So, what, oh Stupid Party, are you going to do about it?

Or will you just stick with showing all kinds of upset and actually doing nothing?
Ernst has focused heavily in recent years on drawing public and congressional attention to the lax response of top IRS officials to a growing trend within the federal agency's own workforce of late-filing of tax returns and taxes owed but unpaid.

In the latest edition of an annual assessment of this issue by the Treasury Inspector-General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which Ernst originally requested, more than 5,800 IRS employees and contractors were found to owe nearly $50 million in unpaid levies.

Among these tax cheats are 3,414 IRS employees, representing 4% of the agency's current 85,359-member workforce. Of those among the 3,415 IRS workers who have agreed to payment plans, $9 million remains unpaid. Employees without a payment plan owe another $12 million.
...
“We write with serious concerns regarding your agency’s recent unilateral and unauthorized action to create a permanent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Direct File tax preparation program... The American people do not want an all-encompassing IRS acting simultaneously as the tax collector, tax auditor, tax enforcer, and tax preparer,” the senators wrote.

“Taxpayers already have access to numerous free tax-filing options and dozens of national non-profit entities offer tax preparation services at no cost…The IRS does not have unlimited resources and should focus on improving information technology systems, data privacy, and long-standing customer service issues.”

Federal agencies are not allowed simply to create a new program without prior authorization from Congress, which must also provide funding and approve staffing levels.

As Barrasso and Crapo point out, the IRS received permission to study the possibility of establishing such an initiative, not to proceed directly to creating the new program.

"I should be paying more taxes(but

I won't do it until I'm forced to)!"
A list of the Usual Suspects is included

Because all the actual problems are solved.

Or it's just that Californicated is run by effing idiots, which is far more likely.


Brought to you by the Dark and Fascist State of New Jersey.
And I'll bet every chief in every department involved whines about 'why don't people trust and respect us?'


Hey, Zuckerbitch, part of the plan or just some minions overstepping?


"I didn't mean I should pay more in taxes!"

Because if you don't read more than the headline you won't know how they're lying to you

Reuters Health) – – More than one in four U.S. children are exposed to weapon violence before their eighteenth birthday, either as victims or witnesses, a large study suggests. About one in 33 kids are directly assaulted during incidents involving guns or knives, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.
Etc.  EXCEPT

Much of the violence involved objects such as sticks, rocks, bottles, but about 3 percent of children reported exposure to guns and knives.

That means that according to their study, 97% of kids are not exposed to gun and knife violence.  If that number is bad, I want you to think about this: They had to bundle both guns and knives to come up with the three percent. That should make you wonder how low the gun numbers were to begin with that they needed a little help from your friendly statistician.


McConnell, you're full of shit.


Well, Judge, if you started throwing people in cells for perjury, you'd probably get a LOT of this cleared up.


And while the NYeffingTimes is yelling about Rubio having a boat, wonder if they'll ask John Effing Kerry about this?
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to the cash-strapped Bay State.

If the "Isabel" were kept at the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee's summer vacation home on Nantucket, or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.
Last I heard, the bastard was saying "Of course I'll pay any taxes due!"  Neatly sidestepping that by playing these games he's dodged said taxes.

Some of the bullcrap from women in Ranger School

Myth: women are doing better than men, percentage-wise, in this class.
Fact: They’re not, even when you don’t account for the fact that some of the 8 survivors are being propped up. Remember that these women are the distillation of a pipeline of over 130 candidates, who got extra training no active-duty men can even apply for.

Myth: the Army has made no concessions to the women.
Fact: the concessions are many, ranging from the trivial (women’s hair is cut short, but not shaved like the men) to the serious (women are given extra chances and talked out of quitting; minor negative spot reports aren’t allowed to build up against them).
Etc.  And an opinion on the Secretary of Defense:
Fact: You’re joking, right? Ash Carter makes Joe Biden look like the Great Gravitas Himself. He has no military experience whatsoever, and if he ever came out of the ivory tower, when he saw his own shadow we’d have six more weeks of winter. It’s not surprising he says stupid [stuff]. He didn’t stop there, either. He also hinted to the cadets that he intends to open all positions to women when the review is complete in 2016.


More on the leftists in Britain blowing up over some ads with bikinis:
Writer and co-founder of the Vagenda blog, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, had returned from Cuba to jarring reverse-culture shock in the “dark, putrid bowels of London’s underground system.”

It was only after visiting Cuba, a totalitarian country where there are no advertisements, that she realized “how much my field of vision is occupied without my consent by images and messages that want to sell me stuff (and, being a woman, it’s usually based on claims that it will make me look better).”

The emphasis here is mine. Cosslett is not simply deploying the language of sexual assault in a heavy-handed metaphor. She’s applying victimhood rhetoric to the larger feminist cause, depicting women as emotionally fragile and easily-traumatized, no matter how banal the offense.
Sounds like Cuba is her kind of place.  Much like many of the clowns running universities here.

The cultural and political left is cocooning itself in a bubble of ideological uniformity. This is intended to totally suppress dissent on key issues by making it impossible for anyone to even express a divergent opinion. The result is to entrench leftist dogma, in the hope that a whole generation will graduate from college unable to engage in thoughtcrime.

 

That’s the dilemma for anyone trying to overturn any aspect of this dogma. How can you debate an issue and change anyone’s mind, when the discussion has been rigged so that your viewpoint is dismissed as illegitimate before anyone has even heard it? So the new orthodoxy seems impenetrable and its hold on the young unbreakable.

Until they find themselves in a place where nobody cares about anything but getting the job done.  That gets interesting.


Simple: because this administration LIKES vote fraud.  It counts on it.


On the New Democrat Hope for the White House:
The city eventually got sued by the ACLU and had to settle, but O’Malley defends the wholesale denigration of black civil rights to this day. Never mind what it did to your jury pool: now every single person of color in Baltimore knows the police will lie — and that's your jury pool for when you really need them for when you have, say, a felony murder case. But what it taught the police department was that they could go a step beyond the manufactured probable cause, and the drug-free zones and the humbles – the targeting of suspects through less-than-constitutional procedure. Now, the mass arrests made clear, we can lock up anybody, we don't have to figure out who's committing crimes, we don't have to investigate anything, we just gather all the bodies — everybody goes to jail. And yet people were scared enough of crime in those years that O’Malley had his supporters for this policy, council members and community leaders who thought, They’re all just thugs.
But he'll still vote for him.  Because Democrat.


Speaking of, "The rich(except me, of course) should be paying more taxes!"


Still busy, and just about to go start it up again.

If the IRS was actually unbiased and non-political, Al Sharpton would be in a cell

and we'd be finding out just how much crap he has hidden away.
Sharpton publicly delivered his excuse in response to those who have been questioning his hefty sum of unpaid taxes during a conference for his nonprofit organization, National Action Network.

“We’re talking about old taxes. I think it’s political,” he said. “A lot of people don’t like the fact that President Obama’s the president. A lot of people do not like the fact that Bill de Blasio won for mayor. And they certainly don’t like that I’m still here, and I ain’t going nowhere,” he concluded.
Yeah, I'm sure if a non-connected somebody told the IRS "Those are old taxes" that'd get them off the hook.  Sure.

Damn straight his not being in jail is political.


Speaking of belonging in jail, illegal aliens vandalizing a newspaper office for calling them illegal aliens.

Wonder when they'll go the jihadi route and start killing people who hurt their feelings?


So The Lightbringer couldn't even bother sending Biden to attend.  And Holder was there, but 'in meetings' and too busy to attend.  Yeah, that's giving a polish to his image.

Why?  Personal opinion, they're protesting islamists who murdered people for insulting Mohammed; and he doesn't want to be involved with that.

Senator Leland Yee, A+ from the Brady Center and

Super Villain!

I’ve got to hand it to Democrat state senator, Leland Yee. Most political scandals are the typical drug use, hookers, or bribery stuff. This guy reaches for the stars.  He isn’t messing around. There is no half assed corruption here. If Yee had a machine that could control the weather he’d be a Batman villain.

He got busted in an FBI sting, taking millions of dollars in bribes, to smuggle RPGs and machineguns through brutal Chinese tong gangs, through the Ukraine, to rebel insurgents in the Phillipines. No. I’m not making any of that up.

The part that makes this all so awesome and hilarious is that the only reason people like me know who Yee is, is because he’s the primary asshole behind disarming law abiding Californians. Yes. He is the anti-gun poster child. He has an A+ from the Brady Center morons. (Hmmm… Now that he’s been caught smuggling rocket launchers to Muslim rebels, but he’s still a democrat, they might downgrade him to a B).


Speaking of villains, well, you journalists have trained the administration to know it can get away with this kind of crap, so I hope you're not surprised.
A reporter has been detained by Capitol Hill police for trying to ask a question of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy.
And let's not let the Capital Police off in this bullshit, either.
Natter was eventually let go after police checked with their superiors and ran a background check on the reporter, determining he had the proper press credentials.


And, in a 'get the popcorn!' moment,

Responding to a threat that the “House of Cards” television series may leave Maryland if it doesn’t get more tax credits, the House of Delegates adopted budget language Thursday requiring the state to seize the production company’s property if it stops filming in the state…

Del. William Frick, a Montgomery County Democrat, proposed the provision, which orders the state to use the right of eminent domain to buy or condemn the property of any company that has claimed $10 million or more credits against the state income tax. The provision would appear to apply only to the Netflix series, which has gotten the bulk of the state credits.

So assholes who mock the tea party want to be exempt from MORE taxes than they already are; and the pirates in Maryland want to steal their property if they stop production there...  this is definitely a "I hope they both lose" moment.

One more 'liberal' tax hypocrite

"The rich don't pay enough taxes!  Big business should pay more!

Except MY big business, please give US more tax breaks!"
Harvey Weinstein, appearing at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium in interview with Ken Ziffren, Los Angeles’ newly appointed film czar, called for California to expand its production tax incentives. 

“There’s no reason for us not to shoot here, except when you do the numbers here and when you do the numbers in New Orleans, it is much more attractive financially,” Weinstein said in the Q&A on Saturday.
You miserable little bastard, that's EXACTLY why you do your filming in other places: you don't want to pay the kind of taxes you want everyone else to be forced to pay.

Miserable stinking little hypocrite.

You'll notice he also thinks Benghazi was 'no big deal' and we're being mean to Hillary Clinton.  Effing dirtbag(yes, I mean both of them).

The IRS doesn't follow its own rules in other ways, as well; (updated)

anyone surprised?
A review of the IRS Office of Appeals, which resolves disputes between the agency and taxpayers, found officials did notalways follow proper procedures when dealing with taxpayers or their legally designated representatives.
...
“Neither we nor the IRS know with any degree of precision how well the IRS is complying with direct contact provisions,” the auditors wrote.
But we're supposed to trust them.  Including with all our medical information.  Right.


Hey, Texas DPS and Austin PD, you do realize you're asking for some serious lawsuits?   Not to mention the costs of the court challenges and all?


Back when the Shepard case was in the news, I made comment somewhere about there being information that didn't fit into the Preferred Narrative; caught hell from various homosexual and correct-thinking people for not just buying into the PN.  Now all this is coming out.  Including something that troubles me greatly, from the linked article:
Not everyone is interested in hearing these alternative theories. When 20/20 engaged Jimenez to work on a segment revisiting the case in 2004, GLAAD bridled at what the organization saw as an attempt to undermine the notion that anti-gay bias was a factor; Moises Kaufman, the director and co-writer of The Laramie Project, denounced it as “terrible journalism,” though the segment went on to win an award from the Writers Guild of America for best news analysis of the year.

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.
Bold mine.  I present to you a prime cause of why people don't trust the media, haven't for years: "It's ok to use lies and/or untruths and/or spin the story in false ways if it serves the Cause, but we have to be willing to bring out the whole truth when that need is past."

Yeah, that's doing great things, isn't it?


I cannot imagine what the muzzle blast is like from firing that thing.  Especially with the happy-switch on.

Question: Lots of SWAT teams have gone to something like this instead of a sub-gun.  Wonder if they're liable for hearing loss to people- especially children- when they use one to kill the family pet due to Holy Procedure?
Update:
Sigi says THIS is a real gun.
9" barrel, in .308.
I don't have earplugs and muffs good enough to deal with that.


Dog hit on road.  Fatally injured, but FAR more important than putting it out of pain is "What about my FEELINGS?  What about some child who might see?"
Language warning.  And well-said.


Hey, why would Rangel(Corrupt Dirtbag-NY) care?  He won't pay any real penalty.


"What?  'No boots on the ground promise'?  That was then."

Hoplophobia and gun bigotry really is

a mental disorder.  Maybe Green's indulging in a bit of projection, like so many of them?


Among the ways the 'Justice' Department screws people over and abuses the law.  And who's in the middle of it?
This practice was immortalized in a series of Department of Justice directives, one of which, signed June 16, 1999, is known as the “Holder Memorandum” in honor of its drafter, the current attorney general, at that time the deputy attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division at the DOJ. (In 2006, United States District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan declared the DOJ’s practice unconstitutional, a decision affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Kaplan wrote that the corporation only “refused to pay because the government held the proverbial gun to its head.”)




"If you make less than $250k", etc.  Bullshit.




Over at Democrat Underground: My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don't feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease will hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over $400,000.
Proper response:  "You voted for it."


 So Al Gore sold his network to Al Jazeera because 'they were in tune with his beliefs', AND made sure it went through before Jan. 1 so he could skip those taxes he whines that the rich don't pay enough of; now we find out Feinstein's husband in involved, too.
Next time she says a damned word about 'the rich not paying enough', etc., I want someone to bring this up.  Loudly.


And the fallout from the Journal News being assholes has begun.  Big surprise, right?
 This one lady whose been stalked for years in West Chester County. She finally found peace, two years without the stalker contacting her. Two days after that paper released her information she gets hangups all night long. She lives in fear, her and her three daughters.”
 That's ONE of them.  But it's worth it to screw other people's lives, right?  You happy, Publisher Janet Hasson,
3 Gate House Lane, Mamaroneck, NY 10534.
Phone number:
(914) 694-5204 ?

How about you,
Editor Cynthia R Lambert
17 Mcbride Ave
White Plains, NY 10603 (914) 948-9388
Work: 914-694-5001
croyle@lohud.com
https://twitter.com/croyle1
https://www.facebook.com/cyndee.royle.7
https://www.facebook.com/CynDeeRoyle
Drives a red convertible:http://s13.postimage.org/k8ffnxuo7/cyndee_royle_aka_cynthia_lambert_red_convertible.jpg
Family photo: http://s7.postimage.org/dkqtytvyj/cyndee_royle_aka_cynthia_lambert_fb_alt_private.jpg
 Are YOU happy with what you've brought about in the name of 'the people's right to know'?


Speaking of the Law of Unintended Consequences*, those wonderful 'eco-friendly bulbs have yet another drawback:
"Money saving, compact fluorescent light bulbs emit high levels of ultra violet radiation, according to a new study. Research at Long Island’s Stony Brook found that the bulbs emit rays so strong that they can actually burn skin and skin cells. 
“The results were that you could actually initiate cell death,” said Marcia Simon, a Professor of Dermatology. 
Exposure to the bulbs could lead to premature aging and skin cancer, according to doctors."


 And now son is here, so you'll have to go play without me.

And we're paying

her salary.
Another green energy sinkhole.  This one eating money since Jimmy Carter, too.


Over in Britain, the question now is will anything be done about the people who knew what this bastard was doing, and did nothing?


And DHS makes another stab into our lives:
Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.

The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily, which obtained copies of contracts, procurement requests, specs and other documents.

The use of the equipment raises serious questions about eavesdropping without a warrant, particularly since recordings of passengers could be obtained and used by law enforcement agencies.
 "Warrant?  We don't need no stinkin' warrant, we're FEDS!"

Speaking of feds, some people want to know what the EPA has been saying in their violation-of-regs secret e-mail accounts set up to get past the law.


I've only flown a couple of times, and since I don't like the idea of being either irradiated or groped by TSA I won't again unless I have to; I'll have to make sure, in that case that it's not on Delta Airlines.  That this crap happened at all is horrible; that they're trying to just make it go away instead of doing something is disgusting.


Bitched about the 'theft under color of law' that is the death tax yesterday; this time it's the all too often nothing-but-theft-under-color-of-law known as asset forfeiture:
In a decision filed last month, Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini called the state’s civil asset forfeiture law “state-sanctioned theft” and ordered a lower court to re-examine a recent forfeiture case in Centre County. Though the state is expected to appeal the ruling, Pellegrini’s decision may set a new precedent for these types of cases, making it more difficult for the state to seize private property believed to have been used in a crime and guaranteeing defendants the chance to be heard in court before property is taken.


"That woman doesn't like my album cover!  She's a RACIST!"  Etc. ad nauseum,  lather, rinse, repeat.  With fans throwing in actual racist comments, the usual.


Yeah, put this in a tax bill and send it to Obama:
If the country is going to turn redistributionist, then we might as well do so whole-hog — given that eight of the wealthiest ten counties in America voted for Obama. Why not limit mortgage-interest deductions to just one loan under $100,000 — while ending tax breaks altogether for second and third vacation houses?
...
 Clinton administration apparatchiks such as Jamie Gorelick, James Johnson, and Franklin Raines — without much banking experience — reaped millions of dollars working at Fannie Mae as it went nearly bankrupt. If you leave government and immediately make more than $1 million, why not pay a 50 percent tax on your income for five years — given that “somebody else made that happen”? Why does Google have tax havens in the Caribbean, and why do six-figure-income college presidents have their taxes paid by their universities?


 And now the library calls, so I'm off.
Shut up, Og.

"I hope we see people in handcuffs."

I hope starting with Geithner.

More here: TARP was even worse than you think

Along with clowns like Steven King whining "I don't pay enough taxes",

I'm reminded of an argument a while back. Lady was insisting that the death tax is 'only fair', etc. I asked of her definition of 'fairness' included people losing the family business or farm because they had to sell it to pay the damned taxes; "All you have to do is file 'X' and do 'Y', my family just took care of that."

My first thought was "So you should have to hire lawyers and jump through hoops and file papers to try to avoid being raped by your own government, wonderful!" My second thought was "If you actually believe this tax is 'only fair', then why are you working to avoid it?" Kind of like the rich who whine "I'm not paying my fair share!", but won't write a check.

I'm sick of all these people.

First: since the CDC has so much free time and money

they can afford to play games with this, I'll say the same thing when they were funding studies pushing personal disarmament laws: next time they whine that they need more funding to do their job, tell them to drop the social-engineering crap and use that money the way it was supposed to be done; if they don't cut their budget.


Gee, so Buffett is another very rich dirtbag wanting taxes raised 'for the public good' while he's making sure he'll avoid them; isn't that just wonderful?


Ok, Californicated, you can demand that and screw people over all you want, but I still have the question: WHERE THE HELL IS THE ELECTRICITY TO CHARGE THEM GOING TO COME FROM? Especially with The Lightworkers' EPA minions working to cut electrical generation capacity in the holy name of Saving Gaia?


A fine argument for concealed carry; anybody think these racist thugs would've continue the attack if they'd been faced with an armed opponent?


This doesn't surprise me. Second wife worked at a federal agency here in OKC, and one day told me there were signs posted in the office that "Just because you work for the federal government doesn't mean you don't have to file your taxes." One guy she worked with hadn't filed his for four or five years at that time.

As Insty put it, "Because paying taxes is for

little people."
A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama's executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven't paid any share, let alone their fair share.
...
The Treasury Department, where Obama nominee Tim Geithner had to pay up $42,000 in his own back taxes before being confirmed as secretary, has 1,181 other employees with delinquent taxes totaling $9.3 million.


So is obeying the same insider-trading laws everyone else has to follow.


And while the above is going on, the military is getting cut. Last time I talked to him son sounded bitter; not only this, but there's word running around that the clowns in DC are talking again about screwing with military medical benefits.

Speaking of how the .mil is being treated by the clowns,


Keep your eyes open in the parking lot

Sorry start to a morning

News on the current efforts of the UN to make sure the peasants aren't armed:
“So, what might an ATT look like?” they ask. Here are two highlights from the report:

• We predict that small arms will be included, because that’s what this treaty is all about in the first place. But ammunition has, at best, a 50-percent chance of inclusion.
• We predict that a minimal Implementation Support Unit (ISU) will be approved, and will ultimately grow into a global BATFE on steroids.

What's the liklihood of administration support?

As for the US, it might seem confusing that the Obama government has taken a position against the inclusion of SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] and ammunition in the forthcoming Treaty. Yet, the US officially supports the inclusion of SALW into the UNROCA [UN Register of Conventional Arms] itself, as clearly stated in October 2011 by Laura E. Kennedy, one of the representatives to the UN.

And we know that Hillary Clinton is responsible for reanimating the discussion.
...
I would not make that assumption because I would not put any underhanded maneuver beneath the enemies of freedom, and that includes a caution to those who (correctly) maintain a treaty cannot supersede the Constitution—if the folks behind this power grab had any respect for rights, they would not be behind it in the first place. It is incumbent on each of us to be aware of threats, including those which may appear to be on a distant horizon, and to be prepared to mobilize and repel it not when our backs are against the wall, but while we have the time to do so without expending too much effort--kind of like speculative scenarios for an approaching asteroid. Better to deflect it a fraction of a degree when it is still far off than wait for it to enter the atmosphere.

It won’t hurt us or distract from our other efforts to take a mere five minutes of our time—today—to contact our Senators and convey our expectation that they oppose any UN Arms Trade Treaty that may make it to the floor for their consideration.
Definitely yell at your Senators.

Also from Examiner,
Texas Congressman Ted Poe is convinced there is more to Operation Fast and Furious than just a monumental screw-up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and he said so in an exclusive Monday afternoon interview with this column.

“To me this whole operation is just a ruse to go after gun sales in the United States; don’t punish the people involved in the killings, punish the guns.”—U.S. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)

... Poe – a former prosecutor and judge who appears to have the instincts of a Texas Ranger –asked a simple question about that the other day during the House Judiciary Committee hearing and he did not get a simple answer from Holder:

Poe: So, we don’t know the person that signed off…I mean, and I know how the federal government works, everybody’s got to sign off on something, especially something like this. But, we don’t know who that person is yet, is that what you’re telling me?

Holder: With all due respect, I’d be surprised if we’re going to see a document that somebody signed off on that said ‘you can let guns walk.’

This exchange came immediately after the embattled attorney general told Poe during his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee that the operation actually kicked off at the Phoenix office of the ATF, and about a month later, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix got involved.

"It's only been a few months, you expect ME to know who started this?"

Yeah, keeping people from getting to work- which means they don't get paid- is a 'victory for the 99%'. Right.


This is something I've wondered about: why hasn't this happened earlier, with more companies?
Colt Firearms appears to be one of the many Connecticut companies looking for a less hostile home.

To clarify, Florida is a Right-to-Work state and Connecticut is not. Which may be why the UAW is so concerned about keeping jobs in the anti-business state:.

via The Miami Herald:

Colt Manufacturing Co. announced earlier this month it is bringing 63 jobs and a new regional headquarters and product manufacturing center to Kissimmee, Fla., next year.

Of course, Colt’s move may also have more to do with the hostile nature Connecticut has toward businesses, or the largest tax increase in the state’s history that was just imposed in June.
Not to mention politicians who keep wanting to restrict/license/ban guns, but they also want the company there so they can keep taxing it to death. I imagine CT politicians are having heartburn right now and wondering "Why do they want to hurt us this way?"


A bit of history on how NASA wound up with a Space Pen. Which they had nothing to do with the development of.


If you or I did something like this, we'd be in jail; but for a Friend of Obama and the Democrats? Nah.
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit paid him nearly $242,000 — even as it carried $1.6 million in debt, according to documents obtained by The Post.

In all, the controversial activist and his empire, including the National Action Network and two for-profit companies, were $5.3 million in the red, public records show.

Most of NAN’s money woes stemmed from more than $880,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes, interest and penalties. It also paid more than $100,000 to settle two lawsuits, byproducts of the unpaid bills.

And it still owed $206,252 in loans to Sharpton’s for-profit Bo-Spanky Consulting Inc. and Sharpton Media LLC, the records show.


And, lacking anything else, the gun bigots are still pushing the "People didn't have guns at home" crap.

Things have to do here, see you later.

So the next time someone starts the "Warren Buffett says rich people

aren't taxed enough!" crap, bring up some of this. Here's one of my favorites:
Did you know that the life insurance lobby is actively lobbying to restore the estate tax?

Why would the life insurance industry care about that? It turns out that ten percent of life insurance industry revenue is related to the estate tax. Wealthy people take out life insurance in order to reduce estate taxes because when you die, your life insurance payout doesn't count as part of your estate.

Did you know that Warren Buffett owns six life insurance companies? Did you know he supports the estate tax? You do now.

Warren Buffett isn't just noted as an owner of life insurance companies and a supporter of the estate tax. He's also noted as a buyer of family businesses. As Dick Patten shows, these two business strategies support each other.

Ever have days when you just didn't want

to write about anything? It's been like that lately, but ran across some things I'd like to point to.
First, Miami Beach PD seems to need to do some remedial training of its officers. After it fires some of the worst. And from the description of this shooting, if accurate, some of them need to be prosecuted.
First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer.

Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling “you want to be fucking paparazzi?”

Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer's back pocket as he was laying down on the ground.

And finally, they took him to a mobile command center where they snapped his photo and demanded the phone again, then took him to police headquarters where they conducted a recorded interview with him before releasing him.

But what they didn’t know was that Narces Benoit had removed the SIM card and hid it in his mouth, which means the video survived.
Take a look at the shooting he shot video of:
The three-minute video captured on Narces Benoit’s HTC EVO phone begins as officers crowd around the east side of Herisse’s car with guns drawn. Roughly 15 seconds into the video, officers open fire.

Benoit filmed the incident from the sidewalk on the northeast corner of 13th Street and Collins Avenue, close enough to see some officers’ faces and individual muzzle flashes.

Shortly after the gunfire ends, an officer points at Benoit and police can be heard yelling for him to turn off the camera. The voices are muffled at times. The 35-year-old car stereo technician drops his hand with the camera and hurries back to his Ford Expedition parked further east on 13th Street.
This is bad; really, really bad. The shooting should(of course) be fully investigated; the actions these clowns took toward citizens who shot video should as well, and from the sound of this firing would be the least of consequences for some of them.


Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov says NATO is "one step" from sending troops into Libya in a bid to help rebels remove Moammar Gadhafi from power.
Well, isn't that just wonderful? And if American troops of any type are involved, will Obama still insist he doesn't have to follow the law because 'NATO said so'?


Well, well, this had to annoy hell out of The Lightworker:
Today, 31 U.S. House members -- all Democrats -- wrote to President Barack Obama, urging him to end Administration stonewalling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Project Gunrunner," and the "Fast and Furious" program under which border state dealers were encouraged to sell thousands of guns to suspicious buyers.


Want to get fish off your flooded farm? Count on government to step in and make things more difficult and expensive.



Ramon Almonte, the Guerrero state police chief, said on Monday he will ask the federal congress to make it easier for common citizens to get permits for weapons to defend themselves.

Almonte’s brother was killed on Jan. 1 in a rural town in Guerrero by unidentified gunmen. The state has been plagued by such executions.

“When you fight someone and at least you have a ‘piece,’ the person who is attacking you might think twice,” Almonte said. “We cannot go on the way we are.”
It may not be intended that way, but that 'common citizens' wording seems important to me; as in "Stop letting the wealthy and connected do what average people aren't allowed to do."


I mentioned a while back that when son was in Basic he told me that while the issue cleaning kit was great for in the field, the issue CLP wasn't very good*; later experience has not changed that opinion. A while back, the day before going to the range for qualifications, he went into town and bought a big bottle of Hoppe's #9. Next day, after shooting, while everyone was scrubbing things he soaked the bolt & carrier with Hoppe's and let them sit while he worked on the rest, making sure they stayed wet with it. From other troops: "What are you doing?" "Just wait."

After finished all else let it sit a few minutes more, then picked them up and wiped offr all the fouling. General reaction: "Where'd you get that stuff? Did they have more?" Yeah, there's a reason Hoppe's is still around.


One of the damndest pieces of video you'll ever see from Africa: where EVERYTHING can bite, claw, gore and/or stomp you:

This first came out a while back, but it's worth watching again.


Well, we've got anti-circumcision clowns drawing comic books that'd make old Adoph proud, now we've got globular warminger true-believers saying anyone who doubts it(a 'denier') should have their belief tattooed on their body. He started with their forehead, then moved to the arm or chest(wonder if he thinks a star design or number is appropriate to add?), then notes that on the arm is a bit too 'Nazi-creepy' even for him. So then he moves on to how he wants the evil deniers either bankrupted or drowned. It's for the good of Mother Gaia, y'know.
Richard Glover, you're a fucking moron. And a bigoted fool to boot.


One more idiot two-faced celebrity: Taxes for thee, but not for me. I wonder if he's friends with our Treasury Secretary?


*When they were issued their rifles and cleaning stuff, he decided to take a chance:
"Drill Sergeant, do we have anything better?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BETTER?"
"A one-piece rod, or some better cleaner?" He'd read up on the stuff before signing on, and knew about one-piece rods from long before.
"NO, YOU HAVE TO USE THIS STUFF!" Then, very quietly, "I keep my good shit at home."

Remember the 'probes' that cleared the CRU & Co.

on the Climaquiddick e-mails? Seems a lot of people have problems with the probes; I wonder why...
They criticised the brevity of the appraisal panel report, at “a mere five pages”, and said both investigations should have been more open to the public.

The committee also said the emails review “did not fully investigate the serious allegation” relating to the deletion of emails and instead relied on a verbal reassurance that the messages still exist.

Though the committee was split over the credibility of the inquiries, an amendment put forward by Labour MP Graham Stringer which said that they had not been independent was voted down by members.

He said Lord Oxburgh appeared to have a “conflict of interest” because of his links to green businesses while the Emails Review panel included a former Climate Research Unit scientist.
Who do these people think they are, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?



The NYEffin'Times cooks the numbers to get what they want you to believe. Anybody surprised by this needs a rest.
New York Times readers, however, ought to hesitate before scurrying to speed-dial their Congress reptiles and demand an end to this preventable epidemic of gun ownership. To begin with, that repeated phrase "9 out of 10" has a euphonious ring, but Blow's data is simply inaccurate. I was unable to find any U.S. homicide statistics in the source cited, the United Nations Small Arms Survey, which for the most part discusses the proliferation of guns in places like Timor and Yemen. According to the Department of Justice, the percentage of homicides for guns in the U.S since 1977 has risen slightly from 62% to 68% -- less than seven out of ten, not nine out of ten.

More importantly, although these figures may be interesting for certain analyses, they don't tell us much about societal violence. Incredibly, Blow never addresses the obvious relevant figure: the overall homicide rate. He is able to claim that the U.S. is in "a league of its own," with a country sphere at the top of the chart, only by basing his analysis on an irrelevant statistic -- "percent of homicides by firearms." A homicide is a homicide, whether it's done with a Glock or a garden hose.
Yes, but if you actually go by the overall number, the US is shown to be a lot safer than these people want you to know. Including a lot safer than places with the kind of personal disarmament laws the NYE'Times pushes.



Remember Barney Frank(Corrupt Jerk-MA) and the other National Socialist Democrats denying Fannie and Freddie needed any new rules because things were just wonderful under Raines & Co.?
Freddie’s problems arose in 2003 when it disclosed that it had understated its income from 2000 to 2002; the company revised its results by an additional $5 billion. In 2004, Fannie was found to have overstated its results for the preceding six years; conceding that its accounting was improper, it reduced its past earnings by $6.3 billion.

Mr. Raines retired in December 2004 and Mr. Howard resigned at the same time. Ms. Spencer left her position as controller in early 2005. The following year, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, then the company’s regulator, published an in-depth report on the company’s accounting practices, accusing Fannie’s top executives of taking actions to manipulate profits and generate $115 million in improper bonuses.


One more "Taxes need to be raised!(on other people)" celebrity:
Consider what Baldwin wrote in the Huffington Post four years ago in a piece he titled Tax Cuts and the Republican Legacy:

These tax cuts are not only to make Bush's wealthiest supporters richer, they are intended to hurt less powerful Americans by killing many of the social programs they depend on. That is the legacy of this Republican-controlled Congress. To hurt those who aren't wealthy enough to write Bush-Cheney a big check. I urge all Americans to keep that in mind during this election cycle. A Republican-controlled Congress is killing important social programs that we all depend on, so that Bush's friends can avoid paying a reasonable share of their taxes. ....

So, according to the News, Baldwin might be claiming residency in the Hamptons to evade New York City taxes. But four years ago, the "30 Rock" star encouraged people to give generously to Democrats in the midterm elections so that Republicans could be ousted from Congress and taxes raised.
As I recall, Baldwin was the jerk who went on a national show during the Clinton impeachment and said that in a proper country one of the people in charge of the impeachment AND HIS FAMILY would be dragged into the street and stoned to death.


Gee, so those nasty Israelis aren't actually the big obstacle to peace? Whoda thunk it.


Having had an actual nights sleep, I now have to go out and do some shopping, thus preventing the Security Staff from biting me for running out of their rations. Back later.

Ever get sick of the news?

Me too. I guess it's as much a fascination with the "WHAT?!?" you run across, and the absolute bullshit in too many cases, that keeps dragging you back to looking. In the BS category, this for instance:
Could Israel be using Wikileaks to prepare the US for an Israeli air strike against Iran?

This nation is moving toward a repeat of the US rush to invade Iraq in 2003. Mass media coverage of the Wikileaks story is performing the same function the media played to make the case for the 2003 US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
It's being done by the JOOOOOOS!
President George W. Bush was a willing instrument in the military invasion of Iraq. Controlling a major Arab state, Bush assumed, was in the best interest of the US.

Jeff Gates argues in Sabbah Report that Wikileaks is being used as part of Israel’s game theory warfare:
So it's not really Bush's fault, he was a tool of the evil Zionist Jews, etc. I wonder if they've added this to an updated version of the Protocols?


Mr. Frum, you're a vile piece of progressive crap, and you don't get to tell me what I'm allowed to say. Or read or see, either. "There must be free speech, but only that which we approve of!" my ass.


The wealth of my people is our culture. The things we have are a side effect. I'm going to build some shelves tomorrow.
Oh yeah, culture matters; a LOT.


Under the heading of "History we'd damn well better not forget", thanks to Mr. Huffman,

The Jew Alfred Flatow was found to be in possession of one revolver with twenty-two rounds of ammunition, two pocket pistols, one dagger, and thirty one knuckledusters. Arms in the hands of Jews are a danger to public safety.

Police First Sergeant Colisle
Via an arrest report from Berlin, October 4, 1938.
He was arrested based on the above while attempting to comply with an order to turn in all firearms to the government. His firearm was legally owned and registered. It wasn’t until November 11, 1938 that the Weapons Control Act of 1938 went into effect making it illegal for Jews to own firearms. Hence, he was arrested while complying with the law at the time.

After his arrest he was turned over to the Gestapo and transported to Terezin in October of 1942. He died of starvation in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in December 1942.
Journal on Firearms & Public Policy Volume 21, Fall 2009, “Arms in the Hands of Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety”: Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the Night of the Broken Glass, pages 28 & 29.

Note that one part: He was arrested based on the above while attempting to comply with an order to turn in all firearms to the government. Which might be considered crap from the past if it weren't for crap like this from New Jersey. No, it wasn't Nazis going after Jews; it was sorry excuses for lawmen and bureaucrats with a love of power putting someone in prison for a legal act, helped along by jurors with no guts or integrity. Which things really helped the Nazis along back then.

Why yes, I do have a very low view of the bastards. And if Christie doesn't at least get the guy out of jail, he can go to hell too.


The Madman brings us more news on the bigot Paul Helmke, who really is a sorry piece of work.
Also the situation in northern Mexico, which absolutely sucks.

Speaking of absolutely sucking, we come to Helen Thomas, who is vile on a hard-to-describe level. But she's a 'respected journalist', etc.


And finally, some of those wonderful people always bitching about 'the rich not paying their fair share':
The 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier, according to The Hill’s annual review of lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tops the list for the second year in a row. His minimum net worth was $188.6 million at the end of 2009, up by more than $20 million from 2008, according to his financial disclosure form.

…There were a few other new faces in the Top 50, including Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), who received an inheritance after his late father, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), died in 2009. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) also made the list.
Remember the video of Swimmer Kennedy admitting he was sheltering as much of his estate as possible from the taxes he said it was only fair for people to pay? And, as she asks, has Kerry actually paid those taxes he dodged but said he'd pay anyway?
The Wall Street gamblers that Obama and his wife carped about on the campaign trail were shoveling money to his campaign hand over fist. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private equity firms donated $2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. Obama, erstwhile critic of the campaign finance practice known as “bundling,” happily accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago.
Yeah, they're evil, crooked people EXCEPT when they're handing cash off to Obama & Co.

Enough. I shall now bundle myself up and head out into the cold.