Lyin' Joe Biden's IRS is auditing the middle class, not the rich as promised

 Discussed here:

 "As of last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with income of less than $200,000," reports the Journal. "Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of audits covered filers earning less than $1 million." ... 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was a bit sassier. "Contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited," she wrote in a letter to Rettig. ...

The IRS had set a goal of hiring 3,700 new agents in the first year of boosted funding. Instead, in the first six months, they'd hired 34.

Awkwardly, "revenue agent staffing had actually decreased by 8%, or more than 650 employees, between the end of fiscal 2019 and March 2023," per a previous watchdog report. And it's not just hiring that's in trouble: The agency has completed just 33 percent of its fiscal year 2023 milestones outlined in its strategic operating plan, which is…tough given that the year is over.

Rod Dreher goes hunting a confederacy of dunces, bags prey from The Week, National Review, Religion News Service, The New Republic, Reason, NYMag, and Vox

 

Joel Kotkin has come around, now calls it what it is: Global fascism

In 2018, Kotkin was still tip-toeing around the obvious, but not anymore:

Mussolini’s notion of fascism has become increasingly dominant in much of the world . . .

Mussolini, a one-time radical socialist, viewed himself as a “revolutionary” transforming society by turning the state into “the moving centre of economic life”. In Italy and, to a greater extent, Germany, fascism also brought with it, at least initially, an expanded highly populist welfare state much as we see today.

Mussolini’s idea of a an economy controlled from above, with generous benefits but dominated by large business interests, is gradually supplanting the old liberal capitalist model. ...

fascism — in its corporate sense — relies on concentrated economic power to achieve its essential and ideological goals. ...

China, in many aspects the model fascist state of our times, follows Il Duce’s model of cementing the corporate elite into the power structure. ...

But in the battle between the two emergent fascist systems, China possesses powerful advantages. Communist Party cadres at least offer more than a moralising agenda; they can point to the country’s massive reduction of extreme poverty and a huge growth in monthly wages, up almost five-fold since 2006. At a time when the middle class is shrinking in the West, China’s middle class increased enormously from 1980 to 2000, although its growth appears to have slowed in recent years.

Like Mussolini, who linked his regime to that of Ancient Rome, China’s rulers look to Han supremacy and the glories of China’s Imperial past. “The very purpose of the [Chinese Communist] Party in leading the people in revolution and development,” Xi Jinping told party cadres a decade ago, “is to make the people prosperous, the country strong, and [to] rejuvenate the Chinese nation.”

Kotkin recognizes at least that American right-wing libertarianism is part of the problem, not part of the solution:

the consolidation of oligarchic power is supported by massive lobbying operations and dispersals of cash, including to some Right-wing libertarians, who doggedly justify censorship and oligopoly on private property grounds.

Regrettably, however, Kotkin still does not connect this failure of the old liberal order in the West with the failure of the old moral order which gave it birth and on which it depended. This is because Kotkin still sees things in primarily materialistic terms.

Kotkin is oddly politically correct when he denounces possible recourse to nativism, which blinds him to the nativism which is at the heart of Chinese state capitalism and gives it much of its appeal and strength. He calls for "a re-awakening of the spirit of resistance to authority" in the West, not realizing that it was Protestantism which made that even possible in the first place.

The problem of the West is spiritual, and Catholicism will never be able to rise to the occasion of refounding it as long as globo-homo defines Rome. The whole idea is inimical to the notion of founding a nation "for our posterity".

For some reason Peter Meijer, Justin Amash's replacement, feels the need to parade his combat cred, basically admits to mental illness: "fully uniformed", "parachute in ... not literally", "a through and through combatant"

Here, apparently because some people doubt it. He did, after all, bail out of West Point and will forever live with the stigma.

Read the whole thing and you'll see the freshman congressman is already psychoanalyzing his colleagues while admitting to the need for some himself.

Unbelievable. This is what we elect to Congress. A rich kid trying to be somebody.

There's a lot of things I respect about Rep. Amash. At the end of the day, you're going to be your own person. I think much of my approach is guided by my experiences overseas. I was fully uniformed, a through-and-through combatant in Iraq; I'd do intelligence operations. That gave me one vantage point. When I was working in disaster response efforts around the world, you—not literally, but kind of—parachute into an area, whether it was the Philippines or South Sudan, domestic response for tornadoes and hurricanes. You have to make a little bit of order out of the chaos. And then when I was in Afghanistan later for a couple of years, as a conflict analyst for the humanitarian aid community, that was a very different perspective, too. But I saw a sense of, how do things fall apart and how can they be rebuilt? ...

We've inserted ourselves into the middle of civil wars; we've taken sides. Sometimes those sides switch. In Iraq, we're backing the Sunnis one time, we're backing the Shia the other. In Afghanistan, it becomes a shifting set of alliances.

Ultimately I think that erodes something at the core of our national soul that we kind of paper over. That's something that I'll have to sit on a therapist's couch to better understand.

Club for Growth and Freedom Works both stop funding Justin Amash, so he'll just have to tap the family Chinese tool company fortune made on the backs of America's downward-spiraling middle class

Story here, whose author has probably never once in his life seriously thought about trimming legislative power overreach.

Democrat Socialists of America, the party of AOC and Rashida Tlaib, vote to work more closely with violent Antifa

Story.

Standing ovation for Justin Amash for his impeachment support must have come from Democrats

Shock Poll: Amash Down 16 Points in Republican Primary:

First survey since the libertarian’s impeachment comments shows big lead for pro-Trump challenger

Memo to Erick Erickson: One of Justin Amash's so-called pro-life principles is that it's OK to abort up to 3-days from conception

Which has been public knowledge since at least March 2013, at the start of the third year of his tenure, but y'all too damn lazy to think about that, or too damn hypocritical to care. I vote both.

Why not up to 4 days?

Why not 4.2?

Why not 42, since 42 is the answer to everything?

How about through the first trimester?

The second?

How about after delivery on Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's desk?

It's laughable to insist Amash has principles when all they are is positions, but it's even funnier to say he's an originalist:

Whether you like Justin Amash or not, he is inarguably one of the more principled members of the Republican conference in the House of Representatives. Amash is willing to take unpopular stands in the name of principle. He is willing to defy his party because of those principles. Amash is one of the more easily predictable members of Congress in how he votes because of his principles. Amash believes in the rule of law, limited government, and an originalist interpretation of the constitution.

Originalism is such tosh. The original Constitution had no income tax, accepted slavery, provided a mechanism for the natural growth of representation, knew nothing of women's suffrage, had legislatures elect senators, and knew only sound money. Justin Amash is not known for any of these causes. He's known only for thwarting the causes of others, Republicans' mostly. All he cares about, maybe, is the Constitution as it is, not as it should be, and as real conservatives know, the current Constitution is a mess, otherwise luminaries like Mark Levin wouldn't be proposing a raft of amendments to fix it.

All this hubbub is about is Amash's Trump hatred.

Which is why NeverTrumper Erick Erickson has weighed in on Amash's side.

A. Barton Hinkle shows once again that libertarianism is of the left, not the right

Here:

[B]oth parties have grown more extreme in recent years. Congressional Republicans certainly have. Congressional Democrats tend to be more moderate, relatively speaking.

The perception that the Democrats haven't shifted radically left in recent years is due to libertarianism agreeing with what that shift represents more than disagreeing with it. And frankly, the evidence A. Barton Hinkle cites shows how the whole country has indeed shifted left. Not completely, obviously, but shift left it has, and that libertarians can't see that tells you more about libertarianism than libertarianism tells you about libertarianism.

It's not that Republicans have become more extreme. It's that the country's shift to the left has isolated them. And Democrat positions are only "moderate" in the sense that they are now more widely shared. It's the growing isolation of Republican conservatism in the face of these which only makes it seem extreme. It would be more accurate to say that Republican positions have become anachronistic, not extreme.

Hence much of the recent evidence cited by Hinkle which demonstrates where Americans are united today is of the "shift-left" variety, including:

62% now believe in gay marriage when for generations the vast majority of Americans did not, and for millennia human beings did not, and anti-sodomy laws still dotted the land up to 2003;

73% now favor utopian pipe dreams of "alternative energy" when it was coal, oil and nuclear which made America the industrial powerhouse of the world;

73% now unsurprisingly favor euthanasia just 44 years after the Supreme Court made it legal to murder unborn children;

83% favor "medical marijuana" despite the evidence of its risks for human health and well-being;

85% want to let the Dreamers stay;

90% favor universal background checks for weapons purchases;

83% disavow "extremist bigotry" under the influence of multiculturalist indoctrination in American public schools.

And libertarians are pretty much on board with these things, along with most Democrats. That's why all the action is in the Republican Party. The war for its soul continues to animate the present time. The Democrat soul already belongs to the devil.  

Trump flips on Ex-Im Bank

Reported here:

His budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on CNBC (transcript via Reason) Wednesday that Trump was now pro-Ex-Im, and the president himself professed his love for Boeing's bank to the Wall Street Journal:

The president said he planned to fill two vacancies on the bank's board, which has been effectively paralyzed with three open seats on its five-member board.

"It turns out that, first of all, lots of small companies are really helped, the vendor companies," Mr. Trump said. "But also, maybe more important, other countries give [assistance]. When other countries give it we lose a tremendous amount of business." ...

"Instinctively, you would say, 'Isn't that a ridiculous thing,'" Mr. Trump said of the Ex-Im Bank. "But actually, it's a very good thing. And it actually makes money, it could make a lot of money."

ObamaCare Update: Trump policy induces IRS to say leave form 1040 line 61 blank if you want

From the story here:

The IRS was set to require filers to indicate whether they had maintained coverage in 2016 or paid the penalty by filling out line 61 on their form 1040s. Alternatively, they could claim exemption from the mandate by filing a form 8965.

For most filers, filling out line 61 would be mandatory. The IRS would not accept 1040s unless the coverage box was checked, or the shared responsibility payment noted, or the exemption form included. Otherwise they would be labeled "silent returns" and rejected.

Instead, however, filling out that line will be optional.

Earlier this month, the IRS quietly altered its rules to allow the submission of 1040s with nothing on line 61. The IRS says it still maintains the option to follow up with those who elect not to indicate their coverage status, although it's not clear what circumstances might trigger a follow up.

But what would have been a mandatory disclosure will instead be voluntary. Silent returns will no longer be automatically rejected. The change is a direct result of the executive order President Donald Trump issued in January directing the government to provide relief from Obamacare to individuals and insurers, within the boundaries of the law.

James Robart, who is trying to stop Trump, is a so-called judge because of his handling of a sexual assault case

And because he knows the courts have understood immigration to be the province of the president but doesn't care. His is pure political grandstanding in the matter, to make himself popular with people like Ben Sasse.

From the story here:

A judge recently blocked Doe's attempt to subpoena his female accuser's text messages on grounds that re-litigating the matter "would impose emotional and psychological trauma" on her.

Consider the implications of this decision. According to Seattle District Judge James Robart, a student who believes Amherst violated his due process rights, wrongfully expelled him, and ignored subsequent evidence that his accuser, "Sandra Jones," was the actual violator of the college's sexual misconduct policies, does not deserve the opportunity to make his case because someone else's feelings are more important.

Not a conservative A. Barton Hinkle complains Trump is not a conservative

Here.

What he means is Trump is not a libertarian. To Hinkle, Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois is a "leading intellectual light" of conservatism.

There he goes again, Bogarting that joint.

Reason dot com caves to the tyranny's censors

Libertarianism doesn't really believe in what it says it believes in, and can't save you from what's coming. They fold like a house of cards.

Seen here:

"Wielding subpoenas demanding information on anonymous commenters, the government is harassing a respected journalism site that dissents from its policies. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York claims these comments could constitute violent threats, even though they’re clearly hyperbolic political rhetoric. ... Reason has since removed the offending comments."

Libertarians will never boldly go where no man has gone before

That's because they'll be retreating underground to their inner planet "Galt".

Libertarians hate the original Star Trek on television for some reason, more than any other show (the riveting "24" also does poorly with them). Who knew?

The story is here.

Except that libertarian Justin Amash likes to imagine Thomas Massie is his X-Wing Starfighter wingman in the Rebel Alliance. He said so with a Lego toy a year ago.

Maybe it's time to raise the qualification age to run for Congress? 

Libertarians are really about restricting people less, which makes them liberals not conservatives

From The New York Times, here:

[Nick] Gillespie [of Reason Magazine] was unimpressed by Ronald Reagan, who declared a new “war on drugs,” raised the national drinking age to 21, raised all sorts of taxes, preserved Social Security which Gillespie regards as federally mandated generational theft) and in general claimed to champion American individualism while squashing it every chance he got.

“I was never conservative,” he told me as we sipped our gin. “Republicans always saw libertarians as nice to have around in case they wanted to score some weed, and we always knew where there was a party. And for a while it made sense to bunk up with them. But after a while, it would be like, ‘So if we agree on limited government, how about opening the borders?’ No, that’s crazy. ‘How about legalizing drugs? How about giving gays equal rights?’ No, come on, be serious. And so I thought, There’s nothing in this for me.”

". . . Part of why I’m a libertarian is that if you restrict people less, interesting stuff happens.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conservatives restrict themselves. If libertarians restrict anything, it just shows their incoherence.

Damn those speed limit and stop signs, and those cops, which keep me and my kid safe on the way to school, except less so now thanks to libertarianism in places like Colorado, where the interesting stuff which is happening is more traffic accident deaths due to marijuana legalization.

Libertarians. Malcontents. Sectarians. 

Justin Amash Is Consistently Pro-Life . . . Except For The First Three Days Of It

When Amash was asked about the appropriate time frame limit [to] abortion rights, he said, “I think that where we have it now is not correct. It should be closer to the point of conception, and whether it’s instantly or the first three days, I think that’s more sensible. That’s what I think would be correct.” (March 2013, here)

To Representative Justin Amash, Abortion Is OK Only When You're Just A Little Bit Pregnant

Sometimes you can't hide it when you gotta go.

Seen here (source here):

When Amash was asked about the appropriate time frame limit [to] abortion rights, he said, “I think that where we have it now is not correct. It should be closer to the point of conception, and whether it’s instantly or the first three days, I think that’s more sensible. That’s what I think would be correct.”

So much for libertarian consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds.

Like most libertarians, the schizophrenia gives way either as you mature, or when you're thinking about running for Senate in a liberal state, revealing the beating heart of a liberal underneath.

The phenomenon works in reverse, too: John McCain ran as a conservative in Arizona to keep his Senate seat ("President Obama is on a left-wing crusade to bankrupt America"), and then promptly went right back to being the turd in the Republican punchbowl.

Give Us A President So Depressed He Can Hardly Get Out Of Bed

So opines Gene Healy for Reason, here:

[T]he conventional wisdom overvalues presidents who enjoy the job. In his influential 1972 book The Presidential Character, political scientist James David Barber argued that we should pick presidents by their personality type. The "active-positive" president—the ideal voters should seek—tackles the job with manic energy and zest and "gives forth the feeling that he has fun in political life." The "passive-negative" sees the office as a matter of stern duty, and his "tendency is to withdraw." Among Barber's "active-positives" were troublemakers FDR, Truman, and JFK; his "passive-negatives" included the Cincinnatus-like figures Washington, Eisenhower, and, of course, Coolidge. Maybe we should only give the job to people who are so depressed they can barely get out of bed.

I Don't Call Sen. Jim DeMint "Demented" For Nothing

Here he is in all his confused glory:

"I think the new debate in the Republican Party needs to be between conservatives and libertarians. We have a common foundation of individual liberty and constitutionally limited government, and we can rationally debate some of the things we disagree on. I don’t think the government should impose my morals or anyone else’s on someone else, but at the same time I don’t want the government purging morals and religious values from our society. We can find a balance there. It really gets back to decentralization. The tolerance is going to come from decentralization and letting people make their own decisions, but we have to be able to put up with societal stigma of things we don’t like."

No, we don't have a common foundation.

Libertarians believe in freedom as license. Conservatives believe in ordered liberty, that there cannot be true freedom unless we respect the transcendent moral order. In recent times libertarians were easily allied with Democrats on social issues, and finally gave up on that and moved rightward on economic concerns. In doing so they demonstrated their unprincipled shape-shifting for what it is, and that Republicans have been too stupid to reject them. For example, I can't recall a single prominent Republican or so-called conservative descrying the many Republican victories spoiled by libertarians in either of the recent elections in 2010 and 2012. What is more we have idiot conservatives like Sarah Palin telling us we must make room for libertarians in the Republican Party while the Libertarian Party itself is encouraged by the races it has spoiled for Republicans by electing Democrats. This from the woman who vigorously supported John McCain and TARP.

Libertarians are not natural allies of conservatives, but they are of Republicans just as they are of Democrats, because the Republican Party has been liberalized beyond recognition. That a so-called conservative like Jim DeMint is friendly toward libertarianism tells you all you need to know about the state of conservatism in America. Conservatism in America is really and truly dead.

One of the favorite ideas of libertarians illustrates my point. The idea comes by analogy from Adam Smith's invisible hand at work in economics, namely, that the electorate always gets it right (Jude Wanniski). Is there a Republican who voted for Romney saying any such thing anywhere in the country now that Obama is re-elected? I doubt it. But that is the position of John Tamny and his ilk at Forbes Magazine. John Tamny, by the way, would like you to be a completely rootless person, with no house, no wife, no children, paying no property taxes for good schools and contributing no commitment to church and community but owning just two bags and a passport so that his beloved capitalist boss can send you wherever and whenever he needs you.

Good government, as the Scriptures teach, is a terror to bad behavior, not to good. That means there are moral absolutes, against which all libertarians do chafe, now more, now less, starting with "It is not good that the man should be alone."

To Demented Jim there are no such absolutes. He's a moral relativist who doesn't have the courage of his own moral convictions. "My morals" he says, as if they belong only to him and didn't come from the Author of Life. St. Paul, I remind you, ridiculed the Corinthian Christians for such an attitude, saying "What do you have that you did not receive?" Our faults are as ancient as the way of escape.

The Heritage Foundation had become reprehensible enough for having embraced Reagan liberalism, which contributed materially to what became the tyranny of the ObamaCare mandates. Now Heritage is to be headed up by the confused conservative DeMint, if he really isn't just a stealth libertarian. Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know about Heritage, that it remains to this day so intellectually confused about the meaning of conservatism that it welcomes a libertarian sleeper?

Conservatives should revolt against Heritage's choice of Sen. Jim DeMint, but don't count on it. I reckon there are only 500,000 of us in the whole country, and that's being generous. In the end, Sen. DeMint and Heritage will come to nothing, and the Republicans too if they are not careful.

"SAVE YOURSELVES FROM THIS CROOKED GENERATION!"