While members of Congress want to know more about the IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) groups, they should look no further than themselves for the blame.
I tried to read the tax code regarding just what a “social welfare” group is, and my head almost exploded. The IRS didn’t write these rules, Congress did. If there isn’t clarity in the IRS procedures, blame Congress. But don’t look to Congress to fix anything. Its members benefit from the spending these tax-exempt organizations do. If anything, this loophole should be closed.
Shirley Conley
Gardena
***
Yes, the IRS and Associated Press scandals smell bad. But I wonder if one reason the members of one political party spend so much time spewing out self-righteous rants about the other party’s possible screw-up of the day — rather than working on vital legislation — has something to do with being in perpetual campaign mode brought on by their refusal to compromise on meaningful campaign finance reform.
It would be helpful for the AP if Republicans had not filibustered the proposed reporter shield law in 2008. This legislation would have specifically prohibited the kinds of abuses being visited upon the AP.
When the bill was in the House, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), now in high dudgeon over the matter, was one of only 21 representatives to vote against protecting reporters’ sources.
So many stories to report, so little time. Here’s something that’s been eating at me for awhile now, and someone whose work I respect and admire feels the same way. Richard (RJ) Eskow:
Apparently it never occurred to Attorney General Eric Holder that the Associated Press might be “too big to fail.” If it had,then his Justice Department probably never would have investigated it. [...]
That policy has led to extraordinary prosecutorial passivity in the face of overwhelming evidence.There’s certainly no sign that the Justice Department has ever sought the phone records or emails of America’s top bankers.
Bam.
Then as I was poking around, I came across this from TPM:
Attorney General Holder at a House Judiciary Committee hearing:
“I am not going to stop talking now… It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It is unacceptable. It is shameful.”
He said that to the very same Darrell Issa who voted against a media shield law only a few years ago. BuzzFeed:
Republicans In Congress Killed A Media Shield Law That Would Have Protected The Associated Press
The defeated bill would have required approval from a federal court before reporters’ phone records were subpoenaed. Darrell Issa, who condemned the AP subpoena Monday voted against it. [...]
Issa didn’t mention that he voted against a measure that would have protected the AP from the DOJ’s subpoena in 2007. Issa was one of 21 House members who opposed the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, a measure that would have forbidden federal investigators from compelling journalists to give evidence without first obtaining a court order. The bill included a section that specifically forbid subpoenaing journalists’ phone records from “communication service providers” to the same extent that the law protected the journalists themselves.
Timing is everything:
The White House asked Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to reintroduce reporter shield legislation, White House officials told CNN on Wednesday.
Jay Carney on why President Obama hadn’t called Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the AP phone records probe:
“A great deal prevents the president from doing that, it would be wholly inappropriate for the president to involve himself in a criminal investigation, that as Jessica points out, at least as reported involves leaks of information from the administration. I mean, imagine the story on Fox if that were to happen. So, that’s why.”
Fox has gone after this president so relentlessly, Carney was just stating the truth. It was good to hear a few members of the press laughing in response. Hey, I laugh out loud at ClusterFox all the time.
Carney confirmed that Holder recused himself from the investigation of The Associated Press, but said a call from the White House to anyone at the Justice Department would be inappropriate.
More generally, “a careful balance … must be obtained” between press rights and national security concerns, said Carney, who is a former reporter… Carney also defended Obama’s record on the freedom of the press, pointing to press shield legislation he sponsored during his time in the Senate.
Come to think of it, every time I imagine any story on Fox, I find myself reaching for a mug of wine and a few Tums.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on Tuesday that he had ordered the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to open an investigation into whether Internal Revenue Service officials broke any criminal laws by singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny.
The activities of I.R.S. officials are already the subject of an investigation by the agency’s inspector general. The results of that inquiry, which are expected in the next several days, are expected to detail how officials at the agency selected political groups for extra scrutiny about their tax status.
Speaking at a news conference called on Tuesday to discuss Medicare fraud, Mr. Holder said that he had ordered a second investigation to determine whether any criminal laws may have been broken by the officials at the tax collection agency.
As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) charges in a news release issued from his Senate office:
The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger now than before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis when the Federal Reserve propped up financial institutions with $16 trillion in near zero-interest loans and Congress approved a $700 billion rescue for banks that some considered “too big to fail.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. now says the Justice Department may not pursue criminal cases against big banks because filing charges could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
“We have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail,” Sanders said. “That is unacceptable and that has got to change because America is based on a system of law and justice.”
[...]
As a result of this Obama administration economic injustice and the threat that letting the same rip-off artists who caused the American economy to collapse continue to run even bigger banks and financial entities, Sanders and his staff penned a bill. It’s a short piece of legislation that gets right to the point in Section 3:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities include on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.
[...]
If you want your dose of restoring economic accountability and justice to America, watch the Sanders/Sherman news conference on the law that would break up the too big to fail banks, [in the video above].
http://warren.senate.gov Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Q&A at the March 7, 2013 Banking Committee hearing entitled “Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement.” Witnesses were: David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department of the Treasury; Thomas Curry, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and Jerome H. Powell, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Too big to fail has morphed into too big to prosecute. Attorney General Holder:
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”
Today, Senator Warren sent this email out:
Laffy–
Attorney General Eric Holder indicated in testimony before the U.S. Senate that some Wall Street banks have gotten so big that they are now above the law.
He actually said earlier this week:
I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.
This is wrong — just plain wrong. We are a country that believes in equal justice under the law — not special deals for the big guys. And that’s not all the special deals that the big banks get.
According to recent calculations by Bloomberg, the top ten biggest banks receive an $83 billion subsidy every year in the form of lower borrowing costs — something not available to your community bank or credit union. The markets think that, if things get tough, the government will be there to bail out the big banks again but not the little guys.
To put things in perspective — that $83 billion subsidy is about the same amount of money being fought over in the sequestration.
So why are we still debating this issue at all? Isn’t it obvious that the “too big to fail” problem still exists and is bad for small banks? Bad for taxpayers? Bad for our economy? Bad for justice?
Here’s one theory that worries me: maybe people believe that the banks have in fact become too big to shrink. They have started to say that we can’t cut these banks down to size.
I’m not one of them, and neither are colleagues of mine like Sen. Sherrod Brown who have been fighting hard on this issue. We know we can take on the big banks and their army of lobbyists and win because we’ve done it before.
When banks are too big to fail, too big to jail, too big for trial, too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big to shrink, and too big to reform… they are just too big.
We’re just getting started here.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
Have I mentioned how utterly thrilled I am that she’s a U.S. Senator? We need 99 more like her.
The administration’s legal justification for drone strikes, outlined in a Justice Department paper that became public Monday night, states that an “informed, high-level official” can approve a strike against an Al Qaeda official, including an American citizen, even without evidence that the targeted person is planning a specific operation.”
“An ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require … clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” says the policy paper [...] [T]he paper says a capture operation can be ruled out by a determination that the risk to American troops is too great. In almost every case, such operations have in fact been ruled out, U.S. officials say. [...]
But the broad authority asserted in the paper to kill Al Qaeda figures even when they have not been tied to an impending attack contrasts with the narrow way the drone strike program has been described by administration officials. [...] The policy paper makes it clear, however, that the U.S. doesn’t need evidence tying a militant to a specific plot to mark him for death. [...]
The decision to order a lethal strike falls either to the president or his designee, an “informed, high-level official,” in the words of the paper. No court or third party has a right to review it, the paper says.
“The administration’s concept of ‘imminent threat’ appears to require neither imminence nor a specific threat,” said C. Dixon Osburn, director of Human Rights First, a Washington activist group. “Accepted principles of international law require both.”
A tag dreamt up by self-proclaimed liberals to preemptively blunt any criticism of Obama, even when the same standards were applied to actions undertaken by the previous President.
Apparently questioning the authority of a president– no matter who he is– when it comes to secrecy and using drones to kill Americans is very emo-proggy. And apparently, the people who use that infantile term don’t like to answer questions like, “What if a President Paul Ryan were to have these same powers? Whose to say the powers wouldn’t be abused?” or, “Consider how you’d feel if you were to substitute the name Bush for Obama.”
Instead they insist that we should trust President Obama because he means well and is intelligent and caring– which he is, but that’s irrelevant. Under his watch, these drone attacks are still occurring, so no matter how great a guy he is, there are legal and moral issues to consider.
There are also really, really bad precedents to consider.
My point: It is okay, mandatory in fact, to question authority, especially when that authority invites you to hold him accountable. Especially when deliberately killing Americans is involved. Especially when Congress isn’t. Again, the Times:
… an “informed, high-level official” can approve a strike against an Al Qaeda official, including an American citizen, even without evidence that the targeted person is planning a specific operation…
…The decision to order a lethal strike falls either to the president or his designee, an “informed, high-level official,” in the words of the paper. No court or third party has a right to review it…
Here is more analysis and a lot of questions from Rachel, including questions about the president’s choice of John Brennan to be the next CIA director:
“These things are based on facts. Facts that I cannot tell you. So I cannot reference them because I cannot tell you them, but they are facts.”
“Right. Exactly. They go into how you conduct your offensive operations. That’s the thing we want to know about.”
“Now a bipartisan group of 11 U.S. Senators has written to President Obama asking him to release what is still secret about why the administration and the president think that it is legal to kill Americans this way. Quote: ‘It is vitally for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined and whether the president’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards.‘”
The issue here is who’s a bad guy and how do you figure it out? If this is the means by which we’re going to decide not that you’re going to be arrested and tried, but the means by which we will decide whether the president can order you dead, then on what basis is the president making that decision? How do they determine who is a bad guy? Or as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden put it in a question, a written question to the president’s CIA nominee John Brennan, ‘How much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular American can be lawfully killed?‘”
“Following naturally on from that, and this is the one that keeps me up at night, does the president have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them?”
“If you’re an American citizen and the president is going to kill you, do you have the right to give yourself up instead so you don’t get killed?And how do you know you should do that if the president’s decision that he is going to kill you is a secret decision that nobody ever tells you? And are we right also in only imagining this kind of thing happening in places like Yemen or Pakistan”
Quoting again from Senator Wyden here, ‘Are there any geographic limitations on the intelligence community’s authority to use lethal force against Americans? Do any intelligence agencies have the authority to carry out lethal operations inside the United States?’ Good question.”
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