Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

When we show up, we win.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Season of Giving

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Season of Giving

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Saturday Morning Open Thread 14

(Ozy & Millie via GoComics.com)


Wish they’d assigned this story to somebody other than Anklebiter Annie Linskey, but still:

… “I thought we had some of those major victories. We finally crossed the threshold,” Biden told the students and their families gathered inside a gymnasium for the event. “But what I didn’t realize is you can defeat hate, but you can’t eliminate it.”

Raising his voice, Biden said: “And when given oxygen by political leaders it comes out, ugly and mean as it was before. We can’t give it any oxygen. We have to step on it. We have to respond to it.”

The mostly Black crowd gave Biden his biggest applause as he continued: “It’s not who we are. It’s a minority, but if the majority doesn’t speak up it has a profound impact, as we’ve seen in the last few years.”…

The president came at the request of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who graduated from the university 60 years ago but did not have the chance to walk and receive his diploma in person…

“People give me credit for his resounding victory here in South Carolina, but he deserved it,” Clyburn said. “And I said to him way back before the election that I didn’t want him to forget South Carolina, and he’s demonstrating with this visit that he’s not going to forget South Carolina.”

Clyburn said Friday that he arranged for Biden to give the address after the university’s president originally offered him the slot. During Friday’s ceremony Biden handed Clyburn a diploma…

Biden has said that he’s open to a last-minute push on a voting rights bill this year — he said Friday that a new “sinister” combination of voter suppression and election subversion is “un-American.”

“It’s undemocratic and sadly, it is unprecedented since Reconstruction,” Biden said.

In his most partisan remarks, he blamed Republicans for using the filibuster to block a voting rights bill. “Each and every time it gets to be brought up that other team blocks the ability even to start to discuss it,” Biden said. “The team used to be called the Republican Party.”…

Speaking of giving, if you still need a stocking stuffer…

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  3. 3.

    JPL

    About time

    In his most partisan remarks, he blamed Republicans for using the filibuster to block a voting rights bill. “Each and every time it gets to be brought up that other team blocks the ability even to start to discuss it,” Biden said. “The team used to be called the Republican Party.”…

  4. 4.

    Spanky

    I agree the WaPo is the one national rag to subscribe to, if you’re going to do such a thing. For me it’s local, so the Weather section comes in handy too.

    Plus Alexandra Petrie.

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    “It’s undemocratic and sadly, it is unprecedented since Reconstruction Jim Crow,” Biden said.

    FTFY, Joe. I’m far from the only one here who’s old enough to remember that shit. (And so is Biden, for that matter. Could black people vote in Delaware when Biden was a kid?)

  6. 6.

    raven

    In news that almost no-one here will care about, youtube tv lost all the Disney Channels in a dispute meaning that all the ESPN’s, SEC, ACC, and Big Ten networks are gone. This all started as a “cord cutter” idea but the same thing that has happened to cable is happening to streaming services. I can’t imagine how youtube tv is going to survive this but since most BJ’rs don’t watch tv it won’t matter much here.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s Drunken Aunties Christmas Cookie Night, dog help me. I may or may not tweet photos of the product.

    @Spanky: Petri alone is worth the subscription price. Her recent column on the ultra-fungible Melania Trump’s NFT scheme is priceless!

  8. 8.

    raven

    @Spanky: I just went to CVS and got two rapid tests. The nice lady only wanted to sell me one but she relented after I sweet talked her.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Post of Christmas past.

    As far as the product goes, I can take it or leave it. As far as holiday-themed spots go, venerable now, an instantaneous impactful classic then. For those not around at the time, it is difficult to convey just what a splash the original campaign made.

    Oh, and an unrelated media note.

    Hardly great but definitely different, On Borrowed Time airs on TCM Sunday at 6 a.m. Eastern time. Crusty codger and grandson snag and quarantine Death in a tree.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    That Ozy & Millie cartoon worries me. Do most people only limit their retributive fantasies to a mere low blow with a sock full of coins?  Maybe I read too much Poe as a child.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In October 2005, Bob Innes bought the website domain name “rentahitman.com.” It was the dotcom era and he was a business school student in North Carolina trying to advertise website traffic analysis services: the “hit” was a nod to clicks coming in on a client’s website.

    “It was simply a play on words,” he says now, when contacted via email for an interview.

    Little did he know that come 2021, he would be involved in hundreds of legal cases, handing people to the police for trying to solicit assassin services. This week, one woman was found guilty, after trying to have her husband killed through Innes’ website.

    But in 2005, with business far from booming, Innes moved on from his plans for a network analysis business with a catchy name. He graduated; his friends who collaborated with him on the site found full-time jobs. But Innes held on to the domain name in the hopes that someone might buy it one day.

    No one bought the site, and it continued to exist in the background of Innes’ life. Then, in 2010, he returned to its inbox out of curiosity and was stunned to find a client – just not the type he had been looking for.

    Innes had received a message from a woman named Helen. She was stranded in Canada, had lost her passport, and wanted three family members in the UK murdered for screwing her out of her father’s inheritance. He didn’t respond. But she persisted: sending a second email, which included names, addresses and other corroborating information. Innes felt compelled to act. So he responded, feigning to have the capability to do what was being asked of him.

    “Do you still require our assistance? We can place you in contact with a Field Operative,” he replied, stepping into character.

    Within hours, Innes was in possession of the legal name, location, and phone number of a woman he thought was capable of serious harm. “I truly felt that three people’s lives were in jeopardy,” he says. Innes turned her in, and soon found out from detectives that ‘Helen’ was wanted in the UK on extraditable warrants for “more serious charges”.

    It was at this point Innes realized his $9.20 website provided a little more value than he’d initially bargained for: he had just saved the lives of three people.

    He figures he’s up to about 150 lives saved. Talk about unexpected consequences.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Uh oh:

    This week, ice scientists meeting in New Orleans warned that something even more alarming was brewing on the West Antarctic ice sheet – a vast basin of ice on the Antarctic peninsula. Years of research by teams of British and American researchers showed that great cracks and fissures had opened up both on top of and underneath the Thwaites glacier, one of the biggest in the world, and it was feared that parts of it, too, may fracture and collapse possibly within five years or less.

    Thwaites makes Larsen B look like an icicle. It is roughly 100 times larger, about the size of Britain, and contains enough water on its own to raise sea levels worldwide by more than half a metre. It contributes about 4% of annual global sea level rise and has been called the most important glacier in the world, even the “doomsday” glacier. Satellite studies show it is melting far faster than it did in the 1990s.

    Thwaites is worrisome, but there are many other great glaciers in Antarctica also retreating, thinning and melting as the Southern Ocean warms. Many are being held back because Thwaites acts like a cork, blocking their exit to the sea. Should Thwaites fall apart, scientists believe the others would speed up, leading to the collapse of the whole ice sheet and catastrophic global sea level rises of several metres.

    Whether and how quickly they may collapse are some of the most important questions of the age. Sea levels are rising fast: the annual rate of increase more than doubling from 1.4mm to 3.6mm between 2006 and 2015, and accelerating. A few millimetres a year does not sound much but the loss of even a small part of Thwaites would not just help to speed this up further but would likely increase the severity of storm surges.

    Houston, we have a problem.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: We’re fortunate that Badger has never been a big chewer (aside from designated chew toys), but the one exception was a pair of ratty old upholstered chairs the previous occupants of our swamp cabin left on the porch.

    It’s my fault because I didn’t correct him when he first sank his fangs into the chairs, reasoning that they’d soon be in a landfill. But hubby procrastinated hauling them off, and and Badger started distributing hunks of padding everywhere.

    I bought this spray-on dog deterrent, and I swear, it was like I’d slathered a delicious condiment on a steak! He really went nuts on those damn chairs then! Moral of the story, there’s no accounting for taste.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    I subscribe to the Washington Post but a lot of the liberal columnists are not realists:

    As critical as I have been of this court, as worried as I am about what it will do, I am not so certain. The majority — albeit without the newest justice — showed itself willing to stand up to some of the worst of President Donald Trump’s behavior and to resist invitations to meddle in the 2020 election.
    With three of the conservative justices under 60, conservatives could fully control the court for decades. Or not; as Scalia’s unexpected death demonstrated, anything can happen. A six-justice conservative majority is not necessarily a permanent condition. One of those six, Roberts, has demonstrated his willingness, at times, to show restraint.

    McConnell “won’t commit” to even holding a hearing if another vacancy arises and the GOP is in the majority. He’s now said this twice that I’m aware of. They have no intention of ever confirming another justice appointed by a Democrat if they’re in the majority in Congress.
    They don’t recognize the results of elections, and it isn’t just Trump. It’s the entire Party.

  26. 26.

    Kristine

    I sprayed deterrent on Gaby’s paws to stop her from licking them and it had no effect whatsoever.

    When King entered his mulch-eating phase, I sprinkled cayenne powder on it and he was like “wow—thanks for the seasoning.”

  29. 29.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    The combination of voter suppression and election subversion was continuous from Reconstruction into the 1960s, so it wasn’t unprecedented since Reconstruction.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    showed itself willing to stand up to some of the worst of President Donald Trump’s behavior and to resist invitations to meddle in the 2020 election.

    And this language! “Meddle”. Why use this minimizing language? Is she afraid of them?
    Marcus gives them credit for not overturning the results of a Presidential election. Could the bar be any lower? That’s the standard now? They didn’t execute a coup?

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    @germy: Our cat is a cord chewer. There’s nothing to be done about it.

    Keep an eye on their teeth / gums.  True story, pets — and the occasional human floor crawler — can get hooked on the ‘zap’ from chewing on live electrical cables.  But those shocks can lead to gum damage & lost teeth.

  33. 33.

    germy

    @Anne Laurie: 

    We are fortunate that our house is laid out so that the rooms with cat-accessible cords have doors we close. She is never in the living room without supervision. At night she is restricted to our bedroom and a downstairs room (food dish & litterbox) with no accessible cords.

    Our previous home was “open floor plan” and she had the run of the place. Our new setup is better.

  34. 34.

    Phylllis

    I have to brag a bit. My husband’s lovely painting depicting Jekyll Island’s Driftwood Beach has been selected for Artfields. They had over 1000 entries from across the south and only selected 400.

  38. 38.

    germy

    Charlamagne Tha God interviews Vice President Kamala Harris about a number of issues including claims that she’s been absent, student loan forgiveness, and Senator Joe Manchin’s progressive obstruction.

    Our VP does a good job addressing his issues.  He tried to provoke her but I don’t think he succeeded. It’s about 20 minutes, but it’s good to hear her push back against various republican “memes”. At the end, The God seemed impressed with her answers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EW-2ZtgD9k

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Billie Jean likes my couch blanket and pillow. Mostly she just holds them in her mouth like a pacifier but every now and again she pulls the stuffing out of the pillow. The only real downside for me is when the wet spot is unavoidable.

  41. 41.

    beth

    @Betty Cracker: The vet gave me some gel  called Yuk to keep my dog from licking her hot spots but warned me that it was so gross I should wear gloves to apply it.  The dog licked it off my fingers like it was tasty gravy.

  43. 43.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay: Forget it, Kay. It’s Ruth Marcus.  She is fully inhabited by the spirit of David Broder.

    ETA: I’m still surprised that Dana Milbank has gotten religion about how seriously endangered our democracy is.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: My little Henry sucks on his big stuffed animals.

    I have often wondered if they separated him from his mama too soon.  The breeder apparently had a health crisis and gave up all the pups before they reached the usual separation age.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    Cute. This comment made me laugh: It’s not so impressive when you find out he’s playing against Newcastle United.

  49. 49.

    MagdaInBlack

    @beth: I think they forget that dogs have different “preferences” than we do.

    They roll in dead things and think their wearing Chanel #5, for god sake.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl:I have often wondered if they separated him from his mama too soon.

    Entirely possible. Billie came out of a puppy mill with engorged teats at 8 months of age. Whoever had her was really focused on the bottom line.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Bastards

    edit: referring to puppy mills.  I’m not sure what else this breeder could have done when faced with an immediate health crisis and an inability to keep the pups any longer.

    But the rest of them?  Bastards!  Make that evil sociopathic bastards.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    California’s ‘smash and grab’ robberies – what’s really going on behind the headlines?

    Amid fraught discussions over the future of policing in major American cities, a series of mass thefts at high-end stores across California have made headlines nationwide. The incidents have drawn widespread coverage linking them to “organized crime” and spotlighting concerns from retailers about a theft crisis. They also reinvigorated a political debate over crime rates in California, prompting pledges from local and state leaders to charge those involved and increase police presence in affected areas. Meanwhile, conservatives and some local leaders have pointed to the incidents as evidence that criminal justice reform and progressive policies are encouraging crime and making California more dangerous.

    But despite their high profile nature, experts say there is little evidence to suggest the robberies point to a wider retail theft crisis, and that some law enforcement and industry groups are overstating the problem.

    Here’s what we know so far.

    Long story short, a lot of smoke, very little fire.

  59. 59.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly: We’re having those smash and grabs going on in the Chicago area as well. We also have a police union that hates the mayor. I’m working on a theory about police involvement, cause it’s Chicago, why not?

  60. 60.

    germy

    @prostratedragon:

    It must be his personal brand.  I remember watching BBC footage; he was waiting to be interviewed and didn’t know the cameras were running.  Right before it began, he gave his hair a good mussing.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority shouldn’t exist. President Barack Obama should have been able to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, and President Biden should have been allowed to name Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement, leaving the court with a 5-to-4 liberal majority instead of the current 6-to-3 conservative-dominated court.

    She admits these facts, so I’m thinking – we’re making progress, we’re at least now in the realm of an accurate recitation of what happened, she idenitifies that “norms” were violated but there’s no thought past that. She must believe that the same people who violated the norms to get the far Right majority will magically and voluntarily resume following norms at some point in the future.
    They won’t. That’s not going to happen. The norm is gone. Over. There’s either a statute or rule change to replace the norm or they continue to make the rules up as they go along. Norms don’t just “resume” after a break. That’s not how it works. BROKEN. Have to then be fixed.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    British rock icon Rod Stewart and his son have pleaded guilty to battery in an assault case stemming from a New Year’s Eve 2019 altercation with a security guard at an exclusive Florida hotel. Court records released on Friday show that the singer and his son, Sean Stewart, 41, entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of simple battery.

    “No one was injured in the incident and a jury did not find Sir Rod Stewart guilty of the accusation,” his attorney Guy Fronstin said in a statement. “Instead, Sir Rod Stewart decided to enter a plea to avoid the inconvenience and unnecessary burden on the court and the public that a high profile proceeding would cause.”

    Well thank you Rod, for alleviating me of the burden of reading court transcripts had you gone to trial.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MagdaInBlack: Smash and grabs have been around forever.

    The usual suspects are using this spike in property crimes over the 2020 rate for the same disingenuous purposes they used the spike in homicides in 2020. They don’t note the drop in homicides in ’21 from ’20, anymore than they note that property crime in ’21 is still well below (iirc 3.4%) the ’19 rate.

    Every time I read about how horribly out of control crime is, I laugh. Were none of these people around in the ’70s? ’80s? ’90s? Crime is never a laughing matter for the victims, but this hysteria is a joke.

  72. 72.

    germy

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    How much shoplifting can be called a smash&grab, though?  Most shoplifting is someone putting a steak into their pants, or walking out with a box item without paying.  But police (and their contacts in the media) call everything smash&grab because it sounds more exciting.

  73. 73.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m talking about robberies like people going in to the Lamborghini store on Michigan Ave and grabbing $1m in Rolex watches.  That’s the most recent, I think.

    Bad wording on my part, sorry.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s been a genuine, alarming rise in homicide. The odd thing is that it’s NOT connected to any wider rise in crime across the whole society, like the 1970s. It’s just homicide–crime overall is still way down. And while it’s a historically huge percentage rise in homicides, in overall terms it’s not up to the level of the 1980s-early 90s.

    The huge surge in gun purchases just might have something to do with this.

  76. 76.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Spanky: don’t forget David Farenthold. He’s the guy who went after the TFG charity donation story and the other TFG spending stuff, oh, and the TFG portrait picture. Anybody ever follow up on whether TFG really did donate his salary? I just cannot believe he did. He’s just too damn grifty and sleazy.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    Also wondering if near-universal COVID infection is going to lead to subtle brain damage across the entire society that causes a crime wave some years down the line, like the number leaded gasoline (maybe) did on my generation.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MagdaInBlack: True smash and grabs aren’t all that common, “Gangs” have been doing it for quite some time. Linking it to organized crime is disingenuous in that 2 or more people working together fits the definition of “organized crime” in some states.

    @Matt McIrvin: I read recently that homicides this year are tracking much lower from 2020 levels (I forget how much) which makes perfect sense to me. Most victims know their murderer. If one gets cooped up with a small group, tensions rise. I’d have been surprised in there hadn’t been a spike of some sort in 2020.

    Still not at ’19 levels but we aren’t out of the covid woods yet.

  85. 85.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy: Not bad. Everything takes 3 times as long and i need to grade papers without being able to write or to type fast but i’;; figure it out.

    Was it you who said chekhov was funny? He started out writing humor pieces, and he thought of his plays as comedies. They’re full of humor.

  86. 86.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m glad you’re on the road to recovery.

    I mentioned in another thread I just finished a book of short stories by Chekhov.  For some reason I though he wrote tragedies.  Some of his stories were laugh out loud funny.

    Now I’m reading the Tolstoy novella  The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

    Haunting.

  87. 87.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy: Yes see #85. Ivan Ilych is a great masterpiece but not for me right now.

    I wasn’t crazy about the recent Uncle Vanya on PBS but Toby Jones does bring the funny

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    An existing trend is likely to continue unless it’s interrupted. The rational expectation on Republicans and the Supreme Court is they will block any Democratic nominee. Hoping for a different result is low likelyhood, against trend. They’re not going to voluntarily reinstate the norm they violated. That’s a fairy tale.

  90. 90.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I wish they’d had movies when Chekhov was doing his standup routines.  He had one where he’s a lecturer, hired to speak on the dangers of tobacco, but he knows nothing about the subject and uses his time to complain fearfully about his wife.

  91. 91.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy: I don’t think he performed them he just published them in cheap rags. But a good actor can do a lot with that one. A bad actor can make it last a year

  93. 93.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have a large extended family in different parts of the world who’ve been under lockdown at different times.  There’s been very few divorces in the family  but we’ve had two in the last year. Also we’ve had funeral/memorial services via zoom and there’s times you can  tell on the screen just by body language that the couple is not getting along. So,yeah, I can totally believe being isolated with another person 24/7 can lead to murder.

  94. 94.

    Van Buren

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Younger son’s 3 college roommates all have COVID, so they think it’s just a matter of time before he is, also.

    It would have been nice to have company.

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack

    COVID is hitting the English Premier League: 10 matches postponed in the last week, including five today and one (so far) tomorrow.

  97. 97.

    Phylllis

    Thanks to everyone for the congrats. He took painting back up after he retired and he is quite talented. His eye for detail is amazing.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    @germy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich kinda traumatized me in college because I hadn’t yet internalized the fact that, yes, there is indeed such a thing as an unreliable narrator in literature.

    ;-)

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Steeplejack: Guns are involved consistently in about 3/4 of homicides and about half of suicides in the US (the latter surprises me a bit, I thought the fraction was higher).

    I guess you can take the consistency of the fraction to argue that changes in gun purchases aren’t driving the changes in these numbers. But of course the same impulses that drive people to kill could be driving gun purchases.

  101. 101.

    Wolvesvalley

    @germy: Vicks VapoRub applied with a Q-tip works to deter our cats from chewing cords. Periodic repeat applications are required.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    ObOpenThread – I got to noodling about the differences between the way GQP talking points get amplified and take over our MSM discourse and what happens with Democratic ideas. And I remembered that there’s some sort of training system for their advocates and candidates. So I did some searching and came across the LeadershipInstitute.

    Of course, they are a totally “non-partisan educational organization approved by the Internal Revenue Service as a public foundation operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code.”

    The LI was founded by Morton Blackwell:

    Professionally, Morton Blackwell is the president of the Leadership Institute, a non-partisan educational foundation he founded in 1979.

    His institute prepares conservatives for success in politics, government and the news media. Over the years the Leadership Institute has trained more than 239,121 students. Its total revenue since 1979 is $288 million. It currently has revenue of over $23.3 million per year and a full-time staff of 82.

    He serves on the governing boards of a dozen conservative and Republican organizations at the national, state, and local levels.

    In youth politics, Mr. Blackwell was a College Republican state chairman and a Young Republican state chairman in Louisiana. He served on the Young Republican National Committee for more than a dozen years, rising to the position of Young Republican National Federation national vice chairman at large.

    Off and on for five and a half years, 1965-1970, he worked as executive director of the College Republican National Committee under four consecutive College Republican national chairmen.

    […]

    Republican, Republican, Republican … 16 times on that page.

    But they’re totally non-partisan. Totally.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    That’s just one example.

    I don’t know how to fix it, but the 501(c)(3) system is broken. And it benefits the GQP – their donors get tax deductions, the organizations don’t operate under the same tax laws as other political organizations, etc.

    That’s just one example.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  105. 105.

    Yutsano

    @Another Scott: I don’t know how to fix it, but the 501(c)(3) system is broken.

    Remember the Republican hysteria over the IRS rejecting so many conservative applications? The Tax Exempt/Government Entities office, instead of being backed up by the commissioner and the Treasury got completely undercut. That was the start of Republicans starving the IRS. They don’t want that division to function because if TE/GE actually had teeth A LOT of 501 category organisations would be audited. Now that division is so small and weak even churches can flout their political beliefs with impunity. That increase in funding needs to pass or this shit is going to continue. And more importantly, leadership needs to back up the TE/GE division when these crackdowns start happening.

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @Yutsano: I really hope that increase in IRS funding gets passed. One of many reasons is that there might be better auditing of the Q45(?) tax credit program for carbon capture. That is potentially a good program, but right now it is almost like an honor system.

  107. 107.

    James E Powell

    @Yutsano:

    Pretty sure that ship sailed.

    Nothing we really want or need is going to happen unless and until we get bigger majorities in both houses of the congress.

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @James E Powell: Don’t be so gloomy.  A lot of good has been done under Biden and this Congress already, and more will be done.

    MillerKaplan (from November 22):

    The House vote came after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score on the legislation on Nov. 18. The CBO estimates that the legislation will increase the deficit by $367 billion over a 10-year period.

    However, the CBO score doesn’t take into account any additional revenues generated by improved compliance with federal tax laws. The BBBA allocates $80 billion for the IRS to heighten enforcement (which the CBO did include in its calculation), likely to target primarily high-wealth individuals, businesses and overseas transactions. The U.S. Treasury Department “conservatively” estimates increased IRS enforcement will lead to $400 billion in additional revenues over the 10-year period.

    The Senate is going to pass something, even if it’s not everything we want (and need). If they take out the IRS enforcement provisions, they blow an additional net $320B hole in the accounting which throws a bigger monkeywrench in the machinery.

    Maybe that will happen. If so, that’s unfortunate.

    Ultimately, whatever is necessary to get S&M on board will be done, and it will be good even if it’s not enough for the country’s needs. Such is incremental progress.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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