Category Archives: ethics

Cynical

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The DC Circuit, in a mixed ruling, has said the trial court judge had erred in dismissing a collection of Tea Party suits he said had become “moot” because the IRS had apologized for its misbehavior and had said it had stopped such practices.

Of course, the IRS had said it had stopped—sort of—only conditionally.  DC Circuit Judge David Sentelle, writing for the majority (the ruling can be seen here), noted that the IRS only had suspended the screening “until further notice.”

A violation of right that is “suspended until further notice” has not become the subject of voluntary cessation, with no reasonable expectation of resumption, so as to moot litigation against the violation of rights. Rather, it has at most advised the victim of the violation—”you’re alright for now, but there may be another shoe falling.”

Sentelle took issue with “suspended,” understanding that suspension is not cessation.  He took separate issue with that “until further notice” bit, as noted above.

In fact, too, the IRS had not stopped at all.  As Sentelle noted,

…it is absurd to suggest that the effect of the IRS’s unlawful conduct, which delayed the processing of appellant-plaintiffs’ applications, has been eradicated when two of the appellant-plaintiffs’ applications remain pending.

After how many years are these applications still pending? It’s been two years since the trial court made its erroneous dismissal.

Of course, the trial judge knew these things. Based on his logic, too (even if he had been as ignorant as he seemed to be claiming he was), it would seem he would have dismissed charges against Willie Sutton had that worthy only apologized and averred he’s stopped. No consequence should ensue, this judge would seem to insist, for the banks Sutton had already robbed.

How cynical is that?

These are the trial courts and the IRS that will be heavily impacted by the Presidential elections.

The Democrats’ Confession

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John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, told reporters this week that the way to win is to demonstrate Mr Trump is “unfit, that he’s unprepared and that we can’t put him in the Oval Office.” He added: “That’s the core of our strategy.”

President Barack Obama (D) says the Republicans aren’t “conservative” anymore (his definition of conservative, of course).

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says Trump has taken the Republican Party a long way from Reagan (her definition of Reaganism, naturally).

Yep.  The Democrats know that all they have is a continuation of the character assassination they’ve inflicted for all of these last 7+ years.  Podesta, with these remarks, is admitting that the Democrats can’t run on this administration’s record of foreign and domestic failure or on Hillary Clinton’s record in that administration’s sustained failure or her integrity.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this.

Another Out of Control Agency

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…that’s overcome with its own self-importance.  I’ve written before about how the Securities and Exchange System abuses its own system of in-house judges for SEC purposes rather than for the public’s interest.

The Federal Trade Commission is another such agency that’s showing it’s outlived its usefulness and for the same reason.  In 2008, LabMD was “found” to have inadvertently exposed a file containing personally identifiable patient information.  I write “found” because the company that “found” the exposure then tried to use their discovery to peddle its data security services to LabMD.  The FTC brought a case against LabMD over the exposure, but last year an FTC in-house judge ruled against the FTC and tossed the case.

That judge, D Michael Chapell, tossed the FTC’s case last year because the commission could not identify any consumers who’d been harmed by LabMD’s allegedly weak security practices. Because no one had been harmed in the seven years since the patient file was exposed, it was unlikely that anyone would be harmed in the future, Judge Chappell concluded.

Wrong answer, Judge.

The FTC, which has the authority to review the rulings issued by its administrative court, said Friday the judge used an incorrect legal standard that was too stringent.

The ruling, being inconvenient to the FTC’s narrative, was rejected out of hand.

Here is the usefulness of an in-house system of judges.

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.

Do We Really Need Four More Years?

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Here’s what nearly eight years of Progressivism, accomplished by President Barack Obama (D) and his Progressive-Democrat acolytes in the Democratic Party, have done.  As The Wall Street Journal put it:

  • largest stimulus spending bill in decades
  • Obamacare
  • nationalized the student-loan industry
  • turned the banks into public utilities answerable first to government

All of these have created the slowest recession recovery since WWII.  The nominally low unemployment rate that has been achieved is measured against the backdrop of the lowest labor participation rate in 40 years—in two generations.  Banks as government-managed public utilities, no longer responsive exclusive to the banks’ owners and creditors—which includes us individual savings and checking account holders?  That’s just another means for government to collect revenue.

Progressivism has been bypassing our republican democracy form of representative government for the last several years, too.  Obama has ruled by Executive diktat Executive Order, Executive Action, Department/Agency rulemaking to achieve

  • climate change
  • organizing

Then there’s foreign affairs.

  • deals with adversaries—the nuclear weapons deal with Iran, for instance, and acceptance of Russian partitions of Georgia and Ukraine
  • distanced us from our allies—denigrating Israel over their efforts to defend themselves against Palestinian terrorism, for instance
  • with Progressivism’s cynical budget maneuvering there’s less ability to support military spending—to the tune of defense spending falling to 3% of GDP and less—down from 4.6% those eight years ago

All of this is Progressivism’s pell-mell retreat from our responsibilities on the global stage, and that world is far more unstable and dangerous to us and to those friends and allies than it was eight years ago.

Then there’s Progressivism’s attitude toward us plebeian Americans.  They’ve plied the politics of identity to divide us by ideology, age, race, class, gender, and any other cleverly defined separation they could create, and then they’ve played these artificial distinctions (we used to be all Americans, after all, who happened to be of one gender or the other, have one skin color or another, one ethnic heritage or another) against each other in Progressives’ cynical effort to maximize their personal power.

Do we really need—can our nation really afford—four more years of the same?