Tag: Shut Up Slave

Win the Gold Pay the State Gold

What do the American athletes at the Olympics get when they win a gold medal? An $8,986 tax bill from the Internal Revenue Service (revenuers):

While 529 hardworking athletes proudly represent the United States in the 2012 Olympics, any medals and money they earn wearing red, white and blue will be taxed by the IRS. According to research done by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, U.S. Olympic athletes are liable to pay income tax on medals earned and prizes received at the London games.

American medalists face a top income tax rate of 35 percent. Under U.S. tax law, they must add the value of their Olympic medals and prizes to their taxable income. It is therefore easy to calculate the tax bite on Olympic glory.

At today’s commodity prices, the value of a gold medal is about $675. A silver medal is worth about $385 while a bronze medal is worth under $5.

There are also prizes that accompany each medal: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.

You have to pay if you want to play and if you don’t pay the state will take what it wants at gun point. Perhaps the state isn’t exploiting this tax code enough. They could really exploit this to push the “everybody is a winner” mentality. Those who win competitions can be subjected to major taxes thus ensuring everybody who wins loses and everybody who loses wins.

Renovating Gitmo

Remember when Obama said he was going to close Gitmo:

I wonder how the $40 million renovation of Gitmo fits into his plan to shut it down:

The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be getting an estimated $40 million communications upgrade, signaling it will continue its mission of holding top suspected terrorists and as a major humanitarian aid base in the region.

The base, also known as Gitmo, will upgrade its limited satellite communications system to an underwater fiber optic line that will stretch from the base to the coast of Florida, according to Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale.

I guess one does have to be a pathological liar in order to become president so this shouldn’t surprise anybody.

1984 was so Passé

Even though George Orwell foresaw a world where surveillance cameras existed in every home he could never predict how sophisticated that idea would become. The prison city of New York will be brining a new system online that combines surveillance technologies with a police database and monitoring software to spy on every man, woman, and child in the city:

The New York Police Department will soon launch an all-seeing “Domain Awareness System” that combines several streams of information to track both criminals and potential terrorists.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the city developed the software with Microsoft.

Kelly says the program combines city-wide video surveillance with law enforcement databases.

He says it will be officially unveiled by New York’s mayor as soon as next week.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) claims that the system will be used to track criminals and terrorists, which are meaningless criterions because everybody is a terrorist. You really have to give NYPD credit, they took 1984 and ramped it up to 11. I wonder how long it will be until they begin flying helicopters around the city to peek into peoples’ windows.

Exploiting Tragedies

Due to other obligations I was unable to attend Defcon this year, which was made more disappointing when one of the speakers ended up being a former National Security Agency (NSA) official named William Binney. He explained something that I already suspected, that the NSA was already geared up to spy on American citizens but were waiting for a tragedy they could exploit:

He said the NSA began building its data collection system to spy on Americans prior to 9/11, and then used the terrorist attacks that occurred that year as the excuse to launch the data collection project.

“It started in February 2001 when they started asking telecoms for data,” Binney said. “That to me tells me that the real plan was to spy on Americans from the beginning.”

Binney is referring to assertions that former Qwest CEO James Nacchio made in court documents in 2007 that the NSA had asked Qwest, AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth in early 2001 for customer calling records and that all of the other companies complied with the request, but Nacchio declined to participate until served with a proper legal order.

“The reason I left the NSA was because they started spying on everybody in the country. That’s the reason I left,” said Binney, who resigned from the agency in late 2001.

To say I’m not surprised would be an understatement. The state has numerous mechanisms designed to further enhance its power over the people living within its claimed borders that are merely awaiting an exploitable tragedy. Without a tragedy to justify the implementation of new tyrannies it’s difficult to get the people to quietly roll over and accept their new chains. 9/11 gave the state enough justification to push the PATRIOT Act through, which was written before 9/11:

Paul railed on the PATRIOT Act, a pet issue that he frequently brings up on the trail.

“The PATRIOT Act was written many, many years before 9/11,” Paul said. The attacks simply provided “an opportunity for some people to do what they wanted to do,” he said.

Passing the PATRIOT Act into law removed the facade of legal restrictions that hindered the state’s ability to spy on the citizenry. In addition to the PATRIOT Act, 9/11 gave the state an excuse to pass the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Homeland Security Act, which established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Of course exploiting tragedies is nothing new, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed by exploiting the assassination of John F. Kennedy and there was a plan to fabricate a tragedy through a false-flag operation titled Operation Northwoods [PDF] in order to justify a war with Cuba (thankfully it was rejected by Kennedy).

Tragedies befall us everyday and those looking to increase their power need only await for one to arise. Look how quickly Schumer attempted to exploit the Aurora, Colorado shooting to justify a ban on standard capacity magazines. Needless to say I’m not surprised to hear that the NSA had the software to spy on American citizens developed before those planes struck the World Trade Center buildings. In fact I would have been shocked if that software hadn’t already been developed.

With all of this said it’s nice to see the One Ring didn’t corrupt Binney and he ran away from it once he realized its malicious nature. Unfortunately we don’t have enough Binneys, and thus enough people exist to staff the NSA and ensure its ability to continue spying on American citizens.

Dissenters Will be Punished

It still amazes me that anybody believes the government hires the best and brightest to ensure food, drugs, and other consumer products are safe for public consumption. That’s not how government works, government works by hiring people who agree with the state hive mind. You’re unlikely to get a position in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unless you believe in man-made global warming, you’re unlikely to get a job in the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) unless you believe people should have violence brought against them for using drugs not approved by the state, and you’re unlikely to to get a job in the Department of Agriculture unless you’ve sided entirely with Monsanto. The state also watches those in its employ to ensure they don’t dissent, which is what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was caught doing:

A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show.

[…]

Moving to quell what one memorandum called the “collaboration” of the F.D.A.’s opponents, the surveillance operation identified 21 agency employees, Congressional officials, outside medical researchers and journalists thought to be working together to put out negative and “defamatory” information about the agency.

[…]

The extraordinary surveillance effort grew out of a bitter dispute lasting years between the scientists and their bosses at the F.D.A. over the scientists’ claims that faulty review procedures at the agency had led to the approval of medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies that exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.

A confidential government review in May by the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with the grievances of government workers, found that the scientists’ medical claims were valid enough to warrant a full investigation into what it termed “a substantial and specific danger to public safety.”

Scientists working for the FDA became a hinderance to granting approval for medical devices because they had credible concerns about the safety tests being inadequate. Instead of investigating these claims, as an organization supposedly tasked with protecting the safety of individuals would, the FDA moved against the dissenting scientists but putting them under surveillance and, in some cases, outright firing them. We cannot rely on the government to protect us because they have no interest in protecting us. They hold their beliefs and nothing, including credible evidence, and shake their faith in those beliefs. Often their beliefs are based on monetary or political gain and I’m guessing the manufacturers of the mammogram and colonoscopy devices in question have some very good connections high up in the FDA.

Remember, it’s Not Your Property

You must always remember that you are a serf, you cannot own property, all property is collectively owned by the state. Because of this the state has the final say in any activities that are allowed or prohibited on your property. If you own an apartment complex and the state doesn’t want residents to smoke, even though you do, residents will not be allowed to smoke:

Smoking is already banned at beaches, parks, restaurants and near buildings in Santa Monica, but Tuesday night the city council sought to expand that prohibition and voted 4-2 to ban smoking for all new tenants of apartments and condos inside their residences – with one exception.

“It also requires existing residents to designate their units as smoking or non smoking and from then on it will be prohibited to smoke in a non smoking unit,” said Adam Radinksy, head of the Consumer Protection Unit in Santa Monica.

Under the guise of health and safety the state can deem anything prohibited anywhere. I’m surprised more municipalities haven’t entirely banned smoking whether it happens outside or inside private residents. In fact they could have police officers enter homes, with warrants and all, to determine if somebody in the home is smoke and arrest them under the claim that said smoking is harming any children, pets, or other residents living in the home. Better yet the state could just issue fines and expropriate more wealth from the people.

Just Because You’re Innocent Doesn’t Mean the State Can’t Take Your Stuff

While everybody was trying to fight the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) the United States government was acting like the law was already passed. The United States government seized the assets of Megaupload after accusing the company of assisting pirates. Now the government has come out and said even if the charges again Megaupload are dismissed they have no obligation to released the seized assets:

The government also argued that it could keep Megaupload in legal limbo indefinitely. “None of the cases impose a time limit on service,” the government’s attorney told the judge. Therefore, the government believes it can leave the indictment hanging over the company’s head, and keep its assets frozen, indefinitely.

How convenient, when due process becomes a hinderance you merely keep the accused in a state of legal limbo and that allows you to keep their assets indefinitely. What this maneuver does is show that this case case about two things; first, this case was about striking fear into the hearts of oversea operations that may or may not assist in violating United States intellectual property laws and second, this case was about stealing other peoples’ shit (which is how governments get all of their wealth).

The Cost of Political Conventions

Previously on Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers supporters of Ron Paul’s campaign sued the Republican National Convention (RNC) for helping Romney in his quest to get the presidential nomination. Paul’s supporters claim that the RNC’s rules requiring delegates to sign pledges to support certain candidates violates federal election rules. Paul’s opponents claim that the RNC is able to run elections however the please because the RNC is a private organization. Clearly both sides cannot be right.

In today’s episode of Politics questions about the RNC’s status as a private organization are raised as they receive money from the state for their nomination process:

Congress has given Tampa — and Charlotte, the location of the Democratic National Convention — $50 million each in taxpayer money to try to ensure everyone is safe for the political gatherings that crown each party’s presidential candidate every four years.

Tax victims are wondering how an organization can claim to be private and still receive state funds. They are also left wondering why the presidential nomination process costs so much money. Will the RNC respond to the tax victim’s concerns? Will the state’s courts side with the Paul supporters or the RNC? Join us next episode to find out!

EDIT: 2012-07-23: 13:23: Apparently I can’t use words as Bruce pointed out in the comments. I mean to say “violates federal election rules.” not “violents federal election rules.” I’ve correct this mistake and my compliments go to Bruce for pointing it out.

Big Sacrifices

It looks like the Spanish royal family has decided to make some hard decisions in these tough economic times:

The king will lose 20,900 euros (£16,400; $25,660) from his salary of just over 292,000 euros for the year – a cut of 7.1%.

In total, the 8.3m euro royal budget will be cut by 100,000 euros in 2012.

A royal budget reduction of 1.2%? My, that is a big sacrifice. However will they get by?

What Happens When You Play by the Rules

It seems that the Republican National Convention (RNC) is pissed that the Ron Paul supporters have figured out its rules and procedures and are planning to use them to their advantage. Even though the RNC has selected Romney as their candidate the Paul supporters are planning on using ever rule, procedure, and trick to fight the good fight, which has made higher ups in the Republican Party very nervous:

Security at the state Republican convention has been tightened this summer in case turmoil breaks out as it did in other states where Ron Paul and Mitt Romney supporters clashed over control.

[…]

The executive director of the state Republican Party, Jordan McGrain, told Nebraska Watchdog in addition to its usual sergeant at arms committee, the party hired additional security for the first time in convention history, to his knowledge. Party officials are preparing for potential for trouble caused by Paul supporters.

[…]

McGrain said Paul’s supporters are trying to “take by party rules what they couldn’t on election day.”

He has been warned by Republican officials in Nevada and Louisiana to be prepared for “Paulistas” to try to seize control of the convention through endless votes, amendments, re-votes and parliamentary delays aimed at wearing out establishment Republicans.

I love the last part where they say the Paul supporters are planning to “take by party rules what they couldn’t on election day.” In other words the Paul supporters are planning on playing by the very rules setup by the Republican Party itself. The only obvious way for the establishment to fight this is to go outside of the rules. Of course they can’t just blatantly do that and maintain their appearance of a democracy. I’m betting the RNC hired additional security, not because they’re afraid the Paul supporters will become violent but, because they want to demonize the Paul supporters. Look at how they’re justifying the additional security, they are implying the Paul supporters warrant such a response because of their potential for harm. With such a justification in place the establishment in the Republican Party can easily have the Paul supporters removed if it appears they’re gaining an advantage and public opinion will side with the decision. If you can’t win by the rules you need to build public support for your side so you can play outside of the rules.

This is why I believe the strategy of “reforming” the Republican Party is foolish. The Republican Party doesn’t want to be reformed, they’re quite happy promoting war, cronyism, and destroying any rights listed in the Constitution. Anybody who believes the Republican Party is run by the people is entirely mistaken, it’s run by a few power players who generally rely on their sheep mindlessly going where they’re told but have no issue playing outside of the rules if some of the sheep begin dissenting. When such hostilities to change become openly apparent it’s time to move on to something else.