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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 12 months ago
    I want everyone to know about this. How much more corrupt can these thugs get?
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    • Posted by 10 years, 12 months ago
      Even Nixon refused to use the IRS against his political enemies. Using these agencies against ordinary citizens has to stop. Freedom of speech is irrelevant if the Feds attack anyone who exercises it.
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      • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 12 months ago
        All the more reason to abolish the IRS and consider one of those voluntary means of financing of the core functions of government. Rand proposed a government lottery, for example.

        A government powerful enough to do the things we hear about today, is too powerful. Get government back to its core functions, and it would have fewer opportunities for this kind of mischief.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 12 months ago
      Part of the reason that Atlas Shrugged lasted for over 1100 pages was to outline just how corrupt these thugs could get. Ayn Rand thought that such a tyrannical reign could last a very long time. And so do I.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years, 12 months ago
    "Beauty and the Beast" The grotesque face of tyranny is ensconced in DC. "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." Jefferson. Although the source is disputed by some... the premise is true.
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  • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 11 months ago
    The funny thing is Rich, the time frames she lists are identical to the ones in which the IRS was giving us so much grief. Audits, requests for all sorts of info that included our charitable giving, our church and what our relationship to any political groups were apart from our claimed deductions.

    I don't know there was any relation, but I've wondered for a very long, long time.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 11 months ago
      No coincidence, Stargeezer. What you saw was Phase 2, after Cash for Clunkers being Phase 1. That took all the money and territory from the conservative GM and Chrysler car dealers and gave it to their liberal counterparts. "We will reward our friends and punish our enemies".
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    • Posted by 10 years, 11 months ago
      It's a dangerous thing if the IRS has been politicized this bad. They are one of the most powerful institutions in the world and with Obamacare they will get larger. Hope it all turned out okay for you Star.
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  • Posted by KYFHO 10 years, 11 months ago
    Having volunteered for true the vote during the 2012 election, I know how much they have accomplished, and how honest they are. It is like living in an alternate world, the headlines we are now having inflicted on our common sense. Say no to voter ID, Benghazi is old news dude, fast and furious is a movie, not an event, the IRS never 'targeted' anybody (that mattered), nsa not spying on citizens, protestors demand $15 hour minimum wage at McDonalds, local residents denied the right to have backyard gardens, American citizens can be detained by feds without cause, illegals can practice law in California.....I could go on for pages. We are no longer a republic. We are no longer a democracy. We are living under soft tyranny, quickly devolving into a true banana republic. Hope you all have your getaway plans in place.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 11 months ago
      It's crazy. A good person gets involved and immediately they try to destroy her.
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      • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 11 months ago
        2008 was the first time I got more involved in an election than just any "average" American. For the first time I gave directly to candidates instead of just the republican party, I gave to our local tea party group and got pretty active in state elections. I could not stand McCain, but with BO coming from Illinois, I knew what he was, we had seen him in action here and the only good thing about his election to the Senate was that it got him out of our state. I never dreamed he'd get elected as president.

        Then two years latter our 2 years of nightmares started with the IRS, sucking money away from my donations to political causes. The really odd thing was that ALL of it ended when we closed our business. Just like the 55 years before the troubles started, after I closed my business and went on strike, the IRS has disappeared from my life.

        At my age, I'm not certain I'd take the government on like this lady is (although I should be willing to) I just don't have the strength for that much of a battle today. Shrugging and dropping off the grid is about as far as I'm willing to go today. But you never know, there just might be one more bite left in this old dog.
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        • Posted by 10 years, 11 months ago
          She looked a little nervous but I am not sure I could have done what she did. Too many in Washington think this is a game. They want to score political points while people have their lives turned upside down. I hope something changes soon.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 12 months ago
    All the commented upon cures are just fine, but they won't happen by themselves through some flash of enlightenment by the populace. Activism is the key. Words without actions are just.....words. I know, it's easy for an old geezer like me to say these things to people busy with their lives, so -- tell me an alternative.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 11 months ago
      The alternate is to shrug.
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      • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 11 months ago
        Observe please, that J.G. traveled all over the place recruiting. That is also activism. Just shrugging, i:e: dropping out on the scale that can be accomplished by individuals is fantasy if you think it will accomplish anything. Plus, you don't happen to have a universal motor, you know something like the one in Back To The Future Part 3 or in Atlas Shrugged. That would be a big help. I've dropped out (it's called retirement) and other than being a gadfly, and doing things I never had time for, I'm no longer productive, yet I still pay taxes. In the words of the Wicked Witch -- "What a world, what a world."
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        • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 11 months ago
          Actually I do have something similar to the universal motor! One of my former business partners designed something he called GlidArc that is very much like the Mr. Fusion from the Back to the Future movies. We can feed in just about any hydrocarbon waste and convert it into a mixture of CO and H2 called syngas, from which we can make fuels, energy, or preferably chemicals. I made the feed prepurification system and was in charge of the syngas to something else part of the company. When it became apparent that BHO would become president and that solar would replace biofuels as the environmentally-friendly energy of choice, we sold our company (Florida Syngas) to Topline Energy Systems and shrugged. I went back to my Florida Tech professor duties only instead of doing that plus having a company.
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          • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 11 months ago
            Seems a shame that a product such as you describe is not on the market revolutionizing the energy situation. I hold a few patents, but technology moved so fast that they were obsolete a few years after the patents were issued. I'm just not a tech guy.
            I'm feeling a little dumbfounded as to why you didn't continue with your invention. You probably have a dozen reasons why, just as I have a dozen reasons as to why I closed my Camera shop/photo studio.. In my case, I went into a new and more satisfying venture. Then, I finally got too old and infirm to keep going. as a result, I go on the internet and bitch up a storm, or amuse and elucidate myself and others.
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            • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 11 months ago
              1) The profitability of converting a variety of plant and animal wastes to energy or fuel is zero (not negative, but not positive either). Using something like Mr. Fusion to convert wastes into chemicals could make 20% profit.

              2) When Obama came into power and biofuels lost favor, clients with whom I was willing to trade my hard work for their absolving themselves of environmentalist guilt left for solar along with Obama.

              3) We had put two years of work into getting to where we needed to be technically, financially, and from a mass production standpoint. When Obama got elected, we just couldn't financially continue, so we sold our business and shrugged. All of us had recently read AS.

              4) The profitability of the company was highly sensitive to natural gas prices. When natural gas drops below $5, my company couldn't make money. It dropped down to just above $3. Now it's at around $4.50, but hasn't been above $5 since BHO took office. North Dakota helped put us out of business. More power to them!
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 11 months ago
                That being said, I think we could restart this to sell only to fellow Atlantis citizens. Like Galt's motor, this technology will fade into oblivion as far as the outside world is considered. But I think that we could do this for the right price for those who would appreciate it, much like those who smoked the cigarettes with the sign of the dollar. The reason that I say "I think we could do this" is that I haven't kept in touch with Albin Czernichowski recently. He's 78 now, if still alive. Albin invented GlidArc (like Mr. Fusion). To me, he is John Galt.
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  • Posted by ronallensmith 10 years, 11 months ago
    This is a very brave individual. Most people don't understand the battle is not with an opposing individual, political party or even a government agency. The real battle is with the 'Leftist Ideology' (religion) that has taken hold in this country, and it's metastasizing like a cancerous growth. The antidote to this affliction is to vote a Conservative Ticket, top to bottom, on the next election cycle. However, I strongly suggest you vet the candidate thoroughly.
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  • Posted by wiggys 10 years, 11 months ago
    is it just the current administration that is solely responsible or are there others in the shadows that tell each administration what they are going to do?
    I for one simply put do not trust the government in its entirety! I just do not think these activities are going to stop regardless of any laws that the congress enacts. those who perpetrate the actions will always have a reason for them. of the people by the people and for the people is no longer!
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    • Posted by 10 years, 11 months ago
      It would seem these decisions are being made by career people and not just appointees. The system is broke.
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      • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 11 months ago
        Wasn't there a poll a couple elections ago that questioned the political orientation of government employees and that revealed that federal employees were around 75% dems? With that sort of affiliation I'm not to surprised, not at all.

        I'm going to go out on a long limb for a moment and say that I'm never surprised at the lengths Dems will go to in order to gain and keep power. Consider exactly where they stand on moral issues, on religious standards, and yes, even "values".

        I'll say first that I'm not pointing any fingers and certainly the left is not comprised of only sinners and the right filled with the righteous and upright - there are heathen on both sides. However, it is the left that has made a livelihood of opposing what most people consider morality and living a clean life. Every liberal I've met tells me that lieing in campaign ads is ok because "everybody" does it. Most will tell me that situational ethics are just the way life is expected to be today. In college, surveys were done a few years ago that indicated that actions that might have been seen as cheating by their parents, were just fine for the kids - who almost all consider themselves to be liberals.

        To people who believe that it's ok to do anything in order to win a political race, "slowing down a tax exemption process in order to harm political opponents supporters is not a big deal. To people who feel that murdering a unborn child is ok so the mother is not inconvenienced in her life, why not stop those Christians from putting a crèche on the courthouse lawn at Christmas, or for keeping the pastor of a church from being free to tell his congregation which candidates oppose abortion on demand.

        Am I surprised that a political party would see the IRS as a tool or weapon of politics? Not at all.
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  • Posted by $ Terrylutz3682 10 years, 12 months ago
    After a successful business career, I wrote a book. In the book I explain the profound effect Atlas Shrugged had on my life. I also am very critical of big government and Obama in particular. The book, "In Purrsuit of Manufacturing Excellence, The Signicast Story" is on sale at Amazon and my web site. Www.terrylutz.net. The interesting part is the IRS Cincinnati office went to my web site 4 times and spent a lot of time on the site. I am waiting for them to audit me. If they do, they will have a battle on their hands.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 12 months ago
    What is Elijah Cummings afraid of? Could it be that he is in office largely because he voted the cemetery and the move-outs?

    We predicate much of our despair on the notion that "these people keep getting elected because enough people want them to rob us, and they run on a platform of highway robbery, so what can you do?"

    Well, suppose they're moving over the edge by relying on States not to clean up their voter rolls (to remove the dead and the move-outs), and sending proxies to vote in the names of these defunct voters?
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    • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 11 months ago
      Seemingly it doesn't even have to be the dead or move-outs, as the study by NC showed, tens of thousands have registered in multiple states - that's not merely people moving and not getting old registrations expunged, that's intentional registration in multiple districts.
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  • Posted by Notperfect 10 years, 11 months ago
    They will stop at nothing, but that spirit I have known still permeates in people who defy what these devils have become. I have read and listened to many here in the Gulch and know it will take more than BHO, Boehnor, Reid, Pelosi, McCain and their Jackboot thugs to destroy that spirit. This spirit is what brought many to this country to seek freedom from the likes of those few in D.C. Their ignorance is embarrassing and Mrs. Engelbrecht is true to that spirit and so are WE. I am John Galt!
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