So . . . in 2014, just as premiums begin to reflect the changes of Obamacare, and in the year where the uninsured must start paying the government $95 or 1 percent of their income (whichever is higher) . . . Democrats have decided they’ll embrace Obamacare and make it a centerpiece of their reelection message.

It will not surprise you that many of the currently uninsured are quite confused about what Obamacare means to them, and that some are saying they’ll just pay the fine because it’s simpler.

The Congressional Budget Office calculated that in 2014, 44 million Americans will lack insurance. But not all of those people will be paying a fine; some will be

exempted from the penalty tax — for example, because they will have income low enough that they are not required to file an income tax return, because they are members of Indian tribes, or because the premium they would have to pay would exceed a specified share of their income (initially 8 percent in 2014 and indexed over time). CBO and JCT estimate that between 18 million and 19 million uninsured people in 2016 will qualify for one or more of those exemptions.

By 2016, that number of uninsured drops to 31 million . . . when the fees are $695 or 2.5 percent of a person’s income.

The point is, starting in 2014, a lot of people who don’t have insurance and find the process of getting insurance immensely confusing and frustrating will suddenly be told they must pay the government for their failure to get insurance. And at that precise moment, Democrats will ask for their vote as an expression of gratitude.

Massachusetts voters go to the polls to pick their next senator on June 25, three weeks from now. Isn’t it a little late for the Democratic nominee, Ed Markey, to be gallivanting across the country to do Hollywood fundraisers? “Markey will be raising money at the Beverly Hills home of Haim and Cheryl Saban on Sunday, with tickets starting at $1,000 per person.”

Apparently money is on the mind of the Democratic favorite; with charisma, a stirring message, or other traditional measures of enthusiasm tepid so far, Markey appears to be relying on overwhelming Republican Gabriel Gomez with a tidal wave of cash:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Edward J. Markey is stepping up his fundraising going into the final weeks of the campaign — coordinating with the state Democratic Party to help cover bills as he ramps up ad buys and voter outreach.

Markey and the party have jointly hired fundraiser Jon Patsavos, who worked for Gov. Deval Patrick and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, to help pump up fundraising before the June 25 election. Patsavos will raise money for the Markey Grassroots Victory Fund to help cover get-out-the-vote and advertising costs in support of Markey.

Markey has spent $3,160,945 as of April 10; Gomez has spent $682,605.

Happy Election Day, Missouri’s eighth congressional district. In today’s special House election, Republican Jason Smith takes on Democrat Steve Hodges. Polls are open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m.

About a month after winning reelection, Representative Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri’s heavily Republican eighth congressional district announced she would become CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Under Missouri law, there are no special primaries; the county parties selected their nominees.

A bit about Smith:

Representative Smith is committed to community involvement and is a member in the following organizations: National Rifle Association, Salem, Steelville and Cuba Chambers of Commerce, Missouri Bar, Farm Bureau, state board member of the Missouri Community Betterment Association, past President and current board member of the Salem FFA Alumni Association, and past board member of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate). Additionally, he attends his home church, Grace Community Church of Salem, faithfully as a committed member and serves as a Sunday school teacher for the youth.

In a fact that will make a lot of us feel old, he was born the year Ronald Reagan won the presidency.

The district scores a R+8 on the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and includes Cape Girardeau, Rush Limbaugh’s boyhood hometown.

Something to keep in mind as New Jersey governor Chris Christie contemplates the decision of appointing an interim senator:

The state has 5,463,097 registered voters, as of May 7.

That total breaks down into:
2,608,636 unaffiliated voters (47 percent)
1,779,250 Democrats (32.5 percent)
1,070,906 Republicans (19.6 percent)

Christie’s done quite well in this heavily Democratic electorate — “63 percent of those surveyed in a recent Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll saying they approve of the job Christie is doing. That rating ticks slightly higher — 64 percent — among the coveted independents” — and so it’s unlikely he’ll pick anyone who would be seen as antagonistic to the state’s Democrats.

If Robert Costa is hearing from his sources that Christie will appoint a Republican, then it’s probably a safe bet. But Christie’s probably looking for the Republican most acceptable to the state’s Democratic voters.

Jazz Shaw notices more spending “Spared by the Sequester”: $14 million per year for catfish inspections.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department spent $500,000 on lodging, hotel conference rooms. and other services in San Jose, Costa Rica; the cost is associated with President Obama’s May 3 visit.

Oh, and there’s a new $16.3 million “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Complex” to be built at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Despite the dire warnings, the Sequester has not yet required President Obama to look for loose change that fell behind the Oval Office couch cushions.

RIP, Senator Frank Lautenberg.

According to New Jersey election law, Governor Chris Christie can appoint a senator until a special election is held, and that special election could occur in November, but Christie could schedule it some other time:

19:3-26. Vacancies in United States senate; election to fill; temporary appointment by governor.

     19:3-26. If a vacancy shall happen in the representation of this State in the United States senate, it shall be filled at the general election next succeeding the happening thereof, unless such vacancy shall happen within 70 days next preceding such election, in which case it shall be filled by election at the second succeeding general election, unless the governor of this State shall deem it advisable to call a special election therefor, which he is authorized hereby to do.

     The governor of this State may make a temporary appointment of a senator of the United States from this State whenever a vacancy shall occur by reason of any cause other than the expiration of the term; and such appointee shall serve as such senator until a special election or general election shall have been held pursuant to law and the Board of State Canvassers can deliver to his successor a certificate of election.

Terri Lynn Land appears set to run for Senate in Michigan:

I would like to thank everyone who has been encouraging me to run for US Senate. Representing our magnificent state of Michigan and your interests in Congress would be the greatest honor. We need conservative leadership now more than ever because of high unemployment, huge deficits, and a spendthrift Congress.

Beginning today, I am putting together a campaign strategy and a policy team. I will be filing the appropriate paper work by July 1 to become a Republican primary candidate.

Now is our chance to win. I eagerly look forward to speaking with you face-to-face about ways to launch our country to prosperity while defending our liberty and freedoms.

Land served as Michigan’s secretary of state from 2003 to 2011; she won election and reelection handily in 2002 and 2006 while other Republicans had troubles winning other statewide offices in those cycles. She has been a member of the RNC since the 2012 convention.

Democratic senator Carl Levin is retiring.

Remember the “we’re idiots” excuse from the administration on Benghazi?

“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”

It’s getting another rollout this weekend, this time being used to explain the IRS scandal:

“If there was somebody political involved in this, it never would have happened,” Axelrod said, “because it was the stupidest thing you could have imagined.” (An almost identical point was made by fellow Obama spokesman David Plouffe on This Week, “This was not an effort driven by the White House. It would be the dumbest political effort of all time.”)

Gentlemen . . . the “we’re stupid” excuse really isn’t as exculpatory as you think it is.

The first Morning Jolt of the week features why Eric Holder will stick around for the foreseeable future, despite anonymous quotes to the contrary in the New York Times; why we ought to show some humility when discussing modern marriage, working arrangements, and family life; and then this preview of the week . . . 

The Internal Revenue Service Is About to Have Another Bad, Bad, Bad Week

The IRS is about to have another brutal week. Here’s what Darrell Issa’s got planned:

Committee’s Thursday, June 6 hearing entitled “Collected and Wasted: The IRS Spending Culture and Conference Abuses.” The hearing will focus on the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report on excessive IRS conference spending and abuses of taxpayer dollars. Issa sent a letter about excessive spending to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in April, 2012. Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS held at least 220 conferences, which cost approximately $50 million.

In one example, the IRS spent $4 million dollars on a manager’s conference for 2,600 people in Anaheim, Calif. in August, 2010. Contrary to established government contracting practices, the outside event planners did not negotiate lower room rates and instead focused on “perks” for IRS employees. Several IRS employees stayed in presidential suites, which rate at $1,500–$3,500 per night. Moreover, 15 outside speakers were paid $135,000 — including one speaker who lectured on “leadership through art” for $17,000.

Additionally, multiple videos were produced for the conference. A previously unreleased video, referred to as the “cupid shuffle,” featured employees learning the popular dance as part of preparation for the Anaheim management conference.

Watch IRS Employees “Getting Ready for Anaheim”

But wait, there’s more! Take a look at the excerpts from interviews that Issa’s committee is releasing:

Another more senior IRS Cincinnati employee complained about micromanagement from D.C.:
 

Q: But you specifically recall that the BOLO [Be On Look Out] terms included “Tea Party?”

A: Yes, I do.

Q: And it was your understanding — was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify Tea Party groups?

A: That is correct.

Q: Was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify conservative groups?

A: Yes, it was.

Q: Was it your understanding that the purpose of the BOLO was to identify Republican groups?

A: Yes, it was.

 

******

 

Q: Earlier I believe you informed us that the primary reason for applying for another job in July [2010] was because of the micromanagement from [Washington, DC, IRS Attorney], is that correct?

A: Right. It was the whole Tea Party. It was the whole picture. I mean, it was the micromanagement. The fact that the subject area was extremely sensitive and it was something that I didn’t want to be associated with.

Q: Why didn’t you want to be associated with it?

A: For what happened now. I mean, rogue agent? Even though I was taking all my direction from EO Technical [Washington, D.C], I didn’t want my name in the paper for being this rogue agent for a project I had no control over.

Q: Did you think there was something inappropriate about what was happening in 2010?

A: Yes. The inappropriateness was not processing these applications fairly and timely.

If the Internal Revenue Service had an unfair, politically biased, arbitrary and capricious approach to the evaluation of 501(c)(4) status, just how likely is it that the organization was even-handed, neutral, and fair in its other interactions with conservative groups?

McClatchy examines some Americans’ accounts of interacting with the IRS and realizes that there’s some evidence this pattern of abuse goes well beyond one issue or policy:

A group of anti-abortion activists in Iowa had to promise the Internal Revenue Service it wouldn’t picket in front of Planned Parenthood.

Catherine Engelbrecht’s family and business in Texas were audited by the government after her voting-rights group sought tax-exempt status from the IRS.

Retired military veteran Mark Drabik of Nebraska became active in and donated to conservative causes, then found the IRS challenging his church donations.

While the developing scandal over the targeting of conservatives by the tax agency has largely focused to date on its scrutiny of groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, these examples suggest the government was looking at a broader array of conservative groups and perhaps individuals. Their collective experiences at a minimum could spread skepticism about the fairness of a powerful agency that should be above reproach and at worst could point to a secret political vendetta within the government against conservatives.

The emerging stories from real people raise questions about whether the IRS scrutiny extended beyond applicants for tax-exempt status and whether individuals who donated to these tax-exempt organizations or to conservative causes also were targeted.

A little while, back, I referred to the IRS as “the Democratic National Committee’s Enforcement and Punishment Wing,” prompting scoffing from liberals. That label sounds a little less hyperbolic as these stories appear . . . 

Boy, Democratic senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas is really running scared of his vote against the Toomey-Manchin background-check bill, huh? Here’s his first campaign ad of this cycle:

Why, it’s almost as if Pryor expects President Obama’s Organizing for Action and most liberal commentators to fall in line . . . it’s almost as if he fears no challenge in the Arkansas Democratic primary . . . it’s almost as if he thinks that most Democrats give lip service to the issue of gun control, and care most about keeping folks with a “D” after their name in office.

Oh, and it’s almost as if Mike Bloomberg’s activism is actually counterproductive to the causes he prefers in the red states.

Wow. Thanks to everyone who came out for last night’s happy hour — our offices were packed, we ran out of beer, we ran through a bunch of bottles of wine, I’m told Jonah handled his duties with mixed drinks in a dramatic and exciting manner that evoked Tom Cruise in Cocktail, and everyone seemed to have a good time. My ego was already having a hard time fitting through the door frame, and now after all the kind words from readers, I’m going to be utterly insufferable.

From the final Morning Jolt of the week . . .

Who Saw This Coming? A Lot of Liberals Seem Depressed & Uninterested Right Now

My thought was that every politics-focused news-media entity is going to see its audience shrink after an election year. But ratings and audience size at three of the four cable news networks are actually up in May, compared to a year earlier.

Guess which one is limping along?

HLN’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Jodi Arias trial has had substantial ratings legs. Surging around the time of the May 8 verdict, the network notched an extremely rare monthly victory: It topped MSNBC in total day and primetime. And with CNN posting its second consecutive month as a distant primetime runner-up to Fox News Channel, MSNBC is in a very precarious fourth place.

Averaging 539,000 viewers in primetime and 175,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demographic, MSNBC suffered double-digit drops from last May — down a respective 20 and 19 percent. Losses were less substantial in total day, down 10 percent to an average 346,000 viewers and down 7 percent to 115,000 adults 25-54, while all other nets pulled growth in multiple categories.

The soft start for All In With Chris Hayes has not helped. Hayes, down 32 percent in total viewers from The Ed Show last May, has offered a poor lead-in for MSNBC’s primetime flagship, The Rachel Maddow Show, at 9 p.m. The show delivered its lowest-rated month since it debuted in September 2008 (717,000 total viewers) and its second lowest with adults 25-54 (210,000). Maddow was topped by typical time slot victor Sean Hannity and CNN’s Piers Morgan.

Read the complete rankings, May 2013 versus May 2012, via Nielsen:

Total Day
FNC: 1,246,000 total viewers, up 24 percent (236,000 in 25-54, down 5 percent)
CNN: 465,000 total viewers, up 61 percent (161,000 in 25-54, up 92 percent)
MSNBC: 346,000 total viewers, down 10 percent (115,000 in 25-54, down 7 percent)
HLN: 494,000 total viewers, up 111 percent (175,000 in 25-54, up 90 percent)
 
Primetime
FNC: 1,973,000 total viewers, up 17 percent (308,000 in 25-54, down 6 percent)
CNN: 660,000 total viewers, up 70 percent (225,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
MSNBC: 539,000 total viewers, down 20 percent (175,000 in 25-54, down 19 percent)
HLN: 624,000 total viewers, up 91 percent (209,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)

Over at Breitbart, John Nolte is gloating:

As we saw during the Boston Marathon Bombing, when people want actual news, they do not turn to MSNBC. What good is liberal-talk-radio-with-pictures hosted by unlikable hipsters who all share the same pair of glasses, when you want news, facts, and information? It is no good whatsoever. This is why, for the second time this year, the bottom has fallen out of MSNBC’s ratings.

Last week, between May 13-17, MSNBC averaged 350,000 overall viewers and only 94,000 in the all-important 25-54 demo. One day last week, in that demo, MSNBC averaged only 83,000 viewers, a low not seen since July of 2006.

But the phenomenon may extend well beyond MSNBC viewing habits. There’s some anecdotal evidence that a significant chunk of the Left’s rank-and-file started tuning out shortly after Obama’s second term began, and they’re not re-engaging.

Let me point to Digby, a liberal blogger:

The online left has seen a steep decline in traffic since the election as well, which indicates to me that our audience in general is simply not interested in following politics at the moment. . . . 

. . . My impression is that liberals are either bored or disillusioned right now for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that a liberal majority has been effectively obstructed and the president seems to be ineffectual. (I realize that political scientists tell us that the presidency isn’t very powerful, but most people don’t believe that since we’ve extolled the office as the most powerful on earth for decades.)

We’ve been through a number of elections, crises, other ups and downs over the past decade but I’ve not seen anything like the drop in interest over the past few months. If it was just me I’d attribute it to my little project having run its course but it’s happening across the liberal media spectrum. I don’t [k]now what the answer is, but it isn’t that there isn’t a permanent audience. There was until very recently. It’s that the liberal audience is tuning out and one can only assume it’s because they don’t like what they see in our politics.

It makes me a little bit more concerned for 2014/2016 than I otherwise would be.

A lot of possible reasons for this — scandal disillusionment, the crash after the high of Hope-ium, a public starting to feel like they’ve heard of all of Obama’s rhetorical tropes before, overall exhaustion and boredom with politics as a whole — but this is not a development that the Washington conventional wisdom has even noticed, much less even begin to analyze or explain.

Louisiana state senator Karen Carter Peterson, the chair of the state Democratic party, runs away from local television reporters who ask about her declaration that opponents of Obamacare are driven by racism.

Run, State Senator, Run!

The reporter adds that they submitted a written request for comment, left at her desk on the Senate floor . . . that she promptly threw in the trash.

Every lawmaker says something they regret; what’s kind of stunning is that her race-baiting occurred on the floor of the Louisiana State Senate, and now she wants to pretend it didn’t happen.

As seen over in the Corner, here’s my appearance on “The Lead” with Jake Tapper. My unused line: Yesterday, Republicans across the country reacted in stunned shock to the news out of Rhode Island that Governor Lincoln Chafee switched parties . . . everyone was stunned to learn that he wasn’t already a Democrat.

Another busy Jolt today . . . two sections to preview this morning:

BOOM: Quinnipiac Sees Obama’s Approval Take a Sudden Tumble

For a couple of weeks, Obama fans have been high-fiving each other, looking at polling numbers and concluding the public didn’t really blame the president for any of the scandals engulfing his administration.

Well, looks like they celebrated too early:

American voters say 76 – 17 percent, including 63 – 30 percent among Democrats, that a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate charges the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

President Barack Obama gets a negative 45 – 49 percent job approval rating, compared to 48 – 45 percent positive in a May 1 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, conducted before the IRS allegations surfaced.

The president’s biggest drop is among independent voters, who give him a negative 37 – 57 percent score, compared to a negative 42 – 48 percent May 1. He gets a negative 9 – 86 percent from Republicans and a positive 87 – 8 percent from Democrats, both virtually unchanged. Women approve 49 – 45 percent while men give a negative 40 – 54 percent score.

Americans are divided 49 – 47 percent on whether Obama is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 – 37 percent, the last time Quinnipiac University asked the question September 1, 2011.

Gee, what could cause that drop? Moving along . . . 

News-Junkie Hipster-ism and ‘The Real Scandal’

If you’ll allow me to quote Matt Welch twice, he articulates an irritation buzzing around the back of my head, pundits’ all-too-frequent declaration that whatever scandal is in the headlines is an obviously frivolous and inconsequential distraction, and that they’ve figured out what we really ought to be talking about if we’re serious, thoughtful people. You know . . . “the real scandal,” as they incessantly declare.

But the real party comes when you search on “the real scandal.” So much to choose from!

There’s “child poverty” (Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times), “political gridlock” (Ned Barnett, Charlotte News & Observer), “the Republican party’s devotion to grandstanding over governance and its preference for slime over substance” (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Huffington Post), “secret money influencing US elections” (Ari Berman, The Nation), “that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way” (Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker), that “they let General Electric not pay any taxes” (Michael Moore, HuffPost Live), sex abuse in the military (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post), and even “the IRS itself” (John Tamny, Forbes).

This is like news junkie hipster-ism. “Oh, you’re following that news story? Pshaw. I was following that story years ago. The really important story now is [some obscure story they’re fairly certain you haven’t read about yet].”

Now, some of those items are real problems, i.e., child poverty and sex abuse in the military. But only a fool would argue that the existence of one problem automatically de-prioritizes any other problem. Maybe there are a lot of big problems in our government and society that the American people should be concerned about and try to solve or improve. Maybe we really have a lot of scandals going on.

The real scandal is that we have so many real scandals going on.

After an introductory ad that put the spotlight on his odd behavior during the births of his children, Terry McAuliffe’s second ad suggests he’s responsible for the passage of a tax-hiking transportation bill in the Virginia legislature.

The ad declares McAuliffe “reached out” to Democrats, and they subsequently supported the bill.

Unfortunately, quite a few Democrats in the state legislature say they don’t remember McAuliffe being a factor in the bill’s passage at all:

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, Manassas Democrat and the longest-serving member of the Senate, was an informal adviser to the conferees as they hashed out differences between the House and Senate versions. But Mr. McAuliffe never spoke to him about it, he said Tuesday.

“When I was there, he didn’t,” Mr. Colgan said…

Several other Democratic aides in the General Assembly also said their offices were never contacted, though they acknowledged that lobbying on the bill was possible.

“There was no contact between Terry McAuliffe and our office and nobody thought he had any impact on the outcome,” one Senate aide said.

McAuliffe may have put himself in a difficult spot, in that no Virginia lawmaker, Democrat or Republican, will want to tell his constituents, “I opposed the legislation, until Terry McAuliffe called me up and persuaded me it was a good idea.”

Also interesting: “When the bill passed, McDonnell and McAuliffe even shared what the governor’s spokesman called ‘a brief congratulatory phone call.’”

Sarah Palin chose to resign as governor of Alaska in 2009, and then declined to pursue a 2012 presidential bid.

After the 2012 election, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina stepped down as senator to head up the Heritage Foundation.

In Florida, Allen West lost his bid for reelection to Congress in 2012, and he now serves as “Director of Next Generation Programming” at PJ Media and is a contributor to Fox News.

Now Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has decided to retire from Congress.

Joe Scarborough cites Palin, West, Bachmann, and Hermain Cain and argues that their ascents and declines illustrate how “flamboyance” rarely translates into a lasting political impact.

Of course, flamboyance doesn’t necessarily mean political doom. Congress and the governors’ mansions still include plenty of Republicans who are hardly shrinking violets: Senators ;Rand Paul, Tom Coburn, and Tim Scott, Representatives Darrell Issa, Jason Chaffetz, and Steve King, Governors Nikki Haley, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal. Virginia’s attorney general and GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli might fit that bill.

But the conservative movement probably ought to examine why some of their most prominent leaders elected to high office voluntarily depart the scene when they would seem to still have a lot of metaphorical gas left in the tank. Running for reelection is difficult — particularly difficult, as West learned, when the district lines shift, or if one’s state or district isn’t as certain in its embrace of conservatism as you are. Being a leader outside of office, giving paid speeches, doing media appearances, writing books . . . that’s much easier on the officeholder, his or her personal finances, and their family.

It’s hard to blame someone for wanting the less difficult path. And yet, it’s much harder for the conservative movement to move the ball forward if its leaders depart after a while.

Hey, check out our new new, morally nuanced, totally different drone policy:

A U.S drone attack early Wednesday killed seven people and injured four others in volatile North Waziristan tribal region, Pakistani security officials and local tribesmen said. It was the first attack by the unmanned U.S. spy planes on Pakistani territory since the election of the new civilian government two weeks ago.

Looks like one of the seven (or perhaps four) was a high-value target:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani intelligence officials say a U.S. drone strike has killed the No. 2 commander of the Pakistani Taliban. The militant group denies he is dead. Three Pakistani officials say Waliur Rehman was among four people killed in a drone strike Wednesday morning in the North Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

Busy Morning Jolt today, looking at the retirement announcement of Michele Bachmann, the frequency of the IRS commissioner’s visits to the White House, Helen Smith’s assertion that American men are going on strike, and then this examination of a key Hillary Clinton backer…

Meet the Wealthy Apparel Magnate Backing the Early Effort to Help Hillary

The America Rising opposition research shop introduces us to the first major Democrat celebrity-with-gobs-of-money to back a SuperPAC encouraging a 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign:

Today, Pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC announced it had signed on Democrat fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of clothing line Esprit. In the 1990s, while Tompkins Buell held control of Espirit, the Bay Area sweatshops which were contracted to make garments for Espirit were raided by the federal government. The Department of Labor found that the sweatshops doctored payroll records, paid workers less than minimum wage, and refused to pay overtime.

When asked to cut ties with the manufacturer an Espirit company spokesman said it was more important for the “socially responsible” Espirit to stay in business than to pay its workers the government mandated minimum wage.

For further perspective, she withheld financial support from Barack Obama in 2012 because he hadn’t done enough on climate change to suit her tastes.

Espirit’s whole process of growing cotton and apparel manufacturing, that doesn’t generate any carbon emissions, right? 

She’s also credited with delaying the White House’s decision on the Keystone Pipeline:

In October, Buell made headlines after she led a protest of monied Democrats in San Francisco against the controversial 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline. Her fellow protesters outside an Obama fundraiser included Michael Kieschnick, co-founder of CREDO Mobile and Working Assets, which has donated $75 million to progressive causes; IT executive David desJardins; and Anna Hawken McKay, wife of Rob McKay, a wealthy philanthropist whose father founded Taco Bell.

The Democrats, who could have easily afforded the $5,000-a-plate Obama fundraiser, stood on the curb outside the W Hotel as Buell delivered a tough assessment of the president: “I don’t know where he stands on anything,” she said.

Kieschnick said Buell’s decision to take an aggressive stance was pivotal to the eventual outcome – a White House announcement last month that the application for the pipeline from the Canadian province of Alberta to Texas refineries would be rejected.

“Before her involvement, the powers that be clearly dismissed our concerns” about the long-term environmental impacts of the pipeline, said Kieschnick, who has known Buell for 20 years. People inside the White House “clearly noticed,” he said. “Then they realized this was not only bad policy, this was bad politics.”

Oh, and her corporate management style wasn’t all hearts-and-flowers:

But Esprit de Corp. also ultimately came to epitomize the worst side of another decade, the me decade, the 1980s and its junk-bond daddies and S&L pirates and slick-suited sharpies. After helping manage the company with her then-husband, Doug Tompkins, for 22 years, Susie Tompkins led a 1990 leveraged buyout that gained her control of the company, and netted her an estimated $150 million.

Esprit emerged from the buyout so deeply in debt — and Tompkins Buell’s subsequent helmsmanship left the company in such desperate financial straits — that it went into technical default on its outstanding loans within less than two years. Esprit then spent five years shriveling to a morsel of its former self before Tompkins Buell relinquished all ownership of and involvement in the company in December.

More background on Espirit and sweatshops:

[In 1993] the Department of Labor raided a San Francisco garment shop that works on contract for Esprit and owed its workers $127,000 in back wages. Although the minimum wage is barely livable at $4.25 an hour, the shop contract by Esprit paid only $3.75 with no overtime. Just six months earlier, in a bust of eight Bay Area garment contractors, three of those cited were working for Esprit.

Those three, according to D.O.L. documents, were doctoring payroll records and not paying overtime. After the shops paid the back wages, at least one seamstress complained to the state Labor Commission that the employer was asking for kickbacks.

Esprit’s affable spokesman Dan Imhoff says that garment workers should be paid a wage that “allows them a reasonable life style.” But asked specifically about what Esprit could do to insure this, he shifts the responsibility back to the contractor. “The bottom line is Esprit has to pay its own workers a fair wage. Do you think a socially responsible business would survive if it would pay twice as much to its contractor? How can a company stay in business? This is getting in a very tough nerve.

“Perhaps,” he continues. “Esprit isn’t the shining example that you want . . . [Esprit] can only change so many things at one time.”

I guess it’s easier to support raising the minimum wage when you treat it as optional.

Anytime you have the chance to speak with Kristina Ribali of the FreedomWorks podcast, do so. I did today, running down the Obama Administration’s scandals, the coming reformation of the Republican party, and how Congress hides the really insidious violations of your liberty in gigantic pieces of legislation.