Freedom Line Blog

Read all about it at The American Spectator. It comes from Obama and starts at the FAA, and then on from there.

David Bossie of Citizens United has come out swinging against Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez. Not only does Bossie hit Perez for things I’ve mentioned in the past, such as unlawful use of private e-mails for government business (and then testifying falsely about the same), but Bossie also notes this:

Thomas Perez has also waged war against people of faith and the pro-life movement. For example, he brought a case against Mary Susan Pine in Florida Federal Court. Pine is a woman who for more than two decades engaged in friendly sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach. While engaging in this ministry, Ms. Pine was notified by police that she had violated city and state traffic laws on one particular day, then the Justice Department brought charges under Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE). However, because FACE allows an exemption for peaceful demonstration, it was immediately tossed out of court and Perez’s division was charged court and attorney fees.

When it says Perez’ “division” had to pay court fees, what it means is that American taxpayers had to pay the fees and penalties for Perez’ improper attempt to prosecute a peaceful, innocent woman.

As I’ve noted before, Perez and his team have quite a losing streak in court. Not only are they radical and dishonest, but they are bad lawyers, too:

Indeed, Perez doesn’t even seem to be a very good lawyer at all: His positions also have been rebuked by courts in Arkansas (about the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act), again in the D.C. District Court, in New York on an education case (U.S. v. Brennan), in a Florida abortion case where Perez’ team was abusively prosecuting peaceful protesters, and most particularly in a major Perez loss in Florida when trying to force the state not to remove non-citizens from its voter rolls.

Perez is a loser and a fraud.

Two weeks ago I wrote here (in part) about the efforts of Alabama reformers to escape from the Common Core national educational standards. Now comes Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation to explain why Alabama really ought to make such as escape.

Here’s the key section:

In fact, the state standards Alabama eschewed in order to adopt Common Core standards were quite good, receiving high marks from the Fordham Institute and Education Week’s Quality Counts survey. Alabama students would be well-served by returning to the standards and assessments that were in place before the state signed on to Common Core and working to improve upon those standards in a way that meets the unique needs of local schools and students.

Across the country, policymakers, teachers, parents, and taxpayers are waking up to the numerous problems Common Core national standards present. The loss of classic literature, the mediocre mathematics standards, the significant costs to taxpayers, the elimination of competitive pressure to increase standards of excellence, and, most troubling, the massive federal intervention and further disenfranchisement of parents.

This is a big deal. As this peer-reviewed study indicates, Common Core is a trap.

The reformist public interest group Cause of Action released a very interesting report last week, one which I had hoped to have time by now to write about at greater length. For immediate purposes, though, time doesn’t allow, so here’s the short version: Through the infamous 2009 “stimulus” bill, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control allocated at least $94 million worth of grants that, to quote the CoA press release, “supported lobbyists and public relations companies who used taxpayer dollars to push laws and agendas that would lead to tax increases on tobacco and sugar sweetened products—violating federal law as well as HHS and Office of Management and Budget guidelines.”

Asked CoA Executive Director Dan Epstein: “With a program whose funding is expected to grow into the billions, how much more lobbying will the taxpayers be on the hook for before Kathleen Sebelius decides that it’s time to be accountable?”

There’s lot of good stuff in the report, most of it important but less than, uh, sexy. But, as is often the case, amidst the straightforward details there is one particular absurdity sure to attract guffaws.  It seems that one grantee actually conducted a focus group, on the effects of a proposed smoking ban, with nine “exotic dancers.” The strippers, according to the report, said that a “smoke-free adult entertainment establishment” would lead to a loss of income.

Gotta love using federal taxpayers to discover that patrons won’t look at what’s hot unless they have smoke. (Does this mean that where there’s no smoke, there’s no heat?)

Jokes aside, the rest of the CoA report documents misuse of tax funds that, even if not quite so nakedly absurd, are equally objectionable from a legal standpoint. Every bureaucrat and grantee is supposed to know that using federal funds to lobby government is strictly verboten — but HHS seems uninterested in providing the oversight necessary to make sure the rule is enforced.

Coming from an agency whose Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, already was found to have improperly campaigned on government time, in violation of the Hatch Act, this is further evidence of the Obamites’ rampant politicization of the bureaucracy.  (Surprise, surprise: The White House declined to punish her.)

Again, the whole report is here.

Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez, about whom I have written here several times, has his nomination hearing in Senate committee tomorrow. The opponents are getting geared up, with a new video out, with a damaging, related hearing Tuesday in the House, and with lots of other activity. At that House hearing, former DoJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams had lots of interesting things to say, including this:

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has seen instances of embezzlement, employee abuse, harassment, theft, and perjury. Little to nothing has been done by Division management in response. In some cases, Division management has defended, promoted or given awards to the wrongdoers. The Division has implemented hiring practices which, according to the Justice Department Inspector General, have created the perception of an ideologically lopsided workforce. Division management has rejected the recommendations of the Inspector General and resisted making changes to ensure non-ideological hiring at the Division.

And, specifically about Perez, he noted this:

Mr. Perez has repeatedly provided false or inaccurate testimony under oath on two important matters: First, which Justice Department officials were involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party; and, second, whether or not he knew that a corrosive and abusive atmosphere existed inside his Division toward employees willing to enforce voting laws without regard to the race of the victims. On both counts, Mr. Perez provided wholly inaccurate testimony under oath.

And:

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

I should have more on this soon.

On Friday, Chris Stirewalt of Fox News, one of journalism’s true good guys, put me on his show, Power Play, to discuss the achievements and challenges of the Tea Party movement in their first four years, and where they go from here. Key takeaway: The Tea Parties are focusing more and more on state and local issues, and having some real success there.

Bill O’Reilly quite literally has no clue what he is talking about when he trashes New Orleans by effectively endorsing Geraldo Rivera’s ignorant description of everything outside of the French Quarter as a “vast urban wasteland” and directly says that local claims to the contrary are just “putting a happy face on things that aren’t happening.” The fact is that every single word of the citizens’ groups letter to O’Reilly is true. I write this not as a native, but as somebody who has done extensive research on this for an as-yet-to-be-written story for a major publication.

In education, civic reform, entrepreneurship, flood protection, and all sorts of other areas, New Orleans actually has become a model of how to do things right. The Wall Street Journal noted as much in a recent piece, as well. Finally, as for crime, as of about 15 months ago (the last available stats I looked at), the odd truth is that while the murder rate is atrociously high (most of it concentrated in several small geographical pockets, which doesn’t make it okay but does mean that most of the city is far safer than the overall number indicates), the overall rate of violent crime per capita puts New Orleans better than at least 70 other American cities. In other words, rape, armed robbery, etcetera are all well down — and while horrid random acts of violence occur there, as they do in any city, they are actually less common than in many, many other places of the same size.

In short, O’Reilly and Rivera are just plain wrong on this one. The Crescent City is an exemplar not of urban decrepitude, but of hugely successful urban renaissance.

It was October of 2001 at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama. The distinctively clipped, English accent of the speaker was unmistakeable. “The protection of freedom in the world today depends on the global alliance of the English-speaking peoples,” she said.

And, as always, Margaret Thatcher was right.

This was one of the final three or four public speeches that Lady Thatcher ever gave. About six weeks later, it was announced that she had suffered a series of small strokes over the preceding three or so months — indeed, there were signs in Point Clear, as the evening wore on, of a little bit of confusion and repetitiveness from the great lady — and that she therefore would stop giving speeches. But for the first hour or so of the evening, the former British Prime Minister was very much at the top of her game, clear and eloquent and insightful.

Her point was not that English-speaking peoples are inherently superior — far from it. Her point was that the political institutions and cultures of the English-speaking peoples were the ones most respectful of liberty (the only exception, perhaps, is Switzerland), and the ones also most protective of it. The United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and increasingly India, she said, along with a few other scattered former colonies of Great Britain — all with the common heritage stemming from the British republican/constitutional system that began developing with Magna Carta — were devoted to free markets and individual liberty. If these English-speaking peoples do not stand strong for the values of liberty, and are not willing to defend them, then nobody else will do so, or at least not with effectiveness.

It was a very good point. True, and inspirational.

Margaret Thatcher, who served in Parliament with an elderly Winston Churchill, was very much a proponent of this quintessentially Churchillian worldview. Also, of course, she shared Churchill’s revulsion for Communism, especially as exemplified in the Soviet empire. And by the fall of 2001, in a new millennium, she clearly recognized international jihadism as a threat approximately as great as the one the Soviets had posed.

Domestically, meanwhile, she was far firmer than Churchill in favor of free markets, against the excesses of the welfare state and the unionized power grabs, and for limited government.

Many words will be written about what an important and effective ally she was for Ronald Reagan as Reagan led the international alliance that destroyed that Soviet empire. Many words will be written about her stalwart personal character, her courage, her intelligence, and her grace. The laudatory words will certainly be on target. She was one of the great leaders of the 20th Century — or, indeed, of any century since the Enlightenment.

On the very night that Ronald Reagan died in 2004, I happened to be in London. In fact, at approximately the moment Reagan died, I was finishing up a meal at Rules of London, sitting at a corner table, staring at a wonderful wall mural of a very well done imaginary image, somewhat whimsical, of Margaret Thatcher dressed in a suit of armor with an iron lance in her hand. The expression on her face was resolute — and serene in its resolution.

I rather imagine that Thatcher herself probably loved that mural inside London’s famous restaurant. My wife and I certainly did.

Margaret Thatcher was very much of the character of the spirit of the best of medieval chivalry — a female Lord Percival whose heart on all essential matters was pure and whose public virtue was married to unflinching courage.

Today she joined Reagan, and her beloved husband Denis, and Churchill, in the Lord’s joy. May she rest in the Lord’s peace forever.

I’m just sorry I’m not a resident of Philadelphia, because I would love to be investigated and denounced by the city’s Human Rights Commission, and by the mayor. What a bunch of freedom-killing jack-donkeys.

I refer to this excellent piece by The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway. In it, he describes how, at the mayor’s urging, Philadelphia magazine has been told to explain itself at an April 18 meeting of the commission, with regard to an article it published called “Being White in Philadelphia” in which white residents complain about how too much of public life is conducted through a racial prism. Fifty years ago, it would have been Martin Luther King Jr. who was making such a point — but now that white residents want color-blindness, the nutty mayor wants to chill the speech of those making King’s point.

There should be a special place in Hades for those who exacerbate racial tensions and who threaten our sacred freedom of speech. The editors of Philadelphia, meanwhile, ought to show up at the commission hearing and, very defiantly, give the mayor and the commission unmitigated hell — and dare them to take any action, of any kind, against the magazine.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Liz Cheney had an absolutely superb column noting that today (the 30th) is the 52nd anniversary of one of Ronald Reagan’s great speeches — three-plus years before “The Speech” on behalf of Barry Goldwater that launched Reagan’s political career. She didn’t write about the Reagan speech; she used a quote from the speech as a launch to remind conservatives what we need to fight for and, as importantly, of the fact that we do need to fight for what we believe — lest, as Reagan warned back then, we let freedom become extinct.

Please do read the column.

It struck me, when looking at the date of the speech, that it came 20 years to the day before Reagan himself almost became prematurely extinct, a the hands of would-be assassin John Hinckley. By luck, pluck, robust health, and amazingly good medical practices, Reagan somehow survived the bullet which lodged less than an inch of his heart. Had he not survived, this nation might not have survived in the way that it did. I’m not saying the United States would have disappeared, but the USA that defeated Communism might not have defeated Communism, and it might have become a shell of its former self and of what it could and should be.

We’ll never know. But we do know this: At least in large part because Reagan survived the bullet 32 years ago today, we thrived for several more decades, fulfilling the goal of his speech 52 years ago today rather than falling prey to the alternative fate about which he warned us. As Liz Cheney wrote yesterday, “We are the inheritors of these blessings of liberty, and it is our solemn duty to fight for, protect and defend our freedom. Now is the time to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and man the barricades for freedom.”

Mark Sanford may not be worth your sympathy. So, in effect, writes Robert Stacy McCain in a column describing the disgraced former South Carolina governor’s attempt to make a political comeback in an open U.S. House seat. I had noted earlier that Sanford’s problems weren’t just about sex. And in a prior column, McCain more fully described the background of Sanford’s primary opponent, Curtis Bostic.

Whomever one supports in this race, it is a campaign well worth watching. Few Republican politicians make comebacks from scandals like Sanford’s. The question is, have standards now changed?

Tim’s column on the Michigan affirmative action case is not just right on target, but superb.

I particularly like this section:

So [according to those who filed suit to force Michigan to continue racial-preference policies], non-discrimination is discriminatory?

And states across the nation must suddenly reinstate racial preferences?

Such a result is untenable judicially, logically or linguistically, and the Supreme Court has accepted the opportunity to restore reason to the matter.  Curt Levey, counsel of record in the 2003 cases challenging Michigan’s race-based admissions policies, captured the issue well:  “The Fourteenth Amendment, lest we lose sight of the forest for the trees, does not require what it barely permits.”

Or, as stated by Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2007 affirmative action case, “The way to end discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

That is exactly what Michigan voters overwhelmingly attempted to do.  It is now the Supreme Court’s task to affirm that the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause actually means what it says.

Another excellent, concise summary of the issues at stake comes in the line from Hans von Spakovsky’s blog post for the Heritage Foundation: “The Sixth Circuit’s decision cannot be justified under the law because it turns the Equal Protection Doctrine on its head, holding that when a state bans unequal treatment under the law it somehow violates the concept of equal protection under the law.”

This isn’t just some abstruse legal argument — and it has practical applications beyond just those students who will be directly affected by the decision. As I’ve found in many years of battling against the vestiges of racism by whites against blacks, no single public policy is more likely to give white racists reason to self-justify their noxious attitudes than is a regime of racial preferences. If take away “affirmative action” — which, for both moral and legal reasons, we should indeed take away — we won’t, of course, cure racists of their racism, but we will further isolate them, further shame them, and further take away their willingness to openly state or act on their racism, because they will no longer be able to cite “affirmative action” as an excuse for them to feel unfairly treated just for being white. Moreover, I’ve found that it’s amazing how many people will actually change their ill behavior if they no longer think they can justify it in what they consider to be polite company.

Racial preferences sometimes stigmatize the recipients, often (as per U.S. Civil Rights Commission Gail Heriot) harm their own interests, and greatly exacerbate racial tensions. For all those reasons, as well as for the excellent reasons put forth by Tim, the time has come for such preferences to end.

MacAoidh, lead blogger at the Hayride in Louisiana, follows up my column today with a brilliant and detailed analysis of the state of play in the Bayou State with regard to shenanigans by Tom Perez and the Civil Rights Division concerning Louisiana’s voter rolls.

The Hayride explains that Perez has led  ”a frivolous and abusive lawsuit against the state of Louisiana under the Motor Voter law, in which a state where some 84 percent of eligible adults are registered to vote (4th in the nation) somehow doesn’t register welfare recipients to vote with sufficient vigor at the offices where public benefits are dispensed.”

The Hayride explains why making, uh, hay of this lawsuit and the Perez judicial nomination should be seen as “political manna from heaven” for Louisiana conservatives.

Well worth a read.

Eric Scheiner of CNS News has a quacking good story out about one of the ponds into which our federal tax dollars are sunk. The opening sentence tells you most of what you want — or don’t want — to know: “The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $384,949 grant to Yale University for a study on ‘Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia.'”

How do they do this study? Do they go around goosing the ducks? Why hasn’t anyone called fowl on this waste of money? If there were any justice, this report should be the swan song for whomever approved this study.

I almost hate to print this next sentence from the CNS story, but it appears as if the researchers think that when it comes to ducks doing something that rhymes with duck, size really does matter: “According to the NSF grant abstract the study shows that age, environment and breeding changes can impact the penis length of certain ducks.”

Hey, Mr. President: Sequester this!

Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who did yeoman’s work in helping expose the racialist agenda of the Holder Justice Department and especially its Civil Rights Division under Thomas Perez, has now come out with a scathing letter expressing serious reservations about Barack Obama’s nomination of Perez to be Secretary of Labor.

Kirsanow writes that the nomination “merits extremely close scrutiny by senators from both parties, for several concerns about Perez’s record as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice transcend partisanship and ideology.”

And:

The Civil Rights Division refused to answer 18 separate interrogatories pertaining to the substance of the [New Black Panther voter intimidation] case. The Division also failed to provide witness statements for 12 key witnesses and refused to respond to 22 requests for production of documents. Further, DOJ barred two Civil Rights Division attorneys from testifying before the Commission (the two later defied the Department and testified at considerable risk to their professional careers). The Department refused to turn over a number of requested documents, asserting a variety of specious privileges. In response, the Commission requested a privilege log, i.e., a list of those documents DOJ maintained were protected by privilege and therefore not subject to production. DOJ failed to produce such a log.

After a lawsuit finally forced production of the log, the record was such that,

As Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia diplomatically stated in his opinion, DOJ’s internal documents “appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony [before the Commission] that political leadership was not involved” in the decision to dismiss the NBPP case.

After detailing even more concerns about Perez, Kirsanow concluded: “All of these things should be of tremendous concern to all senators, regardless of party, when considering the president’s choice of Thomas Perez for labor secretary. They should, at minimum, be the subjects of extensive questioning of the nominee.”

The battle over Perez’ nomination promises to be very contentious, indeed.

A day (or a quarter of a day) early, Happy Birthday (262nd) to the “Father of the Constitution.” He’s my favorite American, ever. All of us are in his debt.

That is all.

I’ve never understood why John McCain is so irascible, so prone to truly nasty remarks and actions towards colleagues and towards those on the right who may disagree with him on certain issues, and in general such an unpleasant person so much of the time. I’ll never understand it. But I do know this: McCain is a patriot and a brave and courageous man who suffered for his country. Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of his release from brutal captivity at the hands of the North Vietnamese. He wrote about it in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, here. Showing the considerable better angels of his nature, he focused not at all on his suffering, but on reconciliation with the Vietnamese. It was a gracious and generous column, thoroughly admirable.

I salute McCain for his column, and for his service. So should we all.

This has some really important stuff in it. Please read.

Below is a section of the IG report on the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, amply confirming longstanding allegations by Christian Adams, Chris Coates, Hans von Spakovsky, and others that the division is full of people who are openly hostile to the very notion that civil rights laws merit race-neutral enforcement. The section is chilling.

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed

a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the

Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its

chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys

and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the

VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of

White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was

widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career

staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White

voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some

career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to

Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the

case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made

disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In

particular, the intern recalled being questioned directly and indirectly about

why he participated in this trial and told the OIG that Voting Section personnel

made comments like: “You know why they asked you to go down there,” “They

used you as a token,” and “People are saying, ‘Why did you go down there?’”

According to a memorandum drafted by Section management summarizing the

incidents, the intern told a Section manager that the Voting Section employees

informed him that someone who was attending the trial was reporting his

activities and, therefore, the employees knew exactly where he was sitting in

the courtroom and what he did at the trial.

Section Chief Tanner subsequently announced that files on one of the drives would be locked

to prevent employees from accessing such documents without permission. It appears that the

decision to lock the computer files most likely resulted from the discovery of what the team

member had done. However, we were unable to question Tanner regarding this matter because

he refused to be interviewed by the OIG.

121

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In particular, the intern Read more…

Wow, the new information on apparent Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez is coming fast and, uh, furious, today. The new IG report, referred to in the post below, includes this conclusion about Perez’ truthfulness under oath:

we found that

Perez’s testimony did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of

political appointees in NBPP decision-making. In particular, Perez’s

characterizations omitted that Associate Attorney General Perrelli and Deputy

Associate Attorney General Hirsch were involved in consultations about the

decision, as shown in testimony and contemporaneous e-mails. Specifically,

they set clear outer limits on what King and Rosenbaum could decide on the

NBPP matter (including prohibiting them from dismissing the case in its

entirety) without seeking additional approval from the Office of the Associate

Attorney General. In addition, Perrelli and Hirsch advised against a course of

action that Acting DAAG Rosenbaum said he was considering – namely,

submitting an amended complaint to address certain factual assertions – and

Hirsch edited the motion papers to be submitted to the court.

we found that Perez’s testimony did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of political appointees in NBPP decision-making. In particular, Perez’s characterizations omitted that Associate Attorney General Perrelli and Deputy Associate Attorney General Hirsch were involved in consultations about the decision, as shown in testimony and contemporaneous e-mails. Specifically, they set clear outer limits on what King and Rosenbaum could decide on the NBPP matter (including prohibiting them from dismissing the case in its entirety) without seeking additional approval from the Office of the Associate Attorney General. In addition, Perrelli and Hirsch advised against a course of action that Acting DAAG Rosenbaum said he was considering – namely, submitting an amended complaint to address certain factual assertions – and Hirsch edited the motion papers to be submitted to the court.

….[AND]

In his OIG interview, Perez said he did not believe that these incidents constituted political appointees being “involved” in the decision. We believe that these facts evidence “involvement” in the decision by political appointees within the ordinary meaning of that word, and that Perez’s acknowledgment, in his statements on behalf of the Department, that political appointees were briefed on and could have overruled this decision did not capture the full extent of that involvement.