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 9:33 AM, May 15, 2013 • By GEOFFREY NORMANWhen the IRS went fishing for information from those Tea Party groups, it cast a very wide net.
For instance, as David Weigel reports in Slate, it asked, in a letter “sent to the Ohio-based Liberty Township Tea Party—35 questions, most of them with multiple sections. Question 3: ‘Provide details regarding all of your activity on Facebook or Twitter.’ Question 5 asked for biographies of ‘each past or present board member, officer, key employee, and members of their families,’ to check whether any of these people might run for office, or might have filed a 501(c)(4) request for somebody else. Question 12 asked for a tally of all activity ever engaged in by the group, by percentage, adding helpfully that the ‘total of all activities should equal 100 percent.’ Question 34 asked for “copies of articles printed or transcripts of items aired” if the Tea Party had been covered by the media.”
The IRS was encouraged in these exertions by at least two long-serving U.S. senators, Max Baucus and Carl Levin. Perhaps, as a way of making amends, these two could draw up a new method of taxation – a flat tax, perhaps, or a national consumption tax – that would take the discretionary powers away from the bureaucrats, slash compliance costs, and raise taxpayer morale.
But it would limit the favor-granting powers of U.S. senators, so where is the fun in that.
Instead of fixing the system, there will be hearings, investigations, commissions, etc. etc. designed to ensure that this sort of thing never happens again.
Lots of luck with that.
10:31 AM, Mar 19, 2013 • By JERYL BIERActing Labor Secretary Seth D. Harris addressed the Annual Legislative Conference of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) on Monday. As part of a scathing attack on attempts to reform public employee labor unions, Harris told a joke that he said was “making the rounds a few years ago”:
Read more... Conservatives lead the way. Mar 18, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 26 • By ELI LEHRER
Michael Hough—a second-term Republican state legislator from Frederick County, Md.—is about as conservative as blue-state legislators come. He played a prominent role in opposing the state’s new gay marriage law, holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, and received a 100 percent score from the state’s business lobby.
Read more... Conservatives lead the way. Mar 18, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 26 • By ELI LEHRER
Michael Hough—a second-term Republican state legislator from Frederick County, Md.—is about as conservative as blue-state legislators come. He played a prominent role in opposing the state’s new gay marriage law, holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, and received a 100 percent score from the state’s business lobby.
Read more... 8:53 AM, Dec 10, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERRoss Douthat, writing in the New York Times:
IN November 2008, just after John McCain was routed by Barack Obama, Jim DeMint addressed a Myrtle Beach conference on the future of the Republican Party. The first-term South Carolina senator was there to reassure his audience: Republicans might have lost an election, but conservatism hadn’t lost the country.
Read more... 5:31 PM, Mar 8, 2012 • By MICHAEL WARRENAre conservatives ready to coalesce around a presidential candidate? A new poll commissioned by the Committee for Work Families PAC finds that a vast majority of grassroots conservatives want the Republican party to unite around one particular candidate: Rick Santorum.
Read more... 4:17 PM, Dec 5, 2011 • By MICHAEL WARRENA new poll from Gallup today finds that a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents find Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney "acceptable" nominees for the GOP. For Gingrich, 62 percent of those polled said the former House speaker was an acceptable Republican nominee, while 54 percent said the same for Romney. The remaining six Republicans, including former candidate Herman Cain, were deemed "not acceptable" candidates for the party's nomination.
Read more... Making the case against mindless tinkering.May 16, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 33 • By KELLY JANE TORRANCEAgainst Reform
by John Pepall
Toronto, 176 pp., $19.95
Canada’s Conservative party won a clear majority in last week’s federal election. So the Canadian constitution is safe, for now.
Read more... Are they now the natural governing party of Canada?May 16, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 33 • By FRED BARNES
Who’s the most powerful conservative leader in the Americas, north and south? That may sound like a trick question, but it’s not. The answer is Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister who triumphed last week in an election that all but destroyed two opposition parties, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois (BQ).
Read more... Apr 4, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 28 • By WILLIAM KRISTOLIt’s not war but a “time-limited, scope-limited military action.” The United States has been in the lead, but will be stepping back, ASAP, in favor of command (supposedly) by a squabbling coalition of the not-so-willing. The objective of the “kinetic military action”—which is going to last days, not weeks, unless it does last weeks—isn’t regime change in Libya. Our broader objective, however, is to topple Muammar Qaddafi.
Read more... Let’s give credit when credit is due.9:50 AM, Jul 21, 2010 • By GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
Conservatives are fond of denigrating Barack Obama as a foreign policy wimp, a president determined to demonstrate American weakness around the world, one begging for dialogue with dictators, and apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined. Even if overdrawn, there has been justification for this line of criticism.
Read more... Let’s give credit when credit is due.9:50 AM, Jul 21, 2010 • By GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
Conservatives are fond of denigrating Barack Obama as a foreign policy wimp, a president determined to demonstrate American weakness around the world, one begging for dialogue with dictators, and apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined. Even if overdrawn, there has been justification for this line of criticism.
Read more...
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