IRS scandal roundup

  • List of times IRS officials misled public [FactCheck.org] Ongoing link roundups by Paul Caron at TaxProf;
  • Four agencies piled onto Texas tea partier’s business. Happenstance? [Jillian Kay Melchior] Some Tea Party groups seeking (c)4 status pursued electioneering; unnamed former IRS officials defend agency’s practice [Confessore, NYT] IRS denial of non-profit status to Free State Project [Atlas]
  • “Maybe one side of an issue is considered more political than the other.” [Tim Carney] “To me, the real story is the low status of the Tea Party.” [Arnold Kling]
  • “Too Hard to Fire Misbehaving Bureaucrats?” [Conor Friedersdorf, Chris Edwards, Hans Bader]
  • President is lucky he’s not CEO of big company, or he’d need to seek legal advice re: “Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine.” [Daniel Dew, Heritage]
  • IRS also drawing fire for flagging high share of families taking adoption tax credit; abuse rate proved low [USA Today]
  • Do federal agencies treat FOIA requests even-handedly? [Examiner/CEI on EPA, Daily Caller on FCC]

ADA vs. school choice programs, cont’d

Patrick Wolf at Education Next and my Cato colleague Jason Bedrick have more on the Department of Justice’s aggressive interpretation of federal disabled-rights law to go after the successful Milwaukee school-choice program (earlier). Private schools that accept vouchers, Bedrick writes, do not become government contractors “any more than grocery stores become ‘government contractors’ when citizens use their EBT cards to purchase food there.”

Trademark asserted over nines, sixes in beer labeling

An international brewing company that uses a red-and-orange “#9” mark on one of its brands is suing Lexington, Ky. craft brewer West Sixth Brewing Co., which uses a black-and-green “6.” “If it was on a coaster, and the person across the table was colorblind and fairly stupid, I suppose there might be some initial confusion. … there might be a problem if somebody is holding their beer upside down.” [Lowering the Bar; Kentucky.com]

May 26 roundup

“Why Can’t We Get Rid of Bad Teachers?”

Los Angeles: “As LAUSD agrees to pay out 30 million dollars to the families victimized by the Miramonte Elementary School teacher molestation scandal, FOX 11 investigates why school districts seem to have such a difficult time firing teachers who’ve committed lewd acts.” Even the teacher charged with committing mass sex crimes in the Miramonte case managed to get a $40,000 payout from his district to quit. The powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) managed to scuttle a modest bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to streamline dismissals in extreme cases. Instead, it’s backing an alternative measure that reformer and former Sen. Gloria Romero describes as a joke that “wouldn’t really do anything.” [KTTV; CTA’s side]