A Good Day for Equal Justice Under Law

Chief Justice John G. Roberts delivers the opinion of the Court in Shelby County v. Holder. (Art Lien)

 

Yesterday, the Supreme Court rendered an important, long-overdue and unfortunately necessary decision that galled a lot of Americans who want to continue living in the past. In Shelby County v. Holder, a five-justice majority held that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. Here’s a brief background on the case:

            § 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires some States and localities to obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting. § 4 of the Act sets forth the formula for determining which jurisdictions are subject to that preclearance process. (Currently, that meant Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and Alaska and portions of New York, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, South Dakota and California.) In 2010, Shelby County, Alabama sued the Attorney General, seeking a declaratory judg­ment that §§ 4(b) and 5 of the Voting Rights Act are facially unconstitutional, as well as a permanent injunc­tion against their enforcement. The District Court rejected the county’s argument and upheld the Act. The Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment.

The Court’s ruling today means that Section 4’s formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to pre­clearance under the Voting Rights Act. SCOTUSblog Editor Amy Howe broke down the Court's ruling and its immediate implications thusly:

The Chief Justice delivered the opinion of the Court, which was joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito. The Court began by acknowledging that when the Voting Rights Act was enacted, it “employed extraordinary measures” – in the form of restrictions on the independence of the covered states – to combat the “extraordinary problem” of widespread voter discrimination. In 1966, the Court explained, these restrictions, which were intended to be temporary, were justified, and the formula used to determine who should be covered “made sense” then.

But today, fifty years later? Not so much. In the Court’s eyes, “things have changed dramatically.” When judged by a variety of measures – such as voter registration, voter turnout, and the number of African Americans elected to office — conditions have improved significantly in the states that are covered by the preclearance requirements. The Court agrees that these changes “are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act”; despite those improvements, the Court complains, the formula that determines who must comply with the preclearance requirement is “based on decades-old data” and practices – such as literacy tests – that were long ago abandoned. Because it isn’t fair for Congress to “rely simply on the past” to single out a few state and local governments for unequal treatment “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day,” the coverage formula cannot stand.

The last section of the Court’s opinion is the judicial version of throwing the Voting Rights Act ball back across First Street N.E. to Congress. Emphasizing that invalidating a federal law is one of its most serious responsibilities, and that it “do[es] not do so lightly,” the Court makes clear that in its view, only Congress is to blame here. Four years ago, it warned Congress that the constitutionality of the law was in doubt; “Congress could have updated the coverage formula” then, but it failed to do so. “Its failure to act,” the Court explains, “leaves us today with no choice but to declare [the coverage formula] unconstitutional.”

What Howe is referring to in the last two sentences of that excerpt is the court's 2009 decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 (NAMUDNO) v. Holder, in which a Texas utility district challenged the constitutionality of the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In that case, the Court bypassed the constitutional question and ruled that the statute allowed the utility district to seek bailout from the Act’s coverage. But the Court did something else, too: in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by all the associate justices except Justice Thomas, the Court acknowledged that it had already upheld the Act’s constitutionality in prior decisions but noted, “Some of the conditions that we relied upon in upholding this statutory scheme ... have unquestionably improved.” And, while conceding that these “improvements are no doubt due in significant part to the Voting Rights Act itself,” the Court admonished that “[p]ast success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirements,” adding, “It may be that these improvements are insufficient and that conditions continue to warrant preclearance under the Act. But the Act imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.”

Rather than heed the Court’s warnings and prod Congress to revise the formula in § 4 (as he’s so fond of doing when it comes to other policy issues), President Obama was content to leave the Act as is and let his Justice Department defend a constitutional challenge to a law the Supreme Court had as much as told us was unconstitutional. Unsurprisingly, the Respondent in Shelby County had a difficult time explaining how the Act’s ridiculously outdated formula and inequitable treatment of different states and localities was “justified by current needs,” and today, the Supreme Court officially recognized what Congress and the President should have recognized years ago: § 4 of the Voting Rights Act exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority.

 

Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," and Section 2 grants Congress "the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." The central question underlying this and previous constitutional challenges to the Voting Rights Act was whether Sections 4 and 5 were still "appropriate" legislation, in light of their selective treatment of certain parts of the country based on data that no longer accurately reflects the current state of the union. To the extent that the members of Congress who voted to reauthorize the Act--and President Bush, who signed the reauthorization into law--back in 2006 considered the issue, their answer was "Yes, it is."

Thank God for judicial review. (Well, thank the Marshall Court, but their decision in Marbury v. Madison was probably guided by divine providence anyway.) As the Court ruled yesterday, “The Fifteenth Amendment . . . is not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure a better future.” The majority stopped short of drawing a bright line or laying out a clear standard for determining what constitutes "appropriate legislation" under Amendment XV, but they rejected the notion that Congress is entitled to absolute deference on that subject (and for good reason).

During oral arguments before the Court in February, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli insisted that the court shouldn't second-guess Congress's determination that certain areas require special oversight to prevent violations of the 15th Amendment's guarantee of voting rights. But why, if the basis of that determination is patently irrational? The formula for selecting jurisdictions covered by Section 5 was last updated based on the 1972 election results. Congress had more than forty years to revise this formula based on more current data. Its failure to do so meant that certain states were left stigmatized as backwards regions of the country that couldn't be trusted to regulate their own elections without federal oversight, that stigma written into federal law and used as a pretext for subjecting these jurisdictions to onerous burdens and an indignity that most of the country doesn't have to suffer. Furthermore, why shouldn't the state and local governments who enacted changes to their voting laws be afforded the same deference as Congress? No one defending Section 4 could provide a satisfactory answer to that question, either.

If you think like me, then you had two specific inquiries about the Court's decision in Shelby County: (1) How did Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, who dissented from the Court's decision yesterday, square their dissent with the Opinion of the Court in Northwest Austin that laid forth serious constitutional infirmities of the Voting Rights Act, in which they both joined? And, (2) What, if anything, did Justice Clarence Thomas, the only member of the Court to experience life as an African-American in the segregated South, have to say about all this?

 

I'll answer the second question first. As previously mentioned, Justice Thomas did not join the Opinion of the Court in Northwest Austin; he filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. Basically, he wanted to decide the constitutional issue that the Court had avoided and strike down § 5 as unconstitutional. In explaining why § 5 exceeds Congress' power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, the Georgia native wrote, "The extensive pattern of discrimination that led the Court to previously uphold § 5 as enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment no longer exists."

Justice Thomas reiterated that statement in a  opinion yesterday, in which he explained how the Court's own opinion "compellingly demonstrates that Congress has failed to justify ‘current burdens’ with a record demonstrating ‘current needs.’"

 

As to my other query, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed an acrid dissent joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan, in which she said that

 "the Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decisionmaking. Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA."

 

Respectfully, Madame Justice, striking down a blatantly unconstitutional law is not "hubris." "Hubris" is exhibited by those who believe that certain parts of the country should be treated differently than their co-equal sovereigns because of transgressions perpetrated years ago by people who are long dead. "Hubris" is thinking that the attorney general of the United States, whoever that happens to be at the time, is so enlightened that he/she should be given an effective veto power over laws that were duly enacted by state and local governments, even if that AG happens to be a corrupt hack and perjurer with an obvious chip on his shoulder. Hubris is a fit word for the insolence of those who reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, outdated criteria and all, for another 25 years back in 2006 without amending it to reflect recent changes and trends. "Hubris" is dismissing the serious issues with the Act's constitutionality explicitly raised in an opinion you joined as mere "dictum", which you did in your dissenting opinion yesterday.

If I sound especially passionate about this, then it's because I am. It's not just because I live in Texas, one of the states required to get approval from the federal government to before making any changes to its voting laws or procedures, "even for something as seemingly innocuous as moving a polling place across the street." as Amy Howe put it. Anyone who believes in states' rights (or, for that matter, who respects the Tenth Amendment) should find a law that requires state and local governments to obtain federal approval before enacting policies to address local issues revolting. Chief Justice Roberts quite rightly called this requirement “a drastic depar­ture from basic principles of federalism” and the untenable application of it to only select jurisdictions “an equally dramatic departure from the principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty.” 

I know that the term "states' rights" has a negative connotation in some pockets of the country (and some people's minds), but the principle that all U.S. states are equal sovereigns and that their governments should have as expansive a police power to regulate matters within their jurisdictions as the people of those states empower them to, unencumbered by an oppressive federal government that is not and cannot be as attuned to local concerns as the elected policymakers in those states are, was written into our Constitution--and recognized by the Supreme Court since the first time it addressed the issue--for a reason. If the framers of the Constitution had wanted the Department of Justice to have oversight over state and local voting regulations, then they could have included a provision stating as much, and if the drafters of the Fifteenth Amendment had intended for Congress to have unquestionable discretion to determine what legislation was an "appropriate" means of enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment, then they could have made that amendment more specific. But they didn't.

It seems discordant that self-styled "progressives" were upset with the Court's decision in Shelby County. President Barack Obama and his attorney general both said they were "deeply disappointed" by the ruling. (The president even took care to remind us that "voting discrimination has been historically prevalent" in the places affected by Section 4, which evidently means it's okay for the federal government to perpetually treat those states as bastions of racism and ignore both the progress they've made and any real, actual attempts at voter discrimination in other parts of the country in the last 41 years.) Rev. Jesse Jackson called it “the most devastating blow to civil rights since” Plessy v. Ferguson and complained that it “seeks to destroy the infrastructure of ... inclusion and expansion.” The New York Times Editorial Board wailed that the Court had "eviscerated enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, in which Congress kept the promise of a vote for every citizen."

 

These people should take a look at what is inscribed aboved the pillars on the front of the Supreme Court Building the next time they have occasion to visit it (or just look at a picture of it). As Jonathan Tobin wrote for Commentary: 

The reality of 2013 is that even the left is hard pressed to find anyplace in the country where anyone who is legally entitled to vote and wants to exercise their franchise is being prevented from doing so. Stating that is not to deny that racism still exists in some quarters of American society anymore than any other species of hatred. Nor does it imply that our electoral system is perfect or incapable of betterment. But to leave in place a legal formula that treated some states differently than others solely because of history is not only absurd, it is unconstitutional discrimination. In a country where, as it was argued before the court, Mississippi may have a more healthy voting rights environment in some respects than Massachusetts, preserving the battle lines of the fight against Jim Crow is not only meaningless, it actually hampers efforts to combat illegal practices.

But the main interest of those dedicated to preserving the status quo wasn’t in preventing states from denying a right to vote that is not in question. It was in holding onto their capacity to use federal law to prevent some states from passing voter ID laws that have been wrongly branded as a form of discrimination or voter suppression. The vast majority of Americans—including the members of those groups that civil rights advocates claim will be injured by voter ID laws—think these measures are merely a matter of common sense to ensure the integrity of the election system. But by disingenuously waving the bloody shirt of Jim Crow, the left has sought to brand race-neutral laws like voter ID a form of racism.

Instead of continuing to live in the past and basing their opinions on specters of a bygone era (kind of like the racists whose actions arguably necessitated the Voting Rights Act in the first place), those who claim to support the Voting Rights Act should celebrate its effects and acknowledge that the preclearance requirement of Section 5 is no longer necessary in many of the regions to which it has been applied. If the members of Congress who voted to reauthorize the Act in 2006 and are still serving believe the legislation is necessary and good policy, then they ought to craft a new formula based on current data and practices to determine which areas of the country, if any, need the federal oversight authorized by Section 5.

Should the Congress endeavor to take up such legislation, however, there must be a vigorous debate over whether any law that is selectively applied only to some states and localities, based on constantly changing statistics that will require frequent re-examination, is wise policy. The anachronistic character of these provisions in the Voting Rights Act and the problem of leaving the Act as is was summed up splendidly in the following paragraph of the Court's opinion yesterday:   

In 1965, the States could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those charac­teristics. Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the Nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.

It is a disturbing display of dissonance that those who wanted the Court to let Section 4 stand express concern for making sure that all Americans are treated equally under the law, when Section 4 itself stood in affront to that concept. 

Paul Begala Makes the Case for Senator Gomez

If you were to rank all of God’s creatures from the least loathsome to the most, then the Paul Begalas of the World would belong somewhere between serpents and pedophiles. (That would also be a fitting place for the Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor to spend eternity.)

 

But, on Saturday, Mr. Begala actually made a positive contribution to society. He gave Massachusetts voters a concise list of reasons (the most compelling I’ve seen) to vote for Gabriel Gomez in the upcoming special election to the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by John Kerry (D). Get a load of this: 

In the Senate, Democrat Ed Markey will fight alongside Massachusetts' rising star, Elizabeth Warren; Gomez would cancel her vote. Markey will support President Obama; Gomez will oppose him. Markey will stand for progressive change: an increase in the minimum wage, universal prekindergarten, tax fairness, rebuilding our roads and bridges and more. Gomez will empower obstructionist Republicans like GOP leader Mitch McConnell and the tea party extremists.

Sounds good to me. Remember, in the left-wing, business-as-usual lingo of Beltway insiders that Begala speaks fluently, members of Congress who fight for liberty and against big government oppression are "tea party extremists," Republicans who zealously represent their constituents' interests and try to stop bad policies from being enacted are "obstructionist," and "tax fairness" means "giving huge tax breaks to the president's cronies and shifting the tax burden even further onto the people who actually work for a living so that the millions of Americans who pay little or nothing in federal taxes can continue to live off the labors of others."

 

When the appropriate translation is made, Begala's pitch is also an uncharacteristically honest bit of rhetoric from him, proving my point that, on the rare occasions when Democrats tell the truth, they end up making some very persuasive arguments for voters to vote Republican.

Once Again, Paul Ryan Speaks My Mind

(Photo: The Christian Post/Napp Nazworth)

 



This is one of the problems with blogging as a hobby, as opposed to a full-time gig. I don't publish my thoughts as soon as I have them.

 

Once again, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) demonstrates why his visage belongs on the banner atop this blog (and our parent web site). From the Christian Post:

With references to some of the recent government scandals, such as the Internal Revenue Service's harassment of pro-life groups, Ryan said at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority 2013" conference, "big government is bad enough in theory, look what we see in practice."

Ryan's words were an abbreviated version of the sentiment he expressed last month on Fox News Sunday, when he said of President Obama's agenda., "Now, we're seeing big government in practice. Now, we're seeing the arrogance. We're seeing the cronyism in practice in this second term, and that is even uglier than big government in theory."

He added that he and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney "had a challenge in the campaign against empty rhetoric," but "now the country is seeing what this kind of big unlimited government does in practice," which "is not a pretty picture."

 

Before I had heard/seen Ryan's remarks, I told someone that one reason the left-wing media was so desperate to downplay/bury the IRS scandal was that it manifestly exposed a critical flaw in their ideology's policy agenda. The malfeasance at the IRS (and the incompetence in other parts of the government that allowed this malfeasance to continue, unabated, for two straight years) was not an anomaly. Rather, it was an example of something that is inevitable when government grows as big as the federal government has gotten. There's no such thing as big government without a trace of incompetence or corruption.

 

It's good when someone with Paul Ryan's stature says what needs to be said, and it's even better when people listen. Whenever I feel I have an important contribution to make on topic of public interest, I try to find the time to churn out a blog post or YouTube upload. If someone has a similar thought, then I would hope he/she expresses it, especially if that person happens to be articulate and easy on the eyes and has a large audience.

Bring Back Judging!

I love Adam Carolla. Between him and Greg Gutfeld, FOX News has almost cornered the market on sapient social commentary.

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly invited Carolla to "talk directly to" Orlando Shaw, a deadbeat father of 22. Here's the segment:

I quite agree, except it wasn’t just some idiot; there were a lot of idiots—and even some smarter but nonetheless misguided fools—who convinced the lot of us that it was wrong to "judge" people.

 

Yes, Jesus did say, "Judge not, that ye be not judged," but I don’t read this as an admonition not to judge others; it's an admonition against hypocrisy. There are many circumstances under which it’s entirely appropriate for human beings to sit in judgment of others. How else could we have trial by jury?

 

I also think Carolla was too kind about the use of a Denver boot as a chastity belt. If it were up to me, then I’d see that Mr. Shaw undergo an orchiectomy. I would much rather my tax dollars pay for that than to take care of his indigent brood. (I’d pay for the costs of the operation, but if Orlando wants to anesthetized, then he’ll have to pay for that himself.) Then I'd put him in a work camp so he could begin to pay off his debt. If at some point he is able to secure gainful employment, then he might be released from his forced servitude, and we could simply garnish his wages.

 

Carolla is right that "we need to bring back judging." Every time in my life that I've heard someone say, "Don't you judge me," or "How dare you judge me!" or something similar, it was said by someone who clearly didn't want to take responsibility for his/her actions. If we refuse to judge those who are in the wrong, then they either won't realize the error of their ways or they will, but they'll have no impetus to change.

 

But, remember the words of Jesus. Worry about the mote in your own eye before you go around concerning yourself with the motes in others' eyes. And, to all the Orlando Shaws out there, as my mother would say, "If you can't feed 'em, then don't breed 'em!"

The Middle-Class Kentucky Derby

The place to be on Memorial Day weekend in Fort
Worth is The Colonial. (Star-Telegram/Paul Moseley)

Normally, the marquee sporting event in the month of May, at least for high-society types, is the Kentucky Derby. The Bluegrass State’s upper class traditionally flocks to Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, and you can count on every network’s early-Saturday-morning sort-of-news program—be it Today, FOX & Friends or Good Morning America—to send at least one of their reporters out to Louisville to educate their viewers about the right bourbon to buy.

 

Here in the Metroplex, however, our social/sporting event of the month takes place toward the end. It doesn’t involve horses or a bed of roses, and it lasts a hell or a lot longer. But it’s a magnificent spectacle, and I like it.

 

Since 1946, the pros have come to Fort Worth's Colonial Golf Club for one of the PGA's five annaul "invitational" tournaments. For decades, it was known simply as the Colonial National Invitational Tournament. Now it's the "Crown Plaza Invitational," but not even crass corporate sponsorship can mar this major event, rich as it is in history and tradition. It's our Kentucky Derby, but with less pretense and more walking.

 

Forget the mint julep. The traditional beverage here is the frozen margarita. And, you likely won’t find women sporting ridiculously gaudy hats, but you will get an idea of what the appropriate attire is for those who want to spend the day outside in the hot, humid climate without looking like a slob.

 

There’s no "Millionaire's Row" here, either (unless you count the houses on Country Club Circle); celebrities who show up, and there are a few, are forced to watch alongside the common folk. (Yes, "VIP guests" get special treatment, such as access to the 19th Hole Lounge, but if you want to see the pros golf up close and in person, then you'll have to find a spot outside the ropes just like any other spectator.)

Businesses with high-end products/services to hock have recognized that the Colonial presents a fantastic marketing opportunity. In recent years, they've taken to setting up tents at the tournament with chairs, refreshments and air conditioning to lure in their target demographic. Call it a sales pitch, but it's the most pleasant and comfortable sales pitch I've ever experienced.

Local charities and other causes--everything from high school booster clubs to Harris Methodist to the Girl Scouts--man the concession stands. Patrons, including yours truly, are more willing to pay the egregiously marked-up fare if the profits go to a good cause.
 

This year, the attendees were disappointed that local favorites Jordan Spieth and J.J. Henry didn't do better, but Boo Weekley's victory was by no means unwelcome.

That's all well and good, you may think, but what does any of this have to do with Memorial Day? Is the purpose of this day not to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country? Well, as it so happens, the Colonial offers free admission to military personnel and their families through Carswell AFB, so there!
 

If you live in or near the Metroplex and have never been to the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial, then you absolutely must go, whether or not you can get in for free.

 

Finally, because it is Memorial Day, Right-wing_Genius would like you to watch this video (if you haven't already), featuring his grandmother and one of my very dear friends. Thank you to all who have served our country at home and abroad.



The GOP Won’t “Overplay its Hand” on the Obama IRS scandal...Because it Can't

It’s only been a couple weeks since news broke that the IRS unconstitutionally targeted conservative groups/organizations for additional scrutiny and harassment in the run-up to the 2012 election, and already, President Obama’s most ardent apologists are acknowledging the severity of this problem, calling the White House out on its arrogant mendacity and joining Republicans in their efforts to uncover the truth and bring all culpable parties to justice.

 

Yeah, right.

 

Actually, many on the Left have been trying to shift the focus from what is clearly a serious scandal involving unconstitutional acts by the government to...the GOP. But how? Republicans, whose role in this sordid affair (if any) is limited to that of victims, are rightly incensed by what in all likelihood was a calculated political efforts to boost the electoral prospects of the president and other Democrats by hamstringing conservative groups and individuals.

 

Well, as gifted as the Left is at creating alternate realities, even they can’t inculpate the GOP in this mess, it’s pushing a different narrative: Republicans are eagerly ginning up controversy and trying to capitalize on these so-called "scandals", but they're so blinded by their utter contempt and disdain for the president that they're already overreaching and blowing these things way out of proportion, oblivious to the pitfalls of ganging up on a president who's still a lot more popular than they are.

 

Charlie Cook, an idiot, has been pushing this narrative with the utmost vigor in National Journal. Last week, he wrote that “Republicans Should Go Easy on Obama.” (I tried to find where Cook had written the same or something similar about Democrats and President Bush, but I could find no such case.) On Tuesday, he claimed that Republicans are so blinded by their “hatred of Obama” that “they can’t see how little impact the 'scandals' have had on public opinion.” (Yes, he actually put "scandals" in quotation marks.) 

 

“The simple fact is that although the Republican sharks are circling,” Cook wrote, “there isn’t a trace of blood in the water.” He based this on an out-of-context quote from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the results of two polls (one of which was an outlier that pegged Obama’s job-approval rating at 53%, five percentage points higher than the current RCP average, and the other being Gallup, which as we know nailed President Romney’s margin of victory in the 2012 election).

 

Cook recites these polls in his latest article, in which he likens the bipartisan investigation into to the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton that proved to hurt Republicans more than the president: “The current situation is reminding many folks of the impeachment controversy in 1998” he says, raising the question of how many “folks” Cook talks to who don’t think exactly like him. “Blinded by their hatred for President Clinton, Republicans made irrational decisions then, and they are making the same mistakes today.”

 

Another National Journal contributor, Ron Fournier (who is not an idiot but is pretty obtuse) yesterday accused RNC Chairman Reince Priebus of “demonizing, politicizing and overreaching just enough to jeopardize his cause.” This is the same Ron Fournier who earlier this week expressly stated that the White House “has demonstrated an inability and/or unwillingness to tell the full truth about the IRS scandal and a spate of other controversies.” Either Fournier is suffering from some kind of bipolar disorder or he believes that the Obama White House’s serial dishonesty is just as consistent with innocence as culpability. 
 

Stuart Rothenberg, who is usually more astute, couldn’t resist the same faulty comparison Cook made. In a blog post entitled, “Will Republicans Screw Up Again? Some Are Already Overreaching,” Rothenberg mused:  

Republicans failed to capitalize on President Bill Clinton’s inappropriate conduct by over-playing their hand and pushing impeachment. Not only did they fail to drive him from office, the GOP ended up losing a handful of House seats in the 1998 midterms instead of adding seats as initially expected.

Republicans allowed themselves to look as if they were primarily interested in scoring political points and overturning the results of the 1996 election, even if it meant paralyzing the government.

That same danger exists once again for the GOP.

With fundraising playing such a huge part in our politics, some conservative groups will be tempted to use the trifecta of controversies to play to their bases to boost anger and fundraising.

This, in turn, will make the issues appear more and more partisan, giving the president the same opportunity that Clinton used when he sought to rise above “politics” and called for members of both parties to address public policy challenges.

He then undermined his own argument by describing some of the differences between 1998 and 2013 that make any comparisons of the two situations sound ridiculous.

 

I’ll spare you excerpts from the ramblings of ditsy hacks like Joan Walsh, Greg Sargent and Michael Tomasky; let it suffice to say that they've been even more defensive in their commentary on these affairs.

 

The logical rebuttal to these warnings of Republican “overreach” is simple. Republicans won’t overreach on—and won’t overblow—these scandals, esp. the IRS scandal, because they can’t. Yes, you could conceivably say something that exaggerates the magnitude of any one particular scandal (though I’ve yet to hear any such thing from a Republican to date), but the cumulation of these things—from the abject incompetence of the ill-conceived (and even more poorly executed) "Fast & Furious" operation to administration’s repeated prevarication about Benghazi to the possible unconstitutionality of the Justice Dept. preying on reporters and the definite unconstitutionality of the IRS’s treatment of conservatives—is far greater than any scandal or combination of scandals involving a U.S. president and his administration.

 

Sure, other presidents have done terrible and inexcusable things. Andrew Jackson forced thousands of Cherokee (including my great-great-great-great grandparents) to take leave of their homes in the southeastern U.S. and trudge miles westward in a journey that killed thousands of them and injured countless others. L.B.J. and his administration repeatedly misled Americans about the Vietnam war and continued to send American soldiers, many of whom were drafted, to die and/or suffer serious bodily harm in the jungles of southeast Asia after it became clear they were fighting a losing battle. Richard Nixon...well, we know what he did. And, don’t get me started on F.D.R.

 

Whether or not these or other nefarious deeds by part presidents fit the definition of “scandal” is a discussion for another time. I’m not saying the pain and suffering caused by the Obama Administration’s actions is worse than the Trail of Tears, but unlike Obama, Jackson had the legal authority to do what he did.

 

In addition to the unconstitutionality of the IRS’s actions, there’s another compelling reason why the gravity of that particular scandal can’t be overstated. As I explained in a YouTube video yesterday, the effects of the IRS’s misdeeds were, among other things, to unfairly hamstring conservative efforts in the 2012 campaign. Libertarian/Republican candidates and causes were deprived of much-needed capital during a critical election cycle. Who knows how many races would have turned out differently had the playing field been level?

 

I don’t mean to invite people to reconsider what has already come to pass, and I certainly don’t want to dwell on what might have been. This much is undeniable, however: as long as even one politician elected in a close race in 2012, the outcome of which might have been different had the IRS not engaged in these unconstitutional practices, is still in office, we are still living with the consequences of what the IRS did, and that means this scandal still has legs. In that sense, nobody is “overreaching” just by pulling out all the stops to make sure that the truth will come out and all complicit parties will be exposed and brought to justice.

The Obama-Nixon Comparison Is Indeed Appropriate

Steve Chapman, the Chicago Tribune columnist and editorial writer whose semiweekly musings range from the sentient to the delusional, has convinced me that the comparison of Obama to the late President Nixon is not only justified but apt. How? Well, take a look at this from his latest column:  

In recent days, those people have triumphantly likened Barack Obama to Richard Nixon, particularly on the misuse of the Internal Revenue Service for political advantage. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon because, among other reasons, he tried to cause "income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."

This, of course, is exactly what the IRS now admits doing when it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny. The Treasury Department's Inspector General found, "The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions."

The misconduct happened under the current president. Therefore, Obama = Nixon.

Makes sense to me, except for that "Obama = Nixon” part. The two presidents may be guilty of similar acts, but they’re not the same man. (I recently tweeted my displeasure at the profligate comparisons of Obama to Nixon; people shouldn’t speak so ill of the dead.)

 

Chapman then explains that he was just setting up a straw man. Equating the two “is like concluding that babies are like poisonous snakes because some of them have rattles." Nice one, Steve, and were that hackneyed quip the worst part of your column, I wouldn’t have been moved to write this post, but then you say, "Maybe information will someday emerge to confirm the conservative suspicion that Obama thuggishly subverted the IRS to win re-election, but so far, it falls in the realm of make-believe."

 

I’d say it falls in the category of “undiscovered evidence,” the kind that warrants a dedicated, persistent and earnest congressional investigation and the appointment of an independent counsel. Chapman did at least review the history of how Nixon used tax agents as political operatives, but then he went way out on a limb with his assertion that, in "the case of Obama, there is no evidence that he or his Treasury Secretary was aware of the mistreatment of conservative groups -- much less that either of them requested it."

 

Well, here's what we do know: According to The Associated Press: 

Many conservative groups complained during the 2012 election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.
 
The forms, which the groups have made available, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.
 
In some cases, the IRS acknowledged, agents inappropriately asked for lists of donors.
 
There has been a surge of politically active groups claiming tax-exempt status in recent elections -- conservative and liberal. Among the highest profile are Republican Karl Rove's group Crossroads GPS and the liberal Moveon.org.
 
These groups claim tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which is for social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities, but their primary activity must be social welfare.
 
That determination is up to the IRS.
 
The number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

The IRS agents in Cincinnati reportedly came up with a list of things to look for in an application, including the words "tea party" and "patriot." Donors to conservative groups and Republican candidates were harassed, audited and elderly. (Their age is not the IRS's fault, but it is a common trait I've noticed among the conservative/Republican victims of the Obama Administration's witch hunt.) 

Lois Lerner, who runs the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, knew about the targeting of Tea Party groups as early as June 29, 2011, according to the Inspector General's draft report released last week. On Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS's Rulings & Agreements office "held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue." This raises the question of whether then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman perjured himself at a hearing before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight on March 22, 2012, when he testified, "There's absolutely no targeting." (This was in response to Rep. Charles Boustany's question, "Can you give us assurances that the IRS is not targeting particular groups based on political leanings?") Yesterday, Shulman testified before the Senate Finance Committee that he learned “sometime in the spring of 2012″ that “there was a list that was being used” to identify political groups for further review and that the term “tea party” was on the list. That may have also been a lie, but assuming for the moment it was true, Shulman did not immediately (or even shortly thereafter) notify the subcommittee of this. Rather, he left a false impression with Congress and the public until this month, when he finally corrected the record. However, if "everyone" means "everyone," then it means that Shulman was clued into the targeting well before he testified to the contrary. Not surprisingly, Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself today in a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight. 

   

As for whether the president and his Treasury Secretary personally knew about this misconduct, here's some "evidence" for Steve Chapman. The White House coordinated with the Treasury Department over "how the IRS would disclose its targeting of conservative groups." And, the White House was caught in another lie on Monday, when Jay Carney acknowledged that, contrary to what he had previously told the press corps, Senior legal Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told on April 24 about the IRS audit that showed tax officials unfairly targeted Tea Party groups and that she then told White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough "and other senior officials" about the investigation.

So, Steve is wrong about there being "no evidence" that the Secretary of the Treasury knew about the mistreatment of conservative groups, but the rest of that sentence is correct--if by "evidence" he actually means direct evidence that has come out. Circumstantial evidence of the president's culpability in this affair is mounting every day. Let's not forget that it took a considerable while after the Watergate burglary in June 1972 for evidence of Nixon's personal involvement in the cover-up to surface. The fallout from this particular scandal is still in its larval stage. If there's any talk on this subject that falls "in the realm of make-believe," then it's coming from those who are scoffing at and deriding the notion that President Obama's hands are clean in all this. Stay tuned.

Farewell, Iron Lady





The cortege passes along Fleet Street towards St. Paul's Cathedral for the funeral of former
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (inset). (Composite Photo)

Earlier today, thousands of Margaret Thatcher's relatives, friends and countrymen(and women) gathered at St. Paul's Cathedral in London for the former prime minister's funeral. While much of the media coverage and commentary has focused on ancillary matters--yes, her nineteen-year-old granddaughter was beautiful and eloquent, and yes, President Obama did not attend, nor did he send Vice-President Biden (thank God) or another cabinet-level member of his administration--I thought it would be appropriate to pay tribute to the woman herself. As much has been said about the Iron Lady, one can't overdo honoring the life and legacy of a figure as great as the Rt Hon. Baroness Thatcher.

First, a brief primer: Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on 13 October 1925 in Lincolnshire. She was elected to Parliament in 1959 and became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975 and Prime Minister in 1979. Now for the interesting stuff. 

 

Thatcher's route to Parliament was not only unusual but extraordinary. She earned a degree in chemistry from Oxford and worked as a research scientist--you may have heard about her role in the creation of soft-serve ice cream--before marrying, studying law and eventually becoming a barrister. She made three unsuccessful runs for Parliament before being elected from Finchley (a now-abolished constituency in what was then the County of Middlesex), which she represented until her retirement in 1992.

 

Years ago I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Jill Knight, Baroness of Collingtree, who served with Thatcher in the House of Commons for 30 years. She recalled how, during the '70s, there was a great schism between Mrs. Thatcher and Ted Heath, whom she succeeded as leader of the Conservative Party. While Heath was Prime Minister, from 1970 to '74, Thatcher served as Secretary of State for Education & Science. The two did not see eye-to-eye on many issues, and a rift soon developed between them (not unlike the erstwhile division across the pond between the Goldwater conservatives and Rockefeller Republicans in the GOP). After being swept out of power in the 1974 elections, the Conservatives replaced Heath with the younger, more libertarian-minded Thatcher.

 

To understand the significance of Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative Party, you need to be familiar with British postwar political history. (No, don't stop reading!) While World War II invigorated a depressed American economy and arguably left the United States as the world's lone superpower, it devastated Great Britain.  This loss of capital was compounded by a sharp decline in the birth rate caused by the deaths of many British men during World War I. Out of this emerged a "collectivist consensus" that transcended political parties: a generous, broad-based welfare state was needed to alleviate the widespread hardship caused by the War and support those who (suuposedly) had no other means of support. Often referred to as "Butskellism" (after Lord Butler, a Conservative who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1951 to 1955, and MP Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party from 1955 to 1963), this consensus gave rise to policies that effectively transformed the U.K. into a social democracy and that were perpetuated by seven prime ministers, including Heath, until by the late 1970s the stagnant British economy was plagued by excessive taxation, routine strikes, high inflation, mounting deficits and a government that seemed both hyperactive and incompetent.

 

So when the Conservatives replaced Sir Edward with a true conservative who appropriately denounced many of these policies as socialism akin to the policies imposed on many eastern European peoples. After regaining power in 1979, the Conservatives, led by Thatcher, set about scaling back the welfare state, reducing taxes, deregulating key industries, privatizing government entities and limiting the power of trade unions. Though much of the rabble who had become accustomed to suckling at the government teat pitched many a fit, a majority of the electorate supported Thatcher's agenda and kept her in power for nearly twelve consecutive years, the longest uninterrupted prime ministry since the Earl of Liverpool.

 

All good things must come to an end, though, and in 1990, facing a growing rebellion from within her own party, the Iron Lady resigned. Of all the explanations floated for her sudden decline in popularity and eventual downfall, one particular policy deserves special attention. Thatcher had long advocated replacing the rates system (under which local government services were funded by ad valorem taxes) with a poll tax. In 1987, she got her wish, and the rates were replaced with the Community Charge, which assessed a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult. The policy was very unpopular, particularly with large families, and Thatcher's successor, John Major, made good on his promise to abolish it shortly after taking office as prime minister.

 

Thankfully for the U.K., much of her legacy was more durable, and the country has remained an economic power on the world stage to this day. Not all Britons are grateful for the many ways in which she saved them from another devastating (and likely irreversible) collapse. For all the talk about the stereotypical "ugly American", our brothers and sisters in Mother England have shown over the past week that Respect for the recently departed is not a custom they wish to observe. Labour MP John Healey, the Henry Waxman of South Yorkshire, actually called Thatcher's legacy "too bitter to warrant this claim to national mourning."

 

"Churchill . . . unified the country, while Margaret Thatcher divided it," he told the Guardian.

 

One of Healey's colleagues, Respect MP George Galloway, similarly praised one of the country's most revered leaders while maligning Thatcher.

 

"We'd be conducting this conversation in German if it was not for Mr. Churchill," he spewed on BBC2's Daily Politics. "He saved the very existence of this country, while Mrs. Thatcher did her best to destroy what was good about this country and did destroy more than a third of our manufacturing capacity, reducing us to the state we're in now." 

Of course, the Baroness Thatcher was one of those leaders so confident in her principles that she was never phased or deterred by the petulant (and, in Mr. Galloway's case, historically inaccurate) jeers of her detractors. In fact, she relished confronting them; just watch some old clips of her taking questions (a term that apparently has quite a broad definition when it comes to the British Parliamentary tradition of the Prime Minister's "Question Time") from the opposition during her tenure as Prime Minister.

 

She confronted challenges, both at home and from abroad, with a courage and boldness unlike any British PM since Churchill. To be sure, Tony Blair displayed a confidence in his own policy agenda and was steadfast in his support for the War on Terror, including Operation Iraqi Freedom, amid vocal opposition from the British people, but his affable demeanor and disarming mien didn't convey quite the same resolve (or instill fear in his enemies) like the Iron Lady's steely disposition and forthright rhetoric. ("You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.") While a lot of us had high hopes for David Cameron, he has yet to emulate the qualities that made Margaret Thatcher such an effective and successful leader.

Not all hope is lost, though, and as the United Kingdom--and the party of Disraeli and Churchill--bids farewell to another of its finest leaders, let us not just remember her many achievements but also take note of her philosophy and contemplate how it might be applied to solve our present-day problems.