Silencing Bill's tongue
"Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd hit the nail on the head last week when he suggested on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton intentionally made news by announcing her position on immigration reform to stem the reaction over her husband's suggestion he had to continue making high-priced speeches to "pay the bills."
Todd said Mrs. Clinton "ate up a news cycle" with her announcement, in which she said she was the only candidate who would "fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship," a flip-flop from her 2003 Senate days when she said, "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants."
"I think," Todd said, "that was their one hope, that they could at least step on, hoping to slow down the Bill Clinton story. I always wonder -- did they mean to roll out any policy before she actually formally announced. I bet you they didn't, but then it was suddenly, "Let's eat up a news cycle and slow Bill down."
The millionaire Clintons have been scrutinized lately by even normally supportive liberal news outlets over the foreign donor contributions to their foundation during the time Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. Asked about the furor early last week, Mr. Clinton said he just worked at the foundation and made the speeches to pay the bills.
Own your feelings, Michelle
First Lady Michelle Obama recently tried to create a situation of bias and discrimination where none existed. At the opening of the new $420 million Whitney Museum in New York City, she said she had a "feeling of not belonging" in museums when she was growing up in Chicago in the 1970s.
"There are so many kids in this country who look at places like museums and concert halls and other cultural centers, and they think to themselves, 'Well, that's not a place for me, for someone who looks like me, for someone who comes from my neighborhood,'" she said.
That's why, she said magnanimously, that she and her husband, the president, have opened the White House to as many young people as possible. Of course, until being restricted at first by 9-11 precautions, the White House has always been open to young people.
Museums around the country routinely offer entrance to anyone who pays an admission fee and very often give school and organizational groups large discounts. If Obama felt excluded, it wasn't about the museums.
The First Amendment? Oh, well
Zoning officials in Harrisonburg, Va., thought they were getting two evil pro-life signs out of sight recently when they filed criminal charges against Valley Church of Christ over the banners on their property. But they ran into a little problem called the First Amendment, which The Rutherford Institute, a legal firm, said barred content-based discrimination when it comes to signage.
The church received a letter from the city on April 20 that said someone had complained about the signs, and the city, in turn, claimed the church was in violation of an ordinance governing banners. It gave them 10 days to remove the signs or face charges that could have led to up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. One of the banners displayed a quote from Mother Teresa, which read: "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." The second was a Bible verse, Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
The city, which backed down when the Rutherford Institute intervened, lamely said its intent "was to ensure the structure and material of the sign met the requirements of the ordinance."
Do they know Timothy Geitner?
How corrupt has the Internal Revenue Service become?
Only 39 percent of 1,600 IRS employees who were "willfully noncompliant" in paying their taxes over the 10 year-period ending in 2013 were fired, according to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. And that is despite a law that says they must be fired.
The report noted that the law calls for the IRS to fire willful violators, but it also lets the IRS commissioner mitigate cases when he or she wants, which has been the case with the last few commissioners. They receive, according to the report, "lesser penalties such as suspensions, reprimands or counseling."
"To argue that budget cuts provide 'a tax cut for tax cheats' while harboring employees who violate the laws they are supposed to enforce quite frankly defies logic," Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said. "The gulf of trust between taxpayers and the IRS has never been wider, and the IRS can and must do better."
The Treasury Inspector General report noted that "some employees had significant and sometimes repeated noncompliance issues, and a history of other issues" and that "management [already] had concluded that the employees were not credible."