What do you think?

To see what has got you to where you are now, You should all watch or read

Oliver Stones "Untold history of the United States"

It is a very compelling watch, explains some of the bulshite that went on in the past that leads us to where we are now.
There have been no lawsuits or the like about it so it must be accurite.
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
Jeff, from an outsider looking from a fair distance away I agree with your post. Successive governments of either side have been circumventing the rights of the people, in order to
"protect " them. It appears time that people on both sides of the political fence somehow unite to tell the Pollies no more!
How? I have no idea.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
To see what has got you to where you are now, You should all watch or read

Oliver Stones "Untold history of the United States"

It is a very compelling watch, explains some of the bulshite that went on in the past that leads us to where we are now.
There have been no lawsuits or the like about it so it must be accurite.

Uhhhhhhhhhh...not quite actual reality! You have to remember Stone is one of the "blame America first" types....
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
Jeff, from an outsider looking from a fair distance away I agree with your post. Successive governments of either side have been circumventing the rights of the people, in order to
"protect " them. It appears time that people on both sides of the political fence somehow unite to tell the Pollies no more!
How? I have no idea.

As long as the "Pollies" continue to hand out the vote-buying goodies, Pete, I don't see anything changing anytime soon - if ever. The U.S. will likely be totally bankrupt before we see any really serious changes made anywhere.

'Just telling it like I 'sees' it...
 
Thanks Larry, ditto on 'ya! Guess I've become very set in my ways as I grow older...
That's not a bad thing either! Pushing 69 late this year, good health, no issues at all.
Should have wrote a book...naw, too busy having fun now.

And I still shine my own shoes (thanks for the comment), in fact no one is allowed to mess with my "stuff". Even my garage and office are "off-limits".
 
Last edited:

Pat

Supporter
VEEK from just a few days ago:

Do we really need this kind of thing???

The name calling and hate speech is really making the forum an unpleasant place to be...

***********

Is hyperhyprocisy even a word? Good lord.

Thanks Jeff,
As for "Hyperhyprocracy", I'm thoroughly comfortable with you calling me anything you want. It seems most of your posts end with some sort of name calling.
Please stop mocking my religion though. If your intent is to be thoroughly offensive in that regard, you scored. I consider that one pretty reprehensible. It's one of the reasons I post so much less than I used to. If your intent was to suppress my posts, you've succeeded. Cyber bullying, like Kool Aid, isn't just for kids.

As for you response to the post, it was brilliantly Clintonian.

Step one: We didn't do it...

When that fails, go to step two: "Everybody does it" (or the Obama variant "It's Bush's fault" - the theme of your post).

Then there's step three, (Mrs. Clinton used it related to Benghazi) "It doesn't matter" or the Obama variant: "We didn't know about it" - we're not bad people... just incompetent ones.
Besides, what difference is it if a bunch of Tea Party whack jobs couldn't raise money or had to pay some extra taxes. And that Fox News guy, he's with "FOX NEWS"-they deserve it. After all they are undermining Mr. Obama. And that rich guy Romney; any charity he gives to deserves a thorough trashing in the media and blogosphere thereby killing their donation stream. How dare he support some "pro family" charity. "Pro-Family' we all know is a code word for homophobia. The IRS needs to look into those people and put the haters out of business!
(Which is the reason Romney was reluctant to release his returns, even though it cost him politically.) I'll do some name calling here: Romney is an honorable man. A sadly naïve anachronism, but an honorable man.

But like others, your postings perhaps inoculate you from IRS, DOJ, DOL, EPA scrutiny, as for the rest of us... Our lives are apparently an open book ripe for government selective intrusion, persecution and even prosecution.
Excuse me, I need to check the grade of the wheelchair ramp on my porch, the wattage of my light bulbs and make sure there are no improper additives to my car's fuel.
Note to PRISM File: my property taxes are paid, the post I made about my cat being a dependent on my income taxes really was a joke and the time I went to the "Bad Girl Cheerleaders in Chains" website really was a mistake...
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Show me one incidence in which the IRS is harassing/blocking a left wing organization

From TIME

By early 1969, the misuse of the IRS had moved inside the White House. Tom Charles Huston, an aide to President Nixon, recommended using the IRS to examine left-wing tax-exempt organizations to make sure they were complying with the law. Nixon agreed. Five years later, the House of Representatives drew up articles of impeachment against Nixon, alleging, among other offenses, that the President had used the IRS improperly

What did Nixon do?
The White House tapes recorded Nixon urging aide John Ehrlichman in 1971 to get the IRS to dig into the tax returns of possible Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, and Ted Kennedy. "I can only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting," Nixon said. "There's a lot of gold in them thar hills." In 1969, the Nixon administration set up an IRS unit called the Special Service Staff, which used tax records to assemble dossiers on more than 11,000 groups and individuals. After the 1972 election, Nixon staffers gave the IRS a list of 576 supporters of Democrat George McGovern. In 1974, one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon charged him with seeking "confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law."
 
Last edited:

Steve

Supporter
Jim's right. The IRS has always been a weapon used by the party in power to reward one's friends and punish one's enemies (perceived or real). The article referenced cites multiple examples on both sides of the aisle and legislation has been similarly biased. I must say Obama has turned it into an art both from a legislative standpoint (increasing taxes on his enemies during a sluggish economy to gain political points while failing to do a thing about the real cause of our debt/deficit: runaway spending) as well as multiple instances of overt bias within the IRS itself.

I've waffled over the years about a flat tax but it is likely the only solution to IRS bias against individuals. Flat rate with no deductions. Everyone takes a bit of a hit but no one can work the system and in the end, the only question is whether you paid it or didn't.

Clearly anything that increases federal govt involvement in our lives, however well intentioned, frequently ends up wasteful, abusive, corrupt, biased, or some combination: IRS is a decent poster child.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
I think if you look closely, you will find this type of IRS thing in almost any administration

IRS SCANDAL
IRS Targeted Liberals Under Bush

NAACP and Greenpeace were given unwarranted attention

Most people are outraged that the IRS recently targeted 300 or more conservatives groups. Even liberals are mad. But we should keep a sense of proportion and recall that the IRS targeted liberal groups under President Bush, writes Alex Seitz-Wald in liberal mag Salon.


"In 2004, the IRS went after the NAACP, auditing the nation's oldest civil rights group after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization," writes Seitz-Wald. He quotes the then NAACP chairman: "It's pretty obvious that the complainant was someone who doesn't believe George Bush should be criticized, and it's obvious of their response that the IRS believes this, too."


In 2006, the IRS investigated Greenpeace at the instigation of a pressure group funded by Exxon Mobile.


In 2005 the Senate held a hearing on political activity by "social welfare" groups, at which it was noted that the IRS needed "to better define the lines between politics and social welfare," writes Seitz-Wald. Yet nothing was done. Meanwhile nonprofits experienced bizarre inconsistencies, like the non-profit Emerge America which was given non-profit status in Kentucky but denied it in Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada.

Given that history, perhaps we should focus on the IRS's decades-long inconsistency and sloppy rules rather than attacking the agency for partisanship under Obama, Seitz-Wald's piece implies.

Via Salon.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Show me one incidence in which the IRS is harassing/blocking a left wing organization.

The bureaucracy needs collectivism to not only exist but grow, grow, and then grow.

I'll show you many. Even in this last dust up, it wasn't just conservative groups that got scrutiny in filing 501(c)(3) applications. It was all types.

That doesn't get reported on Faux News though so I know it is hard for you to believe it is the truth.

Report: One-Third of Tax-Exempt Groups Scrutinized by IRS Were Not Conservative - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Thanks Jeff,
As for "Hyperhyprocracy", I'm thoroughly comfortable with you calling me anything you want. It seems most of your posts end with some sort of name calling.
Please stop mocking my religion though. If your intent is to be thoroughly offensive in that regard, you scored. I consider that one pretty reprehensible. It's one of the reasons I post so much less than I used to. If your intent was to suppress my posts, you've succeeded. Cyber bullying, like Kool Aid, isn't just for kids.

Wait, what? It's insulting your religion to use the phrase "Good lord?"
 

Pat

Supporter
Wait, what? It's insulting your religion to use the phrase "Good lord?"

Try reviewing your previous posts there Jeff, if you don't see something a Judeo-Christian would find offensive, then my reality can never overlap yours...
 
Ok. Either danimal lied when he said his previous post was his last on this subject or perhaps the Bacardi has blurred his memory or his cell phone is replying while he gets another drink....

This thread points out that regardless of party affiliation, they are all crooks and can't be trusted. They are all power hungery, dishonest egomaniacs and need to have a major ass beating. Since they violated their oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution, they should not be afforded the protection of the eighth amendment (protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

I am a firm believer we need to tar and feather all of the bastsrds.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Try reviewing your previous posts there Jeff, if you don't see something a Judeo-Christian would find offensive, then my reality can never overlap yours...

Correct. I live in the 21st Century on Earth.

You live in some weird hypersensitive only I get to criticize people I don't like land. Enjoy your alternate reality.
 
Getting back to the original topic about the government collecting information from the phone companies, even if the content is not listened to, the contact information would be significant. The following TED presentation Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching | Video on TED.com is very interesting.

German Green politician Malte Spitz went to court to obtain the information that his cell phone operator, Deutsche Telekom, gathered (and kept) about his activity. The results astonished him. Over the course of six months, they had tracked his geographical location and what he was doing with his phone more than 35,000 times. Working with the German newspaper Die Zeit, an infographic was created that shows Spitz's activity across an interactive timeline, combined DT's geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and website. By pushing the play button, viewers can set off on a detail-rich trip through six months of his life. And more, because he keeps asking the telecom company for his most recent data.

Spitz, a member of the Executive Committee of the German Green Party, is responsible for media and new-media policies, civil liberties and privacy issues.
"Seen individually, the pieces of data are mostly inconsequential and harmless. But taken together, they provide what investigators call a profile–a clear picture of a person’s habits and preferences, and indeed, of his or her life."
"Betrayed by Our Own Data," Die Zeit
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
Ok. Either danimal lied when he said his previous post was his last on this subject or perhaps the Bacardi has blurred his memory or his cell phone is replying while he gets another drink....

This thread points out that regardless of party affiliation, they are all crooks and can't be trusted. They are all power hungery, dishonest egomaniacs and need to have a major ass beating. Since they violated their oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution, they should not be afforded the protection of the eighth amendment (protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

I am a firm believer we need to tar and feather all of the bastsrds.

They sound just like our Pollies and booringcrats. I do think tar and feathering them is not enough though.
 
Correct. I live in the 21st Century on Earth.

You live in some weird hypersensitive only I get to criticize people I don't like land. Enjoy your alternate reality.
yeah Veek toughen up a little you're starting to sound like a black guy crying racist......again
 
Back
Top