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598 Antrim Road, BT15 5GN
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d'artiste: Matte Painting is the authoritative book dedicated to showcasing and teaching the skills behind the art of digital matte painting. Leading Hollywood matte painters Alp Altiner, Dylan Cole and Chris Stoski bring readers through the digital techniques used to create breathtaking, photo-realistic sets and backdrops for film, television and video games. D'artiste: Matte Painting is now available to purchase directly from Ballistic Publishing. More
Ballistic Publishing speaks to Dylan Cole about his background, inspiration and work.
"I was always drawing at a young age. I wasn't particularly good at it. I just enjoyed it," explains Dylan. "I would sit around and draw space battles from Star Wars or Superman. I was the type of kid who would make cards for my parents on birthdays, or Mother's Day and Father's Day. I think on more than one occasion my Mom had a Star Destroyer on her Mother's Day card! Nothing says motherly love like the Empire."
Dylan's sights turned to creating art when he started reading comic books at the age of ten. "I started drawing them and began to realize that I was doing it a little better than the other kids." From that point on, Dylan wanted to be a professional comic book artist, sitting in his room for hours drawing his own characters. With supportive parents who would bring him to annual San Diego Comic Con, Dylan's young artistic life would soon take a huge turn.
At the age of 15, Dylan started acrylic painting. "I know I wanted to paint for the rest of my life," says Dylan. "After high school, I went to UCLA and did a major in fine arts. My painting skills had progressed and I focused mainly on that in college. UCLA is a very contemporary, art-minded school, which meant they were more interested in the 'why's' of the work and not the 'how's'. In that sense, I am self-taught when it comes to painting. During this time I was doing a lot of surrealism, heavily influenced by artists like Salvador Dali, and various sci-fi illustrators."
"In my painting, I had mainly been interested in environments more than characters and I was always trying to paint them realistically. Matte painting really called to me."
"Artists like Michael Pangrazio and Chris Evans soon became my artistic heroes. Once I fell in love with matte painting, I started to do some research about it and soon found out it was all being done digitally. I was crushed because I really loved traditional painting. I was also something of a traditional art snob."
"I had some friends who were doing digital art, but I wanted nothing to do with it. I would tease them about cheating and not being real artists because they needed a computer for help -- all of the stuff that drives me crazy now when people say it to me! Needless to say, the joke was on me."
"What really got me going with digital was when I was at UCLA and I got an internship at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Although I was accepted based on my traditional paintings, they wanted me to start painting digitally. This was in 2000 and up until then the only thing I used a computer for was to write papers for school. I had barely used email until then."
"Instead of doing many different paintings, I worked on the same two paintings for months and months, refining and refining. I think I painted those things probably five times over. I would figure out something and apply what I had learned to the rest of the painting. I spent my senior year at UCLA in my room until my work started to look like what I saw at ILM."
"My digital art progressed rather quickly, and I think it was because I was only exposed to the best. I was around some of the best matte painters in the world up at ILM and that is what I aimed for. I wasn't involved in the online community so I didn't see what everyone else was doing. Nobody at my school was doing that type of work so I had nobody to compare with. I thought it was unfortunate at the time, but I think it helped me. As I progressed, I became more comfortable doing quick color sketching in Photoshop. I really began to use it as a paint tool, instead of just for matte painting type of work."
Copyright © 2003 - 2018 Ballistic Media Pty. Ltd. Privacy Policy | Shipping | Refunds | Contact


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Denver Broncos kicker Matt Prater will be suspended for the first four games of the 2014 season after violating the league's substance-abuse policy, Prater confirmed to Mike Klis of The Denver Post on Saturday night.
According to Klis, the violation was alcohol-related. Prater has been in the NFL's alcohol program since August 2011, when he was charged with driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a crash.
The league is expected to announce the suspension Monday, and the team does not expect him to appeal it.
"I've made some mistakes," Prater said, via The Denver Post. "I'm accepting full responsibility. I'll learn from it and come back a better person. I want to apologize to my teammates, my coaches, the Broncos' organization and the fans."
Prater's attorney, Harvey Steinberg, added that the suspension came after the 30-year-old had a couple of beers at his house while on vacation.
"No one feels worse about this than Matt Prater," Steinberg said. "He feels terribly for his teammates. It's cost him personally, both professionally and financially. I wonder if we shouldn't take a second look at the policy when only a couple beers were consumed at home while he was on vacation. Having said that, the NFL under the constraints of the policy couldn't have treated us better."
Prater, who was the NFL's second-leading scorer in 2013, led the league with a 96.2 field-goal percentage last season after making 25 of 26 field goal attempts.
Photo via USA TODAY Sports Images/Chris Humphreys
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runcronjobs processes the execution of centralized cron jobs for a pool of servers. The cron jobs are any executable files. runcronjobs runs cron jobs located in a given directory if the current host is specified as a target host for the jobs in question. It allows you to centralize all the cron jobs of a set of servers in a common shared directory.
rocknroll (Rsync fOr baCKup and Roll) is an incremental backup maker based on rsync. It backs up a remote directory tree to a destination directory on the local host. For this backup, it manages a set of archives named tag.1, tag.2, etc. Using the famous "link-dest" option of rsync, it keeps only the difference between the different archives.
DBIx-Class is an SQL to OO mapper with an object API inspired by Class::DBI (with a compatibility layer as a springboard for porting) and a resultset API that allows abstract encapsulation of database operations. It aims to make representing queries in your code as Perl-ish as possible while still providing access to as many of the capabilities of the database as possible, including retrieving related records from multiple tables in a single query.
PPM-Make is a Perl module that automates some of the steps needed to make a ppm (Perl Package Manager) package from a CPAN distribution. It attempts to fill in the ABSTRACT and AUTHOR attributes of Makefile.PL if these are not supplied, and also generates HTML documentation. ppm is used in the ActivePerl distribution. ActivePerl is primarily used on Windows and by corporations on other OSes.
Dist::Zilla builds distributions of code to be uploaded to the CPAN. In this respect, it is like ExtUtils::MakeMaker, Module::Build, or Module::Install. Unlike those tools, however, it is not also a system for installing code that has been downloaded from the CPAN. Since it's only run by authors, and is meant to be run on a repository checkout rather than on published, released code, it can do much more than those tools, and is free to make much more ludicrous demands in terms of prerequisites.
Test::Class provides a simple way of creating classes and objects to test your Perl code in an xUnit style. Built using Test::Builder, it was designed to work with other Test::Builder-based modules. You can easily package your tests as classes/modules rather than *.t scripts. This simplifies reuse, documentation, and distribution, encourages refactoring, and allows tests to be extended by inheritance.
A GUI client for Git, Mercurial, and SVN.
A C/C++ configuration file manipulation library.


text:
Rules of FunOrb
1. Introduction
FunOrb games are played by millions of people from a great many different countries and a wide range of cultural backgrounds. The FunOrb player community is much like the larger, real-world community: while most people within it are honest, courteous and respectful of others, there are a small number of individuals whose behaviour has the potential to alienate or offend. It is for this reason that we have an Offence System, which has been designed to help protect our players from this disruptive minority.
If, in the course of play, you come into contact with another player whose behaviour you consider offensive or aggressive, there are a number of options available to you. The first is to add the player to your Ignore List, or adjust your chat settings, so they cannot continue to bother you. Most minor incidents can be dealt with in this way, and neither you nor Jagex will need to take any further action.
Sometimes, however, you might encounter a player whose behaviour is particularly offensive. In such cases, you can use the Report Abuse feature to report the player to the Jagex Player Support team. Player Support will then investigate the incident, and if the reported player is deemed to have behaved inappropriately, or broken any of our rules, appropriate action will be taken to minimise the chances of that player causing further disruption.
Occasionally, innocent players might find themselves falsely accused of committing an offence, perhaps because they made an innocuous comment that was misinterpreted by another player. For this reason, reported incidents will be investigated thoroughly, and any evidence will be carefully evaluated, to ensure that innocent players are not given unwarranted penalties. Players who feel that they have been falsely accused of committing an offence should submit an appeal via the account management page.
The FunOrb rules are organised into three categories: Honour, Respect and Security. Please take some time to familiarise yourself with these rules before playing any FunOrb games.2. Honour
We expect our players not to cheat or indulge in dishonest behaviour. With this in mind, the following behaviour is deemed unacceptable:
- Macroing, and use of bots or third-party software
- Ratings transfers (this is considered to be bug abuse)
- Real-world trading
- Buying, selling or sharing an account
- Multiple logging-in
- Knowingly exploiting a bug
- Jagex staff impersonation
- Password, account, bank PIN or item scamming
- Advert blocking
- Encouraging others to break the rules
Players and Jagex staff are entitled to the respect of the other members of the player community. With this in mind, the following behaviour is deemed unacceptable:
- Discrimination of any kind, whether based on another person's race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs
- Solicitation
- Threatening another person, or bullying of any kind
- Using obscene or inappropriate language
- Spamming, or disruptive behaviour
- Misuse of the forums
It is of the utmost importance that the personal security of our players is not jeopardised while playing FunOrb games. With this in mind, the following behaviour is deemed unacceptable:
- Asking for or providing contact information such as full names, ages, postal or email addresses, telephone numbers or bank details
- Discussing or advocating illegal activity of any kind, such as the use of illegal drugs
- Advertising other websites
To find out more about our offence system, click here.


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The war on the rule of law
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Topic: The war on the rule of law (Read 149247 times)
Power User
Posts: 9483
Re: IRS gave WH confidential data
Reply #150 on:
October 11, 2013, 11:50:55 AM »
"House investigators: IRS gave White House confidential data in order to fight HHS mandate lawsuits"
This surprises no one, doesn't even offend liberals, and there is no indication that the perpetrators will face criminal prosecution. Instead, our answer is to have more agencies gather and enter even more personal information into these corrupt, insecure networks.
When they look deeper, they will also find that the agencies effectively shared information with the swing state, get out the liberal vote campaigns, enabling these programs.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Death of the Hatch Act
Reply #151 on:
October 20, 2013, 11:08:04 AM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
Housing Grant to ACORN
Reply #152 on:
October 21, 2013, 11:11:52 AM »
Judicial Watch: Feds give housing grant to ACORN affiliate despite federal ban
Power User
Posts: 15533
Obamacare-ACORN graft
Reply #153 on:
October 21, 2013, 05:56:27 PM »
What a coincidence: ACORN founders organization serving as Obamacare navigators
By Doug Powers October 17, 2013 11:35 PM
**Written by Doug Powers
There was $67 million doled out in Obamacare navigator grants, and the organization below doesnt appear on the list of navigators receiving that money. The other options are that they are being subcontracted, or that theyre doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. You decide:
A community organization established by Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN, will be participating in a navigator drive aiding people attempting to sign up for health-care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, according to a Fox News report. The organization, United Labor Unions Council Local 100, is based in New Orleans and was created by Rathke after ACORN went bankrupt amidst widespread scandal.
United Labor Unions Council Local 100s website links to ACORN International, another offshoot of the now defunct ACORN, on their website.
Though Local 100 is not officially related to ACORN, former ACORN administrators, including Wade Rathke and Bertha Lewis, have reconstituted the scandal-plagued community-organizing group in the form of a multiplicity of local organizations.
The Obamacare site at HealthCare.gov includes this option:
Your ACORN-ish navigator will no doubt be happy to assist you with that. Its probably the only part of the website that actually works.
Power User
Posts: 42556
DOJ walks grenades into Mexico
Reply #154 on:
October 21, 2013, 06:20:45 PM »
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: DOJ walks grenades into Mexico
Reply #155 on:
October 21, 2013, 06:22:43 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on October 21, 2013, 06:20:45 PM
But they were just undocumented grenades seeking work...
Power User
Posts: 9483
The war on the rule of law, Obamas fingerprints all over IRS Tea Party scandal
Reply #156 on:
October 22, 2013, 12:01:31 PM »
Obamas fingerprints all over IRS Tea Party scandal
by Jay Sekulow
Its past time for the media to begin asking President Obama tough questions about the IRS conservative targeting scandal. After all he was involved, publicly, from the beginning.
Last Friday, the American Center for Law and Justice (where I serve as Chief Counsel) filed its Second Amended Complaint against the United States, the IRS, and a legion of IRS officials. This Complaint, in which we represent 41 organizations in 22 states, presents perhaps the most complete story yet of the IRS conservative targeting scandal.
And it is an ugly story indeed.
What was sold to the American public as a low-level scandal perpetrated by a few rogue employees a scandal stopped after senior officials became aware and asserted control is now (to borrow a Watergate phrase) no longer operative.
Was Obama involved in the IRS scandal? He was the one who identified the targets in the most public manner possible.
Instead, we detail a long-running assault on the Tea Party, beginning shortly after its emergence in 2009, that is empowered, encouraged, and orchestrated not only by senior IRS officials in Washington, but also through outright targeting by the White House, Congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media.
In fact, the IRS was doing little more than focusing its attention exactly where the president of the United States told it to focus on the groups the president himself identified as a threat to democracy.
Consider President Obamas aggressive public statements made just as we now know senior IRS officials were intentionally and aggressively scrutinizing conservative groups applications for tax exemption.
On August 9, 2010 the president warned of attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names during his weekly radio address. The President said: We dont know whos behind these ads and we dont know whos paying for them . . . you dont know if its a foreign controlled corporation. ... The only people who dont want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.
On September 16, 2010, President Obama once again warned that some unidentified foreign-controlled entity could be providing millions of dollars for attack ads. Less than one week later, he complained that nobody knows the identities of the individuals who support conservative groups.
On September 22, 2010, President Obama warned of groups opposing his policies pos[ing] as non-for-profit social and welfare trade groups and he claimed such groups were guided by seasoned Republican political operatives and potentially supported by some unidentified foreign controlled entity.
On October 14, 2010, President Obama called organizations with benign sounding names a problem for democracy; the next week he complained about individuals who hide behind those front groups, called such groups a threat to our democracy, and claimed such groups were engaged in unsupervised spending.
Next, consider the IRSs actions following those statements. Not only did the IRS continue its targeting, it issued broad questionnaires that made unconstitutionally-intrusive inquiries designed to get answers to exactly the questions President Obama posed.
Who are your donors?
What is the political activity of your family and associates?
What are the passwords for your websites?
After all, according to the president, youre only afraid to answer these questions if youve got something to hide.
The demagoguery is breathtaking. Not only does he raise the wholly-unsubstantiated possibility of shadowy foreign involvement in the Tea Party groups, a charge incredible on its face, but he goes the extra mile of calling such groups, a threat to our democracy.
When the president of the United States declares these groups a threat to our democracy is it any surprise that his enthusiastic supporters (and donors) within the IRS responded with an unprecedented campaign of selective targeting, intimidation, and governmental intrusion?
One grows weary of stating the obvious, but if President Bush had declared a specific category of citizen groups a threat to democracy potentially run by political operatives or foreign-controlled, and the IRS launched an unprecedented campaign of targeting and intrusive questioning, the mainstream media would have been relentless not only in its independent investigations but in its calls for accountability at the highest levels.
Was the president of the United States involved in the IRS scandal? He was the one who identified the targets in the most public manner possible.
A president singling out citizens groups for targeting and intrusive questioning merely because he dislikes their message and fears their political influence?
Now that is a threat to democracy.
Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice
Power User
Posts: 15533
LAPD Special Order 7′ a Godsend for Unlicensed Illegal Alien Drivers
Reply #157 on:
October 23, 2013, 07:06:52 PM »
LAPD Special Order 7′ a Godsend for Unlicensed Illegal Alien Drivers
No license? No insurance? No problem!
Jack Dunphy
Suppose as you read this that Officer Dunphy is out on patrol somewhere in Los Angeles. As he keeps an eye out for signs of crime and villainy, he also seeks to maintain good order on the roads through enforcement of the traffic laws. And what should he see directly in front of him but a flagrant violation of those laws, to wit, someone driving 45 miles per hour in a 25-miles-per-hour zone on a quiet residential street. Officer Dunphy pulls over the errant driver and, after cautiously approaching the car (because you never know), discovers that the driver speaks no English, only Spanish.
This is no impediment to Officer Dunphy, as he has learned a good deal of Spanish over the years, a necessity for police officers working in many parts of Southern California. So, in the drivers native tongue, Officer Dunphy asks him for his drivers license, registration, and proof of insurance, all of which California law requires him to carry. The driver replies that he has none of these things, and that the car belongs to a friend of his whom he knows only as Francisco.
And now the question: What should Officer Dunphy do now? Of course he issues a citation to the driver for the speeding violation as well as for being unlicensed and uninsured, but what should happen to the car? California law allows for its impoundment for 30 days, which in this case would serve as a deterrent both to our driver, for being unlicensed, and to Francisco, for allowing the unlicensed man to drive.
Yes, Officer Dunphy, you say, summon the tow truck immediately. Unlicensed drivers are a menace and the full weight of the law should be brought to bear upon them.
Ah, but if that is indeed your response, you havent been paying attention to the news here in Los Angeles. What I must do, under the terms of the LAPDs Special Order 7 (PDF), is allow the unlicensed driver to contact Francisco and allow him time to come to the scene and, assuming he has a drivers license, take charge of the car. If Francisco does not have a license, he must be allowed to ask someone who does have one to come and take the car. In the event no qualified person is able to come, I can still impound the car, but only for one day, not thirty.
You see, the law authorizing police to impound cars driven by unlicensed drivers was enacted in the bad old days, when legislators and police officers alike considered it a duty to discourage and punish affronts to public safety. This of course was before enlightened Democrats, who now enjoy super-majorities in both houses of the California legislature, set to the task of making the state more hospitable to illegal immigrants. Under a law recently passed, illegal immigrants in California will soon be granted drivers licenses, so the question of impounding their cars when theyre found to be driving without a license will become a bit trickier. But you can bet there will be those who will look to cut them even more slack than the new law requires.
Among those surely will be LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, under whom Special Order 7 came to be implemented. Appointed by former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Chief Beck was and remains a willing servant in Villaraigosas effort to make Los Angeles more friendly to immigrants, legal or not. Special Order 7 has been challenged in court, both by the police officers labor union and by Judicial Watch, and in August a Superior Court judge ruled that it was preempted by state law. This forced Beck to rescind the order, but last week an appeals court set aside that ruling, allowing Beck once again to implement his order. Beck has called it an issue of fairness, saying that the fees attendant to lengthy impounds were too high for many illegal immigrants to pay, resulting in the permanent loss of their cars.
Someone with a different perspective on fairness is Don Rosenberg, whose son Drew was killed by an unlicensed illegal immigrant in a San Francisco traffic collision in 2010. Rosenberg, who has since become an activist on the issue, says unlicensed drivers are killing over 7,000 people a year in the United States. About 4,000 of those deaths are illegal aliens that are causing them, he says, so, I dont see it as some minor offense.
But why let a few thousand deaths stand in the way of social justice? For Chief Beck and his like-minded allies on the issue, it is somehow fair to allow people who should not be here to drive the cars they should not drive to the jobs they should not have.
There are neighborhoods in Los Angeles where, if a police officer pulls over a driver and finds that he has a drivers license and insurance, and that his car is properly registered at his current address, the officer is so moved at the rarity of the event he is tempted to take a picture with the man so he can show it to his friends.
When people ask me why I moved out of Los Angeles, the city where I was born and lived most of my life, the city where my father was born and lived most of his life, I have a long list of reasons. Youve just read about the latest one.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Patriot Post: IRS' Lerner and the FEC
Reply #158 on:
November 04, 2013, 09:13:11 AM »
Lerner Leaked Secret Info
More emails reveal that the IRS gave confidential Tea Party tax information upon request to the Federal Election Commission. And -- brace yourselves -- you'll never guess who allegedly approved the leak. According to Washington Times reporter Paul Bedard, "The public watchdog group Judicial Watch [says] it was former scandal boss Lois Lerner who shared the information on groups including the American Future Fund and the American Issues Project." Additionally, "The emails also revealed the exact working of the prying political questions the IRS wanted the groups to reveal, such as their goals and the requests for brochures and ads." But despite breaking federal law, Congress is undoubtedly in no hurry to get to to the bottom of this scandal, either.
Power User
Posts: 42556
VDH: The rule of law?
Reply #159 on:
November 17, 2013, 09:17:35 AM »
The Rule of Law?
By Victor Davis Hanson
November 14, 2013 1:55 PM
When his pet businesses did not like elements of the Affordable Care Act, Obama simply exempted them. When employers objected that their mandate would unduly hamper job creation, the president simply ignored the settled law and exempted them. Now, when millions have lost their coverage, the president is said to be ready to again reinterpret settled law and no longer demand that private insurance plans conform to the ACA statute, at least for a year.
Aside from the question of whether it is legal or right for the president to decide arbitrarily which elements of legislation to faithfully execute, it is also a sort of new way of ad hoc governing: The president grandly introduces a new piece of unworkable legislation, does not know or care much about the consequences of implementing it, demagogues the bill, demonizes the opposition, gets it passed, uses the passage for political purposes, and then waits to see what happens in the real world.
When more than 50 percent of the country is outraged, he scraps what he finds politically useful to scrap (enforcement discretion). Apparently, Obama believes that after such trial and error he will work the bugs out of the ACA and end up with what he can call a success too bad for those who lose coverage or pay more in the meantime and for the legalists who worry that what he is doing is against the law.
All this is right out of the radical Athenian assembly, which on any given day could do whatever its majority wished and then the next undo whatever it wished. But such governance is not what the framers had in mind when they established the checks and balances of a republican tripartite government and entrusted the president with faithfully executing all the laws passed by congress and signed by him.
Power User
Posts: 9483
AG Holder asks for appeal in Fast and Furious case holding him in contempt
Reply #160 on:
November 17, 2013, 10:01:39 AM »
Lawless administration continued...
AG Holder asks for appeal in Fast and Furious case holding him in contempt
Attorney General Eric Holder wants to appeal a recent judges ruling that allows the House to continue with its contempt case, related to Holders refusal to turn over documents concerning the Justice Departments failed Operation Fast and Furious gun-tracking program.
Holder made the request Friday night to U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, asking that the Justice Department be allowed to put the case in front of a federal appeals court before Jackson makes any final decisions.
In September, Jackson rejected the Obama administrations request to have the case dismissed.
Power User
Posts: 9483
IRS Targeting, Wilkins Testifies: I Don't Recall - 80 Times
Reply #161 on:
November 27, 2013, 09:38:23 PM »
expressing gross dissatisfaction with Wilkinss testimony and, in a letter sent to him on Wednesday, offering him the opportunity to amend it. In your testimony, you stated I dont recall a staggering 80 times in full or partial response to the Committees questions, committee chairman Darrell Issa and Ohio representative Jim Jordan wrote. Your failure to recollect important aspects of the Committees investigation suggests either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate your involvement in this matter or gross incompetence on your part.
The most pertinent subject on which Wilkinss memory failed him was the nature of his communications with Treasury Department officials: in particular, whether he discussed the applications of tea-party groups with anybody at the Treasury Department, whether he discussed with Treasury Department officials regulatory guidance for 501(c)(4) entities engaged in political activities, and whether he discussed with them the inspector generals report that blew the lid off of the targeting scandal in mid May.
In the summer of 2011, former IRS official Lois Lerner and her senior adviser sought guidance from lawyers in Wilkinss office on the processing of two test applications from conservative groups, whose treatment was intended to guide how Cincinnati agents would process the bulk of the tea-party cases. Wilkins told the committee he was unaware of their involvement in the issue but did know about the draft guidance on the treatment of tea-party applications that, on April 25, 2012, emerged from Lerners meetings with lawyers reporting to him. (The guidance was never finalized.)
Wilkins met with President Obama on April 23, two days before the guidance was provided.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #162 on:
November 27, 2013, 10:20:26 PM »
Coincidentally it was announced today that the IRS is working on new regs yanking the leash of 501(c) groups , , ,
Power User
Posts: 9483
Charles Krauthammer: An outbreak of lawlessness
Reply #163 on:
November 29, 2013, 11:16:27 AM »
Charles Krauthammer
An outbreak of lawlessness November 28, 2013
For all the gnashing of teeth over the lack of comity and civility in Washington, the real problem is not etiquette but the breakdown of political norms, legislative and constitutional.
Such as the one just spectacularly blown up in the Senate. To get three judges onto a coveted circuit court, frustrated Democrats abolished the filibuster for executive appointments and (non-Supreme Court) judicial nominations.
The problem is not the change itself. Its fine that a president staffing his administration should need 51 votes rather than 60. Doing so for judicial appointments, which are for life, is a bit dicier. Nonetheless, for about 200 years the filibuster was nearly unknown in blocking judicial nominees. So we are really just returning to an earlier norm.
The violence to political norms here consisted in how that change was executed. By brute force a near party-line vote of 52 to 48 . This was a disgraceful violation of more than two centuries of precedent. If a bare majority can change the fundamental rules that govern an institution, then there are no rules. Senate rules today are whatever the majority decides they are that morning.
What distinguishes an institution from a flash mob is that its rules endure. They can be changed, of course. But only by significant supermajorities. Thats why constitutional changes require two-thirds of both houses plus three-quarters of the states. If we could make constitutional changes by majority vote, there would be no Constitution.
As of today, the Senate effectively has no rules. Congratulations, Harry Reid. Finally, something you will be remembered for.
Barack Obama may be remembered for something similar. His violation of the proper limits of executive power has become breathtaking. Its not just making recess appointments when the Senate is in session. Its not just unilaterally imposing a law Congress had refused to pass the Dream Act by brazenly suspending large sections of the immigration laws.
Weve now reached a point where a flailing president, desperate to deflect the opprobrium heaped upon him for the false promise that you could keep your health plan if you wanted to, calls a hasty news conference urging both insurers and the states to reinstate millions of such plans.
Except that he is asking them to break the law. His own law. Under Obamacare, no insurer may issue a policy after 2013 that does not meet the laws minimum coverage requirements. These plans were canceled because they do not.
The law remains unchanged. The regulations governing that law remain unchanged. Nothing is changed except for a president proposing to unilaterally change his own law from the White House press room.
Thats banana republic stuff, except that there the dictator proclaims from the presidential balcony.
Remember how for months Democrats denounced Republicans for daring to vote to defund or postpone Obamacare? Saboteurs! Terrorists! How dare you alter the law of the land.
This was nonsense from the beginning. Every law is subject to revision and abolition if the people think it turned out to be a bad idea. Even constitutional amendments can be repealed and have been (see Prohibition).
After indignant denunciation of Republicans for trying to amend the law of the land constitutionally (i.e. in Congress assembled), Democrats turn utterly silent when the president lawlessly tries to do so by executive fiat.
Nor is this the first time. The president wakes up one day and decides to unilaterally suspend the employer mandate, a naked invasion of Congresss exclusive legislative prerogative, enshrined in Article I. Not a word from the Democrats. Nor now regarding the blatant usurpation of trying to restore canceled policies that violate explicit Obamacare coverage requirements.
And worse. When Congress tried to make Obamas fix legal i.e., through legislation he opposed it. He even said he would veto it. Imagine: vetoing the very bill that would legally enact his own illegal fix.
At rallies, Obama routinely says he has important things to do and hes not going to wait for Congress. Well, amending a statute after its been duly enacted is something a president may not do without Congress. Its a gross violation of his Article II duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
A Senate with no rules. A president without boundaries. One day, when a few bottled-up judicial nominees and a malfunctioning health-care Web site are barely a memory, we will still be dealing with the toxic residue of this outbreak of authoritative lawlessness.
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Mark Steyn, always funny, Dissent is the Highest Form of Tax Bracket
Reply #164 on:
December 01, 2013, 09:43:40 AM »
In Ian Flemings Goldfinger, the eponymous Auric Goldfinger observes:
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, its enemy action.
That may be overly generous.
A couple of weeks back, cancer patient Bill Elliot, in a defiant appearance on Fox News, discussed the cancelation of his insurance and what he intended to do about it. Hes now being audited.
Insurance agent C Steven Tucker, who quaintly insists that the whimsies of the hyper-regulatory bureaucracy do not trump your legal rights, saw the interview and reached out to Mr Elliot to help him. And hes now being audited.
As the Instapundit likes to remind us, Barack Obama has joked publicly about siccing the IRS on his enemies. With all this coincidence about, we should be grateful the President is not (yet) doing prison-rape gags.
Meanwhile, IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, in his testimony to the House Oversight Committee over the agencys systemic corruption, answers I dont recall no fewer than 80 times. Try giving that answer to Wilkins colleagues and see where it gets you. Few persons are fond of their tax collectors, but, from my experience, America is the only developed nation in which the mass of the population is fearful of its revenue agency. This is unbecoming to a supposedly free people.
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The Conspiracy behind the Fraud
Reply #165 on:
December 01, 2013, 02:22:48 PM »
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #166 on:
December 01, 2013, 06:11:27 PM »
Mr. McCarthy certainly connects all the dots.
Obama is clearly on record as stating "single payer" total government controlled national health system is in his mind the best.
So are probably most if not all of the academic politburo members who are behind the present AHA. Berwick for example is well known for admiring the British system.
I am not totally convinced the flawed AHA was part of scheme to insure its own failure thus creating the vacuum for the government statists to move in a fill the void as though they were rescuing us with a mandatory single national health system.
It certainly could be. I just don't know if they are that clever.
I am not sure it would matter if this was preplanned or just bumbling.
We know they will never stop till they get to their goal of total control over our lives.
One question I have. I wonder how many Americans would be just fine if we do have a government only health system.
Socialism, communism, fascism, are not dirty words anymore.
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war on the rule of law: Sensenbrenner calls for prosecution of Clapper
Reply #167 on:
December 08, 2013, 12:15:03 PM »
Clapper, who is the Director of National Intelligence who famously said the Muslim Brotherhood is a secular group, might take the insanity plea.
Patriot Act author: Obamas intel czar should be prosecuted
"Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill.
He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March.
During that hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper insisted that the NSA does not or at least does "not wittingly" collect information on Americans in bulk.
After documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA collects records on virtually all U.S. phone calls, Clapper apologized for the misleading comment.
The intelligence director said he tried to give the "least untruthful" answer he could without revealing classified information.
Sensenbrenner said that explanation doesnt hold water and argued the courts and Congress depend on accurate testimony to do their jobs.
"The only way laws are effective is if they're enforced," Sensenbrenner said. "If it's a criminal offense and I believe Mr. Clapper has committed a criminal offense then the Justice Department ought to do its job."
The Eric Holder, ends justify means, Justice Dept will get to this right after it prosecutes Attorney General Eric Holder for Contempt of Congress in Fast and Furious, after the Benghazi video maker is brought to justice, after closing Guantanamo, and after every American who likes their plan, keeps their plan. These are busy times; they can't prosecutor every Obama administration official lie.
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #168 on:
December 09, 2013, 10:39:15 AM »
Respect to Sensenbrenner!
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The war on the rule of law, NY Post: Jobless rate may be rigged
Reply #169 on:
December 09, 2013, 10:22:40 PM »
By John Crudele, NY Post Business Writer
December 7, 2013
Warning: Jobless rate may be rigged
The most curious thing of all about the November jobs report released on Friday was the huge drop in the unemployment rate and the fact that the Labor Department chose not to disclose that the data going into that figure are under investigation for falsification.
On Nov. 19, I broke the news in my column that the Census Bureau, which collects data that goes into the jobless rate on behalf of Labor, had caught one of its enumerators fabricating interviews in 2010.
The culprit said back then (and to me during an interview) that he was told to do so by Census supervisors who were in the position to instruct others to make similar fabrications.
In fact, a source who I havent named but who is familiar with the Census data accumulation process has told me that falsifications have been occurring on a regular basis.
The Census Department surveys that went into the November jobless rate actually took place during the week that included Nov. 5 instead of the normal Nov. 12 week.
The Labor Department did put in a note about the survey week change in its November report.
But it should also have included another line that said: The data for the unemployment rate may have been compromised. Lots of people are looking into the matter right now. Well get back to you on whether you should believe these numbers or not.
Why didnt the Labor Department include a note like that? A source who knows the department well says the concept of data being falsified is so unprecedented that the bureaucrats just dont know how to react.
They had better figure it out soon. That drop in the unemployment rate might be the straw that sends the Fed into tightening mode.
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Turley: Obama's "Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid"
Reply #170 on:
December 11, 2013, 07:31:41 PM »
Turley: Obama's "Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid"
REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA): Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It's about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president's unilateral modification of act of Congress affect both the balance of power between the political branches and the liberty interests of the American people?
JONATHAN TURLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he's not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in every single branch.
This Newtonian orbit that the three branches exist in is a delicate one but it is designed to prevent this type of concentration. There is two trends going on which should be of equal concern to all members of Congress. One is that we have had the radical expansion of presidential powers under both President Bush and President Obama. We have what many once called an imperial presidency model of largely unchecked authority. And with that trend we also have the continued rise of this fourth branch. We have agencies that are quite large that issue regulations. The Supreme Court said recently that agencies could actually define their own or interpret their own jurisdiction. (House hearing, December 3, 2013)
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #171 on:
December 19, 2013, 11:16:49 AM »
"Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #172 on:
December 19, 2013, 03:57:37 PM »
Second post
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Fed judge says DHS engages in smuggling illegal aliens into US
Reply #173 on:
December 20, 2013, 02:15:14 PM »
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #174 on:
January 07, 2014, 09:57:35 AM »
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Issa catches fox in the IRS Tea Party hen house
Reply #175 on:
January 10, 2014, 01:14:08 PM »
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Hillary and the NSA
Reply #176 on:
January 12, 2014, 01:35:23 PM »
posted on the Clinton thread as well
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #177 on:
January 15, 2014, 02:03:08 AM »
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Chicago thug style
Reply #178 on:
January 22, 2014, 06:09:43 PM »
Report: Tim Geithner threatened S&P after it downgraded Americas credit rating in 2011
posted at 6:01 pm on January 22, 2014 by Allahpundit
My favorite part of this is a DOJ official wondering why no one had made this allegation publicly until now, more than two and a half years after it supposedly happened. Any theories on why a business that had already been threatened by a cabinet member but couldnt prove it might want to keep mum lest it piss him off further? How many minor or major threats are government officials involved in daily, do you suppose, and how many get reported? (Timothy Carney cites a few examples from Hopenchanges first term in his post about this.) Sometimes they dont even bother to hide it: Remember, one of the reasons HHS was able to convince insurance companies to start moving ObamaCare deadlines around is because Sebelius threatened to boot companies from the exchanges next year if they didnt comply. When you can strong-arm private industry in public, without fear of reprisal, thats when you know youre on the road to a de facto, if not de jure, government takeover.
Not all cabinet officers are so lucky, though, so some have to resort to this:
Harold McGraw, the chairman of McGraw-Hill Financial Inc, made the statement in a declaration filed by S&P on Monday, as it defends against the governments $5 billion fraud lawsuit over its rating practices prior to the 2008 financial crisis.
McGraw said he returned a call from Geithner on Aug. 8, 2011, three days after S&P cut the U.S. credit rating to AA-plus, and that Geithner told him you are accountable for an alleged huge error in S&Ps work.
He said that you have done an enormous disservice to yourselves and to your country, and that S&Ps conduct would be looked at very carefully, McGraw said. Such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government.
There was in fact an error a $2 trillion one in S&Ps calculations related to the downgrade, but the company swore afterward that it didnt affect their decision to drop the U.S. from AAA to AA+. Meanwhile, a few days after Geithners phone call, news broke about the SEC launching a preliminary investigation of S&P for insider trading related to the downgrade assessment. Geithner himself was scathing about the company when he addressed the downgrade publicly. Now theyre being sued by the feds for fraud. Maybe those things are unrelated or maybe not even S&P probably doesnt know for sure but this is why scrupulous government officials tend not to dial up antagonists to warn them theyre being looked at. Given the power they wield, its easy to draw the wrong conclusion about retaliation even if its not intended. You dont suppose a mellow, easygoing guy like Tim Geithner intended it, do you?
By the way, it was the first debt-ceiling standoff between the parties in 2011 that helped trigger that downgrade. According to Jack Lews letter to Boehner today, the next standoff is coming next month. I wonder if S&Ps learned its lesson.
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #179 on:
January 22, 2014, 07:16:55 PM »
With regard to this interesting little story there is also the matter of why Moody's, which arguably was as inaccurate as S&P but did not downgrade, did NOT catch excrement from Geithner.
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Dinesh D'Souza indicted
Reply #180 on:
January 24, 2014, 08:18:17 AM »
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Re: Dinesh D'Souza indicted
Reply #181 on:
January 24, 2014, 08:26:25 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on January 24, 2014, 08:18:17 AM
Pure coincidence. Just like the IRS audits of conservative groups. How many indictments/arrests for the murders of Americans in Benghazi, Libya?
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Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #182 on:
January 24, 2014, 08:48:06 AM »
The mind boggles at what is becoming of our country.
Sen. Ted Cruz addresses this here with Mark Levine:
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Schumer calls for IRS attack on Tea Party
Reply #183 on:
January 27, 2014, 09:12:50 AM »
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Baraq Milhous Obama
Reply #184 on:
February 11, 2014, 11:29:08 AM »
Another extra-legal postponement by the president of Obamacare?!?
President Obama has decreed that another piece of his life-saving legislation is so important that it has to wait to be implemented until he left office.
Last Edit: February 11, 2014, 11:30:58 AM by Crafty_Dog
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Obama Frees America From the Tyranny of Law
Reply #185 on:
February 12, 2014, 05:23:39 PM »
February 11, 2014 5:00 PM
Obama Frees America From the Tyranny of Law
Executive orders aim to prevent Constitution-lock.
By Charles C. W. Cooke
Thats the good thing as president, President Obama half-joked yesterday at Thomas Jeffersons home in Monticello, Virginia. I can do what I want. And, as if signaling that he had finally transcended all of those antediluvian Im not a king/emperor/dictator reassurances, a few hours later the news broke that he had, once again, done what he wanted this time delaying part of Obamacares employer mandate until 2016.
Now, ventured the Volokh Conspiracys Eugene Kontorovich, Obama really is bypassing Congress:
Manipulating large-scale legislative policies, duly enacted, around election schedules goes beyond the parameters of executive discretion. Nor can this be justified by the dubious claim of transition relief from tax obligations. The employers are not being relieved just from taxes, but from direct primary legal obligations to provide insurance. Every year the administration delays large portions of ObamaCare, it says it is no big deal, because it is temporary. But a few temporary fixes in a row becomes a new permanent form of executive lawmaking.
Executive lawmaking sounds so harsh, dont you think? Perhaps conceive of it instead as the executive branchs liberating itself from that pesky Constitution-lock weve heard so much about. After all, the alternative is just too depressing: Whatever the stated reason for the new delay, Kontorovichs colleague at Volokh, Jonathan H. Adler, adjudged candidly, it is illegal, and the increasing brazenness with which the Administration is disregarding inconvenient or ill-conceived portions of its signature legislative achievement lowers the bar to a disturbing degree. Fair enough. But how rich and how various have been those reasons! Why do you care: you like the outcome? the presidents critics have been asked, just one among a host of unconvincing defenses that have included, well, I dont like Congress, think of it more as that the White House is improving the law, this is too important for the rules, look, Obama won, and, perhaps my all-time favorite, what are you going to do about it anyway?
In court? Not too much, in all likelihood. As so often, nobody seems to have standing. Legally, though, this isnt even a close one. Obamcares text clearly instructs that the employer mandate is to come into effect on January 1 of this year, and, as Adler adroitly demonstrates, the established rule is that if Congress explicitly enacts a deadline without including the means by which that deadline may be changed, the president is required to enforce the law as written. The Executive Branch is supposed to faithfully execute the laws Congress enacts, not rewrite them, Adler concludes a sentiment that should surprise nobody who has even a rudimentary grasp of American civics. Obamacare contains no exception to that rule.
Still, with his signature legislation on the line and the ghastly prospect of a fully Republican Congress presiding over his final two years, this is all proving a touch restrictive for our intrepid, transforming hero. Thus have we been treated to an intriguing paradox: When Congress wishes to delay or amend Obamacare, it risks upsetting the entire American settlement nullifying a law that was apparently set in aspic, never to be touched; but when Obama wishes to delay or amend Obamacare, he is merely ensuring that it works properly. Indeed, if Congress so much as hints that it would be willing to pass an alteration to the law, the administration takes it as read that it has been granted the moral permission to act on its own; but if Congress wouldnt be willing to pass a change, then the president is forced to act in order to counter what we are reliably informed is unprecedented obstruction. Its awfully clever.
This approach seems to have convinced the press corps, even in such cases as it is patently obvious that the governments changes have nothing to do with the government and everything to do with politics. Almost every media outlet openly acknowledged yesterday that the newest delay was the product of electoral expedience in a midterm election year, the WH simply did not need any more healthcare headaches, CBSs Major Garrett averred, his eyebrows remaining level and yet in not a single case did anybody ask the next question, how is this remotely acceptable? Certainly, I comprehend the temptation toward cynicism that the abject hypocrisy of politics can yield. I empathize, too, with those who have come to the resigned conclusion that all legal opinions are driven by partisan preference and that each and every challenge to the process by which things are achieved is ultimately a cloaked objection to the outcome at hand. As conservatives had a poor record of calling out executive overreach when George W. Bush was president, the progressive response to Obamas accelerating domestic imperialism has thus far been to cheer and ask for more. But are we to conclude that this make it acceptable? Of course not.
They seem to not understand that its not the delay we oppose, Red Alerts Allen Ginzburg sighed yesterday, but the President circumventing the legislature to do it. Quite so. And they seem not to understand, either, that the system, which is supposed to sit above the politics of the day, is the product not of the last election cycle but of a centuries-old struggle between lawmakers and executives one that runs through the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the drafting of the Constitution and the consequent fight between the federalists and anti-federalists, a fight that set the stage for the political cleavages with which we still contend today.
In the heat of battle, it might appear to its apologists as if Obamacare is worth the destruction of the established order. But it wont look that way in a few years time, when, as the pendulum always guarantees that it is, the shoe is on the other foot. George Washington walked away after two terms not because he did not trust himself to rule indefinitely, but because he did not trust the guy twenty or thirty years down the line to do so. Obama would do well to follow Washingtons example. He doesnt even need the permission of Congress . . .
Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.
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Newt on BO's lawlessness
Reply #186 on:
February 12, 2014, 09:55:32 PM »
Obama Abandoning the Rule of Law
"That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want." - President Obama at Monticello, February 10, 2014
The administrations catastrophic incompetence implementing Obamacare has done far worse than simply cripple our health system. It is undermining the very foundation of our society, too. Its eroding the rule of law.
We are a nation that was founded on the rule of law. The kings violation of the rule of law, in fact, was one of the chief justifications for the American Revolution. And for most of our history, we understood that clear rules applied predictably are what stand between freedom and an arbitrary government that protects its friends and punishes its enemies.
This commitment to limited government under the rule of law was a big part of what made America the leading nation in the world. We provided the freest, most stable place on the planet for innovators to innovate, a fair playing field with fair rules. As a result we saw the greatest leap in quality of life and economic growth in history.
The Obama administration, however, has led the way in dismantling one of Americas greatest strengths. After passing unworkable health care legislation, it is slowly replacing the rule of law with capricious rule by bureaucrats. Evidently it views this institutional damage as preferable to the political damage that would result from admitting its policies have failed.
So untethered from legal authority, the administration has made change after change to Obamacare without returning to Congress for approval. The President and his appointed staff are simply making up key provisions of the law as they go along.
The most recent example came this week, when the administration announced it would again delay the employer mandate. Now businesses with 50 to 99 employees will not have to comply with the law until 2016, and larger companies, too, will be getting an extralegal break for another year. The mandate applies to the employers of 72 percent of the country, so this is not a minor change. Its a rewrite of a fundamental component of the law.
This is hardly the first time President Obama has modified its signature policy initiative illegally, however. In addition to its decision last year to postpone the employer mandate for all of 2014, the administration extended the individual mandate until the end of March. And without any legal authority, it gave exemptions to individuals whose plans had been cancelled. It delayed the exchange for small businesses by a full year, as well, and postponed the cap on out-of-pocket costs for consumers until 2015. And most cynical of all, it pushed off the 2014 enrollment period for the Obamacare exchanges until after the midterm elections this fall.
Many Americans might be inclined to give the Obama administration a break as it struggles to implement a complex policy. We cannot ignore, however, that the administration is making many of these illegal modifications for nakedly political reasons. President Obama is trying to delay the most painful effects of the law until after election day. But make no mistake: he still intends to inflict the pain--he just prefers to do it after its too late for voters to register their disapproval at the polls.
Using executive orders to get around working with Congress is also extremely unpopular with voters. A recent Fox News poll found 74 percent of Americans oppose Obama circumventing Congress this way.
The Presidents improvisational rulemaking for political purposes sets a terrible precedent. Democrats would never tolerate this behavior from a Republican chief executive, and theyd be right to object. They shouldnt accept it from a president of their own party, either. It does real and lasting damage.
As Americans, most of us work hard and play by the rules. Its only fair for the government class to do the same.
Your Friend,
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war on the rule of law, Ben Carson, family and associates targeted by IRS
Reply #187 on:
February 14, 2014, 08:56:07 AM »
Search NY Times, Wash Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN Huffington Post for this story, "Carson IRS target"... I don't see it.
1) The president said (joked?) he would target opponents with the IRS.
2) He did exactly that. Lead officials have taken the fifth. Stonewall and coverup is in full force. Stench path leads to the top.
3) Critics like D'Souza and Carson feel extreme heat.
4) Very funny? No. These are Nixonian, Soviet, Nazi, treason, impeachment, take up arms level accusations, if valid.
5) Real consequences: Opponents were prevented from legally organizing, while the administration co-mingled private government data with campaign data 'mining' to get out the vote and win the last election. Fun to criticize anonymously, but I would not consider putting my name out publicly for enemies list scrutiny. And I am a law abiding citizen!
Ben Carson, family and friends target of IRS harassment for criticizing Obama
Dr. Ben Carson says he's been targeted by IRS for criticizing Obama
February 11, 2014
On Monday, Dr. Benjamin Carson, the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said he and his family were targeted by the IRS in retribution for comments critical of Barack Obama, Newsmax reported.
According to Carson, audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013, just a few months after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Gradually, he added, the harassment expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors.
"Ive been quite -- I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered," he told Newsmax TV's John Bachman.
"The IRS has investigated me. They said, I want to look at your real estate holdings. There was nothing there. Well, lets expand to an entire [year], everything. There was nothing there. Lets do another year. Finally, after a few months, they went away. But theyve come after my family, theyve come after my friends, theyve come after associates," he added.
Last Edit: February 14, 2014, 09:00:51 AM by DougMacG
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President Kafka
Reply #188 on:
February 16, 2014, 01:12:55 PM »
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WSJ: FCC Wades Into the Newsroom...
Reply #189 on:
February 20, 2014, 01:52:29 PM »
The FCC Wades Into the Newsroom
Why is the agency studying 'perceived station bias' and asking about coverage choices?
By AJIT PAI
Feb. 10, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET
News organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know. MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.
But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.
Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs," or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.
The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about "the process by which stories are selected" and how often stations cover "critical information needs," along with "perceived station bias" and "perceived responsiveness to underserved populations."
How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of "critical information" such as the "environment" and "economic opportunities," that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their "news philosophy" and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.
The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: "Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?" Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.
Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntaryin theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC's queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.
This is not the first time the agency has meddled in news coverage. Before Critical Information Needs, there was the FCC's now-defunct Fairness Doctrine, which began in 1949 and required equal time for contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues. Though the Fairness Doctrine ostensibly aimed to increase the diversity of thought on the airwaves, many stations simply chose to ignore controversial topics altogether, rather than air unwanted content that might cause listeners to change the channel.
The Fairness Doctrine was controversial and led to lawsuits throughout the 1960s and '70s that argued it infringed upon the freedom of the press. The FCC finally stopped enforcing the policy in 1987, acknowledging that it did not serve the public interest. In 2011 the agency officially took it off the books. But the demise of the Fairness Doctrine has not deterred proponents of newsroom policing, and the CIN study is a first step down the same dangerous path.
The FCC says the study is merely an objective fact-finding mission. The results will inform a report that the FCC must submit to Congress every three years on eliminating barriers to entry for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the communications industry.
This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?
Should all stations follow MSNBC's example and cut away from a discussion with a former congresswoman about the National Security Agency's collection of phone records to offer live coverage of Justin Bieber's bond hearing? As a consumer of news, I have an opinion. But my opinion shouldn't matter more than anyone else's merely because I happen to work at the FCC.
Mr. Pai is a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
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WSJ: Connecting the dots in the IRS Scandal
Reply #190 on:
February 26, 2014, 07:26:10 PM »
Bradley A. Smith: Connecting the Dots in the IRS Scandal
The 'smoking gun' in the targeting of conservative groups has been hiding in plain sight.
By Bradley A. Smith
Feb. 26, 2014 7:47 p.m. ET
The mainstream press has justified its lack of coverage over the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups because there's been no "smoking gun" tying President Obama to the scandal. This betrays a remarkable, if not willful, failure to understand abuse of power. The political pressure on the IRS to delay or deny tax-exempt status for conservative groups has been obvious to anyone who cares to open his eyes. It did not come from a direct order from the White House, but it didn't have to.
First, some background: On Jan. 21, 2010, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United v. FEC upholding the right of corporations and unions to make independent expenditures in political races. Then, on March 26, relying on Citizens United, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rights of persons (including corporations) to pool resources for political purposes. This allowed the creation of "super PACs" as well as corporate contributions to groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code that spend in political races.
The reaction to Citizens United was no secret. Various news outlets such as CNN noted that "Democrats fear the decision has given the traditionally pro-business GOP a powerful new advantage."
The 501(c)(4) groups in question are officially known as "social-welfare organizations." They have for decades been permitted to engage in political activity under IRS rules, so long as their primary purpose (generally understood to be less than 50% of their activity) wasn't political. They are permitted to lobby without limitation and are not required to disclose their donors. The groups span the political spectrum, from the National Rifle Association to Common Cause to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. If forced out of 501(c)(4) status, these nonprofit advocacy groups would have to reorganize as for-profit corporations and pay taxes on donations received, or reorganize as "political committees" under Section 527 of the IRS Code and be forced to disclose their donors.
Now consider the following events, all of which were either widely reported, publicly released by officeholders or revealed later in testimony to Congress. These are the dots the media refuse to connect:
Jan. 27, 2010: President Obama criticizes Citizens United in his State of the Union address and asks Congress to "correct" the decision.
Feb. 11, 2010: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) says he will introduce legislation known as the Disclose Act to place new restrictions on some political activity by corporations and force more public disclosure of contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations. Mr. Schumer says the bill is intended to "embarrass companies" out of exercising the rights recognized in Citizens United. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he said.
Soon after, in March 2010, Mr. Obama publicly criticizes conservative 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in politics. In his Aug. 21 radio address, he warns Americans about "shadowy groups with harmless sounding names" and a "corporate takeover of our democracy."
Sept. 28, 2010: Mr. Obama publicly accuses conservative 501(c)(4) organizations of "posing as not-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups." Max Baucus, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asks the IRS to investigate 501(c)(4)s, specifically citing Americans for Job Security, an advocacy group that says its role is to "put forth a pro-growth, pro-jobs message to the American people."
Oct. 11, 2010: Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) asks the IRS to investigate the conservative 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS and "other organizations."
April 2011: White House officials confirm that Mr. Obama is considering an executive order that would require all government contractors to disclose their donations to politically active organizations as part of their bids for government work. The proposal is later dropped amid opposition across the political spectrum.
Feb. 16, 2012: Seven Democratic senators Michael Bennet (Colo.), Al Franken (Minn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Mr. Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Tom Udall (N.M.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)write to the IRS asking for an investigation of conservative 501(c)(4) organizations.
March 12, 2012: The same seven Democrats write another letter asking for further investigation of conservative 501(c)(4)s, claiming abuse of their tax status.
July 27, 2012: Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) writes one of several letters to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman seeking a probe of nine conservative groups, plus two liberal and one centrist organization. In 2013 testimony to the HouseOversight and Government Reform Committee, former IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller describes Sen. Levin as complaining "bitterly" to the IRS and demanding investigations.
Aug. 31, 2012: In another letter to the IRS, Sen. Levin calls its failure to investigate and prosecute targeted organizations "unacceptable."
Dec. 14, 2012: The liberal media outlet ProPublica receives Crossroads GPS's 2010 application for tax-exempt status from the IRS. Because the group's tax-exempt status had not been recognized, the application was confidential. ProPublica publishes the full application. It later reports that it received nine confidential pending applications from IRS agents, six of which it published. None of the applications was from a left-leaning organization.
April 9, 2013: Sen. Whitehouse convenes the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism to examine nonprofits. He alleges that nonprofits are violating federal law by making false statements about their political activities and donors and using shell companies to donate to super PACs to hide donors' identities. He berates Patricia Haynes, then-deputy chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, for not prosecuting conservative nonprofits.
May 10, 2013: Sen. Levin announces that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings on "the IRS's failure to enforce the law requiring that tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s be engaged exclusively in social welfare activities, not partisan politics." Three days later he postpones the hearings when Lois Lerner (then-director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division) reveals that the IRS had been targeting and delaying the applications of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Nov. 29, 2013: The IRS proposes new rules redefining "political activity" to include activities such as voter-registration drives and the production of nonpartisan legislative scorecards to restrict what the agency deems as excessive spending on campaigns by tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups. Even many liberal nonprofits argue that the rule goes too far in limiting their political activitybut the main target appears to be the conservative 501(c)(4)s that have so irritated Democrats.
Feb. 13, 2014: The Hill newspaper reports that "Senate Democrats facing tough elections this year want the Internal Revenue Service to play a more aggressive role in regulating outside groups expected to spend millions of dollars on their races."
In 1170, King Henry II is said to have cried out, on hearing of the latest actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Four knights then murdered the archbishop. Many in the U.S. media still willfully refuse to see anything connecting the murder of the archbishop to any actions or abuse of power by the king.
Mr. Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, is chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #191 on:
February 27, 2014, 01:26:44 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #192 on:
February 28, 2014, 06:25:51 PM »
Power User
Posts: 9483
George Will keeping the spotlight on the outrageous behavior of the IRS
Reply #193 on:
March 09, 2014, 11:03:23 AM »
"The rules that Obama says befuddled the IRS boneheads to his benefit read today exactly as they have read since 1959. For half a century they did not prevent the IRS from processing applications for tax-exempt status in less than three months."
"[Obama] After calling the IRS behavior outrageous, he now says there is not a smidgen of evidence of anything to be outraged about. He knows this even though the supposed investigation of the IRS behavior has not been completed, or perhaps even begun. The person he chose to investigate his administration is an administration employee and a generous donor to his campaigns."
The IRSs behavior taxes credulity
By George F. Will, March 7 2014
Whats been said of confession that it is good for ones soul but bad for ones reputation can also be true of testifying to Congress, so Lois Lerner has chosen to stay silent. Hers, however, is an eloquent silence.
The most intrusive and potentially most punitive federal agency has been politicized; the IRS has become an appendage of Barack Obamas party. Furthermore, congruent with exhortations from some congressional Democrats, it is intensifying its efforts to suffocate groups critical of progressives, by delaying what once was the swift, routine granting of tax-exempt status.
So, the IRS, far from repenting of its abusive behavior, is trying to codify the abuses. It hopes to nullify with new rules the existing legal right of 501(c)(4) groups, many of which are conservative, to participate in politics. The proposed rules have drawn more than 140,000 comments, most of them complaints, some from liberals wary of IRS attempts to broadly define candidate-related political activity and to narrow the permissible amount of this.
Lerner is, so far, the face of this use of government to punish political adversaries. She knows what her IRS unit did and how it intersects with the law, and for a second time she has exercised her constitutional right to remain silent rather than risk self-incrimination. The public has a right to make reasonable inferences from her behavior.
And from Obamas. After calling the IRS behavior outrageous, he now says there is not a smidgen of evidence of anything to be outraged about. He knows this even though the supposed investigation of the IRS behavior has not been completed, or perhaps even begun. The person he chose to investigate his administration is an administration employee and a generous donor to his campaigns.
Obama breezily says there was nothing more sinister than boneheaded decisions by wayward and anonymous IRS underlings. Certainly boneheadedness explains much about this administration. Still, does he consider it interesting that the consequences of IRS boneheadedness were not randomly distributed but thwarted conservatives?
The rules that Obama says befuddled the IRS boneheads to his benefit read today exactly as they have read since 1959. For half a century they did not prevent the IRS from processing applications for tax-exempt status in less than three months. Some conservative group should offer $10,000 to anyone who can identify a liberal group that had the experience scores of conservative groups have had an application delayed more than three years and receipt of an IRS questionnaire containing at least 60 questions.
Speaking of questions: Can anyone identify a Democratic Senate candidate whose tax records were leaked, as Christine ODonnells were when she was the Republican candidate in Delaware in 2010? Is it a coincidence that in January 2011, after Catherine Engelbrecht requested tax-exempt status for two conservative groups she founded in Texas King Street Patriots and True the Vote the Engelbrecht family business was notified of its first IRS audit? Does James Comey wonder why (this was before he became FBI director), five months after Engelbrechts tax-exemption request, FBI agents appeared seeking information about attendees at the King Street Patriots meetings? Were five subsequent FBI contacts checking in for updates on the groups activities really necessary? Why did the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives show a sudden intrusive interest in the Engelbrechts business, which has nothing to do with alcohol or tobacco or firearms or explosives?
The idea that politicians should write laws restricting people critical of them is as perverse as the idea that the sprawling, opaque IRS bureaucracy should be assigned to construe and apply such laws. It is bad enough that there is the misbegotten Federal Election Commission to do what the First Amendment forbids government regulation of the quantity, content and timing of political speech.
This column has previously noted that in 1996 a Republican Senate candidate called the FEC to dispute campaign finance charges made by Democrats. The head of the FECs enforcement division told the Republican: Promise me you will never run for office again, and we will drop this case. So spoke Lois Lerner.
There almost certainly are people, above her and beyond the IRS, who initiated or approved the IRSs punitive targeting of conservative groups and who hope Lerners history of aggressive partisanship will cause investigators to conclude that she is as high as responsibility for the targeting rises. Those people should hire criminal defense attorneys.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Lerner lied
Reply #194 on:
March 12, 2014, 11:21:17 AM »
Patriot Post
Lerner Lied
Infamous and former IRS official Lois Lerner intentionally misled Congress, says a new House report. Among the report's findings are that Lerner sought ways to publicize scrutiny of the Tea Party by provoking lawsuits; that she sought unprecedented "multi-tier review" for conservative tax-exempt applications; that she used her personal email account when managing taxpayer information; that she thought the "fabulously rich and hugely influential" Koch brothers were sufficient reason to crack down on the Tea Party; and that she intended for the IRS to "fix the problem" of the Supreme Court's errant Citizens United decision overturning some campaign finance restrictions. All in all, it's no wonder she pleaded the Fifth -- it's the only part of the Constitution that was useful to her.
Power User
Posts: 42556
PP: CIA spied on Senate Intel Committee
Reply #195 on:
March 12, 2014, 11:22:38 AM »
Feinstein Accuses CIA
Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke Tuesday about allegations the CIA illegally tampered with the committee members' computers, saying, "I am not taking it lightly." The evidence, derived from an internal investigation, now goes to the Justice Department, which will review the case and weigh criminal charges. Feinstein said the CIA's alleged tactics were in violation of the Fourth Amendment, adding, "I have received neither" an apology nor acknowledgement of the actions. (CIA director John Brennan denies any wrongdoing.) Certainly, if such charges prove true, those accountable should be prosecuted. However, Feinstein would do well to apologize herself to all Americans for defying her oath to support and defend the Constitution, most egregiously by exploiting tragic mass shootings in hopes of stripping our Second Amendment rights.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Chutzpah exemplified
Reply #196 on:
March 13, 2014, 08:08:24 PM »
Executive Power Struggle
On Wednesday, the House passed a bill called the Executive Needs to Faithfully Observe and Respect Congressional Enactments of the Law (ENFORCE the Law) Act of 2014. Five Democrats joined Republicans in a 233-181 vote. It does just what the titles suggests and calls on Barack Obama to enforce the law, not to rewrite or ignore it. Naturally, the president threatened a veto, but his reason is laughable -- it supposedly violates the separation of powers. That claim takes some chutzpah since Congress is merely trying to stop Obama's legislating from the White House. Remember, even leftist law professor Jonathan Turley says Obama's actions have brought us to a "constitutional tipping point." He's right.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #197 on:
March 13, 2014, 08:25:36 PM »
The constitutional answer to a lawless president is impeachment.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #198 on:
March 13, 2014, 09:42:51 PM »
Works for me, even though the notion of President Biden leaves me looking like a Jewish Don King.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: The war on the rule of law
Reply #199 on:
March 13, 2014, 09:44:40 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on March 13, 2014, 09:42:51 PM
Works for me, even though the notion of President Biden leaves me looking like a Jewish Don King.
Stupid hurts. We all are going to pay the price one way or another.
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