Posted on June 18, 2013 by Scott Johnson in Democrats, IRS, Obama Administration Scandals

The cunning Mr. Cummings

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has posted a statement on the IRS investigation that responds to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings’ announced intention to post the full investigative interview of IRS employee John Shafer online. Cummings has now posted the transcript here (part 1) and here (part 2), as reported by the Washington Post. Here is Issa’s statement in its entirety:

I am deeply disappointed that Ranking Member Cummings has decided to broadly disseminate and post online a 205 page transcript that will serve as a roadmap for IRS officials to navigate investigative interviews with Congress. After unsuccessfully trying to convince the American people that IRS officials in Washington did not play a role in inappropriate scrutiny of Tea Party groups and declaring on national television that the case of IRS targeting was ‘solved’ and Congress should ‘move on,’ this looks like flailing. Americans who think Congress should investigate IRS misconduct should be outraged by Mr. Cummings’ efforts to obstruct needed oversight.

In the course of this fact based inquiry, Ranking Member Cummings has wrongly argued that questions about IRS conduct are somehow not legitimate. His own previous release of excerpts from this very same transcript undermines his claims that the Committee is somehow trying to keep some specific revelation from public view.

Just last week Cummings declared that “the [IRS] case is solved.” In a clarification of his otherwise mystifying statement, he explained that “the witch hunt needs to end.” For “witch hunt,” read “investigation.”

Having failed to shut the investigation down, Cummings is performing public relations on behalf of Obama and trying to complicate, if not obstruct, the committee’s investigation. Whence the desperation? What do these folks have to hide?

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Energy Policy

Energy Geek Week: Peak Oil RIP Edition

Commenter David Hill reminded us yesterday of Steve Martin’s excitement about new phone books (one of my favorite scenes, too), but my seriously analogous moment comes this week every year when BP releases it Annual Statistical Review of World Energy.  For a data maven like me, it’s a total geekfest.  (“The new BP Review is out!  The new BP review is out!”)  Since BP makes its data available on downloadable spreadsheets, I can freak freely crunching the data for myself, and noticing fun things.  I’ll roll out a few things here over the next few days.

Like the end of the whole peak oil hypothesis.  The first figure below displays the 60 percent growth in proven global oil reserves over the last 20 years.  This is not just the result of recent technological advances such as directional drilling and fracking: the second figure takes BP’s data back to 1980, which shows a steady increase in reserves throughout the period amounting to a 144 percent increase.  (That kink in the line in the late 1990s corresponds to the collapse in oil prices down to about $10 a barrel at the time.  Simple lesson: price matters.)  Click to enlarge either chart.

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in House of Representatives, Immigration

Boehner commits to Hastert Rule on immigration reform

I hear that at the weekly House GOP conference, Speaker Boehner firmly committed to the Hastert rule on immigration reform legislation, with no wiggle room. Boehner explained that he, Pelosi, and Hastert have violated the rule when they had no leverage and other options were worse, e.g., with fiscal-cliff legislation. But this is not the case with immigration reform, he said.

Boehner’s view, from what I’m hearing, is that President Obama doesn’t want a bill. He wants an issue for 2014.

The way things are going for Obama, I can understand why.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in California, Green Weenie Award

Green Weenie of the Week: Jerry Brown

Now I know what you’re thinking: doesn’t California Governor Jerry Brown deserve a coveted Power Line Green Weenie lifetime achievement award for some of the things he did 35 years ago, when he was governor first time around?  Goes without saying.  It was back during Brown’s “Moonbeam” years that California embarked on its dirigisme energy policy, with some of the first major subsidies for wind and solar power that gave the nation its first major wind farms at Tehachapi and Altamont Passes, both of which produce about the same amount of electricity as a coal fired power plant, but take up 100 times the land area, not to mention more steel, etc.

Brown's Official State Portrait. No, really. . .

Right now Brown is a champion of California’s recent mandate for the state to generate one-third its electricity from renewable sources by the year 2020.  California has been nudging the energy market since back in the 1970s, and, like the Soviet economy in the mid-20th century, these efforts have been judged to be a great success.  Starting under Brown in the mid-1970s, California embraced a “negawatt” strategy of encouraging energy conservation (typically called “demand-side management,” or DSM) rather than siting new power sources, emphasizing more efficient appliance and building standards along with renewable energy from wind and solar power.  (Oh yeah: those rolling blackouts back around 2000?  Those were Enron’s fault.  Rinse and repeat.)

On the surface the result looks impressive on the surface: since 1970, while national per capital electricity consumption has risen by about one-third, per capita electricity consumption in California has remained flat.  Today the average Californian uses 40 percent less electricity than the national average.  Thus, even though California’s household electricity rates are about one third higher than the national average (15 cents per Kwh in California versus 10 cents for the nation, according to recent Energy Information Administration figures), California consumers don’t have to spend appreciably more than citizens of other states.  No harm, no foul.

Problem is, there’s a whole stack of studies from researchers at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and elsewhere that conclude California’s energy profile has much more to do with its milder climate and its shrinking industrial base than deliberate policy.  Just about every energy intensive industry, such as aerospace, that once called California home has left.  The economists who’ve looked at the matter closely found that only about 20 percent of the difference in California’s energy use can be attributed to policy.  One study out of Berkeley actually found that the various energy efficiency mandates probably increase energy consumption in new construction—a phenomenon well known in the energy efficiency trade as the “rebound effect.”

All of this is preface for Jerry Brown’s latest act of prestidigitation involving California’s attempt to solve global warming in one state: California’s cap and trade policy.  California adopted its own cap and trade policy a few years ago, with the revenues supposedly dedicated to green energy and other environmental projects.  Guess what mom?  Jerry Brown decided to raid the first $500 million in permit auction fees to help pay for welfare benefits in the state’s general fund.  The Wall Street Journal is all over this story today, with a warning for the nation as a whole:

California expects to generate $500 million this year from auctioning off permits to emit carbon, and between $2 billion and $14 billion annually by 2015. This rich new vein of revenues was supposed to flow to green programs (e.g., solar subsidies), but Governor Jerry Brown cut a deal with Democrats in the legislature to seize this year’s proceeds to finance more generous welfare and Medicaid benefits. Environmentalists are suddenly stunned to discover that they’re not exempt from Sacramento’s generally accepted accounting principle of raiding internal accounts to backfill the budget. . .

California Democrats are proving that the real point of cap and trade is to give politicians another revenue stream for income redistribution while dodging accountability for raising taxes. That’s worth keeping in mind when liberals resurrect the scheme for the entire U.S.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of Jerry Brown, note above his official portrait, which appears on the third floor of the state capitol in Sacramento.  I’ve often wondered how long it might take someone to notice if you stuck a piece of chewing gum on it.  In any case, Brown’s office won’t yet say whether he’ll have a second official portrait done for his non-consecutive governorship, but if he does, I suggest one modeled after this, which seems more appropriate for California’s long suffering citizens.

UPDATE: Actually, if we just tweak his existing portrait just a little, we’re more than halfway to Munch-land (either that or we’ve made him a space alien):

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in Tom Perez

Tom Perez foiled, we hope

We have written about the lengths to which Tom Perez, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, went to induce the City of St. Paul into withdrawing its appeal of a fair housing lawsuit that raised the viability of claims based on disparate impact. In exchange for dropping its case, the U.S. government, spurred by Perez, agreed not to intervene in an unrelated False Claims Act case that had the potential to return more than $180 million in damages to the U.S. treasury.

Under “disparate impact” analysis, plaintiffs are allowed to prove a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that a neutral practice weighs disproportionately on a protected group, e.g., African-Americans. The defendant must then justify using that neutral practice under a fairly stringent standard. Perez and others correctly view this theory as critical, in general, to success in housing discrimination suits.

But yesterday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in (i.e., decided to hear) another case that raises the same issue as the St. Paul case did. That case is Township of Mt. Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action.

Does this mean that Perez’s deal with St. Paul was for naught? Probably, but not necessarily.

The administration used the time it gained through Perez’s deal to issue regulations endorsing the disparate impact theory in housing discrimination cases. But self-serving regulations thrown together to preserve a dubious pet litigation theory are unlikely to receive any meaningful deference from the Supreme Court.

A strong statement of the argument against applying disparate impact analysis in housing discrimination cases can be found in this amicus brief filed in the St. Paul case by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Center for Equal Opportunity, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in Immigration, Marco Rubio

The Gang that couldn’t talk straight

Yesterday, it was revealed that an aide to Sen. Rubio made the following statement to Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker:

There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.

How did Team Rubio respond to this report? The usual way – dishonestly.

A Rubio spokesman claimed that the Rubio aide “was describing some industries’ response to unions’ opposition to temporary workers — he was not describing Senator Rubio’s position, which is that American workers can compete with anyone, and we need these programs to fill labor shortages in specific industries like agriculture.”

Unfortunately for Team Rubio, Lizza has now released the text of the relevant passage from his interview. Here is how it reads:

RL: Well their argument [presumably the unions’] is, what, that they have American workers for these jobs, they don’t need this program.

Rubio Aide 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the problems you have with this, “Oh there’s American workers who are unemployed.” There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly because. . .

Rubio Aide 2: But the same is true for the high-skilled workers.

Rubio Aide 1: Yes, and the same is true across every sector, in government, in everything.

Clearly, Rubio’s aides weren’t talking about what “some industries” say. They were expressing Team Rubio’s view of the limits of American workers “across every sector, in government, in everything.”

The lack of candor exhibited by Sen. Rubio and his staff throughout the debate on his immigration reform legislation has been appalling.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Democrats, House of Representatives, Minnesota

Tell Dems: Stop scamming voters

The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC are out with a seemingly ubiquitous Internet ad that blares:

DON’T LET STUDENT LOAN RATES SKYROCKET!

TELL REP. KLINE: STOP SCAMMING STUDENTS!

Usage note: “Ubiquitous” is an adjective that does not admit of comparison. It means present everywhere at once. Something is not “very” ubiquitous, or “relatively” ubiquitous. In this context, when I use the adjective, I am describing a stupid left-wing ad that appears even on Power Line (where I found the ad whose text I typed above) and other conservative sites.

What’s happening here? The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC attacking Rep. Kline have a a big staff and a lot of money to spend. Turning to their site, I find that they have announced: With Bachmann out, Democrats target Kline’s seat. Ah, so that’s what’s happening here.

Both John Hinderaker and I live in Minnesota’s Second District, in which John Kline represents us in Congress. We’ve known John for a long time. We also consider him a friend. We think highly of him.

I’m sure I’m overlooking somebody, but offhand I can’t think of a Democratic congressman who’s fit to shine John’s shoes. He is, I think it can be said, a solid guy. During his long and distinguished service in the Marine Corps, John served as a helicopter pilot and earned the responsibility of flying Marine One. He also served as a personal military aide to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

In Congress John serves as Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Now why would he want student loan rates to skyrocket? According to the Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC, John wants the interest rates on student loans to more than double! (exclamation point in original, of course).

The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC to the contrary notwithstanding, I’m quite sure he doesn’t. Looking around online, I find that John recently explained his proposal on student loans in a column for the Rochester Post-Bulletin. The New York Times covered the introduction of John’s bill in the article “Bills would prevent rise in student loan rates.” John has posted a subsequent interview here. Please check them out if you have any interest in the issue.

Apart from the merits of the issue, we can learn a few things of interest from the Democrats’ attack on John Kline. Democrats don’t think too highly of the low information voters who make up much of their base. They believe the voters to be highly susceptible to inherently implausible claims of the Big Lie variety through constant repetition.

The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC need a cartoon villain to raise money from their target audience. The withdrawal of Michele Bachmann from the field of available villains has set the Dems back on their heels. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the target in this case would know that the villainy attributed to John is entirely a projection.

John Kline is not a good target for Democrats to take out in 2014. If this is the best they can do, Republicans shouldn’t be in for too rough a ride holding their majority in the House. John defeated his Democratic opponent in 2012, a strong Democratic year in Minnesota, by 8 points. John is highly likely to do better than that in an off-year election. The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC are whistling in the wind on this one.

Democrats of the ilk of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC feel free to lie with utter impunity. They know they will never be called on their lies by anyone who counts in their world.