Tag Archives: government

The Ryan-McConnell School for Drunk Sailors

20 Friday Oct 2017

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I heard talk of a real budget coming from and for D.C. soon. It’s been a while. In that time, the makeshift measures have done wonders – assuming everyone wants the country bankrupted.

Real federal spending in fiscal 2017, which ended on Sept. 30, was higher than in any year in the history of the United States other than fiscal 2009, which was the year that President Barack Obama’s $840 billion stimulus law was enacted.

Fiscal 2017 also saw the second highest real federal individual income tax totals of any year in U.S. history, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

Total federal tax revenues were the third highest in U.S. history.

While it was collecting the third highest total tax revenues in U.S. history, the federal government ran a deficit $665,712,000,000 because of its high total spending.

Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives since 2011, after winning a majority of seats in the 2010 election. They have controlled the Senate since 2015, after winning a majority in the 2014 election. In fiscal years 2016 and 2017, a Congress in which the Republican Party controls both houses was responsible for enacting all federal spending legislation.

Total federal spending in fiscal 2017, according to the Treasury, was $3,980,605,000,000. Total federal tax revenue was $3,314,893,000.

Prior to this year, the highest level of real federal spending was the $4,024,794,600,000 in constant 2017 dollars (adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator) that the Treasury spent in fiscal 2009.

In the years after 2009, real federal spenpding hit its lowest level ($3,633,572,490,000 in constant 2017 dollars) in fiscal 2014. In fiscal years 2015, 2016, and 2017 federal spending has been on the rise again—reaching this year’s $3,980,605,000,000, the second highest spending level in the nation’s history.

On the tax side, federal individual income taxes hit their all-time peak in fiscal 2015, when the Treasury took in $1,598,265,180,000 in constant 2017 dollars in individual income taxes.

Record taxes and they still run record deficits and debt. We can call 2017 the year of the Beast’s Billion…

Check this graph (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars):

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CNS.

Now, imagine an overlay of the debt doubling about every 8 to 10 years. Next up! $40 Trillion!!!

The Swamp drains the Country.

Pokemon was Worse than We Imagined

13 Friday Oct 2017

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Last year I repeatedly warned about the threats of Pokemon Go! Both:

The sheer stupidity of it; and

The information security risks (corporate).

Yet even I did not suspect the ultimate purpose behind the game.

My dear liberal friends, you were on to something. The Russians used Pokemon to hack last’s year Black Mass and prevent the coronation of the Coughing Queen.

Russian efforts to meddle in American politics did not end at Facebook and Twitter. A CNN investigation of a Russian-linked account shows its tentacles extended to YouTube, Tumblr and even Pokémon Go.

One Russian-linked campaign posing as part of the Black Lives Matter movement used Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and Pokémon Go and even contacted some reporters in an effort to exploit racial tensions and sow discord among Americans, CNN has learned.

I tried to warn everyone.

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On Conspiracy Theories

06 Friday Oct 2017

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The late unpleasantness in Las Vegas has the media and the people in a tizzy. Not much is known at this point, especially about the shooter’s motive(s). There is an evolving official narrative. And speculation abounds.

Of course, when anything like this happens, it spawns conspiracy theories. Some are so far-fetched as to defy imagination, literally sounding like bad science fiction. Yet others represent critical thinking, seemingly a dying art in America.

I’ve heard a little condemnation of the whole label of “conspiracy theory.” It’s like some want to only believe the official narrative repeated by the media and asserted by the government. There are several problems with this.

One: how, without a full investigation, can anyone claim to know much beyond the plainly obvious (i.e., that shots were fired at a mass of people in Las Vegas)?

Two, the government and their media pets have a horrible, centuries-old record of … misleading us. I’ll leave it at that.

And, three, the government itself loves a good conspiracy theory. The feds alone bring 4,000-5,000 conspiracy theory cases in court every year. They have a law for it, 18 U.S. Code § 371, (well, one specific, and maybe a dozen attendant acts).

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

They use this law as an extra hammer in order to extort more guilty pleas. It works.

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If the feds charge Marilou Whatshername in connection with the LV shooting, rest assured they’ll charge her with a “conspiracy.” Any outside the box thoughts you might have are pure nuttery.

The same outfit that will criticize your sanity and your questioning of their stories – like even suggesting that the LV shooter might not have acted alone, that he, say, could have conspired with ISIS (who keeps claiming as much) – is the same crowd who will ask you to believe that any number of common criminals engaged in the same sort of outside conspiracy. Do as we say, not as we do.

Keep up the critical thinking if you can. Otherwise, keep the TeeVee warmed up.

I Support the People of Catalonia

01 Sunday Oct 2017

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In their independence, if they wish, or otherwise. The craven and useless U.S. government does not – nor do their pets in the media. That’s why you, in the US or outside of Western Europe, have heard so so little about today’s referendum.

For what it’s worth, the US doesn’t support independence in Kurdistan either – or anywhere else really.

“The United States does not recognize the Kurdistan Regional Government’s unilateral referendum held on Monday. The vote and the results lack legitimacy and we continue to support a united, federal, democratic and prosperous Iraq,” said the man who tried to destroy the Boy Scouts of America.

Out of respect for democracy, we cannot recognize the democratic actions of a people. Nice.

The controllers want control. They don’t care about unity, freedom, or prosperity. They certainly don’t care about peace. This woman wasn’t a victim of the terror attacks in either Canada nor France:

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Drudge.

No. She was a victim of imperial aggression meted out by the shock troops of Madrid. Her crime was trying to vote her conscience.

Not a lot of unity or prosperity in that picture, eh?

Despite the worst efforts of the Satanic globalists some people still want self-determination; some wish to be free.

Viuen Lliures o moren, Catalunya!

Taxing Details?

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

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Here’s the current rumor about the great tax reforms:

Top White House and GOP leaders have agreed to raise the lowest individual tax rate from 10 to 12 percent, paired with doubling the standard deduction, 5 senior Republicans tell us.

Why this matters: Trump intends to sell the proposal tomorrow as a populist “tax cut.” But as recently as yesterday top Republicans on Capitol Hill were nervous as they got word that Trump wasn’t entirely thrilled with the product that had been hashed out in immense secrecy for weeks (with two members of his administration, Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin, working with GOP leaders.)

Late last night Republicans close to the process felt more confident that Trump had come around to supporting the framework — despite his misgivings about the corporate rate not being low enough and about the political risks of raising the lowest rate (even though many more people will now pay no tax because of the increased deduction, meaning they can accurately call it a tax cut for the middle class as well as for the wealthy.)

Big picture details: Republicans plan to collapse the number of brackets from seven to three. The standard deduction would almost double to $12,000 for a single filer and $24,000 for married couples, meaning Trump can accurately argue that many more low income earners would pay no tax under his plan. As we previously reported, the top tax bracket would fall from 39.6% to 35%.

Yes, but: Trump won’t go into great detail when he talks about the tax plan tomorrow in Indiana, leaving plenty of negotiating room for the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate. As of yesterday morning Trump hadn’t signed off on the final product, and as with all policy announcements involving Trump, Republican Hill leaders will be holding their breaths to some extent until the president actually utters the words. Speaking with conservative groups at the White House yesterday Trump, reassured them of his commitment when he gushed about the “tax cut” he was planning to unveil.

Technically, rate-wise, this is an increase for the poor and a cut for the wealthy. In reality, if any of this is true, it will mean less of an actual burden for all. That might make sense – more sense than the GOP Obama-Trump-Ryan-GrahamCare repeal replace amendment meddling whatever, which has once again failed.

We’ll know more tomorrow or next year or, certainly, by the mid-terms. Then, suddenly, all the failure will be touted as smashing success. This is why many other countries have more than two parties.

War, War, Forever More

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

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Were my debt-trimental plan from the previous post enacted and followed, there would theoretically be money for everything under the sun: Universal Healthcare; universal income; welfare unending; chickens on pot; a starship to get me to a saner planet, and; funding for wars the world over.

As is the wars (and all that other spending) are bankrupting the country. There are also funny, lingering Constitutional issues, holdovers from when the Old Parchment meant something.

Rand Paul is about the only man left in D.C. who still throws around the “C” word, the dirtiest 12 letters in the English language. Today he again pushed the antiquated idea of Congress, not the White House, declaring war:

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bipartisan push for a new war authorization against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, electing to let the White House rely on a 16-year-old law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks as the legal basis to send U.S. troops into combat.

Senators voted 61-36 scuttle an amendment to the annual defense policy bill by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would have allowed war authorizations, created in the wake of al-Qaida’s 9/11 strikes, to lapse after six months. Paul, a leader of the GOP’s noninterventionist wing, said Congress would use the time to debate an updated war authority for operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere before the old ones expired.

Paul criticized his colleagues ahead of the vote, urging them to embrace their war-making responsibility instead of surrendering their power to the White House. He and senators who backed his amendment said former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have used the war authorizations from 2001 and 2002 for military operations in countries that Congress never voted to support.

“We are supposed to be a voice that debates and says, ‘Should we go to war?’ It’s part of doing our job,” Paul said. “It’s about grabbing power back and saying this is a Senate prerogative.”

Debates? Doing their job? The Constitution? Such craziness.

All know that the purpose of the Senate is to collude with assist the House with cobbling together “budgets” for the spending of money we don’t have. The wise executive apparatchiks handle the details – “healthcare” for the kiddies, billion$ for banks, and wars without end.

And the wars are really going so well. Rand is in an irrational dizzy about Afghanistan. Why? We’re having so much fun there, we’ve made it a multi-decade party.

Then, there’s the … whatever kind of meddling it is … in Syria. A Christian Bishop from Syria (yes Alabama, there are and have been Christians in the Middle East) explains the sheer brilliance of U.S. policy in his country:

acma2000/YouTube.

The man seems a little distressed about something. Calm down, Padre. They’re raising the debt ceiling!

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And, you. You keep a votin’ for all this. Doing such a swell job.

Just Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

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Barring a return to the majority of our history, income tax-free, a tax cut (any tax cut) still sounds good.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday the Trump administration is considering backdating tax reform to the start of this year to boost the economy.

Backdating “is still something we are considering and it would be a big boon for the economy,” he said at the Delivering Alpha conference presented by CNBC and Institutional Investor.

Republicans aim to overhaul the American tax code but have faced various hurdles in their goal of passing a tax reform bill this year. Congress and the White House have not yet released a plan but are working this month to prepare legislation. Mnuchin heads to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss tax policy with GOP congressional leaders, the latest in a series of meetings.

Earlier Tuesday, Mnuchin insisted that a tax overhaul would happen this year.

“We’re going to get this done by the end of the year,” Mnuchin told CNBC, adding that the administration is “super focused” on the goal following the three-month debt limit and government funding extension passed last week.

The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday on individual tax reform. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the committee’s chairman and one of the six primary tax negotiators, said he expects to share the plan with other lawmakers after that and other hearings.

President Donald Trump urged lawmakers last week to push forward with tax legislation “ASAP,” telling them not to wait until the end of September. Tax reform is one of the key planks of the agenda he pitched as a candidate, and he has made two recent speeches touting the benefits of changes to the tax system without offering new details.

Great. I think the biggest of those various GOP hurdles this year has been the hurdle of the GOP itself. Maybe Trump should enlist the Dems’ help. Whatever works.

I like my idea the best – big government proponents should too. By killing the 16A, the entire tax code, and the IRS, no money will be lost at all. In fact, we may be approaching the magical point of unlimited (free) government budgets! This is because Congress will soon remove any pretense of a debt “ceiling.” The whole bunch (D’s and R’s and the President) call for essentially endless and limitless debt.

And why not? Why not fund the government completely with IOUs? They’re never going to be repaid anyway. It makes perverse sense. Everyone, every single big government lover of any stripe, could get his pet project funded to the moon. And everyone else would keep their cash!

No … that game would not last forever. None does.

Okay, okay. Cut this year. Repeal next year. Forever never comes.

Money, Debt, and … Questions

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

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First, median incomes in 2016 set an all time record. Rather, they beat out (or caught up to) those from 1999. Hooray! We’ve only lost two decades of growth. And incomes, recall, are usually the last thing to catch up – before a new correction.

One of the first things to go up and one which goes up fastest … is new government debt. See: the Instantaneous manufacture of $317,645,000,000 worth of new debt in one day! It’s a miracle! Thanks to Congress and the Prez. for the temporary spending boost on the way to infinite and perpetual indebtedness.

For the latter story you can thank the government and their pet, the Federal Reserve. The Fed was one of three marvels foisted on the formerly free people in 1913.

Speaking of foisting – yesterday was the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I was a little busy and, therefore, this will likely be my only remembrance note this year. (Unlike last year – see Sept. 2016 archives).

Just in time for the anniversary, engineering expert Dr. Leroy Hulsey and his research team released a study of the collapse of WTC Tower 7.  It’s kind of part one of the study anyway. He (they) have some questions about the official narrative.

You may recall that the ninth plane (from Toronto) hit WTC 7. The impact and resulting conflagration caused substantial weakening of the steel frame inside the tower (much like WTC 1 and 2), which caused a complete (and VERY neat and self-contained) collapse.

I completely made that last paragraph up. No plane hit No. 7. There was only a small, office-material-fueled fire (with temperatures insufficient to melt or weaken steel). And the fire almost burned out long before the collapse – maybe around the time the media was parroting that the tower had collapsed, even as it stood in the background of their live broadcasts.

Not many believe the “official” story about No. 7 or anything else that day, not even members of the Commission impaneled to investigate it. This study sheds a little light with more to come. See if you will.

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Ken Doc.

Pick Your Governor Wisely: The Guns of Crisis

07 Thursday Sep 2017

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This is a speculative post, really beyond the control of anyone one person. Yet, it is still interesting.

I read the other day, and saw some social media hysteria about, the emergency order out of the U.S. VI that the National Guard seize private guns and ammo. A small-scale but a serious issue. All of this a reaction to Hurricane Irma.

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma.

Mapp signed the order Monday in preparation for Hurricane Irma. The order allows the Adjutant General of the Virgin Islands to seize private property they believe necessary to protect the islands, subject to approval by the territory’s Justice Department.

Just because they can (or could) doesn’t mean they will (or did). I’ve yet to hear or read of any actual confiscations. And confiscation is nothing new. Hitler did it. Mao did it. The New Orleans police did it. It happens. Hide some of your armory. Or, just don’t open the door. That should stop 99% of the thefts – people, cops and soldiers included, are lazy.

Anyway, I also read about Gov. Greg Abbott’s reaction to Hurricane Harvey. (No link, sorry). Abbott called up his entire NG contingent. Additionally, he also called out the Texas State Guard, this being the official state militia (of Second Amendment fame).

Both outfits are professional military units. The difference is that the NG is at the dual disposal of the state – or the federal empire. The State militia is solely at the beck and call of Austin.

Texas has a proud militia history, owing its existence to the same. When the current Guard of reconstituted in the 1950’s (?) it rapidly outnumbered the federally obligated NG by over 50%. Texans want their own protection, without D.C. strings.

I do not know the current enrollment of the TX Guard but they are very well-regulated and organized. These are the real citizen soldiers or America – actually protecting their own. Every American state has a branch, though many are not as defined as that of TX.

Just remember, in times of crisis, your state will either generally fall into one of two camps: seize your guns when they might be needed, or: call on you and your guns when needed. Which would you prefer?

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Texas DOD.

More on the Former Fourth Amendment in America

06 Wednesday Sep 2017

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The esteemed John Whitehead correctly comments on the demise of law and order in Neo-America:

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation

Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—are being choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, shoot, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans are being forced to accept that we have no control over our bodies, our lives and our property, especially when it comes to interactions with the government.

Worse, on a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

The new police state, your Constitution be damned (or responsible).

Read John’s examples – from across America. These are things that anyone could expect to encounter in everyday life.

The kids, almost all of them – some 900, at Worth County (government) High School in Sylvester, Worth County, Georgia found out about the tyranny the hard way. One bright day they were ALL summoned into the hallways and strip-searched, many sexually assaulted. This warrantless and baseless intrusion was the work of Sheriff Jeff Hobby whose hobby seems to be violating civil rights.

The illegal search, unannounced to school officials, was loosely based on the unsubstantiated suspicion that three (3) of the 900 students MAY have been involved with narcotics. So, rather than investigate those three, Hobby and his gang of statist enforcers attacked all the children. No drugs or other problems were found.

You see, dear low-IQ, overweight morons of America, these young people did nothing wrong, yet they definitely had something to worry about. Something akin to rape in some cases.

The busybody idiots still fighting the “Civil” War could take up this incident as a cause. Statistically, some third of the students, maybe more, had to be black. However, it must be more important to yank down 140-year-old statutes and assorted road signs. Progress.

Some are fighting back. In a more genteel age, Hobby may have had a date with a local tree and/or some gasoline. Today, he finds himself the first defendant in a 1983 action in federal court, courtesy of the Southern Center for Human Rights. Read the Complaint.

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Serving and protecting the children by molesting them…

Read it and weep. I look for an insurance or bond settlement in that case. But there will be no end, no reversal, in the trend against personal liberty. The state is just getting started. Most seem a-okay with it.

You?