Whew! Democrats still big mad & I’m still working through tax stuff.

Since I’m still working through tax stuff I have very little pity for the pissed off Democrats.

Their little stunt Tuesday night may have backfired horribly.

Even CNN & NBC reporters weren’t particularly kind. But more interesting is some of the “Man on the Street” interviews have folks claiming they’re Democrats and vowing never to vote Democrat again.

I take that with a grain of salt because people on the street can claim to be anything they wish. Nonetheless it’s interesting to think about the ramifications.

Did the leadership of the Democratic Party just put a large, or perhaps, final nail in the party’s coffin? Time will tell.

They did a fine job of alienating a lot of folks with their refusal to acknowledge even good things that universally everyone should have been able to get behind.

President Trump said it flat out, when he pointed at them saying something like; There is nothing I could do or say that would make these people smile or be happy. That’s sad…

Indeed it is sad because these are the people who for the past four years were talking about unity, democracy, and truth.

What they meant of course was compliance and acceptance of their “Divine Rule”. Then they negated democracy by installing Kamala after the people had already chosen Biden for a second term, then we find out they lied for years about Biden’s decline.

I find myself asking, what did they expect when all those chickens came home to roost? Did they think the American people would simply ignore, or forget these issues? 

President Trump could have pounded them a lot harder than he did. I laughed at some of the swipes he took because they were funny. I think his approach of stating the simple truth was far more effective.

My favorite was his comment about the border. “Biden said we needed new laws to address the border, turns out all we needed was a new President.” That one cracked me up!

My personal takeaway of the subtext President Trump delivered was, “I can’t please you no matter what, so I’m not even going to try.”

Which means he’s going to move on without bothering to consult the Democrats. They’ve become irrelevant and are nothing more than a nuisance when it comes to confirmation hearings or passing bills into law.

Honestly, that worries me. There should be a healthy balance between the two parties and they should be able to discuss subjects from two different perspectives. 

That the Democrats have beclowned themselves as they have, may not be a good thing in the long run. In the short term some good might come of it.

Good, as in term limits for Congress, laws against congressional stock trading, and much closer oversight into campaign financing.

I’d like to see some oversight into just how it’s possible so many congressmen get into congress with net worths of a few hundred thousand dollars and come out of congress with millions in 2 or 6 years. Congressional salaries are high but not that high.

I’m not saying there is any wrongdoing, but you have to admit, it looks odd.

Maxine Waters was on X claiming that Donald Trump and Elon Musk stole the election by manipulating the voting count. She claims that somehow Musk and his “Hackers” put Trump in office. That really cracked me up because when Biden was elected she was all in stating anyone who disputed the election results was deluded and a conspiracy nut. 

Ilhan Omar and the rest of “The Squad” may have screwed the pooch too, with what I and many Americans perceive as, at best divided loyalties, and at worst loyalties to other countries.

A bill has been introduced to impose similar birthplace requirements the President must meet, on Congress.

This is something I’m sure that a lot of Americans will see as a good thing. I’m not so sure. While I hate that Omar is always badmouthing America, and may have cheated the immigration system. I’m not sure that excluding naturalized citizens from congress is a good thing. I don’t think it’s fair to punish everyone over someone like Omar.

On the plus side, doing so now may stave off what we’ve seen happening in Europe where large numbers of people of specific religious or national origins are welcomed, then move into politics enshrining their customs or beliefs into law and punishing those who disagree, or even ask questions. 

See England for examples.

The down side is that welcomed, legal, immigrant groups may end up waiting a generation before they’re fully represented in Congress. At this point, that may be a non-issue, I’m not sure.

I saw one talking head suggesting this is xenophobic. I think that’s a bullshit argument. It’s not xenophobia, I think it’s more a kind of protectionism.

As an aside, If you want to talk about xenophobia let’s look at the members of Congress saying that Elon Musk should go back to South Africa even though he’s been a naturalized citizen for over 20 years.

Ideally, I think you want people in Congress to have deep ties to the country and their constituents. I’m not sure how to best meet these needs and exclude people like Omar, Talib, & AOC, who clearly seem to hate our nation, our people, and our history.

There’s another idea I’ve seen floated on social media suggesting that Congressional candidates should have to take, and pass, the same exam regarding The Constitution and rights that naturalized citizens take as part of their citizenship application, before their candidacy is valid.

That might be a good idea. Maybe adding cognitive testing should be part of the candidacy process for Congress and the Presidency as well.

It’s really interesting to note that 29 Congresspersons were born outside the United States. Of those, 25 are Democrats. That seems to be a rather skewed percentage.

There is a part of me that thinks Voter ID and paper ballots might change the balance. Incidentally, I believe that a national law requiring ID and paper ballots should be a top priority of the Trump administration and Congress.

That would go a long way toward putting an end to allegations of voter fraud. It would probably limit any voter fraud to an acceptable percentage of .001 percent. It would sure make me more willing to accept election results.

I’d like to see us go back to voting on one day. It might be a good thing to make Election Day a national holiday as some have suggested.

I’d even like to see mail-in ballots limited, and certainly not automatically sent as they are in California and some other states.

I think we should have to request a mail in ballot prior to each election. In other words, the citizens would have to be responsible enough to plan ahead.

Really, don’t we want engaged voters? You know, voters who actually pay attention and exercise their right to vote with purpose, instead of getting the mail and guessing about candidates in the voting booth?

The primary opposition to these sorts of things are always Democrats. They make excuses like not everyone has ID, or poor folks can’t afford ID, or deployed military folks would be excluded from voting. 

All of which could be easily addressed. Give everyone free basic state ID that has citizenship clearly marked, as the Real-ID act calls for. Make exceptions for deployed military members, although I’d bet you could have voting in person and tabulation at every single military base. I’d go so far as to believe the military results could be certified and reported by midnight.

Congress001_original 1.I’m very in favor of simple common sense changes being made that should make things better for everyone.

This is all stuff that’s been running through my mind while I’ve been searching for various documents with numbers on them to plug into various tax forms.

I’d probably be a lot less pissed off filing my taxes, if I had faith that our government wasn’t a hot mess of compromised officials.

Oh well, back to the document search.

Have a good 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.

Ya know… As disruptive as it is, I think DOGE is a good thing.

I know there are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this.

DOGE is doing exactly what has been needed in our Government for a very long time. I might go so far as to say DOGE is akin to Ivermectin in that it’s killing off parasites.

Then there’s Tulsi Gabbard who summarily fired a bunch of “Intelligence” workers who spent their days using secure servers to hold discussions of a sexual nature.

Pete Hegseth and Trump are cleaning house in The Pentagon and Kash Patel & Dan Bongino are working the FBI.

I’m looking forward to Pam Bondi restructuring the DOJ such that we never see the abuses of past years again.

I’ve been very amused at the Democrats complaining that Bongino isn’t qualified. Folks, he was Secret Service and apparently qualified enough to guard Hillary Clinton. He’s got the degrees, and law enforcement background. So Democrats once again are outright lying, because they don’t like him.

I swear to God, if the Democrats just started telling the freakin truth it would go a long way toward saving their party.

Alas, they’re so used to blatantly lying and getting away with it, that now they can’t stop themselves, indeed, they may not even know they’ve crossed the line between truth and fiction.

All of this popped to mind as I was reading the latest out of Washington.

Adam schiff donald trump.As the government workers scream about being asked to spend 5 minutes writing a bullet list of their activities for the week, and national intelligence resources being used to host sex chats during work hours. Government workers are mad about actually having to show up at their place of business (government offices) and the IRS fires workers then (in my opinion) targets the taxpayers by closing 120 offices that typically provide assistance to said taxpayers in filing taxes, and USAID is closed freeing government workers who should have been raising questions about some of the expenditures to seek employment elsewhere…

As I processed all of this, I couldn’t help but think that government jobs are freakin cushy. After the dust settles I’ll be applying for one of those jobs!

Probably not…

These government jobs appear to be playpens. I say that as someone who while working in technology saw a lot of software development playpens usually populated by mostly Indian workers and very young fresh out of college horribly inexperienced programmers.

Bean bags, video games, expensive coffee and energy drinks, top of the line laptops (when desktop machines 1/2 the price would have done just as well). Entire sections of departments were walled off and “No Go Zones” where the “Developers” spent most of their time chatting in Hindi, playing games, or sleeping. I suspect most of these people were H1B1s but I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is that there wasn’t a lot of work getting done. I also know that schedules kept slipping, products kept being delayed, and the quality of what work was being done was generally low.

Given the similarities, Musk & his techies are the perfect people to walk into these government agencies because they’ll take one look and know exactly what the hell is going on.

Even though Mush is a fan of H1B1s, I suspect that when he cleaned out X he saw a fair share of these “Safe Spaces” where screwing around on the company dime had become acceptable.

Someone like him, (God I’d love to help him tear through these government departments,) probably has to head to accounting. I’d love to walk in with him, then peal off to go into the technology wing and IT departments. Believe me, I know where to look for a bunch of lazy useless salaried and expensive individuals, frittering away money on equipment and technologies that are unnecessary to day to day operations but lots of fun to play with.

As an aside, the best day at one place I worked, was the day a new owner walked in, went directly to the developers playpen and fired everyone screwing around in there instantly. “You’re all fired! Go to HR they’ve got your packages waiting for you.”

This new owner had fired our HR department and replaced it with his own the week before. That’s why no-one saw it coming. The H1B1s all freaked out. Some crying, others angrily demanding their jobs be given back to them.

Their cries and complaints fell on deaf ears. The next thing he asked was if the contents of the playpen were personal property or had the company purchased it? When he got no answer, security, and hired movers, stepped in and started carrying the shit to the dumpster.

One of the developers threw his $3000 dollar Apple laptop across the room. The new owner pointed at the guy. Security escorted him and his broken laptop in the direction of HR. The new owner said quite plainly, the cost of that machine would be deducted from the former employee’s pay.

I remember thinking it was a great day even if I was about to lose my job too.

The arrogance and insufferable behavior the developers has shown to those of us tasked with testing their dreck software made it worth it.

Interestingly, we didn’t lose our jobs that day. The new owner asked for our honest evaluation of the state of the software and how far the project really was behind. We told him.

He cancelled the project and merged us into one of his other companies. Our original company disappeared completely.

It turns out this man bought our company for some patents and source code to previous successful products. Products that had been built, prior to the developer playpen being installed.

Because of this experience I see all the screaming, pearl clutching, and clothes rending as nothing more than what I saw at that company that day.

The layabouts have been caught. Unfortunately there are good people, good workers that are also being hurt in the process.

Alexandria ocasio cortez aoc tax rich afp 4268547959.There’s another thing to consider too.

Having USAID, or IRS, or FBI, or CIA on a resume with an end of employment date in 2025 means these people, all of them, might be really screwed.

They’re radioactive and no-one will be able to tell if they’re good employees or bad ones. So potential employers may bypass them entirely. Why hire trouble? Most corporations are generally risk averse.

The lesson that I think everyone should learn from this is as follows;

Crockett outburst 1.The good employees either didn’t, or couldn’t say person X, Y, or Z wasn’t doing their fair share of the work.

Perhaps it was because of fear of retribution, or DEI, or just not wanting to engage in political infighting because the risk was too high.

(I’ve been there, I know those hard choices. “Do I rock the boat and turn this shitty job into hell on earth, or keep my mouth shut, collect my paycheck and pray upper management fixes the problem?” After all it’s their job anyway.)

Thing is, not saying something, not reporting it, does a disservice to the company, the department, and ultimately leads to corporate bloat decreasing the employees share of any bonuses.

There’s nothing worse than doing a shit ton of work, then having to suck it up when the laziest most worthless of your coworkers starts bragging about using their bonus, (that they “earned” simply by occupying space,) to book a vacation, when you know your boss won’t give you time off.

So the lesson everyone should learn, from government workers on down to mini mart employees is to speak up. If someone consistently isn’t doing their job, they shouldn’t have their job.

Hopefully with the rebirth of meritocracy, it won’t matter what race, gender, or national origin someone is. The only criteria will be, as it always should have been, is the person doing their work?

I think our government agencies are all learning that very lesson right now. It’s a hard lesson, there’s going to be a lot of broken eggs but it’s unavoidable because the situation has been allowed to get so bad.

I think that much of the problem can be laid at the feet of DEI, but seniority and tenure have as much to do with it as anything else.

Once meritocracy is removed there’s not much incentive.

When I started working in the late 1970s I worked my ass off because my boss had the ability to reward me with a check, which just made me work harder and yes, inspired competition between me and my colleagues. That in turn made our company successful and in the success we all got good raises!

By the late 1990s bosses couldn’t do that anymore, because it was perceived as unfair.

From then on we got yearly reviews and 2%-3% raises regardless of how hard we worked. So what was the point?

Not all of us were going to be able to move into management. Indeed not all of us wanted to move into management. Some of us liked being in the trenches and what we did without the headache of being a manager.

Unfortunately, that meant that if you wanted a decent raise to buy a house or have a child, you had no choice but to change jobs. In my opinion, the death of meritocracy and rise of employment racial quotas screwed America and American business.

We also had the overarching threat of layoffs, corporate mergers, and companies going bust. So even if we didn’t have merit raises, we still had to be at least a bit leaner, flexible, and aggressive to keep our employment somewhat stable.

The government workers in the news right now seem to have never experienced what we in corporate America took for granted.

For them, it appears that sitting in their cubicles, doing little work, not rocking the boat, and hanging around for years, was enough to get pretty high pay, excellent benefits, and decent raises and never fear being laid off, or losing their jobs for any reason.

I guess the real world intruding in their safe spaces is shocking and unsettling.

Our politicians screaming about unfair treatment of government workers have obviously got to be voted out of office too.

Their unrealistic beliefs and lack of oversight will simply insure that after this mess is cleaned up, they’ll allow the same mistakes to be made all over again.

He’s been right about a lot, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right about this.

President Trump.Trump said he’s going to be weeding out illegal immigrants from the Social Security system.

Since then, X has been alive with people telling us very seriously that Illegals can’t get Social Security benefits. Then acting like Trump is dumb or crazy or whatever.

Hmmm. Really? So if one of these folks is using a stolen SSN to work, you think that somehow they’re not going to use that SSN to do other things? Apply for credit cards perhaps? Mortgage loans? Bank Accounts?

Really? Nobody is that naive.

The other half had his identity stolen on a couple of occasions. Once, it was just a couple of debit card numbers, but the other time it was his whole credit history. He wasn’t aware there was a problem until he tried to get a loan for an instrument, then he found out that there was someone else running around using his social security number.

How ever did this bad person get the other half’s SSN? Oh that was due either to a medical insurance company breach, or a doctor’s office closing. We later found out that all the medical records had simply been dumped in the dumpster out behind the office.

It didn’t matter. It cost us a lot of time and money to get everything sorted out. 

If someone has your SSN, name, and date of birth, they could possibly start collecting on Social Security too.

That’s called stealing you know. Not that any of the liberals care about little things like stealing, or crime in general.

Unless it disturbs them.

When drugs come to the rentals in their neighborhoods, or an HOA socialite is mugged for her earrings in a common area.

Then liberals who previously wanted to defund the fascist police, while being kind to the poor immigrants seeking a better life, will hire a mercenary goon squad to patrol and harass everyone walking through a neighborhood.

We know that a lot of those liberals manage to look the other way, & pay under the table dirt cheap wages to illegals too. Liberals don’t seem to understand that paying someone 10 cents an hour is essentially slavery. Say that out loud to a liberal and they’ll lose their shit.

I’ve long been annoyed that everything is tied to a SSN. Credit applications, Tax filing, Mortgages, Car Loans, Medical records, Insurance, and God knows what else. 

It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

Back at the dawn of time when I got my SS card, the accompanying paperwork said specifically that this number wasn’t to be used as ID.

Yet that’s exactly what it’s been used for. Lots of people forget that SSN is an account number, to your forced contributions to a retirement savings account, that doesn’t pay a particularly good interest rate.

At this point we might as well use the number as our phone number, drivers license, and car plate number. Everyone knows our account numbers.

I’d bet we’ve all received at least 10 notices of security breaches where our name, address, SSN, and phone number has been dumped out on the internet for sale.

I’ve been informed that my personal data was leaked by the Office of Personnel Management of the United States government. You know what they said? Too bad, so sad, perhaps you should invest in a credit counseling service.

At least corporations provided credit monitoring services for a few years!

Given all of this.

Is it that far a stretch to entertain that some number of illegal immigrants might be getting social security payments they’re not entitled to?

Illegal Immigrants, as Tom Homan said, are all criminals. He’s right, and I fell out of my chair when he said it directly to someone questioning him about deportations.

Until I heard him say it, I thought I was some kind of idiot that just didn’t understand the issue.

The moment a person crosses our border without permission, or overstays their Visa, they are, by definition, a criminal because they committed a criminal act. If they’re willing to start out committing a crime, what’s to stop them from stealing someone’s identity?

Liberals would justify even that, as okay (as long as it wasn’t their identity,) because the poor illegal is just trying to work and feed their family and they needed a SSN to work. Or retire.

Here’s something few people ever find out.

If you claim unemployment benefits, or assistance for medical costs, or disability payments, all of which are tired to your SSN. The state sends you a 1099 form. 

YES! Boys and Girls, you have to pay Federal taxes on that “Income” If you’re in a state with income tax, you get to pay them too.

So some illegal running around with your SSN can do a whole lot of damage, before they even begin to fuck you out of your tiny assed social security check.

All of this is to say, it’s very possible that some 87 year old grannie, or someone who’s contacting the Social Security office on Monday morning ready to retire, may find out they’ve got nothing because someone else got there before they did.

Trump saying that he’s ordering it to be looked into is a good thing. Even if they find nothing, at least the American People can have faith in the Social Security Administration. 

If an audit does find fraud, then booting the fraudsters out of the system means people who deserve the funds will likely get them, and perhaps Social Security will last a bit longer.

I question the Democrats screaming about Doge looking into Social Security.

We know over the years, both the Democrats and Republicans have raided SS funds. We the People assume that the money has been paid back. What if it hasn’t? Worse yet, would be finding that money is still being siphoned off for stupid projects like those at USAID.

I’ll tell you what. If all the retirees eating tuna, cutting their medications in half, and paying taxes on their SS income were to find out they’d been spending a billion a year for something like “Condoms for Convents”, or half a billion on “Feed a Jihadi for Jesus”…

The old folks (myself included) would tear down the Capitol and smash every stone to dust with their walkers & canes.

I envision exchanges like this between the Capitol police and the old folks;

“Yeah sonny, that’s a pretty badge, so what? I’m on my last legs here, I’ll be dead in 6 months from cancer. I can’t feel anything on my left side… This here is a kamikaze run for me! Tear gas? That’s all ya got? I’ve been smoking Lucky’s for 65 years! I could huff that canister & chase it with straight bourbon! So bring it, ya pussy!”

(Thanks to Grok for generating the image.)