It’s such a boring cliche to say that when it comes to President Donald Trump, every accusation is a confession. But just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t depressingly, grindingly, predictably true.  That’s why it should come as no surprise that Trump is planning on using the Internal Revenue Service to criminally target left-leaning groups. In some ways, the only surprise is that it took him this long to get around to it.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a Trump ally, Gary Shapley, is set to replace Guy Ficco, the career head of the agency’s criminal investigative unit. Shapley is making a list, which always bodes well, right? This is a list of liberal donors and left-leaning groups that Trump wants to go after, and Shapley is the guy to do it.  Shapley’s main achievement at the IRS before this was ceaselessly investigating Hunter Biden and styling himself a “whistleblower” for doing it. So, pretty much the perfect guy to oversee Trump’s ridiculously illegal attacks on his political opposition.  George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations Of course, of course, of course, the Journal reports that billionaire George Soros and groups affiliated with him are on the list. Last month, The New York Times reported that a senior Department of Justice official had drafted plans for multiple U.S. attorney offices to criminally investigate Soros’ Open Society Foundations.  What for, you might ask? Well, arson and material support of terrorism, of course!  That’s patent nonsense, an absurd attempt to connect any random act at a protest Trump doesn’t like to some vast shadowy organized leftist criminal rebellion, but there’s no one stopping Trump from doing this, so why not expand to using the IRS as well, right? And to be perfectly clear: Shapley is being turned loose to do criminal, not civil, investigations here.  Recall how much conservatives howled over the fact that the IRS under former President Barack Obama had the goddamn gall to carefully review the applications of conservative groups for tax-exempt status? Even viewed through the most uncharitable lens, the Obama administration subjected those groups to heightened scrutiny in the application process at most—and even that is debatable.  They pretended that was weaponization, but this is what it really looks like. This was the inevitable next step after Trump’s designation of antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Sure, there’s no such thing as a domestic terrorist organization designation, and there’s no such thing as antifa as a defined group, but that’s the whole point: the definition is so deliberately mushy that it allows him to say any left-leaning group is terrorism.  Related | As IRS allows churches to endorse candidates, Texas pastors may gain political power At the same time, when it comes to conservative churches, the IRS has been ordered to stand down and no longer enforce the Johnson Amendment, which had prohibited them from endorsing candidates. Those organizations now get to keep their tax-exempt status while preaching right-wing endorsements from the pulpit, but on the other side of the aisle, not so much. Meanwhile, some folks like Vice President JD Vance and Sen. Mitch McConnell are going to have to update their talking points. And Ohio GOP Rep. Warren Davidson? This is not the time to be calling for the IRS to be closed because “It’s an agency that can be weaponized. And I think those kinds of agencies should just go away.”  Guys, weaponization is good now! All my cool dudes love weaponization! What’s the point of seizing all the levers of power if you can’t use them to prosecute the opposition? Please revise your rants at your earliest convenience and let Shapley get to work. Read more