BloggeRhythms

Likely because April 15th was tax day, yesterday Stephen Dinan wrote about the current condition of the IRS on washingtontimes.com, as follows:

 

“IRS customer service representatives managed to answer only about a tenth of taxpayers’ phone calls this season, and even the lucky ones waited an average of nearly 25 minutes before getting through, the agency’s auditor reported Thursday.

 

“Of the 45.6 million calls placed through early March, only 4.2 million were answered by an IRS employee, according to the IRS’s inspector general. Others went to automated lines, for an official level of service rating of 38.5 percent — almost twice as bad as last year’s 74.7 percent rating.”

 

In response, “Agency Commissioner John Koskinen has blamed budget cuts, saying he’s pulled people from answering phones and is trying to steer taxpayers to find answers online or through other automated systems, rather than expecting someone to be able to help by phone.

 

“But members of Congress, who have trimmed the IRS’s budget in recent years, say the agency is still wasting money on bum projects such as public opinion polling, or on ideological witch hunts such as trying to write rules to crack down on political activity by nonprofit groups.”

 

Thus, as far as taxpayers themselves are concerned, the IRS’s dismal performance is probably good news because logic says that if the agency is overwhelmed, the likelihood of a review, audit or any follow on the department's part is greatly diminished. 

 

The downside, though, which has been mentioned here often, is that this same agency is now responsible for administrating the president’s health care tax. Which means that while tax-wise many folks will make out fine, as far as there health is concerned they better not get ill in any way. Because the chances of getting proper service and help with their healthcare is now around 40% if the same performance statistics hold true for the currently incompetent IRS. 

 

On a similar government incapability topic, another washingtontimes.com columnist, Ben Wolfgang, writes that, “The fate of President Obama’s climate change plan now rests with three judges who heard oral arguments Thursday in a case that will decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency can move ahead with historic limits on power plant emissions.

 

“The monumental case came before a federal appeals court on the same day new data was released showing the EPA regulations could lead directly to the loss of nearly 300,000 jobs — more fuel for critics who say Mr. Obama is pursuing a radical environmental agenda at the expense of jobs and affordable electricity rates.”

 

Reading the column stirred memories of another article. This one by Marc Morano in Climate Depot back on July 9, 2014.

 

At that time, Mr. Morano wrote that, “Ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, warned “I fear a global cooling,” during his keynote address to the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Moore, who left Greenpeace in 1986 because he felt it had become too radical, is the author of “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist.”

 

Mr. Moore also opined that, “President Obama seems to say it is sufficient to say the ‘science is settled.’ It is a hollow statement with no content.” Also suggesting that people ought to: “Change the way our kids are being taught about this subject because if we don’t there will be a whole generation of people who are just blindly following this climate hysteria.”

 

Noting that, “a cooling would adversely impact agriculture," he continued, "Let’s hope for a little warming as opposed to a little cooling. I would rather it got a little warmer.”

 

Moore added that “the U.S. has currently been cooling” and that there has been “no global warming for nearly 18 years.” He also mocked the notion that “everything is due to global warming.”

 

“If it warms two degrees, hopefully more in Canada in the North…maybe it would be a good thing if it did,” Moore explained.

 

Moore further explained that carbon dioxide is a trace essential gas in the atmosphere and is not the control knob of the Earth’s climate. Saying, “CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on earth.” 

 

“There are so many [climate] variables that we can’t control and when you do an experiment you have to control all the variables except the one you are studying if you want to get a clean result. There are even variables we do not even understand that we cannot control,” he said.

 

“So it is virtually impossible to think of doing an experiment where we would be able to tweeze out the impact of CO2 versus the hundreds of other variables at work. Which is why you could never make a model that would predict the climate.” 

 

Reader JJnTX WellArmedLamb summed up the situation quite correctly by commenting that, “The sad thing is that for every article like this, there are 50 government propaganda articles and Al Gore speeches.”

 

Which brings us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife, which refers to an article sent by a friend, written by Dick Morris back on May 25, 2007, when she was running for POTUS the first time around.

 

Here’s the link: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/bill-clintons-loving-wife.144695/

 

Since the article speaks eloquently and accurately for itself, 

 

That's it for today folks.

 

Adios