Category: Gummint

Quote Of The Day

Taxes and Theft

From Bill Hoge, in discussing POTUS’s plan to close over one hundred I.R.S. offices:

“Why do we need taxpayer assistance centers? Why are our taxes so freaking complicated that people with graduate degrees have to fork over thousands of dollars to their CPAs because the tax code is so convoluted that only a full-time tax nerd can figure them out?”

That’s a really good question.  My favorite story about the I.R.S. is the one where someone called a few of these “assistance centers” because he had a problem with something on his return.  Every single one of the centers gave a different answer to his question — in other words, the I.R.S.’s own staff couldn’t navigate their way through the code.

I remember Mr. Free Market’s tale of paying his income tax in Hong Kong, back when he lived there (pre-CCP takeover).  Every December he would go to the local tax office with the HK equivalent of an IRS Form 1099 from his employer (which stated only that his salary was $x — there were no deductions or withholdings whatsoever).  He would then write out a cheque for 5% of that amount, the clerk would stamp his 1099 as proof of payment… and that was it.

Frankly, I would have no problem with paying a flat (and fixed-forever) tax rate of 7% on that basis.  (“Why 7% and not 5%, Kim?”  Because unlike Hong Kong, we need to pay for things like naval carrier groups and interstate highways, which I like and support).  I would even support paying 7% of my Social Security, as long as everybody — including welfare recipients — paid the same tax rate on gross income, without exemption (or deductions).  Only if you have skin in the game should you be allowed to vote on the subject, e.g. raises to the rate, which I’d want protected by a Constitutional amendment anyway.

Feel free to explain to me why I’m wrong.  Good luck with that.

More Wastage

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

Boy, the hits they just keep on coming:

All the above make various of my digits itch (and one specifically, guess which one), but the last item in particular makes me want to reach for the Mauser.

Fifty-two million tax dollars to the WEF? Don’t those assholes have enough of their own money?  (Never mind that I find their entire existence as an organization revolting.)

Don’t get me started on the rest, because as it is I feel the need for an extended range session coming on.

Surveillance

Asshole Cops, Government Thugs, Surveillance Society

Seems as though you can’t do anything these days without being spied on by the fucking Government:

Recent revelations confirm that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has been aggressively expanding its use of facial recognition technology, raising significant concerns about mass surveillance and unconstitutional tracking of law-abiding gun owners.

For years, gun rights advocates have warned that the ATF’s use of facial recognition would lead to mass surveillance of American citizens—particularly those who exercise their Second Amendment rights. Despite repeated claims that the ATF doesn’t engage in biometric tracking, a 2021 Government Accountability Office report revealed that between October 2019 and March 2022, the ATF conducted at least 549 facial recognition searches.

Of course, it’s not actually the ATF doing this (a.k.a. plausible deniability):

The technology was largely powered by third-party vendors, including Clearview AI and Vigilant Solutions, both of which have amassed vast databases of billions of images scraped from social media, DMV records, and security footage. This means the ATF has been leveraging private sector databases to track and identify gun owners without their consent.

The full scale of this surveillance remains unclear, but newly surfaced documents indicate that the ATF has been working with FBI fusion centers, state and local law enforcement, and even foreign intelligence agencies to develop more comprehensive tracking capabilities.

Here’s the thing:  I don’t want to be spied on by anyone, let alone these government thugs.

I don’t care that it helps “security” or any other such panacea.  Take your snooping devices and go fuck yourselves.

That said:

Oh, and new-FBI Director / ATF Acting-Director Patel?  Take a long, hard look at those “FBI fusion centers” and make them less malevolent — lest you too be labeled as just another government thug.

Information, we’re always being told, is power.  And I want the government to have a lot less of both.

Quote Of The Day

Bureaucracy, QOTD

“25 million individuals over age 100 remain in the Social Security database even though there are fewer than 100,000 people aged 100 or older alive in the U.S. today.” — DOGE

Let’s hear it for Gummint efficiency.  And if it’s not inefficiency… then it’s fucking fraud, and the recipients of said fraudulent payouts need to go to jail.

And while we’re there, the people responsible for checking for and preventing such anomalies should be fired.

Not Revenge; A Reckoning

Asshole Cops, Government Thugs, Trumpism

That lovely quote from the movie Tombstone  came to mind when I read that Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI Director by the Senate.

I hope, nay even expect that there’s going to be some kind of Mass Resignation Event among the Fibbie senior management — and there fucking well should be.

There has been a lot wrong with the various alphabet agencies who are nominally charged with looking after the American people, in that they seem to have misinterpreted their remit as “looking at” the American people, much in the way that an owl looks at a mouse.

The FBI has proven itself to be particularly at fault because they’ve gone after concerned parents, Catholics and who knows who else in a totally misdirected — and I use the word advisedly — identification of harmless folks like these as “enemies of the nation”.

How they might regard gun owners like myself we will not speak, because the actions of their vaunted SWAT teams speak for themselves.

So Kash, ol’ buddy, get in there and start rooting out the assholes — I’m pretty sure you know who they are — and don’t content yourself with just firing them;  prosecute all those worth prosecuting, just as they have unjustly done to otherwise-innocent people in the past.  (Ask the President how it feels.)

And while you’re there, shut down the stupid departments like Human Rights, not because the motives behind their creation were incorrect, but because the people managing them ended up using those motives as a pretext for harassing and indicting people in the most aggressive and venal manner.

It’s called “turning the tables”, and I can think of no worthier targets than the people who initiated and carried out those actions.  They have, in short, betrayed their public trust and caused the public to fear, loathe and despise them, and they deserve to be severely punished in consequence.