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IRS Chief Hints At Possibility Audits May Rise For Americans Earning Under $400,000

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2023

“One of your predecessors, John Koskinen, testified before this committee in 2015, and he said it would not be advisable to audit your way out of the tax gap, yet that’s exactly what you’re trying to do,” Mr. Palmer said.

The title should say “ALL” Americans. That mark on your back is a target.

What self respecting person would work for the IRS?

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/irs-chief-hints-possibility-audits-may-rise-americans-earning-under-400000

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Tuesday, Oct 31, 2023 – 07:20 AM

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel faced a grilling by lawmakers on Capitol Hill this past week, where he hinted that there’s a chance that the agency will—contrary to its repeated pledges—increase tax audits of Americans earning under $400,000.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner nominee Daniel Werfel testifies before the Senate Finance Committee during his nomination hearing in Washington on Feb. 15, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The question of whether the IRS will use some of the $80 billion or so funding boost to increase tax enforcement of people making less than $400,000 has been a contentious issue.

IRS and Treasury Department officials have pledged not to increase audit rates for this group of Americans, while Republicans and others have argued that this pledge is either false or wishful thinking.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has directed the IRS not to raise audit rates above historical levels for this group of taxpayers, while Mr. Werfel has repeatedly made the same pledge.

But a watchdog recently cast doubt on this promise, warning that Americans making less than $400,000 could inadvertently get caught in an enforcement dragnet because the IRS doesn’t have a clear definition of “high-income” and its enforcers use an outdated $200,000 high-income threshold as their default.

Meanwhile, the latest data on the tax gap (the difference between taxes owed and paid to the government) show that it has jumped from $601 billion to $688 billion, putting pressure on the IRS to ramp up enforcement and bring in more money for all the Biden administration’s big spending plans.

At the Oct. 24 hearing on Capitol Hill, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) pointed out that former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen once testified that increasing tax audits as a way to reduce the tax gap was not an advisable strategy.

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Wider War Will Bring Inevitable Attempts At Martial Law In America

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

I believe the Israeli trigger may be bigger than covid in terms of the potential global disaster and global tyranny that could unfold. If it continues to escalate and turns into a multi-regional conflict the chances of the fight coming back to America are high. Not just in terms of terrorism, but also in terms of civil unrest and war on our doorstep. If we support the war, martial law is a certainty. If we don’t support the war, martial law will be attempted but at least there are scenarios where it could fail.

alt-market

By Brandon Smith

Not long ago at the height of fear over the global pandemic the US underwent a change that many people argued would never happen. For years I have heard people say that authoritarian controls in America are “tinfoil hat conspiracy theory” and doom mongering – All the prepping, all the talk of community organizing, all the guns and the gear and the training were for nothing. Then…the covid agenda hit like a freight train.

Our constitutional rights were no longer set in stone, but mere guidelines that government officials could bend or break in the name of “public health safety.” Laws no longer had to be passed through a series of checks and balances; mandates could be implemented as if they were laws without public oversight and enforced unilaterally.

There was talk (primarily among Democrats) of severe punishments for people who refused the pointless covid vaccines. They wanted vaccine passports, they wanted prison time for those that spoke publicly against the vax, they wanted people’s jobs taken away, they wanted their children taken away, and there were even plans to build covid detention centers to segregate and lock up “vax deniers.”

It boggles the mind, but this was serious debate within the US and it was all triggered in the span of a year. Nearly half the country was willing to abandon the Bill of Rights over a virus with a survival rate of 99.8%. The conspiracy theorists were right all along; our freedoms rest on a razor’s edge and preparing to survive and fight for those freedoms is perfectly rational.

Luckily, the covid agenda failed. The mandates were ultimately blocked by red states and in many rural areas they were barely enforced at all. Biden’s vaccine passport attempt was stopped cold by the Supreme Court, but I have long believed that the Supreme Court made this decision exactly because of the level of public resistance.  They knew if they pressed the issue, civil war was on the table.

Medical authoritarianism collapsed because conservatives and independents were not onboard and they could not be shamed into compliance. But what happens when there is a crisis that DOES scare conservatives? What happens when the political right perceives a true threat? Does freedom then become untenable?

Viruses frighten progressives (most things frighten progressives), but what frightens conservatives?

Well, it’s not a hard fast rule, but generally speaking conservatives are most disturbed by the threat of invasion. Ask any conservative if they were worried about covid or worried about the crisis on the southern border during the pandemic and the vast majority of them would say the border without hesitation. Conservatives fear cultural infiltration and co-option, they fear the steady and deliberate whittling away of their American heritage and by extension their freedoms by alien impostors. And, they fear the certain blitzkrieg of the US by organized terrorism should the borders remain open.

The question is, are they willing to assuage their fears by sacrificing the very freedoms they want to protect?

In 2001 after 9/11, the conservative movement was a much different animal than it is today. This was pre-Ron Paul and pre-Libertarian influence. The Neo-cons ruled the roost and had far reaching power over public perception, making the push for the dismissal of constitutional rights unprecedented. The Patriot Act mentality was widespread and the thirst for war was palpable. I have seen conservatives stray from the Bill of Rights in the past in the name of fighting against a possible invasion.  I remember this vividly.

Today, the elements in play are not the same as 2001. Anyone who argues otherwise was likely a child during the 9/11 era or has a skewed understanding of the changes that have taken place among conservatives since those days. The Ron Paul movement changed a lot for the better, but primarily within the conservative constituency. Regular people changed their thinking on what it means to trade liberty for security. The GOP? It’s a pipe dream to think we could ever completely change the GOP.  At least covid proved we have allies at the state and local level

The real problem is in the old guard of Neo-cons still influencing the path of the Republican Party. These are people who happily ally with Democrats behind the scenes, they have close ties to establishment elites and their loyalty rests in the hands of globalists. If the globalists want war, then the Neo-cons want war and they will do anything to get it, including create it. That’s how it works.

And this time around I think they’re going to get what they want. The Ukraine event failed to lure Americans into supporting direct intervention (a majority of Americans don’t even support funding for Ukraine), but Israel is another matter. There are very old and tribal implications than pull on the souls of conservatives when it comes to the conflicts in the Middle East. There are religious factors, yes, but I suspect this is overblown by critics who think evangelicals are running the show. This is not reality.

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Why Your Story Needs To Be Told

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

Because I am selfish, and I realize we live on the front line of what may be the greatest, most glorious battle of this era: The Battle of California, the decades, long effort to destroy the most wonderful and most influential place on this planet.

Why Your Story Needs To Be Told

By Allan Stevo

The following is the October 28, 2023, introduction by Allan Stevo for California anti-lockdown activist Theresa Buccola at the biweekly pro-freedom event Menlo Forum in Menlo Park, California hosted by the excellent Robert Mish of Mish International, an area businessman and precious metals vendor. 

There are heroes who walk among us.

There is Johan Vandertuin who believes the police of San Benito County, California have no business fabricating charges against him because he dared to walk into a UPS Store in Hollister, California unmasked in December of 2022. And that the conservative District Attorney cooperating in this should either end the matter against Johan or resign in shame.

There are heroes who walk among us.

There are the parents of Autumn Schall who believe it is their complete and total right to decide what medicines their child is given or not given, no matter what Stanford Hospital had to say, no matter what CPS has to say, no matter what a California judge has to say.

There are heroes who walk among us.

There is Anh Colton, who believes it is her right, and your right to run for sheriff where you live, not just the privilege of those who have spent years being indoctrinated by the system. You may not agree with her, but that does not mean she should walk through the world without applause for that bravery. Nor does it mean she belongs in a jail cell.

There are heroes who walk among us.

There are pastors Gabriel Abdelaziz and Dorothy Abdelaziz, who never closed the doors of their church in Paso Robles, California.

There are others like that.

Why did they not close? Because it is their duty to not close and their right to not close.

There are even some elected officials, such as Dan Dow of San Luis Obispo County, who said in response to the public health orders to close churches that his county is henceforth a sanctuary county…for churches. That in his county, no church, no pastor will be prosecuted for refusing to shut their doors.

But there are thousands more, perhaps millions more — heroes in their own right in this state, who refuse to simply do as they are told. Who know their values are worth fighting for. Who perhaps even know California is worth fighting for.

There are young men like Teyo, 17 years old, whose last name I won’t mention. Who said one day, I will never wear a mask again, and because of that he was told by the school system, that he would not be able to be educated in this community – that was likely a frightening and uncertain situation for his parents and others who love him and wanted to see him succeed, but you know what…as scary as that might have been…the day he said, he would never wear a mask again, and the day he was suspended from school, which left no other option than to homeschool him, was probably one of the best things to have happened in his life.

These stories need to be told. For there are heroes who walk among us.

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Kendi’s Critical Race Theory Is a Failed Marxist Doctrine | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

Marxism can be best understood as the unproductive of society demanding a place at the top of a new hierarchy. They prey upon the productive members of society and redistribute the success of others to themselves through violent revolution. It is an ideology of envy and failure.

https://mises.org/wire/kendis-critical-race-theory-failed-marxist-doctrine

David Brady, Jr.

Ibram X. Kendi, the controversial author of How to Be an Antiracist, has been revealed as not only a hustler of horrid ideas but also a poor businessman. Kendi was appointed the head and founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research in 2020 following the aptly named “summer of love,” which saw riots in most major cities over calls for “racial justice.”

Now, Boston University is committing mass layoffs of employees, as the Center has lost the $43 million that was donated to it at its opening. There have also been several complaints about management practices. The Center is laying off much of its staff as it switches to a new model that it hopes will keep it alive. It is another profound case of fiat academia being inefficient and unproductive, as well as peddling half-baked half-dead ideas.

Kendi is not an original thinker so much as a wannabe-philosopher who repaints bunk ideas to drum up societal conflict. Kendi’s general philosophical thesis could be summed up simply as “Everyone is racist, and that extends to all of society. History can be understood as a white supremacist culture getting better at hiding its underlying racism.”

Kendi and other critical race theorists theorize that, throughout history, so-called advancements in the welfare of racial minorities are merely a white supremacist culture’s success at better hiding its racism. One can summarize it best with a quote from the thriller The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

The devil, for Kendi, would be “white supremacy” in culture. Every so-called advancement—from the outlawing of slavery to the end of Jim Crow laws—is simply this devil getting better at hiding itself.

This is not an original idea on Kendi’s part in any respect. One can trace these ideas back to the philosophical ancestor to critical race theory: Karl Marx. When one analyzes critical race theory, it becomes abundantly clear that it is a portrayal of Marxist conflict and power theory but with the dimensions of race applied rather than class. Rather than the bourgeoise class oppressing the proletariat, it is the white class oppressing the nonwhite classes of society.

A fundamental aspect of Marxist theory is that of the substructure, or base, and the superstructures of society. Marx posited that the fundamental relations in society are economic ones, between the working class and the exploitive capitalist class. The base creates the superstructure, which includes art, politics, religion, and other social relations that supposedly exist to reinforce the base. This is where Marx’s famed line “Religion is the opiate of the masses” comes from. Religion, as an aspect of the superstructure, exists to draw eyes away from the social relations that matter in the minds of Marxists.

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Emboldened Global Jihad Is Final Nail in Coffin of Mass Migration Delusion – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

It has become obvious that assimilation of huge numbers of non-Western immigrants into Western society is simply not working.

https://spectator.org/emboldened-global-jihad-is-final-nail-in-coffin-of-mass-migration-delusion/

by Josh Hammer

The weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, in which the most Jews were slaughtered in a single day than at any time since World War II, have seen an astonishing rise in global Jew-hatred. One might have thought that the mass carnage and unspeakable barbarism of the Hamas Holocaust would instead galvanize a concerted pushback against Islamic jihadism, but it is the ancient scourge of antisemitism — and not so-called Islamophobia — that is once again the world’s most politically correct and fashionable form of bigotry.

“In every generation they rise up to destroy us,” Jews read in the Haggadah text every Passover, “but the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.” Now, less than 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany, today’s Nazis, an Islamist Reich hellbent anew on Jewish genocide, rises up to try to finish what Hitler could not. Like their brownshirt forebears, the jihadists will fail.

Our comfort in the Lord does not necessarily ameliorate the profound pain of the last few weeks, though. For many Jews, the appalling and disgusting mass demonstrations of support for the Hamas terrorists have been just as devastating as the Oct. 7 pogrom itself.

In Berlin — yes, Berlin — a synagogue was firebombed. In Vienna, a one-time hub of Nazism, a synagogue was attacked and vandalized. In Paris, a Jewish couple’s apartment door was doused with gasoline and set on fire. In Los Angeles, a knife-wielding madman trespassed into a Jewish home while shouting, “Free Palestine.” At George Washington University in the nation’s capital, student jihadists projected “Glory To Our Martyrs” onto the side of a school library. At Cooper Union, Jewish students were locked in a library by pro-Hamas student demonstrators banging on the doors; the NYPD had to evacuate the students via underground tunnel. In the heavily Muslim town of Dearborn, Michigan, Islamists thronged the streets while waving today’s swastika, the so-called Palestinian flag, and shouting for extermination of the Jews of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Other examples abound.

There are many reasons for this dire state of affairs.

First, the chickens of once-fringe leftist ivory tower piffle, such as critical theory and intersectionality, have come home to roost in a very menacing way. The avant-garde leftism of a half-century ago has led many to now justify, or outright cheer on, genocide perpetrated against the most genocided people in world history. As this column observed during the last major Israel–Hamas conflict, in May 2021: “The American Left and the media organs it controls are exporting their paroxysms of ‘1619 Project’ rage onto a foreign stage, expiating their ‘white guilt’ sins and armchair-quarterbacking a foreign conflict on a cosplayed chess board.” It’s all just fun and games — no matter how many “eggs” are broken to make the “omelet,” to paraphrase Stalin-apologist New York Times bureau chief Walter Duranty.

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Five Quick Things: Has Mike Johnson Broken the Left Already? – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

https://spectator.org/five-quick-things-has-mike-johnson-broken-the-left-already/

by Scott McKay

I had a feeling we would see this, but boy, did it happen fast.

The Left absolutely CAN’T EVEN with Mike Johnson as the new speaker of the House. This is a level of unhinged that it took Donald Trump a little while to build up to, and we’re not even 48 hours into Johnson’s speakership as of this writing. (READ MORE: The Speaker We Need)

What am I talking about? Things like this:

Or this:

Late this evening House Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson as their fifth would-be speaker of the month.

Johnson is one of the biggest anti-choice extremists in Congress, he wants to ban all abortions without exception — to the point of criminalization with prison sentences. pic.twitter.com/vRFaMqpT82

— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) October 25, 2023

It’s hilarious to see Beyer act like he’s never heard the pro-life position articulated. Yes, Don, making the killing of a pre-born human being illegal means that if you do it anyway you will face jail time.

What should be understood is that a year ago Louisiana had a bill percolating in the state legislature that would have criminalized abortion on the part of the woman procuring one — and Johnson actively opposed it as going too far. He’s actually a very conventional pro-life leader who would certainly see the law enforced against abortionists but views those having abortions as women in extreme circumstances who need counseling and options rather than cops.

Not that Beyer would know, or care to share, that context.

There’s more. For example:

Mike Johnson built a legal career in Louisiana opposing the basic civil rights and civil liberties of the LGBTQ+ community. Last fall, he introduced a national Don’t Say Gay Law. Voting for him as Speaker is despicable. https://t.co/HmUQ1AqlTl

— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) October 25, 2023

That chair is not a pulpit. That chamber isn’t a church. That man isn’t a preacher.

This is Christian Nationalism in action from the new Speaker of the House. https://t.co/GfAKaFrGD8

— American Atheists (@AmericanAtheist) October 25, 2023

I could belabor this, but you get the gist of it.

For me, the most entertaining of these came back home in Louisiana, where Katie Bernhardt, the AWFL (affluent white female leftist) who runs the state Democrat Party, put this out…

Louisiana Democratic Party Chair’s Statement on the election of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives ⬇️ #LaGov #LaLege #SpeakerOfTheHouseVote pic.twitter.com/uimsAMvjOj

— Louisiana Democrats (@LaDemos) October 25, 2023

…and was immediately ratioed — not by the conservatives, but by her own party.

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Fractional Reserve Banking, Present Discounted Value, and the Austrian Business Cycle Theory

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2023

Worth viewing just for the description of the fraud that is fractional reserve banking.

Also…Why does the government hate gold?

For the faint of heart this is about…economics!

https://substack.com/inbox/post/138403200

Walter Block

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There Is No Legitimate Role for Any Government or Rule

Posted by M. C. on October 28, 2023

“The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.”

~ Murray Rothbard

There Is No Legitimate Role for Any Government or Rule

By Gary D. Barnett

“Government is for slaves; free men govern themselves.”

~ Albert Parsons, Autobiography

Recently I wrote about a “World Gone Mad,” and I now understand that my title was a gross understatement. Madness indicates psychotic behavior, but what is going on today, while most assuredly psychotic, is also intentional, completely planned, and being implemented with full consciousness by evil forces. To make matters worse, the pathetic masses are taking sides, fomenting hate, supporting their chosen masters, and tearing apart all that is right; thus allowing this insane tyranny and carnage to continue unabated. If one was to step aside, and take stock of this insanity, he would at once be faced with the reality of the heinous agendas being pursued, but few are willing to take that step. Most all continue to look toward the complicit and abhorrent State to save them from the premeditated and monstrous policies being pursued by all governments at the behest of their controlling overlords.

Religion has always been a control mechanism used to subdue the crowd, so it is no surprise that the worship of the State by its subjects is reverent in nature. The State and the church throughout time have acted as one; both seeking compliant and devoted followers. This was the plot all along, as history will certainly support. This is why the ruling class through its controlled government, has always been the people’s church, and the government agents have always sought to be seen as gods by the collective hordes of votaries. All power seekers have to destroy the idea of individualism, self-sufficiency, critical thinking, and independent sovereignty, in order to be seen as superior to the members of the dependent herd. This tenet is mandatory for rule of one over another to exist, and it has been accomplished throughout time.

One of the main goals of government is to place itself and its illegitimate authority above all others in ‘society,’ thereby eliminating the possibility of critical scrutiny or prosecution from immoral and illegal acts. Government does not only rule, they make and enforce all the ‘laws,’ laws that are meant only for the lowly people, not for those in power. Many of those who pretend to be anti-state, will preach that all in government should be held to the same standard as the plebiscites, but they completely disregard reality. Government always and forever protects itself at all costs by controlling every aspect of what is referred to as law and ‘justice.’ Government controls the Executive, (king) the Congress, the courts, including what is referred to as the “Supreme Court,” the police, the military, and all aspects of total regulation of people and commerce. Those involved in this fraud will rarely if ever be investigated, or held to account for criminal activity, because they own and control all the judicial systems.

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Some Insights into the Orban-Putin Meetup in China

Posted by M. C. on October 28, 2023

Hungary has been accused of “democratic backsliding” by EU counterparts more closely tied to Washington. Most honest experts consider this the height of hypocrisy, given drowning censorship, warmongering on pretense, and the economic and societal breakdown in many European nations.

https://journal-neo.su/2023/10/27/some-insights-into-the-orban-putin-meetup-in-china/

Author: Phil Butler

Some Insights into the Orban-Putin Meetup in China

The U.S., the EU, and NATO are freaking out over Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Orban is the first EU leader to hold personal talks with Putin since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a ludicrous arrest warrant for the Russian presenting. Hungary is also one of the few European countries that has not knuckled under U.S. pressure to condemn Russia for the special military operation in Ukraine.

U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said was cited staying, “The United States is concerned about Hungary’s relationship with Russia.” Hungary opposing many EU initiatives to support Ukraine has infuriated the country’s puppet Dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and photos of Orban and Putin meeting reportedly made Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas lose her lunch. At least, she admitted that “photos of EU member state Hungary’s prime minister shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin were “very, very unpleasant.”

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TGIF: Don’t Police the World

Posted by M. C. on October 28, 2023

On top of that misery, intervening in wars sets the stage for terrible events to follow: revolution, dictatorship, government control of everyday life, atrocious recriminations, and plain chaos. That’s the safe bet too.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/tgif-dont-police-world/

by Sheldon Richman

police

“We” — to be precise, U.S. policymakers and their quasi-private-sector, tax-nourished enablers-beneficiaries–  must not police the world, become directly involved in wars, covertly assist belligerents, or act as arms merchants and bankers.

The central government can’t be a benign policeman, even if its intentions were as stated (which they may be): international rules-based order and economic stability. But it can wreak havoc by trying. We know this because it already has. Pick your start date, but the last 30 years present evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of what U.S.-sponsored “order” really looks like, thanks to an unbroken bipartisan chain of presidents and a bunch of presumptuous bumblers who wear weighty political titles from the executive and legislative branches. (The judiciary isn’t off the hook either.)

The U.S. government’s inherent ineptness speaks volumes. “Ought” implies “can,” and the policy mavens cannot. Wishful thinking is no substitute for real thinking. Each new crisis is not so different from previous ones as to make it unique. We can and must learn from the past, even the past that is so recent it’s still the present.

Government “crisis management” is a contradiction in terms. War typically has calamitous results, however optimistic the prognostications and later assessments. Helping a belligerent bloodies the hands of the helper, even if only metaphorically. Fighting proxy wars, which the policymakers might prefer to direct war these days, or engaging in covert operations is no moral shield. The horrendous consequences are foreseeable. Pleading that “We didn’t intend the bad stuff” does not wash. Call it “collateral damage,” whatever the policymakers call it, they enable the ruin of innocent lives and entire societies. We should have no part of it.

We know what war brings. It brings the death and dismemberment of innocents, always including children. It brings the utter destruction of the things that make life possible, such as food, water, homes, hospitals, and infrastructure. The chance of killing only bad guys is zero. I think the government’s own war simulations would agree. Hypothetical rosy scenarios offered in somber tones from secure stateside arms chairs don’t count. Even moves intended as defensive may understandably be perceived as aggressive, bringing snowballing countermoves that threaten more innocents and risk turning a local conflict into a big-power confrontation. The danger of nuclear war always looms.

Before considering joining in a war, assume the worst. Then don’t join. It’s the safe bet.

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