I’ve just published a foreign policy-related post at Outside the Beltway:

AFSA Reviews Obama Appointments

For the first time in its history the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization for foreign service professionals, is considering a protest of a president’s ambassadorial appointments. The minimum requirements for political appointments have changed over time and it may be time for ambassadorial appointments to receive more scrutiny.

The Watcher’s Council has announced its winners for last week.

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes!–Simply Jews – The selective memory of Andrew Sullivan
• Second place *t* with 2 2/3 votes –The Right Planet – Lefty Rag Salon’s Insane Defense of Communism
• Second place *t* with 2 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit–Obama’s SOTU – A Hidden Opportunity Amid The Horse Manure
• Third place with 1 1/3 vote –VA Right! – We Can’t Aim At The Liberals With So many RINO’s in the Line of Fire
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Ask Marion – The Tale of Two Women and the Choice in the Battle for America’s Soul and Future
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Rhymes With Right – Wendy And Sarah — A Comparison
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – Here It Comes – Amnesty
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – NATO In Palestine
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Liberty’s Spirit – Are We Truly choosing Liberty?
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – A trip back in time (Moonbat hypocrisy alert)
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room – Barry Rubin RIP
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye –Queen Of Denial
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Razor – Spay, Neuter, Adopt – Repeat

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Stormbringer – The Real Afghanistan: A Marine Point Of View submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Politico – Dear America, I saw You Naked – Confessions Of An Ex-TSA Agent submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Kingsjester’s Blog –From Reagan to Rubio: The Wussification of the Republican Party submitted by Ask Marion
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Planck’s Constant – Bob and Jim Discuss Obama submitted by Simply Jews
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes–Jeffrey Anderson /Weekly Standard – My Constitution submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Popehat – Professor Thane Rosenbaum Deceptively Carries On The Tradition of Censorship-Cheerleading submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Mark Steyn – The Cupcake Commisars submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place with 1 vote –Barry Rubin – Why The Arab/Muslim World is Trapped submitted by Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Caroline Glick –Trying To Scare Us submitted by The Noisy Room
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bill Gertz/The Free Beacon –Recalled Report Raises Question of Politicization of Intelligence submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –WSJ/Ruth Wisse – Ruth Wisse: The Dark Side of the War on ‘the One Percent’ submitted by The Right Planet
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Manhattan Contrarian – More Examples Of Our Fundamentally Fraudulent Government In Action submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Bryan Preston/PJ Media –Republican Fools Are About to Throw 2014 Away: submitted by Nice Deb

The announcement post at the Watcher’s site is here.

My little jokes never hurt anyone, but when Congress makes a joke, it’s a law

And kid Congress and the Senate, don’t scold ’em. They are just children thats never grown up. They don’t like to be corrected in company. Don’t send messages to ’em, send candy. (advice to Roosevelt)

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but Congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the President has to tell ’em.

But with Congress — every time they make a joke it’s a law. And every time they make a law it’s a joke.

The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse when Congress meets. (attributed)

I really wish that op-eds whose titles are questions would at least make a stab at answering the questions in those titles. Take the example of Thomas Edsall’s recent New York times column, “Why the IRS Scandal Won’t Go Away”. After reading it I came away disappointed. Unless you’re convinced that the only reasons the scandal won’t go away are Karl Rove and the Koch brothers, it doesn’t even try to address the question.

I think the reasons the scandal won’t go away are that

1. It’s a legitimate scandal.
2. The House has a legitimate oversight responsibility.
3. IRS officials have lied, misled, and stonewalled House committees.
4. The lying, misleading, and stonewalling keep the ball up in the air.
5. The draft rules proposed by the IRS to remedy the abuses have been deemed even worse than the rules under which they have been operating by just about everybody. At least they’re bringing people together. The ACLU, Heritage Foundation, and Sierra Club all hate the new rules.

Does the scandal reach as far as the White House? Frankly, I doubt it but who knows? As the late Dan Rostenkowski used to say “Never take a bribe. Just hand ’em your business card.” Clear directions and a smoking gun aren’t necessary to make something an abuse of power and, consequently, a scandal. Departments of the federal government should not be, as one editorial put it, “weaponized” as attack vehicles deployed against the administration’s political opponents.

Now maybe Mr. Edsall never intended to answer that question in his column. Maybe the title was supplied by an editor. If that’s the case, it’s pretty lousy editing.

In his recent column castigating “net neutrality”, the idea that all content should be treated equally by Internet service providers, nowhere does Holman Jenkins mention that the cable and telephone companies that control the “last mile”, the ultimate delivery of Internet service to end users, achieved their privileged positions by being monopolies. Not natural monopolies. Government-granted monopolies. I see net neutrality as a means of leveling the playing field between companies that used their monopoly power to charge exorbitant rates for mediocre service, slowing the pace of inovation, and upstarts. He sees it as upstarts exploiting FCC rules to steal cable companies’ core TV customers.

As I’ve said before I’d like the cable companies to be treated as common carriers and the law of common carriers is well-developed. But I’d be satisfied with transparency, allowing customers to pay for bandwidth, and giving them the ability to select the bandwidth they need in advance.

As the due date for federal personal income taxes approaches, taxes seem to be very much on many people’s minds today. Not the least of those is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to pitch the tax reform his committee has come up with:

Last year, my Democratic counterpart on the Ways and Means Committee, Sandy Levin of Michigan, and I created 11 bipartisan working groups to tackle different parts of the tax code. One of those, headed by Diane Black (R., Tenn.) and Danny Davis (D., Ill.), looked into those education provisions. After months of work, the leaders of the working group recently came forward with a plan that consolidates four of these provisions into one improved credit, making it easier for families and students to afford a college education.

Paired with more commonsense reforms like increasing the standard deduction and the child tax credit will mean that nearly 95% of the country can get the lowest possible tax rate by just filing the basic IRS 1040A form—no more itemizing, no more keeping track of all those receipts, and no more filling out all those extra schedules, forms and work sheets.

Second, the tax code will be made more effective and efficient by getting rid of special-interest handouts, which will mean lower tax rates for individuals, families and all businesses. Under this plan, over 99% of tax filers will face a top tax rate of 25%—allowing small and large businesses alike to expand operations, hire new workers and increase benefits and take home pay. On the individual side, there will be an introductory bracket of 10%.

[…]

Third, make the tax code fairer and more accountable. That means no more hidden provisions that benefit a favored few, and no more tax increases to fuel more spending.

Most Americans aren’t aware of it but the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is one of the most powerful people in the country, second or third most powerful in the House by most accounts. Remember Tommy Lee Jones’s portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln? Stevens was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It used to be that the majority leader and chairman of W&M were synonymous. The committee has its finger in almost every pie, determining what the House will or won’t do. The Speaker decides what will come to the floor. The chairman of Ways and Means determines its contours.

Tax reform isn’t just a discussion about the minutiae of tax rates. It’s an argument about the nature of the country. Historically, we’ve had major tax reform roughly once every twenty years. The last such reform was 30 years ago—we’re overdue.

Tax law doesn’t stand still between major reform. It’s changed so frequently it’s impossible for anyone to really understand it. It gathers accretions like a ship gathers barnacles and, like barnacles, the accretions impede progress. Postponing major tax reform is a statement itself. It says that wealthy and powerful interests will have increasing power in the country.

for the first time:

So how does Ghostbusters hold up for someone who not only hasn’t seen it but was also born six years after its original release? Apparently, really goddamn well.

Some interesting observations. For example, it’s not particularly topical which means that it holds up well over time.

Girl Scouts in Colorado are not allowed to sell cookies in front of marijuana dispensaries:

Danielle Lei, an enterprising Girl Scout, sold more than 100 boxes of cookies in just two hours outside of a San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary last week. But the Girl Scouts of Colorado leadership is killing the buzz for local members, saying that Colorado scouts cannot likewise sell cookies in front of pot shops, despite recreational marijuana being legal in the state.

“Our position is really pretty simple,” Rachelle Trujillo, chief marketing officer for the Girl Scouts of Colorado, told The Huffington Post. “For years in our council, we’ve said it’s not appropriate for Girl Scouts to sell cookies outside of adult-oriented businesses, and marijuana dispensaries fall right in line with this policy. There’s a place for everything, and just like a liquor store or a gun show, a marijuana dispensary isn’t a place for young girls to be selling cookies. There are plenty of other options for customers of adult businesses to purchase cookies at other locations.”

A post on the official GSCO Facebook page noted Friday that cookie sales also aren’t allowed outside of bars, strip clubs or casinos.

There’s another great idea shot down.

I found the graph above from the Gallup organization (hat tip: The American Interest) on Americans’ priorities on various public policy issues very interesting. Perhaps a little explanation is in order. The graph is divided two ways: left to right and top to bottom. The farther something is to the right in the graph the more important people think it is. The farther down something is in the graph the more satisified people are with things as they are. Consequently, people are pretty satisifed and/or disinterested in issues in the lower left hand corner and dissatisfied and/or interested in issues in the upper right hand corner.

The issue about which people are most dissatisfied and think is the highest priority is the economy. The issues that people think aren’t particularly important and/or are satisfied with aren’t quite as clear-cut: those are either the “acceptance of gays and lesbians” or “race relations” depending on whether you give more weight to dissatisfaction or priority. However, both of those issues plus abortion, environment, and energy policy are in the low dissatisfaction/low priority quadrant while poverty and homelessness, public education, federal taxes, affordable healthcare, and Social Security and Medicare round out the high dissatisfaction/high priority quadrant.

Note that the bulk of government spending is pretty well represented in the high dissatisfaction/high priority quadrant. “Military”, interestingly, is in the high priority/low dissatisfaction quadrant which I would interpret as a belief that the issue is being handled about right.

I think there are confounding factors in this kind of analysis. Some people are highly interested in issues that most people aren’t particularly interested in one way or another. It seems to me that could skew the results. Additionally, are priority and satisfaction really independent variables? I would think that the less satisfied one is with something would grant priority to an issue it might otherwise not have. Finally, my observation is that some people need permission before they feel comfortable about expressing dissatisfaction or interest in an issue. For those people leaders have a profound influence and that’s why public opinion can sometimes turn on a dime.

I’m not sure how I’d respond if I had to select from among the issues in Gallup’s list. I think I’d rate the economy as the highest issue with which I’m the least satisfied followed by affordable healthcare, world affairs, immigration, and energy policy. However, I tend to see many of the issues as interconnected, e.g. I think that an improved economy would go a long way to fixing the problems with issues I’d prioritize other than, perhaps, affordable healthcare. So, for example, I think improving the economy and getting some control over immigration would go a long way to improving race relations or, at least, bring our issues with race relations into sharper relief. I also think that a more energy-friendly energy policy would go a long way towards improving our economy.