Tag: Politics

I Wouldn’t Put it Past the IRS

I think I’ll present this with very little comment:

Imagine this scenario: The IRS may soon just do your taxes for you — and send you the bill.

If this sounds farfetched, it’s not.

With a new congressional “super committee” tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in cuts by November, creative ways to find additional revenue are in high demand. And allowing the IRS to prepare you taxes could be one solution.

The idea has been around for a while, but has been picking up steam in recent years. In 2006, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) argued it would close a $345 billion annual difference between what the government believes taxpayers owe them and what the IRS actually collects, which he calls the “tax gap.”

No possibility of a conflict of interest there. That was sarcasm in case it was missed.

If Your Right Requires the Labor of Another It’s Not a Right

Everybody repeat after me, “If the labor of another is required to provide your right then it’s not a right.” California is looking once again to prove itself as the looniest state in the Union by making home ownership a protected right:

California could ban lender-initiated home foreclosures, under a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would make home ownership a fundamental right.

Initiative 11-0014 could appear on the ballot in November 2012, if supporters submit more than 800,000 voter signatures necessary to qualify the measure.

You can read the text of initiative 11-0014 but I think the following piece sums it up:

Makes home ownership fundamental right. Prohibits lenders from foreclosing
on California citizen’s personal home. Requires lenders to assist California borrowers not paying on home loans due to financial hardship or illness. Requires lenders to reduce home loan principal to reflect drop in local property value i fmore than 10 percent, and to reschedule payments, reduce interest rates, and/or refinance without new credit review. Requires lenders to refinance home loans a t minimum cost within 45 days of request i f loan has been maintained for three years. Provides back property tax assistance to homeowners.

First of all you can’t infringe on a right to own property if you don’t, you know, own the property. What is proposed is so full of cognitive dissonance that it would make the head of a logical person literally explode if they attempt to make sense of it. First of all if you have a loan on your home then it’s not your home. Let’s look at what a mortgage is, it’s a loan that is backed by real physical property. That is to say you give the title of some property to a person giving out loans and they take it as collateral. When you take out a mortgage you are saying, “I promise to pay back my loan and if I fail to do so I relinquish the ownership of my property to you.”

Until you pay back the loan you are not the owner of that property. A mortgage is an exchange of ownerships rights; the entity giving the loan exchanges the right of ownership of a sum of money for the right of ownership of the collateral. Until the loan is paid back with any contractually agreed to interest the entity who gave the loan is the owner of the property. Thus what this initiative proposes is impossible because it’s claiming to protect the “right of home ownership” by pissing all over the right of ownership.

That’s just one glaring problem with this initiative. The other glaring problem is the fact that it is trying to declare something a right that requires the labor of another to provide. A right to property means you have a right to ownership over legitimately obtained property not a right to be provided property by another. The difference between the two is huge. For instance I can’t have a right to own a home unless I can build the entire home myself of materials I can entirely produce myself. If my “right” requires action from another either that right isn’t a right or I get to declare select people as slaves. The same logic applies to healthcare, unless you can provide your own healthcare you can’t claim a right to it.

If I can homestead or purchase a property, extract the raw resources needed to build a home form that homesteaded of purchased property, refine those materials into a state usable to build a home, and then build a home entirely of those materials by myself then I can claim a right to it. On the other hand a failure to perform any of the following procedures means that I must rely on another to provide a link in the chain of home ownership and thus can declare no right to owning that type of property.

You have no right to owning a home but you do have a right to the ownership of your labor because you are a self-owner. That means you can exchange your labor for a home but you can’t demand somebody provide you a home outside of a voluntarily agreed to (by both parties) exchange. That’s why a right to ownership of your labor doesn’t translate into a right to own specific types of property.

I’m not sure how so much stupid was written on paper. It baffles me that somebody unable to see the cognitive dissonance in this bill is able to read or write.

Because His Previous Plans Worked so Well

Obama is on the campaign path (and we’re footing the bill) and this time he hit up Detroit in the hope of gaining some votes by promising the world and delivering nothing. Now he has a plan to create jobs but he needs the big bad old meanies in Congress to support him:

“We just need to get Congress on board,” he told supporters in Detroit, Michigan, saying labour and business were already behind his plans.

On Thursday, Mr Obama will use an address to a joint session of Congress to set out job-growth strategy.

Wow businesses and labor are already on board with this plan that has yet to be unveiled? When you put it that way sign me right the fuck up! I love signing onto plans that have yet to be revealed.

Seriously what an arrogant asshole. He’s claiming everybody except Congress is already on board with this plan but he hasn’t actually told anybody what the plan is. Will it be as successful as the stimulus packages? I’m sure this plan will be as well orchestrated as the Health Insurance Company Enrichment Act (better known by many as Obamacare). Who knows. I guess we’ll just have to wait until Thursday to hear Obama’s next promise that he’s not going to deliver on.

Then again his plan could be to finally eliminate government interference in the market which would actually allow for a correction. If I see a rainbow farting unicorn in my backyard Thursday morning I’ll take it as a sign that Obama’s finally pulled his head out of his ass and implemented an actual fix to our economic woes.

So Much for Obama’s Promise of Government Transparency

Although Obama’s promise of making a more transparent government were broken long ago it still entertains me to bring it up from time to time less people forget. Remember the legal documents produced by John Yoo that basically justified the president’s power to spy on American citizens without any need for a warrant or knowledge of the person being spied on? You probably don’t because those documents were classified and Obama isn’t showing any sign of declassifying them:

The Obama administration has refused to declassify a secret memo from the George W. Bush presidency that justified the warrantless spying conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Matthew Aid, a writer who’s covered the NSA and surveillance policy, requested a copy of a 2001 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion by John Yoo that discussed the legal grounds for electronic spying without permission from a special federal court. The Department of Justice mostly denied Aid’s Freedom of Information Act request, saying the redacted information in the OLC opinion was “classified, covered by non-disclosure provisions contained in other federal statutes, and is protected by the deliberative process privilege.”

The government is so transparent now that you could make privacy glass out of it. The privacy feature is for the government though, not you though.

If This is Our Family I Want a Divorce

It appears as through the Obama administration is really ramping up the use of the phrase “federal family.” Everybody’s favorite federal agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has decided that we’re now all part of one big fucked up federal family:

“Under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano, the entire federal family is leaning forward to support our state, tribal and territorial partners along the East Coast,” a FEMA news release declared Friday as Irene churned toward landfall.

The G-word — “government” — has been nearly banished, with FEMA instead referring to federal, state and local “partners” as well as “offices” and “personnel.”

“’Government’ is such a dirty word right now,” says Florida State University communication professor Davis Houck. “Part of what the federal government does and any elected official does is change the terms of the language game into terms that are favorable to them.”

“Family” can evoke favorable thoughts of motherhood and security.

Although I’m glad that government is starting to get such a bad image attached to it I don’t think renaming it “family” is going to help improve that image. The government’s image is poor because what they’ve done has been nothing but an endless series of bad decisions.

Honestly if my family was forcefully stealing from other people, killing neighbors outside of self-defense, making life difficult for productive members of the family to alleviate the pain of unproductive members, and constantly trying to control family members by enacting new rules regulating every form of behavior and thought I’d want a divorce. Of course the last time members of the federal family tried to file for divorce they were subjected to constant physical beatings until they finally submitted and withdrew their filings.

We Can Do This Without You

It appears as though Obama is looking to continue his failed quest to restore the American economy using failed Keynesian methods. Namely Obama is asking Federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be done without the need for congressional approval:

On Wednesday, Obama took a now-familiar path in adopting a program–this time a jobs and infrastructure effort–that can happen entirely within his domain. Obama directed several federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be expedited now, without congressional approval.

One week before he will make a major address to Congress on jobs, Obama is making sure they know he plans to move forward without them. The president has also directed the Education Department to come up with a “Plan B” updating the 2001 No Child Left Behind law in the absence of congressional action. The message to Congress is clear: Do your work or we’ll do it for you.

Remember that system of checks and balances? Apparently neither does Obama or Congress (as they should be reigning Obama in right now). It looks like Obama is enjoying his near emperor status and has decided to run wild with tyrannical power. We may as well just call him the King of America since he’s able to do all these things without approval from any of our “representatives.” Corollary to that we should start calling Congress the Bitches of America since they seem to be more than happy to lay down while the title of President is slowly changed to King.

I do have a message for Obama though:

His message to lawmakers: We can do this without you.

Our message to the government: We can do this without you. Get the fuck out of our economy and let it become prosperous again.

National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011

Yeah I know I’m a bit late to the party on this but it’s better to be late than never show up right? H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, is a bill that once again attempts to require each state recognize carry permits from all other states.

I’m a big fan of any legislation that removes some teeth from the government (either state of federal). This bill would prohibit states from refusing to acknowledge carry permits from any other state (except Illinois since they are the last state without any form of legal carry). Although I have my doubts that this bill has a chance of passing I do hope it does. It would be nice if one of my so-called constitutionally guarantee rights were actually respected in this country.

The Sacrificial Lamb Has Been Found

The government has finally found its sacrificial lamb in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Fast and Furious fiasco, acting ATF director Melson. In fine government tradition of dealing with corruption not only was a single sacrificial lamb found but the lamb wasn’t actually sacrificed, instead it was simply moved somewhere else in the Leviathan:

The embattled head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is being replaced in the aftermath of a botched sting operation that allowed guns to knowingly fall into the hands of violent criminals in Mexico.

Kenneth Melson will be replaced as acting ATF director by U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota B. Todd Jones, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday. Jones is expected to assume the new position on Wednesday. Melson is being reassigned as a senior adviser on forensic science in the Office of Legal Policy, the department said.

Your government at work.

The Government Working Hard to Keep Our Streets Safe

I’m glad we have the government watching over us and ensuring our safety. For example they’re suing a trucking company for allowing admitted alcoholics to drive trucks. Sorry I made a mistake, I meant to say the government is suing a trucking company because that company fired a known alcoholic:

The federal government has sued a major trucking company for its firing of driver with an admitted alcohol abuse problem.

Alcoholism is classified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the suit maintains, and therefore employees cannot be prohibited even from driving 18 wheelers due to their histories of abuse.

The state’s justification for the lawsuit can be found here. Basically the government is pissed because the trucking company would dare permanently suspend somebody from driving one of the company’s trucks after it became known that the driver had an alcohol problem:

According to the EEOC’s suit (Civil Action No. 2:11-CV-02153-PKH in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas), the driver at the Fort Smith location had worked for the company for five years without incident. In late June 2009, the employee reported to the company that he believed he had an alcohol problem. Under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, the employer suspended the employee from his driving position and referred him for substance abuse counseling. However, the employer also informed the driver that the employer would never return him to a driving position, even upon the successful completion of a counseling program. During the investigation, the EEOC discovered drivers at other service centers whom the employer had allegedly subjected to similar treatment.

As an employer Old Dominion should have the right to determine who can and can’t represent the company and in what capacity. If Old Dominion doesn’t want to allow people with a history of alcohol abuse to operate one of their semis then they shouldn’t be required to. Personally I’d prohibit anybody with a history of alcohol abuse from driving one of my vehicles. It seems like an unnecessary liability to allow otherwise.

Let’s also look at this case from a different angle. The state has the capability to revoke drivers’ licenses at will and they often do for people who have been caught driving with an arbitrarily set percentage of alcohol in their system an arbitrary number of times. So even though the state is more than happen to prevent people with a history of alcoholism from driving private companies aren’t allowed to do something similar. I’m not surprised the government would make a move like this because the move makes no sense and making no sense is what government does best.

So Obama Came to Town Yesterday

Obama came to the Twin Cities yesterday to speak to the American Legion national convention. What I always find ironic is the fact that when the president of the “free” world comes to town everything goes into full tyrannical lockdown. Much of downtown Minneapolis was locked down for the duration of the President’s visit in an attempt to reveal the true tyranny of the state through restriction of travel ensure the president’s safety.

The Red Star had another one of their live blogs of the event and boy did I find a doozy of a quote to pull out:

“Next weekend, we will mark the 10th anniversary of those awful attacks on our nation,” the president said. “In the days ahead, we will honor the lives we lost and the families who loved them, the first responders who rushed to save others, and we will honor all those who have served to keep us safe these ten difficult years, especially the men and women of our armed forces.

Emphasis mine. I wonder if these are the same first responders who didn’t get invited to the memorial service on September 11th?

Besides that his speech was a total non-event. As usual he made baseless promises of not cutting funding for Veteran Affairs, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (no mention of Libya of course), and ensuring the private sector hires veterans through some new proposed initiative that will blow up in his face just like all his other initiatives. Going by his track record we can now safely assume that he’s planning to slash the budget for Veteran Affairs, extend the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ensure veterans become a hazard to hire through government legislation.