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This piece is one of the best pieces I have seen in a long time on the state of the U.S., and where we might be heading:

Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with “tea baggers” and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.

If our great recession continues, if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their leaders blame politicians for “not being tough enough,” if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on US soil, wouldn’t this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?

Read it all.

From Rubin on Tax, the IRS’ “top ten”:

1. Collection due process hearings;
2. Summons enforcement;
3. Trade or business expenses;
4. Gross income;
5. Accuracy-related penalties;
6. Frivolous issue penalties;
7. Actions to enforce federal tax liens or to subject property to payment of tax;
8. Failure to file penalty and estimated tax penalty;
9. Family status issues; and
10. Relief from joint and several liability for spouses.

As Rubin points out, “…most of these heavily litigated issues are not “sexy” but typically relate only to procedural matters.”  To put it another way, with taxes, just like anything else, the devil is in the details.  Unfortunately small business people and entrepreneurs are the most likely to get put through the wringer.  Leaving out the issue of outright fraud, most small business people aren’t naturally attuned to things like these, so they get tangled up in the formalities.  The expense of keeping up with these formalities can be considerable, which explains another frequent characteristic of tax litigation:

…71% of these cases involved pro se taxpayers who represented themselves.

And the success rate isn’t inspiring either:

Taxpayers prevailed in whole or in part in 14.3% of the cases.  (That’s 1 out of 7.)

I never thought I’d live to see the day, but here it is, from David “Spengler” Goldman:

“For the first time, the market has started to price in a bigger probability of default among industrialised countries than among investment grade companies.

More specifically, it now costs more to insure the combined risk of default of Europe’s developed nations, including Germany, France and the UK, than it does the combined risk of Europe’s top 125 investment grade companies, according to the Markit indices.”

Although Goldman draws some important conclusions from this, what strikes me is that large corporations and financial institutions are so supernational that they’re actually more likely to endure than “sovereign” nations, at least in the view of financial markets.  Corporations are, legally speaking, creatures of the state, but in reality it looks as though some states at least are creatures of the corporations.  Liberals especially gripe (justifiably) about the “corporatist” nature of our government, and this seems to be reflected in the way financial markets value sovereign states.

It will be interesting to see what would actually happen if a nation such as Greece or the UK actually defaults in a major way.  But it won’t be fun.

I never thought I’d link to the Daily Kos, but here it goes:

If you don’t remember the Amirault case, you’re probably sleeping better at night.  The pre-school child-abuse witch hunts of the 80’s remain an indelible blot on any history of justice and reason in this country.  The Amiraults were at the center of one of the prosecution frenzies of that era.

Coakley wasn’t there for the original farce.  But when the case finally began to unravel, when judges and even the Governor’s Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended commutation, Coakley, as Middlesex DA, continued to hound and persecute the family.

Read the story for yourself.  I can’t believe I’m linking to something at the Wall Street Journal, but the story is what it is.  If you don’t believe anything from the WSJ, look it up elsewhere.  Just do a search on “coakley amirault” and see what you find.

And then don’t expect me to make a single phone call for her, or donate a dime, or even show up to vote.  I’m being told over and over that her vote would be crucial to the health-care “reform” bill.  Well, I’ve had to swallow an awful lot over that bill already.  So much worthwhile stuff was cut out, so much inept and feckless bargaining with implacable nose-jobbers, that there’s not much of a bill left to care about.  And now I’m told that I have to swallow Martha Coakley, too?

Although I’m not completely up on this race, up until now I haven’t heard much from conservatives about this.  But prosecutorial abuse is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who want to separate the people from their freedom.  “Law and order” conservatives don’t like to talk about it, but they should.

After all, if you got a liberal with some spine up there, we would be next…

Coakley had the luxury of gracefully dropping this case.  But she didn’t, which only makes matters worse.

Massachusetts, it’s your call.  What are you going to do?