Tag Archives: It’s Good To Be The King

Jim Bovard: The Sordid History of IRS Political Abuse

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“The IRS has a long history of trying to ruin the political careers of its critics. In 1925, Internal Revenue Commissioner David Blair personally delivered a demand for $10 million in back taxes to Michigan’s Republican Sen. James Couzens — who had launched an investigation of the Bureau of Internal Revenue — as he stepped out of the Senate chamber. Couzens fought the case, and eventually proved that he had actually overpaid his taxes by roughly $1 million. But the precedent of using threats to deflect oversight was firmly established.  President Franklin Roosevelt used the IRS to harass newspaper publishers, including William Randolph Hearst and Moses Annenberg.”

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-sordid-history-of/

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Thailand extends security law in response to mass opposition protests

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“A senior official in Thailand says a special security law has been extended for two more months to cope with mass opposition protests aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.  The protests – aimed at curbing the political influence of Yingluck’s family – have left five people dead and more than 200 wounded in street violence, although tensions have abated recently.  The special law, known as the Internal Security Act, was widened a month ago to cover the whole of Bangkok and nearby areas. It gives the police additional powers to block routes, ban gatherings, carry out searches and impose a curfew, although not all the measures have been used.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-25/an-thai-security-law/5174896

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Support for ObamaCare Falls to 35%.

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“As a symbolic gesture, President Obama has signed up for ObamaCare — a bronze plan. He signed up on the Washington, D.C. site. He did not try to sign up on the federal government’s problem-plagued healthcare site. The policy will cost $4,800 a year. It covers only him, not his family. In short, it’s a rotten policy. For $4,800 a year, he buys a policy with a $4,300 deductible.  If the White House thinks a policy like this is the fulfillment of a dream for low-income families, he is living in fantasy land.  Meanwhile, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid says that ObamaCare is going to be a blessing to Democrats running for re-election in November. He is sure of this.”

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/12/24/support-obamacare-falls-35/

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Brewington case focuses First Amendment attention on Indiana

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“Daniel Brewington is either a poster child for the wrongful prosecution of free speech or a man whose online rants about a judge constituted criminal threats. It all depends on your point of view.  After almost two years in the Department of Correction, Brewington was freed Sept. 5, just days before the Indiana Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether to formally grant transfer in his case. Brewington had done his time for a Dearborn County jury’s conviction of intimidation, perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from blog posts he made criticizing a judge who stripped him of joint custody of his children.”

http://www.theindianalawyer.com/brewington-case-focuses-first-amendment-attention-on-indiana/PARAMS/article/32422

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Wendy McElroy: Death by Methodological Individualism

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mcelroy1

“Mystification sanctifies the actions taken by individuals in the name of the state. That is, a double standard of morality is introduced – one for individuals who are members of the state and another for non-members. The double standard contradicts a longstanding principle of liberty; namely, that a violation of violates committed by an individual remains a violation of rights when performed by a group of individuals. The group does not relinquish personal responsibility by acting in someone else’s name. Rape is no less rape because a gang is involved or because they shout ‘do for England!'”

http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/34802/Wendy-McElroy-Death-by-Methodological-Individualism/

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State Department’s Bar Tab: $415,000 a Year

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“While the rest of the government prepared to shut down this fall, the State Department was busy stocking up on embassy liquor supplies.  In September, the State Department spent about $180,000 — and racked up a total of more than $400,000 for the whole year, three times the entire liquor tab for all of 2008.  The liquor bill, split among purchase orders placed at embassies around the world, included some major last-minute pre-shutdown splurges:  $5,625 in ‘gratuity wine’ at the embassy in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 29, followed by $5,925 in ‘gratuity whiskey’ on the day the shutdown began.  $22,416 in wine at the embassy in Tokyo. $15,900 in bourbon and whiskey in Moscow.”

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/12/04/state-departments-bar-tab-415000-year/

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Filibuster change clears way for White House to stack ObamaCare panel

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“President Obama will have an easier time filling the 15 slots on a controversial Medicare-cutting board, thanks to Harry Reid’s successful bid last week to overhaul the Senate’s filibuster rules.  The Senate Democratic leader, in a pre-holiday surprise, last week corralled Democrats to drastically change how the Senate deals with presidential nominees. Instead of taking 60 votes to confirm most appointees, it will now take just 51.  That means, as long as Democrats are in power, it smoothes the way for Obama to appoint people to the panel established under ObamaCare to hold down Medicare costs.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/26/reid-filibuster-overhaul-clears-way-for-white-house-to-stack-obamacare-panel/

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D.C. awash in contracts, lobbying wealth

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“During the past decade, the region added 21,000 households in the nation’s top 1 percent. No other metro area came close.  Big companies realized that a few million spent shaping legislation could produce windfall profits. They nearly doubled the cash they poured into the capital.  The signs of the new Washington are everywhere — from the Tiffany store that Fairfax County (Va.) development officials boast is the most profitable in the country to the new Tesla dealership in Tysons Corner.  A company called Strategas has built an index to track the stock performance of the 50 companies that lobby the most; last year, that index outperformed the rest of the market by 30 percent.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/d-c-awash-in-contracts-lobbying-wealth/article_53336d9b-a75f-5a1a-bb19-d46d3186a960.html

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Hillary Clinton’s Lucrative Goldman Sachs Speaking Gigs

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“Hillary Clinton spoke at two separate Goldman Sachs events on the evenings of Thursday, October 24 and Tuesday, October 29. As both Politico and the New York Times report, Clinton’s fee is about $200,000 per speech, meaning she likely netted around $400,000 for her paid gigs at Goldman over the course of six days.  Keeping close to the investment world, Clinton also made visits to private-equity firms KKR in July and the Carlyle Group in September.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/362637/hillary-clintons-lucrative-goldman-sachs-speaking-gigs-alec-torres

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Obama Administration Uses Pirated Code on Healthcare.gov

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“The new Obamacare website Healthcare.gov has had its fair share of problems over the past weeks, and the trouble continues.  As it turns out, the Government website uses the open source softwareDataTables, which is a plug-in for the jQuery Javascript library. While using open-source software is fine, the makers of Healthcare.gov decided to blatantly remove all references to its owners or the original copyright license.  In other words, they simply took the open-source software and are passing it off as their own, a clear violation of the GPL v2 and BSD (3-point) licenses DataTables uses.”

http://torrentfreak.com/obama-administration-uses-pirated-code-on-healthcare-gov-131019/

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