COMMON SENSE ALONE MAKES IT OBVIOUS that Second Amendment conservatives make it up as they go — praising guns out one side of their mouth . . . then deploring them with totally untrue innuendo out the other. Keep the old gang intact while scaring up some new members. Anything for a vote on Nov. 8.

GOP members of Congress already have falsely claimed that many of the IRS’s 87,000 new hires under Biden’s climate and tax bill will be armed and that new enforcement steps will be aimed at low- and middle-incomes and small businesses. That’s just plain silly. Makes us wonder what some of these people are doing in Congress the rest of their time as they worry about the comfort of special interests.

We know pretty much what GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is doing now and then, attacking both the IRS and the FBI in defense of the well-to-do. It was shortly after the FBI’s paperwork search last month at Mar-a-Lago that he told the House, “with this new power, the IRS will snoop around in your bank account  . . .  your small business. Then the government will shake you down for every last cent.” He added that in light of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search, “Do you really trust this administration’s IRS to be fair, to not use their power?”

Pause here to read the bit in my Aug. 24 blog about the new Climate and Tax Bill beefing up the IRS and increasing its going after tax cheats. And the coincidence of veteran bookkeeper Wesselberg of the Donald Trump company pleading guilty to avoiding payment of $l.76 million in taxes over the past 15 years.

That’s not exactly the same as armed IRS agents banging in on the Mom and Pop candy store on the corner and hauling off the proprietors for some minor mistake they perhaps innocently made in filling out forms themselves to save the cost of a professional auditor. As if IRS computer-users had even gotten down to that income level. Rest easy, Mom and Pop.

I doubt that new IRS workers will be strapping on 9-mm handguns as they head off to work in the morning. But there may be an up-tick in the purchase of computers — as they take a closer look at more high-income tax returns.

I wonder if we’ll ever see the day when power-hungry Republicans aren’t under estimating the intelligence of the general public.

Meanwhile  . . .  racism, white supremacy and Donald Trump have played a major role at the root of things for about the past seven years or so — since about 2015. “Before Trump, Republicans were considered the camp of the conservative Christian. Many still had their racist beliefs, but they were shrouded in policy and toned-down hatespeech. Those who openly held such prejudiced racial views were considered outliers to the upstanding fiscally responsible right.

“But there came a time when everything changed, and the party of ‘less federal government involvement’ became the party of ‘big racism.’ Veteran GOP strategist Stuart Stevens believes the tipping point was in 2015, ‘when Trump, then the leading Republican presidential candidate, called for a ban on Muslim travelers to the United States,’ according to a 2020 interview with Mother Jones."

This comment is pursued effectively (at considerably more length than is available here) in an Aug. 30 HuffPost article, “Opinion: The Not-So-Hidden Reason For Republicans’ Student Loan Anger,” by Stephen A. Crockett Jr.

“Stevens argues that if the intrinsic, core values of the Republican Party weren’t racist, then how could they succumb so quickly to the racist values of Trump in just three or four years? What was once a taboo position to hold in the Grand Ole Party had now become the way.

“I know what you’re thinking: What does any of this have to do with student loan forgiveness. Well, one of the tenets of racism is that the white race ― simply based on skin color alone ― is the dominant race. Conveniently tied into racism is the idea of white supremacy, which also argues that the white race is the dominant race because of its fairer skin tone.” 

Etc. Google the headline above for enlightening comment.

I see there is room here for a comment by Senator Bernie Sanders on the president’s student loan forgiveness "I don't hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires," Sanders, I-Vt., told ABC "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos. "Suddenly when we do something for working people, it is a terrible idea," he said.