Government On The Take

[indago]

From Channel 7 News — Detroit 25 September 2013:
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Tarik Dehko says he is proud to have managed the family business for 35 years, but it got tough 8 months ago when IRS agents walked in the store. “They told me, ‘We took money from your account.’ I said, ‘How you going to just take money from my account?” said Dehko. They emptied the businesses bank account, taking more than $36,000. ...He now has teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight to get his cash back. It helped him file suit today against the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. ...“We are in a Democratic Country,” said Dehkho. “If we did something wrong, show me what I did.”
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article

[indago]

IRS Agents: "WE TOOK MONEY"

[O Really]

Here's more detail from his lawyers, addressing "civil forfeiture." http://ij.org/michigan-civil-forfeiture-background

Here's ACLU's take on it.. https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-refor ... forfeiture

Here's the FBI's take on it... http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate ... forfeiture

[O Really]

Super cool avatar, btw, indago.

[Mr.B]

"It doesn't sound like it's the case here but the most frequent application of civil forfeiture law has been in pursuit of the con failed drug war, hence all the PDs with really nice unmarked cars."

The drug war couldn't be that much of a failure....after all, the counties aren't having to pay for those "really nice unmarked cars".
(Yeah, blame it all on the conservatives......must be because the libs can't think out ideas on their own!)

[Mr.B]

"You don't know that the drug war is largely con policy?"

Sure it is.....that's why those for drugs are called liberal, and those against drugs are called conservative.

[bannination]

"You don't know that the drug war is largely con policy?"

Sure it is.....that's why those for drugs are called liberal, and those against drugs are called conservative.

Seems like that's a pretty open definition. I'm considered liberal, but I'm not "for drugs" I'm for not locking up people and wasting millions of dollars because they smoked pot. To me, legalizing it get's rid of the underground market, and the violence that comes along with it. --> See prohibition.

Seems safer and cheaper all the way around. Yet that's "liberal". :-0?>

[Boatrocker]

"You don't know that the drug war is largely con policy?"

Sure it is.....that's why those for drugs are called liberal, and those against drugs are called conservative.

Seems like that's a pretty open definition. I'm considered liberal, but I'm not "for drugs" I'm for not locking up people and wasting millions of dollars because they smoked pot. To me, legalizing it get's rid of the underground market, and the violence that comes along with it. --> See prohibition.

Seems safer and cheaper all the way around. Yet that's "liberal". :-0?>

The Volstead Act didn't create the Mafia, but it took a mom and pop extortion/protection racket and turned it into a multi-million dollar enterprise, organized along corporate lines, and ramped up local, state & federal corruption in the process. And it spawned local, state and federal law enforcement industries that persist today, not to mention their ever-expanding budgets.
Drugs may not be legalized anytime soon; too much taxpayer money greasing that "enforcement" machinery.

THE WAR ON DRUGS ain't about the drugs or the lives or the public health, or any other altruistic nonsense. It's about the money. Think of it as another sort of entitlement program. Cop welfare. Another big fuckin rathole for your money to drain down.

A similar case can be made for THE WAR ON TERROR.

[indago]

Congressman George Hansen, in a speech in the Congress, printed in the Congressional Record, 21 February 1979, noted: "The IRS long ago seems to have lost its sense of mission as a tax-collection agency and with all the grace of the hobnailed gestapo has embarked on a course of implementing and enforcing social reform with the view that Americans are basically dishonest, uncharitable, bigoted, criminal-minded and even violent to deal with. ...For years we have become progressively inured to the routine contempt the IRS has chronically demonstrated for accepted civilized standards of fairness, something which has its roots in the regrettable presumption that in tax matters the citizen is guilty until proven innocent, an innocence that has to be proven at the expense of the taxpayer, no matter how groundless or frivolous the charges. ...All totalitarian governments have at least one agency which, in the name of protecting the regime, claims the right of total control of the citizens. We can do without an American Gestapo or KGB."


"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." — Declaration of Independence

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance." — Declaration of Independence

[rstrong]

I meant to ask how taxation with representation was working out....

[indago]

Vrede wrote:

Interestingly, Congressman George Hansen lost his 1968 Senate bid to Democrat Frank Church, famous for the Church Committee investigation into and exposure of repressive government spying on the American people by the Nixon/Ford administrations. One has to wonder whether Republican Hansen would have been as tenacious and patriotic.

Congressman George Hansen said, in 1985: "It's time to push back". He was referring to PushBack against government extremists; those who believe that government has no restrictions, and can — and do — just about anything they want to.

The time for PushBack has long since passed, and those who are engaged in PushBack are few and far between.



"Shame on those who lie in bed planning evil and wicked deeds and rise at daybreak to do them, knowing that they have the power! They covet land and take it by force; if they want a house they seize it; they rob a man of his home and steal every man's inheritance." — Micah 2 v 1 The Bible

[Cannonpointer]

From Channel 7 News — Detroit 25 September 2013:
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Tarik Dehko says he is proud to have managed the family business for 35 years, but it got tough 8 months ago when IRS agents walked in the store. “They told me, ‘We took money from your account.’ I said, ‘How you going to just take money from my account?” said Dehko. They emptied the businesses bank account, taking more than $36,000. ...He now has teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight to get his cash back. It helped him file suit today against the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. ...“We are in a Democratic Country,” said Dehkho. “If we did something wrong, show me what I did.”
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article

There are two common reasons for the mafia to behave this way.

One is to punish that family for angering someone important, and the other (most common) reason is to scare other family grocers in the area in order to increase revenues. Odds are, that's an area will an unusual amount of family grocers, and odd are, this target was selected for no other reason that being prominent, an therefore an apt target for the mafia to make its point.

[Cannonpointer]

"And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." -- Micah 4:3

"One would have to look long and without success, I think, to find in the writings of Tolstoy, or even in the literature of modern socialism, anything approaching in passionate bitterness the words used by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah to condemn the oppressors of the poor..." -- Robert Hunter

I'm all for pushing back against hawks and the rich. How are you doing that, indago? We might have common cause.

I know Indago from otherwhere. He is pretty neutral. He doesn't hate white people. Well, he DOES, but he hates everybody.

[Cannonpointer]

"You don't know that the drug war is largely con policy?"

This is where you name some democrats at the federal level that have stood for legalization.

Last I checked, it was the ron paul, rand paul arch-conservatives that were standing hardest, most vocally, and most numerously against the failed drug war.

I WISH that I was not almost alone among liberals in the matter. I WISH that people like you would use drug legalization as a litmus in voting, the way you do abortion.

It seems "my body, my choice" only REALLY matters if there's a fetal existence on the line. As far as my choice how to use MY own body as a male, you'll pay lip service, but you won't hold feet to the fire like you will on abortion.

I will wager that you would never, ever vote for an anti-abortion candidate. But you WILL vote for an anti-drug, pro- drug war candidate. Ad then you will fib that the drug war is a conservative cash cow, when the democrats are neck deep in the drug war.

[Cannonpointer]

...He doesn't hate white people...

You've created this whole movie in your head about me. It must be very entertaining for you, it sure is for me.

We have exchanged quite a number of posts. You have revealed much. Your pretense that my accurate characterizations of you as a racist, progressive little prig are "movies in my head" is what I call, "whistling in the dark."

I got you pegged. But I don't know what to do with these tossed salads and scrambled eggs.

[Roland Deschain]

"Liberal" is the new "fiscally conservative".

What a frigging joke! Only a liberal numb nut could think that spending more than you take in, and borrowing to pay debt is "fiscally conservative"

[Boatrocker]

Only a fucking idiot still believes any of that crap applies to rethugliklans, who will march off the debt cliff blindfolded to buy bullets and bombs and bodybags.

[bannination]

Only a fucking idiot still believes any of that crap applies to rethugliklans, who will march off the debt cliff blindfolded to buy bullets and bombs and bodybags.

Or shut the government down.... costing us... MORE money.

[rstrong]

"Liberal" is the new "fiscally conservative".

What a frigging joke! Only a liberal numb nut could think that spending more than you take in, and borrowing to pay debt is "fiscally conservative"

No, Vrede is entirely correct.

Reagan, Bush I and Bush II all spent like drunken sailors. The only reason they're not known for TAXing, is that they passed the bill - and the interest on the bill - to the next generation. If you're under 40, that's YOU.

The most fiscally conservative President in recent decades was Bill Clinton. His Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, through the implementation of spending restraints, mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years. This was in a Democrat-controlled Congress - not a single Republican voted for it. He did it; he succeeded in bringing in the first balanced federal budget since 1969.

FactCheck.org: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

Needless to say the main fear tactic the Republicans had used against him was that he was a "tax and spend Liberal".

Even Obama is a fiscal conservative compared to Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. Republicons love to show a spending graph with the claim that Obama's 2009 deficit was "greater than all previous deficits combined." They ignore the fact that the 2009 budget was passed in 2008 under Bush. Yes, there were Democrats in Congress. But it came down to dueling Bush II and McCain bail-out plans.

CBC: The Barack Obama big spender myth

Obama's opponents are constantly inventing new apocalyptic metaphors. Mitt Romney, when he was running for president last year, settled on "Obama's debt and spending inferno."

And Americans seem overwhelmingly to believe them — by more than 80 per cent, according to some polling.
[...]
And the fact is that while government spending here did seem out of control just a few years ago, it is now declining, two years in a row in fact. So is the deficit, sharply.

Also, according to the Pulitzer-prize-winning fact checkers at PolitiFact, when compared to the spending of the nine presidents who preceded him, Obama's rate of spending in his first term in office ranks at or near the bottom of the list.

Whether in raw dollars or adjusted for inflation, both George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan increased spending at a much faster clip than the current president, who is so commonly described by his conservative opponents as a free-spending socialist.

Say what you want about "liberals." But if you showed a Republican in 1970 the economic policies of America's future Presidents, he'd peg Clinton and Obama as the Republicans. And Reagan, Bush I and Bush II as the "tax & spend liberals."

[Roland Deschain]

Only a fucking idiot still believes any of that crap applies to rethugliklans, who will march off the debt cliff blindfolded to buy bullets and bombs and bodybags.

Or shut the government down.... costing us... MORE money.

Too bad for you the republicans passed multiple bills to FUND the government and it was Harry Reid, obama, and the dims that actually caused the shutdown..and for what? To stop a delay in obamacare...oh wait...the delay was just granted BY OBAMA.