The Constitutional Convention: May 30th and 31st

On May 30th the convention resolved itself into a committee of the whole, which effectively turns the entire group into one big committee so they can discuss whatever is at hand. In this case the content of the Virginia Plan. It would meet this way for two weeks.

On May 30th it was decided that the national government woudl be divided into the three chambers and then discussed whether whether representation should be based on a state's population or financial contributions to the national government.

On May 31st a bicameral legislature was agreed to, and that the legislature would be elected by the people. The proposal that the "second branch" would be elected by the "first branch" was defeated. Each house would be able to initiate legislation and Congress was given power over areas where the states were incompetent, and would be able to negate state laws.

The increased student loan burden has an impact on career choices?

Increased debt is out of sync with starting salaries in many fields. Some may not seek to enter certain careers because they will not allow them to pay off theirs loans.

From the Fiscal Times, federal legislation has been introduced making it more feasible for students to pursue low paying fields, like teaching.

New federal legislation is making it easier for those in lower-paying jobs to pay off their school debt, says Edie Irons, communications director for the Institute for College Access and Success, Oakland, Calif. Income-based repayment, which became available in 2009, allows those with federal student loans to cap monthly payments at a percentage of discretionary income.  After 25 years, any outstanding debt is forgiven.

For those who choose public service jobs like school guidance counselor or public defender or non-profit health care, a separate program offers federal loan forgiveness after only 10-years.  “This is a very important program for the people who qualify for it, especially if they have gone to graduate school and taken on a lot of debt to become a social worker or a teacher,” Irons says.

Aware that debt worries are keeping some students away from lower-paying professions, Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. has taken steps to limit loan amounts in its financial aid packages. It has put an annual $3,500 cap on lending, limiting students to $14,000 over their undergraduate careers. “We were concerned that students were mortgaging their futures to get college degrees, and we didn’t want that to happen,” says David Levy, director of financial aid. “We wanted students to be able to follow their passions.”

ROI
ROI

Is Ted Cruz burning the bridges that might help him win the presidency?

Our junior senator - Ted Cruz - along with Rand Paul and a few others, have begun their careers in the Senate by violating a number of unpoken rules about how newly elected members are supposed to act. Rather than defer to senior members, build up relationships and spend time learning how the institution runs they have made it a habit of acting out on their own, even against senior members of their own party.

They are up front about not caring about how the institution runs but the conflict he is stirring up might make him a less viable presidential candidate should he choose to run. The Dish flags two stories to that make this argument.

One points out, ironically, that Cruz is violating advice made by one of his predecessors from Texas, Lyndon Johnson.

There was a time when a new senator could not have survived such a controversial start. "The making of a good senator is in some ways similar to the making of a good work of art," William White wrote in 1956 in Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate. "There are few shortcuts." Lyndon Johnson gave a copy of the book to freshman senators. It advised that a career rested "upon what is slowly developing and enduring ... rather than what is quick and spectacular. Eminence may be reached by a concentration on frenetic and untypical senatorial activity, but it will never be sustained in that way."

Ted Cruz didn’t read that book, and even if he did, he’s decided to write his own. Though his colleagues have suggested he tone down his hard charging approach, he continues to engage with verve on multiple fronts.

There are at least a couple reasons why. First, the Senate occasionally provides a quick step to the White House, and the quicker the better. Both JFK and Obama made the jump during their first terms, so if Cruz's goal is the White House and not a long Senate career, he better make the jump soon. Older candidates - John McCain, Robert Dole and John Kerry for example - have not been as competitive.

Second, his real constituency is the Tea Party, and he prefers to do their bidding. They provide his support, so he doesn't rick much in the short term. from taking the establishment on. This includes picking fights with the older members of the institution. But this strategy might be more successful - electorally - if all he is interested in is being a long serving member of the Senate. If he wishes to make the jump to the White House, he needs to broaden his appeal:

. . . there are still dangers lurking for Cruz and others in the purity caucus. Though Barack Obama moved through the Senate quickly, he used it as a platform for bipartisan platform building. That’s what you need to do to win a national election in a diverse country. Cruz is pursuing the opposite strategy. It may win him cheers at home, but that puts him on track toward becoming this generation's Phil Gramm, the Texas senator whose effort to build a conservative platform from within the Senate made him unappealing as a national candidate.

His refusal to create relationships might limit his future goals:

I spoke to Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma this week about a wide variety of topics. He is as principled a conservative as you can find in the Senate, and he is more eloquent than Cruz about the venality of career politicians. But Coburn can also talk about the power of human relationships in politics in a way that seems antithetical to the brand of politics pursued by Cruz. "Relationships are how deals get done," said Coburn, who in this case was talking about President Obama. He's been friendly with Obama since 2005, the year they both arrived in the Senate. This is a constant source of confusion for Coburn’s constituents. "The No. 1 question I get at home is: Why are you friends with Barack Obama?" Coburn's answer, as Obama wrote in his essay about him for Time, is, “How better to influence somebody than to love them?” It's hard to imagine Ted Cruz talking that way.

John Sides makes the same point, and adds a nuance:

Cruz’s problem is that he may want to be president of the United States, reports the National Review’s Robert Costa.  And to be the Republican nominee, he’ll need the support of his Republican colleagues.  The 2012 election once again showed—and despite some skepticism—that it is very hard to win the nomination unless you’re preferred by a substantial chunk, if not the vast majority of, your party’s leaders (as was Romney).  Which is to say, it pays to be nice to your colleagues. 

Here's the nuance. If he really wants to win his party's nomination, much less the presidency itself, he has to tone down his ideology:

. . . many in the party are wary of nominating a strongly ideological candidate—a “severe” conservative, if you will—because they’re afraid that this candidate will lose in the general. And rightly so! See Table 2 of this article (pdf) by John Zaller.

In 2012, as Lynn Vavreck and I show in The Gamble (pdf), only about half of Romney’s supporters were closest to him ideologically. The other half were closer to Gingrich or Santorum—that is, to one of the more conservative candidates. But this other half also tended to believe that Romney was the only candidate who could beat Obama in November. Their vote was about electability, not experience. Of course, Romney didn’t win, but Zaller’s finding suggests that a more conservative candidate would have done worse, other things equal.

Cruz’s path to the presidency—if he decides to run—must consist precisely of convincing “the middle” of the party that he’s electable despite the fact that he may be the most conservative member of the Senate (pdf). To do that, he’ll need the support of his fellow party leaders to send that signal.

The young are driving less, the old are driving more

Andrew Sullivan has the story. American car culture may be waning. Walking and biking are more and more popular among the young. It might be worth considering what this means for traffic safety. Fewer younger drivers means fewer risk takers on the road, but having a larger number of elderly drivers may pose its own set of problems.

How might state and city ordinances respond to this shift? It would be worth checking on these data on a state by state basis. I have a hunch this does not apply to Texas.

Attention M3: 5/30/31 Class cancelled

Look on blackboard for the adjustments made to the schedule.

We will have class tomorrow.

Is Obama really a moderate Republican?

Here's an argument that policy wise, he is.

America is mired in three wars. The past decade was the hottest on record. Unemployment remains stuck near 9 percent, and there’s a small, albeit real, possibility that the U.S. government will default on its debt. So what’s dominating the news? A reality-television star who can’t persuade anyone that his hair is real is alleging that the president of the United States was born in Kenya.

Perhaps this is just the logical endpoint of two years spent arguing over what Barack Obama is — or isn’t. Muslim. Socialist. Marxist. Anti-colonialist. Racial healer. We’ve obsessed over every answer except the right one: President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican from the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him.

If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a health-care plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal coverage; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans staked out in the early ’90s — and often, well into the 2000s.

5,636

That's number of bills passed by the Texas Legislature in the 83rd regular session. Click here for the list.

And the breakdown from this page.

House Bills - 3950
Senate Bills - 1918

Which adds up to 5,868. I have no explanation for the disparity.

Total number of items passed by the House and Senate: 10,630

This includes:

House Concurrent Resolutions - 207
House Joint Resolutions - 130
House Resolutions - 3213
Senate Concurrent Resolutions - 49
Senate Joint Resolutions - 49
Senate Resolutions - 1100

The Texas Tribune detail how Governor Perry uses veto power

They go back to the 77th session in 2001 and detail the number of vetoes and which were most significant at the time.

Only two so far this year, but its early.

Learning from mistakes in Houston

The Atlantic tries to figure out what drives job growth in Houston - which is by far the largest than in any other city as you can tell from this graph:


Its link to the energy play a big role, but they highlight Houston's ability to learn from past mistakes. This is especially true of its ability to not repeat what lead to the recession Houston suffered from 1982 to 1987.

First, oil companies did not lay off too many workers after the 2008 crash.

Houston's energy sector is remarkably old -- the average age is over 50 -- and companies were nervous about laying off too many veteran workers before they had time to pass their skills down to the younger generation. Houston's energy demographics "helped to moderate energy industry job losses," leading to fewer job losses overall.

Second, policies were put in place to ensure that a housing bubble would not develop.

The 1980s also taught Houston a lesson about real estate. Between 1982 and 1987, Houston suffered "one of the worst regional recessions in U.S. history," Jankowski said. The metro area lost more than 220,000 jobs -- one in seven in the region -- but added nearly 188,000 housing units, as developers ignored the signs that demand had plummeted. The results were disastrous and scarring for the real estate industry.

Houston avoided over-building problems in this recession by tightening lending and home construction in the early years of the crisis. Houston didn't really have a housing bubble in the 2000s. The ratio between its median house prices and median household incomes peaked at 2.7 in 2006. By comparison, a typical Miami family would have to spend five-and-a-half years of their total income to afford an average home in the city by 2006. In Riverside, it would take nearly seven years. So as housing values cascading all across along the Sun Belt -- by 40 percent percent in Miami and 44 percent in Riverside -- they merely dipped about 2 percent in Houston.

From thr Texas Tribune: Inside Intelligence: About The 83rd Legislature...

According to insiders, the power of the Tea Party was weaker, that of moderate Republicans stronger, and that of Democrats about the same this legislative session.

From the DSM: High-tech pushes growth in Texas again

The article's title is a bit more sunny than its content. We've lost research jobs recently.

Texas still lags other big states - it mentions California, New York and Virginia - in both the number of high tech workers and the amount of their pay.

Tech workers in California, for instance, commanded an annual average of almost $32,000 more. Whether that’s an advantage depends on your point of view: Startups here pay considerably less for labor (as well as real estate), but they also see a lot of top talent bolt for higher pay on the east and west coasts.

While high-tech is big in Texas, we should be striving to make it a lot bigger. Last week’s billion-dollar sale of the young blogging platform Tumblr was the latest reminder of the industry’s huge upside.
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Other locales have turned more aggressive. In New York, where Tumblr is based, private and public leaders have pledged billions for campuses, office space and other initiatives to create a high-tech challenger to Silicon Valley. Venture capital has poured into the New York area (while it declined elsewhere, including here) and seed accelerators have multiplied. Both help speed the development of startup companies.

Cities and states always ask how to get more high-tech companies, said Matthew Kazmierczak, a researcher at the TechAmerica Foundation and author of the group’s annual Cyberstates report, which chronicles the industry’s job growth. He emphasizes a large labor force with the right skills.

“That’s often tied to good universities and research centers,” he said. “They fuel the pipeline of ideas.”

So the point seems to be that Texas lags behind other states because our state and local governments do not make the necessary investments to lure and incubate them. The relatively low number of tier one universities is one example. This makes it less likely that research will be conducted here:

. . . jobs in R&D remain a weakness in Texas’ tech story. From 2009 to 2012, the state lost 600 workers in research, according to TechAmerica. Over the same time, Texas employers added 19,000 jobs in computer system design and 5,000 in engineering services.

Just 7 percent of Texas tech jobs are in research and testing labs, compared with 12 percent nationwide. The share of R&D jobs in California, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania is at least twice as high as in Texas.

Texas’ tech workforce is larger than every state, except California. But New York and the mid-Atlantic region, led by the Virginia area near Washington, have been coming on strong. Last year, even after solid growth, Texas was still about 7,000 jobs shy of its peak tech employment in 2008. New York had 10,000 more tech workers than its pre-recession peak, and Virginia eclipsed its peak, too.

On this day in US Constitutional History: The Virginia Plan is introduced

On May 25th, the convention meet its quorum requirement and was then able to do business. Click here for James Madison's notes on the day's events. Robert Morris nominated George Washington to be president of the convention, this would be seconded by John Rutledge, and he would be selected unanimously. Morris was one of the small group of people involved in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was wealthy and lived in Philadelphia so he offered his home to Washington. Rutledge would later be appointed to the Supreme Court by Washington. Morris would be Washington's first choice for Treasury Secretary - he had previously served as Superintendent of Finance of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. When he declined the offer, Washington selected Hamilton. Morris served as a Senator and supported the Federalist Party.

Three members were also appointed to prepare standing rules and orders for the convention.

On May 28th, the Committee on Rules issued its report and 16 rules were adopted.

On May 29th, 5 additional rules would be adopted including the requirement that the proceedings be secret. Edmund Randolph then introduces the Virginia Plan, which was written primarily by James Madison. Randolph would later serve as the first Attorney General of the US and the second Secretary of States. Madison took the notes of Randolph's comments, which included a list of the defects of the government established in the Articles of Confederation.

Rodeo Palms residents do not want rental properties built in subdivision

The Sun Advertiser reports on opposition to a plan to build up to 200 rental homes on what was once to be an exclusive residential area. Manvel's mayor told the crowd that the city cannot stop the development.

One resident told council members that she is very concerned about her property. She fears rental property will decrease the value of her home. “We do not want renters,” she said.

Another resident spoke about the Harris County and Brazoria County area. “With the resurgence of the gas and oil business, several companies are expanding.

Manvel will be affected. There will be a great need for housing which will come about because of the job opportunities that will come with this growth,” she told council.

 One of the residents questioned the prices of the homes which will be used for rental property. “We have nothing in writing. They have no master plan. We will convey information to the residents as we receive it,” assured Mayor Delores Martin.

One of the speakers who opposed the homes feels like this is a knee jerk reaction. “They need to consider building a few rentals across several subdivisions,” he explained.

Special session to focus on redistricting

From the Dallas Morning News:

After leaving it on the backburner for their regular session, lawmakers are going into overtime to consider one of the most contentious issues in politics: redistricting.

The goal of Republican leaders appears to be to quickly adopt the court-ordered boundaries for congressional and legislative districts that a court put in place last year. That would set a ceiling for how well Democrats can do in next year’s elections and beyond.

Most analysts expect the Legislature to ram though the maps in a matter of days, though the session could last longer if Gov. Rick Perry adds other matters.

The districts, while not what Republicans had hoped for when the once-a-decade process started in 2011, are more palatable than what minorities and Democrats might score in the legal arena. Courts found “intentional discrimination” against minority voters in the Legislature’s original maps, and minority groups and Democrats say the interim maps, which have never been pre-cleared by the Justice Department, contain similar problems.

Last year, in striking down temporary maps that would have benefited Democrats, the Supreme Court ruled that the will of the Legislature should be the starting point when developing electoral boundaries.

Since the current maps were signed off by Attorney General Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers before the federal court in San Antonio approved them, GOP leaders hope the boundaries will stand up under additional scrutiny.

The Texas Tribune provides analysis of the districts in question.

From Politico: John Boehner’s shrinking power

The online magazine argues that the current Speaker is relatively weak - he has little influence with the Tea Party wing of his caucus - but that might not be his fault:

. . . it’s not clear a more bullying or forceful leader would fare much better with this gang of Republicans or in this dysfunctional Congress.

Boehner runs a House in which many of the traditional levers of power are gone and of little use: earmarks for members’ districts, important committee assignments and the backing of party leaders for reelection. Most young conservatives don’t care about any of the three — and, in fact, see all of them as manifestations of what’s wrong with and corrupt about Congress and their party. They get more mileage from snubbing their leaders.

So, he has adopted an entirely different style this year, one of deference: deference to members, deference to committees, and deference to others in leadership.

"He has realized that directed leadership isn’t going to work with this conference,” said a top leadership aide. “So he has taken a more organic approach, and it’s working pretty well."

Paul Burka sums up the 83rd Legislature

Some choice quotes from his Texas Monthly piece:

- The 83rd Legislature was the best session in many years, going back to at least 2003, when Republicans completed their sweep of Texas politics by securing a majority in the House of Representatives. Two things made this session different from the ones that preceded it. One was money. In particular, the bounty from oil and gas production swelled the Rainy Day Fund to dimensions that would have seemed unimaginable even five years ago.

- The second reason why this was a successful session is that there were leaders who wanted to get things done. Senate Finance chair Tommy Williams set the tone for the session months before it began when he called for raising automobile registration fees. It was an acknowledgement that the state needed to start addressing its problems, and that it was okay to consider new revenue. Speaker Joe Straus did his part by saying, "We can't cut our way to prosperity," a remark that drew fire from fiscal conservatives.

- The one issue that did not get addressed was health care, specifically, Medicaid expansion. It is going to have to be dealt with at some point. If the state does nothing, the feds will levy an assessment, a fine of sorts against Texas businesses for the state's failure to participate. Is the leadership really willing to let that happen?

- If the economic outlook for the state is stable, the political outlook is not. Republicans are split between mainstream and tea party conservatives, and the momentum is with the tea party.

- During the session, the Straus forces were always looking over their shoulder at the tea party contingent that threatened to get in the way of the agenda. Most of this group did not want to do anything. They never found a purpose except for protecting the Rainy Day Fund. . . . The Straus team could not penetrate the tea party contingent, and they were often scrambling for the votes to pass their issues.

- The Straus coalition, however, is fundamentally unstable. It works so long as Democrats are willing to function as Republicans to provide the votes to pass the speaker's agenda.

- The missing faction in Texas politics is moderate Republicans, of whom Straus is one. There have been several recent races in Texas politics that have defined the evolving nature of the Republican party today. . . . Right now civic-minded Republicans cannot win races against movement conservatives. There is no place in Texas politics for establishment conservatives like Dewhurst--they either change or they go home.

From the Fiscal Times: Even Reagan Couldn’t Pass GOP Purity Test, Says Dole

The Fiscal Times argues that while Congressional Republicans are hoping their multiple investigations of Obama will help solidify the party, their purity test might make it difficult for their coalition to expand enough to win elections?

Some Republican leaders believe they can capitalize on Obama’s woes in the coming months to rebuild their party after a disappointing performance in last November’s election – with an eye toward taking back control of the Senate in 2014.

But the national party has shifted so far to the right in recent years that even President Ronald Reagan would have trouble today finding a home in the GOP, former Republican senator Bob Dole said Sunday.

“Reagan couldn’t have made it,” Dole said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that he, too, would probably be deemed too moderate and unacceptable by today’s Tea-Party conservative standards. “Certainly, Nixon couldn’t have made it, ’cause he had ideas,” said Dole, a decorated World War II veteran who overcame serious wounds to go on to a highly successful career in politics.

A central criticism is whether the party will be able to lure the Hispanic vote by embracing immigration reform. The party leadership is in favor of it - mostly - but the rank and file is not, jeopardizing the party's chance to gain traction with the fastest growing segment of the population.

Not a new observation.

A session summary

The Texas Tribune offers a comprehensive look at what did and did not happen this session. Some of these are conditional based on whether the governor will sign them. Here's a review of their summary

A budget bill was passed - detail to follow - including some tax relief measures. The $4 billion necessary for the Texas Department of Transportation was not found, though measures were passed to help counties pay for road damage caused by the oil drilling boom.

The state's charter school system was expanded and testing and graduation requirements in high school were lowered. Some funding cuts from the previous session were also restored. Public universities will have to offer four year fixed rate tuition options for students and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board passed its sunset review. Students will not be able to carry concealed weapons on campus and a proposal to pass bonds authorizing over $2 billion in campus construction projects was defeated as well.

The Railroad Commission survived its sunset review, but must go through a more rigorous one in four years.

Ethics bills were stripped down or defeated. A bill that would have required more disclosure of contributions was defeated, studies were authorized on the needs for more transparency down the line.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice passed sunset review and the leg requested guidelines for how to deal with a decrease in the number of prisoners in the state. Moves were made to close the two private prison facilities in the state. And an innocence commission is to be established in order to deal with wrongful convictions.

Medicaid fraud legislation was passed and the leg fought efforts to expand the program in the state in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. The Cancer Prevention Agency was refunded despite controversies surrounding it.

Undocumented immigrants will not be able to get drivers permits and a resolution supporting federal immigration reform was defeated.

Recipients of unemployment benefits might be subject to drug tests, though a similar effort to do so for welfare recipients died.

A variety of bills expanding the right to carry concealed weapons died, but legislation was passed restricting the use of unmanned drones for surveillance purposes.

Sine Die, followed by a special session.

The regular session of the Texas Legislature is over, and now comes a special session called by the governor to deal with redistricting, thought other matters may be added to the agenda.

What follows is a variety of stories an what did and did not happen this session.

M3 Written Assignment #3

Send me a rough draft of your 1000 word report. Don't stress about details right now, just pass along what you have and we'll work from there. Remember that the final version is due Thursday at noon.

The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy

I stumbled across this wikipedia site a few moments back. It might be worth compiling a list of past campaign financ escandals to get an idea about how the current IRS stacks up against those in the past.

When lobbyists write bills

Lobbyists - along with interest groups - are common sources of legislation. Support for given candidates guarantees an entry point into the legislative process, but is this proper? Is it another example the undue influence of special interests? Maybe both.

The NYT reports on a bill which passed a House committee that was largely written by Citigroup.

Slate argues that this is to be expected when resources for legislators are limited.

Some academics call lobbying a type of legislative subsidy, meaning that they now perform an essential function for the legislature.

Health Insurance Exchanges underway in California

The implementation of Obamacare continues. California has a head start and there are indications that costs might be lower than anticipated. 

Texas - not so much.

Click here for the timeline.

Which technologies that will rive the future?

I offer this as a public service to my students. In case you are considering different careers.

A Notre Dame professor reflects on why he teaches

Worth mini 3 students tothink about. What are you supposed to get out of this class anyway?

I’ve concluded that the goal of most college courses should not be knowledge but engaging in certain intellectual exercises. For the last few years I’ve had the privilege of teaching a seminar to first-year Honors students in which we read a wide range of wonderful texts, from Plato and Thucydides to Calvino and Nabokov. We have lively discussions that require a thorough knowledge of the text, and the students write excellent papers that give close readings of particular passages. But the half-life of their detailed knowledge is probably far less than a year. The goal of the course is simply that they have had close encounters with some great writing.

. . . The fruits of college teaching should be measured not by tests but by the popularity of museums, classical concerts, art film houses, book discussion groups, and publications like Scientific American, the New York Review of Books, The Economist, and The Atlantic, to cite just a few. These are the places where our students reap the benefits of their education.

Many will see all this as fuzzy idealism, ignorant of the essentially vocational needs that must drive even college teaching. Students need jobs and employers need well- trained workers. What do the alleged joys of the mind have to do with these brute facts? It’s hard enough to just teach what people need to do their jobs.

But what do they need to do their jobs? In professions like medicine and engineering there’s a body of technical knowledge learned in school and maintained through subsequent use. Beyond that—at least it is often said—we need critical thinking and creativity: the ability to detect tacit but questionable assumption and to develop new ways of understanding issues—in short, to think beyond what “everyone knows.”

And perhaps my performance should be measured by increased engagement in political matters - however people choose to express that. Perhaps this should include a measure of how capable students fee in influencing the political process, or at least having an understanding about how this is done.

Just a thought.

Creating a legal case for the war on terror

A law professor gives it a shot.

President Obama annouced rules related to targetted killings and drones

A guick description by the NYT:

In a widely anticipated speech at the National Defense University, Mr. Obama offered his most expansive defense of the drone war he has waged since taking office, but he signaled that he planned to wind down the strikes, which have stirred controversy at home and abroad. He referred obliquely to a new secret order imposing a higher standard on authorizing such attacks and shifting responsibility more from the C.I.A. to the military.

Beyond that, Mr. Obama proposed the creation of a secret court or some other independent body that would have to sign off on strikes in the future. He also called on Congress to revise the authorization of force it passed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to reflect the changing nature of the war on terrorism. And he renewed his moribund effort to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by saying that he would lift a moratorium on transferring scores of detainees to Yemen.

Taken together, the president’s words and deeds added up to an effort to move the country away from the perpetual war on terrorism envisioned by his predecessor, George W. Bush, toward a more limited campaign against particular groups that would eventually be curtailed even if the threat of terrorism could never be eliminated.

Andrew Sullivan has a compilation of reactions to the speech here.

And Foreign Policy offers a clift notes guide to four key points made in the speech.

1 - A location in the US will be found to try Guantanamo detainees.
2 - A process will begin to determine how to oversee drone strikes , like involving the creation of a special court.
3 - Drones strikes will be carried out by the military, not the CIA.
4 - The War on Terror will end, someday.

Scientists think (97% of the anyway) global warming is real and man-made, but the public does not. What gives?

An analysis by the WP.

The public believes the scientific community is more divided on this issue that it really is:

. . . people tend to arrive at these debates with their own pre-existing cultural values. If you’re not already inclined to accept the values that typically accompany belief in climate change — and if you’re not predisposed to agree with all the people who like to talk about climate change — then you’re probably not going to change your mind just because the media says there’s an expert consensus. (Here are some other experiments along these lines.)

Glenn Greenwald on the Obama leak investigations

Greenwald has been a consistent critic of the administration's aggressive pursuit of leakers.

He outlines his case here - good read if you need background on the issue.

Do you want to improve your thinking?

Of course you do. So do I.

Here are seven tools for doing so:

1 - Use your mistakes
2 - Respect your opponent
3 - The use of "surely" indicates a weak argument
4 - Answer rhetorical questions
5 - Employ Occam's Razor
6 - Don't waste your time on rubbish
7 - Beware of deepities

carry on....

The Energy Department approves liquid natural gas terminal in Freeport

Fracking has allowed the US to become an energy exporter. Japan - which is relying less on nuclear power due to problems associated with the tsunami - is expected to be a major consumer.

There's an interesting conflict over whether increasing natural gas exports is a good idea. Producers and free trade supporters are in favor of it, and environmentalists oppose it. But some petrochemical companies that use natural gas are concerned that increased exports will increase the cost of natural gas, a cost that will impact their business.

The story refers to the Energy Information Administration (see Wikipedia also) as a source for current gas prices and forecasts for natural gas production based on how many additional terminals are authorized. Wikipedia describes is as a member of the Federal Statistical System of the United States the "decentralized network of federal agencies which produce data about the people, economy, and infrastructure of the United States."

Their specific task of the EIA is the responsibility for " collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment."

- Here's information about the rulemaking process in the DOE.
- And here's the decision by the DOE to authorize the Freeport Terminal. They concluded that arguments that the LNG permit did not violate the public interest.

The story mentions the Senate Committee which oversees the Energy Department and offers this:

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that the Energy Department “will be making export decisions on a case-by-case basis” in a way that is “consistent with my belief that a measured approach on exports will provide the greatest advantage for the U.S economy.” Wyden said the department should “assess the market impacts of each export decision after it is announced, to ensure American consumers are not harmed by large-scale exports.”

“This decision is a victory for those who believe free trade is good for the American economy,” said the committee’s ranking Republican member, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

Here's soem good news: Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust

The High Plains Aquifer is drying up, and when its gone, it ain't coming back.

The villain in this story is in fact the farmers’ savior: the center-pivot irrigator, a quarter- or half-mile of pipe that traces a watery circle around a point in the middle of a field. The center pivots helped start a revolution that raised farming from hardscrabble work to a profitable business.

Since the pivots’ debut some six decades ago, the amount of irrigated cropland in Kansas has grown to nearly three million acres, from a mere 250,000 in 1950. But the pivot irrigators’ thirst for water — hundreds and sometimes thousands of gallons a minute — has sent much of the aquifer on a relentless decline. And while the big pivots have become much more efficient, a University of California study earlier this year concluded that Kansas farmers were using some of their water savings to expand irrigation or grow thirstier crops, not to reduce consumption.

A shift to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most, has only worsened matters. Driven by demand, speculation and a government mandate to produce biofuels, the price of corn has tripled since 2002, and Kansas farmers have responded by increasing the acreage of irrigated cornfields by nearly a fifth.

New data source: Measuring American Legislatures

Measuring American Legislatures is a new website that offers data on all state legislators servinf from 1993-2011.

And yet another . . .

From the NYT:

The Justice Department’s independent inspector general on Monday criticized a former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis K. Burke, for leaking to Fox News a document in June 2011 about a federal agent who was raising alarms about the gun trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. He called the prosecutor’s actions “particularly egregious” misconduct that was “wholly unbefitting a U.S. attorney.”

The 21-page report, by the office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, filled in new details about the reaction of the Phoenix prosecutor’s office to the furor over a botched investigation into a gun-smuggling network. Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed hundreds of weapons to reach criminal hands.

Notice that this involves an inspector general's report, like the IRS scandal.  

More leak investigations . . .

Another leak investigation by the Obama Administration has surfaced leading to questions about whether these are justified, and whether the administration is creating a "chiling effect" on the media by zealously investigating them.

The latest involves a Fox News reporter who was alleged to have received classified information in 2009 from a source in the State Departments that was obtained from a source inside North Korea. It stated that " North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear tests."

The Washington Post details the facts of the case here.

NPR goes further and discusses the constitutional implications of the fact that the leak investogation goe beyond the person who leaked the information, but the reporter as well. This is unusual. This has the potential to criminalize what reporters do: talk to sources and report on what government does. The search warrant issued to authorize the search of the reporter called him a co-conspirator.

Naturally journalists are getting nervous, but the Obama Administration is arguing - as presidents do - that free press rights must be balanced against natonal security needs - in this case to secure and maintain a source inside a hostile nation. Click here for a discussion of that balance.

A couple reporters argue that the reporter in question was a bit of a bonehead - his tradecraft was sloppy and easy to investigate. And the story he reported was not especially interesting.

From the Fiscal Times: Bernanke to Congress: I’m Not the Problem. You Are.

For our continued look at congressional oversight - in this case one not involving the IRS. And this has the added twist of contributing to our discussion of congressional dysfunction.

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified before the Joint Economic Committee today and very subtly blamed Congress for the continuing sluggishness in the economy.

He told the committee that the ability of the Fed to use monetary policy to stimulate the economy is negated by Congressional fiscal policy:

Fiscal policy “has become significantly more restrictive,” he said. “In particular, the expiration of the payroll tax cut, the enactment of tax increases, the effects of the budget caps on discretionary spending, the onset of the sequestration, and the declines in defense spending for overseas military operations are expected, collectively, to exert a substantial drag on the economy this year.”

One of the members of the area congressional delegation - Kevin Brady - is chair of the committee and he among a few others are concerned about the long term debt problem given the degree of spending that occurred after the recent financial crisis. Bernanke argued that focus on debt is premature and is leading to policies that continue to limit economic growth.

Bernanke defended the Fed’s policies and argued that the problem isn’t that the Fed is doing too much but that fiscal policymakers are doing too little. “Mr. Chairman, first of all, the slowness of the recovery can be explained by a number of important headwinds, including the aftereffects of the financial crisis, developments in Europe, the problems with the housing market and, very importantly, the fact that fiscal policy for the last few years has actually been a significant headwind to recovery rather than a supporting tailwind,” Bernanke said. “So I would submit that without monetary policy’s aggressive actions, this recovery would be much weaker than it has been, and indeed if you compare our recovery to that of Europe and other advanced industrial economies, it looks relatively good.”

Bernanke also made clear that he wasn’t looking to downplay the significance of the long-term budget issues. “I fully realize the importance of budgetary responsibility, but I would argue that it’s not responsible to focus all of the restraint on the very near term and do nothing about the long term, which is where most of the problem exists,” Bernanke said in response to questioning from Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “I do think that we would all be better off, with no loss to fiscal sustainability or market confidence, if we had somewhat less restraint in the very near term – this year and next year, say – and more aggressive action to address these very real long-term issues, which threaten within a decade or so to begin to put our fiscal budget on an unsustainable path.”

What is a joint committee? "Committees including membership from both houses of Congress. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation. Chairmanship usually alternates between the House and Senate members from Congress to Congress."

For information about the Joint Economic Committee click here. "The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) is one of four standing joint committees of the U.S. Congress. The committee was established as a part of the Employment Act of 1946, which deemed the committee responsible for reporting the current economic condition of the United States and for making suggestions for improvement to the economy. The JEC is chaired by Representative Kevin Brady of Texas."

Video of the hearing can be found here.

An update on congressional response to IRS scandal

For perusal in class tomorrow:

- The Senate Finance Committee questions the former and current commissioners of the IRS.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants Congress to crack down on political groups posing as social welfare organizations.
- The scandal might revive the DISCLOSE Act - (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections), which could take the decision about what is and is not a social welfare organization from the IRS.
- House Republicans say they will not over reach on investigations.
- House Minority Leader says IRS scandal proves need to reverse Citizens United decision.
- Treasury Secretary testifies before Senate Banking Committee that he knew of the IRS investigation in March.

Roll Call Clout Index

A helpful chart showing which states have the most clout in Congress.

Oklahoma's delegation is split on whether they should demand offsetting budget cuts in return for federal assistance for Moore.

Senator Tom Coburn leads the charge. 5 of the 7 members of the Oklahoma delegation voted against the $50 billion in assistance for Hurricane Sandy due to unmet demands that $50 billion were not cuts elsewhere - so this shows some consistency. The division weakens the state's influence in Congress.

Speaker Boehner has stated that Oklahoma will get federal relief, but there is no guarantee that Republicans in the House will support it. This will be a test of his leadership abilities, and that of other Republican leaders in the House. Can they persuade the Republican delegation to go along with disaster relief without conditions, or will the Republican rank and file make mandates on him? Who leads the Republican conference?



 

Not exactly your normal filibuster, but here goes

Ex attorney generals argue that the AP investigation was justified.

From the NYT:

While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors’ decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government’s public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak — which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner — significantly damaged our national security.

The United States and its allies were trying to locate a master bomb builder affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that was extremely difficult to penetrate. After considerable effort and danger, an agent was inserted inside the group. Although that agent succeeded in foiling one serious bombing plot against the United States, he was rendered ineffective once his existence was disclosed.

. . . The decision was made at the highest levels of the Justice Department, under longstanding regulations that are well within the boundaries of the Constitution. Having participated in similar decisions, we know that they are made after careful deliberation, because the government does not lightly seek information about a reporter’s work. Along with the obligation to investigate and prosecute government employees who violate their duty to protect operational secrets, Justice Department officials recognize the need to minimize any intrusion into the operations of the free press.

What drives income inequality?

Timonthy Noah points to a skills gap:

Since 1979 the income gap between people with college or graduate degrees and people whose education ended in high school has grown. Broadly speaking, this is a gap between working-class families in the middle 20 percent (with incomes roughly between $39,000 and $62,000) and affluent-to-rich families (say, the top 10 percent, with incomes exceeding $111,000). This skills-based gap is the inequality most Americans see in their everyday lives.

Conservatives don’t typically like to talk about income inequality. It stirs up uncomfortable questions about economic fairness. (That’s why as a candidate Mitt Romney told a TV interviewer that inequality was best discussed in “quiet rooms.”) On those rare occasions when conservatives do bring it up, it’s the skills-based gap that usually draws their attention, because it offers an opportunity to criticize our government-run system of public education and especially teachers’ unions.

Liberals resist talking about the skills-based gap because they don’t want to tell the working classes that they’re losing ground because they didn’t study hard enough. Liberals prefer to focus on the 1 percent-based gap. Conceiving of inequality as something caused by the very richest people has obvious political appeal, especially since (by definition) nearly all of us belong to the 99 percent. There’s also a pleasing simplicity to the causes of the growing gap between the 1 and the 99. There are only two, and both are familiar liberal targets: the rise of a deregulated financial sector and the erosion of accountability in compensating top executives outside finance. (The cohort most reflective of these trends is actually the top 0.1 percent, who make $1.6 million or more, but let’s not quibble.)

And also points otthe decline in private sector union membership:

The decline of labor unions is what connects the skills-based gap to the 1 percent-based gap. Although conservatives often insist that the 1 percent’s richesse doesn’t come out of the pockets of the 99 percent, that assertion ignores the fact that labor’s share of gross domestic product is shrinking while capital’s share is growing. Since 1979, except for a brief period during the tech boom of the late 1990s, labor’s share of corporate income has fallen. Pension funds have blurred somewhat the venerable distinction between capital and labor. But that’s easy to exaggerate, since only about one-sixth of all households own stocks whose value exceeds $7,000. According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the G.D.P. shift from labor to capital explains fully one-third of the 1 percent’s run-up in its share of national income. It couldn’t have happened if private-sector unionism had remained strong.

Reviving labor unions is, sadly, anathema to the right; even many mainstream liberals resist the idea. But if economic growth depends on rewarding effort, we should all worry that the middle classes aren’t getting pay increases commensurate with the wealth they create for their bosses. Bosses aren’t going to fix this problem. That’s the job of unions, and finding ways to rebuild them is liberalism’s most challenging task. A bipartisan effort to revive the labor movement is hardly likely, but halting inequality’s growth will depend, at the very least, on liberals and conservatives better understanding each other’s definition of where the problem lies.

About the Cincinnati Determinations Unit

So now everyone wants to know all they can about this small office. The Atlantic Wire runs through what media organizations have been able to find out so far.

The quick takeaway?

. . . a department that is overwhelmed, underfunded, and poorly managed.

Bullet points:

- Tax-exempt work is moved to Cincinnati to save money.

- Tax-exempt applications increase, while resources to deal with applications keep shrinking.

- An employee starts streamlining applications.

- Management in Washington is slow to catch and correct the mistake.

This is one of the more informative items about the case I've come across.

Should 501(c)(4)’s Be Eliminated?

From NYT's Room for Debate.

The IRS staffers speak

The Washington Post interviews a few:

“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”

The staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias, that it grouped together conservative applications “for consistency’s sake” — so one application did not sail through while a similar one was held up in review. This consistency is paramount in the review of all applications, according to Ronald Ran, an estate-tax lawyer who worked for 37 years in the IRS’s Cincinnati office.

“You’re not going to have a bunch of flaming liberals in the exempt-organizations department looking for conservative applications,” he said

.

Obama's peculiar polling numbers

While he has not registered numbers as high as some of his predecessors, neither have his numbers been as low as theirs either. This may be the beneficial flip side of a polarized population. While the one's that don't like you never will, the obe that do, never won't.

Could Republicans overplay their hands?

The National Journal argues that Republicans face electoral risks if they focus only on the current scandals - IRS, AP, and Benghazi - to the expense of any policy accomplishments which require working with the president. Future presidential bids may require tangible accomplishments, but the party base - which despises the president - may not allow it: 

. . . in our polarized era, oversight often becomes a partisan cudgel. And that process, which is already infecting the Benghazi inquiry, could bruise not only Obama but the Republicans driving the investigations as well.

These confrontations’ most predictable effect will be to enrage the GOP base, which will strengthen the party factions most dubious about any compromises with Obama. In that way, these storms will likely weaken not only the president but also Republicans who believe the party must reboot to restore its competitiveness for the White House. “The base of the party is going to go ballistic on this, particularly the IRS [issue],” says Tom Davis, the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It makes it harder for [GOP legislators] to go along with Obama on things in general.”

Party leaders seem to want at least a degree of restraint, which the base - many affiliated with the Tea Party - may not allow.

One author suggests a stealth campaign against the president - one where Republican fingerprints cannot be detected: 

Republicans would be much wiser to pursue a third option: Dig up as much damaging information as they can about the Obama administration and leak it to reporters they know will write tough stories that won’t be traced back to the source. That way, the public won’t see the GOP as being obsessed with attacking the other side and playing gotcha at the expense of the big issues facing the country—the ones voters really care about.

Will the IRS Scandal hurt Obama's approval ratings?

They haven't yet. Gallup shows a very slight dip from 51% to 49% and CNN has it increase slightly to 53%.

Ezra Klein believes he has an answer. The does believe the scandals are significant, but:

The public is simply separating the scandals from Obama. They’re upset about the IRS, Benghazi, and DoJ stories. But most think the president has been truthful. Most think the IRS acted on its own. And the dissenters disapproved of Obama before the scandals, too.

The public’s reaction to the scandals is, in other words, being mediated by their reaction to Obama. If they approve of Obama, they’re inclined to believe that neither he nor anyone in his circle ordered the IRS to attack tea party groups and that the administration did its best in the immediate aftermath of Benghazi. If they disapprove of Obama, they’re inclined to believe he or someone in his circle was controlling the IRS, and that the Benghazi talking points were part of a cover-up.

“People respond along party lines,” writes Alan Abramowitz, an Emory political scientist who predicted last week that the polls would remain unchanged, “just like members of Congress. Republicans believe the worst of Obama, but they already believed the worst of Obama. Democrats (correctly) see Republicans pushing these things because they are out to get Obama and stop his agenda and/or they think Obama is responding correctly to the problems that do exist. So it’s like almost every other issue or controversy.”

The public is just as Congress is polarized along party lines. Each side made up their minds about the president long before the scandals emerged and each is exposing themselves to news that simply confirms their pre-exiting views.

From a plain blog about politics: Ignore the Twitter News Cycle on Scandals

In the interest of tying the IRS scandal into as many aspect of this class as possible, here's a post wondering what the effects of twitter are on our approach to the scandal. We - or at least some - may over or underestimate its importance based on the slant given it by the narrative it contains.

This raises a question thatstudents who are thinking about looking at scandals historically might want to take into consideration: Do some scandals take off or die simply because of the nature of the media at a specific monet in time?

Giving the bureaucracy a break

A lot of what seems silly makes sense the closer one looks.

Legislative criticism of the bureaucracy may be misplaced, or simply politically motivated:

. . . members of Congress love picking through federal grants to find dubious-sounding research funded by the National Institutes of Health or other agencies. In a report titled “The National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope,” Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma promised to identify “over $3 billion in mismanagement at NSF.” Mostly, the report just mocks research that, superficially, sounds amusing.

Coburn takes gleeful aim at scientists who’ve been running shrimp on treadmills. According to the scientists, the treadmills cost about $1,000 out of a half-million-dollar grant. The point is to determine whether ocean bacteria are weakening shrimp populations, a development that would tip the entire food chain into chaos. Coburn’s attack is particularly dangerous, because it encourages government researchers to conduct science that sounds good rather than science that does good.

It looks like the workings of the bureaucracy will occupy much of our time this mini 3, so expect more along this vein.

Seven Myths about Keynesian Economics

From the Fiscal Times, something to sock away for our look at economic policymaking soon enough.

An inside look at the Cincinnati IRS office at the heat of the storm.

The NYT takes a peek at how the processing of 501(C)(4) applications transpired. Again, it allows for a good peak inside the bureaucracy:

While there are still many gaps in the story of how the I.R.S. scandal happened, interviews with current and former employees and with lawyers who dealt with them, along with a review of I.R.S. documents, paint a more muddled picture of an understaffed Cincinnati outpost that was alienated from the broader I.R.S. culture and given little direction.

Overseen by a revolving cast of midlevel managers, stalled by miscommunication with I.R.S. lawyers and executives in Washington and confused about the rules they were enforcing, the Cincinnati specialists flagged virtually every application with Tea Party in its name. But their review went beyond conservative groups: more than 400 organizations came under scrutiny, including at least two dozen liberal-leaning ones and some that were seemingly apolitical.

Over three years, as the office struggled with a growing caseload of advocacy groups seeking tax exemptions, responsibility for the cases moved from one group of specialists to another, and the Determinations Unit, which handles all nonprofit applications, was reorganized. One batch of cases sat ignored for months. Few if any of the employees were experts on tax law, contributing to waves of questionnaires about groups’ political activity and donors that top officials acknowledge were improper.

“The I.R.S. is pretty dysfunctional to begin with, and this case brought all those dysfunctions to their worst,” said Paul Streckfus, a former I.R.S. employee who runs a newsletter devoted to tax-exempt organizations. “People were coming and going, asking for advice and not getting it, and sometimes forgetting the cases existed.”

Some people with expertise weigh in on 501(C)(4)'s

For students, some helpful info from the Dish.

CBO's Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013-1023

The Congressional Budget Office revises the estimates it made 4 months ago. The deficit is projected to stabilize as a percentage of GDP - in the next few years - around 21%. Wonkblog comments here.

The Fiscal Times argues that Congress could have prevented the IRS crisis by providing clear guidelines about what is and is not a 501(c)(4) organization

This is a common observation. Congress provides broad directives about how to addres a problem, and writes this into law. But it leaves the nitty gritty detail work to the bureaucracy which then uses its rulemaking power to clarify how the law will be implemented.

The cynical reason is that it allows members of Congress to both avoid the tough decisions and allows them to avoid blame for any negative consequences of the implementation of the law.

So this is not a new story, simple the latest manifestation of a common phenomenon. It's called blame avoidance:

“We would not be at this point – this would not have happened – were the IRS to have interpreted the law more strictly, instead of creating this netherworld of, ‘Is it political or isn’t it?’ and not be clear about what the bright lines are,” she said.

Lawmakers, however, have refused to create a checklist, a set of criteria, or a minimum set of standards an organization must meet to be designated a 501(c)(4) – leaving it instead to IRS officials to essentially make it up as they go along.

“It’s done on an ad hoc basis and under very vague standards, and that’s part of the problem,” Jan Baran, a prominent Republican campaigns and election lawyer at the D.C. –based Wiley Rein firm, told The Fiscal Times.

These conditions allowed IRS employees to target GOP groups with names that included Tea Party, patriots, and 9/12 for 18 months, according to the report this week. But it’s Republicans who have pushed back against changing regulations that would force additional disclosure by non-profits, arguing among other things that it would be an abridgement of free speech .

State voter laws

Here's an overview of four types of voter laws being considered in state legislatures and the partisan battles over each. Support depends on whether one's interests are helped by expanding or suppressing voter turnout.

1 - voter ID
2 - same day registration
3 - early voting
4 - online registration

Damage Control

The Obama Administration tries to contain three separate scandals with three separate actions yesterday

1 - Benghazi emails were released.
2 - The internim IRS commissioner was fired.
3 -  Media Shield laws were proposed.

We'll try to determine their effectiveness soon.

And since Obama is interested, James Carville offered unsolicited advice on how to address them.

Don’t let opponents lump all three issues into one, big scandal.

“They’re not related,” said Carville on MSNBC Thursday. Benghazi is “a scam, it’s not a scandal. Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen have already thoroughly investigated this.”

The IRS controversy is another matter, he said, one with “legitimate questions.”

“I think the president needs to get ahead of it,” advised Carville. “Probably put a new person in there, find out what happened, and report to the American people.”

President Obama on Thursday appointed Daniel Werfel as acting-IRS commissioner, after requesting and accepting Steven Miller’s resignation Wednesday. In a press release, Obama said that Werfel “has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time.”

As for the AP probe, Carville rejected Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s assertion that the sweeping subpoena of journalists’ phone records represented a White House “culture of intimidation.”

“It was an overly broad subpoena that was given power by a political appointee,” said Carville. “I have no idea what Sen. Rubio actually is talking about.”

Above all, Carville recommended keeping this week’s finger-pointing and inflammatory rhetoric in perspective and under control.

“Remember that the earth is warm, that the economy is growing, that the deficit is shrinking, that the healthcare costs are flattening out, that Benghazi was nothing,” he said.

Battleground Texas might be making Texas Republicans nervous

After neglecting Texas for a couple decades, the national Democratic Party sees an an oppotunity to turn Texas blue. The organization is called Battleground Texas and it includes people instrumental in Obama's campaigns.

They see the rise of the Latino population in the state - and the group's traditional adherence to the Democratic Party - as giving them a democgraphic edge over Republicans.

From an NYT analysis:

Texas is ripe for realignment. Insofar as demographics count, Texas is on a path to first turn purple and then blue. The question is when. Whites are already a minority of the state’s population, 44.8 percent, down from 52.4 percent in 2000; blacks are at 12.2 percent, slightly up from 12.0 percent; Hispanics are at 38.1 percent, up from 32.0 percent; with Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and others making up the remaining 4.9 percent. Whites are teetering at just over 50 percent of Texans eligible to vote; according to demographic projections, they will become a minority of voting age citizens in 2016.

What makes Texas such an inviting target for Democratic organizers is that Hispanic turnout in the state is strikingly low, 38.8 percent of those eligible to vote, compared to the national average of 48 percent.

Even if Latino turnout in Texas increases to the national average, Democrats will be unable to win statewide in the short term, but the long term they may well.

What is an inspector general?

Revelations of the IRS investigation of Tea Party groups' tax exempt status stemmed from the IRS's inspector general.

So what is an inspector general?

It is an office in many executive agencies - the Office of Inspector General - charged with " identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement within the parent agency." The position was established in the Inspector General Act of 1978, and after an initial 12 offices were created, positions were established in multiple agencies and departments.

Click here to link to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. And here's ablurb from their site:

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) was established under the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 to provide independent oversight of IRS activities. TIGTA promotes the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of the internal revenue laws. It is also committed to the prevention and detection of fraud, waste, and abuse within the IRS and related entities.

Are 501(C)(4) "social welfare organizations" pulling a scam on taxpayers? Are the just political organizations that posed as social welfare organizations so they do not have to disclose their donors.

Here's an argument that they are.

Let's take the first part, the IRS employees. When a group files for tax-exempt status, the IRS investigates it, asks it some questions, and determines whether it qualifies under section 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4). The difference between them is that a 501(c)(3) is supposed to be a genuine charity, like your local food bank or Institute for the Study of Foot Fungus, while a 501(c)(4) is still primarily devoted to "social welfare" but is allowed more leeway to engage in some political activities like lobbying and participation in elections, so long as the political activities make up a minority of its time. The biggest practical difference is that donations to (c)(3) groups are tax-deductible, while donations to (c)(4) groups are not.

But:

The truth is that a great many of the groups that request 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) status, of all ideological stripes, are basically pulling a scam on the taxpayers. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but at the very least they're engaged in a charade in which they pretend to be "nonpartisan" when in fact they are very, very partisan. For instance, nobody actually believes that groups like the Center for American Progress on the left or the Heritage Foundation on the right aren't partisan. When there's an election coming, they mobilize substantial resources to influence it. They blog about how the other's side's candidate is a jerk, they issue reports on how his plans will destroy America, and they do all sorts of things whose unambiguous intent is to make the election come out the way they want it to. CAP and Heritage, along with many other organizations like them, are 501(c)(3) charities, meaning as long as they never issue a formal endorsement and are careful to avoid any express advocacy, they can maintain the fiction that they're nonpartisan (keep getting tax-deductible contributions, which are easier to obtain than those that aren't tax-deductible).

Are there clear guidelines for how the IRS should distinguish between political organizations and social welfare organizations?

Apparently not, and that's one of the problems underlying the IRS scandal.

Th determination involves somethign called the facts and circumstances test.

From WSJ's Law Blog:

Tax-exempt groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code may engage in some political activity, but they must be “primarily engaged” in promoting social welfare.

But deciding what counts as too much political activity is far from an exact science. The IRS is supposed to apply what’s known as a “facts and circumstances” test, basically a souped-up version of “know it when you see it.”

According to an IRS guidance memo from 1995, the IRS is supposed to weigh a myriad of factors like “the amount of funds received from and devoted to particular activities; other resources used in conducting such activities, such as buildings and equipment; the time devoted to activities (by volunteers as well as employees); the manner in which the organization’s activities are conducted; and the purposes furthered by various activities.”

A political educational organization that qualifies for a 501(c)(4) exemption must “conduct its activities in a non-partisan manner.” A group’s philosophy may be consistent with that of a major political party, but that’s OK if its activities are primarily educational.

If “its activities are under the direction of a Board of Directors whose members were appointed by the national committee of a major political party,” that’s a problem, according to the guidance memo. If the group “selects issues to study based on the needs of the party, and receives substantial financial support from the party,” that’s also a red flag.

An “action” group — another type of 501(c)(4) — may engage in political campaign activities if those “activities are not the organization’s primary activity.”

These circumstances make one wonder how any of these groups were granted tax exempt status.

From the Wall Street Journal: The Surprisingly Muddled History of the 501(c)(4) Exemption.

Turmns out we don't know much about the history of the tax exemption for these organizations. The WSJ provides a few hints:

 - The roots trace back a century ago to when Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1913, also known as the “Underwood Tariff Act,” . . . “The legislative history of the Tariff Act contains no reason or explanation for the exemption. The general belief is that [the] United States Chamber of Commerce pushed for the enactment of exemptions for both civic and commercial nonprofit organizations,”

- Wikipedia: Revenue Act of 1913.

- Over the years, the IRS expanded the exemption into more political territory, allowing 501(c)(4) groups to engage in lobbying and other political activity. The “notion that the section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization category is an appropriate classification for politically active charitable organizations seems to have originated with the IRS in the 1950′s,”

- Four years later, the federal government codified that policy, assigning the label of “action organization” to any legislatively active organization and issuing regulations stating that an action organization can qualify as a social welfare organization under section 501(c)(4). The IRS then loosened the rules on political campaign activity in 1981 with another ruling, which stated: [An] organization may carry on lawful political activities and remain exempt under section 501(c)(4) as long as it is primarily engaged in activities that promote social welfare.

From the American Prospect: Benghazi Was Neither a Terrorist Attack Nor an Act of Terror

Apparently, "terrorism" has a specific legal meaning and the attack on Benghazi does not fit that definition:

. . . Many awful things are not terrorism. Pearl Harbor wasn't terrorism. Jeffrey Dahmer's murders weren't terrorism. Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill wasn't terrorism. Terrorism is something quite specific: the intentional killing of civilians in order to achieve a political end. It's the "civilian" part that makes it terrorism and not something else. . . .

As it happens, there's a nice succinct definition of terrorism in U.S. law, section 2656f(d) of Title 22 of the United States Code, which reads, "the term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."

So why wasn't Benghazi terrorism? Because the people targeted weren't civilians. As The Wall Street Journal has reported, "The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, these officials said." CIA officials are not civilians. That doesn't make their deaths any less tragic or painful for their families, but it's the truth. Nor is a CIA outpost a civilian target.

 

Oversight: the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee

C-Span covers Holder's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the investigation of the Associated Press. This is an oversight hearing, so it fits within the context of checks and balances which are designed to keep the branches separated.

Here's a link to the House Judiciary Committee by the way. Two members of the local congressional delegations are on the committee: Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Sheila Jackson-Lee.

Mr. Poe is the Vice-Chair of the committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security - which makes sense considering the importance of this issue to the local community. Here's a description of the subcommittee:

The Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security shall have jurisdiction over the following subject matters: immigration and naturalization, border security, admission of refugees, treaties, conventions and international agreements, claims against the United States, Federal charters of incorporation, private immigration and claims bills, nonborder immigration enforcement, other appropriate matters as referred by the Chairman, and relevant oversight.

Ms. Jackson-Lee is also a member of that subcommittee as well as the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet. Mr Poe is a member of that subcommittee as well. And here is a description of it:

The Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet shall have jurisdiction over the following subject matters: Administration of U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Evidence, Civil and Appellate Procedure, judicial ethics, copyright, patent, trademark law, information technology, other appropriate matters as referred to by the Chairman, and relevant oversight.

For descriptions of standing committees - which we will be covering soon - click here. And for committees in general, click here. And - finally - click here for a description of subcommittees. All of this will be covered in upcoming lectures.






 

Justice Department secretly obtains telephone records of journalists in order to find who leaked classified information to AP reporters.

This story in the Guardian last year about a foiled plot to blow up a jet bound for the US included classified information. The Justice Department subpoenaed the records in order to find the source of the leak, but the AP is now arguing that the investigation is too broad and goes far beyond what is necessary to uncover that specific leak.

Its the latest conflict between a executive branch focus on national security and the secrecy alleged necessary to obtain it, and the media's effort to maintain press freedoms.

For background:

- Under sweeping subpoenas, Justice Department obtained AP phone records in leak investigation.

- Here’s the story the AP suspects led to sweeping Justice Dept. subpoena.

- Justice Dept. Defends Seizure of Phone Records.
- Leak Investigations Are an Assault on the Press, and on Democracy, Too.

- Spying on The Associated Press