From Longtime Reader GT3Ted:
“The Lottery is a Tax on the people were not paying attention in math class.”
Absolutely, except for one small quibble.
It’s only a tax when you are compelled by government to pay it, at gunpoint. Last time I looked, buying a lottery ticket was voluntary.
It’s also therapeutic. In my case, it prevents me from using my AK-47 outside the shooting range every day (if you get my drift).
Cheap at the price.
ATF Isn’t Talking About its Early Morning No-Knock Raid on a Baltimore Gun Rights Advocate
Manley estimated he owns more than 70 firearms, but all of them comply with Maryland and federal laws. He owns no full-autos, suppressors or destructive devices. The ATF learned this after threatening to blow open Manley’s gun safe, which he opened for the agents, who found nothing illegal.
After the botched search warrant, one of the agents who had told Manley’s wife he was the lead investigator, asked her for dimensions and other information about the doors and windows his team had destroyed, which he promised to replace.
Also:
ATF Murders Innocent Man
In March, agents shot and killed Bryan Malinowski, executive director of the Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, in his home.
Agents were clearly spoiling for a gunfight when they went in during early morning hours, and they got one.
ATF has yet to comment officially on the March 19 killing, other to claim Malinowski fired first. But Malinowski’s family released a statement, which confirms what everyone already knew: It is extremely unlikely that the 53-year-old airport executive director knew he was trading gunfire with federal agents. It is far more likely Malinowski believed he was defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders.
This entire agency needs to be defunded and all their asshole agents fired and then prosecuted for all the crimes they committed against law-abiding citizens — both the people who authorized the crimes and the people who carried them out, no exceptions.
Period, end of statement, end of story.
Well, that’s okay then:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned New Jersey residents against shooting at mysterious unidentified drones.
Given the source, I’d say it would be almost mandatory for the folks in Joizee to have at it.
Here’s my take. This whole drone swarm thing in NJ seems to be shrouded in secrecy, for all sorts of reasons. And nowadays, where there’s secrecy, there’s almost always Gummint skullduggery afoot. (And not even just nowadays — Kennedy assassination / Lee Harvey Oswald murder coff coff.)
So it stands to reason for us to expect that if the Fibbies are telling us not to do something, it’s because that “something” endangers one of their little clandestine reindeer games, no?
I’d suggest light birdshot or even .410 000, for those interested. Just make sure that the fall of shot isn’t close to houses or streets, and we’ll all be good.
(me getting in some practice prior to a drive trip to NJ)
Note to any Gummint alphabet agency snooping around: the above is what’s called “satire”, “humor” or even “hyperbole”. Feel free to look those words up if you’re unclear on the concept, you assholes.
And my final thought: given the dramatis personae in this little scenario, it’s quite possible that nobody in government knows what the fuck is going on — if indeed anything is — and likewise has no idea how to investigate it either. I wouldn’t place any bets against this hypothesis, either.
Here’s one that will make your nose bleed and your trigger-actuating digit twitch:
One of the more egregious abuses of power is the U.S. Department of Justice’s abuse of its power to harass citizens and companies through frivolous or dramatically expanded charges if that company/person pushes back against their legal threats.
An example of this is an October 21, 2024 lawsuit that the Biden administration brought against Rocket Mortgage because they followed the law.
That’s right, you read it correctly, Rocket Mortgage is having to spend millions of dollars in legal fees to defend itself against charges around actions they legally have no control over.
The DOJ lawsuit stems from a claim that a home was unfairly appraised and somehow that was Rocket Mortgages’ fault.
At this point, people who know anything at all about the business will be going “Huh? What about Dodds-Frank?” and rightfully so. Why?
It is important to note that while a mortgage company may contract with the appraiser, the law requires that the appraisal be completely independent of the mortgage company. In other words, it is illegal for the mortgage company to put their thumb on the scale in the determination of the value of a house under consideration for financing. In fact, to ensure appraisal independence is maintained, mortgage lenders contract through third-party appraisal management companies and have no authority over the independent appraisers.
Yet:
Yet, somehow, the Justice Department chose to splash Rocket Mortgage’s corporate name as the lead in their October 21, 2024 press release announcing a suit for racial discrimination in a clear attempt to grab headlines at the expense of the online mortgage innovator. Rocket Mortgage has received numerous customer service satisfaction awards from J.D. Power, and the decision by DOJ to very publicly seek to do harm to this company through their news release headline is a demonstration of the soft power to destroy which an out of control Justice Department possesses.
Even worse:
In an Orwellian twist, the Biden DOJ is seeking to harm a company’s reputation using the argument that they should have broken that law by putting pressure on the appraiser to come up with the right number in direct violation of the law.
In true socialist fashion, only the intentions are important. All that other inconvenient stuff — you know, existing law, the Constitution, actual right vs. wrong [stop sniggering] — none of that matters as long as DEI (All Hail DEI!!) is satisfied.
And if you dare to resist, say hello to lawyers’ fees, millions and millions of dollars’ worth.
The New DoJ — Trump’s — needs to end this shit, and have the charges dismissed, with Rocket’s costs reimbursed, said costs to be partially clawed back from the retirement accounts of all the individuals who initiated, authorized and executed this travesty.
And lest you think that it’s only a corporation involved here, and who cares about them? let me remind you of a certain individual named Randy Weaver, who refused to break the law at the behest of a federal agency (on this occasion, during the Dark Time Of Clinton). Things didn’t go well for him, did they?
The principle is precisely the same.
And if you think this one is bad, wait till you see the next post.
When it comes to hatred of corporations, I yield to no man thereof. Having worked in the festering cesspits of same on more than a couple of occasions, I know how they operate, and the depths of corporate bastardy in which they have no problems swimming.
This is especially loathsome when it comes to rolling over and offering up the corporate belly for the godless government agencies to scratch (and even claw, sometimes).
Small businesses, by comparison, have shown a great deal more spine than their larger brethren. One has only to recall that gym owner in New Jersey who, when overcoming the totalitarian state government agents and the governor during the Great Covidiocy, ended up giving all of them the finger when the eighty (80!) charges against them were all dismissed with prejudice.
Back when I was running a supermarket chain’s loyalty program, I always made it clear that individuals’ right to privacy was paramount when it came to their shopping data and habits. On more than one occasion I told divorce lawyers to piss off when they came snooping around, a couple of times facing them down when they threatened me with a subpoena. (When I shared one of these incidents with the guys who were in my share group, one owner of a small chain said, “Oooh, I wish that some asshole would come after me with a subpoena; I’d go to jail with the greatest of pleasure, and the positive PR I’d get for the company would be worth millions!” He was seventy-five years old at the time.)
Of course, the banking industry — to a man, it seems — shows no such defiance when the feds come a-calling:
A new report released by the House Judiciary Committee, in partnership with the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, reveals extensive violations and abuse of the law by the federal government.
According to congressional investigators, the FBI abused the Bank Secrecy Act in order to work with banks to target opponents of the Biden administration and Trump supporters.
“The information obtained during the Committee and Select Subcommittee’s investigation, and detailed in this report, is concerning. Documents show that federal law enforcement increasingly works hand-in-glove with financial institutions, obtaining virtually unchecked access to private financial data and testing out new methods and new technology to continue the financial surveillance of American citizens.
“Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee demonstrate that federal law enforcement increasingly relies on financial institutions for highly sensitive information about Americans without legal process. Federal law enforcement has effectively deputized financial institutions to advance its investigations and to gain access to the information that financial institutions possess. As financial institutions’ capacity to track and gather data on Americans continues to increase, federal law enforcement will continue to be incentivized to rely on banks for easy access to sensitive information about Americans’ private lives.”
Now I can — sorta — see the point if the purpose is to track down gangster money-launderers or tax evaders (and even then, I’m skeptical in the extreme because nunya). But that wasn’t the case here:
In a previous investigation done by the Committees, investigators found the FBI was flagging purchases that included “MAGA,” “patriot” and even bibles. As Townhall reported in January 2024:
Federal law enforcement agencies partnered with a number of financial institutions to flag transactions with the terms “MAGA,” “Trump” and more. They also monitored transactions at stores like Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shop. Other purchases linked to religious texts, like Christian bibles, were flagged under the guise of “preventing extremism.”
Further, the FBI has conducted hundreds of thousands of illegal searches without proper warrants in recent years.
I realize that Trump’s DOJ is going to have its hands full for the first couple years of the new Administration. But I hope they can spare a few moments to track down the bastards who authorized this nonsense, prosecute and imprison them.
Then again, as it was the FBI themselves who indulged in this un-Constitutional larceny, I’m not holding out much hope.
And they wonder why pics like these are so popular…
Oh, this is rich:
A paltry 6% of the federal workforce “report in-person on a full-time basis” while almost one-third of federal workers are remote on a full-time basis, in a sharp turn-around from the pre-pandemic era in which only 3% teleworked daily.
Of course, Elon Musk (the man who is aiming to fix this kind of shit) has the truth of it:
If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel [i.e. the folks who have to be there — K.], the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%!
Furthermore:
Sen. Joni Ernst’s audits are finding as many as 23[%] to 68[%] of teleworking employees for some agencies are boosting their salaries by receiving incorrect locality pay. Some employees live more than 2,000 miles away from their office and one “temporary” teleworker collected higher locality pay for nearly a decade.
Yup; nothing like claiming D.C. cost-of-living support whilst living in W. Virginia, is there? Or, as Harris Rigby puts it:
Get paid for big city expenses, live in the cheap suburbs, pocket the difference.
My thoughts on the above:
Hey, it’s not firing squads. (Which would have been my solution.)