501(tea)(4) tax-exempt status

Two things before we begin:

1. I realize Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials aren’t politicians, but I don’t think I need to make a “bureaucrats behaving badly” tag.
2. If you were disappointed that this was not the Fail of the Week on Saturday, Benghazi was absolutely the bigger fail, because it involved death. So, bite me.

On to business. As you’re all by now aware, it turns out senior IRS officials were indeed aware of the fact that some of their underlings were targeting Tea Party and “patriot” groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status, normally granted to “social welfare” organizations that only engage in politics less than half the time. These groups had complained about “harassment” from the IRS before; as it turns out, they had a point. Earlier, Lois Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt organizations at the IRS, said this targeting was done for the purpose of “streamlining” due to an influx of such applications between 2010 and 2012.

It’s not the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard. Were it not for the fact that the IRS has a vested interest in making sure they can pump everything they can out of groups that strongly dislike paying taxes, I’d probably buy it. There’s also the small matter of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissing claims of partisanship on the ground that the IRS is an “independent enforcement agency” with only two political appointees. Actually, it’s a bureau of the Treasury Department. I guess “independence” in the Washington sense is in the eye of the beholder.

Further investigation may or may not turn up a directive from then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to go after Tea Party groups, which is necessary in order to blame the White House. Until that happens, I would avoid doing so, although some investigation into claims of IRS harassment would have been most welcome. I would also avoid accusing the IRS of pure politics, unless it’s discovered later that a roughly equal amount of Occupy-affiliated groups started applying for 501(c)(4) status within the same time frame and were not scrutinized to the same extent.

But what kind of “social welfare” work do these groups do that allows them to be designated as 501(c)(4)s? Don’t tell me it’s “standing up for taxpayers” or something; by that logic, any lobby group could get the same status for “standing up for” people. I hesitate to call their purpose “educational,” given the explicitly ideological bent. They’d be better off as 501(c)(6) organizations, as chambers of commerce are, or 527 organizations, as political action committees (PACs) and issue advocacy groups are.

But none of this excuses the IRS’s inattention to how this would look when it inevitably came out. Expect Lerner to hand in her resignation at the same time as State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. Maybe they’ll start a consulting firm.

I don’t think we’re legal in Kansas anymore

Occasionally, in the interests of making a point, someone does something so guaranteed to cause them a world of trouble that you wonder if they’re a closet masochist, or if they’ve just lost their mind. This week, that someone is Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS). I can’t say I’ve been a fan of his since his office indirectly made a student write him an apology letter for tweeting about him with the hashtag #heblowsalot. He gets credit for his work on the conflict minerals file. But not on this file, by a long shot.

Last week, Brownback signed into law a statute that would prevent the federal government from enforcing certain gun laws if they infringe on the manufacture and sale of guns within state borders. Not only that, any federal official – except for U.S. Marshals or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents – would be charged with a felony for attempting to enforce said laws. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped put the statute together, says the Interstate Commerce Clause is enough to make this constitutional.

Naturally, Attorney General Eric Holder is basing his counter-attack on the Supremacy Clause. Let’s take a look at both of them:

The Congress shall have power . . . to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes . . .

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Now, if you’re a (second half of the) Second Amendment literalist, you’ll probably argue that gun control laws are by nature not made “in pursuance” of the Constitution. But let’s focus on the Commerce Clause. United States v. Lopez is arguably the most famous gun-related Supreme Court decision in which this clause was a factor; without giving too much away, if you disagree with Brownback and Kobach, you probably won’t be happy with the outcome of that case.

So it could turn out that “made in Kansas” gun manufacture and sale ultimately falls under state purview. But the idea that the same will apply to felony charges against federal employees doing their jobs is insane. Perhaps this is a gimmick to force the Supreme Court to rule at least partly in Brownback and Kobach’s favor (because you know this is going to the Supreme Court). Or maybe it’s just insane.

Speaking of insane: Glenn Beck at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention. “All of mankind” isn’t that worried, but thanks for the shout-out.

R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher, I guess

There’s a factor of politics that should never, ever surprise you: If a well-known politician dies and they weren’t a war criminal, a terrorist, a felon or a generally terrible person (by “generally,” I mean “according to pretty much all right-thinking people and not just those who disagreed with them”), you will have to spend at least a couple of days slogging through various hagiographies. This process has already started off for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died yesterday. Not that everyone is idolizing her (seriously, how tasteless is this?), but it’s the prevailing trend.

I was about a year old when Thatcher left office, so I don’t know much about her beyond what I’ve read. Based on almost all of those accounts, she possessed many qualities I would likely have admired if I had been 23 years old that year, and she made a lot of decisions I wouldn’t have admired. That is the extent of my feelings for her. When I learned of her death yesterday morning, my reaction can be summed up as “Oh. OK.” Granted, I react to a lot of things that way, but shouldn’t the death of Thatcher, one of the world’s most legendary heads of state, have evoked something?

Well, I did manage mild amusement at the way other people I know responded:

1. When informed of political commentator David Frum’s post-death blog posts (10 as of this writing, although they’re short), a right-wing contact who shall remain nameless said he didn’t want to hear what “a liberal” had to say about Thatcher, which is especially funny given that Frum is usually good for a quote about Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and as a result is probably equally informed about Thatcher.

2. Soon after, Steve from Winnipeg praised Thatcher for her liberalism, using the word in the classical sense.

3. Later in the day, a friend of Michael from Winnipeg accused the media of “twisting . . . history” when discussing Thatcher, despite the fact that this person wasn’t there. (For his part, Michael linked to a Glenn Greenwald piece authorizing people to speak ill of dead public figures if they feel like it.)

4. Brian from Massachusetts took a policy of non-reaction, instead advising us that our perceptions of Thatcher’s legacy are all skewed and future generations of historians will ultimately decide what it was.

5. Rick from Pennsylvania commented that Thatcher had “a kind of haughty charm, like a female Churchill,” which I can only imagine every female British politician wants to hear about herself.

6. And Aggie from Winnipeg encouraged everyone to reminisce about Thatcher with this . . . thing. It makes no damn sense.

And that’s my obligatory Thatcher post. We’ll get back to news with present-day implications tomorrow.

The No More Benghazis Act

If it seems to you that the Benghazi consulate attack has become a partisan wedge issue – as evidenced partly by the fact that people with black-and-yellow Benghazi ribbons in their Twitter avatars tend to be fire-breathing right-wingers – fear not, for freshman Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Grace Meng (D-NY) are here. They’ve teamed up on legislation designed to correct the bureaucratic problems that allowed requests for more consulate security to go unmet. It comes down to this: Nobody has actually been fired yet.

The bill does not appear to have a shmancy name yet, so feel free to call it the No More Benghazis Act, as someone else inevitably will. It amends the Diplomatic Security Act of 1986 to make it easier to fire State Department officials. Under current law, they can only be fired in case of a “breach of duty,” in which they intentionally violate a State Department rule or policy. Under this law, an employee could be fired if he or she

has engaged in misconduct or unsatisfactorily performed the duties of employment . . . and such misconduct or unsatisfactory performance has significantly contributed to the serious injury, loss of life, or significant destruction of property, or . . . serious breach of security . . .

In short, if you mess up and people die, you’re fired. A simple mistake might not seem like an acceptable standard for dismissal in your workplace – I’ve kept my job despite bungling a few segments – but chances are your co-workers aren’t under threat of attack by Libyan militants.

Even if this bill passes, don’t expect the questions to let up. An Accountability Review Board (ARB) found in December 2012 that the security lapses took place on the assistant secretary level, “where the rubber hits the road.” Eric Boswell, then-Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, resigned his current duties, while three others were placed on paid administrative leave. The ARB members were appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Uh-huh.

But back to the business at hand. Why wasn’t the type of misconduct or unsatisfactory job performance outlined in Perry and Meng’s bill already the threshold? Not only is it unfair to the people who suffered death or injury from their mistakes and their families, it’s unfair to taxpayers to keep them on leave. They’ve already irredeemably violated the public trust through their actions, or lack of actions. The best and the brightest aren’t the kind of people who can only say “Oh, I should have thought of that” to an attack on the level of Benghazi.

Now if only we could apply a similar standard to lawmakers and other government officials whose screw-ups lead to bailouts, sequestrations and excessive collateral damage in war zones. Oh, what a happy day that would be.

Another open letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I won’t take up too much of your time because I know you have your hands full, what with that “flexibility” you’ve been granted over the $85 billion in spending cuts you’ll have to implement. It’s a big job. But we’ve gotta talk about that speech you gave on Friday. You know, the one about how disappointed you were that Congress, primarily its Republican members, failed to cut a deal. Polls say the majority of Americans agree with your perspective. So you probably think the speech was perfect.

Well, I hate to school a second-term president on the importance of presidentiality, but I found that lacking. I refer to the following passages:

. . . let’s be clear: None of this is necessary. It’s happening because a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. They’ve allowed these cuts to happen because they refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit.

We just need Republicans in Congress to catch up with their own party and their country . . . I do know that there are Republicans in Congress who privately at least say that they would rather close tax loopholes than let these cuts go through.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice that you only referred to your own party once:

I know that there are Democrats who’d rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through.

Meaning, there are Democrats who wouldn’t rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through. As we both know, smart entitlement reform is essential to comprehensive debt reduction. I know you grappled with that at first, but you’ve grudgingly accepted it now. So where is your demand for the, shall we say, less compliant Democrats to shape up?

Those additional references to the opposing party gave the entire speech a much more partisan tone than was necessary or befitting. You know as well as anyone, sir, that the debt is everyone’s problem, and everyone can and should have a hand in its resolution. But ever since your administration dreamed up the sequester, you’ve been focusing inordinately on the failings of the Republican Party. I don’t excuse those failings. But they are not exclusive to either party.

The Constitution limits your ability to legislate, as it should. But you’ve been limiting your own bipartisan tone when calling for a bipartisan deal from legislators. We find that confusing, sir. I hope we can expect more consistency in the future.

Sincerely yours,

Jess Chapman
The Future American

Tweets from last night

8:22 p.m. CT: “Sounds like he’s calling for a grand bargain to avert sequester. So, nothing new.”

8:23: “Calls for “modest” Medicare reforms. Wonder how Congress will interpret that one?”

8:24: “Woooo! Simpson-Bowles shout-out! (And an Obamacare shout-out, which is less awesome.)”

8:28: “Makes the point that political gridlock is bad for the economy. Uh-huh.”

8:30: “Oh boy. The American Jobs Act is back. And this time it’s deficit-neutral. Fact-checkers, you know what to do.”

8:32: “Three new Manufacturing Innovation Institutes. He wants 15. Intriguing, but sounds a little Canadian.”

8:34: “‘Nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it.’ FACT CHECK!”

8:36: “Wants a “bipartisan, market-based approach to climate change,” name-checks McCain/Lieberman, threatens exec. action. Wow.”

8:37: “‘Energy security trust?’ This’ll probably go nowhere.”

8:39: “Fix It First: funding repairs of most critically weak/damaged infrastructure, with private sector partnership. Not bad.”

8:42: “Calls for preschool expansion. I learned the alphabet at 18 months so I don’t really connect with this.”

8:46: “Affordability, value will be factored into federal college aid. Again, intriguing, but will that help much?”

8:48: “Cheers for comprehensive immigration reform: border security, pathway to citizenship, cutting waiting periods for preferred legals.”

8:49: “Supports #VAWA passage: good. Supports Paycheck Fairness Act: GOD.”

8:51: “Calls for minimum wage at $9. Any economists care to comment?”

8:53: “NEW tax credits? #facepalm”

8:57: “Promises more congressional notification of drone use and detention. Very helpful.”

9:01: “Trans-Pacific Partnership AND Trans-Atlantic Partnership. Nice.”

9:03: “Plays it politically safe on Egypt, Syria, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Russia.”

9:04: “Same goes for diplomatic security and having the BEST (and most equal) MILITARY EVAR.”

9:07: “A voting rights commission. Hope it delivers better results than the last few commissions!”

9:12: “Tone: We just need gun control legislation, period. Um, OK.”

Rand Paul’s going off again

State of the Union (SOTU) 2013 is on tomorrow evening, and as always, I’ll have my reaction up the morning after. But you’ll have more than one reaction to get through before that. Seeing as he’s the Senate Republican with the highest positive name recognition at the moment, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) will be delivering the “official” GOP response. Any guesses as to who’s delivering the unofficial GOP response? That’s right, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Actually, it’s not really a GOP response at all. It’s a response on behalf of an interest group, from the mouth of a GOP member. You can tell because Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were the ones to deliver the news about Rubio, whereas the political action committee (PAC) known as the Tea Party Express (we’ll call them “the Express”) delivered the news about Paul. I’d assume this annoyed Boehner and McConnell if I didn’t think they’d come to expect this sort of thing from Paul by now.

The Express is arguably the most notable of the national Tea Party organizations. Their modus operandi is to travel around the country holding rallies against laws they don’t like, and to promote and fund candidates they do like. They’ve been hailed for their comparatively high level of political sophistication, having exerted tangible influence over a number of high-profile House and Senate races.They’re not just dressing up in Revolutionary garb and waving around (fake?) muskets.

Having already gotten businessman Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to do this in 2012 and 2011, respectively, finding any senator to give a counter-SOTU is a testament to the Express’s success. Of course, I’ll really be impressed if they ever get a senator other than Paul; that choice was as obvious for the Express as Rubio was for GOP leadership. So here’s the question most people will ask about this: Does this represent a growing divide between establishment, multi-issue Republicans and the grassroots (once), laser-focused Tea Party?

Of course it does. We’ve been talking about that divide ever since we decided referring to the latter as “teabaggers” was rude. It hasn’t improved much since then. Here’s a more pertinent question: What does it mean when a PAC, which once could only rely on press releases and social media, can respond to something as big as the SOTU through an elected intermediary? The coziness between Paul and Co., such as the Co. is, and the Express merits plenty of wariness, to say nothing of Rep. Steve Stockman’s (R-TX) coziness with mildly deranged rocker Ted Nugent and Obama’s coziness with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

I’ve advised the GOP to be more mindful of its need to attract libertarian voters. One need not be a genuine libertarian to be in the Tea Party, but the need is the same. Their job is to give the Tea Party dissenters reasons to work for who they really work for.

Another day, another vacated Cabinet position

With seemingly the entire Obama administration finding alternate employment, President Obama is wasting no time leaning toward new people to fill the most high-profile positions. Word has it that he’s already found someone to fill the shoes of outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood: Deborah Hersman, who currently heads the National Transportation Safety Board (NTDB). She’s good in her own right. But this position needs better.

Originally, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was Obama’s top choice, transportation being a key priority during his mayoralty. But Villaraigosa released a statement saying he would stay mayor. Hersman has also previously indicated disinterest in the position, reaffirming her commitment to the case of the Boeing Dreamliner. This must be disappointing for Obama, given that she’s also a woman and people have been getting testy about his relatively low number of female appointments. Same with the Latino Villaraigosa. But, of course, those priorities are entirely political.

I was briefly intrigued with the idea of nominating former Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN). He has experience in transportation safety and development, while Hersman’s experience is too weighted toward safety; an incoming Transportation Secretary will need to know enough about the latter to make informed funding decisions. But here are the red flags with Oberstar:

• he’s 78 years old;
• he and Obama haven’t gotten along well since that spat about surface transportation in 2009;
• his ideas for how to use gas tax revenue are a bit off-the-wall;
• and he’s crusaded against the private spaceflight industry for somewhat nanny-statish reasons.

So, that’s probably out of the question.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) was also mentioned as a contender, having co-founded an infrastructure advocacy group since leaving office and being a Pennsylvanian, which would be helpful to Democrats come 2016. He’s also been chairman of the National Governors Association, which gives him bipartisan cred. But he says he’s too “independent” to hold a Cabinet post, although that could be taken as a dare to Obama to ask him and see what happens. (He could. You never know.)

My favorite of the rumored candidates is Gene Conti, who headed the North Carolina Department of Transportation under former Gov. Bev Perdue (D-NC), has substantial federal experience, is unafraid to trim the fat and strongly emphasizes “data-driven analytics.” Transportation being as complex as it is, I would prefer to see an ultra-wonk in charge than an ex-politician. And since he’s already led a DOT, we know he can handle safety and development at the same time.

Inauguration 2013: A cluster analysis

Cluster analysis was a favorite critical method of mine as a rhetoric student. This is how I will examine President Obama’s inaugural address from yesterday. (Full text here.) With public opinion divided on how partisan the speech was (or wasn’t), our clusters will be left and right, and the terms will be those to which members of the modern American left and right react the most positively, depending on the context.

Left: privileges, equality, modern, workers, fair play, vulnerable, protect, change, collective, teachers, war, youth, diversity, openness, reinvention, together, few, many, wages, labor, hardship, poverty, technology, schools, empower, health care, generation, investing, disability, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, climate change, science, sustainable, planet, peace, friends, engagement, conscience, marginalized, prejudice, tolerance, Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall, preacher, [Martin Luther] King, wives, mothers and daughters, gay brothers and sisters, immigrants, progress, common

Right: exceptional, Creator, patriots, tyranny, liberty, free market, competition, central authority, enterprise, hard work, personal responsibility, individual, businesses, risk, prosperity, independence, free, God, tax code, determination, deficit, takers, industries, vitality, uniform, courage, vigilant, arms, rule of law, anchor, powerful, interests, opportunity, justice, role of government, duty, flag, light of freedom

As you can see, the left cluster has a fair bit more terms than the right cluster. In addition, take note of a couple of binaries:

. . . we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

. . . America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.

. . . maintain our economic vitality . . . preserve our planet . . .

Notice how the right cluster word comes before the left cluster word. None of these are mutually exclusive, and Obama did not suggest this. But putting the left word second implies progression from the right word. This is why it was so easy for right-wingers to call the speech “partisan” in an Obaman fashion; they think he sees emphasis on the right cluster word as old news.

Some miscellaneous commentary: His delivery was great until you consider how much backtracking he’ll do when he gets to work. “Barack H. Obama?” Come on, we all know what the H stands for. Also, rumor has it that not only did former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) not bother to attend the inauguration, he didn’t even watch. I don’t care how big an election you lose; if you care about the jurisdiction you ran to lead, you pay attention to the person leading it.

Mr. Christie, you’d make a good third party

(To bewildered American readers: Christie is the Canadian brand name for Nabisco products, and its slogan is “Mr. Christie, you make good cookies.” . . . Well, I thought it was funny, anyway. Shut up.)

Few events in U.S. politics are more entertaining than a speech in which Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) calls out a specific person or group. When he did exactly this to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday, using words like “petty” and “selfishness” and “disgusting” and “shame,” it was an enormous gift to Christie fans across the country. He wasn’t impressed with Boehner’s refusal to hold a vote on the $60 billion Hurricane Sandy aid package, nor were multiple New Jersey and New York politicians – and he let err’body know.

Boehner has since agreed to hold two votes, one providing $9 billion to the National Flood Insurance Program and another providing $51 billion to Sandy relief specifically. That likely won’t make up for the suspected reason he cancelled Tuesday night’s vote:

Sources said the vote was put off because the GOP conference, angered over passing a fiscal-cliff bill without spending cuts, was not ready to vote on a costly emergency spending bill.

Now there’s an acceptable excuse.

As Christie’s press conference was going on, Chris from Texas and I began speculating about his future as a Republican. Unlike when he praised President Obama for his actions during and after Sandy, this speech signifies a deep divide between Christie and his party. Chris thought the Dems would salivate at the opportunity to snare him. I agreed, but doubted that Christie would want to bother with them, especially if entitlement reform and spending talks lead to more ideas being taken off the table.

What if, instead, Christie took it upon himself to start a new party? One that, like him, was fiscally responsible and (relatively speaking) socially laissez-faire? One that had no patience for political sacred cows and was all about getting the job done for as many Americans as possible? One that attracted disaffected Republicans, wobbling Democrats and maybe a few libertarians here and there? One in which Christie/Huntsman 2016 was a viable ticket? That’s the opportunity at which I’m salivating. You know you are, too.

Some pundits used Christie’s speech to surmise about the forthcoming rise of the “non-Tea Party Republicans.” A better name would be the Third Party Republicans – high-profile, well-respected pols who have retained their allegiance to the GOP so far, but are very likely to drop it if the likes of Boehner keep making the party look ridiculous. If Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) hinted at similar discontent, they could just give up all pretense and start the New Republican Party right there.