Category Archives: Law
Issa and Cummings Committee Chaos
The big story on Fox New Sunday was that IRS kingpin Lois Lerner would waive her 5th amendment rights and testify before Daryl Issa’s House Oversight committee. At least that’s what Issa told Chris Wallace on Sunday. On Wednesday Lerner pled the fifth again.
Issa Cummings Committee Chaos
Angered by Lerner’s continued silence, Issa ruled the the hearing adjourned. He then silenced the leading committee Democrat, Ellijah Cummings, by cutting off his mic. The room erupted in chaos with Cummings shouting “I’m a U.S. Congressman” and fellow Dems chanting “shame”. Let’s go rinkside to Dana Milbank:
Issa told Wallace on Sunday that Lerner’s “attorney indicates now that she will testify” after refusing to do so at a hearing last year. The lawyer denied this, and Lerner did not testify Wednesday — and that would have been the news, if not for Issa’s sound-system antics.
Indeed. Issa keeps stepping on his own punchline. The news might have been about why Lerner doesn’t want to talk about these emails:
“Tea Party Matter very dangerous… Counsel and Judy Kindell need to be in on this one… Cincy should probably NOT have these cases,” Lerner said in a February 2011 email.
“Cincinnati wasn’t publicly ‘thrown under the bus’ (but) instead was hit by a convoy of Mack trucks,” wrote Cindy Thomas, former director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Cincinnati, in a May 10, 2013 email to Lerner.
It looks like the IRS intimidated conservative groups and the Tea Party was relatively quiet in the 2012 election. Was there corruption? So far Republicans haven’t come up with a smidgen of proof.
IRS Shared Responsibility Payment
In America we’re innocent until proven guilty. Thanks to the fifth amendment we aren’t required to testify against ourselves. That would be the same fifth amendment IRS boss Lois Lerner invoked to avoid testifying about IRS harassment of conservative groups.
As it happens, the one area where we don’t have fifth amendment protection is when it comes to reporting our obligations to the IRS.
In order to bestow on the federal government the power to force us to buy health insurance, Chief Justice Roberts deemed the penalty for not buying insurance to be a tax. That’s because while the U.S. Constitution overlooked insurance sales, it does give Congress the power to tax.
Being a tax, we are required to prove to the IRS that we don’t owe it.
IRS
To soften the blow the IRS isn’t calling this tax the Individual Mandate to Violate of Our Constitutional Rights. They are calling it your Shared Responsibility Payment. Kind of has a ring to it – the Affordable Care Act’s Shared Responsibility Payment.
Where the hell are we?
Just for the fun of it if you want to hear Obama insist again to George Stephanopoulos that the mandate isn’t a tax Click here. (You’ll have to watch a short commercial but it’s worth it.)
Harry Reid’s Horror Stories
You like your doctor but you can’t keep him. You like your insurance but you can’t keep it. ObamaCare is a train wreck.
Koch Brother Horror Stories
These horror stories are all lies, lies, and damned lies according to cowboy poet Harry Reid. They didn’t really happen to you. They were ginned up at the un-American Brothers Koch Fairy Tale mill to send red state democrats running for cover.
The President, the Governors, and the Minimum Wage
In his continuing effort to avoid Congress, President Obama met with state governors on Monday. He stressed that they can can do practical and popular things together, like raise the minimum wage. He’s already flown solo raising the minimum for federal contract workers.
Minimum Wage Economy
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal responded that the Obama economy is a minimum wage economy. Jay Carney said Jindal prefers a $7.25 economy.The Office of Management and Budget says raising the minimum wage will cost 500, 000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the economy in North Dakota is booming. Wages there are soaring for workers who do the one thing the president hates most – produce fossil fuels.
Flynt v Falwell Cartoon First Amendment Anniversary
Today is the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Flynt v Falwell decision. It was a very important ruling because it acts as a kind of get out of jail card for cartoonists. Also, it gives me an excuse to quote myself from my book The Recent History of the United States in Political Cartoons: A Look Bok!:
As an endangered industry, political cartooning seeks, and gets, federal protection. It comes in the form of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Flynt v Falwell
Larry Flynt published an over-the-top raunchy cartoon, in his porn magazine Hustler. The cartoon was about Rev. Jerry Falwell and his mother. Falwell sued and the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Falwell claimed the cartoon caused him emotional distress. Of course it did. That was the point, as Chief Justice Rehnquist noted in the court’s unanimous opinion for Flynt:
“The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on the exploration of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events… often calculated to hurt the feelings of the subject of the portrayal.”
In order to protect political cartoons the court had to protect Larry Flynt’s offensive cartoon. Not many jobs have a Supreme Court mandate to cause emotional distress.
Even so, it’s not like I keep this date marked on my calendar. I noticed it when I stumbled on this piece about it by Carl Cannon at Real Clear Politics. Cannon had this to say about the court’s ruling:
To decide otherwise, the eight justices reasoned, would effectively outlaw political cartooning. This, too, the high court ruled, would be an unwise and unconstitutional decision to render. Rehnquist quoted approvingly from the words of a cartoonist:
“The political cartoon is a weapon of attack, of scorn and ridicule and satire; it is least effective when it tries to pat some politician on the back. It is usually as welcome as a bee sting, and is always controversial in some quarters.”
First Amendment
Flynt and Falwell eventually went on the road together debating the First Amendment.
