Monday, June 10, 2013

White House chickens coming home to roost

What the hell has been going on in Washington, DC, for the last 4.5 years?

Apparently thanks to government stimulus spending, several agencies in the executive branch -- most notably the IRS -- saw a sudden influx of funding way beyond what they needed, so they thought really hard -- or as hard as they could -- and decided to throw themselves some major parties, with clowns and everything. Even performing as clowns themselves. What a hoot. Accountants and number crunchers in Spock ears. How amusing.

Unfortunately, the IRS, at least, recorded these rather pathetic and infantile events -- although they lost their receipts. OMG. Hey, call them every day and pester them about that, and demand that they come down to your office and let you go over their books -- only you don't make an appointments, so they'll just have to sit in your office until you get tired of playing Tetris and maybe have a cup of coffee to gin up your efforts to crucify them. And then run your calculator really, really fast and intimidating (I mean, to an accountant), and tell them they owe you a few thousand dollars more than they thought, by your figuring. And just make up all kinds regulations and complications as you go along. There's the ticket.

But apparently the IRS clearly understood which side its bread was buttered on, so it also decided to do whatever it could -- even perpetrate criminal felonies -- to keep this administration hanging on through a second term. Like, any groups applying for tax-exempt status with subversive words like "Constitution" or "Tea Party" in their names had to be harassed and hassled and kept on hold until the 2012 election was over, at least. Or, alternatively, the IRS felt it was useful to collect the names of the members and/or donors of these groups and pass them along to opposing organizations, like the Comrade's election campaign group.

Meanwhile, Eric Hold'em's behavior as head of the Dept. of (Social) Justice has continued illegal and despicable since the day the Senate approved him. No surprises there.

Congress: "We'll hold you in contempt!"

Hold'en: "I'm already in contempt."

Congress: "Well, double contempt! How's that going to look on your resume?"

Hold'em:  Flipping the bird. "There's still a few bodies I have to bury before I resign."

Oh, and the feds -- NSA? FBI? CIA? God knows -- weren't just collecting AP journalists' phone records, but EVERYONE'S phone records in the whole USA. They save them, too. They're all tucked in a vault somewhere, probably in the FBI's new high-tech facility in West Virginia, thanks to the relentless lobbying of the late Harry Byrd to bring prosperity to his state.

And the explanation for all of us?

Incompetence. Or national security. Take your pick. Personally, I find it hard to trust incompetent people with national security. I mean, you're likely to end up with your ambassadors being killed at their posts in hostile nations due to a blind adherence to a silly and Pollyanna view of the universe... but what are the chances of that actually happening?

The one thing that's important, the one thing to remember, is that the goal of terrorism is to destabilize a national government. You destabilize it, it topples, your comrades rush in with a plan to keep order -- and then you have a totalitarian nation.

So the 9/11 attacks didn't manage to really destabilize the USA's government -- or didn't go quite far enough to do so. So the Comrade will take care of finishing the job.

The thing is, any government has to be "legitimate" in the eyes of its citizens. Whether they willingly accept the government, or do so under pain of brutality and intimidation -- the citizens have to be willing to go along with a government's actions and policies.

A government is destabilized when it loses that legitimacy from citizens.

I think that's what the Comrade's going for, ultimately. I mean, he also seems to embrace muslim and every other kind of terrorist. Perhaps he feels an affinity with them; perhaps they share a common goal?

So, hey, we still have congress, and congress is largely pissed off. There are also the Tea Parties and many others who still believe in the USA's "better angels," that is, the US Constitution, etc.

I'm really so glad the Constitution is written down. That makes it possible to dump the corrupt and rotten terrorists -- those inside the government as well as outside -- but rebuild the nation.

Rule by law, not by man. Love it.

And I just wish the IRS would call me about... anything... just so I could take the Fifth Amendment.