Lessons Learned, or Not.

I write in the morning, having awakened to find, not surprisingly, that Representative Ed Markey, the Democrat, defeated Gabriel E. Gomez, the Republican, 55% to 45%. It was a special election, held on a stifling hot day in June with 27% turnout. That means that 15% of registered voters cast a ballot for Senator-elect Markey, and 73% of the registered voters didn't bother with the election. Nevertheless, a win is a win.

It would be interesting to poll registered voters who did not participate in the election and try to determine why they were not interested. Were they just two uninspiring candidates? I can't speak for the rest of the Commonwealth, but in my neighborhood I witnessed very little interest in either man, outside of few persons who are passionate about every election. Was there in sufficient difference between the candidates on issues that matter to voters that nearly three-quarters simply didn't care which one won. Or did large numbers of registered voters accept the conventional wisdom that Markey was going to win anyway, so there was not much point in bother to vote? We'll probably never know which answer, or combination of answers is correct. I have one bit of advise for my Republican friends: Don't believe anyone who claims to have THE answer to why Gomez lost. All you are getting today and for the next several days is people's speculation.

In that spirit, let me offer my speculation, carefully worded to sound like brilliant insight, yet consisting of little more than my personal bias.

1. The more experience man, Mr. Markey, who had run for and won a seat in the state legislature, followed by a seat in the national legislature, continued in a career he had been following with success for decades and has been elected to the U.S. Senate. A man who had never run, let alone won, any office before, tried, and failed, in his attempt at one of the highest offices in the land on this first time out. Lesson: Politics is not for amateurs. Sure, there are some "super stars" who pop in and win a Senate seat on their first attempt at public office (Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, for example). But who other than his own mother had heard of Mr. Gomez before he ran for Senate?

2. The vast majority of the Hispanic vote would have gone Democratic in this election no matter who the GOP ran, so having a first-generation Colombian-America candidate was not going to help the GOP this time. For years Republicans, overall, have treated the Hispanic vote in three ways --

(1) Ignore the Hispanic vote. They won't vote for us anyway, so why bother.

(2) Vilify the Hispanic vote. Call them illegal aliens, welfare frauds, and criminals.

(3) Condescended to the Hispanic vote. Don't you realize that you, a Catholic with strong family values, "should" be Republican (as if to say you are too stupid to know your own mind).

That said, the GOP can appeal to Hispanics if we persist and give reasons for at least considering our party. I fear the brain trust that runs the GOP will say: "Tried that, it didn't work, see what happened with Gomez." It took decades for the Black vote to realign from 90% Republican to 90% Democrat, but too many on our side think if we can't re-align the Hispanic vote in a single election, it's not worth trying.

Party On, IRS!

Res Publica
Party On!
by David Trumbull -- June 14, 2013

Revisiting the 1992 motion picture Wayne's World on television the other night it struck me that there are adults, 21-year-olds, alive today who were not even born when Mike Myers' and Dana Carvey's homage to adolescent concupiscence first played on the big screens of movie houses. After a hard day at work it was pleasant to relax with a silly movie about people who party on, doing outrageous and stupid things, with no consequences -- you know, people like the employees of the Internal Revenue Service.

The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration last week release a report that IRS spent $4.1 million on a conference in Anaheim, California in 2010 that included questionable expenses for planning trips, outside speakers, video productions, and promotional items and gifts for IRS employees.

Examples of the management control weaknesses and questionable spending identified at the Anaheim Conference include:

• IRS management did not use available internal personnel to assist in searching for the most cost-effective location as required by IRS policy. Instead, they relied on outside event planners who had no incentive to negotiate a favorable room rate for the IRS. Instead, the three hotels paid the event planners an estimated $133,000 commission based on the cost of rooms paid for by the IRS.

• The IRS reported that it expended $50,187 on videos for the conference, but was unable to provide any details supporting this cost.

• IRS management contracted with 15 outside speakers for presentations at a total cost of $135,350. Costs for outside speakers included a $17,000 fee for a keynote speaker whose presentation included creating six paintings of famous people to reinforce his message of finding creative solutions to challenges. Two of the paintings were given away at the conference, three were donated to charity, and one was lost, according to IRS management. Another keynote speaker was paid $27,500, which included a $2,500 fee authorized for first class airfare.

• IRS employees made three planning trips at a cost of approximately $35,800 prior to the conference.

• The IRS also paid over $30,000 for 45 IRS employees who reside in the local area to stay at the hotels and incur per diem expenses while at the conference.

• Numerous gifts/promotional items were provided to attendees at an estimated cost of more than $64,000.

According to information on the IRS website, the mission of the IRS is to "Provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all" -- NOT!

The Story of Taps

POST-GAZETTE - Res Publica
The Story of Taps
by David Trumbull -- May 24, 2013

This Memorial Day we remember and honor the men and women who died to preserve our freedom. Even as we enjoy kicking off summer however we chose this weekend, that is itself a testimony to their sacrifices, for we enjoy the cookouts, trips to the beach, and so forth because they made it possible. We especially honor those who died for our country when we decorate their graves or participant in patriotic parades and ceremonies this weekend.

At those solemn memorial events in our towns and cities, in our churches and synagogues, and in the halls of our veterans or other lodges, a familiar, haunting melody will mark the day --

The familiar bugle call "Taps" is generally believed to be based on a traditional French call to curfew (from Middle English "curfeu," from Old French "cuevrefeu," meaning cover the fire and turn in for the night).

According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs the version of those 24 melancholy notes that we know from military funerals was crafted during America's Civil War by Union General Daniel Adams Butterfield, heading a brigade camped at Harrison Landing, Va., near Richmond. This music was made the official Army bugle call after the war, but not given the name "taps" until 1874.

The same Veterans Affair internet resource, http://www1.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/taps.pdf, states that: "The first time taps was played at a military funeral may also have been in Virginia soon after Butterfield composed it. Union Capt. John Tidball, head of an artillery battery, ordered it played for the burial of a cannoneer killed in action. Not wanting to reveal the battery’s position in the woods to the enemy nearby, Tidball substituted taps for the traditional three rifle volleys fired over the grave. Taps was played at the funeral of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson 10 months after it was composed. Army infantry regulations by 1891 required taps to be played at military funeral ceremonies."

Taps now is played by the military at burial and memorial services, to accompany the lowering of the flag, and to signal the "lights out" command at day's end.

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy." --Daniel Webster, 1819

Tuesday, the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration ("TIGTA") released its report on the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"). The following is a report summary compiled by the Senate Finance Committee Republican staff.

FINDINGS

• IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of other objective criteria.

• Ineffective management allowed the following to occur:

• Inappropriate criteria was developed that stayed in place for more than 18 months.

• About 1/3 of the applications subjected to additional processing included Tea Party, Patriots or 9/12 in their names.

• Resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications.

• All applications that included the inappropriate criteria experienced substantial delays in processing.

• The majority of the impacted applications sat without any work done on them for 13 months.

• 28 applications were withdrawn given the length of time taken to process.

• 160 out of the 196 applications reviewed by TIGTA were open from 206 to 1138 calendar days which crossed two election cycles and spanned 3 years.

• Allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued and then later informed some of those groups that they did not need to provide the information which was previously requested.

• TIGTA determined that the additional information requests sent out to 98 of 170 (58 percent) organizations that received those requests were unnecessary.

The surprise is not that Obama's IRS tried to shut down Tea Party protesters. The surprise is that even the Lame Stream Media is reporting the story. Perhaps, after realizing that they had been totally played by the Administration regarding the Benghazi affair, the propaganda office of the White House, i.e., ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC, have suddenly awoken to realize that No, he doesn't respect them in the morning. And now, with the revelation that the Obama Administration has been reading the phone records of Associated Press reporters the way an overly-protective father might peak into his teenage daughter's diary, perhaps they see that, as they say, It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Over twenty years ago P.J. O'Rourke summed up the problem with Washington best when he said, "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

Today is Straw Hat Day

May 15th is Straw Hat Day the beginning of the season when men may wear their straw boaters and Panamas rather than the fur felt fedoras, porkpies, homburgs, and bowlers that we wear (You do wear a hat, don't you?) the rest of the year. For more information see http://www.thefedoralounge.com. Straw hats may be worn until Felt Hat Day which is September 15th.

Beware the Ides of March

Res Publica
Beware the Ides of March
by David Trumbull -- March 15, 2013

Beware indeed! As we all know, Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate House on the Ides of March of 44 B.C.  

Of the number and names of all the assassins we cannot be certain. Plutarch, and other ancient writers record the following: 

Publius Servilius Casca. "Vile Casca" who made the first cut.  

Caius Cassius Longinus. That Cassius of the "lean and hungry look" who recruited Brutus to the conspiracy.  

Marcus Junius Brutus. A descendant of that ancient Brutus who drove out the last of the Roman kings about 465 years earlier. Brutus was as a son to Caesar; his was "the most unkindest cut of them all." Brutus and Cassius both fell at their own hands after the battle of Philippi in 42 B.C. According to some ancient account each did himself in with the very dagger he used to slay Caesar.  

Decimus Junius Brutus also called Albinus, he was a distant relative of the other Brutus.  

Caius Trebonius. As was true of many of the conspirators, he had been a beneficiary of the kindnesses of Caesar. It was Trebonius and Decimus Brutus who detained Marc Antony in conversation so that Caesar was without his principal bodyguard when he entered the senate house.  

Lucius Tillius Cimber, called Metellus Cimber in the Shakespeare play, he was the one who gave the signal to commence the slaughter.  

Cinna. We must be careful not to confuse the conspirator Cinna with Caesar's loyal friend the poet Cinna. The angry mob in Rome that Ides of March made that very confusion and, meeting Cinna the poet in the street, tore to pieces the wrong man.  

Within a very few years Marc Antony and Octavian Caesar, the adopted son of Julius Caesar tracked down and killed the assassins.  

The conspirators thought to restore the Republic. However, they lacked any cohesive plan for governing; mismanaged events in the days immediately following the assassination; and ended up plunging Rome into a disastrous civil war. Peace, but not the Republic, was finally restored when, in 31 B.C., following the defeat of Antony at the battle of Actium, Caesar Octavian emerged as sole leader --the Emperor Augustus.

The founders of our Republic knew well the story of the Roman Republic's failure, with resulting Imperial Rule. They left us a system of popular government with regular elections. Our Republic has endured, under our Constitution, for about two and a quarter centuries. The Roman Republic endured nearly five centuries. It's up to us ordinary American voters to determine whether we can match that record.

Rendering unto Caesar and unto God.

Res Publica
Rendering unto Caesar and unto God.
by David Trumbull -- March 8, 2013

The United States Commission on Civil Rights has announced that it will hold a briefing, in Washington, Friday, March 22nd, to examine recent legal developments concerning the intersection of non-discrimination principles with those of civil liberties.

Two topics will serve as starting points for a discussion involving religious liberties and non-discrimination rules and their broader implications for civil liberties: the Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC case and student group non-discrimination policies, including the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case. Also at issue are religious liberty claims under First Amendment provisions other than the Religion Clauses.

There will be two panels at the briefing. The first panel will be composed of scholars involved in the Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC or Christian Legal Society v. Martinez litigation: Kimberlee Colby, Senior Counsel at the Christian Legal Society, Ayesha Khan, Senior Litigation Counsel, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Daniel Mach, Director, American Civil Liberties Union Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief and Lori Windham, Senior Counsel, Becket Fund.

The second panel will consist of experts who will discuss the broader conflict between anti-discrimination norms and civil liberties. Experts scheduled to appear on the second panel include Alan Brownstein, Professor, University of California at Davis Law School, Marc DeGirolami, Associate Professor, St. John's University School of Law, Leslie Griffin, Professor, University of Nevada Las Vegas Law School, Marci Hamilton, Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Michael Helfand, Associate Professor, Pepperdine University School of Law, and Edward Whelan, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center.

If you are concerned about current domestic threats to religious liberty, including the Obama Administration's attack on Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities, this is your opportunity to comment. Public comments are being accepted until April 21st. Lawyers and professors of law may dominate the Washington briefing later this month, but the public comment period is open to anyone who is distressed that our First Amendment Right to Free Exercise of Religion is being attacked by the very federal officials who took oaths to defend the Constitution.

Comments may be submitted to publiccomments@usccr.gov, or send written correspondence to:
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 1150
Washington, DC 20425

"We need to render unto Caesar those things that bear his image. But we need to render ourselves unto God -- generously, zealously, holding nothing back. To the extent we let God transform us into his own image, we will – by the example of our lives – fulfill our duty as citizens of the United States, but much more importantly, as disciples of Jesus Christ." --Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia.