Nutter's Washington

Bob Dole: Lessons to be Learned

I had the opportunity and pleasure to spend about an hour with former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole on Friday. I shy away from commenting on personal matters but I want to say, it was just plain grand to see my former “boss”. 

Bob Dole had an enormous impact on my professional life, how I view politics and the craft of a real legislator. I am grateful for the opportunity he gave me long time ago. I have enormous respect for him for his service to the country, his genuine care and work for veterans and interests on diverse subjects like nutrition.

He will celebrate his 90^th birthday this year. While he does not get around as well as he used to, his wit, perception and insight are abundant. His story is well known. As he used to say, “born in Kansas, raised in Kansas, went to war, suffered a head wound and went into politics.” I still laugh.

The politicians of today are different from the "old guard", like Senator Dole. The polarization and just plain nastiness in the Halls of Congress and in the White House is a disservice to all of us. This acrimoney is not exclusive to one particular party. Senator Dole was indeed political and he was partisan. However, he knew problems had to be addressed and solved. Sometimes he won, sometimes not and sometimes it was just rained out. It was not always about trying to make the other guy look bad or score some political points. 

There are times when principles cannot be compromised, when you know the direction the other side is taking is wrong and misguided. I respect when a person actually stands for something. However, there are also times for working together, compromise, civility and different approaches. Bob Dole understood that and it is a lesson worth remembering.

 

 

 

TSA: Idiotic, No Common Sense and a Jar of Jam

I got a call this morning from a friend at Dulles Airport. It seems she bought a 5 ounce jar of home-made preservatives at a local farmer's market on Saturday. It was a gift for her grandson. She intended to deliver it in person this afternoon.

Not to be. It was confiscated by the TSA at the security checkpoint. This was not gasoline, a knife, a shoe device, a gun, blackjack or lethal weapon. It was jam. It looked like jam, was in a clear jam jar with a nice label and it tasted like jam because it was jam. Horror of horrors,  5 full ounces of the deadly stuff known to TSA whose only harm could be to cause tooth decay and a purple tongue.  

My friend is a middle aged, friendly, patriotic and kind person. Your neighbor, perhaps. She is no threat. Chances of her doing anything even bordering on rash are less than zero. I do not think she could throw the jar into the next row.  She said she pleaded with the nice blue clad shirted TSA guy but even though he said ,yes, indeed it was stupid, he could not let the jam pass. Another victory for national security. Another sheep being lead to the slaughter. 

This is why people resent government. They spy on us, they target the tax police on us, they wire tap the press, they lie about brave men dying in the desert, and now show their potency and common sense that a jar of jam destined for an eleven year old boy brought to him by his grandmother is not allowed to arrive at its destination. Take that old women and frisk that baby next to you.

The TSA is suppose to make traveling safe. Big responsibility. However, I would have not felt in danger with the jam on board. 

How did things become so bad? So rigid, so lacking in common sense. How did we let this happen to us?  

Classes at Gitmo: Hard to Make This Up and Believe--Life Skills?

Yesterday I heard something on the radio during my long and tedious commute that was hard to believe. I mentioned it to a very liberal Obama is never wrong friend who accused me of making it up or it was propaganda slime from some extremists right wing group. I investigated it further and it turns out to be true.

Now many strange and unbelievable things happen that seems like someone is making them up. Things so bizarre, the double take is in order. Things that go beyond head scratching, things that highlight hypocrisy. Things that are beyond laughable. 

The Obama administration has been screeching about the budget sequestration for months. Seems like it reduces a tad and just a tad the size of government. Cries of school children being denied this or that, perilous skyways from cutbacks, old people pushed off the cliff and on and on. Make up your own horror. 

 Well, it seems like there is no shortage of money as there is money to fund classes for the terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

With a detainee population of 166 whose skills are bomb making and killing Americans, the Guantanamo Bay facility uses our money to offer the detained killers courses such as "Interviewing and Resume Writing " and "Writing Success."

No, wait it gets better----According to their own web site, this group of people sworn to wipe America out are being taught courses in the following:

• Life Skills
• Computer Familiarity
• Personal Health and Wellness
• Personal Finance and Business
• Pashtu to English
• Arabic to English
• Art Classes in Camp 6

 Computer skills so they can communicate better? Finance to move money more efficiently? Writing a resume?

What moron thought of all of this and what moron approved it?

While not in classes the terrorists can use a library with more than 17,000 books, various video games, and lot of movies and music to check out.  A full time librarian manages it for them.

This purpose here is not to debate the use of “Gitmo” to hold these people. This people are prisoners for a reason but deserve a suitable environment, (however you want to define it) for their fate in life. However, it is absurd and a waste of scarce government resources to go to these lengths. It is hypocrisy to whine about the sequester when spending exists like this.

It makes me wonder what lunatics are running the asylum and frankly, it makes me ashamed. So, close Head Start, Mr. President, but teach these guys” life skills”. Hard to make this up.

 

Congress is back in town: What next?

Congress is back. Can you feel the difference? After a week or so out of Washington, the House and Senate are back to business. Oh boy, the wit and wisdom of Harry Reid. 

The question is what are they doing? What are they going to do? Most importantly, what should they be doing? I am not sure where Mr. Obama is, probably out campaigning.

This is the time of year Congress turns its attention to the consideration and passage of annual appropriation bills. Decisions have to be made on funding all those great government programs, like conferences for the IRS. 

It has become the norm, however, that Congress does not approve individual spending bills but rolls everything into one giant proposal called a “Continuing Resolution”. The government is operating under one now. It is called continuing because for the most part it just continues the programs and spending from the previous year. At times, the whole mess contains some sort of increase on the debt limit to accommodate the increases in the federal deficit.

Since the debt limit has already been crossed, raising the debt ceiling has to be addressed before the Treasury exhausts its ability manage the going over the debt limit by chicanery and creative bookkeeping. This will be one to watch later on. Democrats have no interest in restraining borrowing or the debt limit while Republicans become apoplectic over the notion of more debt.

Along with all the spending going on, there is the federal budget, the blueprint for spending. The House passed one and, for the first time in 4 years, do did the Senate. The approaches are far apart and it may be the respective sides will not work out their differences. No real surprise there.

IRS and the Fifth Amendment: Rights Invoked by Lerner but Ignored Rights of Others

The IRS story just keeps getting better and better. Hard to make this kind of stuff up. The latest is that Lois Lerner, one of the key players in targeting of conservative political groups has invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination before the House Oversight Committee. She declared at the hearing she did nothing wrong and broke no laws before saying she would not answer any questions. Whoa, What about lying to Congress?

Lerner said, she never misled or lied to Congress. We shall see. I guess there is no there there.

Ms Lerner did not answer questions about how the IRS developed the "be on the lookout" list for conservative or patriotic groups, what she did when she learned about it, and why she failed to tell Congress about it when asked directly more than a few times.

She is definitely within her right to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights. The assertion of this essential privilege is necessary to keep the government at bay. I do not blame her at all, as the slip of a tongue; a misrepresented statement can lead to dire consequences. 

However, it does not look good for her and in these situations the questions are always raised. What does she really know?  What is she hiding? 

I also wonder if she thought of the Constitutional rights of the very groups she impeded and had harassed. She presumably endorsed such conduct, stood idly by and watch in all happened, was totally indifferent or just plain incompetent. Not sure which one applies here. In any event, she clings to her rights while the rights of other were trampled and abused.

 The other part of the story for now is the involvement of senior Obama officials. It seems like the story changes all the time. At first it was said White House officials learned the Internal Revenue Service was targeting conservative groups when White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was notified last month. The President, officials said, did not learn about any of this until a news story came out on May 10.  The original story was that Ruemmler was told in general terms about the report and that the information was kept with her. However, it now seems like after Ms Ruemmler was informed that a political lynching had taken place, she told the White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and some others on the senior staff. In addition, there were other discussions between White House and Treasury officials on the matter. Hmmmmm, what is the real story here? Who else knew and did nothing?

Taking a Bite out of #Apple: Senate Hearings Mostly Worthwhile

The Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, part of the Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing on international taxation of domestic companies. The prop to illustrate all this evil was Apple, the electronic device manufacturer. I am not sure why this subject was not in the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee, the only Committee that can suggest changes in tax policy.

The Chairman of the Subcommittee, Carl Levin (D., MI) believes Apple and other multinational firms like them are overly creative with their tax practices using such horrible words of description like “tax avoidance." Of course, tax avoidance is not a crime nor is it even a violation of our tax law. There were a number of real purposes for the hearing including beating up on big business, casting sinister motives on companies that use the law to their advantage, and of course, the rabid greed of liberals for more taxes, more taxes and more taxes, no matter what the source

The real culprit in all of this is not Apple. It is the corporate tax code itself. Stuck on high rates, it provides the ultimate incentive for creative but legal tax planning to minimize the government’s bite (out of the Apple, of course)

The taxation of income of multinational business is quite complexed. Indeed, there have been many companies who have played the game quite well. The biggest tax benefit is found under the current U.S. rules where a U.S. multinational is not taxed on active foreign income earned through a controlled foreign corporation until the earnings are distributed back to the domestic parent company. This is commonly referred to as deferral and deferral has been under attack by liberals for years. The law also allows a domestic corporation owning 10% or more of the stock of a foreign corporation a credit for foreign income taxes paid with respect to earnings received as a dividend in respect of that stock. The foreign tax credit has also been a big target, mostly because it is heavily used by the oil and gas industry.

In the case of Apple, it used Irish and American tax law to pay little or no corporate taxes on a big chunk of its overseas income. However, the investigators for the Committee found that Apple did not do anything illegal. Some may thing this is horrible, immoral, or un-American but Apple is not obligated to pay anymore than the minimum tax imposed whatever the system.  

The hearing did have a positive use. It shows the antiquated system of laws applied to American businesses engaged in global commerce. There is no question these policies need a through makeover. The real issue becomes-what next? How to deal with all the deferral, how to put in place a structure that does not put the U.S. in a competitive disadvantage? Suggestions abound, the most promising are those put forth by House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI). Unfortunately, his innovative way is opposed by the Obama Administration because not enough taxes will be raised. Heard all that before.

Corporate tax reform is needed but still along way to go. For Apple, they made a good defense of their situation while recognizing the need to change the system

 

Scapegoat Found: Plus all that ANGER

The Obama Administration, which includes the Internal Revenue Service, has taken to the offensive to divert, delay explain, deny, and plead ignorance about the series of “scandals” which have pierced it in the past 7 days. It is the right political thing to do and the type of tactics used by all politicians and governments caught perpetrating bad conduct.

All scandals need an immediate scapegoat. In the most egregious act of misconduct, the case of the targeting of conservative political organizations through Gestapo tax tactics, the first to blame is the acting Commissioner of the IRS, Mr. Steven Miller.

He was fired yesterday and rightly so. Someone’s head had to roll and his was the most convenient. It was a no brainer, not an act of political courage. However, the best effect of having a scapegoat is the person acts like a magnet to attract attention, divert “suspicion” from other perhaps equally culpable people and it makes the “firer” look like they are doing something. Of, course, in conjunction with a public lynching are the usual promises that things will be fixed now.

I sense the Administration knows that it has crossed the line in the IRS case. I do not know where it will lead. However, if it leads to any political arm of the President, it will indeed be quite serious.

The President in a kind of stilted brief appearance last night said he was angry. Whoa, angry. The President does not do angry well as real anger to be believable and sincere has to carry an air of conviction, emotion. The President may be angry but it is not about having the rousting of the tea party.

Well, lots of people are angry. Angry about no jobs, angry about $17 trillion in national debt, angry for having their telephone calls monitored, grieving over sons lost in the desert due to malfeasance and angry about being blamed and abused for standing up for their beliefs. There is plenty of angry to go around here. 

Bad Week for Obama: There is a there there.

It is hard to imagine a politician having a worse week than Mr. Obama. Maybe Richard Nixon in the last few days before his resignation Perhaps, Mr. Clinton before he was impeached.  Politicians use different tactics to deal with trying circumstances. Some deny, some blame others, make excuses, ignore the situation, out and out lie, run away,  some even face up to the situation, apologize, ask forgiveness. It all depends

Mr. Obama has had a triple whammy in the last five days. Each, in and of themselves, would be a huge deal, a scandal and political albatross. 

Firs, there was the series of revelations that the attack in Libya was not all that was explained. The Administration, particularly the State Department, seemed to ignore the security risk, then failed to respond to the attack and then made up a series of stories and fabrications to divert attention from the political campaign.

Secondly, it seems the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting conservative, religious and other groups. This one is messy and even liberals understand the consequences and illegalities of the action. The President barely admitted what has happened and while condemning the act, his indignation felt hollow. He believes, after all, the tea party is a plague in America. 

Finally, it seems the Department of Justice wiretapped a hundred journalists at the Associated Press for more than two months last year trying to find some leak. Guess no one at Justice has read the First Amendment and maybe the Fourth also.

In any event, Mr. Obama has responded but characterizing some of this as a “sideshow”, politically motivated. He also said (and this is hard to make up) that “There is no there there.” Wow, reminds me of Clinton’s remark on “is”.

I think there is a there there. Somewhere.

The investigations on all of these issues will go on for sometime. It is only going to get worse for the President. The credibility of his Administration has eroded, emboldened the opposition and enlarged the distrust in government. Each an every instance is a stain, a blot, happened on his watch, his responsibility. It will have an impact on his agenda, which as far as I can tell now that gun restrictions failed has whittled down to legalizing illegal aliens. 

Of course, there are minor things like debt limit, sequester, the budget and unemployment. However, those are issues he has not ever had a real interest.

As I said, Mr. Obama has had a bad week so far and it is not over but there is always next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IRS: Why did someone think intimidation was right?

(a) Exemption from taxation

An organization described in subsection (c) or (d) or section 401 shall be exempt from taxation under this subtitle unless such exemption is denied under section 502 or 503.

(b) Tax on unrelated business income and certain other activities

An organization exempt from taxation under subsection (a) shall be subject to tax to the extent provided in parts II, III, and VI of this subchapter, but (notwithstanding parts II, III, and VI of this subchapter) shall be considered an organization exempt from income taxes for the purpose of any law which refers to organizations exempt from income taxes.

(c) List of exempt organizations

The following organizations are referred to in subsection (a):…

(4) (A) Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.

The latest political outrage and this it is indeed an outrage and an event that should scare all Americans involves the Internal Revenue Service targeting for some time conservative political groups. Seems like the applications of some of these organizations for tax exempt status have been given extraordinary attention with the IRS usurping its authority by asking for donor lists and other information.

There are 28 types of nonprofit organizations found in Section 501 (c) that are exempt from federal income taxes. The ones that have the Administration and the Internal Revenue Service in hot water are the 501(c)(4), organizations that have objectionable words like “tea party” “patriot” and “constitution” in their application. These organizations are different from the usual pure charities because they can engage in advocacy work, political actions and lobbying. The AARP is a 501 (c)(4).   

It is wrong in so many ways. The fact many of these groups oppose the policies of the Administration is irrelevant. It is an abuse of power, smacks of a police state and is just another example of government intimidation.

I could go on and on but I will let others carry the rhetorical baton but I have to say again, it is deeply concerning. This is a story that will not go away anytime soon. The IG will release a report in the next few days and I suspect it will be very damaging but it will not end there, nor should it. 

Benghazi Hearings: Integrity over Manipulation anytime.

I am going to get back to the economy, taxes and the fiscal woes of the country but I think it is important for everyone understand the events, actions and consequences of the terror attack on Americans in Libya some 8 months ago. 

 

The Congressional hearing yesterday on the Benghazi attacks was a chilling reminder of the power and the impotency of government. It also shows a deceitful government erodes public trust and confidence. National politics has no place when lives are stake and American security at home or abroad is at risk.

 The hearing of career officials testifying of their first-hand experience was spellbinding and capturing. I thought the witness were not only credible but had a great deal of integrity.

In any event, the hearings were partially political but brought on by the mistakes, errors, misjudgments and perhaps deliberate misleading information on the part of the Administration including the State Department.

It all comes down to three areas:

1. The compound in Benghazi lacked appropriate security and warnings prior to the attack went unheeded.

2. The response to the attack was confused, slow and in a very important case nonexistent.

3. Although it was immediately evident to everyone on the ground that what had happened was a premeditated terrorist attack and conveyed such information, administration officials repeatedly and publicly claimed it was a spontaneous protest of an anti-Islamic video days and days after the event. 

The last point has drawn particular attention after Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, delivered talking points linking the attack to a demonstration. She was duped, incompetent or participated in a charade that was known to be untrue. None of these conditions are worth bragging about.

The Administration has had to backtrack on many of their statements as more information has come out but their attitude of benign neglect, plain old deception and political manipulation has a new substitute of trying to put the incident behind them as not important. Secretary Clinton questioned by lawmakers before she left office, noted there were four dead Americans stated-- "What difference at this point does it make?" MY God, what a callous, idiotic, horrible, insensitive and troublesome thing to say. I guess she took that attitude to overlook the multiple adulterous actions of her husband. I wonder how the families of the murdered feel?

This story will not stick and it will not last much longer. Democrats are willing to overlook the facts, defending the indefensible. It is, however, a very important marker for the Administration. Just how far will they go to conceal, to stonewall and to manipulate the political process.

Mistakes can be made. Mistakes can be forgiven. Destroying credibility and trust cannot.  The truth speaks for itself. draw your own conclusions. However, we deserve better and we are all not that stupid. This incident has becme as disturbing and it is disappointing.