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First Lois Lerner’s home computer crashed. Then it was seven IRS employees, many who had important positions. You can read about them here. Now, according to the Daily Caller, the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane reported in congressional testimony that even more IRS officials succumbed to computer crashes. He estimated that the number was no more than 20. Kane also stated that the IRS does not know yet if those lost emails are backed up anywhere.
Last month in June, the IRS commissioner John Koskinen testified that he did not know of any way to get missing IRS emails back, which was in contrast to his March testimony that IRS employee emails are saved on servers. In that interim time between the two testimonies, it was learned that in September of 2011, the IRS canceled its contract with an email archiving firm after 6 years.
The names of the newest IRS crash victims include: “David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens”.
The IRS computer crashes happened in both Washington DC and Cincinnati. Additionally, it appears that the IRS violated the The Federal Records Act, which required IRS employees to save and also print out all of their emails related to IRS business — in the unlucky event a hard drive crashed or was deleted in an improper data recycling procedure.
UPDATE: Even as the IRS scandal continues to worsen, the IRS brazenly put out a new solicitation on Monday for “media destruction” services to destroy at least another 3,200 hard drives.
You can’t make this up.
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Charles Krauthammer’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post this past week was a succinct and cogent piece of writing on the Gaza-Israeli conflict. Where many news organizations have been wont to blame Israel, Krauthammer calls it like it is.
This piece was so excellent, it is worth it to reprint in its entirety below.
MORAL CLARITY IN GAZA
Israel accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas keeps firing. Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them, actually telephoning civilians in the area and dropping warning charges, so-called roof knocking.
“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”
Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.
Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.
And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.
The Israel Defense Forces released a video on Thursday that they claim shows a tunnel that Hamas militants planned to use to attack Israel.
The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that, simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank as well and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution.
This is not ancient history. This was nine years ago.
And how did the Gaza Palestinians react to being granted by the Israelis what no previous ruler, neither Egyptian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever given them — an independent territory? First, they demolished the greenhouses. Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead of building a state with its attendant political and economic institutions, they spent the better part of a decade turning Gaza into a massive military base, brimming with terror weapons, to make ceaseless war on Israel.
Where are the roads and rail, the industry and infrastructure of the new Palestinian state? Nowhere. Instead, they built mile upon mile of underground tunnels to hide their weapons and, when the going gets tough, their military commanders. They spent millions importing and producing rockets, launchers, mortars, small arms, even drones. They deliberately placed them in schools, hospitals, mosques and private homes to better expose their own civilians. (Just Thursday, the U.N. announced that it found 20 rockets in a Gaza school.) And from which they fire rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Why? The rockets can’t even inflict serious damage, being almost uniformly intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. Even West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas has asked: “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?”
It makes no sense. Unless you understand, as Tuesday’s Post editorial explained, that the whole point is to draw Israeli counterfire.
This produces dead Palestinians for international television. Which is why Hamas perversely urges its own people not to seek safety when Israel drops leaflets warning of an imminent attack.
To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense.
In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, the depravity of Hamas begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the killers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war criminals while incessantly condemning Israel, a state warred upon for 66 years that nonetheless goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid harming the very innocents its enemies use as shields.
It’s to the Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have the minimum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear.
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A federal judge authorized two of three tea party complaints against the IRS to move ahead, despite a plea for dismissal from the accusations of discrimination.
“In her ruling Thursday, Judge Susan Dlott allowed two of the tea party groups’ claims — including that the IRS discriminated and retaliated against them based on their views in violation of their free speech rights — to survive to trial”
This will be interesting to watch, and marks several cases now pending against the IRS in court.
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The Teachers Union in Pennsylvania is putting self-interest ahead of the schools.
A recent article in the WSJ highlights the problems of the Philadelphia school system trying to navigate the process of staff reduction. The unions claim that seniority is the only criteria for cuts, while school administration wants other choices. Pennsylvania is one of a few states that grants teachers a right to strike, so this fight is one which is sure to be long-suffering.
The schools point out to the unions that since “a 2001 state takeover spurred in part by major financial problems and woeful test scores, the system has been governed by the School Reform Commission, a five-member board jointly appointed by the governor and mayor. State law permits the commission to suspend some parts of the school law, including seniority protections for employees”. This is the point of contention with the unions.
While the article is decent, it misses a very important part related to contracts and negotiations. The teacher contracts expired in 2013. Therefore, those teachers who are complaining that there is no right other than seniority — because that right exists in their contract — are operating as if the contract is still valid. It certainly is not. Despite the fact that their contracts expired nearly a year ago, they still claim rights under that contract. This is patently false; when a contract is over, it is over -they have the right to nothing unless it is negotiated in a new contract.
If the school administration is struggling financially, there is nothing to stop them from say, offering teachers 15% – 25% lower pay than what they made in previous contracts in order to get back on their feet, but even more importantly, to get them in line with what similarly qualified individuals are earning in the private sector. There is no inherent right to a higher salary or even the same benefits as they had previously earned. The private sector does not operate this way. The public sector cannot either, if it is to remain solvent.
Teachers don’t automatically deserve work rules, pensions, and pay other than what the private sector pays, especially in a down economy. A teacher strike shouldn’t be over a 10-15% assumed increase based on past contracts and situations. The harsh reality is that the schools simply cannot afford the current teacher pay and pension/benefits packages. And it should not have to pay those salaries and benefits – the realities of life, the job market, and the economy have set compensation levels for similarly qualified individuals at substantially lower than Philly teacher levels. It is only teacher union and political cronyism that has allowed this fiasco to exist.
The Pennsylvania school system would do well to be reminded that, because teacher contracts are expired, they are not bound to continue them on previous, overgenerous terms. Their obligation is to provide their services in return for certain compensation and benefits during that time. But that’s it — they are only covered for the period of the current contract.
This point is important because there really can be no part of a negotiated contract that promises any compensation or benefits for services rendered after the end of the contract period; otherwise, a locality (Philadelphia in this case) runs the risk of continuing runaway financial obligations for which it cannot properly budget and it hamstrings future body politics not even in office yet.
Financial difficulties have already plagued the system once, in 2001. Unfortunately, the wake-up call seems to have been missed. Slapping down a $2 cigarette tax for the schools is not going to save the system. It’s merely a band-aid when a tourniquet is needed.
Overhauling the pay and compensation packages of Philadelphia teachers would be thoroughly beneficial. Even though it may be politically difficult and unpalatable, budget reform and deficit reduction will naturally follow once compensation levels have been stabilized and brought in line with their private counterparts.
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Even with record federal revenue, the government has a running deficit of $385 billion though the first nine months of fiscal 2014.
According to CNSNews, “The White House Office of Management and Budget has estimated that in the full fiscal 2014, the federal government will collect $3.001721 trillion in taxes and spend $3.650526 trillion, while running a deficit of $648.805 billion.
The OMB has also estimated that, while running that deficit, the federal government will collect a record amount in inflation-adjusted tax revenues.”
All this confirms is that the government is not short on money (record tax revenue receipts) but is short on cutting spending.
As I noted last fall how irregular circumstances contributed to reducing the deficit last year, it is likely that there will be a similar explanation for the tiny surplus as well.
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After the United Negro College Fund accepted a $25 million grant from Koch Brothers, Inc and the Charles Koch Foundation, The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) sent a letter to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) yesterday ending their relationship. This includes a paid internship program.
In the letter, AFSCME President Lee Saunders condemned the action as “not only deeply hostile to the rights and dignity of public employees, but also a profound betrayal of the ideals of the civil rights movement.”
He further accused the Koch Brothers of being “the single most prominent funders of efforts to prevent African Americans from voting”.
Needless to say, these accusations are outrageous. A rational view would show that the Koch Brothers support for organizations that enhance individual responsibility and free-market solutions for education and poverty is far superior to the AFSCME policies of cronyisn and increasing the welfare state.
UNCF President Michael Lomax responded with this statement: “While I am saddened by AFSCME’s decision, it will not distract us from our mission of helping thousands of African American students achieve their dream of a college degree and the economic benefits that come with it,”
The $25 million will create a “Koch Scholars” program. In comparison, a AFSCME spokesman noted that the union donates $50,000 to $60,000 a year for scholarships and “hundreds of thousands” of dollars annually.
The libertarian-leaning Koch Brothers have been routinely vilified on the Left. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared in February that “These two brothers are about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine.”
You can take a look at the Koch Brother’s Foundation charitable information here. They have have pledged or contributed $1.2 billion in donations for medical and cancer research, education and science, arts and culture, and public policy.
As for the ASFCME, a politically-correct hit job “is a terrible thing to waste”
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In another laughable, irresponsible, and certainly illegal move (far overreaching any possible regulatory claim), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against a private company that fired employees who could not effectively communicate in English. The EEOC lawsuit alleges that this violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on “national origin”.
The EEOC’s logic argues that this includes “the “linguistic characteristics of a national origin group.” The EEOC is in fact saying that a business may not use its own judgment as to whether its employees need to speak English fluently, whether or not there is any evidence of discrimination.
This lawsuit has shades of another ludicrous overreach in June of 2013 by the EEOC that also referenced Title VII “discrimination” in their cases, alleging that,
“BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina, and the largest small-box discount retailer [Dollar General] in the United States violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by implementing and utilizing a criminal background policy that resulted in employees being fired and others being screened out for employment”
These cases appear to have been filed soon after a December 2012 “strategic enforcement plan” was issued by the EEOC “that included targeting background checks as a barrier to employment of minorities”. Within six months, both BMW and Dollar General were sued.
However, the rulings did not go quite the way the EEOC would have liked. Judicial Watch noted that, “U.S. District Court Judge Roger Titus lambasted the administration’s expert data, writing that it was “laughable”; “based on unreliable data”; “rife with analytical error”; containing “a plethora of errors and analytical fallacies” and a “mind-boggling number of errors”; “completely unreliable”; “so full of material flaws that any evidence of disparate impact derived from an analysis of its contents must necessarily be disregarded”; “distorted”; “both over and under inclusive”; “cherry-picked”; “worthless”; and “an egregious example of scientific dishonesty.”
There are simply no facts to support a theory of disparate impact, the judge writes, further stating: “By bringing actions of this nature, the EEOC has placed many employers in the “Hobson’s choice” of ignoring criminal history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized information deemed fundamental by most employers.”
Having recovered from the sting, the EEOC is back spending taxpayer funds to target private businesses with frivolous lawsuits. According to their press release regarding Wisconsin Plastics, Incs “the EEOC’s pre-suit administrative investigation revealed that WPI fired the Hmong and Hispanic employees based on 10-minute observations that marked them down for their English skills, even though those skills were not needed to perform their jobs”
Furthermore, according to the EEOC Chicago Regional Attorney John C. Hendrickson, “Our experience at the EEOC has been that so-called ‘English only’ rules and requirements of English fluency are often employed to make what is really discrimination appear acceptable. But superficial appearances are not fooling anyone. When speaking English fluently is not, in fact, required for the safe and effective performance of a job, nor for the successful operation of the employer’s business, requiring employees to be fluent in English usually constitutes employment discrimination on the basis of national origin — and thus violates federal law”
Wisconson plastics, Inc, on the other hand, maintains that the EEOC claims are “false and absolutely without merit”. The EEOC counters that English language requirements are justifiable only when “ absolutely necessary “for an employer to operate safely or efficiently.” but simultaenously admits that “there is no precise test for making this evaluation.”
The Wisconsin Plastic, Inc explains that there “the layoff decisions at issue in the fall of 2012 were made on the basis of the employees’ overall comparative skills, behaviors and job performance over time. Though the decisions were difficult, they were necessary in order to ensure the ongoing stability of Wisconsin Plastics for the benefit of WPI’s customers, its shareholders, the community and the roughly 275 current company and temporary employees.”
So a company operates to benefit its customers, shareholders, the community, and its employees. This sometimes results in a hard decision to discontinue the employment of an employee or employees whose performance does not positively benefit the company to a company-decided level of satisfaction.
The fact that the EEOC can instead arbitrarily decide it knows the intentions of a company better than a company itself, and moreover, sue that company for discrimination when the company decides to terminate an employee that is just not working out, is utterly outrageous.
Let’s hope that the next judge is as wise as the one who presided over the BMW and Dollar General court cases.
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On July 10 and again on July 11, the IRS will be in court for two separate cases related to the IRS scandal, specifically regarding the missing emails.
The Weekly Standard notes that on Thursday, July 10th, “IRS lawyers will appear in federal district court to explain why they never reported the emails missing in the context of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch”.
The following day, July 11th, “the IRS legal team is expected to try to block outside access to the evidence that Lois Lerner’s computer crashed—if such evidence exists”.
I mentioned the July 11th court date last week here, where you can also read the court motion.
These two court dates are significant, because they contrast the internal investigation that has been done so far: “The Department of Justice “investigation”—led by a high-dollar Obama donor, overseen by an attorney general who may be the most loyal of the Obama loyalists, who reports to a president who has already declared that there was not even a “smidgen” of corruption”.
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I could post something from the eloquent Thomas Jefferson, but I’ve always loved this quote from Winston Churchill:
“We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence”
— Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946.
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U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton called upon the IRS to defend itself in court on July 11th.
According to the Washington Examiner, IRS lawyers will be asked to explain “why the IRS shouldn’t be required to let an outside expert evaluate whether emails on the computer hard drives of former IRS official Lois Lerner and six colleagues really are lost forever.”
The motion filed seeks an outside computer forensics expert to determine the ability to salvage or not the data apparently lost to a crash. At the very least, the IRS was not following proper laws and procedures to protect information.
“If the IRS’s public statements about ‘recycling’ Ms. Lerner’s hard drive are true, that alone establishes spoliation of evidence that violates federal statutes and regulations, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and professional ethics and responsibility.
You can read the motion here:
