The IRS has a new scandal—and both progressive Democrats and one media outlet couldn’t be happier. An anonymous IRS bureaucrat stole tax returns of the wealthiest Americans and sent them to ProPublica, a non-profit whose proclaimed mission is to investigate abuses of power. The returns didn’t show any lawbreaking, but instead were leaked to promote changes in the tax code. 

ProPublica published the private information to push an agenda of tax changes, ignoring the obvious abuse of power that this leak represents. The embrace of this criminal leak continued in Congress. Senator Ron Wyden, while paying lip service to the privacy violation, declared that the returns justified his long-desired agenda of imposing a radical wealth tax. 

Joe Biden announced that he wants to spend $80 billion to expand the IRS. Instead, we should find ways to have fewer bureaucrats access the private data of citizens. This agency keeps proving itself unworthy of trust—and so do media outlets and politicians who exploit their abuses of power for their own agendas.

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In William Faulkner’s classic redemption tale, “Requiem for a Nun,” Gavin Stevens tells Temple Drake, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Indeed: Past events have staying power in the present and influence on future decisions.

This certainly applies to America’s geopolitical and domestic responses to COVID. 

Ascertaining the virus’s origin is important to our present relationship with China and China’s role in the world’s future.  

An accounting for the domestic response—primarily, the lockdowns—is equally important.

The evidence is mounting here too.

University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan recently published a study concluding, “workers have been 4-5 times less safe outside their workplace than inside it. While stay-at-home continues to be pushed as promoting public health, nobody is checking the data which say the opposite.” 

Research by statisticians at the University of Munich similarly concluded there was “no direct connection” between falling infection rates and the national lockdown imposed last November.

America’s COVID redemption story starts with an acknowledgement that lockdowns were counterproductive and a commitment to apply that present understanding to future pandemics.

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Sometime next year, the Supreme Court will decide whether to continue to find the right to abortion in the Constitution or give up on its deeply misguided, half-century-long effort to do so. 

The court will have before it the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that banned abortions after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

The court will also be deciding on whether or not to uphold a poor decision made at the intellectual low ebb of its postwar era.

The court made law in Roe v. Wade—and Justice Blackmun’s opinion was simply awful in its reasoning. In fact, I would argue that 1973 was the point of origin of the “culture wars,” because in Roe the court seized territory reserved for the state legislatures. 

Will the Court let us have peace at the cost of admitting that its ambition to rule was the real spark for the fires long burning? Wisdom—and the express language of the Constitution—counsels it to quit the field.

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In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court angered the left by denying illegal immigrants the ability to become lawful permanent residents of this country—even if they had gained temporarily protected status.

For a case this controversial, it’s worth noting the decision was 9-0 and authored by Justice Kagan—an Obama appointee. This is the seventh unanimous holding in less than a month. Was the Court trying to send a message?

After all, Democrats have been threatening to pack the Supreme Court in order to get outcomes more to their liking. Seeing the Supreme Court’s institutional credibility in jeopardy from this threat, it seems likely the justices are speaking through their decisions—quietly emphasizing that the Court isn’t as divided as Democrats claim.

Good for them. The Constitution established three co-equal branches of government. Democrats shouldn’t be trying to bully anyone in the judicial branch to get outcomes they favor. Doing so is a slap in the face to the rule of law.

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I argued earlier this year that inflation was on the near horizon, while the Fed and its enablers in the press were in denial. It’s not about who is the smartest; it’s about fixed principles of economics. Too much money chasing too few goods causes inflation. Our central bank is enabling colossally high spending and borrowing levels by creating new money supply. This didn’t start with Biden, but it has certainly reached new orders of magnitude with him. 
 
The last report shows that inflation ran at over 4 percent over the past year… well over the historic average. That includes a brief bout of deflation during the worst of the shutdowns. If we look at year-to-date, we see that on a monthly basis, inflation has been accelerating rapidly. 
 
There’s only one remedy. Government needs to cut spending and the Fed needs to stop “printing.” Nothing else … price controls, scapegoating business, etc… will work.

Stop printing money.

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In a startling announcement, Princeton University recently declared it was eliminating any requirement that those majoring in the classics take Greek or Latin. The change was made to combat … wait for it … systemic racism.

In fact, a diversity and inclusion statement on the Princeton Classics Department’s site affirms its commitment to creating, “opportunities for the advancement of students and (future) colleagues from historically underrepresented backgrounds.”

Surely they’re not implying that it will be easier to advance minority students if they eliminate the need to learn a difficult ancient language! That would be racist.

In all seriousness, when bastions of elitism like Princeton allow Critical Race Theory to overwhelm any remaining commitment to excellence, they’re headed for trouble. Even the most prestigious universities can coast for only so long on past glories. If they lower their standards, it won’t be long before an “elite” education means far less than it once did. After all, Princeton diplomas mean only as much as the quality of the graduates possessing them.

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Democrats have spent the past year pursuing an obvious contradiction – calling for more gun control while also sympathizing with the Defund the Police movement. They’ve argued simultaneously—and disingenuously—that law-abiding Americans don’t need firearms for self-defense because of the police. At the same time, they have provided support for those who want to scale back or entirely eliminate policing.
 
The astounding new data on gun sales shows Americans aren’t buying either argument. The New York Times reported that a record number of first-time purchasers have bought guns in the past year. Half of those are women, and 40 percent are evenly split between blacks and Hispanics. Household ownership percentage has spiked seven points after years of remaining flat.
 
Gun ownership has become even more diverse, and in many areas where police are in retreat, even more necessary. Joe Biden’s gun-control push will make his party look even more radical, and even more out of touch.

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This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

Next week, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear a challenge to Harvard’s race conscious admissions program. It’s likely to do so.  Given the Court’s composition, that means affirmative action may finally be declared unconstitutional.

Affirmative action’s proponents argue that “diversity” enhances education because students of different backgrounds benefit by learning from one another. The Supreme Court has been skeptical of this idea, noting it’s untestable. But now a new study claims that articles from law journals using affirmative action selection policies were cited more often than articles published in peer law reviews without such policies.

Because frequency of citations is considered an indicator of merit, affirmative action supporters claim this proves race conscious selection processes yield objectively better outcomes.

But in a country that has spilled blood and spent untold treasure to offer truly equal opportunity to all, one study of law review citations is thin evidence to justify continued state-sanctioned discrimination by race.

I’m Carol Platt Liebau.

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Having awakened to the dangers of left-wing activism in education, some parents are finally fighting back. In a heartening display of community engagement, Asian Americans have challenged the new race-based admissions policy of Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The Fairfax County School Board recently scrapped the standardized test the school had used to select students. Instead, it will now give most slots to the top percent and a half of students at each of the county’s middle schools.

This new policy disproportionately hurts Asian Americans. Under the old, merit and test-based admissions regime, they were upwards of 70 percent of the school’s student body.

A judge has just said the lawsuit can proceed. And that’s a good thing. 

We don’t know if it’s too late to keep the woke crowd from permanently damaging our nation’s prospects. But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, though we may not know the outcome if we do something, we do know the outcome if we do nothing at all!

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This is Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com for Townhall.

Progressives on our country used the indiscriminate rocket attacks of Hamas against Israeli citizens to accuse Israel of “acts of terrorism” and operating an “apartheid state.” Echoing those criticisms, pro-Palestinian extremists targeted Jews in Los Angeles, New York City and elsewhere for violent attacks.

Over the past year, media and Democratic leadership have repeatedly linked criticism of China to hate crimes against Asian Americans. Congress passed a bill this month focusing on such attacks, and Joe Biden gave a lengthy speech while signing it. Yet, few if any media or Democratic voices made the same linkage between progressives’ rhetoric on Israel and rising anti-Semitism.

Four brave House Democrats took a stand against anti-Semitism in their own caucus, a stand the media and their party leadership refused to take. “These statements are anti-Semitic at their core,” they wrote. They foster a climate of hate that forces Jews in America to choose between safety and public religious expression. That’s a choice no American should have to make—and both parties should make that clear.

I’m Ed Morrissey

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