Forbes has an interesting piece on the Obama administration's efforts to create what they call a "global minimum tax." Something else to look forward to in a second term.

Congressman Tom McClintock, Republican of California, took to the House Floor earlier this week to deliver remarks titled "IRS Harassment of Tea Party Groups."

It seems that Tea Party groups are now being treated very differently than their counterparts on the political Left. For the last two years, many have been stone-walled by the IRS when they have sought to register as non-profits and most recently, they have been barraged with increasingly aggressive and threatening demands vastly outside the legal authority of the IRS. Indeed, the only conceivable purpose of some of these demands could be to intimidate and harass.

The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the New York Times all have editorials about President Obama's announcement that he wants more funding and authority for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission:

For a glimpse of the New York Times newsroom culture and mindset, or at least a slice of it, do not miss this union-produced YouTube video of Times journalists, many of whom make upwards of $100,000 a year, complaining that Times management wants to freeze their defined benefit pension plans and transition to 401K plans. The risk-averse nature of the Times employees is striking, as is their tendency to characterize the corporate management as "them" versus "us." These folks seem to have no idea how cushy their situations are.

And if you were thinking of investing in New York Times Company stock, which, at around $6 a share, is down to a level at which it might begin to tempt some bargain hunters, watch the video first.

Earlier posts on the Times labor negotiations are here and here.

The Wall Street Journal has a report that its parent, News Corp., is suspending half the voting rights of its foreign shareholders to reach compliance with a requirement of the Communications Act of 1934 that a broadcaster can't have more than 25% foreign ownership.

That law, enacted when Rupert Murdoch was three years old, is a dinosaur. In 1934 there was no satellite radio or television, no cable television, and no Internet. Why not let any foreigner buy as much stock in any American broadcaster as the foreigner wants to buy? If Americans don't want to watch Saudi or Chinese Communist propaganda, they can always turn off the television, or change the channel.

This is one of the problems with top-down, government-imposed regulation in general — the laws don't change as fast as the technology does.

Holman Jenkins has a very good column in today's Wall Street Journal under the headline "The Inequality Obsession." He concludes with a quote from Freud about envy, but he might have also mentioned the Tenth Commandment, which in my book is right up there with the Tenth Amendment.

The Washington Examiner has a deft editorial about President Obama's record on immigration:

"I can promise that I will try to do it in the first year of my second term," President Obama recently told Enrique Acevedo, an anchor at the Spanish language television network Univision. Obama was talking about comprehensive immigration reform, which would regularize the status of more than ten million people living in this nation illegally.

On the same subject, four years ago, then-Senator Obama told the League of United Latin American Citizens: "We need to do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as president."

The editorial is headlined, "For Obama, Immigration Reform Is Always For Mañana."

President Obama has written an article about Warren Buffett for Time magazine, saying that "Warren" has "invested with integrity.":

Today Warren is not just one of the world's richest men but also one of the most admired and respected. He has devoted the vast majority of his wealth to those around the world who are suffering, or sick, or in need of help. And he uses his stature as a leader to press others of great means to do the same.

Note the first-name basis.

Two and nine-tenths cheers to the New York Times for running on its front page a skeptical article by Gina Kolata about the food desert myth, that is, the lack of evidence for the idea, fashionable in some circles, that what really ails the American poor is a lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The missing one-tenth of a cheer is for the lack of attention to what Mayor Bloomberg has been doing on the issue in New York, and for the lack of attention to the Times's own role in promoting this myth over the years. But wonderful to see, nonetheless. The Times even visits Camden, N.J., for its myth-shattering piece, just as I did for mine in January 2011.

Michael Barone has a Washington Examiner column exploring the possibilities for Mitt Romney of what "opponents might call a double-vanilla ticket, with another white male as vice presidential nominee." He names Paul Ryan, Rob Portman, Mitch Daniels, and Virginia governor Bob McDonnell as possibilities. Of these Mr. Daniels and Mr. McDonnell, both former private-sector health care executives, have more of the successful private-sector experience that Mr. Romney has touted as his unique selling proposition, though Mr. Portman grew up in an entrepreneurial family. One other thought: if what Mr. Romney is really seeking is someone who can do well in affluent suburbs, as Mr. Barone suggests, he could do worse than to take a look at George Pataki, who is a Romney — Northeastern Republican governor who managed to win election in a state where Democrats have a big advantage in part registration — without the private sector success.

Senator Schumer raises millions of dollars from wealthy financial industry people in New York in part on the idea that he can help defend them and their industry when they and it are under attack in Washington. Yesterday's vote on the Buffett Rule was in some ways a case in point; the bill failed to get the votes needed to move forward under the Senate's rules, so anyone whose taxes would have been raised because of it can breathe a sigh of relief. Mr. Schumer, however, voted for the Buffett Rule, explaining helpfully, "It could be called the Buffett Rule, it could be called the Romney Rule." So the tax rules should be rewritten every four years to target personally the Republican Party's presidential nominee? Mr. Schumer himself has at least some of his money in tax-exempt municipal bonds, which reportedly would not be subject to the Buffett Rule.

The Albany Times-Union reports:

Mayor Bloomberg has been adamant in his resistance to a New York City Council bill that would require certain businesses in the city to pay their employees a "living wage" of at least $11.50 an hour, or $10 an hour plus benefits. On Friday he essentially called the bill Communist and threatened to veto it, asserting, "The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR and that didn't work out so well."

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein's latest column is up at the Hoover Institution Web site. He endorses "a general provision that says that all newly appointed federal judges should serve for fifteen-year terms, subject to reappointment up to the age of seventy." He also calls on the Supreme Court to overturn the 1935 decision in Humphrey's Executor v. United States that gives agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the FCC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board (Professor Epstein doesn't mention the Federal Reserve) a degree of independence from the executive branch not envisioned by the Constitution.

President Obama's weekend talk in favor of the Buffett Rule is the topic of my weekly column: "If there were some kind of award for the most misleading statements in a single four-minute speech, President Obama would have earned it." Please check it out here at the New York Sun and here at Reason.

The Pulitzer Prize Web site hasn't yet posted links to the articles for which David Kocieniewski of the New York Times won his Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, announced yesterday. But the article he wrote about Ronald Lauder's taxes, a piece I criticized in columns that appeared in Reason, the New York Post, and the New York Sun, seems to have been part of the series for which he won. When last year's Pulitzers were announced, I wrote, "It looks like one of the tickets to a Pulitzer Prize is having one's work criticized on FutureOfCapitalism." That pattern seems to have held again this year, to judge by Mr. Kocieniewski's profile at NewsTransparency.com, which links to seven articles I have written, most of them quite critical of Mr. Kocieniewski's work.