Scaring the PTB

Nothing scares a dictator more than losing control over the military, but that is exactly what is happening. Biden can no longer guarantee that his military will obey orders to nuke gun owners, and that scares the crap out of them.

Expect more big events in the near future as the wheels come off. A nuclear armed military broken into factions is not good news for anyone.

Politics, not science

Much has been made of Governor Ron Desantis’ executive order banning schools from mandating masks. School districts sued and won the ability to override parent choice by requiring all children to wear masks.

School boards cite the CDC’s recommendation that all students in school wear masks as their reason for doing so.

It isn’t science that is at play here, though. The CDC caved to pressure from teachers’ unions when they wrote that recommendation.

Quote of the day

Goes to John at Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise.

The (metaphorical) printing presses have been shoveling money into the economy under the mistaken assumption that all we need is additional debt to keep the engine going. It’s like a demented congressman who doesn’t understand engines deciding to open up the hood of an F-150® to just pour gasoline on it using the dim understanding of a toddler that, “gasoline makes engines go, so if I pour enough gasoline on the engine, it will be as fast as a spaceship.”

The US is falling apart. We are looking at a complete economic collapse. Right after the dollar goes, the government will follow. Go, read the whole thing.

There you go again

The Democrats are proposing a new tax (what else is new?) and are lying about who will pay it. (again) They are claiming that billionaires are using this magic method to avoid paying capital gains taxes. What is the magic method?

They don’t pay capital gains tax until they actually have capital gains to tax.

When you buy an asset and sell it for more than you paid, the difference is called a capital gain. There are two types of capital gains: long term, and short term. A short term capital gain is one where the asset was held for less than a year. Short term gains are taxed the same as income. A long term capital gain is for an asset held longer than a year, and is taxed at a lower rate than is ordinary income.

As anyone who has ever bought and sold anything should know, the value of anything you own will fluctuate with the market. If I own a classic car, say a 1965 Mustang, it could have a “value” that changes from year to year. That value is purely theoretical until I actually sell it. If I look up my car and see the profit I could make on that car, that profit is called an unrealized gain, and it only exists on paper. Once I sell and actually make money on the car, it becomes a realized gain.

What the Democrats want to do, is tax people on the unrealized gains that they have on assets that they own. They claim that people who own assets that have increased in value, but haven’t paid capital gains taxes on, is some kind tax dodge. They are ignoring the fact that an asset may be worth less one year than it was the year before. They are also trying to claim that only billionaires do this.

“No nurse or firefighter or teacher in America can play those games,” said Wyden. “They pay their taxes with every paycheck and are rightfully outraged when they read about the wealthiest few paying so little while they are working hard to make ends meet.”

This is the big lie. My wife bought the house we live in twelve years ago. The purchase price was about half what Zillow says it is worth now. If we were to sell it, the profit would be a capital gain. The democrat proposal would have us pay taxes on that “profit” every year- even if we didn’t sell. The fact that we don’t do that now isn’t some dodge that only billionaires use- every homeowner in America is going to get hit by this proposed tax.

But it’s their culture

Young Afghan girls have been forced into marriages in order to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases where young girls were presented as ‘married’ to much older Afghan men, as well as polygamous families. Afghan girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi have alleged they have been raped by older men they were forced to marry in order to escape Afghanistan.

A tempest in a teapot

Remember the guy who yelled at an MSNBC reporter? He was arrested by a US Marshals task force in Ohio. They congratulate themselves on arresting a “violent fugitive.” Calling him violent is a stretch. All he did was yell at the reporter. There is no evidence that he ever touched the reporter.

Even so, all of the charges against him are misdemeanors. He wasn’t even a fugitive unless they can prove that he was aware of the charges and was fleeing the state to avoid them. I can’t believe that these charges merited an entire Federal task force to catch him. From the US Marshals’ own webpage:

 The purpose of regional fugitive task forces is to combine the efforts of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to locate and apprehend the most dangerous fugitives and assist in high profile investigations.

This is ridiculous. So the US Marshals are saying that this guy is one of the most dangerous fugitives in America? Of course not.

Anyone on the right who challenges the left is going to be placed in the gulag. Maybe the cops SHOULD be defunded.