by | ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
I have written extensively about why Loretta Lynch should not become the next Attorney General of the United States. The vote has yet to be taken and is said to be very, very close — about 50 votes, allowing Joe Biden to cast a tie-breaker if necessary. That being said, Dick Durbin, the Senator from Illinois, blasted Republicans for not having held the confirmation vote yet, saying that Loretta Lynch has been sent to the “back of the bus”.
John McCain rose to the occasion yesterday in the Senate and called out Senator Durbin’s remarks, telling him, “such inflammatory rhetoric has no place in this body and serves no purpose other than to further divide us.” It was nice to see McCain stand firm and blast Durbin’s race-baiting histrionics (who, incidentally, did not support Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State).
There are a myriad of reason not to support Loretta Lynch for Attorney General, but race is certainly not one of them. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous, infantile, and desperate. Take 5 minutes and watch McCain’s speech.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, CONSTITUTION, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
In Obama’s Keystone recent veto message to Congress, our President cited the ongoing State Department review as the basis for his decision. He stated, “And because this act of Congress conflicts with established executive branch procedures and cuts short thorough consideration of issues that could bear on our national interest — including our security, safety, and environment — it has earned my veto.”
How incredibly obnoxious and incompetent is the President to say that after SIX years, the State Department has failed to complete its review. Nothing else at all needs to be said as to why the economy is still deplorable. The Keystone saga encapsulates the entire failure of the “shovel ready jobs” schtick, if it takes six years and counting for the federal government to make a decision on one pipeline project.
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
The nomination of Loretta Lynch to the position of Attorney General is before you. Although her intelligence, experience, and poise may appear to make her a superb candidate, it is clear now that she would be an extremely poor – even dangerous — choice due to her strong position on civil asset forfeiture.
The need to safeguard civil liberties and individual rights is a priority for all Americans. Do you really want to consider confirming a person who has been exceedingly proud of her record of taking property without due process…of practicing guilty until proven innocent? This is a very serious issue, not to be taken lightly.
Civil asset forfeiture is a particularly egregious abuse of power, allowing the government to seize property and cash if it merely suspects wrongdoing, even with no evidence and no charging of a crime.
Loretta Lynch was particularly lucrative in this regard as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Between 2011 and 2013, the forfeiture operations under her management netted more than $113 million in civil actions. Lynch’s division was among the top in the country for its collections. But this is not something to be proud of.
In one particularly appalling case, Loretta Lynch’s office seized nearly a half-million dollars from two businessman in 2012 and sat on it for more than two years without a court hearing or appearance before a judge. In fact, no crime had been committed. These men were denied due process and deprived of their assets without warning or criminal charges. Lynch suddenly returned the money just weeks ago on January 20, 2015 — on the eve of her confirmation hearings, having found no wrongdoing by the men either.
During Lynch’s confirmation hearing testimony pertaining to civil asset forfeiture, Lynch stated that “civil and criminal forfeiture are very important tools of the Department of Justice as well as our state and local counterparts.” She further argued that forfeiture is “ done pursuant to court order, and I believe the protections are there.” This is, in fact, not true. In the case mentioned above, there was not only no court order, but also no hearing at any time in nearly three years. That is unconscionable. And this is only one of many similar, well-documented, incidents.
The problem of civil asset forfeiture is that the government can confiscate money or property under the mere suspicion of a crime without ever actually charging someone. The person must prove his innocence to reclaim what was seized, which is a burden of time and money and readily seems to go against our staunch American belief of “innocent until proven guilty.” What’s more, besides the obvious threat to civil liberties, those most likely to be victims are poor and minority citizens.
Thankfully, in recent months, individuals and organizations on both sides of the political aisle have come together to demand reform to this unjust practice. Bipartisan legislation has been proposed in Congress; groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union have been increasingly critical of civil asset forfeiture practices. Even Eric Holder has called for changes and the IRS has recently and publicly pledged to reduce its involvement as well.
Loretta Lynch and her record on civil asset forfeiture represents the worst of this “tool for law enforcement”. A vote for her confirmation is a vote you will never be able to walk back. Do you really want to confirm a person who is so deeply committed to civil asset forfeiture at the very same time in America that there is strong bipartisan support for protecting civil liberties and walking back the laws pertaining to this practice? It makes no sense to proceed down this path.
Loretta Lynch may arguably be the most successful forfeiture agent in government today. This is not a positive quality for an Attorney General. The practice is abusive and her tactics even more so. Voting to confirm a person with such an atrocious civil liberties record is certain to cause problems for you down the road when you have to answer for your support. Therefore, on behalf of all Americans, I urge you to vote no for her confirmation.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, BUSINESS, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
As I read this recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Sluggish Productivity Hampers Wage Gains” I mulled as to whether or not the Wall Street Journal had started a new satire section — but then it occurred to me that the author’s analysis of the current market was completely serious. Is he so clueless that he actually does not understand why there is “tepid productivity”?
The author, Greg Ip, cites 1) Faulty data may be partly to blame, 2) the severity of the financial crisis and recession and 3) weak business investment, but completely misses the elephant in the room: the meddling, anti-business policies of the current administration.
This administration has been exceedingly heavy-handed in its efforts to demonize businesses, while promising that businesses will be highly taxed and regulated. Whether it is labor regulation by the NRLB or environmental regulation by the EPA, government interference has been overreaching and restrictive.
Additionally, there have been huge increases in both criminal rules and regulations about what businesses are allowed and not allowed to do — from nitpicky labor rules, to dictating employee minutiae, to minimum wage requirements, all which restrict business hiring.
More unfortunately, Obama has provided the background for a litigation-friendly environment. If a larger, more financially stable company wants to steal something from a smaller company, they can sue them or just threaten with a costly legal battle. Likewise, “disparate impact” and IRS asset forfeiture are two practices which demonize business owners by merely suggesting wrongdoing — and put the burden of the business owners to prove their innocence.
And recently, the Obama Administration has decided to wage war on business inversions, by declaring companies who wish to move their headquarters abroad in order to stay competitive, to be “unpatriotic”, and “tax dodgers”, calling the perfectly legal process of inversion to be a “loophole”. Couple that with the fact that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world and it’s no wonder that businesses struggle to survive.
Usually the Wall Street Journal is fairly en pointe. It’s hard to believe any editor would have let this article be published while utterly ignoring Obama’s detrimental business policies that have plagued the economy over the last 6 years — which is why something needed to be said.
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, NEW YORK, OBAMA, POLITICS
According to the LA Times, Hillary Clinton has revealed that aides “deleted more than 30,000 emails that she deemed personal.”
In fact, Clinton herself breaks down the email numbers: there were 62,320 total messages. 30,490 of these were provided to the State Department, and 31,830 were private records that were destroyed.
That’s right, she wrote more personal emails than professional ones during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State from March 2009 to February 2013. That’s four years minus one month. 4 years is 1460 days, plus minus 30 days, totaling 1430 days as Secretary of State. If she sent 31,830 private mails, that averages roughly 22.2 personal emails each day, 365 days a year, the entire time she was Secretary of State.
Does your employer tolerate that many personal emails a day?
It’s even worse if you don’t factor in weekends and federal holidays, just strict federal government working hours. The government calculates that federal employees work 2,087 hours a year. For Clinton’s term as Secretary of state, 2087 hours x 4 years is 8348 hours. Subtract a month (174 hours) and you get 8174 hours.
If she was able to delete 31,830 personal emails over her term, she sent 3.89 personal emails an hour, or one about every 15 minutes, racking up 31 personal emails over an 8 hour work day. On taxpayer money. On taxpayer time. Hillary Clinton was paid $186,600 a year as Secretary of State.
At least we now know what she was probably doing during Benghazi.
by | ECONOMY, TAXES
CPAs know all the good jokes…
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
During oral arguments of the Burwell Obamacare case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a possible resolution seemed to rear its ugly head when Chief Justice Roberts questioned U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli over the contested ambiguity of the application of Obamacare subsidies. Verrilli made the case that the “court should defer to the interpretation of the Internal Revenue Service, which said the tax credits apply nationwide.” This reasoning is absolutely the worst possible solution — but of course not entirely unexpected from the federal government.
The idea of “deference” refers “ to “Chevron deference,” “a doctrine mostly unknown beyond the halls of the Capitol and the corridors of the Supreme Court. It refers to a 1984 decision, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., and it is one of the most widely cited cases in law. Boiled down, it says that when a law is ambiguous, judges should defer to the agency designated to implement it so long as the agency’s decision is reasonable.”
Given the current catastrophic state of the Internal Revenue Service, the courts must run from this idea as quickly as possible. The IRS has proven overwhelmingly in the last few years that no decision it makes is “reasonable” and therefore cannot be trusted as an unbiased, independent agency capable of carrying out a professional opinion on this or virtually any manner. IRS officials engaged in targeting of conservatives, “lost” official emails, mislead Congress and investigators about their existence, and corresponded with agencies such as the FBI, the House Oversight Committee, the DoJ, and the White House in 2509 documents over a multi-year period.
No wonder the federal government requests deference to the IRS to sort out the language and spirit of Obamacare subsidies. It’s like the fox guarding the hen house!
The IRS is no more capable of making such a determination in the first place as the FCC was in implementing net neutrality or the EPA rules changes on limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Agencies have repeatedly exceeded their statutory jurisdiction. SCOTUS would be wise to ignore this suggestion to put the onus back on the IRS to sort out the mess. The IRS has never answered satisfactorily for its repeated scandals, and therefore cannot be considered non-partisan or capable of any prudent judgment, via “deference”, at this time.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, NEW YORK, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
The Wall Street Journal had an excellent article a couple weeks ago calling out the egregious prosecutorial misconduct of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. In this farce of a case, Schneiderman is hell bent on going after Hank Greenberg (formerly with AIG) in an attempt to discredit his name in a state civil lawsuit. The manner in which Schneiderman is conducting himself is a disgrace to his position as prosecutor and reflects a trend of prosecutorial abuses that has grown alarmingly in recent years.
In the Schneiderman-Greenberg case, Eric Schneiderman has been pursuing civil charges against Hank Greenberg related to an “allegedly fraudulent reinsurance transaction” some years ago while disgraced Eliot Spitzer was the Attorney General. Mr. Greenberg was the defendant in a prior, failed criminal prosecution involving this particular transaction several years ago; in preparation for this upcoming civil case, it came to light that the “federal government has been hiding potentially exculpatory evidence” from the prior trial of Mr. Greenberg. The key witness for the government in that case, a Mr. Napier, who never had any direct communication with Mr. Greenberg about the deal in question apparently provided such “compelling inconsistencies” that an Appeals judge wrote “Napier may well have testified falsely.” Yet, Napier’s testimony is the very piece of evidence upon which Schneiderman has built his civil case.
For several years, and as recently as January, the federal government continued to claim that the notes and evidence collected during the first case should be kept under seal. It was only recently, under pressure, that the prosecutors relented and provided that notes and memos which showed the blatant inconsistencies of Mr. Napier. Had that release not occurred, however, Mr. Schneiderman would have been allowed to pursue the civil case against Greenberg relying “on a Napier deposition conducted years before the appeals court cast doubt on his testimony and before Mr. Greenberg’s legal team uncovered the notes.” What’s more, Mr. Greenberg was denied a trial by jury, and because “it’s a civil case and Mr. Napier doesn’t live in New York, he cannot be compelled to appear.” Thankfully, in light of the new exculpatory evidence, the trial has been stayed to decide whether or not to continue with the farce.
It is clear that Schneiderman’s decision to doggedly pursue this case for years even in the face of tainted, unreliable evidence is abusive. Schneiderman himself should be under investigation for malicious prosecution, going after a “big name” for his own political and personal gain.
This unprofessional prosecutorial behavior is unfortunately not limited to Eric Schneiderman. The nominee for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, who also hails from New York has an egregious record of abuse particularly relating to civil asset forfeiture while she was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. In the most outrageous case during her tenure, her offices colluded with the IRS to seize nearly $450,000 from the bank account of two businessmen known as the Hirsch Brothers in May 2012, for “suspicion”, not actual charges, of criminal activity.
For nearly 3 years, the brothers were never charged with any crime, and Lynch’s office wholy ignored stringent deadlines regarding forfeiture cases. Prosecutors were compelled by law to file a court complaint within a certain amount of days following the seizure, but that never actually happened at any time, and the Hirsch brothers never had the opportunity to appear before a judge. In fact, there was never any case presented against them at anytime; Lynch’s office just sat on the seized money, all while offering to cut a deal with the brothers to keep some of the funds in return for dropping the matter. The brothers turned down every offer made to them.
Suddenly, a week before the Lynch’s confirmation hearing, in late January 2015 — two years and eight months after the case began — Lynch’s office returned all the money to the brothers. Lynch’s office clearly violated the law in the manner by which her prosecutors ignored forfeiture rules and denied due process to the Hirschs while going after the “big money”.
In a similar manner, NBC has covered another practice of Lynch’s office: using the “John Doe” alias in an overwhelmingly high amount to keep witness and court information from becoming public information. “Federal prosecutors in New York’s Brooklyn-based Eastern District pursued cases against secret, unnamed “John Doe” defendants 58 times since Loretta Lynch became head prosecutor in May 2010.” In comparision to others, “none of the nation’s 93 other federal district courts has charged more than eight “Does” during the same time period, and the national average is under four.” National Review has also covered the specifics of some of these cases, calling out Lynch’s “secret docket”. The repeated use of such secrecy invites Lynch’s office to the criticism that such practice undermines the right to a public trial guaranteed by our Constitution.
The conduct of Schneiderman and Lynch is unacceptable. The fact that Schneiderman is and will remain the Attorney General for New York and Loretta Lynch is poised to become the next Attorney General for the United States is disconcerting. It is not the first and it certainly won’t be the last, but it is increasingly brazen. This type of behavior undermines the integrity of our justice system when the nations leading prosecutors can’t be bothered to follow the rules and conduct themselves in an unbiased, professional manner. How can citizens protect their liberties in the face of such prosecutorial abuse?
