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IRS Commissioner’s big middle-finger to American public [Darleen Click]

I have many issues with Paul Ryan, however my focus in posting this clip is actually with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen …

Koskinen smirking attitude is so full of fuck you, like you can do anything at all to me.

Context is everything

It is one thing to say “Never apologize, never explain” as an adjunct or symptom of cultural self-confidence, quite another in an atmosphere of duplicity, evasion, or brazen contempt. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen presented a breathtaking example of the latter when he blithely admitted that the IRS had simply “recycled,” I.e., tossed out, physically destroyed, Lois Lerner’s malfunctioning hard drive that (he claimed) was unrecoverable. “I don’t think an apology is owed,” he told a stunned House Ways and Means Committee.

Of course he doesn’t. Why should the head of an increasingly politicized government agency apology for the mendacity and obstructive behavior of his subordinates? As Barack Obama promised his acolytes on the eve of the 2008 election, he was out to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Remember that? One of the things he has managed to transform is the machinery of government. People have always been wary of agencies like the IRS, with their vast, often unappealable powers. But more and more people now fear and loathe them as instruments of political conformity and — it is not too strong a word — tyranny.

The House holds the purse strings. If they don’t start being serious about defunding the IRS, then we are witnessing yet another exercise in Kabuki theater.

94 Replies to “IRS Commissioner’s big middle-finger to American public [Darleen Click]”

  1. sdferr says:

    It would be well too in this context, I think, to take a look at the IRS applauding view from the other side of the aisle.

  2. serr8d says:

    It’s not surprising to find that John Koskinen is a douchenozzle of the highest order. Those sorts gravitate to bureaucracies in general, and fascisty agencies in particular.

    A pox on his atrophied sex organs, stat.

  3. BigBangHunter says:

    – This is one of the issues that will fester and anger every decent non-Prog citizen, until suddenly something will happen.

    – The level of disgust and anger with this president and his gestapo is just too great to sustain.

  4. eCurmudgeon says:

    The level of disgust and anger with this president and his gestapo is just too great to sustain.

    And I can’t help but wonder if that’s the point – maybe Obama wants to be impeached.

    Think about it – the very second such an event occurs, you will see rioting in every urban area to make the 1992 Los Angeles riot, er rebellion, look like a minor tiff.

    A crisis, I’m quite sure, that would not go to waste…

  5. cranky-d says:

    The Establicans are afraid of being called racists, so no impeachment will happen, ever.

    The fact that they will be called racists anyway never crosses their tiny little minds.

  6. sdferr says:

    Regardless what they may or may not want, here’s the thing: to leave off or abandon impeachment in the very circumstances for which it was designed and placed in the Constitution is in effect to admit to the abandonment of that Constitutional scheme in the altogether. So fuck it, if they want it or don’t want it, give it to them in spades, magic shield or no magic shield. Or else count this a nation of slaves.

  7. gahrie says:

    There will be plenty of investigations in 2015 and 2016 if the Republicans win the senate, but there will be no impeachment.

    The longer the Obama presidency lasts, and the more lawless it gets, the more and more nervous I get about January 2017.

  8. sdferr says:

    Then be a nation of slaves. After all, who cares?

  9. leigh says:

    I’m not going to be anyone’s slave. Impeachment is the order of the day.

    I don’t care if the cities burn. I want my fucking country back. I’ll walk around and throw salt on the smoldering ash heaps.

  10. BigBangHunter says:

    “We did, in fact, do a search for all communications between Lois Lerner and any person within the Executive Office of the President for this period. We found zero e-mails,”

    – Of course not. Lerner and others used cutouts that were officed just outside the executive “zone”. Is Issa and the rest of the GOP just slow witted or something?

  11. Drumwaster says:

    They (the House Committee) has already suggested a 25% cut to the budget requested by Obama for the next year, in order to “focus the goals” of the IRS. In addition, they have cut the budget for enforcement of ObamaCare to $0 and added an addendum that explicitly prohibits a funding transfer from HHS to the IRS for enforcement purposes.

    Of course that would have to pass the Senate and be signed by Obama, but if they hold firm, or actually start slashing even more (“What, 25% is too much? How about we settle on 30%? What do you mean ‘that’s nuts’? Isn’t a 35% cut enough for you? Okay, we’ll agree to compromise on 40%. Fair enough?”), and the IRS starts spending money they don’t have, then we will have to get the courts involved, because it is black letter law, right there in Article I.

  12. cranky-d says:

    The Establicans don’t care about the Constitution either. The ship of abandonment has long since sailed.

  13. sdferr says:

    If the slaves remain silent, then certainly. If, on the other hand, the incipient slaves rise up to get in the faces of the Congress 24/7/365 at 60, 80, 100 million strong, could be an entirely different outcome.

  14. leigh says:

    “I am Spartacus!”

  15. dicentra says:

    It’s not surprising to find that John Koskinen is a douchenozzle of the highest order.

    Prior to heading up the IRS he was a higher-up at Freddie Mac.

    The fact that they will be are being called racists anyway never crosses their tiny little minds.

    Fixed that for them, but it still doesn’t matter. They LIKE their colleagues across the aisle, and they ENJOY going on vacation with members on the press, so regardless of what they are or are not called, they’re not going to actually hurt their little friendses.

    There will be plenty of investigations in 2015 and 2016 if the Republicans win the senate

    Maybe. If, as I suspect, the GOP has its hands dirty in using agencies to Go After The Populace, any investigation will be a show trial to keep us quiet.

    If, on the other hand, the incipient slaves rise up to get in the faces of the Congress 24/7/365 at 60, 80, 100 million strong,

    If, if, if. If we can’t even unseat Princess Lindsay from his throne in RED South Carolina or Mitch from his seat in RED Kentucky or Hatch from his sinecure in DEEP RED Utah, what will “getting in the faces of the Congress” look like? Melting the phone bank? They can ignore that. Protesting in the Mall? The press will ignore that, so they can, too.

    And even if we get in their faces, as you say, we can’t do it forever. As soon as we go home, they’ll go right back to looting the treasury and welding our chains.

    They seem to be holding all the cards except for two of diamonds and five of clubs we have in our hand.

  16. sdferr says:

    That’s hardly fair. I mean, perhaps you will excuse me, perhaps not (either way should I care?), for using “if” in a conditional sentence regarding the future. For I am no infant who believes the future is known to perfection, but an aged adult who has seen many events hitherto unpredictable come to pass, nor am I some godly prophet bearing tidings of great joy and absurdity.

    Politics, among other things, is about change. Will we claim to map change to a certainty? Say not. Only fools (look, there’s one in office now!) play that stinking game.

  17. dicentra says:

    I was reacting less to the IF than to the plausibility of a popular uprising.

    Which, by my estimation, would have no effect.

  18. sdferr says:

    Heh, what, you’ve never been threatened by an angry mob about to blow its top?

  19. sdferr says:

    Hear Americans, the words of crazy Tom the revolutionary: “We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offense. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.”

  20. happyfeet says:

    oh my goodness this corrupt IRS cunt needs to be bitchslapped something awful

    and it looks like someone punked his wikipedia page

    After many lucrative offers made by 20th Century Fox, Koskinen agreed to become the official “Mr. Burns” impersonator/look-a-like for all “The Simpsons” related media events.

  21. dicentra says:

    Heh, what, you’ve never been threatened by an angry mob about to blow its top?

    What form does this angry mob take? Phone calls? Primaries? Demonstrations on the mall?

    I’m saying that none of those things will thwart Our Ruling Class. They’ve set it up so they don’t have to listen to us.

    And no, I don’t think that resorting to arms will work, either. The Oministration is looking for any excuse at all to declare martial law or its equivalent, finally solving the mystery of why all those executive agencies have SWAT teams.

    This thing will have to collapse on its own, and we’ll have to build our own Liberty Pockets among the rubble.

  22. happyfeet says:

    I have a long career that’s the first time anybody has said they do not believe me –

    it would’ve been more better if Ryan hadn’t cut the cunt off right there mid-stammer I think

    it’s extremely fascinating to watch a pompous harvardtrash slut’s stunned reaction when he realizes people aren’t buying the meticulously-crafted self-image he’s selling

    this is primo Animal Planet type shit

  23. sdferr says:

    What form does this angry mob take? Phone calls? Primaries? Demonstrations on the mall?

    Certainly let it take all of that and more, including physical intimidation (*gasp* — jostling) for good and aye. Surely we’re well within the bounds of throwing rotten fruit (let there be tomatoes aplenty), vegetables and raw eggs. Scare the bejeezus out of them, since they’re certain to have no qualms scaring the bejeezus out of the people. Make them shit their pants for fear.

  24. happyfeet says:

    if at the very least we don’t see the IRS triple their budget request for security next year then something is very very broken in America

  25. sdferr says:

    Look here at more from that quiet-fiery Virginian:

    *** “These devoted Colonies were judged to be in such a state as to present victories without bloodshed, and all the easy emoluments of statutable plunder. The uninterrupted tenour of their peaceable and respectful behaviour, from the beginning of colonization; their dutiful, zealous, and useful services during the war, though so recently and amply acknowledged in the most honourable manner by His Majesty, by the late King, and by Parliament, could not save them from the meditated innovations. Parliament was influenced to adopt the pernicious project; and assuming a new power over them, have, in the course of eleven years, given such decisive specimens of the spirit and consequences attending this power, as to leave no doubt concerning the effects of acquiescence under it.” ***

  26. sdferr says:

    Or look to Machiavelli:

    *** [Strauss, Cropsey: HoPP (1963)] Machiavelli’s distinction between goodness and other virtues tends to become an opposition between goodness and virtue; while virtue is required of rulers and soldiers, goodness is required, or characteristic, of the populace engaged in peaceful occupations; goodness comes to mean something like fear-bred obedience to the government, or even vileness. ***

  27. happyfeet says:

    nice done Mr. bour3

    that’s very America

  28. happyfeet says:

    *nicely* i mean

  29. sdferr says:

    There is no reason that I can see, however, that such tactics as various physical intimidations should be confined to the congresspeople or even wider still to include nasty bureaucrats, but ought intentionally to extend to all those dolts who won’t take the message now years in the sending; such dolts, I mean, as (just examples here) Brian Williams, or Stephen Colbert, or the lowly innocents of Hollywood, and so on. These morons have chosen to disregard the plain message being sent peaceably for a decade now. Let them feel the message then, let them feel it all over, as well in their wallets as in their eye-teeth rattling.

  30. Pablo says:

    You know, if somebody were to shoot that asshole in his smarmy head, I’d laugh and laugh and laugh. And then I’d denounce murdering smarmy bureaucratic douchebags. We’ve got to have standards after all.

  31. happyfeet says:

    the IRS whores have declared war on freedom war on America war on democracy

    and they’re not gonna stop just cause Paul Ryan got a lil sassy

  32. BigBangHunter says:

    – You’ve given up di, which is exactly what they hoped for. You now believe your vote doesn’t matter and that the makers are outnumbered by the takers. Neither idea is true, at least certainly not at all times, but if that remains the majorities position then we lose.

  33. Mueller says:

    dicentra says June 21, 2014 at 5:30 pm Heh, what, you’ve never been threatened by an angry mob about to blow its top? What form does this angry mob take? Phone calls? Primaries? Demonstrations on the mall? I’m saying that none of those things will thwart Our Ruling Class. They’ve set it up so they don’t have to listen to us. And no, I don’t think that resorting to arms will work, either. The Oministration is looking for any excuse at all to declare martial law or its equivalent, finally solving the mystery of why all those executive agencies have SWAT teams. This thing will have to collapse on its own, and we’ll have to build our own Liberty Pockets among the rubble. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=54100#comments

    Armed civil disobedience.
    Look. There are 100 million private gun owners. Nobody has to start shooting, but it would be a good idea if they were shown that if pushed far enough we are willing and able to push back. They are already afraid of us. Elswise they wouldn’t be working so hard to disarm us.

  34. dicentra says:

    Armed civil disobedience.

    Bundy Ranch x10000?

    Maybe. Maybe we can refuse to comply with this or that law/diktat, but look how much sympathy Bundy lost when his legal case wasn’t clear-cut. It wasn’t just his inarticulate presentation — it was his muddle-headed situation.

    Tons of people on “our side” are so hung up on law and order that they won’t jump aboard a We Will Not Comply unless the legal case against it is crystal clear.

    Given the number of legal sophists on our side, it would be all too easy for us to stage a similar thing and be instantly discredited in the eyes of the majority of Tea Partiers, not to mention Establicans and their cheerleaders at the Salem Radio Network.

    The majority of our side won’t resort to drastic civil disobedience until it’s too late to win. If red-staters won’t turf Graham, Hatch, or McConnell, they won’t Take a Scary Stand.

    That won’t stop me, but I can’t do it alone, and I won’t make common cause with many of the types who showed up at Bundy’s.

  35. geoffb says:

    NSA – FBI – IRS.

    On June 13, Texas Congressman Steve Stockman wrote a letter to the NSA requesting that “the Agency produce all metadata it has collected on all of Ms. Lerner’s email accounts for the period between January 2009 and April 2011.”

    And on Friday, Marchant asked Commissioner Koskinen his opinion on the unorthodox push to retrieve the emails of Lerner and other suspect officials.

    “Is the IRS and its emails exempt from monitoring by the FBI or the NSA?” Marchant asked.

    “Uh, I have no information about that,” Koskinen replied. “But I have no indication that we are exempt from anybody’s monitoring.”

    “So we don’t know that the emails are not totally all [ir]recoverable, in some process,” the congressman pressed.

  36. dicentra says:

    You now believe your vote doesn’t matter and that the makers are outnumbered by the takers.

    Uh, both things are true. Don’t forget that many of the “makers” vote Democrat and are eager to coerce society after the desires of their hearts.

    Voting doesn’t stop these freaks, or did you miss the part where Cantor is being replaced by someone WORSE, and he might become the chair of the RNC? Had McConnell, Graham, or Hatch lost the primaries, they’d have thrown their machinery behind defeating the winner or they’d go write-in. Unlike what they enjoin US to do when their guy wins.

    We’re nearly at the point where Firefly began, with the defeat of the browncoats. All those right-minded people lost to a pretty, utopian society that doesn’t look malevolent in the least.

    I don’t know why you guys think there are enough numbers and enough will to actually intimidate the Beltway crowd. What have you seen lately to indicate that we have even a lousy pair of twos?

    Every single one of Obama’s scandals should have cleared the benches in a popular uprising and street brawl, so to speak. Instead, we’re too bewildered to do anything except blog. The evil among us are organized, they’ve been building their fell infrastructure for decades (under our unresistant noses), they’re willing to play dirtier than we are, and they’ve co-opted the very legal system that is supposed to protect us.

    We’re a town that’s been taken over by the mob. Everyone from the cops to the bankers to the undertaker are controlled by them.

    Go ahead and kick up a ruckus. Go right a head. See where it gets you.

  37. sdferr says:

    And Eric Cantor was a lead pipe cinch.

    Until lo and behold, he wasn’t.

  38. Pablo says:

    Nobody has to start shooting, but it would be a good idea if they were shown that if pushed far enough we are willing and able to push back.

    Vince Flynn had an interesting idea.

  39. sdferr says:

    Just curious dicentra, have you ever been in a fistfight in your life, let alone find yourself pleased to be beating and being beaten?

  40. happyfeet says:

    this guy went all kung fu on my apartment manager this week while i watched from my courtyard balcony

    it was hilarious

    now he’s on the run from the law, scurrying in and out every once in awhile for a change of clothes

    he needs a theme song

  41. eCurmudgeon says:

    And Eric Cantor was a lead pipe cinch.

    Until lo and behold, he wasn’t.

    Still not convinced that wasn’t the result of Democrat open-primary monkeywrenching more than anything else.

  42. eCurmudgeon says:

    The evil among us are organized, they’ve been building their fell infrastructure for decades (under our unresistant noses), they’re willing to play dirtier than we are, and they’ve co-opted the very legal system that is supposed to protect us.

    We’re a town that’s been taken over by the mob. Everyone from the cops to the bankers to the undertaker are controlled by them.

    Go ahead and kick up a ruckus. Go right a head. See where it gets you.

    Question to the group: If it weren’t for the 22nd Amendment, do you think Obama could successfully win a third term?

    Ultimately, that answer is the crux of the matter…

  43. newrouter says:

    >Still not convinced that wasn’t the result of Democrat open-primary monkeywrenching more than anything else.<

    nah demonrats vote ruining class

    Corrupt Cochran Campaign Campaigns Corruptly

  44. newrouter says:

    > do you think Obama could successfully win a third term? <

    is it a free and fair election?

  45. eCurmudgeon says:

    Vince Flynn had an interesting idea.

    Shades of Jim Bell.

  46. bh says:

    Go ahead and kick up a ruckus. Go right a head. See where it gets you.

    On the other hand, without doing much any ruckus-kicking we find ourselves right about… here.

  47. newrouter says:

    don’t do “ruckus” do “mock them”

  48. newrouter says:

    pictures with clowndisaster™ work

  49. bh says:

    The excluded middle is resonating in my head now though. My previous comment is probably guilty of such to some degree or another.

  50. dicentra says:

    Just curious dicentra, have you ever been in a fistfight in your life, let alone find yourself pleased to be beating and being beaten?

    No, I haven’t.

    Let me make myself clear: we cannot make Washington stop doing what it’s doing. Holding their feet to the fire or whatever is NOT an option — they’re so corrupt and happy with it that they care not what we think of them, and they know we can’t touch them.

    So any talk of intimidating them into behaving themselves is futile.

    That doesn’t mean there are no options left; it just means that no options that involve changing the Beltway crowd are valid for the near and mid future.

    If the limb is gangrenous, cut it off.

    It’s not realistic to believe that full-on secession from the Beltway is doable, if for no other reason that it’s too radical. It may not be necessary to Cut The Cord, at least not yet.

    Get one or more states to declare No Confidence in the federal government, to tell the Beltway that its lawlessness and corruption mean it has broken its part of the compact and its diktats are no longer valid.

    They’ve lost their jurisdiction. No more tax money and especially, NO MORE OBEDIENCE.

    We’ll govern ourselves, than you very much, until the place is cleaned out head to toe (all elected and unelected officials are expelled) and the Article V Convention makes the necessary adjustments.

    Maybe we can demand that those awful executive bureaus not within the enumerated powers are vacated and eliminated.

    Instead of seceding, IOW, the states vote Washington off the planet. The states that want to, that is. The rest can submit to DC’s tyrannical rule all day long and like it.

    See, the reason the American Revolution worked and the French one didn’t is partly that the American institutions weren’t corrupt — we just cut the cord and continued on our way. The French institutions were corrupted through and through, so they attempted a purge.

    Most of the states are less corrupt (to varying degrees) than DC; much of the corruption comes from DC bribing the states with our own money.

    It’s important to recognize when a method of redress has vanished. Spending our time, effort, and mental energy on reforming even one politician is a fool’s errand. We’re way past the conventional methods working for us.

    The states have to put their feet down; not us individuals. States qua states have a better chance pushing back than the Tea Party or any variant thereof.

    Good thing we on this blog all live in the same state so we can band together and Get Things Done.

  51. guinspen says:

    And lo, thither came a van.

    And it was a Chevy.

    Maybe.

  52. geoffb says:

    Question to the group: If it weren’t for the 22nd Amendment, do you think Obama could successfully win a third term?

    Lately, Bill Clinton has become convinced that Obama won’t endorse Hillary in 2016. During a gathering at Whitehaven, guests overheard Bill talking to his daughter Chelsea about whether the president would back Joe Biden.

    “Recently, I’ve been hearing a different scenario from state committeemen,” Clinton said. “They say he’s looking for a candidate who’s just like him. Someone relatively unknown. Someone with a fresh face.

    “He’s convinced himself he’s been a brilliant president, and wants to clone himself — to find his Mini-Me.

    “He’s hunting for someone to succeed him, and he believes the American people don’t want to vote for someone who’s been around for a long time. He thinks that your mother and I are what he calls ‘so 20th century.’ He’s looking for ­another Barack Obama.”

  53. serr8d says:

    Politics, among other things, is about change. Will we claim to map change to a certainty? Say not.

    Borrowing from evolutionary biology, let’s say our Republic’s politics have reached, and passed, an ‘adaptive peak’. We’ve managed, with our constitution, to evolve a state of political affairs unlike any other prior or concurrent. Let’s also posit that we’ve already reached that adaptive peak at some point of our Republic’s evolution (perhaps the ’60’s, but that’s for future historians to decide).

    Once an organism – political system has reached an adaptive peak, it cannot advance higher without retracing backwards, without losing some of the ground it’s gained. IOW, if there’s another peak that we need ascend, a political Everest to our Mount McKinley, we must go downhill in order to begin that new ascent.

    Disheartening, I know, but nothing remains static. There’s no constant except change; there’s no new peaks ascended without first traversing valleys.

  54. serr8d says:

    Good thing we on this blog all live in the same state so we can band together and Get Things Done.

    Heh. As we peer into the abyss ?

  55. Mueller says:

    dicentra says June 21, 2014 at 7:28 pm Armed civil disobedience. Bundy Ranch x10000? Maybe. Maybe we can refuse to comply with this or that law/diktat, but look how much sympathy Bundy lost when his legal case wasn’t clear-cut. It wasn’t just his inarticulate presentation — it was his muddle-headed situation. Tons of people on “our side” are so hung up on law and order that they won’t jump aboard a We Will Not Comply unless the legal case against it is crystal clear. Given the number of legal sophists on our side, it would be all too easy for us to stage a similar thing and be instantly discredited in the eyes of the majority of Tea Partiers, not to mention Establicans and their cheerleaders at the Salem Radio Network. The majority of our side won’t resort to drastic civil disobedience until it’s too late to win. If red-staters won’t turf Graham, Hatch, or McConnell, they won’t Take a Scary Stand. That won’t stop me, but I can’t do it alone, and I won’t make common cause with many of the types who showed up at Bundy’s. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=54100#comments

    Fair enough ,Di, but right now the law is whatever the people in power say it is. So in effect there is no rule of law. We are subject to whims of the lords who rule over us. I don’t want a bloody mess either, but that’s the way it’s heading.

  56. sdferr says:

    Just to dispense with a confusion I seem to have created on account of an ellipsis I used [“among other things”], the full expression of that hoary old nutshell I cited, “politics is about change”, goes like this:

    *** “All political action is concerned with either preservation or change. When it is concerned with change it is concerned with change for the better. When it is concerned with preservation it is concerned with avoiding that something worse comes.” ***

    It then continues:

    *** “Therefore, all political action presupposes opinions of better and worse. But you cannot have an opinion of better and worse without having an opinion of good or bad. But when you see that you follow an opinion, you are by this very fact driven to try to find knowledge — to replace opinion by knowledge. Therefore all political action points by itself toward knowledge of the good. Now the complete political good we call the good society. And therefore all political action points toward the question of the good society, and political philosophy can be defined as the quest for the good society. ” ***

  57. sdferr says:

    The French institutions were corrupted through and through, so they attempted a purge.

    Could be I’m mistaken, but nevertheless I think Tocqueville would differ as to the causes of those differences (between Englishmen and French or continental generally speaking, for that matter).

  58. sdferr says:

    To return to the question (now an hypothetical), if I may, which I will take the liberty to characterize in my own fashion:

    “Can the Americans, through a change in their opinion concerning the necessity to use the Constitutional procedure of impeachment to rid themselves of a destructive and intentionally violative lawbreaking executive, induce their congresspeople, by means of 1) their vast numbers and scope concordant in this new opinion, from people of “high” repute to low and everywhere in-between those measures of high and low, however one may choose to characterize them, 2) the rightness of that opinion based fundamentally in the meaning of the impeachment process as laid down in the Constitutional architecture, as perfectly befitting this circumstance in their political history, 3) the stridency of their demands for this procedure to be undertaken, which are communicated through an immoveable posture for the citizens’ demands, repeated again and again in innumerable forms and devices, unyielding nor to be deflected, demands made on their own volition (again, coming from all segments and occupations of that citizenry) after proper consideration of the dangers to their political circumstances and outlook, both at home and abroad?”

    Don’t be slaves. Think. Then act.

  59. sdferr says:

    Oh, and by the way in something of an afterthought: this hypothetical, one may easily see, is also the expression of a political predicate.

    For suppose: just such an up-rising, based on due consideration of our political perils and the source[s] of them and leading to what we can comfortably characterize as the “righteous” position afore-named (and righteous it is, I say, generously within the bounds of American political tradition) and the unceasing protest that conclusion would generate, which protest, having been made (and supposing it ignored or simply blown off), would itself become further just grounds for significant political change.

    But that re-newed predicate would not be available if the effort is not made. So.

  60. serr8d says:

    “…therefore all political action points toward the question of the good society, and political philosophy can be defined as the quest for the good society.”

    But political philosophy doesn’t necessarily bring political change just because it’s extant. And we certainly lack a ‘good society’ right now. Without good society, we find that purchased voters vote their own personal welfare over the long-term welfare of our Republic; and monstrous Corporations support the oligarchs who befriend them with political charms. Protected feedback loops have replaced Good Society, which is lost to us until there’s some physical push back.

    Seems nearly all of history’s major revolutionary political changes begin (and likely, in the case of our Republic, will end) with bloodshed. In most valleys, one notes, there’s a flowing river of it.

  61. sdferr says:

    But political philosophy doesn’t necessarily bring political change just because it’s extant.

    Certainly this is to be granted. But it does seem something of a non sequitur in the context of the clarification made, for no claim that any particular political philosophy has the effect of a “necessary” political change was offered. Actually, we can easily see from the past that most if not all efforts at making change through political philosophical reasonings are fraught with dangers to the philosophers themselves. Merely consider the fate of the first. And yet, an Aristotelian linked scheme of political philosophical reasoning was eventually regnant in the Occident for what, a thousand years? And even today plays some role, if we take the care to look minutely enough.

    But that politics is governed by and governs by violence and coercion is also not denied by the political philosophers. Ha. They were the ones who discovered it.

  62. BigBangHunter says:

    – The last half dozen or so posts assume, as a rule, politics to be a tool for positive societal change, which is stuff and nonsense.

    – The past 150 years in itself has seen many examples where the “peaks” of Leftwing movements were made up mostly of rivers of blood and piles of dead bodies.

    – Of course I suppose if you’re a Socialist, Communist, Fascist, or Marxist bastard you’d define this fact as “positive”, since they always refer to the rivers of blood and piles of bodies as the “greater good”.

  63. sdferr says:

    It’s always good to hear thoughtful criticism, BBH. Keep up the good work.

  64. Darleen says:

    It wasn’t just his inarticulate presentation — it was his muddle-headed situation. Tons of people on “our side” are so hung up on law and order that they won’t jump aboard a We Will Not Comply unless the legal case against it is crystal clear.

    Part of the issue is that the “law” is no longer responsive and is changed for the State’s benefit.

    In Bundy’s case, the media also played in with the “he is illegally grazing a cattle” without ever explaining he WAS paying fees to the state under what was supposed to be an in-perpetuity grant. Said grant rejected by a fed judge.

    Here’s something that startled me — Friday night hubby & I decided to drive up to a local campsite to just enjoy cool pine breezes, grill dinner & watch the stars come out. We were chatting with the campsite manager about the view of the high desert floor in front of us.

    We were remarking how you can see lots of lights indicating development pretty heavy on the San Bernardino side, but on the Los Angeles side – Boom- hardly a thing (not counting Lancaster which is far enough west it wasn’t quite in our view)

    He said he has owned some land on the LA side for 30 years. Land that included all mineral and water rights. He has a small structure and a well on the property. One day, LA county came out and put a meter on HIS well and charges him for the water that he pumps out of it. Much of the neighboring land has no wells and LA county refuses to permit drilling. Indeed, they have forbidden those people from even trucking in water for tanks or cisterns.

    You know, cause of eminent domain for the tortoise or something. Now this guy is about the only one left in the area with a “private” bit of land. He hasn’t been run off. Yet.

    See, The State doesn’t have to abide by any contract.

  65. sdferr says:

    See, The State doesn’t have to abide by any contract.

    This is the condition which provoked the question I asked dicentra above concerning whether she had ever been in a fistfight. The underying premise being a question of the urge to dominance and the mirrored urge not to be dominated. It’s a human sort of deal, and it won’t go away.

  66. BigBangHunter says:

    – There’s a good chance I missed some salient point in the posts. My anger over our current plight quite likely could result in that sort of short sightedness. But I don’t post for approbation, I speak my mind.

    – On another track: If this is true its not a get-out-of-jail-card for her. She made a choice between her own ass and that of the countries, so I’d still charge her criminally, along with Bumblefuck and several layers of FED bastards at State, the IRS, DoJ,etc.

  67. BigBangHunter says:

    – ….And on Friday, Marchant asked Commissioner Koskinen his opinion on the unorthodox push to retrieve the emails of Lerner and other suspect officials.

    “Is the IRS and its emails exempt from monitoring by the FBI or the NSA?” Marchant asked.

    “Uh, I have no information about that,” Koskinen replied. “But I have no indication that we are exempt from anybody’s monitoring.”

    “So we don’t know that the emails are not totally all [ir]recoverable, in some process,” the congressman pressed.

    “If the NSA was monitoring all of our emails and collecting them and saving them someplace, then they might be there,” Koskinen admitted. “But I’m not aware that that was done.”

    …”But I pray to god that’s not the case…”. FTFH

  68. bour3 says:

    Thank you Mr. Feets. Apologies for late reply.

  69. happyfeet says:

    no worries it was a beautiful weekend here I can only imagine Colorado right now

  70. geoffb says:

    Timing is everything.

  71. sdferr says:

    Who’s your daddy, Masahiro? Schoopy, that’s who.

  72. Danger says:

    Geoff,

    Unless I misread your article then Sonasoft should have backups of Ms. Lerners emails until Aug 31, 2011.

    I doubt that those backups were not destroyed and are still on a server somewhere.

  73. Danger says:

    I should have said I doubt those backup were destroyed.

    They may be able get away with saying that hardware failures and system backups (6 month tapes reused) caused the loss of the e-mails but someone would have to be held accountable for willingly destroying official records.

    Especially after a congressional investigation has begun.

  74. geoffb says:

    Unless the IRS demanded all copies when they terminated the contract.

  75. Danger says:

    “Unless the IRS demanded all copies when they terminated the contract.”

    Geoff,

    I’d like to hear them try using the dog ate my third copy of my homework (and I forgot to tell you about the third copy) excuse.

  76. Danger says:

    From nr’s article:

    “Are we witnessing right now the most radically, extremely liberal, ideological president of our entire lifetime right here in the United States of America, or are we witnessing the most incompetent president of the United States of America in the history of our lifetimes? You know, it is a difficult question,” he said. “I’ve thought long and hard about it. Here’s the only answer I’ve come up with, and I’m going to quote Secretary Clinton: ‘What difference does it make?’”

    This Jindal fella is starting to grow on me. Should Cruz opt out I may have to give him some more looks.

  77. palaeomerus says:

    Yeah I agree.

    Does it really matter if the guy driving the steam roller over you is shouting “Die die die die die! Hail Satan!” or ” OMG, Oops! I’m sorry! Where are the brakes? Why are you standing there? The steering is so wobbly! Watch out! Oh no!” or even “Whoo whooo whoooooo nayaa nyaaa yaaaah whooop!”

    You’re about to get steamrolled one way or another.

  78. Danger says:

    So it’s the dog ate the third copy of my homework that I didn’t know I had?

    I’d arrest him and keep him locked up until the emails were delivered.

  79. bh says:

    “This Jindal fella is starting to grow on me. Should Cruz opt out I may have to give him some more looks.”

    As best I can tell he’s mainly been presumptively disqualified because he’s a practicing Catholic.

    We live in a society where people bend over backwards to act sensitively towards people who want to have their genitals removed but exclude people practicing millennium old religions.*

    *For the record, we should be sensitive towards people wanting to remove their genitals. We should be very nice to them. That’s a seriously messed up problem to have.

  80. Danger says:

    bh,

    Some of our so-called allies will blame the discount on an uninspiring State of the Union rebuttal.

  81. newrouter says:

    the rockerfeller wing of the gop must go in 2016. go get disillusioned dems indys. new coalition

  82. sdferr says:

    Is it possible to watch the cover-up complicitous Democrat committee members without thinking they either all need to go to jail or they all need to be executed? It’s sickening shit this business they wilfully force on us all.

  83. bh says:

    What’s strange is how little perspective these thugs and criminals have. There are worse things than going to jail or being executed.

    For instance, right now, there is widespread, uhhh, gentrification, uhhhh, no, maybe something more like sectarian cleansing going on in a formerly pacified state.

    Fools to the left of us, jokers to the right, here we are.

  84. bh says:

    Some of our so-called allies will blame the discount on an uninspiring State of the Union rebuttal.

    Actual governance, though? That’s far too nebulous and fuzzy to discern for their ilk.

    These so-called allies sorta suck.

  85. Darleen says:

    As best I can tell he’s mainly been presumptively disqualified because he’s a practicing Catholic.

    Don’t forget, he converted to Catholicism — even Americanized his name to “Bobby”

    Which means he is a self-hating man of color, an inauthentic minority.

    Burn him.

  86. sdferr says:

    Unlike the annihilation of the Cambodian elites by Khmer Rouge, a potential destruction of the American elites wouldn’t actually do away with any smart and learned people, just vast numbers of comfortable morons..

  87. bh says:

    Yep and yep.

  88. geoffb says:

    Trey Gowdy and IRS commissioner.

  89. geoffb says:

    Ah, it’s on a new thread.

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