan Dlott allowed two of the tea party groups’ claims — including that the IRS discriminated and retaliated against them based on their views in violation of their free speech rights — to survive to trial”
This will be interesting to watch, and marks several cases now pending against the IRS in court.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
State and local governments have been forbidden from taxing Internet access — apparently forever — according to a bill passed in the House on July 15. This measure was a response to updating the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1996, which had a extension passed in 2007 and was on the verge of expiration.
House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte explained that the bill “prevents a surprise tax hike on Americans’ critical services this fall. It also maintains unfettered access to one of the most unique gateways to knowledge and engine of self-improvement in all of human history.
Unfortunately, it is expected to be joined with the Marketplace Fairness Act when it heads to the Senate. That abominable piece of legislation was passed in May 2013; it’s merely a back-door way for states to add additional levies on their citizens under the guise of leveling the playing field, while simultaneously adding undo burden to businesses by expecting compliance with multiple tax jurisdictions. Read more about the Marketplace Fairness Act here.
As for the Internet Tax, it’s a bill to keep track of as it moves through Congress
by | BLOG, BUSINESS, CONSTITUTION, ECONOMY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
The next big case related to Obamacare, Halbig v. Burwell, is sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The verdict should be announced soon. The crux of the case lies in the wording of the actual bill of Obamacare, which specifically lists state exchanges as a source of subsidies.
There is no mention of federal exchanges in Obamacare. This was created merely by an IRS rule authorizing the subsidies in federal exchanges.
Regardless of the outcome of the case (for a primer, click here), here’s the salient point to take away.
When you look at the plain wording of the actual bill, it really doesn’t make any sense (common sense). Here we have a perfect example of the Democrats trying — and ultimately succeeding — to push something through without looking at it or even carefully thinking through the implications of the words and provisions.
Obamacare was drafted badly, and they couldn’t even get it corrected the proper way because of the crookedness by which it was passed. Now we have a stupid mistake that the judiciary is being asked to fix. And that’s the problem.
What the government is asking the courts to do is to ignore the literal wording of the law. On the other hand, if the literal wording is indeed upheld, the immediate effect of a reversal is going to be extremely terrible.
Think about it. The IRS will have to go after people for refunds of tax credits. That will be a messy and slow and heated endeavor. Many people, especially poor people, are going to argue that they wouldn’t have used Obamacare insurance if it wasn’t for the subsidies. Not sure if that scenario is ultimately good for conservative or libertarians either, because it certainly sets up the sound-byte narratives that conservatives and libertarians want to “take away your health care”, “they hate the poor, etc”. Is it worth it?
My heart of hearts wants literal side to win, but at the same time, I’m not entirely convinced that its the best thing in the long run. Yet, if the government wins, it reinforces the precedent we’ve been seeing that it is okay to ignore the actual wording of the law, much in the same fashion that the wording of the Constitution is being ignored in some instances.
This case perfectly highlights the stupidity and utter disdain for which the Democrats have of procedure and law.
by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
In another laughable, irresponsible, and certainly illegal move (far overreaching any possible regulatory claim), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against a private company that fired employees who could not effectively communicate in English. The EEOC lawsuit alleges that this violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on “national origin”.
The EEOC’s logic argues that this includes “the “linguistic characteristics of a national origin group.” The EEOC is in fact saying that a business may not use its own judgment as to whether its employees need to speak English fluently, whether or not there is any evidence of discrimination.
This lawsuit has shades of another ludicrous overreach in June of 2013 by the EEOC that also referenced Title VII “discrimination” in their cases, alleging that,
“BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina, and the largest small-box discount retailer [Dollar General] in the United States violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by implementing and utilizing a criminal background policy that resulted in employees being fired and others being screened out for employment”
These cases appear to have been filed soon after a December 2012 “strategic enforcement plan” was issued by the EEOC “that included targeting background checks as a barrier to employment of minorities”. Within six months, both BMW and Dollar General were sued.
However, the rulings did not go quite the way the EEOC would have liked. Judicial Watch noted that, “U.S. District Court Judge Roger Titus lambasted the administration’s expert data, writing that it was “laughable”; “based on unreliable data”; “rife with analytical error”; containing “a plethora of errors and analytical fallacies” and a “mind-boggling number of errors”; “completely unreliable”; “so full of material flaws that any evidence of disparate impact derived from an analysis of its contents must necessarily be disregarded”; “distorted”; “both over and under inclusive”; “cherry-picked”; “worthless”; and “an egregious example of scientific dishonesty.”
There are simply no facts to support a theory of disparate impact, the judge writes, further stating: “By bringing actions of this nature, the EEOC has placed many employers in the “Hobson’s choice” of ignoring criminal history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized information deemed fundamental by most employers.”
Having recovered from the sting, the EEOC is back spending taxpayer funds to target private businesses with frivolous lawsuits. According to their press release regarding Wisconsin Plastics, Incs “the EEOC’s pre-suit administrative investigation revealed that WPI fired the Hmong and Hispanic employees based on 10-minute observations that marked them down for their English skills, even though those skills were not needed to perform their jobs”
Furthermore, according to the EEOC Chicago Regional Attorney John C. Hendrickson, “Our experience at the EEOC has been that so-called ‘English only’ rules and requirements of English fluency are often employed to make what is really discrimination appear acceptable. But superficial appearances are not fooling anyone. When speaking English fluently is not, in fact, required for the safe and effective performance of a job, nor for the successful operation of the employer’s business, requiring employees to be fluent in English usually constitutes employment discrimination on the basis of national origin — and thus violates federal law”
Wisconson plastics, Inc, on the other hand, maintains that the EEOC claims are “false and absolutely without merit”. The EEOC counters that English language requirements are justifiable only when “ absolutely necessary “for an employer to operate safely or efficiently.” but simultaenously admits that “there is no precise test for making this evaluation.”
The Wisconsin Plastic, Inc explains that there “the layoff decisions at issue in the fall of 2012 were made on the basis of the employees’ overall comparative skills, behaviors and job performance over time. Though the decisions were difficult, they were necessary in order to ensure the ongoing stability of Wisconsin Plastics for the benefit of WPI’s customers, its shareholders, the community and the roughly 275 current company and temporary employees.”
So a company operates to benefit its customers, shareholders, the community, and its employees. This sometimes results in a hard decision to discontinue the employment of an employee or employees whose performance does not positively benefit the company to a company-decided level of satisfaction.
The fact that the EEOC can instead arbitrarily decide it knows the intentions of a company better than a company itself, and moreover, sue that company for discrimination when the company decides to terminate an employee that is just not working out, is utterly outrageous.
Let’s hope that the next judge is as wise as the one who presided over the BMW and Dollar General court cases.
by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
What’s going on with oil and energy these days?
Last week, SNL Financial noted that,
“Canada’s crude oil producers are looking to markets other than the U.S. to sell increased output amid delays in pipeline expansions, according to the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“In terms of growth potential, Keystone is obviously bogged down and everything behind Keystone in the queue is bogged down because the regulatory process won’t engage on those other projects until Keystone clears its hurdles one way or another,” Collyer said. “The primary focus for Canadian producers, Canadian governments and Canadian pipeline companies is to look east and to look west.”
Canada is tired of waiting. What else?
Besides the current frustration with our Canadian friends, there is another overlooked consequence stemming from the delays with the Keystone XL Pipeline project: high gas prices.
Although the pipeline (and ANWR, and other major oil projects) have multi-year lead times, when a project of this magnitude has the green light to move ahead, it has an immediate effect on the markets by changing the traders’ expectations of future supply. Having more oil available in the marketplace contributes to lower prices for consumers. So when Keystone was delayed — multiple times — the markets have reacted accordingly.
In fact, it was noted last week that July 4th marked a record 1290 days of gas prices above $3.00/gallon. Gas prices climbed above $3.00/gallon on Dec. 23, 2010, and that streak has continued since then.
Of course, don’t forget what Secretary Chu said back in 2012 about the price of gas: Chu “admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices.
Chu, along with the Obama administration, regards the spike in gas prices as a feature rather than a bug. High gas prices provide an incentive for alternate energy technology, a priority for the White House, and a decrease in reliance on oil for energy”.
This helped to explain why Keystone was delayed. While the White House continues to “figure out” how to balance two of his major constituencies (labor is pro-pipeline and environmental is anti-pipeline), Americans are feeling the price at the pump. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
According to Gordon Ritchie, vice chairman of RBC Capital Markets, Ritchie noted,
“I’m at a loss to understand why the Americans wouldn’t approve the pipeline going down south because of the difference between the Brent price of oil — world price — and the North American combined price of WTI (West Texas Intermediate). “That $5 a barrel is really a subsidy by Canada to American consumers of gasoline and it works out to about $20 billion a year.”
To add insult to injury, a new report is out that shows the highway trust fund is losing money due to to more fuel efficient cars, which Obama had repeatedly championed. Additionally, the high prices have kept Americans from traveling as much. The highway trust fund will go from a budgeted $50 billion to around $34 billion. The Highway Trust Fund receives roughly 18 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold in this country.
Meanwhile, Canada gets antsy, gas prices are high, the Highway Trust fund is being depleted. Will the Obama Administration finally move forward with Keystone?
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton called upon the IRS to defend itself in court on July 11th.
According to the Washington Examiner, IRS lawyers will be asked to explain “why the IRS shouldn’t be required to let an outside expert evaluate whether emails on the computer hard drives of former IRS official Lois Lerner and six colleagues really are lost forever.”
The motion filed seeks an outside computer forensics expert to determine the ability to salvage or not the data apparently lost to a crash. At the very least, the IRS was not following proper laws and procedures to protect information.
“If the IRS’s public statements about ‘recycling’ Ms. Lerner’s hard drive are true, that alone establishes spoliation of evidence that violates federal statutes and regulations, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and professional ethics and responsibility.
You can read the motion here:
