Tag: Government

Technical Thuggery

Government Thugs, The Gun Thing

Well, when I saw this headline, I thought “Wow, this must be pretty bad, considering their history.”

One of the worst things ATF has ever done

And it was.

Not one of the guns or gun parts the ATF seized from former sailor Patrick Tate Adamiak was illegal. Not a single gun or gun part required any additional paperwork beyond a Form 4473, and most didn’t even require that. Adamiak was always extremely careful and did absolutely nothing wrong. 

Every single item that the ATF seized from Adamiak’s home is still sold to anyone who wants one. Most don’t even require an FFL for the transfer since they’re not even firearms but are instead legal gun parts. 

So, why is Adamiak serving 20 years in a federal prison?

Good question.  Here’s why:

(ATF Agent) Bodell’s incredible deceptions have become almost legendary. He actually turned toys into firearms and legal semi-autos into machineguns.

    • Bodell inserted a real STEN action and a real STEN barrel into Adamiak’s toy STEN submachinegun and got it to fire one round, even though the toy’s receiver wouldn’t accept a real STEN magazine. Bodell actually classified the toy, which are very popular, as a machine gun.
    • Bodell fired five of Adamiak’s very expensive and extremely collectible legal semi-autos, which fire from an open bolt. All the ATF technician could achieve was semi-auto fire, but that didn’t stop him. He classified all five highly sought after firearms as machine guns.
    • Bodell ruled that several receivers that had been cut in half were actually machine guns. The same receivers are still legally sold online and do not require an FFL or any paperwork.
    • Bodell actually rebuilt three inert RPGs, which had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices.

So the ATF took Adamiak’s toys, turned them (partially) into (sorta) weapons, and had him sent to jail.  For 20 years.

Somebody explain to me why this cocksucker Bodell shouldn’t be swinging from a lamp post?  And ditto the fucking judge who allowed this bullshit to be taken as “evidence”?

Note to President Trump:   Pardon Adamiak yourself, and have Kash Patel take action against Bodell, just prior to closing down the entire ATF.  If you don’t, then why did we elect you?

Augean Stables

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

From Jeff Tucker:

For more than a century, even dating back to 1883, the civil service has grown and grown without check from the elected branch, either the presidency or the legislature . The bureaucracies have ballooned from a few to 450 or so. The bloat and absurdities have grown too. Get this: no one has ever known what to do about it. Not Coolidge, not Hoover, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton, no one. No president has been able to crack this nut.

The only reforms ever to have made it through are those that make the administrative state bigger, never smaller. Countless cabinet secretaries have come and gone, always with the intention of making a change but leaving saddened, demoralized, outwitted, outgunned, and ultimately devoured. No president has seriously taken on this problem because they simply did not know how. The unions are powerful, the intimidation from the deep institutional knowledge is overwhelming, the fear of the media as been powerful, and every single president comes to power vaguely feeling threatened by the intelligence agencies. The industries that have captured every single agency were also far too powerful to unseat or control.

This combination of institutional inertia has blocked serious reform for a full century. No one has dared. No one has even had a theory or strategy about what to do about this problem. It had become so terrible that most people in politics have simply surrendered, like homeowners who know there are rats in the basement and bats in the attic but long ago gave up trying to fix the issue.

All this time, the American people have felt themselves ever more oppressed, weighed upon, taxed and regulated, spied upon, brow beaten, and otherwise overwhelmed. Voting never made any difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies ruled all.

But now we have a chance.  It may be our last, because right now, in the paraphrased words of John Adams, we have men worthy of the time:  a president who has a burning desire to make the changes necessary, an associate of towering intellect and inherent power who may be able to execute that change, and the subordinates who are just as willing to make those changes with the necessary authority (in the shape of presidential appointees), and others (the twenty-something hackers and geeks) who have the knowledge, skills and the tools to be able to root out the corruption and deadweight of accumulated bureaucracy and perverted, un-American policy.

Quote Of The Day

Bureaucracy, QOTD

“25 million individuals over age 100 remain in the Social Security database even though there are fewer than 100,000 people aged 100 or older alive in the U.S. today.” — DOGE

Let’s hear it for Gummint efficiency.  And if it’s not inefficiency… then it’s fucking fraud, and the recipients of said fraudulent payouts need to go to jail.

And while we’re there, the people responsible for checking for and preventing such anomalies should be fired.

Small Beginnings

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

I submit these two little snippets for your  enjoyment  contemplation:

First:  the I.R.S.:

The Trump administration has executed one of the most significant workforce reductions in U.S. history, targeting over 200,000 probationary employees across multiple government agencies.

It was first reported that Trump’s administration plans to axe around 9,000 jobs at the IRS, primarily targeting employees still in their probationary period.  However, as many as 15,000 IRS workers have been identified for possible termination as early as next week.

The targeted employees, many of whom were added during the Biden administration’s expansion of the IRS, reportedly hold non-essential roles unrelated to processing tax filings.

One can only hope that this will end with the department’s complete abolition.   I’m not kidding, either.

Second, the CDC:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is poised to lose roughly one-tenth of its workforce due to a Trump policy axing probationary employees as part of a larger effort of the Trump administration to cut the size and scope of government.

This reality comes as the Trump administration orders federal agencies to cut off probationary employees. That includes roughly 1,300 staffers at the CDC alone. Those employees, according to the Associated Press, are expected to receive roughly four weeks of paid administrative leave.

Let’s hope that the reduced CDC staffing means that those quacks will be going after actual diseases like smallpox and malaria, instead of inventing “epidemics” like accidental gun deaths and suchlike.  (I’m hopeful, but not optimistic that this will happen;  if it doesn’t, shut them down too and leave it to the states to deal with.)

Like I said, this is a good start, going after the low-hanging fruit (“probationary”, “non-essential”, FFS), but let’s not stop there.

Quote Of The Day

Bureaucracy, QOTD

From my soul brother Elon:

“We find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who who have a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars, but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth.” [beat]  “We’re just curious as to where it came from…”

Yeah, me too.  Investigate all of them — Democrats and Republicans.