TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1192.

FLASHBACK: That Awkward Moment in 2008 When Hillary Clinton Mused About Assassination.

ROGER SIMON ASKS, WHICH IS WORSE—AN OCTOBER SURPRISE OR A DECEMBER SURPRISE?

WHEN VIRTUE-SIGNALLING AS A BASIS FOR POLICY FAILS: With Merkel’s Popularity Tanking, New Anti-Terror Laws Announced.

Days after the second July terror attack in Germany was claimed by ISIS, a pollster found that Germans were not blaming Angela Merkel’s open doors policies for the violence: only 28 percent said they saw a link. But that Forsa poll may have been held too quickly after the event. An Infratest dimap poll, held a week later, saw support for Merkel drop by 12 percent in July, while support for Horst Seehofer, her political adversary from Bavaria, rise by 11.

Now, a week later still, the trend is confirmed. . . .

The ongoing real impact of the open doors policy has been minimized by the shuttering of the Balkan migrant corridor, and reinforced the deal with Turkey (though, as we noted, some Europeans are thinking that the Turkey deal itself may not be the critical element in keeping the numbers down).

On the other hand, her coalition gets to blow the law-and-order horn—always a gesture that’s welcomed by a nervous population.

Will the new laws be enough to forestall a Paris-style massacre in Germany? We certainly hope so, but only time will tell.

My prediction is that this won’t be enough.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? “No worries says Trump. He ‘doesn’t know’ if he needs a get out the vote operation.”

THE ATLANTIC: Since 9/11, national-security officials have made policy on a myth of American invulnerability. They should have been preparing everyday citizens for the worst in order to make the country stronger.

Well, it’s not like some of us weren’t telling them that.

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JOEL KOTKIN: Today’s Tech Oligarchs Are Worse Than Robber Barons. “Yes, Jay Gould was a bad guy. But at least he helped build societal wealth. Not so our Silicon Valley overlords. And they have our politicians in their pockets.”

INTERNATIONAL LEFT HANDERS DAY: No, not leftist, left hander, or left-hander. Like Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax and me. Here’s another article which mentions prominent left-handers like Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Thomas Jefferson.

GALLUP: IN U.S., OBAMA EFFECT ON RACIAL MATTERS FALLS SHORT OF HOPES.

I dunno – I’d say the half of the country that was aware of Obama’s background as a failed community organizer who spent years listening to Rev. Wright’s racialist sermons aren’t exactly surprised by this development. But still, as Jon Gabriel wrote in his tweet of the decade:

HUH. I REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS RACIST WHEN TRUMP SUGGESTED THIS: Islamic State does have sleeper cells disguised as refugees.

American Republicans, like Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, who warned against the Islamic State taking advantage of the refugee crisis, have been proven correct.

A senior German security official told the BBC Thursday that Islamic State “sleeper cells” have infiltrated the country, and that an attack would be “very likely.”

“We have to accept that we have hit squads and sleeper cells in Germany,” said Manfred Hauser, the deputy head of Bavaria’s intelligence. “We have substantial reports that among the refugees are hit squads.”

Some of those reports came from refugees, Hauser said, adding: “We have irrefutable evidence that there is an ISIS command structure that makes an attack in Germany very likely.”

Last October, then-primary candidate Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier that if the U.S. accepted Syrian refugees without a thorough vetting process, “It could be the all-time great Trojan Horse.” He said at the time that he was worried Islamic State operatives could be disguised among the refugees. In June 2016, Trump again warned that “a lot of those people are ISIS” when referring to Syrian refugees coming to the U.S.

Former GOP primary candidate Jeb Bush also expressed trepidation at the ability of the U.S. to properly vet refugees, suggesting America should prioritize “people like orphans and people who are clearly not going to be terrorists. Or Christians.”

During testimony before U.S. senators, CIA Director John Brennan also warned the Islamic State would us “refugee streams, traditional smuggling routes and legitimate travel” to infiltrate the surrounding region. Brennan does not consider himself a Republican or a Democrat.

It calls into question those who cried “bigotry” at anyone who suggested the U.S. be cautious toward accepting refugees.

People who cry “bigotry” these days are usually political hacks.

POLYGAMY: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Report: Somali Activist Elected in Minnesota is Married To Her Brother, and Another Man.

CNN’S CUOMO COMES RIGHT OUT AND ADMITS IT: ‘WE COULDN’T HELP HILLARY ANY MORE THAN WE HAVE.’

And CNN’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by those who haven’t drunk the Clinton Kool-Aid: Trump Rally-Goer To CNN Reporter: “I Am A Patriot And You Are A Traitor!”

THE HILL: Clinton takes substantial edge in key swing-state polls.

Also: Is Trump Deliberately Throwing The Election To Clinton?

Related: Yale College Republicans Endorse Trump. How triggering!

DISPATCHES FROM THE JUNIOR ANTI-SEX LEAGUE: The Anti-Sex Left And Its War On Free Expression.

That soulless leftwing monoculture that Mark Judge of Acculturated explored has certainly taken some genuinely unexpected turns, particularly given how radical feminism largely exhausted itself defending Bill Clinton’s droit du seigneur in the mid-1990s.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s What Happens When You Have A Panic Attack Underwater. If you’re prone to panic attacks, don’t scuba dive.

When I did the Popular Mechanics rebreather test dive some years ago, the “contralungs” on the rebreather were much smaller than my actual lungs. (They were mediums; I’m like an extra-large in lung capacity). That meant that I couldn’t get a full breath, and at one point I was aware of a powerful desire to spit out the regulator and take a deep breath. Being a phlegmatic type, I’m perfectly capable of feeling a powerful desire and not acting on it, but it was the first time I understood how that sort of thing might happen to people.

QUESTION ASKED: Is Contemporary Liberalism Creating a Soulless Monoculture?

I’m not sure if “soulless” is the right adjective, as the left is perfectly fine with those who claim to be privately religious, as long as they go along with abortion, gay marriage, gender-neutral restrooms, etc. Not to mention all of the white light alternative spirituality cults that usually lean pretty far to the left. But this passage from Mark Judge of Acculturated is certainly spot on:

We’ve witnessed the a slow and steady debasement of our politics and popular culture—see, for example, those “man on the street” interviews where Americans can’t name who won the Revolutionary War. Enter the unelected bureaucrats who appoint themselves to steer the ship; in other words, we’re liberals and we’re here to help. Inspired by the idea that to be against them is to be “on the wrong wide of history,” both communism and contemporary liberalism demand absolute submission to the progressive plan. All resistance, no matter how grounded in genuine belief or natural law, must be quashed.

Read the whole thing.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. In Venezuela, It’s not a ‘Humanitarian’ Crisis. It’s a Socialist Crisis.

The disaster unfolding in Venezuela is entirely the fault of the Venezuelans who elected first Hugo Chavez and then Nicolas Maduro. But check out the way CNN Money frames what’s happening. . . .

Read the whole thing and notice the one word you don’t see in the article. Go ahead, I dare you.

I bet you can guess. Related: It’s The Marxism, Stupid!

The allegedly-eerie similarities between the bombastic Republican presidential nominee and our late galactic Comandante are the gift that just keeps on giving. In a recent, especially auto-mojoneado little screed, Quico tried to convince us that the reason Trump won’t be as destructive as Chávez was is that he won’t be as disciplined and effective at destroying America’s democratic institutions as Chávez was at destroying ours.

This is a dangerous self-deception from a leftie in denial about what it was that made Chávez so uniquely destructive: as though leftist ideology was an “accident” that accounted for no part of the damage Chávez did, as though institutional-destruction was the beginning and the end of the story. Quico should really know better: this isn’t about who had better etiquette (though God knows this is the first time Chávez has done better at that!) The damage Chávez did is the damage only a communist will do once in power.

Let’s not fool ourselves: it’s not any old autocrat who can create the kind of chaos Venezuela’s been experiencing. It’s a very specific kind of autocrat, one burning with principled opposition to property as a right. That’s the only kind of autocrat who’ll push for policies that lead to acute shortages of basic food staples and medicines, the collapse of public services, the three-digit inflation, the destruction of the national manufacturing industry.

Those outcomes stem not from his rhetoric, nor from his illiberal tendencies (Fujimori was as illiberal as Chávez and ran a similarly sized economy) but by his ties to the old-school left in Venezuela that had been left out of power in 1958 and still supported many of the main Marxist axioms as late as in the 1990’.

Leftism impoverishes and kills, again and again. But politicians like it because it offers them control, and opportunities for graft. Voters like it because, well, it’s a con game designed to take advantage of greed and envy. Remember, under free markets the rich become powerful. But under socialism, the powerful become rich.

Entirely unrelated: Candidate Who Said There Were Too Many Kinds Of Deodorant Buys His Third House.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION ABOUT HOME MUSIC RECORDING: Why do your recordings sound like ass?

It’s a big question – and an even bigger thread; it goes on for over 60 pages in the forum devoted to the Reaper digital audio workstation program. But whatever recording program you use, you will learn much reading it. I’m assuming the fellow who started it off and contributed the majority of the initial posts is an active or former professional engineer or mixer. In any case, he definitely knows his stuff. And this moment from him on page nine of the thread cracked me up:

“An explorer is deep in the jungle, being led by a native guide. They are hacking their way through dense tropical growth when suddenly drums start pounding in the distance. The explorer freezes. His guide reassures him: “no worry. drums good.” “The drums are good? No danger?” “Yes, drums good. Keep going.”

The explorer takes a deep breath and they trudge on. As the jungle gets thicker and denser, and dusk starts to fall, the drums continue, pounding louder, ever closer. The explorer asks again, “Are you sure those drums are okay… nothing to be afraid of? It sounds like they’re getting louder.”

“No. no worry. Drums good.” They continue on.

As night falls and they start to break camp, the drums become even louder, more intense. The explorer cannot shake a sense that they spell impending doom, but his guide continues to reassure him: “drums good.”

Then, just as darkness settles most completely over the jungle, the drums suddenly stop. The guide’s face goes ashen, a look of horror in his eyes! The explorer asks, “What? What’s the matter? The drums stopped– is that bad?”

The guide responds, “When drums stop, very bad! Bad thing coming! No good for anybody!”

“What!? What is it? What happens after the drums stop!?!”

The guide responds: “Bass solo.”

I’d say “read the whole thing,” but there’s a lot here to take in, from room acoustics to microphone selection to musical timing. (That riff above on bass solos led to a whole series of posts on the techniques professional studio bass players use to make a pop song work, for example, and why they differ from the way an average electric guitarist flails around on bass when he switches over*.) But if recording your own music at home is an interest of yours on any level – read the whole thing, or at least the first third before thread drift starts to slowly kick in.

* Yes, very much guilty as charged on too many occasions, alas.

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THIS IS THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF POPULATION CONTROL: More Old Than Young: A Demographic Shock Sweeps the Globe. ” By 2030, 56 countries will have more people aged 65 and over than children under 15.”

This is happening everywhere, but different countries are at different stages, which is likely to produce considerable instability.

TRUMP’S INTEMPERATE?: Three weeks ago the Democrats were accusing him of treason.

MODERN ART INSULTS ME: An intelligent rant.

SMALL BEER: Would Weaker Beer Help Reduce Alcohol’s Harms?

I’ll take my chances.