Category Archives: Law
Smidgen of Corruption
Usually when a politician is asked about a particular scandal he stonewalls and says he’d love to set the record straight but he just can’t because an investigation is ongoing. In a refreshing change of pace President Obama told Bill O’Reilly there’s “not a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS.
George Will has said the IRS scandal should be treated like Watergate.
Lois Lerner was the head of the IRS division that grants tax exemptions to non profit groups. During a speech to the American Bar Association she arranged for a planted question so that she could account for increased scrutiny the IRS was giving to conservative groups, compared to liberal groups, seeking tax exempt status.
When asked about this by Congress Lerner pleaded the fifth.
Well, Maybe a Smidgen of Corruption
Cleta Mitchell, a respected attorney representing grass roots conservative groups, says the IRS contuse to target them to this day.
Unemployment Liberation
War is peace, freedom is slavery, and unemployment is liberation.
A new Congressional Budget Office report says ObamaCare will cost the economy 2.3 million jobs. Lower income workers will have a “disincentive to work”, as CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf put it.
“By providing subsidies that decline with rising income (and increase with falling income), and by making some people financially better off, the Affordable Care Act will create an incentive for some people to work less,” the report states.
The White House has embraced this. Jason Furman the chairman of the Council for Economic Advisers calls it freedom from “job lock”.
Unemployment Liberation Update:
University of Chicago Economist Casey Mulligan thinks that’s nuts:
I don’t know what their intentions are,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “but it looks like they’re trying to leverage the lack of economic education in their audience by making these sorts of points.
I can understand something like cigarettes and people believe that there’s too much smoking, so we put a tax on cigarettes, so people smoke less, and we say that’s a good thing. OK. But are we saying we were working too much before? Is that the new argument? I mean make up your mind. We’ve been complaining for six years now that there’s not enough work being done. . . . Even before the recession there was too little work in the economy. Now all of a sudden we wake up and say we’re glad that people are working less? We’re pursuing our dreams?
Chris Christie Tied Up
Chris Christie and his political ambitions are tied up right now. A lawyer for the guy responsible for the infamous closing of the lanes on the George Washington bridge says Christie knew about the stunt.
Christie’s campaign committee wants permission to spend $127,000 left over from its $12 million binge to re-elect the governor. The campaign says it needs that money, and more, for legal defense against subpoenas issued by US prosecutors.
After parsing the slippery “meaning of is” language used by both Christie and the lawyer in the bridge case, The Washington Examiner says the bombshell could be a dud.
Update:
Politico reports on a Christie email criticizing the New York Times and David Wildstein (the guy responsible for the bridge lane closing).
Separation of Powers
During his State of the Union speech the president again emphasized his intention to go it alone. He’s his own separation of powers. He’s got a phone and a pen and he doesn’t need no stinking Congress.
Update:
Back in December Law professor Jonathan Turley said that President Obama is “becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid”.
Update 6/5/14:
Professor Turley now says Obama is the president Nixon always wanted to be.
Little Sisters of the Poor
The Little Sisters of the Poor won a skirmish against Big Gov. The Supreme Court issued an injunction that excused the nuns from filling out a form directing others to provide contraceptives to their employees.
