Tag Archives: progressives

Current Events

Taxes

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Once again, I am remiss in posting anything. My only excuse is age-related – I guess having turned 83, I’m just slowing down. Otherwise, my health is good. I find this latest from my friend and fellow Marine Greg earth-shattering as well. I cannot believe the Supreme Court can find anything in the Moore case to go along with the government. Absolutely crazy and could change everything about a capitalistic economy.

Taxing Tremors                                                              By: Greg Maresca

A 7.6 earthquake and its resulting tsunami on New Year’s Day that shook Japan set the stage as the faultless metaphor that will reverberate throughout 2024 and beyond.  With the impending presidential election aside, the tremors of improbability arrived a month earlier when the Supreme Court decided to hear a case with profound implications for the federal income tax.

Moore v. U.S. will decide if the federal government can tax unrealized capital gains not yet received under the 16th Amendment.  The justices agreed to hear the Moore’s appeal as the couple wanted their $14,729 refund that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against. The Ninth Circuit, known in legal circles as the “Ninth Circus,” has the worst record of any appeals court before the Supreme Court.

Like Roe v. Wade did last year, this case will have a huge and lasting ripple effect regarding future taxation that should concern everyone.

It is no secret that the nation is accruing debt that is unsustainable. The day of reckoning approaches. The irony is the case is named Moore – indeed “more” income through taxation.

Over a century of income tax laws has resulted in thousands of pages of decrees that carve out craters of exemptions in a labyrinth of directives. The tax code is a bloated, crony orchestrated, lobbyist measured disaster for those unable to manipulate it by hiring all those cunning accountants and attorneys who are paid handsomely to circumvent it.

When was the last time a member of Congress did their own taxes?

A fundamental reckoning from the ground up is long overdue to bury the income tax along with the IRS and replace them with a consumption tax or flat tax.

To tax unrealized capital gains not yet received is extreme. The power to regulate and tax is the power to destroy. Congress’s authority to tax does not include reinvested capital and personal property as income.

Income is money received.

Assets may increase in value, but until they are collected as interest, dividends or sold, there is no income. If you cannot spend it, it is not income.

You can’t pay the rent or fill your gas tank with paper gains or the appreciation of your home.  When you gain on any financial instrument but do not sell you earn a “paper profit.”  If unrealized gains are taxed, and the taxpayer has no cash to pay, a forced liquidation would be necessary for payment.

Are you prepared to pay a tax because your assets go up in value?  House, car, pets, trading cards, comic books, Auntie Estelle’s antique coffee table – where does it end?   Provided market values decline would monies be refunded?  Stop laughing, that was no joke.

Uncle Sam wants all the golden eggs without having to buy the hens, the henhouse, and the chicken feed. The power brokers in Washington believe everything is subject to taxation real or imagined.

It is pitiful that this case is even necessary.

A tax in bad faith resulted in a revolution nearly 250 years ago. Such taxation realizes the socialist dream of equal outcomes regardless of effort, ingenuity, innovation, or lack thereof. Ayn Rand’s nightmare is finally realized.

The Supreme Court’s job is not about maximizing taxable income for Uncle Sam but to interpret if this tax is constitutional.

A ruling in favor of Uncle Sam will unleash Congress’ taxing power and devastate our economic system as we know it.  Going forward, all unrealized income will become whatever the government says it is.

The Supreme Court’s decision is expected in June right in the middle of the presidential campaign. Provided the government loses and refusing to allow what they perceive as a crisis; Democrats will condemn the decision as a political red herring.

A Moore victory would also challenge other sections of the tax code that stands at nearly 7,000 pages.  Provided they are unconstitutional; they must fall, too.

The income tax has been around since 1913 and its ability to produce revenue has never been assuaged by politics. The hardcore issue is the United States does not have a taxing problem, but a spending problem. Revenue is up but it can’t compete with current spending levels.

A ruling in favor of the government would only exacerbate such spending.

Postscript: I have given up on all the latest coming out of the military and especially our Corps. Absolutely sad! I am simply too old to even bother with it anymore. My stress level is more important to me.

In case you have not read your copy of the latest “Semper Fidelis, or if not retired and don’t get it, I always look at the “Taps” column looking for friends with whom I served. I saw MajGen Dennis Murphy listed this month. Sad, I considered him another Ernie Cheatham – a warrior. He gave me Huxley’s Whores.

Well, this is election year. Do we really believe the liberals are going to allow a legal, valid election? I don’t!

 

 

Originally posted 2024-01-19 13:08:35.

Current Events

What a Girl!

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Amazing! Worth the watch! What a smart little girl!

Originally posted 2019-12-02 10:06:57.

Recent Posts

Fascism – Which party supports it?

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An excellent article by a dear friend and brother Marine (retired). “HB”, goes by Mustang. I’m sure most of you know the term, but for those who do not, it is a title earned by an Officer of Marines who came up from the enlisted ranks. HB is a true Mustang in all respects!

September 30, 2019 — Bunkerville

By: Mustang

America’s political left continually refer to conservatives as “fascists.”  Is this true?  Hardly —and here’s why.  We must begin with an understanding of what fascism really means, who started it, and what was that person’s overlying political philosophy.

We know, for example, that the father of capitalism was Adam Smith (1723-1790), a Scottish philosopher and a key figure in the Scottish enlightenment.  And we know that the father of Marxism was Karl Marx (1818-1883).

Most people, however, do not know the name of the person who started “fascism.”  There is a reason we do not know that much about Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944): most academic historians, who identify with leftist politics, have worked overtime to erase Gentile from our memory.  But, in his own time, Gentile was one of the most influential philosophers.

Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile believed that there were two diametrically opposed forms of democracy.  The first was liberal democracy, which we Americans sometimes call “classical liberalism.”  This was what our founding fathers believed.

Gentile thought of this as individualistic, overly focused on human liberty and personal rights.  He thought of this, not as unalienable rights, but as socially selfish.  The other form, according to Gentile, was “true Democracy,” which occurs when individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the will of the state.

In a manner similar to Karl Marx, Gentile argued for a society that was formed much like a family, a condition in which all of us faced life’s challenges “together.”  We have witnessed this peculiar view in the statements, platforms, and policies of the Democratic Party.

In 1984, Governor Mario Cuomo argued that America is much like an extended family, where, through the government, people take care of each other.  Thirty years later, in 2012, Democrats argued that “government is the only thing we all belong to.”

Giovanni Gentile was a man of leftist politics.  He was a committed socialist, and in his mind, fascism was a form of socialism —and, indeed, the only workable form.  Whereas Marx sought to organize people based on class, Gentile wanted to arrange society based on class and national identity.  In other words, Gentile believed that fascists were socialists with a national identity; it distinguishes them from others, with similar beliefs, from other countries.

One may recall that the Nazis of Germany were “National Socialists.”  Gentile believed that all society should be organized to serve the public interests.  There was no room for private interests.  The administrative arm of society was, in Gentile’s view, the state.  To submit to the will of society was to acquiesce to the will of the state —not just in economic issues, but in all matters affecting society.  And, since everything in society is political, the people must empower the state to tell everyone how to think, and what to do.

The first national leader to convert Gentile’s philosophy into action was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the Italian dictator who controlled Italy from 1922 to 1943.  Mussolini once proclaimed, “All is in the state, and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.”  It was a statement that paraphrased the philosophy of Giovanni Gentile.

Americans today do not remember Gentile because leftist academics have successfully erased him from our memory.  What does remain, however, is his philosophy, which has been entirely adopted by the American political left.  Renamed, it is the philosophy of the Progressive Movement in the United States.

It does not require a political scholar to realize that Progressive politics, that is to say, the Democratic Party, has vastly expanded state control over the private sector.  We can see this in matters of economics, education, banking, and energy.

State directed capitalism is exactly what German and Italian governments implemented in the 1930’s.  Importantly, American leftists cannot acknowledge Gentile because in doing so, it would become the glue that binds American progressivism to fascism.

So let us now review: what do conservatives want?  They demand smaller government and expanded personal freedom.  They demand liberty.  The American political left wants to achieve the opposite: the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state, such as exists in Russia and China.

Were the American political left to acknowledge Giovanni Gentile, they would have to also acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology to the Democratic Party.

Are fascists part of the conservative right?  No.  They are clearly the spawn of the ideology and political philosophy of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, and a host of other un-American idiots like Peter Buttigieg, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.

Thinking Americans should know world history … our country’s survival depends on this knowledge.  Fascist, thy name is Democrat.

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

 

Originally posted 2019-10-07 09:15:04.

Recent Posts

Hello Joe!

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Hmm, remember the incident with ole Joey boy, you know who I mean, “the handler.” The one who likes to handle every one, especially women, the guy who the Dems think is going to win the nomination and then win 2020? Surely, you know who I mean. And also remember the newest impeachment proceedings over the phone conversation President Trump had with the head of Ukraine where he requested further investigation of Joey and his wanting the Chief Prosecutor fired or “HE” was going to withhold $1 B from them? OK, with me now? Well, here is the sworn statement of the fired prosecutor. You may have to expand it to read since the print is small, but you really don’t need to read the whole thing. You know what it’s going to say, just scan anywhere it mentions Joey boy by name and you’ll get the drift.

The best thing that could happen is  for the House goes forward with POTUS’ impeachment, then the trial starts in the Senate where his lawyers can subpoena ANYBODY!!!!! And I do mean anybody!! I don’t think the Dems are smart enough to figure out what will happen when that trial starts. This is getting really laughable.

 

Originally posted 2019-09-28 09:41:32.

Recent Posts

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!

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Okay Guys, we are finally at our “Forever Home” in sunny Florida and out of the frigid north!! So, I’m back, but still unpacking boxes. One would have thought after 28 moves in my lifetime, #29 would have been a breeze…..NOT! It was the worst of all of them. Always was a slow learner. LOL.
I have not verified this through Wikipedia; however, I found it quite interesting to say the least. I do know there are several points herein I know to to be factual. It is an interesting read, and if anyone has checked the facts, please reply to the posts and enlighten us all.

In all her years in congress Elizabeth Warren introduced 110 bills.  2 passed.   Cory Booker  introduced 120 bills.  0 passed.  Kamala Harris introduced 54 bills. 0 passed.

Bernie Sanders is truly special. He never held a job until he was finally elected mayor at age 53.  He lived off of welfare and four different women, had a child out-of-wedlock with one and the three marriages did not work out.

If you want to know what kind of leader Bernie is,  go to Wikipedia, it’s a long report.

The following is condensed: Bernie Sanders’ father was a high school drop-out, who tormented  his family with rants about their financial  problems.   He blamed society and economic inequality for his plight, though as a white male in a middle class neighborhood, he was hardly among the downtrodden. This was Bernie’s inspiration to take up the cause of economic  justice, though he would spend   half of his life as an  able-bodied college graduate living off of  unemployment checks, and the women in his life, between odd  jobs.

By his own admission, Bernie was not a great student, starting at  Brooklyn College and transferring to Univ. of Chicago, but this enrollment kept him protected from the draft.  He joined  socialist organizations and dabbled in far-left communist politics, gaining national notoriety by petitioning the school to let students have sex in the dormitories.

This was before birth control and abortion were legal, when there were still very serious repercussions for women if the condom broke, but that  didn’t stop him from crusading against those silly rules that were an obstacle to his own  satisfaction.   He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, a few demonstrations, and was arrested once, but his activism for civil rights ended when he became obsessed with socialism.  NOT “democratic socialism”, but oppressive far-left Marxism.

Bernie married his college sweetheart, Deborah Shilling, and spent his small inheritance on a summer home in Vermont on 85 acres.  The shack had a dirt floor and no electricity, maintaining his proletariat credibility, but not impressing his new bride.   He refused to get a steady job, so his wife didn’t stick around long, divorced after 18 months.

The Viet Nam war was escalating, and when the next draft was announced, Bernie applied for a conscientious objector deferment.  His deferment was denied, so he dodged the draft by having a kid out of wedlock in 1969 with his new girlfriend, Susan Mott,  even though he STILL wasn’t working, and had no way to support the child.  By the time his draft number came up, he was too old to be drafted anyway.

He continued to subsist on odd carpentry jobs and unemployment checks,  and occasionally selling $15 articles,  including the one about how women fantasize about gang rape. He still refused to get a steady job to support his child.  His girlfriend left him. In 1988 he married Jane Driscoll, and took a cold-war era honeymoon in communist USSR.  His new wife supported Bernie financially through his many attempts to win a public office, and shared his radical leftist political views.  They visited the pro-Soviet Sandinista Government in Nicaragua known for their human rights violations,  support for anti-American terrorists, and the imprisonment and exile of  opponents.  Bernie blindly overlooked the carnage to stand with fellow socialists.

They  traveled to Cuba in hopes of meeting Bernie’s hero Fidel Castro, but access to him was denied.  Bernie Sanders managed not to hold a full-time job his entire life or vote in a single election, until he finally ran for Mayor of  Burlington at the age of 40.   After several failed elections, he finally won the office of Mayor of Burlington, VT, and eventually a Senate seat, which he has managed to keep off and on. For all of his years representing Vermont, Bernie Sanders passed a total of  three bills, and two of them were for naming post offices. He’s a draft-dodging deadbeat dad, a globe-trotting communist dilettante, and a petulant detractor of hard-working honorable Democrats.

His one skill is yelling about how unfair the world is, and how everything SHOULD be.  But he has no plans for how to make it happen, and no idea what goes on in the rest of the world or how to deal with problems overseas.   His excuse for not having a foreign policy or national security plank on his platform: “I’ve only been campaigning for three months.”

His socialist friends are bitter about what they see as a betrayal of their values by Bernie’s pursuit of the Democratic nomination.   His former wife and girlfriend run when they see reporters and will not speak to the press.

Bernie’s past, including a brief stint living in a kibbutz in Israel is cloaked in secrecy. (It worked for B Hussein.)

Former employees and coworkers describe him as hostile and  belligerent.  All of the Democrats in Vermont’s government endorsed Hillary Clinton.

The people who know Bernie best cannot stand him.  His supporters cannot explain how he is qualified to be president.

Originally posted 2019-09-27 12:09:31.