Ya know…

I’ve been on “X” (The application formerly known as Twitter,) for about two years, this time.

I’ve made plenty of comments. Some snarky, some funny, some very serious. But I’ve not made comments wherein I called someone I’d never interacted with, dumb shit or motherfucker.

The left on the other hand often tends to end their comments on something I might have said with epithets like that. 

I responded to Senator Markwayne Mullin the other day.

Senator Mullin was calling out the hypocrisy of the Democrat members of Congress over the admittedly careless conversation Pete Hegseth and others had on the Signal app.

The Senator correctly pointed out that the Signal App was approved for communications by the Government. He also pointed out that none of the material was necessarily classified and that while “Yes,” the discussion should have perhaps been handled over other channels. The issue was not as “Devastating, or a threat to National Security,” as the media and Democrats have been trying to paint it as.

I took a different position. I directly asked Senator Mullin this;

My question was based in what I remembered from the days when I had a security clearance.

I vaguely remember something about identifying myself if I was included on an email or other communication that was above my clearance level.

At the time it made perfect sense to me. I thought it was based not only in operational security but common decency and politeness, so my compliance was one of those things that came completely naturally.

Perhaps its because of my experience with clearances, my recognition that some classifications were so far beyond me that my knowing anything about certain subjects could get me imprisoned, or just that I was raised right, that the question popped into my head.

The one and only time I was included in something that I was not cleared for and brought it to the attention of the meeting organizer, I was complimented and several weeks later rewarded with a higher clearance.

I’d established that I could be trusted. Even though the higher clearance meant more responsibility, and more training in dealing with the different classification. It was worth it.

So it’s from this perspective that I viewed the situation.

Senator Mullin does almost daily posts where he explains the inner workings of Congress and topics that may be occupying the news cycle. I’ll rarely miss one of his posts because they’re informative and he speaks plainly.

There were a number of comments directed at my question that were about 50/50 positive/negative. But one comment was a one sentence very angry defense of Goldberg that ended with the writer calling me a dumbshit.

I don’t really care, but then I thought about it and wondered why the person was so angry.

I looked at their profile and on many issues, I agreed with their positions. What I didn’t agree with was this person’s frequently calling people that they didn’t agree with, dumbshit, motherfucker, cocksucker, etc…

I’ve got a foul mouth, but I try not to say, “Hey you! Yes you! Yeah, dumbshit! You! You’re a load your mother wishes she’d swallowed.

I might think it. But I’d no more say that, than the man in the moon.

Then I thought about it and decided I’m implementing a new rule.

I’m going to block anyone that speaks to me in a way that I wouldn’t tolerate in a bar. From this perspective, if I’d not speak to you in a bar, or hang out with you in person, there is no incentive whatsoever to put up with you on X.

So, my blocked list grows, not out of fear, or being thin skinned. I simply refuse to be a punching bag for abusive people whether I may agree with them or not.

I value myself too highly to waste time arguing online or to take anyone’s shit.

Treat yourself well, and have a great day.

They almost won…

Trump address Congress.width-1024.I set time aside to listen to President Trump’s speech.

The man had no sooner taken the podium than the Democrats began showing their asses.

I understand that the Democrats are angry and upset. 

However, I am an American citizen. Donald Trump is the sitting President. I would very much like to hear what he has to say.

Congressional Democrats attempted to do ME Personally a disservice by not allowing me to hear The President. They should be ashamed!

This is unacceptable behavior for anyone in Congress. Including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. I want the Congress People to sit down and shut the hell up when the Commander in Chief speaks.

L intro 1741145029.It’s one thing when a comedian turned President acts up in The Oval Office.

It’s quite another thing for politicians representing American people to be disrespectful, to both the President and the American People in the House Chamber.

I turned the damn television off because I was so offended.

I’m willing to say I will never vote for another Democrat. I’ve always been willing to listen to what Democrats said. I’ve voted for them if they made sense and I believed they could do a good job.

Effective tonight, I don’t think that I could in good conscience vote for any Democrat.

They have repeatedly disrespected Me.

I am angry about that. 

The Sargent at Arms removing Al Green was not enough. 

I want to see investigations, not the Congressional talk, talk, talk. The kind that end with Uniformed Officers sweeping in making arrests.

You see, I’ve had enough of our Government running amok.

I’m glad that I tuned back in after the Democrat shenanigan’s were put down.

I liked hearing the rest of the speech and noted that the Democrats eventually read the room and just sat glowering. 

I have to say that Senator Elissa Slotkin made good points. Generally I disagree with her. But I’m not sure if that is because I was so offended by her colleagues or if I have valid reasons form my disagreement.

I know I just wrote I wouldn’t vote for another Democrat. However, I must as a part of my duty listen to the opposing side.

Hmm. Talk about misreading a room!

I’m honestly not sure what to think about this whole Zelensky affair.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.Seeing the Ukrainian Ambassador essentially face palm it was pretty darn funny. Her expression was one of “Oh Shit! This isn’t going well at all.”

We’ll never know if she told Zelensky to just make nice in front of the cameras, sign the mineral deal, and we’ll negotiate these other issues on the backend. 

That probably would have worked very well. “Give a little, get a little”.

Trump and his people are no doubt very aware that the American People have had quite enough lighting our tax dollars on fire. Therefore a public showing of American getting something in return for their support of Ukraine, and a more private deal in a conference room who’ll have been much more likely to have been agreed to.

There’ve been reports that part of the deal Trump was suggesting was to negotiate more European involvement in securing Ukraine in addition to America naturally protecting businesses and citizens who would be working on the minerals side of things.

I believe and always have believed that Putin’s biggest reason for invading Ukraine, (Aside from Biden being very poor in international policy), was the NATO connection. NATO membership for Ukraine brings with it, all kinds of unacceptable issues including weapons systems and potentially nukes of various types right to the border of Russia.

Biden’s posturing about Ukraine being given NATO membership, might not have been the only reason Putin Invaded, but it damn sure had to have been a factor.

Zelensky getting mouthy with The President, The Vice President, The Secretary of State and others, in front of The American People, in The White House was a super bad move.

For many of the American people tired of financing the Ukraine, Zelensky looked like one of those homeless people who demand money from you as you walk past then get belligerent when you say you haven’t got anything to give them.

Indeed lots of Americans have suffered with taxes, inflation, and all the other issues the past 5 years brought them. And yet Billions kept flowing to Ukraine while our own people suffered. 

I think Zelensky will not be seeing any more American money, weapons, or resources. Even if he apologizes it might not matter. Americans are souring on propping up everybody else’s countries or governments. Especially when doing so leaves our people wanting.

I’m leaning toward Zelensky missing some social queues. Perhaps he thought he’d plead his case in front of the American People, hoping that they would intercede with the mean new administration. If that was his plan, he grossly misread America.

Zelensky was being criticized by medrmebers of his own government Friday evening. Who knows? Zelensky might be on his way out as the President of Ukraine too.

Dont’ know if I’m alone or not in this…

As I’ve been collecting the bits & pieces of paper for TAXES that represent my “Being a good Citizen”, A.K.A. a MORON!

I’ve been angry about taxation for a very long time. My Father was angry about taxation, My Grandfathers (both sides) were angry about taxation. My Great Grandfather was super pissed about taxation.

My Great Grandfather was pissed off especially as I recall, because he was born shortly after the “Damn Yankees” started charging “A God damn tax for living”.

In reality he was talking about the income tax imposed in 1867 to pay for the Civil War. 

He got a double dose of taxation in his lifetime with 1913 income tax being imposed under Taft. He spoke ill of Taft and Franklin Roosevelt until the day he died.

In his case the “Damn Yankees” part was, I’m guessing was something he picked up from his father. You did not want to get him talking about growing up in the aftermath of the Civil War. 

Like a lot of the South, the family was farmers, and most of the time they just barely got by. The mortality rate in the family was very high. If a baby lived more than a year it was notable.

If you asked Great Granddaddy about how many slaves his family had, he would loose his shit! It was hard to follow because he’d be yelling in mostly German with bits of English thrown in.

The translation was something like:

“Why the hell would we have a God damned slave? We could barely feed ourselves. Slaves were expensive and more trouble than they were worth. With a slave you had two people doing the work of one and that didn’t make no damn sense.” He’d go on for at least an hour, and it was obvious that he had very strong opinions. 

I once asked my Grandfather what Great Grandaddy meant by having two men doing the work of one. Grandpa explained that you had to have a strawboss (overseer) making sure the slaves were doing the work. Which was wholly impractical on a small farm.

Grandpa said slavery only worked at scale with large plantations and with crops that could be transported without spoilage. For instance, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, tea, various nuts, and dried spices.

Can you say East India Trading Company? Good! I knew you could.

Since our family was mostly poor dirt farmers with small farms, a German kind of pragmatism, and some pretty strong religious beliefs about slavery in general, the whole concept of buying and selling people was a non-starter.

Which is why Great Granddaddy was pissed off about the taxation. He viewed it as a bunch of city folk who never did a days work in their lives, punishing everyone in the South whose economy, lands, crops, and homes, had already been destroyed.

His view was the damn war wouldn’t have happened if the northerners had let the cotton plantations sell the damn cotton wherever they wanted to.

There’s a lot more to that story. The oral history in my family, differs from the history I was taught in school, and also from history as is taught now.

In the history I was taught in school, the implication was that all Southern Farmers had slaves, and that everyone in the South took up arms against the North. Neither was true. The Northern Army is always painted as white knights and the Southern Army is painted and horrible, evil, men. From what I’ve learned, the Civil War was like every other war. Atrocities were committed on both sides. 

There were regiments from the North that burned, raped, and pillaged. A friend of mine from Tennessee showed me their family bible. In it, was recorded the atrocities of a Confederate regiment, who shot his great great granddaddy in the front yard, took all the food and anything else of value, then prevented the family from going to help him instead, making the family watch their father bleed to death in agony.

To this day, my friend and his family express a quiet but palpable hatred for anything to do with the Confederacy. I can’t blame them. His people think and act just like my people. He’ll cringe at me saying this, but his people are “Southerners” in that they have a long memory, just like my people. I’ll owe him a Jack Daniels over saying that.

To hear Great Graddaddy tell it, a whole lot of “them boys” (Southerners) only joined the Confederate army after the Yankees had burned their farms and their crops in the fields. Even then it was only so they could get paid and support their wives & children who were homeless and destitute.

Great Granddaddy like most of my family had strong opinions.

I remember him saying a couple of things in particular.

1. It’s damn funny that the Yankees said slavery was bad, then turned around and made us all slaves with taxes.

2. If we ain’t got nothing, they can’t tax nothing. 

There were unconfirmed rumors in the family that Great Granddaddy spent years after Great Grandma died, living in a shack hunting and fishing for his meals.

He supposedly would shoot at the “God Damn Tax men” if they dared stray onto his land. I don’t know if I believe it, but it was said Great Granddaddy would sometimes send a box of offal to the tax assessors office with a note saying, “Here’s your part of my hunt.”

Great Granddaddy eventually ended up living with Grandpa. I remember him reading me bedtime stories drifting between English and German.

I suppose that I’m a product of an environment where the wounds of the Civil War were in living memory. I’m sure that there are a lot of “Boomers” who could tell similar tales from both sides of the Mason Dixon line.

Why is all of this remotely relevant?

Because at tax time I remember my family all being pissed off all the damn time. I remember them calculating their taxes right up to the very edge of legal.

And I remember Great Granddaddy advocating for registering nothing, owning nothing, and being as small and invisible as possible.

He seemed to believe if you’d served in the military to defend the country, that was enough, you shouldn’t have to pay any taxes ever again.

He hated that every year the government grew, every year they exceeded their budget, every year they found something else to spend money, that didn’t directly serve the best interests of the United States.

He, and later, my Grandfather warned that the government was inherently corrupt that our elected leaders were only interested in obtaining wealth. Both of them outright called politicians thieves and liars. Sometimes to their faces.

They both said that the taxation wouldn’t stop until the people rose up and stopped it. As the tax rates climbed, and the government grew, My Grandfather began to suggest that the Communists had won.

The rest of the family shushed him.

After the recent revelations of DOGE. The breathtaking waste, the obvious graft and corruption, I find myself thinking that my Father, Grandfather, and Great Grandfather were absolutely 100% correct.

Add to that, this bullshit about the IRS knowing what you supposedly owe them but forcing you to jump through the hoops and expense of accountants and tax attorneys to come up with the same number and I feel like its just additional punishment for no reason except sadistic pleasure.

Except that it’s not. The IRS puts everyone through this bullshit, so that you do make mistakes, and that allows them to charge you penalties & interest for your mistake. If there’re setting up the situation where you make mistakes, then penalizing you for making the mistakes, isn’t that called entrapment? Just sayin…

The IRS would be just as content if you always err on the side of them keeping a few hundred dollars that they’re not entitled to because people are scared of them.

Why else would the Biden administration have authorized 87,000 new ARMED IRS agents? That told me everything I needed to know to know about what the Democrats had planned for the citizens of this country.

It’s safe to say that the number of armed agents would have increased year over year. I doubt that the millionaires Biden kept telling us weren’t paying their fair share, would have needed to have guns waived in their faces to write checks. They have the resources to hire a battery of attorneys and lock up IRS collection cases in court for years…

I suspect that the armed IRS agents were actually going to be kicking down the doors of citizens like me, and you, and the rest of us that don’t have the necessary cash to lawyer up. If a twitchy IRS agent was waving a gun in the faces of your children or your spouse, you’d give them anything they wanted…

And that was exactly the point.

Politicians in D.C. had rightfully concluded that the people were probably not going to put up with more tax increases it was unsustainable.

But the government needed more money and would always need more money to fund the lies, graft, & corruption.

So the next stage for the politicians was to have armed thugs running a legalized extortion racket to wring every last dime out of average taxpayers teetering on the edge of hunger & homelessness.

Unless Trump is able to unwind the provisions for the IRS in the 16th amendment. We’re only going to see a short reprieve.

Honestly, after a lifetime of this shit where almost 1/3 of my income got sucked down a black hole of waste and corruption, I’m half tempted to send the keys to my house to the fucking IRS and the Fucking State of California, and let them fight over it!

I could see myself just walking away, saying “Fuck it!”

(I think “Fuck It” is the position of a lot of the later generations. I get it! Why play a game you know you’re going to lose before you start? That’s the position our government put them in.)

Me pitting the State and Federal governments against each other might be amusing. Watching them trying to fuck each other over, instead of me for a change would be a welcome sight.

My only income is my God damned Social Security and these fuckers want their share of that.

I ask, “How is that in any way reasonable?”

They’ve had the money for 46 fucking years. I have not had access to it, nor derived any benefit from it.

They on the other hand, could have invested it in any number of funds, or projects and made a profit on the money they took from me. In fact the government probably did exactly that.

Then they’re keeping the interest they made, and in fact they’re not disclosing just how much they made on my money over 46 years.

Then via DOGE we learn that there are people receiving Social Security payments that are over 125 going to 200 years old. News to me that the lifespan is that long. It’s a miracle! Or now we’ve got Vampires… 

We also know that 535 members of Congress one way or another have been raiding Social Security for years.

And yet, somehow I’m supposed to pay the government more from my monthly check that, by the way, is almost $2000 dollars below what is considered to be minimum wage.

How the hell does that make any sense whatsoever? How is it that illegals or people on welfare get more?

Oh right! I’m supposed to be a good citizen and just give my tax money to politicians, the Ukraine, the poor starving children in Africa, let’s not forget condoms for the Congo. 

But we all know none of that money went where we were told it went. We all know a substantial portion of it looped back right into the pockets of politicians or some organization that politicians had an interest in.

See, when I start thinking about what our government has done to us, Not just in the arena of taxation, but health, and infrastructure, and all the ways the government has literally failed in their primary responsibility, I get really pissed off.

Whether you agree with RFK Jr or not. You can at least look at the number of FDA recalls of medications, and medical devices over the past 3 decades and question how some of these things got approved in the first place.

Oh but going to the FDA website and asking for Drugs that have been recalled presents you with a list of mostly OTC products like sunscreens. There are very few Drugs listed. Which makes the “Fact Checkers” right and someone like me automatically wrong because there is no evidence. 

Remember the weight loss miracle FenFen? It caused heart attacks. How about the pacemaker recalls and the hip & knee replacements that disintegrated? Or the use of thalidomide? How about using polypropylene mesh for hernias and as a vaginal mesh to repair the vaginal canal after childbirth? Anybody remember Zantac? Yeah on OTC antacid that’s linked to cancer.

See, I remember these things. Yet according to the fact checkers… It never happened, my memory is faulty, which makes people who do remember wonder if they’re going out of their minds.

Some of these things were approved because they were “Similar” to other approved things, but “Similar” doesn’t mean actually throughly tested.

How many bridges need to be replaced? How about roads that are so full of potholes that a dirt track would be smoother?

These are but a few of the monumental failures of the government whose overarching “loving” embrace we’re supposed to blindly trust.

Somehow, I’m supposed to happily write a check to the United States government essentially paying them to continue butt fucking me.

When I think about it from this perspective, the Southern part of me starts screaming, “ It’s time for the South to rise again!” 30 seconds after that thought, the vision of The Boston Tea party flashes into my head and the best fit algorithm in my head says that’s a more accurate fit.

Maybe we should all dress up as illegal aliens and flood the government offices  in person filling out welfare forms and generally clogging up the government works.

If that doesn’t work then… The Rebel in me starts screaming for politician’s butts on walls.

All of this flashing through my brain at once is painful. It makes me very cranky and me handing the keys to the house to the fucking IRS looks better all the time.

Let them dispose of the shit in the basement, let them dispose of things that due to titles and licenses are locked up by the State in such a way that it takes greater effort to unfuck the mess than to just walk away and let it be their problem.

I’m in favor of doing away with the IRS, the State Tax board, and property tax. 

Before you come at me asking the question, “Then how would we pay for necessary government things?”

Let me put it this way, until I see a balanced budget. Until I see the government living within its means like I have to. Until I see responsible spending domestically, where shit tons of cash isn’t being sent everywhere but here.

My opinion is that obviously the government has more than enough money. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be the possibility of all these un-necessary expenditures. I know on my budget, I don’t have a lot of excess cash to spend!

I guess that like my Father, Grandfather, and Great Grandaddy… I’m just sick and tired of playing the government’s games.

I finally understand why so many politicians have pushed so hard for gun control. I understand why California, an essentially one party, corrupt Democrat run state has made or tried to make gun purchases and ammunition purchases harder and why they want to know who has what kind of gun and where.

The politicians, A.K.A. don’t want to fear the people.

Here ends my raging against the machine. I got it out of my system and for that I’m grateful.

Don’t know what’s going on in the UK, But it’s got to stop!

Uk police commissioner.png.The Washington Post reports that the UK government is demanding Apple provide them backdoor access to users encrypted iCloud data.

This is nothing particularly new for government. The FBI has been famously turned down by Apple when it came to their demands for decrypting lock codes of alleged criminals iPhones.

What is disturbing is that the UK is making this demand under cover of its “Investigatory Powers Act“. This sneaky, slimy, law makes it a criminal offense for the company under demand to say anything about being under notice, demand, or request.

0_MI5 MI6 headquarters London.So the UK government knows that they’re doing something shady, and they want to do it in complete darkness.

They do allow an appeal to a secret panel and judge. In other words the appeal process is just for show.

This demand for a back door doesn’t just apply to British citizens, the UK government wants the ability to spy, snoop, violate privacy, of anyone in the world who is using Apple iCloud.

Their justification is, as it always is with totalitarians, that they need this access to insure public safety and they can be trusted not to abuse this ability.

We can bet that they’re making, or have already made similar demands of all other encrypted cloud services. But we will never know if that’s true, and we can never know who complied, because of the double super secret provisions of “Investigatory Powers Act“.

So the continuous assault on Personal Privacy goes on. This is important because in the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is sort of a central piece. It’s so central to Apple device functionality that Apple gives everyone a little iCloud storage space when they buy their first iPhone. At that low level, it’s mostly about iPhone backups and settings.

Most people increase the amount of iCloud storage available because if you have several devices it’s convenient to have access to your all of your data from every device.

Chamber House of Commons Houses Parliament London.Do you want someone, without your permission, looking at your backup data? How about documents, text messages, photos, movies, or literally anything you’ve stored in the cloud? 

I don’t. I could live without iCloud. In fact I could live quite nicely with local storage and not have anything in the cloud. But that’s just me.

A lot of people can’t.

Most people, due to Apple’s marketing of User Privacy being one of Apple’s top concerns, have a reasonable expectation that their data will be encrypted and that no-one including Apple can access that data.

If Apple gives the UK backdoor access. Then privacy is gone. China will next be demanding their own access to user data, then it’ll be Interpol. All the while the US government will be quietly taking data dumps from “Five Eyes” member nations. Using that data to spy on its own citizens but being able to deny that they are. Our intelligence agencies will shrug their shoulders and say they can’t control what information is shared with them in a data dump from other intelligence agencies.

The UK government has become the ultimate representation of a “KAREN” and their surveillance and free speech, or rather, their definition of hate speech, policies are the biggest reasons that I have no desire to visit.

You know what? I’m good with that too. 

Even if Apple were to turn off encryption for all phones operating, or purchased in the UK, it still wouldn’t meet the requirements set forth in the “Investigatory Powers Act”.

I’m fine with the UK, UKing all over their own people. Their people apparently like this stuff.

I draw the line at them potentially expanding their bullshit beyond their little islands. I’m not impressed or interested in helping the UK assuage its feelings of inadequacy by invading my privacy. In fact, to the best of my knowledge I don’t have contact with any UK citizen or business. I believe that is true for at least the past 20 years. So why would they have any remote need to access my encrypted iCloud data?

The iCloud data they want backdoor access to may include heath data (from my watch), location data from all my devices, frequented location data, digital ID, private journal data, financial data, and via my contacts application, all my business associates and / or friends.

Notavlecase cover20 1400x775.But what they’re really interested in are my mean tweets, or off color Facebook posts, they want to know if I’m twerking on tictok, or have appeared in blackface on instagram. (After all I’m not Justin Trudeau)

Remember, authorities in the UK have repeatedly, and quite boldly, said they’ll come for Americans on American soil if we speak poorly of their muslim invaders, their shitty leaders, or their insane transsexual, transvestites, from Transylvania, on social media.

Like all “KARENS” the UK government seeks totalitarian control over everything and everyone. They want a Utopia. There’s only one catch. 

Utopia requires a mechanistic homogeneity of thought, and pesky humanity is renown for individuals that refuse to comply.

Which leaves totalitarian Utopias only one viable option. Their elites must be content to rule over a graveyard.

I personally think there can be no Utopia without it being a totalitarian state. But I’m nobody of interest.

I’m hoping that since this has been exposed and is appearing in news reports in main stream media that the idiot “KARENS” in the UK will back down. They probably will, for at least 9 months to a year.

When they think the average Joe isn’t paying attention they’ll issue another slimy “technical capability notice” and this time, they’ll make sure they gag anyone who might blow the whistle.

The UK is trying out the George Orwell path right now. They’ll move on to the mass graves anytime, and then finally will have the Utopia they’ve always wanted.

We’ll have to see what Apple does. I think perhaps it’s time to reconsider using any cloud storage media for anything.

Why make it easy for some bored fucker with nothing better to do, issue you tickets or screw your social credit score because you, at one time, 20 years ago said the “N” word, or called a bunch of Iraqis “Sand N****rs”.

I admit I think it would be interesting for the Metropolitan Police of London to show up at someone’s door here in the US to attempt to arrest them for a mean tweet.

I’m honestly not sure if that would result in body bags draped with the British flag, or that we’d find our law enforcement folks are willing to violate the US Constitution, specifically the First Amendment.

Given some of the videos of the Metropolitan Police asking nicely to enter someone’s home to arrest them of a violation of their morality and speech codes, and the potential arrestee hanging out the window saying “No! Bugger off, you gits!”

I think the Metropolitan Police would be quite shocked at the way Americans handle such things. 

British people are way more polite than we are.

Might be worth having some popcorn ready for that show.