Category: Gummint

Stopping The Tax Tide

Taxes and Theft, Trumpism, UN and other scum

Last week I ranted about this “Global Emissions Tax” nonsense emanating from the U.N., and it is with great glee that I see that God-Emperor (not King) Trump has nipped that issue in the bud:

A global tax on shipping emissions won’t take effect after pressure from the Trump administration to abandon the climate activist-fueled proposal.  

The International Maritime Organization had been set to vote on Friday on adopting a global carbon tax aimed at pushing the shipping industry to stop using fossil fuels. But that vote did not happen after President Donald Trump on Thursday called for other countries to oppose the tax, saying that the United States would not “tolerate” or “adhere” to the measure. 

From what I can understand, Trump threatened the voting nations with stuff like trade embargoes and tariffs if they voted in support of the thing, whereupon they said “Yes, Massa”  and did what he told them to do.

However, let’s not crack open the champagne just yet:

Instead, the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations that regulates shipping, moved Friday to postpone the vote on the tax for a year. 

“Now you have one year, you will continue to work on several aspects of these amendments,” said Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization. “You have one year to negotiate and talk and come to consensus.”

So next year, it’ll come up for a vote again, and again we’re going to have to rap their nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

I have a simple suggestion to end this thing, forever.  Tell the United Nations that if they ever try to impose a global tax system on the world (and on us, of course), this action will automatically trigger the United States’s immediate withdrawal from the UN, and the expulsion of the UN organization in toto  from the United States.

Then get Congress to pass a law to enable the action.  Shouldn’t be that difficult, even with the expected opposition from federal judges.

Message to the UN:  We don’t do taxes.

End of story.

Theft In Pursuit Of An Agenda

Taxes and Theft, UN and other scum

The redoubtable Stephen Moore brings to light this little bit of internationalist skulduggery,:

Later this week the United Nations will hold a vote on a multibillion-dollar climate change tax targeted squarely at American industry.

This resolution before the International Maritime Organization will impose a carbon tax on cargo and cruise ships that carry $20 trillion of merchandise over international waters.

The resolution is intended to advance the very “net zero” carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped European economies for years and that American voters have rejected.

This international tax that would be applied to American vessels and as such is a dangerous precedent-setting assault on U.S. sovereignty.

As with all great crimes, the first question is “cui bono” ?  And to nobody’s surprise, the answer is:

Worst of all, if the resolution passes, it will require the retirement of older ships and enable a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer to China — which has come to dominate ship building in recent years.

China strongly supports the tax scheme — even though, ironically, no nation has emitted more pollutants into the atmosphere than it has. Yet WE are getting socked with a tax that indirectly pays for their pollution.

Needless to say, the U.S. will have no truck with this nonsense — at least, the current generation of U.S. leaders won’t:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy have jointly stated that America “will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or our businesses.”

They call the financial impact on the U.S. of this global carbon tax “disastrous, with some estimates forecasting global shipping costs increasing as much as 10% or more.”

So fine.  But given that in the United Nations, there are seventeen likely “yes” votes to our single “no” vote, how are we to combat this nonsense?  As usual, Moore has the answer:

To prevent this sinister tax, the White House should announce a set of retaliation measures.

This could include a dollar-for-dollar reduction in U.S. payments to NATO, the U.N., IMF and World Bank. No foreign money should be directed to any nation that votes for this assault on American ships.

And as the old (paraphrased) saying goes:  “They may have passed this law;  now let them enforce it.”

My additional solution would be for the United States to leave the U.N. altogether, cease its funding thereof, and kick these assholes out of Manhattan for good.  Let them play their little reindeer games all they want, just in someone else’s backyard and with their own money.  See how long that little internationalist dream lasts.

Actual Conspiracy

Government Thugs, Grifters & Cons, Politics

I’m not by nature a conspiracy theorist, until there’s proof — usually after the fact — that there really was a conspiracy.  Then I go, “I thought there was something going on.”  But I keep shtum as a matter of policy, because guys who find links between JFK’s assassination and Aristotle Onassis’s manipulation of the emerald trade in China (I swear, I once read such a piece SOTI)… well, really.

So last week the Brits discovered beyond all doubt that two actual spies were working for the Chicom government, and arrested them.  Then, mysteriously, “pressure was brought to bear” and all charges were dropped.

So read here about the Circle of 48, which explains the dismissal of the charges.  (Spoiler alert:  it happened because prosecution “would have angered the Chinese government”.)

And think about whether such a group exists here in the U.S.  It’s not so much a dotted line as it is a neon arrow.  We saw evidence of it before with the fake “Russian dossier” and the people within government who prepared it, used fake information to make it legal, leaked it to the press and tried to stymie a completely valid election.  And I’ll bet there are more being cooked up, as we speak.  You may suggest your own suspects as the dramatis personae  (people like that slimy little Brit Jonathan Powell, only with American accents).

Feel free to point out where I’m wrong.

Our Real Enemy

Bureaucracy, Gummint, Resistance

This article suggests that the real enemy of America is not called the Chinese Communist Party, or the Russian Menace, or the Muslim Invasion.  Who is, then?

There are two irrefutable and intertwined realities that the citizens of any constitutional republic must recognize and understand. First, any group or entity that espouses ever greater power for the central government, socialist-centric economic policies, and continual erosion of individual freedom is an existential threat to that nation as founded.

Second, the leaders of these factions and their disciples will lie incessantly, and under no circumstances will they alter their policies or tactics, as they can never be wrong in their pursuit of unbridled political power. They must be soundly defeated at the ballot box, or civil strife will inevitably ensue.

Steve McCann lays out the most egregious scenario in recent memory where the Powers That Be did just that.  Here it is:

Nothing better defines this mindset of infallibility, arrogance, and pathological lying to achieve political power than the most malicious exploitation of the citizenry in American history: The deliberate manipulation and mismanagement of the Chinese Coronavirus “pandemic.”

Beginning in March 2020, the ruling class/Democrat party and their accomplices in the medical establishment knowingly regurgitated innumerable falsehoods and were responsible for a variety of catastrophic actions that caused not only massive economic and societal dislocation but also countless deaths. The Democrats still have not acknowledged the errors that they made and, of course, will not admit that those errors were compounded by abject refusals to change course.

I have a simple take on all this.  As time passes and memory fades, we run the danger of forgetting not just the consequences of this bastardy, but the suffocating effect of what was essentially mass house arrest, as well as the fear of shortages — from frigging toilet paper to essential drugs like insulin — and the massive overreach of the police state to enforce all those restrictions on our liberty.

And just remember that the enforcement of the restrictions was selectively enforced:  churches were closed, but the Antifa/BLM riots went ahead without a strong response from the police.

Read the whole article above, be reminded, remain angry, and let’s not let it happen again — ever.

Quote Of The Day

Gummint, QOTD

From Breitbart:

“The press treats every shutdown like the asteroid about to kill the dinosaurs. It might not sell papers anymore, but it definitely triggers clicks and shares. Markets, by contrast, treat it like what it usually is — a Washington melodrama that doesn’t dent the real economy.”

And the public?  With every shutdown, we learn just how inessential so much of our government is to our day-to-day lives, and how much we need to prune it, drastically.

Unnamed Drivers (And Voters)

Bureaucracy, Marxists

Exhibit #1:

Additional note:  3 years is a “limited term”.

I’m not often in favor of yet more laws to be passed, but I think that if someone is injured or killed in an accident caused by one of these no-name drivers (or an illegal alien driver), the state in which the accident happened should have a prima facie  legal cause for suing the issuing state, for millions of dollars.

That, and the affected state should impose a mandatory life sentence without parole on the no-name (or illegal alien) driver — public executions no longer being fashionable.

I am getting so sick of this bullshit.