House votes to slash IRS tax enforcement budget – AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it.

 

The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget.

The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency’s scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency’s failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

It’s about damn time.

 

House votes to slash IRS tax enforcement budget – AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it.

 

The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget.

The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency’s scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency’s failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

It’s about goddamn time.

We Are Not Alone In Universe, NASA Scientists Say – Huffington Post

It’s highly unlikely we’re alone in the universe, NASA experts are saying, and we may be close to finding alien life. In fact, it may happen in the next two decades.

 

NASA held a panel discussion at the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday, where space experts talked about the search for Earth-like planets that host life. Based on recent advancements in space telescope technology, scientists estimated that in the coming decades we’ll confirm suspicions that we’re not alone.

 

“I think in the next 20 years we will find out we are not alone in the universe,” NASA astronomer Dr. Kevin Hand said in footage filmed at the discussion and posted on YouTube. Check it out in the video above.

The conditioning continues.

The Implosion Is Near: Signs Of The Bubble’s Last Days – David Stockman

The central banks of the world are massively and insouciantly pursuing financial instability. That’s the inherent result of the 68 straight months of zero money market rates that have been forced into the global financial system by the Fed and its confederates at the BOJ, ECB and BOE. ZIRP fuels endless carry trades and the harvesting of every manner of profit spread between negligible “funding” costs and positive yields and returns on a wide spectrum of risk assets.

 

…

 

Consequently, the Fed fails to see the in-coming data on financial instability because it isn’t looking for it, and is simply tossing out Wall Street sell-side propaganda as a sop.  The disappearance of volatility in the S&P 500 chart shown at the beginning, for example, is nearly an identical replica of the run-up to the 2007 stock market peak. Yet the appearance of a proven warning sign of a bubble top has been resolutely ignored.

 

…

 

At the end of the day, the Fed and its fellow traveling central banks have systematically dismantled the natural stability mechanisms of financial markets. Accordingly, financial markets have now become dangerous casinos in which speculative bubbles are guaranteed to build to dangerous extremes as the central bank driven financial inflation gathers force.  That’s where we are now. Again.

 

A very disturbing warning from a man with a disturbingly good track record for financial predictions.  Don’t let Stockman fool you, he knows that this is not ignorance on the part of the central bank.  He knows just as well as you do that when the crash happens, it will have been planned.

Illegal immigrants flown to Bay State – Boston Herald

“We’re all becoming border sheriffs now with these people being carted all over the country,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson.

“The blame goes all the way up. It’s a travesty and people ought to be upset,” Hodgson said. “This is un-American and has raised the stakes to the public health and public safety threat.”

 

Hmm.. Secret camps, secret movements of human cargo.  Almost downright Orwellian or (gasp) Hitleresque.  Illegals mysteriously and suddenly appear in your town.

Makes one wonder when legal citizens might start disappearing.

Teachers unions turn on Obama – The Hill

Teachers unions have turned on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Obama administration, creating a major divide in the Democratic Party coalition.

The largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association (NEA), called for Duncan to resign at its convention on July 4, arguing his policies on testing have failed the nation’s schools.

Tensions between Duncan and the unions had been building for some time.

 

The administration’s Race to the Top program, which has provided $4.35 billion to states, incentivized changes that unions strongly oppose. One of the most controversial policies backed by Duncan is using students’ improvement on standardized tests to help evaluate teachers and make pay and tenure decisions.

“Our members are frustrated and angry,” said NEA president Dennis Van Roekel. “Number one is the toxic testing. There is too much.”

 

All I see is a bunch of racist fuckin’ teachers.

It’s Eric Fucking Holder day at Sasshole.com

Holder sees ‘racial animus’ in opposition – The Hill

“There’s a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that’s directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder told ABC. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. … There’s a certain racial component to this for some people. I don’t think this is the thing that is a main driver, but for some there’s a racial animus.”

 

You gotta give that racist, treasonous piece of shit credit.  While so many other Democrats have realized that the race card has been a bit overplayed and thus has lost its potency, Eric just keeps trudging forward, accusing anyone that disagrees with his criminal behavior is just “trying to keep the black man down”.  And Eric, that “certain level of vehemence” is because the American people (at least the ones with a fucking brain) are getting tired of criminals in the White House.  Obama is certainly not the first, but at least the criminals that have lived there in the past don’t flaunt it the way your boss does.

Holder: ‘Homegrown Violent Extremists … Keep Me Up at Night’ – The Weekly Standard

Attorney General Eric Holder has a “lot of sleepless nights,” reported ABC News this morning. Chief among his concerns? The threat of “homegrown violent extremists.”

 

The ABC anchor says the reporter and Holder talked about “homegrown terrorists who are motivated more by domestic concerns.” .  “Yes,” the reporter says citing a couple recent examples. “He said that is coming back, as well. There may be a resurgence. He said there are a lot of sleepless nights these days.”

 

Translation:  “I’m very concerned about the men and women of our military who return home after serving honorably and are disgusted with how my boss and I wipe our asses with the Constitution.  These are also the people who are the most capable of thwarting the new Orwellian paradise we’re trying to usher in, so I’m going to plant the seed in the “minds” of my mindless constituents that these people are terrorists.  So you know, no need to get upset if we arbitrarily deny them their 2nd amendment rights or just lock them up indiscriminately .”

The Real Reason Why Liberals Are Scared of Women with Guns – PJ Tatler

Instead of calling out the disinformation at face value, our logical and moral arguments get caught in the spin cycle and hung out to dry. Facts are wonderful things, which is why a climate of disinformation intends to render the truth virtually impossible to comprehend. The real issue has never been religious fundamentalism or baby lions. Whether it is God, guns, or birth control, the real issue has been, and always will be, a woman with a mind of her own.

9/11

I can’t write anything meaningful about this anniversary.  I don’t have the skill nor do I have the ability to distance myself from the things I know about that day that I cannot share.  It’s impossible to separate the two.   

Last year I wrote about how this day beat us.  I wrote that we traded our country that day for today’s police state.  That we gave up what made this country unique in the name of fear.  Nothing in the last 365 days has changed my mind about that.  

The day it happened was an odd juxtaposition.  I had just gotten back from a trip to Vegas with a group of very pretty friends, one of whom would eventually become my wife.  I was newly single and still basking in the afterglow of a fun and emotionally exciting trip.  We didn’t have cable yet at the office so we huddled around a television that was barely able to display a recognizable picture of the event.  The entire time I kept thinking “I was just in Vegas.  I was just having the time of my life.”  A personal way of saying “I’m not here, this isn’t happening” I suppose.

A couple years after the event, a local writer wrote what I believe is a very personal and moving essay.  It’s well worth your time to read it: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/03/0903/091103.html

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