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Morning Funnies

Morning Funnies

Morning Funnies

Morning Funnies

Thomas Massie Deserves Some Credit

As many of you know, I disagree with Congressman Thomas Massie's approach to governing. His efforts to work against the system instead of within it have put the people or our district at a severe disadvantage. However, when he does something right, I do give him credit.

He has introduced a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code to repeal inclusion in gross income money paid in Social Security Benefits.

That is the right thing to do.

Now if he would stop pandering to people about some theoretical agenda and do more hard work like this, we could be better off.

Obama's Chess Game: How Snowden's Leaks Could Spell More Government Secrecy

If anything happens in politics you can bet somebody planned it that way.  When Edward Snowden leaked to the British Press that the US was spying on everybody the reaction was predictable and swift.  From all parts of the political spectrum came calls for tightening security coupled with calls for less spying.

But as the dust around the initial revelation settled more and more information about the extent of government spying became available which of course sent everybody scrambling to put an end to such abuses.  Now however the other shoe has dropped.

The Obama administration has ordered a government-wide reassessment of how almost 5 million Americans have been granted classified information security clearances and whether each person currently approved to see sensitive national security secrets truly has a need for such access.

Clapper asked agencies to perform a top-to-bottom scrub of the teeming rolls of people authorized to access classified information and to remove anyone deemed not to have a so-called need to know. [POLITICO]

At first this may seem like a perfectly good step to take, considering that nobody really knows who is among those 5 million folks.  But consider this.

The Obama administration has been accused of "purging" the military of leaders they don't trust.  While the top to bottom scrub of "people authorized to access classified information" sounds good, might it also eliminate those who are in a position to warn America about further abuses yet to come?

I for one do not thing Snowden is a hero.  I believe he is a criminal.  But what part in a larger chess game might he have played?  Is it possible that Snowden's revelations about the extent of government spying created a "crisis" too good to waste?  Might the outrage over his revelations have provided the Obama administration with exactly the kind of atmosphere they needed in order to put blinders on others who could report on abuses yet to come? 

Many people today say that they do not trust "government".  This is a common expression and one that reveals a core of ignorance.  There is no entity operating on its own called "the government". We are a nation of self governed, a representative republic which functions through the actions of human beings.  Saying that you do not trust "our government" suggests that you do not trust people to govern themselves.

What is I believe a more correct statement would be for these people to say "I don't trust those people who are now in charge of our government".  So in the context of the news that the Obama administration is going to "purge" people from the list of those entitled to know what is going on behind the scenes, might it not be appropriate to ask: "Do you trust Obama to determine who gets to see what he is up to?"

Granted, national security does indeed require some things be kept secret, but since liberty likewise extends at least the same amount of privacy to the rest of us which should be our greater concern, that our privacy is being violated, or that the private actions of those who run our government is protected from view?

In Obama's world it's all a big chess game.  What moves will the King authorize for his own protection?  That's the real question.

Obama's Ex-Body Guard: "It's Worse Than You Know"

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino – “It’s to the point where these (Obama) scandals in and of themselves would be huge, backbreaking scandals are just lost in the ‘scandal fog’ of this administration.” He added: “It’s worse than people know; I’m not trying to scare you either.” [gopthedailydose.com]

 

Who Will Have The Balls To Seize The Moment In Congress?

The media is spinning away in favor of the Obama view of the world that a "default" is looming if the debt ceiling isn't raised tomorrow.  Rand Paul is trying to comfort the world by re-assuring everybody that we have enough tax revenue per month to pay our interest payment AND that paying it first is the law of the land.

Of course Jack Lew and others in the Obama camp respond by saying that even if we pay our interest we might default on other obligations and that more government programs might suffer.  Once again they are trying to scare grandma and the enslaved poor who got a taste of things the other day when by sheer coincidence (tongue in cheek) their EBT (food stamps) purchasing cards got shut off briefly. (I mean come on, if you don't think this was a test to see how much of a panic could be incited then you are not paying attention)

So here's the way to use Obama's plot against him.  He wants to take the public's mind off of anything that reflects badly on him or his administration.  I mean, what ever happened to the IRS scandal, the Benghazi investigation and his "red line" that Syria crossed in open defiance?

If Obama can do it, so can somebody in Congress that has a pair. How about using this moment to introduce legislation eliminating the IRS and the income tax and creating a more stable revenue stream by the Fair Tax method.  Oh of course there will be plenty of opposition, but if the debate suddenly turned from increasing debt and increasing job killing taxes to finding a way to improve the income to the government and make it more user friendly to the millions of Americans who hate the current system, why not seize the moment?

Worried that we might not have enough money to pay our obligations and that cutting down on government expenditures might affect the wrong demographic?  Then consider this.

The cost of administering the tax code combined with the wasted resources that could go into jobs, productivity, buildings, equipment etc. takes hundreds of billions of dollars out of our economy each year.  Eliminating the IRS and the complexity of tax code compliance would free up huge amounts of capital, cut government costs and stabilize the revenue stream.

Now might not seem like the time to do something like this, but only to those who are being fooled by Obama's left hand, not paying any attention to what he is doing with his right hand.

Who will have the balls in Congress to seize this moment and do something truly historic?

New Bill Seeks To Tax Guns And Ammo At High Rate

Remember, the power to tax is the power to regulate and the power to regulate is the power to prohibit.  Now, about that headline:

There is a new anti-gun bill sitting on Capitol Hill, and it doesn’t deal with banning particular models of firearms or even universal background checks.

The Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act of 2013, was proposed by U.S. Reps. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. The bill seeks to raise the tax rate on gun sales from 10% to 20%.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that the bill also seeks to raise the tax rate on ammunition purchases to 50%.

The bill could mark a change in gun control strategy by anti-gun lawmakers. Courts have ruled several times in favor of an individual right to bear arms recently and gun control seems to be of the lowest priority to average Americans (despite the sketchy poll numbers of that anti-gunners continuously quote).

Knowing they can’t outright ban or limit guns directly the anti-gun lawmakers may take advantage of their ability to tax in order to institute additional gun control.[gunssavelives.net]

And if you think the Supreme Court would be any help, just remember what they did with Obamacare.

Thomas Massie: Replace The Fed With 'Bitcoin'

Have you ever heard of Bitcoin?  During a recent panel discussion when asked about his desire to end the Federal Reserve (his license plate even says "NDFED") Massie was asked what would replace it and he blurted out "Bitcoin".  I won't try to describe what "Bitcoin" is, I'll leave the research on that up to you.

But up until very recently this Internet based method of exchange which in a sense it's own currency for goods and services is getting some rather mainstream attention.

At its most basic level a Bitcoin is a form of money that can be used to pay for products or services just like the dollar bills that sit in your wallet.

A Bitcoin lives as code inside a computer. It’s intangible, but it works in many ways like cold, hard cash.

To acquire a Bitcoin, you need to buy it with another currency or have someone send it to you in a transaction. To hold a Bitcoin, you need to keep it in a digital “wallet,” a piece of software, on your local computer or you can you can allow a company to hold your “wallet” on their servers.

Bitcoin payments are made by transferring the digital currency between two users’ “wallets.” The fees for these transfers are lower than for more traditional forms of payments, like using a credit card or a bank transfer, because they are not backed by the safeguards and intermediary services provided by companies like Visa or Bank of America.

Bitcoin is “decentralized” meaning that it’s created and maintained by a network, rather than controlled by an institution like the Federal Reserve. The monetary policy of Bitcoin has already been established in a sense, with a cap of 21 million Bitcoins being able to enter circulation to reduce the risk of inflation.

Right now the price of a Bitcoin is around $100.

Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are increasingly drawing the attention of federal and state officials, though many have yet to formally express their views.

The chief worries have been whether they can be used by criminals to launder money, sell drugs, fleece unsuspecting consumers or evade taxes. [POLITICO]

Bitcoin, at this time, appeals primarily to people who dislike government, want to avoid taxes, and have a bit of a radical libertarian/anarchist type philosophy.  It's geeky, operates in its own subculture and requires a more sophisticated level of computer knowledge than your typical grandma who sometimes checks out Facebook.

For these reasons it should come as no surprise that Ron Paul acolyte Thomas Massie may very well be the first U.S. Congressman to endorse using Bitcoin instead of US currency.  How this squares with the people in Bromley, Sligo, Corinth, Perry Park, Covington and Alexandria is yet to be seen. But for a Congressman whose focus until recently has been upon playing "junkyard wars" and building robots the appeal of his latest radical idea is anybody's guess.

New Audit Says IRS Can't Keep Track Of Its Own Software

The Internal Revenue Service soon will have a larger role to play in managing the health records of Americans. But they’re having a hard time managing their own records, it seems.

A new audit report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which oversees the IRS, found the agency was not keeping track of its software licenses and did not employ specialized tools to track and manage the multitude of licenses being used daily at the IRS.

“Efficient and cost-effective management of the IRS’s software assets is crucial to ensuring that information technology services continue to support the IRS’s business operations and help it to provide services to taxpayers efficiently,” auditors wrote in their report.

The division of the IRS charged with managing the licenses could not provide auditors with the proper licenses for 24 of the 27 software products reviewed.

The IRS spent $235 million on computer software products during 2011, according to the audit.  Keeping better records of licenses could save the agency money by preventing unnecessary duplicate purchases of the same software, the auditors noted.

But it could also save the IRS from further embarrassment.  Poor record keeping of licenses could result in the agency running afoul of licensing agreements, which could bring legal trouble.

For example, eight of the products reviewed by the audit did not have unlimited licenses but IRS employees could not provide auditors with records showing how often the software was used.

“We could not determine whether licenses were over-or-under-deployed because the IRS could not provide us with records,” the auditors wrote.

Over-deployment of a license could bring a lawsuit.

Terence Milholland, the IRS’ chief technology officer, said the agency would address desktop and laptop software licensing as part of an overall effort to “ensure effective management controls.” The standardization effort would lead to more success and savings in the future, he wrote.

“We recognize that efficient and cost effective management of IRS software license(s) is crucial to ensuring that information technology services continue to support the IRS’s business operations that provide services to taxpayers,” Milholland, the IRS’ chief technology officer, wrote in the official response to the audit.

In an attachment to the audit, the agency announced six policy changes meant to address the audit’s concerns.

The IRS did not return calls for further comment.

Auditors recommended the development of new policies to manage software assets, the creation of a database for all software licenses used by the IRS and periodic reviews of the inventory to find cost-savings.

The audit may be less embarrassing for the agency than an earlier one that found IRS employees rang up more than $108 million in personal expenses on government-issued and taxpayer-funded credit cards, or a separate audit that found the IRS blew through $50 million in tax money between 2010 and 2012 to send employees to conferences around the country.

But the implied lack of internal control over the agency’s own technology and software could be equally worrisome.

The IRS will see its role expand in the coming years as the federal Affordable Care Act comes online.

The Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ nonpartisan number-crunching agency, said the IRS will have to spend between $5 billion and $10 billion over the first 10 years to implement the provisions of Obamacare, much of which will be spent on providing subsidies to individuals and businesses.

Cross-Posted from Watchdog.org

Did Obama Send Signal To Start Race War?

Conservative talk radio hosts have speculated that President Obama by way of his public statements concerning certain political movements in the country, sent a message to the IRS to target TEA party groups and liberty groups and patriot groups without ever leaving a finger print on anything.

Now the president has made this part of a recent speech:

President Obama said that if economic prescriptions of the type he supports to increase economic growth and reduce “income inequality” are not adopted, then race relations in the United State may deteriorate further.

“If we don’t do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise,” Obama said in an interview published Sunday by the New York Times. “Racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they’ve got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot. If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested, ” he said. [WhiteHousedossier.com]

FoxNews contributor Charles Payne has publicly said that he believes Obama wants civil unrest.

 

It should be of great concern that the President is using words like this.  Some will hear him and consider that the President wants more trouble.  Is it possible that he is indeed trying to spark civil unrest, spark a revolution?

Add to this mix the hysteria surrounding the Zimmerman case which has already been cited as the source of numerous unprovoked attacks on ordinary citizens around the country.

Be alert, be aware, become engaged, be prepared.