Tag Archives: government

The Beginning

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…of another whitewash?  The IRS says it wants to look into claims of “pay to play” requirements perpetrated by the Clinton Foundation.

It’s an interestingly timed investigation.  Absolution of the Clinton Foundation could easily come this fall, in time to influence the election in November.

Commissioner John Koskinen wrote in a July 22 letter to Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn [R, TN] that the issue has been “forwarded” to the IRS “Exempt Organizations Examinations” program in Dallas.

Why now, I ask again.  The IRS has known about these allegations for a long time.  Even The New York Times has been talking about this matter for some time.

A Liberal Justice Talked out of Turn

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now is in the business of publicly bashing politicians who don’t think like she does.

I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our president.  For the country, it could be four years.  For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.

We can also turn her remarks around.

I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Hillary Clinton as our president.  For the country, it could be four years—or a dozen, with her insistence on extending Obama even further, and even farther left.  For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.

And Ginsburg had these gems:

I don’t expect that we’re going to see another affirmative action case [regarding Fisher v University of Texas, wherein Justice Anthony Kennedy gutted his own prior ruling in the case].  I think [Justice Kennedy] comes out as the great hero of this term.

And

It would be an impossible dream.  But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled[.]

The problem here isn’t that she’s engaging in political speech, though.  It’s that her political speech, because of her position and role in our Federal government—a Supreme Court Justice—means that whatever she says in the political arena can only prejudice all of her subsequent rulings.  With such political bashing, she’s predetermining her position on any case that comes before the Court, and not only those that might be brought under or by a Trump administration.

On the other hand, it’s good to know her prejudices—as well as those pre-written opinions on cases yet to come—beforehand, rather than discovering them in her opinions after the rulings have been announced.  Which emphasizes the importance of a question asked by a tweeter and quoted in The Washington Post piece at the first link above:

If there’s a redo of Bush v Gore, how does Ginsburg not recuse herself, given her Trump comments?

How, indeed?  Worse, how could we expect her to?

Two Mistakes

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…are made in a recent The Diplomat piece about the British referendum to leave the EU and our own Founders’ view of popular (direct) democracy.

One is the conflation of a single referendum with direct democracy.

[I]he whole spectacle of a referendum—a “device of dictators and demagogues,” in the words of Margaret Thatcher—underlined a salient point: our soundbite culture, combined with political populism, renders direct democracy in the form of a referendum entirely unsuitable as a tool for deciding complex policy issues.

Or any other culture, apparently.  Notice that, though: a referendum.  Not routine referenda for making all national decisions, which would be popular democracy governance.  No, this was a single referendum to make a single decision; it was no pattern, it set no precedent, and it was entirely appropriate.

This referendum was entirely appropriate because the representative democracy government was itself divided on the matter.

The referendum was especially appropriate for a much larger reason, though.  It’s entirely appropriate, necessary even, for the a representative government to go back to the people as a whole on occasion to get their instruction because that’s how the representatives as a whole (re)calibrate their ties to the people they claim to represent.

The other mistake is claiming that the people are just too stupid to make their own decisions; they need to listen to their Betters and otherwise be quiet.

The voices of reason were further drowned out….

And

T[he Brexit referendum illustrates as much the failure of the experts and elected politicians as it shows that relying on the masses and populism can lead to suspect and potentially damaging decisions. In that sense, we have to guard ourselves against direct democracy being hijacked by demagogues and populists lest we have to endure the “tyranny of the majority” at the expense of wiser policies.

This would be true of a direct democracy; however, see above: a single referendum does not make for a direct democracy means of governance.  The Diplomat‘s piece illustrates, on the contrary, the need for the occasional national referendum.  Experts are in a tizzy because the masses rejected their wisdom and made that damaging decision—at least in the minds of those Betters.  What a representative democracy must especially guard against, though, is being hijacked by demagogues and elitists lest we have to endure the tyranny of the Betters at the expense of the people.

Integrity, DoJ, and the FBI

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FBI Director James Comey has obeyed his orders from his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and her boss, President Barack Obama (D), and he’s recommending no charges be filed against ex-Secretary of State and Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her…mishandling…of classified material via her unsecured email server.

This after saying in his presser announcing his recommendation,

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

In other words, lesser people should be prosecuted, at least administratively, and (not or) have their clearances lifted.  But not Democrats.

John Fund had some questions about Comey’s acquiescence; below are some of them.  It’s important to note that Comey didn’t have the moral courage to stay past his statement and answer any questions, much less these.

You said that anyone in Hillary Clinton’s position would have at least faced administrative or other sanctions for their behavior.  Would you outline what is type of sanctions have been applied in the past?  Would someone like Hillary Clinton be granted a security clearance after violations of this kind?

You stated that the handling of top secret classified material by Hillary Clinton and her aides was “extremely careless.”  Lawyers say that is the definition of the “gross negligence” statute that provides for prosecution of anyone who allows classified information to be mishandled.  What is the difference between those terms in your opinion, and is there a legal difference?

You mentioned that some of the classified information was marked as classified when Mrs. Clinton handled those emails.  Is that not the definition of “gross negligence” that should trigger the statute mandating prosecution of those mishandling sensitive information.

There is a parallel investigation into Mrs. Clinton being conducted by the FBI into possible corruption involving the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.  What is the status of that investigation and do you believe that probe will be finished before Americans go to the polls to elect a president in November?

Did any of the deleted emails recovered from Mrs. Clinton’s email server bear on the investigation of the Clinton Foundation?

It appears that roughly one-in-15 of the work-related messages that Clinton sent or received on the private server have been classified at some level. A total of 22 emails were classified as top secret—the highest level of secrecy.  You said that we should expect some of that information is in the hands of others. Would you characterize how bad the damage to national security would be if that information be compromised?

There’s integrity, Democrat style.

Democrats’ Censorship

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The Democratic Party’s draft platform calls for

the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change[.]

This is on top of all the Democratic Party State Attorneys General persecuting companies under pseudo-RICO charges for daring speak.  Because we can’t have the average American individual [who] is morally and intellectually inadequate presuming to dispute with the Democrats’ received wisdom.  Nossir.

And

Democratic members of the Federal Election Commission, in a decision to be made public on Thursday, voted last month to punish Fox News over criteria changes for the network’s first Republican presidential primary debate….

Fox News‘ crime, so heinous in the eyes of Democrats? They altered the format of that first debate to expand free speech by increasing the number of Presidential candidate debaters.  We can’t have, after all, those morally and intellectually inadequate Americans having access to too wide a range of view.  Mm, mm.  Fortunately, the honest members of the FEC succeeded in blocking this travesty.

This is what a Hillary Clinton administration will inflict on us.