TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 23.

CORRUPT ONE-PARTY MACHINE GOVERMENT: Detroit Heads To The Pawn Shop.

Desperation has hit a new low in Detroit.

Last week, Emergency Manager (and bankruptcy lawyer) Kevyn Orr decided to list the holdings of the Detroit Institute of Arts among the city’s assets in preparation for a possible bankruptcy. If the city goes through with it, it could be forced to sell off any of its assets—which now include the museum’s collection. . . .

The collection, which include treasures by Bruegel, Rodin and van Gogh as well as Diego Rivera’s famous “Detroit Industry” murals, are ostensibly worth billions of dollars, but those measures can’t really capture what such artistic treasures mean to a community.

Unfortunately the city is already struggling to keep the lights on. Local businesses recently had to step in to buy the city police cars and ambulances. Meanwhile, Detroit has closed nearly a quarter of the city’s firehouses, and the department’s equipment is beginning to fall apart. At this point, the city may need the money more than it needs the art.

This is another grim reminder of just how destructive Detroit’s corrupt machine politics have been. At one time, Detroit was the manufacturing capital of America and one of the country’s great cities; today it’s trying to stave off a kind of modern-day bonfire of the vanities.

Every time Detroit seems like it’s about to hit rock bottom, a trap door opens to reveal yet another howling abyss.

The whole country would be this way, if the machine had as free a hand as it’s had in Detroit.

JUST ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR SMART DIPLOMACY: Gay rights cases could trail Obama in Africa. “President Barack Obama’s trip to Africa next month may result in a stark juxtaposition between the growing power of the gay rights movement in the U.S. and the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the African continent. Obama is scheduled to be in Africa in late June and early July — the same period in which the Supreme Court is likely to issue highly anticipated rulings on a pair of gay marriage cases. The court does not say in advance when its rulings will be issued, but the gay marriage cases are expected to be among the last decisions announced before the justices begin their summer break at the end of June. Homosexuality is considered a criminal offense in many African nations, including Senegal and Tanzania, two of the countries Obama will visit.”

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Also, today only: Up to 60% off on men’s polos and pants.

THE HILL: Conservatives: Public backlash to immigration reform is coming. “Opponents of the Senate immigration reform bill say a strong public backlash is coming and think they have a good chance of stopping it on the Senate floor. . . . Conservative talk-show hosts who stoked intense opposition to comprehensive immigration reform in 2007 have discussed it less this year. And conservatives have been focused on other issues, such as the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups, and the administration’s handling of the attacks on Benghazi.”

MORE “PROGRESSIVE” DIRTY TRICK NEWS: Operative in Secret McConnell Recording Publicly Confesses, Compounds His Problems.

THE UPSIDE IS, NEXT TO POLITICALLY MOTIVATED AUDITS, THIS DOESN’T SOUND SO BAD: More Wild Overspending On IRS Videos, Conferences.

Zero out their budget for this stuff. That’s a punishment they’ll notice.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Gotcha guide: 4 types of Washington investigation.

LOOKING AT THE COST OF the War On Drugs.

PEGGY NOONAN: Restoring public faith will require a full investigation of the IRS’s politicization.

The Benghazi scandal was and is shocking, and the Justice Department assault on the free press, in which dogged reporters are tailed like enemy spies, is shocking. Benghazi is still under investigation and someday someone will write a great book about it. As for the press, Attorney General Eric Holder is on the run, and rightly so. They called it the First Amendment for a reason. But nothing can damage us more as a nation than what is happening at the Internal Revenue Service. Elite opinion in the press and in Washington doesn’t fully understand this. Part of the reason is that it’s not their ox being gored, it’s those messy people out in America with their little patriotic groups.

Those who aren’t deeply distressed about the IRS suffer from a reluctance or inability to make distinctions, and a lack of civic imagination.

Dumb flyover slopeheads. Even if the audits were wrong, it’s probably best to keep them in their place.

Plus:

It is considered a bit of a faux pas to point this out, but what we are talking about in part is a Democratic president, a largely Democratic professional administrative class in Washington, and an IRS whose workers belong to a union whose political action committee gave roughly 95% of its political contributions last year to Democrats. Tim Carney had a remarkable piece in the Washington Examiner this week in which he looked for campaign contributions from the IRS Cincinnati office. “In the 2012 election, every donation traceable to this office went to President Obama or liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown.” An IRS employee said in an email to Mr. Carney, “Do you think people willing to sacrifice lucrative private sector careers to work in tax administration . . . are genuinely going to support the party directed by Grover Norquist?” Mr. Carney noted that one of his IRS correspondents had an interesting detail on his social media profile. He belongs to a Facebook FB -0.00% group called “Target the Shutdown at the Tea Party States.” It advised the president, during the 2011 debt-ceiling fight: “For instance, shut down air traffic control at airports in Norfolk, Tampa, Nashville.”

Wow. I guess that was target practice.

Honestly, we might be better off abolishing the civil service and going back to the spoils system. At least then there’s no pretense of fairness, and you know who to blame.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Miller writes of Peggy Noonan’s conversion:

I know you often mention Noonan’s ridiculous attacks on McCain/Palin back in 2008 when she criticizes Barry these days. But in can’t be repeated often enough. People like you knew and told people (repeatedly) what was coming if Obama won. You didn’t know the exact detail of the abuses of power that would come but you knew they were coming. People like Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Christopher Buckley, on the other hand, assured us that John McCain was too unpredictable for the Presidency and Sarah Palin not worthy of the Vice-Presidency. Barry, on the other hand, had the look of a president and certainly could be trusted with the levers of power. He went to an Ivy League school, after all.

Noonan looked down her nose at us in the flyover country and tut-tutted to her Beltway friends about how us slope-foreheads didn’t know how to judge politicians like those in the political class knew how to judge them.

Look what you gave us, Peggy-O.

It would be nice for Noonan to apologize to Palin and to also apologize to the country for being so gravely wrong on a matter so important to the future of our country. Until she does that, her criticism of the President is laughable. She helped ensure he would win.

Well, it’s worth pointing out, but better a slow learner than someone who doesn’t learn at all.

WELL, YES: Americans Deserve The Truth On Presidential Scandals.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do My Rape Fantasies Make Me A Weirdo? “In this video, sex therapist and YourTango Expert Dr. Lori Buckley of the Sinclair Institute says that, in fact, it’s a very common fantasy for women.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here Are The States With The Most Bars Per Capita.

BEST GUESS: He’s gay, and in denial. But it’s a guess. Plus, from the comments: “I once met Bella Abzug’s husband. He looked desiccated and shrunken. I don’t think he had such an exciting sex life.”

THE AGE OF THE MORTSAFE.

DOLPHINS AND BULLSHIT!

DISCRIMINATION: Staples Says Gun Store Can’t Enter Contest.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: State Systems Go MOOC.

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AT MINDING THE CAMPUS, an excerpt from the Insta-Wife’s new book, Men On Strike.

DAVID KIRKHAM: My view: Broken immigration system loses jobs.

WIRED: Senator Rand Paul Talks Tech, Civil Liberties, and Keeping the Government Out of Your Email.

ED DRISCOLL: All The President’s Stenographers. “Woodward and Bernstein left the building a long time ago. Either that or — heaven forefend, the Washington Post has different standards for each party when they’re in the White House: sink the GOP, and roll over like a kitten waiting to be stroked for its fellow Democrats.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Outsourced Lectures Raise Concerns About Academic Freedom.

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