Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

UM’s Fran Hill Subtly Suggests IRS Is Blowing Smoke on NAACP Case

Posted on October 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

From TaxProf™ Blog

Today's New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post report on an October 8 letter from the IRS threatening to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status in light of NAACP Chairman, Julian Bond's speech this summer condemning the policies of President Bush. Tax Prof Frances Hill (Miami) is critical of the IRS's action in a Newsday article on the subject:

Frances Hill, a University of Miami law professor and an expert on the political rights of tax-exempt organizations, read Bond's speech and said it was indeed critical of President George W. Bush. But she added that Bond was probably on safe legal ground because his speech was broadly conceived, didn't focus solely on Bush and touched on a range of issues that have long been trademarks of the NAACP, such as equality and justice. “You can be passionate and still have a tax-exempt status,” Hill said. “If the IRS thinks that this speech is sufficient to trigger an audit, then I think we have quite a new standard and they must be planning to audit hundreds of other groups.”

Posted in Law: Tax | Comments Off on UM’s Fran Hill Subtly Suggests IRS Is Blowing Smoke on NAACP Case

Ceci N’est Pas du Tinfoil

Posted on October 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

OK, this is getting out of the tinfoil category when Salon quotes a NASA scientist who has enhanced photos of Bush's back during the debates,

I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,” he says. “This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt.”

Posted in Politics: Tinfoil | 1 Comment

It Can’t Happen Here

Posted on October 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin
Posted in Politics: US | 1 Comment

100,000 Iraqi Civilians Dead — Most From Bombing

Posted on October 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Huge banner headline in the (left-of-center) Guardian today: 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, says study. The study to which it refers was published by the Lancet, Britain's most respected (and peer reviewed) medical journal. It used sampling, but looks serious.

Although some of the casualties are due to things like an increase in infant mortality because women are unable or too frightened to go to hospitals to deliver, the great bulk of the deaths is civilians killed by aircraft bombings or helicopter-launched munitions.

The amount of civilian casualties is sufficiently high to call into question whether the US has complied with the (rather vague) laws of humanitarian warfare.

Update (10/30): Slate has a good article noting the gigantic margin of error admitted by the authors of the report — so large as to call into question their publicizing the midpoint of a range of possibilities from 8,000 to almost 200,000.

Posted in Iraq | 3 Comments

Material Witness Statute Abuse is Founded on a Misreading of the Law

Posted on October 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

My exuberant colleague Ricardo J. Bascuas has put online an early draft of an important article, The Unconstitutionality of “Hold Until Cleared”: Reexamining Material Witness Detentions in the Wake of the September 11th Dragnet ( forthcoming Vanderbilt Law Review, April 2005).

The article argues very persuasively that the material witness statute is being seriously misused to hold innocent people in jail, and to sweat possibly guilty ones when the government lacks the information to charge them. But we knew that.

What makes this article special is that it also demonstrates through careful textual analysis that the courts which approved the government's use of the material witness statute to jail people fundamentally misunderstood the original meaning of the orignial material witness statute, which was in fact carefully designed to do no such thing, but only to allow the jailing of witnesses who failed to promise to appear, or who failed to appear when bound to do so.

Not only is this a great article, but it's Ricardo's first one — a sign of a glittering academic career in the making.

Posted in Law: Criminal Law, U.Miami | 3 Comments

58,000 is Probably the Tip of the Iceberg

Posted on October 28, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Slashdot | Absentee Ballots Go Missing in Florida.

I've said for months that the real election fraud in Florida would be absentee ballots not voting machines. This has a tip of the iceberg feel to it.

If Bush should win the state by fewer than 58,000 votes, I will not believe the result unless these ballots are found. (I could even understand why a Bush supporter would say the same thing about a narrow Kerry victory…which just underscores the importance of getting to the bottom of this.)

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 1 Comment