David French reports at Patheos that the IRS has been targeting families who adopt children for audits.
Sixty-nine percent of all adoption credit claims during the 2012 filing season were selected for audit.
Congress created the tax incentives for adoption in order to make it possible for more families to be able to afford the process. The IRS, an organization that has all the appearance of corruption, needs to be abolished and replaced.
The tax gatherers and their facilitators among our betters in the Congress are bent out of shape because for-profit entities such as Apple don’t voluntarily pay more taxes than they owe under the tax code. Charles C. W. Cooke explains their reasoning thus:
Along with “loophole,” “gimmick” is the voracious Left’s newest way of describing “compliance with our rules.”
BTW, Apple is the largest single tax payer to the U. S. Treasury, paying around $16,000,000 per day. The government manages to spend its daily collection from Apple by 12:03 am.
These are the folks who want to run your health care.
An IRS executive took the Fifth today. You know, I wish the IRS would take only a fifth of my income.
If they’re looking for a YouTube video to blame, …
(H/T, Instapundit) Well, yes, those of us who were working in the news business back in the early ’70s do see certain similarities to Nixon.
I have to tell you that is exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took. They said, “These are all second-rate things. We don’t have time for this. We have to devote our time to the people’s business.” You’re taking exactly the same line they did.
Yes, but what other line is left for them? The White House staff clearly isn’t able to tell the truth. Consider Preiffer’s rant to Chris Wallace about the irrelevance of facts.
What did the President know, and when did he know it? And where was he and what was he doing when he got told?
You know, I’m beginning to look forward to the day when this generation’s Fred Thompson asks the analogous question to “Mr. Butterfield, were you aware of the existence of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?”
UPDATE—Stacy McCain offers the Cliffs Notes version of the White House response: “Shut up, Republicans!”
No, really. Brad Friedman wrote that on his blog, The Brad Blog (No, I won’t link to it). (H/T, @rsmccain) Here’s his headline:
IRS ‘Scandal’ Appears Nearly as Phony as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, ACORN ‘Scandals’
BTW, Friedman also says that there’s no scandal about Benghazi either.
Of course, Mr. Friedman, who is a cofounder with Brett Kimberlin of Velvet Revolution US and who is listed in VRUS’s most recent IRS Form 990 as a Director of that organization, probably has no objection to strict analysis of right wing nut job outfits by the IRS. How would he feel about an audit of VRUS?
Stacy McCain has further comments on the broader issues of 501(c)4 tax exempt organizations here.
UPDATE—At 9 am ET, 19 May, The Brad Blog was unavailable.
UPDATE 2—At noon ET, 19 May, The Brad Blog was back up.
I don’t know, Brain … having the IRS audit the Justice Department’s phone calls about Benghazi … I mean, who would be left to blame for the next scandal?
UPDATE—
The IRS executive who ran the enhanced scrutiny of Tea Party organizations is now in charge of the IRS’s Obamacare operations.
Everybody look what’s goin’ down.
And then you pay for what you got. Folks elected a Chicago politician, and now they’re surprised by scandals.
Go figure.
… then, the Jews, and now, Billy Graham.
UPDATE—and a St. Louis local news anchor who asked the wrong questions.
The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.
—Hillary Clinton
And then there was last week, one of those exceptions that proves the rule—especially for the Main Stream Media. Da Tech Guy has some thoughts on conventional wisdom, Benghazi, the IRS, and gun control.
The same agency that abused its regulatory power with Tea Party and Jewish tax exempt organizations will have access to your health records under Obamacare.
I’m beginning to hear rumblings of “just like Watergate” in discussions of both the Benghazi and IRS v. Tea Party stories.
Really? Watergate, after all, was only a third-rate burglary according the administration in the White House at the time.
I suppose that having a body count has kept the White House from pooh-poohing the attack on the consulate as merely a “third-world mugging,” but the IRS story is already being pitched as overzealous low-level workers exceeding their authority.
Ah, what difference, at this point, does it make?
Not long after the attack on the consulate, the President answered a Denver newsman’s question about Benghazi with these words:
I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure we are securing our personnel and that we are doing whatever we need to. Number two, we are going to investigate exactly what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.
We know from Greg Hick’s testimony that special forces were ordered to stand down rather than provide assistance. Why wasn’t the President’s order (number one above) carried out? If it was, in fact, given?
… the Administration is in a heap of trouble. Here’s what Mark Mardell, the Beeb‘s North American Editor says:
The new documents contain two rationales for the changes in language. The first is that it would prejudice the FBI investigation. Perhaps, but I am not at all persuaded.
The other reason given – old-fashioned butt-guarding – is more credible. However you read the motives, the state department and apparently the White House did get the CIA to change its story.
This is now very serious, and I suspect heads will roll. The White House will be on the defensive for a while.
This is, as one former President put it, deep doo-doo.
Is this the latest one?
Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius. Indeed, rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
Stacy McCain has a post up analyzing the Democrats “How Dare You?” defense of the Benghazi fiasco.
It seems to me that the Democrats’ positions is best summed up by the remark made by Rep. Simpson (D-Springfield)—
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.
UPDATE—Roger L. Simon reflects on Hillary de Medici.
Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
—Bertrand Russell
Sanford returns to Congress.
Do you remember the commercial Hillary Clinton ran during the 2008 primaries about who should get that 3 am phone call? The implication was that Barack Obama wasn’t the right person, and that has turned out to be true all too often.
Reading this piece by Paul Mirengoff over at Powerline, it seems that Mrs. Clinton would have been (and still probably is) a poor choice too.
BTW, the first shots were fired in Benghazi around 4 pm Washington time when folks were supposed to be awake.
Jim Geraghty quotes a White House official in today’s Morning Jolt email as saying this about Assad in Syria:
If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?
An interesting question. An ancient rabbi framed it this way:
A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.”
Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?
We may not be called to put boots on the ground, but should we just pass by on the other side of the road? Our leaders have made a difficult place for themselves. And for us.
Mayor Bloomberg was denied a second slice of pizza at a Brooklyn eatery.
I’m sorry sir, there’s nothing I can do. Maybe you could go to several restaurants and get one slice at each. At least that way you’re walking. You know, burning calories.
Hizzoner had to walk down the street for his second slice.
I wonder … how soon the restaurant will have its next round of inspections?
UPDATE–If it were only true …
