When you're pushing the narrative, you've gotta bury the lede. Bury it far out back <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/treasury-department-rejects-gop-claims-irs-hire-87000/story?id=88495613">after midnight</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		The Internal Revenue Service does not plan to use the nearly $80 billion it's set to receive in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to hire 87,000 new agents in order to target middle class Americans, a Treasury Department official told ABC News, rejecting a claim widely circulated by Republican lawmakers and right-wing media personalities.
</blockquote>


	The thing about lawyerly denials is that they very specifically deny a very specific thing.


	Like the statement that the DOJ was not holding Trump's passports which was true, only insofar as they had seized and then returned them.&nbsp;


	A clear denial would have been that the IRS is not going to step up targeting of the middle class. That denial never actually comes.&nbsp;


	Instead of quoting the spokeswoman, ABC News fills paragraphs with its own rendering of her words. That's another dead giveaway. Here are&nbsp;her actual words.

<blockquote>
	
		"New staff will be hired to improve taxpayer services and experienced auditors who can take on corporate and high-end tax evaders, without increasing audit rates relative to historical norms for people earning under $400,000 each year," she said.
</blockquote>


	Which words jump out at you there?


	"Historical norms."


	What are those historical norms, are they inflation adjusted, how far back will the IRS reach back to assert those norms? Who knows. What that means is that the denial is meaningless.&nbsp;


	The spokeswoman could have simply said that the IRS won't increase audits of the middle class. Instead, she provided plenty of elbow room for increasing audits.


	Let's look at audit declines in the short term based on<a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104960"> this GAO report</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		From tax years 2010 to 2019, audit rates of individual tax returns decreased for all income levels, as shown in figure 1.15 On average, individual tax returns were audited over three times more often for tax year 2010 (about 0.9 percent) than for tax year 2019 (0.25 percent). IRS officials attributed the overall decline in audit rates to decreased funding, and therefore reduced staffing to conduct audits&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	Which they will now have.


	The GAO report&nbsp;notes a 92% decrease in audits of people earning $200K to $500K and a 76% decrease in audits of those earning $25K to $200K&nbsp;


	There's your "historical norms".


	Dig a little more and the historical norms get <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-audit-rate-lowest-in-at-least-a-decade/">much worse</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		Even a decade ago, the audit rate was sharply lower than in the 1970s, when the agency audited about&nbsp;2.5%&nbsp;of individual returns.
</blockquote>


	From the IRS, here's how things have changed and where Democrats would like to turn the clock back to.

<blockquote>
	
		&nbsp;In the early 1960’s, the percentage of individual tax returns that were audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was about 6 percent, and this percentage fell to 2.5 percent by the mid-1970’s.&nbsp; Over the next decade, the audit rate fell further to roughly 1 percent.&nbsp; According to the Inspector General for Tax Analysis (2002), taxpayer audit rates have fallen another 56 percent between 1997 and 2001. As a result, at present, less than 1 percent of all individual tax returns are audited.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	6%. Those are "historical norms".


	The media will use Yellen's letter and Treasury Department denials like these to 'fact check' Republicans pointing out the truth to death. What the media won't do is ask for the actual target audit percentage rate.&nbsp;


	That would expose the big lie.


	Let's close this out by remembering that the Inflation Increase Act nightmare didn't have to happen if Republicans, from the top down, hadn't thrown away the Senate&nbsp;through a combination of incompetence, terrible messaging, inflation and poor preparation. This is the cost of losing the Senate. And there are signs of history repeating itself in 2024.


	Among a lot of conservative activists, there's well-earned contempt for RINOs. And as destructive as the likes of Romney or Collins are, a Democrat majority is far worse.&nbsp;


	Manchin and Sinema, two Dems who were embraced by Republicans and had better approval ratings than RINOs, made this happen.&nbsp;


	The results are no longer hypothetical. The weaponized IRS, targeting conservatives and the middle class, is the result.


	There are lessons to learn here, but I'm not optimistic that they will be learned.


	&nbsp;

FACT CHECK: IRS Could Increase Middle Class Audits 92%

When you're pushing the narrative, you've gotta bury the lede. Bury it far out back after midnight.


	
		The Internal Revenue Service does not plan to use

FACT CHECK: IRS Could Increase Middle Class Audits 92%

The authorities are still searching for the Lebanese Shiite Muslim's motive in stabbing author Salman Rushdie. I hope they figure it out soon. The stabber is <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/08/17/alleged-salman-rushdie-attacker-didnt-think-author-would-survive/">happy to help</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		The New Jersey man who allegedly&nbsp;stabbed Salman Rushdie&nbsp;in Western New York last week praised Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in an exclusive jailhouse interview with The Post on Wednesday — and admitted he didn’t think the author would survive the attack.
</blockquote>


	Jewish doctors beat&nbsp;Allah once again.

<blockquote>
	
		The 24-year-old&nbsp;was mum on whether he was inspired&nbsp;by the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989 over the author’s book “The Satanic Verses,” citing a warning by his defense attorney.

	
		“I respect the ayatollah. I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that,” Matar said, noting he only “read like two pages” of Rushdie’s controversial novel.
</blockquote>


	Who needs to read when you've got the Koran and a fistful of fatwas?

<blockquote>
	
		“I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person,” he said about Rushdie. “I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much.

	
		“He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.”
</blockquote>


	No Motive Established Yet in Salman Rushdie Attack - WSJ

<blockquote>
	
		Matar said little else about Rushdie specifically but complained about conditions in the jail, where he is being held without bail. “A lot of the food they have given me is not allowed in my religion to eat,” he said
</blockquote>


	Hopefully,&nbsp;CAIR and Kirsten Clarke at DOJ&nbsp;are&nbsp;on this. Muslim terrorists must get their Halal food.

Rushdie Stabber Says He Did It For Islam, Complains About Lack of Halal Food

The authorities are still searching for the Lebanese Shiite Muslim's motive in stabbing author Salman Rushdie. I hope they figure it out soon. The stabber is

Rushdie Stabber Says He Did It For Islam, Complains About Lack of Halal Food

In<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/sex-men-not-skin-contact-fueling-monkeypox-new-research-suggests-rcna43484"> news everyone knew</a>, but no one seemed to dare say out loud.

<blockquote>
	
		Since the outset of the global monkeypox outbreak in May, public health and infectious disease experts have told the public that the virus is largely transmitting through skin-to-skin contact, in particular during sex between men.&nbsp;

	
		Now, however, an expanding cadre of experts has come to believe that sex between men itself — both anal as well as oral intercourse — is likely the main driver of global monkeypox transmission. The skin contact that comes with sex, these experts say, is probably much less of a risk factor.
</blockquote>


	You don't say.


	This comes after a month of debate over sensitivities about the spread of monkeypox, that was entirely absent from the fascist COVID zero strategy which gleefully shut down everything, except Black Lives Matter riots and mosque prayers, with zero regard for&nbsp;anyone's sensitivities.&nbsp;


	All the sensitivity, much like the HIV sensitivity, has hurt the people most at risk, gay men.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
	
		In recent weeks, a growing body of scientific evidence —&nbsp;including&nbsp;a trio&nbsp;of studies&nbsp;published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as&nbsp;reports from&nbsp;national,&nbsp;regional&nbsp;and global health authorities&nbsp;— has suggested that experts may have framed monkeypox’s typical transmission route precisely backward.&nbsp;&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	The framing wasn't a mistake.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
	
		Consequently, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities should update their&nbsp;monkeypox&nbsp;communication strategies&nbsp;to more strongly emphasize the centrality of intercourse among gay and bisexual men, who comprise nearly all U.S. cases, to the virus’ spread.
</blockquote>


	Democrats and allied LGBTQAPMQRZ activists have already made clear that's a form of oppression and will go nowhere.

<blockquote>
	
		On Aug. 14, Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, and Dr. Lao-Tzu Allan-Blitz, a resident physician in global health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, published an essay on&nbsp;Medium&nbsp;in which they reviewed the science supporting the argument that during the current outbreak, monkeypox is largely transmitting through anal and oral intercourse between men.

	
		“It looks very clear to us that this is an infection that is transmitting sexually the vast majority of the time,” Allan-Blitz said.

	
		This debate, however, is far from settled.

	
		Dr. Rosamund Lewis, technical lead for monkeypox at the World Health Organization, told NBC News it was “unfortunate but true” that “we don’t know yet” whether the virus is predominantly transmitted through intercourse.
</blockquote>


	Unfortunate, but true.&nbsp;


	The WHO is still as vital as a sixth toe.

Despite Media Claims, Research Shows Gay Sex, Not Skin Contact, Spreads Monkeypox

In news everyone knew, but no one seemed to dare say out loud.


	
		Since the outset of the global monkeypox outbreak in May, public health and infectious

Despite Media Claims, Research Shows Gay Sex, Not Skin Contact, Spreads Monkeypox

There's a major asterisk next to this one because William Arkin had <a href="https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1557464955602890753">formerly claimed</a> at Newsweek that his sources told him AG Garland hadn't approved the Mar-a-Lago raid.


	And plenty of people got burned by that.


	This story claims that the FBI raid <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-sought-documents-trump-hoarded-years-including-about-russiagate-1734280">targeted </a>specific documents.

<blockquote>
	
		"The&nbsp;FBI&nbsp;raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday was specifically intended to recover&nbsp;Donald Trump's personal "stash" of hidden documents, two high-level U.S. intelligence officials tell&nbsp;Newsweek.

	
		To justify the unprecedented raid on a former president's residence and protect the source who revealed the existence of Trump's private hoard, agents went into Trump's residence on the pretext that they were seeking&nbsp;all&nbsp;government documents, says one official who has been involved in the investigation. But the true target was this private stash, which Justice Department officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize."
</blockquote>


	According to Arkin, these documents involved Russiagate.

<blockquote>
	
		"The sought-after documents deal with a variety of intelligence matters of interest to the former president, the officials suggest—including material that Trump apparently thought would exonerate him of any claims of Russian collusion in 2016 or any other election-related charges."

	
		"Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state," one former Trump official tells&nbsp;Newsweek. "I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know." The official says Trump may have been planning to use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency.
</blockquote>


	Is it true? Who knows. Arkin's sources were wrong about Garland. And that's a very basic thing. But it would provide a certain motive power for the controversy. It would explain why Trump wanted certain documents and why the Biden administration might want to seize them.


	Of course just because something sounds plausible, doesn't mean that it's actually true.

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

There's a major asterisk next to this one because William Arkin had formerly claimed at Newsweek that his sources told him AG Garland hadn't approved the Mar-a

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

The engine of Holocaust denial is a desire to kill Jews. Otherwise why bother?


	There's a fringe of conspirazoids, the sorts of people who believe that the moon landing was faked,&nbsp;that UFOs can be found in your backyard, and that 9/11 was carried out by the NYPD, and that Bigfoot killed JFK who are attracted to Holocaust denial among the many other conspiracy theory options.&nbsp;But the big leagues of Holocaust denials are associated with Nazism and Communism because they both specialized in the extermination of Jews.


	The "Palestinian" cause is a toxic inbreeding of Nazis and Communists.


	The Muslim Brotherhood, key players in the Arab Revolt, got a lot of their techniques from the Nazis. And the Nazi influence was felt most strongly in Egypt. But the "Palestinian" cause was manufactured by the Soviet Union.


	Mahmoud Abbas, the current dictator-for-life of the PLO, got his <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/abbass-untranslated-book-480751">Holocaust denial training</a> from the USSR. Abbas wrote it as a "student" in the Soviet Union as part of the&nbsp;Palestinian-Soviet Friendship Foundation which was itself <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">crossbred with Nazi propagand</a>a.

<blockquote>
	
		&nbsp;PA President Mahmoud Abbas is profoundly fascinated by Nazi propaganda and has employed it in his own writings, particularly in his doctoral dissertation on the subject of the Holocaust, “The Other Face: The Secret Connections Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement,” which he wrote in Moscow in 1982. Two years later, Abbas published a book based on his dissertation. It is written in Arabic and, tellingly, has never been translated into any other language.

	
		There is a reason for this: The book is inspired by and based on the work of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. While he was a fugitive in Argentina, Eichmann formulated and disseminated Nazi propaganda according to which the Holocaust was a Jewish-Nazi conspiracy that sacrificed Jewish lives in order to create a Jewish state in Palestine.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	So what did the Germans really expect when they invited the head of a terror group responsible for the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-714943">Munich Massacr</a>e?

<blockquote>
	
		At a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Abbas was asked by a reporter whether he plans to apologize to Israel and Germany for the 1972 Munich massacre, ahead of its 50th anniversary. Eleven members of the Israeli delegation and a German police officer were murdered after members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, which was linked to&nbsp;Abbas’s Fatah party, took hostages at the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972.&nbsp;

	
		“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas responded in Arabic. “I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed... 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” saying the last word in English.

	
		While Scholz could be seen wincing at Abbas’s Holocaust reference, he did not immediately rebuke the Palestinian president, although he had earlier rejected his use of the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli policies.
</blockquote>


	Scholtz has since tepidly condemned Abbas' Holocaust denial.


	The debate about Holocaust denial is less important than the motive for it. Abbas responded to his role in the massacre of Jews with Holocaust denial. That's typical. It's the essence of the purpose that Holocaust denial is meant to serve.


	The "Palestinian" cause is about finishing the work that the Nazis began. It's why Hitler is so widely admired in the Palestinian Authority. "Palestinian" Holocaust denial, like most kinds, is about paving the way for justifying the future murder of Jews.

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

The engine of Holocaust denial is a desire to kill Jews. Otherwise why bother?


	There's a fringe of conspirazoids, the sorts of people who believe that

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

Ami Horowitz&nbsp;takes to the streets of NYC to find answers to some very important questions about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the answers he receives reveal the surreal fantasy world that progressives live in. Don't miss it!

<div class="media_embed" height="315px" width="560px">
	<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6iq-GJzItZs" title="YouTube video player" width="560px" height="315px" frameborder="0"></iframe></div>


	&nbsp;

Ami Horowitz Video: Is China to Blame For the COVID Pandemic?

Ami Horowitz&nbsp;takes to the streets of NYC to find answers to some very important questions about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the answers

Frontpage Mag

Ami Horowitz Video: Is China to Blame For the COVID Pandemic?

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FACT CHECK: IRS Could Increase Middle Class Audits 92%

Rushdie Stabber Says He Did It For Islam, Complains About Lack of Halal Food

Despite Media Claims, Research Shows Gay Sex, Not Skin Contact, Spreads Monkeypox

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

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