There is a legal concept of a hypothetical person, called the Reasonable Objective Person.

In cases where someone claims, for example, to have been offended, the law doesn't just say "give this person some money or other legal satisfaction because she says she's upset." That would be a subjective standard, in which every delicate eggshell limits your ability to move through the world.

Usually they say the question is not about how the complaining witness claims she felt subjectively herself, but how the Reasonable Objective Person in her shoes would have thought.

Note the Reasonable Objective Person standard limits this sort of complaint, because while a very thin-skinned complainant might honestly be offended, that doesn't mean she wins the case. She was, subjectively, offended. But the question remains-- would the Reasonable Objective Person have been offended? If not, an honest but overreacting complainant is told she loses.

But no more. Now the government says this Reasonable Objective Person standard is sexist and racist.

The letter contends the conduct in question need not be offensive to an "objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation." That means that there is effectively no check on what might count as harassment.

Now we're all going to be judged by the standard of the thinnest-skinned, complainiest people who exist, and the Reasonable Objective Person will have nothing to say about it.

Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (235)
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Husband of the year, from @conartcritic.

Guy got arrested for soliciting a prostitute.

Wait for it.

On his honeymoon.

Would this face lie to you?
Or have whore-sex?

Top twenty worst wedding dresses. Mild content warning as some of them are little risque, such as The Vagina Gown, which has one those Vagina People puppet-vaginas in the front.

Why? Why?

And then there's this one. Content warning -- This is a classy, classy gal who really wants you to notice that she has breasts.

I owe someone an h/t for that. But I forget who.

This picture makes me doubt they'll have children.

Posted by: Ace at 01:16 PM | Comments (130)
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Ace was talking about this excellent song on Twitter. It may possibly be the #1 hit of the '80s. more...

Posted by: andy at 12:40 PM | Comments (695)
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I juiced the headline but only slightly -- senior Treasury officials were told, and they are senior staffers of the Administration.

The Treasury DepartmentÂ’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue ServiceÂ’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

Now this does not get you to Barack Obama himself, but "senior Treasury officials" are not strangers to the President. They are not far-flung functionaries.

Obama's claim that he "didn't know" until last Friday is looking... like a lie.

Discussion at Breitbart.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (304)
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courtesy @theonerory

I was just asking Piers Morgan: He was the sophisticated, urbane one for claiming the government could be trusted with every conceivable power to interfere with our lives, and we all were the yokels who thought that maybe flawed people, working for a powerful corporation whose business was exerting control over one group of citizens at the behest of another group, maybe could not in fact be so completely trusted?

Apparently "sophistication" consists of forcing your brain to believe daft, stupid, childish things.

Anyway, as these two jackass ponces love flattering themselves, I'm sure that in a couple of days they'll have assembled a Narrative in which they may have been wrong, but they were Wrong for the Right, Rationalist Reasons.

Links are to Hot Air and videos below are from NR, so you don't have to worry about Feeding the Beast.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (256)
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Conspiracy.

By the way, you know that whole First Spin that the IRS tax-exempt branch was forced to basically triage applications with Exciting New BOLO Procedures because they got such a huge crash of new applications?

Yeah it's a lie.

Mind blown, huh?

In fact, in 2010, when they began this BOLO program (Be On the Look Out for "Tea Party" or "Patriot" names in applications), applications were down from 2009. It was not until the following year, in 2011, when they spiked up.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (340)
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Why would they set up a question for Lori Lehrner to answer? I image so they could claim they'd disclosed the matter themselves, and apologized for it, in advance of an IG report that was about to blow up.

Kevin Williamson flagged the question as likely planted two days ago.

The question at the ABA conference came from Washington-based tax lawyer Celia Roady, a lobbyist in the firm of Morgan Lewis. Roady is certainly well-versed in the issue at hand: She was named to the influential Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities in 2010 by Douglas Shulman, at that time commissioner of the IRS. Lerner is the director for tax-exempt organizations at the IRS. Roady was serving on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities while tea-party groups and other conservative organizations were being targeted by the IRS. Not exactly a question out of the blue — Capitol Hill sources described the question as “planted” and say the IRS has informally admitted as much.

And today Miller confirms this.

Miller indicated today that Roady was in fact instructed by the IRS to ask the question, and the Lerner knew about the question in advance.

“Who told her to ask the question?” asked Republican representative Kenny Marchant.

“I don’t know, actually, I’m not sure, might have been Lois Lerner,” Miller responded. He went on to say that the IRS intended simultaneously to inform Congress, but admitted the agency only inquired about the congressional calendar.

The planted question reveals coordination at high levels of the IRS with regard to the disclosure of the sensitive information. Lerner and Miller testified before Congress two days before Lerner addressed the ABA, but said nothing about the IRSÂ’s scrutiny of Tea Party groups.

Nonetheless, Miller maintained, “I always answered questions truthfully.”

So when Congress asked, they said nothing about it, but then when the IG Report was about to embarrass them, they created a fake question in order to appear they were being forthcoming and candid in answering random questions from a crowd.

Draw your own conclusions.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (179)
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Everyone seems to be talking about this clip, which received a standing ovation in the chamber.

Linked below. Oh, for those of the Twitter-centric persuasion, he can be followed at @MikeKellyPA. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 12:22 PM | Comments (159)
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Stockton's new mayor finishes speech by donning a gladiator helmet and wielding a mace. Or morningstar. It's unclear, the exact difference between them.

It wasn't a glaive-guisarme or bec-de-corbin. That's all I know.

Now, actually, Stockton's in dire straits due to financial collapse, so maybe they need some kind of hero. Not the hero Stockton wants -- but the hero Stockton needs.

Link Fixed--I Hope. I've never had so much trouble posting a damn video and link.

Via @irenefingirene and @polliwogette more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (308)
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If the organization is nonpartisan, and, as Obama always wants to remind us, "independent," why would Obama's electoral fortunes have weighed into their decision on whether or not to perpetuate a lie?

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

Video at link (safe link to Weekly Standard).

via @peeteysdee

Posted by: Ace at 07:51 AM | Comments (422)
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