A Special Counsel Report, hidden for 14 years, sheds light on the ethics of Ken Starr’s Office of Independent Counsel. On January 16, 1998, Monica Lewinsky was rushing to meet Linda Tripp at the Pentagon City shopping mall across the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia. The two friends and former Pentagon co-workers were scheduled to have lunch in the food court...

Before my summer recess, The Take needs to acknowledge the Summer of Discontent – from the bizarre to the… bizzaro! A horse is a horse, of course of course… …except when the horse belongs to the queen of England. According to a report by The Associated Press (July 12), “[Estimate] A racehorse owned by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II that won...

The stories in this month’s Take could make a zany Mel Brooks comedy if they weren’t, sadly, true. Donald Sterling Redux – The dichotomy that is Donald Sterling – the embattled owner of the Los Angeles Clippers with an intolerant mouth – just gets worse. During one court appearance, Sterling and (estranged/not estranged?) wife Shelly “had a poignant exchange,” The New York Times writes...

Washington politics has become a bad opera – tedious, score-settling bad opera where each side reacts like a soccer player who falls to the ground, grabs a body part and moans loudly so the official will call a foul. On June 16, the New York Times writes that “The Ways and Means chairman, Representative Dave Camp… wrote a letter to President Obama...

“I don’t believe you.” Why anyone, in their right mind, would want to head anygovernment agency in today’s hyper-partisan world is beyond my understanding. Just look at what you have to stare-down when you’re sitting before a congressional committee. On December 23, 2013, John Koskinen was sworn in as the new IRS commissioner after being confirmed by the Senate three days earlier....

After the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizen’s United allowed for nearly unlimited and unidentified donations to political campaigns in 2010, a number of new groups applied for tax-exempt status. On February 16, 2012, Democratic Senators Al Franken, Chuck Schumer, Jeff Merkley and Michael Bennet wrote a letter to Douglas Shulman urging the then-IRS commissioner to investigate social welfare organizations “engaged in a...

To understand the root cause of the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service, context is important. With the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, corporations and non-profits were permitted to contribute to political campaigns. In the case of certain non-profits, they could donate provided they did not contribute more than 49 percent of their...

In a move that surprised many, last week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six federal trademark registrations for the name the Washington Redskins, ruling that the name is “disparaging to Native Americans.” In an story authored by Travis Waldron for ThinkProgress, a liberal blog (June 18), the Patent board said, “We decide, based on the evidence properly before us,...

There are many issues – ethical and otherwise – that we could be spending more time considering, but… this question caught the attention and response of thousands of New York Times‘ readers, (May 3, 2012). Ariel Kaminer, who writes The Ethicist column in the Sunday New York Times magazine, posed the question – is it ethical to eat meat?, then invited readers to “make,  » Read more...

From Martha and Macy’s to mayhem in Brazil then back to my favorite CEO, let’s take a look. Nothing to Smile About, Now – Why is Martha smiling? Simple, she was on the stand last year arguing that a deal to sell Martha Stewart branded merchandise at J.C. Penney was perfectly acceptable despite a five year exclusive deal to sell...