by | ARTICLES, BLOG, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
Whatever shred of actual relevancy Chuck Todd hoped to achieve as the new moderator of “Meet the Press” just collapsed during his MSNBC interview regarding the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder. Chuck Todd eulogizes Eric Holder as “a non-political person”:
“He did a lot of the tough stuff that you would say, ‘Hey, the attorney general has to do tough stuff, this is not a forgiving job, you have to do tough stuff. But, what’s interesting about him, he is a very non-political person. And I think people used to mistakenly think that this guy was this long-time political operative who happened to be an attorney general. That’s not him at all.”
Thankfully, the folks over at NRO reminded us all that Eric Holder himself prefers to be considered a partisan hack. “In an August interview with the Hill, Holder revealed he was proud to be labeled an activist attorney general, adding that those who say the DOJ has an ‘activist civil-rights division and this is an activist attorney general — I’d say I agree with you 1000 percent and [I am] proud of it’.”
Eric Holder is the man who has completely destroyed the Office of the Attorney General. As for others Attorney Generals before him, even though they were hired by a particular President, they still put the country first. Attorney Generals have to contend with many different issues and cases, and they are expected to generally pick the most egregious ones to go after. With Holder, on the other hand, instead of picking out the most egregious, he purposefully picked out the most politically motivated ones to make hay with. Holder proudly relishes in his partisanship, yet Chuck Todd feels compelled to try to present this other Holder narrative instead — that Holder is “non-political”.
Amusingly, Chuck Todd’s asinine remarks drew swift ridicule online especially over on Twitter, where Twitchy quickly compiled a list of incredulous and snarky responses. As one person pointed out, “not even Eric Holder thinks this is true”.
The only logical conclusion is that Chuck Todd really is the hand-picked lapdog of the White House. Why else would he debut his tenure at “Meet the Press” by lobbing softball questions during an interview with President Obama? It is imperative to also pay attention to his other roles: besides being the moderator at Meet the Press, he simultaneously serves as the Political Director at NBC News; additionally, prior to becoming the moderator, Todd worked as the Chief White House correspondent. It appears Chuck Todd gleefully took a page takes his cues from Holder’s (non)partisan playbook strategy.
After three weeks at the helm, Chuck Todd’s rating have declined. According to Politico, “NBC’s “Meet the Press” finished in third place for the second consecutive week on Sunday, suggesting that the boon from Chuck Todd’s inaugural episode and exclusive interview with President Barack Obama was an aberration, rather than a harbinger.” What’s worse, if you compare it with the average number of viewers of “Meet the Press” during the 2013-2014 season, Chuck Todd’s ratings are below: “Meet the Press” in last year averaged 2.724M, whereas last week, “Meet the Press” had just 2.416M.
It will be fascinating to see how this farcical flap plays out with his viewership this week and beyond. For all the pundits who praised the choice of Chuck Todd for moderator and anointed savior of the floundering “Meet the Press”, no one can mistake his bias now. And thankfully, no one has to take him seriously anymore either.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
Just like the recent rise of business inversions — moving business HQ abroad — the United States has seen an uptick (up 221%) in Americans renouncing their citizenship. The elephant in the room in both these cases is taxes: both high taxes and burdensome tax compliance in foreign jurisdictions.
Instead of facing the problems directly, the Obama Administration has resorted to punitive measures. The shame and blame tactic of calling out businesses who wish to relocate as “unpatriotic” was undignified. Perhaps realizing that using the same strategy with individuals would be even less well received, they went the more quiet, direct route: yesterday, the State Department announced their interim final rule that raises the fee for renouncing citizenship from $450 to $2,350.
Their justification for raising the fee is the time and labor involved in the process; that is, the bureaucratic red tape that they created, and then decide to charge exhorbitant fees for:
“The CoSM demonstrated that documenting a U.S. citizen’s renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring American consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. For example, consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation as an alien. Other steps include verifying that the renunciant is a U.S. citizen, conducting a minimum of two intensive interviews with the potential renunciant, and reviewing at least three consular systems before administering the oath of renunciation. The final approval of the loss of nationality must be done by law within the Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services in Washington, DC, after which the case is returned to the consular officer overseas for final delivery of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality to the renunciant. These steps further add to the time and labor that must be involved in the process. Accordingly, the Department is increasing the fee for processing such requests from $450 to $2,350. As noted in the interim final rule dated June 28, 2010 (77 FR 36522), the fee of $450 was set substantially below the cost to the U.S. government of providing this service (less than one quarter of the cost). Since that time, demand for the service has increased dramatically, consuming far more consular officer time and resources, as reflected in the 2012 Overseas Time Survey and increased workload data. Because the Department believes there is no public benefit or other reason for setting this fee below cost, the Department is increasing this fee to reflect the full cost of providing the service. Therefore the increased fee reflects both the increased cost of the provision of service as well as the determination to now charge the full cost.
Interestingly enough, if you compare the cost of renunciation in the United States to the cost of renunciation in other countries, the new fee puts the United States way above others. You can check out this handy chart here. The next two highest are Jamaica ($1,010 in US dollars), and Sierre Leone ($663 in US dollars).
So those who wish to renounce their citizenship get to buy their freedom by paying a 422% fee increase for the express privilege of dealing with United States bureaucracy one final time.
This is considered an administrative fee, issued by the State Department, but it is essentially an unofficial “exit tax” for regular citizens. But there is a real one too. As Forbes notes, “To leave America, you generally must prove 5 years of U.S. tax compliance. If you have a net worth greater than $2 million or average annual net income tax for the 5 previous years of $157,000 or more for 2014 (that’s tax, not income), you pay an exit tax”.
So for those who have done well in the United States, besides the higher administrative fee/exit tax, you get to pay that real “exit tax” knows as the 877A.
Alas, this isn’t the first time those wishing to leave have been targeted. A bigger, punitive measure was attempted in 2012 by Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey. When the co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin, renounced his U.S. citizenship as a means to save millions in taxes before Facebook went public, the Senators reacted by proposing the “Ex-PATRIOT Act” of 2012 that essentially doubled the exit tax for high worth individuals. “People who could not prove another reason for renouncing citizenship would face a 30% tax on future capital gains on U.S. investments – twice the current 15% rate – and be barred from receiving a visa to enter the country.” Thankfully the bill died in committee the first year, and did not advance out of the Senate in 2013.
Though this new fee hike is different than the standard exit tax, and on a much smaller scale (dollars-wise), it speaks the same language: punish. All this fee hike does is prove that that current administration would rather squeeze U.S. citizens for more revenue, thus likely reiterating to those renouncing their citizenship that being a U.S. citizen lacks much of the value that it once did. And that is a very sad thing.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, FREEDOM, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS
This would be really funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Brad Woodhouse is President of American Bridge 21st Century, a SuperPAC that “monitors what Republican politicians say and fights back when their rhetoric doesn’t match their records.” This is a PAC well known to be funded by billionaire George Soros.
So when Mr. Woodhouse pushed out a news story entitled, “GOP Senate Candidates Bow at Koch Throne”, someone else noticed the irony in attacking the conservative billionaire Koch Brothers, while simultaneously receiving PAC funding from liberal billionaire George Soros.
Andrew Kaczynski, who writes over at the popular BuzzFeed took to twitter to call out Mr. Woodhouse: “It’s almost pathetic how weak the Democrats ‘run against the Koch brothers’ strategy is.”, he wrote.
One might say this falls squarely under the “fights back when their rhetoric doesn’t match their records” mantra proudly proclaimed on the American Bridge website — except that Mr. Woodhouse clearly did not approve of this particular instance of holding people “accountable for their words and actions”. This only applies to Republicans, according to the PAC website.
Mr. Woodhouse huffily replied to Kaczynski: “it’s a shame you have no idea what you are talking about”, to which Mr. Kaczynski bluntly asked, “Since you’re outraged by billionaires influencing politics @woodhouseb will American Bridge be refunding largest-donor George Soros?”
Pointing out that American Bridge takes money from certain billionaires (approved by the Left) while attacking other billionaires (not approved by the Left) did not sit well with Mr. Woodhouse, as he retorted, “That’s a stupid question”, to which Kaczynski confirmed, “So that’s a no?”.
Mr. Woodhouse then began to rationalize the hypocrisy by applying logic Animal Farm: some billionaires are more equal than others.
“Since you don’t understand the difference I don’t think there is any reason to continue this discussion,” wrote Mr. Woodhouse, to which Kaczynski replied, “I guess @woodhouseb your billionaires are better than their billionaires,”.
Mr. Woodhouse clarified that observation by writing, “well, they’re not looking to screw the middle class to enrich themselves – so yeah – maybe you do get it.”
Kaczynski confirmed the duplicity by pointing out, “So you dislike big money @woodhouseb only when it isn’t your ideology. I understand now.”
Mr. Woodhouse’s reply (and final tweet) continued using the leftist playbook by a) casting the Koch Brothers as anti-middle class and b) his opponent as stupid, by responding, “I dislike people who want to stack the deck against the middle class and am irritated by people who don’t get the difference.” You can view the twitter exchange here:
So, American Bridge is okay with taking good billionaire money while attacking bad billionaire money. Because American Bridge “understands” and “feels” and “believes”.
Its website describes how, “We understand the frustration you feel with elected officials who campaign on one set of principles but govern by another, because we feel it too. We believe you deserve better than that. We think our elected officials should have one set of principles, not one for each set of special interests they represent.”
Can we substitute “PAC” for “elected officials” above?
Nope — apparently this sentiment only applies to Republicans, not liberals or PACs. If you check out American Bridge’s opening description, it states that American Bridge “is a progressive research and communications organization committed to holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions and helping you ascertain when Republican candidates are pretending to be something they’re not.”
Therefore, according American Bridge, only Republicans should be accountable for their words and actions, and only Republicans can pretend to be something they are not. Certainly not Mr. Woodhouse, who became irritated when Mr. Kacyznski “helped him ascertain” that American Bridge was “pretending to be something they’re not” by taking (liberal) billionaire money in politics while attacking (conservative) billionaire money in politics.
That rule does not apply to Woodhouse at all. Not one bit. Because Mr. Woodhouse is not a Republican. So Mr. Woodhouse “gets the difference.” (He “understands” and “feels” and “believes”.)
All billionaires are billionaires. But some billionaires are more equal than others. A classical abuse of logic by the Left.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed something called “The Sugar Act”, which, interestingly, had another name: “The American Revenue Act”. It was a modification of the 1733 Molasses Act, and it also affected other goods, such as wine and coffee.
The Preamble to this Act states: “it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom … and … it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised … for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same.”
The Sugar Act/American Revenue Act, therefore, was a revenue raising measure (and not just a regulation measure), whose revenue was intended to help defray the costs of defending the colonies during the 7 Years War which ended in 1763. Instead, it wreaked havoc in the colonies:
“The situation disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods. This act, and the Currency Act, set the stage for the revolt at the imposition of the Stamp Act.”
Fast forward to 2014. A new measure was introduced by Rep. Rosa deLauro called the SWEET Act, also known as the “Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax” — a proposed tax of “one cent per teaspoon – 4.2 grams – of sugar, high fructose corn syrup or caloric sweetener”.
The Act sounds eerily like a revenue-raiser, much like its ancestor, the Sugar Act. From the text of the SWEET Act:
“This Act is intended to discourage excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages by increasing the price of these products and by creating a dedicated revenue source for programs and research designed to reduce the human and economic costs of diabetes, obesity, dental caries, and other diet-related health conditions in priority populations”
Let’s compare:
Sugar Act: “improving the revenue of this Kingdom”… “just and necessary that a revenue should be raised”… “for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same.”
SWEET Act: “dedicated revenue source for programs and research”… “to reduce the human and economic costs of diabetes, obesity, dental caries, and other diet-related health conditions”.
Same over-reaching thinking, different government.
As a response to the Sugar Act in May 1764, Samuel Adams drafted a report on the Sugar Act for the Massachusetts assembly, in which he denounced the act as an infringement of the rights of the colonists as British subjects:
For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of?
”
Will there also be a similar rebuke over the Sweet Act of 2014? The Sugar Act was subsequently repealed in 1766 because it was such a disastrous piece of legislation. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself and the SWEET Act never comes to fruition.
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
Inspectors General (yes, that’s the plural) are considered watchdogs for the government. Their jobs primarily focus on “uncovering waste, fraud, and mismanagement”, which is an important function to keep government programs and agencies in check.
A serious breach of trust is evident, therefore, when 47 of 73 Inspectors General pen a letter to Congress describing “serious limitations on access to records.” That’s 64% of the total watchdogs who express such concerns. You can read the letter here:
The letter takes aim at primarily three agencies: the General at the Peace Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Justice. These Inspectors General “recently faced restrictions on their access to certain records available to their agencies that were needed to perform their oversight work in critical areas.” The restrictions were not limited to just those Inspectors General; hence the overwhelming need to pen a letter to Congress. The Inspectors General described how other
“Inspectors General have, from time to time, faced similar obstacles to their work, whether on a claim that some other law or principle trumped the clear mandate of the IG Act or by the agency’s imposition of unnecessarily burdensome administrative conditions on access. Even when we are ultimately able toresolve these issues with senior agency leadership, the process is often lengthy, delays our work, and diverts time and attention from substantive oversight activities. This plainly is not what Congress intended when it passed the IG Act.
The Inspector General Act of 1978 is clear. The pertinent statute that relates to access is Section §6: Authority of Inspector General; information and assistance from Federal agencies; unreasonable refusal; office space and equipment. It patently states:
(a) In addition to the authority otherwise provided by this Act, each Inspector General, in
carrying out the provisions of this Act, is authorized—
(1) to have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations,
or other material available to the applicable establishment which relate to programs and
operations with respect to which that Inspector General has responsibilities under this Act
The full text of the law can be found here:
The letter to Congress was addressed to the Honorable Darrell Issa, the Honorable Thomas R. Carper, The Honorable Elijah Cummings, and The Honorable Tom Coburn. What made the letter particularly notable, however, was its size and scope.
Darrell Issa described, “I’ve never seen a letter like this, and my folks have checked — there has never been a letter even with a dozen IGs complaining. This is the majority of all inspectors general saying not just in the examples they gave, but government wide, they see a pattern that is making them unable to do their job.”
Reading the official website for Inspectors General, one can see they pride themselves on service, “whose primary responsibilities, to the American public, are to detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and violations of law and to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the operations of the Federal Government.”
The fact that the majority of the Inspectors General find themselves unable to perform their duties to audit the federal government is quite troubling, because it is another example of the “most transparent administration” choosing to willfully cloak themselves in secrecy. Stonewalling the very agents — who have a duty to the American people to keep government in check — is another tactical abuse of power.
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
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.
by | ARTICLES, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS
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”
by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
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.
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, TAX TIPS
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”.
by | ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
You can’t have anyone that stupid be in charge at NBC.
Chuck Todd, who is NBC’s “Chief White House Correspondent” and also NBC’s “Political Director”, is out there mischaracterizing the IRS scandal. To blame it on 501c4s is utterly incomprehensible.
Yesterday on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown”, Chuck Todd gave this statement:
CHUCK TODD: Time now for my “Takeaway.” The controversy surrounding IRS may be more than a year old but of course we’re still talking about it. On Monday, the IRS Commissioner testified before Congress. A week after the IRS told Senate investigators that two years of e-mails disappeared in a computer crash back in 2011. While this certainly doesn’t make the Obama administration nor the IRS look very good, it’s important to remember what this actual story is about because it’s gotten lost.
The question at hand is whether explicitly political organizations should be filing as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code and both political parties are pointing blame. Republicans say that just conservative-sounding groups were targeted by the IRS. That’s why they want to see the e-mails. Democrats have responded by claiming, hey, liberal groups were targeted, too. But here is the story many are missing. Why should primarily political organizations get a taxpayer exemption, basically get a handout from the tax code? Both sides are in an uproar because they couldn’t take advantage of a borderline shady way to raise money for political purposes or launder money for political purposes.
So while the IRS is certainly not a good guy here they have been terrible about being forthcoming. Are there any actual real victims? Folks, this scandal is not black and white since frankly two wrongs don’t make a right. We know what really is working here for Republicans. Beating up the IRS, good for the base. Good politics there makes for great fundraising e-mails. But let’s remember what the controversy itself is about.
The problem is that Chuck Todd is flat-out wrong. 501c4s are not a way to engage in political spending. They are issue advocacy groups, and always have been — for nearly 100 years. Never until this administration has anyone had a problem with 501c4s.
The real crux of the problem is that the IRS attempting to try to turn issue advocacy — which is a first amendment, free speech issue — into political speech, so they can try to curb it. This was clearly evident in the recent uproar with the IRS trying to re-write the rules on 501c4s, which generated tens of thousands of comments in protest.
The short version is that issue advocacy deals with issues (free speech) and is not “political”, whereas advocating for a candidate or a party is “political”. It may not be a perfect divider, but it has worked quite well, and no one has even suggested anything better.
Proving Chuck Todd to be even more clueless is the fact that 501 c4 organizations do not really get any tax benefits from their “tax exemption”. All a 501c4 is, is a group of people pooling their after tax money to pay for a non- deductible expenditure. There are never “profits”, the receipt of funds from its members is not income, and the expenditure of these funds are not “deductions”. Just as there is no tax effect from an individual spending on issue advocacy, there should be no tax effect from individuals pooling their funds for the same spending. The IRS granting of 501c4 status is just recognizing the obvious.
Chuck Todd is either disingenously preying on low-information viewers to not know the differences between 501c4s and other tax-exempt organizations, or else he really is that stupid. Either way, he should submit his resignation today.
