Tag Archives: government

Just a Bunch of Low-Rent Chicago Hoods

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Here’s a short list:

  • Fast and Furious and Attorney General Eric Holder’s steadfast refusal to cooperate with Congress’ investigation of this crime
  • Department of Energy’s use of taxpayer money to loan millions to cronies at Solyndra, Fisk, A123, et al
  • President Barack Obama’s initial attempts to downplay the IRS’ politically targeting government-disfavored groups and men by holding up their tax-exempt applications and/or singling them out for “investigation:” “If the reported actions are true,” he said on the heels of the IRS admitting it had done these things and issued their faux apology
  • Obama’s “firing” of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller by allowing him to resign: Miller was resigning anyway in a couple of weeks, and he’s being allowed to stay on for a couple of weeks
  • For all that, IRS continues to collect tax data by trolling taxpayers’ digital activities, scraping eBay auctions, Facebook posts, and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records.
  • Obama’s dissembling about events surrounding Benghazi and the terrorist murders of our Ambassador and three others, including lies to the press, through Carney’s mouth, about “a single” talking point edit
    • the “penultimate point” from original talking points:
      • The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out that individuals had previously surveilled the US facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks
    • State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland’s concern:
      • …the penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either?
    • White House’s David Adams’ concurrence with Nuland:
      • I’m with Toria [Victoria]. The last bullet especially will read to members like we had been repeatedly warned
  • Obama’s politicizing the outcomes of the Benghazi and IRS failures, then claiming that it was the Republicans who were politicizing them by seeking the facts of these matters
  • DoJ’s secret seizure of AP phone records, which included those for phone lines in the House of Representatives press gallery—which means phone records of Congressmen talking with the press via telephone were included: DoJ was collecting communications records on Congressmen, too
  • HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pushing, among other organizations, insurance companies (which she regulates) to contribute private monies to help make up the shortfall in government funding of the government’s insurance exchanges
  • Obama, et al., claiming that Republican budget cuts caused the Benghazi security failures, even though Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb testified under oath before Congress that budgetary considerations were not a factor in her decision not to beef up Benghazi security
  • More than 2,200 illegal immigrants, over 600 of which had criminal records,  released earlier this year by DHS’ ICE, using the sequester as the excuse, and the release kept hidden from Congress for months until threat of subpoena

And Obama is the leader.

Political Corruption, Big Government, and Generational Struggle

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Government, by its nature, is vulnerable to a broad reach of failure, and that becomes increasingly difficult to correct as government’s size grows and corruption, or even mere arrogance, increases.  Ultimately, government becomes large enough that it deems itself no longer responsible to the people who created it, and it engages in activities for its own benefit instead of ours.  Finally, these activities become centered simply on preserving and expanding its own power—which fosters corruption, which fosters further self-preservation and growth, which….

Here are some recent and current examples:

  • The Community Reinvestment Act and refusals to reform it, which created the conditions for the housing bubble and subsequent collapse.
  • Fast and Furious, DoJ’s gunwalking scam.
  • The method by which Obamacare was enacted, and its enactment against the loudly expressed wishes of the American people.
  • DoJ’s selective prosecution of crime, refusing for instance to prosecute voter intimidation crimes unless the alleged victim was from a government-favored group and the alleged perpetrator(s) from a government-disfavored group.
  • DoJ’s use of disparate impact analysis to manufacture racial discrimination where none exists and solely to satisfy a government’s politically motivated goal.
  • The process surrounding the stifling of the Keystone XL pipeline by the White House.
  • DoJ’s secret seizure of press telephone records (the AP, for instance) in New York, Washington, Hartford, and the main office for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.
  • The cover-up of the government’s preparation for and response to the terrorist attack on our Consulate in Benghazi.
  • The politicization of the IRS, and its use to persecute government-disfavored groups and men.
  • Labor Department’s selective enforcement of laws regarding the killing of members of protected bird species, including the refusal to prosecute wind energy farms that kill over 80,000 hunting birds per year.

And so on.  This kind of thing isn’t unique to big government, of course; any time men are placed in power over men—a necessity even of consensual governments—the potential for arrogance or corruption abounds.  However, small consensual governments, inherently limited in power—formally by a constitution, and practically by a vigilant and involved population—are easier to control, and the growth of corruption and arrogance much more hindered.

It’ll be a long, cross-generational struggle to restore our government and to repair the damage done these last 80 years.  It’s a struggle that must be engaged, however.

An Honest Citizen

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…and a Government Citizen.

The Federal government is required to certify whether an act of terrorism has occurred so businesses can determine related loss recovery.  One outcome of this is that if a business did not specifically buy terrorism coverage, a formal designation of terrorism could make it harder to recoup a loss.

Now consider the Boston Marathon attack.  Lots of small businesses that were impacted by that disaster did not buy terrorism coverage.

Enter, stage left, the Government Citizen:

Boston Mayor Tom Menino told reporters at a press conference Saturday that he has confidence Obama will not sign anything that would hurt businesses impacted by the bombings[.]

Enter, stage right, the Honest Citizen:

David Sapers, owner of candy store Sugar Heaven, said he took a risk by not purchasing terrorism coverage.

“This is a terrorism act, and we’re not [going to] change the rules because people want to recoup money from the insurance companies[.]

Hmm….

IRS and Politics

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Recall that in the last election season, the Internal Revenue Service demanded of a number of nonprofit organizations information about the nature of their politics, who their contributors were, even asking about family members.  The IRS intended to use this information to challenge the organizations’ nonprofit status.  That this was a biased request is demonstrated by the fact that only conservative nonprofits were targeted, and they were targeted on the basis of the presence of terms like “patriot” and “tea party” in their organizational names.

The then-IRS commissioner, of course, denied this.  Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012,

There’s absolutely no targeting.  This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people….

Turns out he was lying.  Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said,

That [demand] was wrong.  That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive, and it was inappropriate.  That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review[.]

Then she said,

The IRS would like to apologize for that[.]

Well, Madam, when will the IRS apologize for that, instead of just talk about wanting to?  And what assurances are you or Steven Miller, the acting IRS Commissioner, going to provide that guarantee this politicization of the IRS’ function has been erased and will not recur?  When will we see IRS action on these assurances?

This…behavior…makes me wonder if David Axelrod has gone to work for the IRS.  Or whether Janet Napolitano, DHS Secretary, is directing the IRS’ oversight function.