90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, August 26, 2022

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1822

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Visage à trois #430

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #611

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She’s ‘Not Backing Down’ After Being Swatted By Trans Extremist

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was “swatted” at her home in Rome, Georgia at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, after a pro-trans extremist made a false 911 call to the police. Five officers were reportedly dispatched to Greene’s house in response to an alarming false report. In an interview later Monday, Green said she had immediately grabbed her gun upon hearing a ruckus outside her front door, but she thankfully put it down before she answered.

The term “swatting” refers to the illegal practice of calling the police to make a false report about dangerous and illegal activity in an attempt to get law enforcement to raid the home of an innocent person.

Greene took to Twitter later Wednesday to thank law enforcement for handling the situation professionally.

“Last night, I was swatted just after 1 a.m.,” Greene wrote Wednesday morning. “I can’t express enough gratitude to my local law enforcement here in Rome, Floyd County.”

The swatter reportedly made a voice-masked call later on to the police department, stating that he was upset about Greene’s stance on “transgender youth rights.”

Authorities say they are investigating the 911 call.

High profile conservatives have long been targets of the dangerous practice, including former Trump advisor Steve Bannon just a few weeks ago, youtuber Tim Pool, and Human Events reporter Jack Posobiec.

Greene elaborated further on what happened on the Charlie Kirk Show, telling Posobiec, who was hosting the show, that “it was a scary situation,” and something she “never expected.”

“This is basically political terrorism,” Greene said, noting that Posobiec knows what it feels like because he has been swatted as well.

“I just want to say this. There’s no way I’m backing down,” she added, in reference to legislation she recently introduced that riled up the trans community.

MTG explained that her “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” would make it “a felony to perform any kind of so-called gender affirming care, which is really genital mutilation, hormone therapies, and puberty blockers,” calling such procedures “absolute child abuse.”

She pointed out that the swatting came just one week after she introduced the legislation, which she says has garnered “massive support” among Republican lawmakers.

“Everyone knows what a dangerous threat this is to our children,” MTG said. “If this is the war the left wants to bring, then they can...

1 in 111 taxpayers might be audited due to Inflation Increase Act.

"I direct that any additional resources… shall not be used to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Treasury Secretary Yellen wrote to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

That directive has been used by media "fact checkers" to deny that the massive increase in IRS personnel under Biden’s Inflation Increase Act will also increase audits of the middle class.

Yellen’s statement initially seems reassuring until you look closely at its curious language.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Julia Krieger used the same phrasing when claiming that "audit rates relative to historical norms for people earning under $400,000 each year" would not increase.

“Historical” is an interesting term. Media fact checkers act as if it means current rates. But if it means current rates, Yellen and the Treasury spokeswoman could have just said so. The specific use of “historical norms” by both women is not an accident: it’s policy.

What’s the difference between “current rates” and “historical levels”?

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted that from 2010 to 2019, audit rates dropped from "0.9 percent to 0.25 percent" due to "reduced staffing as a result of decreased funding". Audit rates for taxpayers earning from $25,000 to $500,000 were even lower at 0.17%.

Would “historical norms” cover 2010? It’s hard to believe that they would not. Even the most generous interpretation of Yellen’s language is that IRS audit rates would significantly increase.

At 0.25 percent, 1 in 400 taxpayers might be audited while at 0.9 percent, that number would climb catastrophically to 1 in 111. That’s still a range, but it’s a markedly smaller one.

And Americans will be four times more likely to be audited after the Biden-Manchin bill.

Taxpayers earning between $75,000 and $100,000 had their audit rates drop 30%. Those making from $200,000 to $500,000 had theirs fall 72%.

A 72% increase in middle class audits would then be well within “historical norms”.

And that’s just the beginning:

Visage à trois #429

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #610

DOJ Finalizes Rule Classifying Gun Parts as Firearms Requiring Background Checks

The Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a rule Wednesday that classifies parts in a gun parts kit as firearms that require a background check to purchase, like the one required for “traditional firearms.”

Breitbart News reported the then-proposed rule on April 11, 2022, noting that the new classification of gun parts was designed to be part of an effort to ban firearms that Democrats describe as “ghost guns.”

Democrats use the phrase “ghost guns” to describe firearms Americans can build themselves. The firearms are often built from an 80 percent receiver in the case of a rifle, or 80 percent frame, in the case of a pistol. Building such guns has long been an American hobby. The rule, as proposed by the DOJ, refers to the 80 percent parts kits as “buy, build, shoot” kits and they label the kits themselves as “firearms.”

On August 24, 2022, the DOJ announced its rule is now final and in effect.

The text of the Final Rule 2021R-05F makes clear that a “partially complete frame or receiver” is now covered under the definition of “frames” or “receivers.”

Other aspects of the rule, summarized by the ATF’s announcement of finalization, include the following:
To help keep guns from being sold to convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers, the rule makes clear that retailers must run background checks before selling kits that contain the parts necessary for someone to readily make a gun.
To help law enforcement trace guns used in a crime, the rule modernizes the definition of frame or receiver, clarifying which part of a weapon must be marked with a serial number – including in easy-to-build firearm kits.

To help reduce the number of unmarked and hard-to-trace “ghost guns,” the rule establishes requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers and gunsmiths to have a serial number added to 3D printed guns or other un-serialized firearms they take into inventory.

A fourth summary says the rule also mandates that Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs) must “retain records for the length of...