Afghan immigrant Muhammad Syed (left) is accused of murdering 4 Shi’a Muslim men in Albuquerque
by Gary Fouse
Though officially, investigators are still searching for a motive in yesterday’s attack on Salman Rushdie, it is all but obvious that Hadi Matar, who is reportedly a Shiite Muslim, was acting out of religious reasons (or perhaps just wanted to collect the $3 million bounty placed on Rushdie’s head over 30 years ago by the despicable Ayatollah Khomeini for his book, “The Satanic Verses”, which criticized Islam). This attack should serve as a reminder (apparently, some people still need reminders) about the nature of Political Islam. Apostasy and blasphemy of Islam are punishable by death.
That should tell you all you need to know.
Keep in mind we are still dealing with the fallout in the arrest this week of a Sunni Muslim man in New Mexico named Muhammad Syed, charged in the shooting deaths of two Shiite Muslims. He is also the principal suspect in the deaths of two other Shiite Muslim men. Prior to his arrest, everybody from President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the media were wringing their hands over what they thought was a case of Islamophobic hate crimes. Now that it appears to be Sunni vs Shiite hate, they don’t really know what to say. Hate? Sunni and Shiites have hated each other ever since the death of the Prophet Mohammad.
The Rushdie case should also serve as a reminder about the nature of the Iranian government given the reactions coming out of Iran. The American media has up to now only reported that the governmental statements out of Teheran only condemn Rushdie without commenting on the attempt on his life. International news media outlets seem to have more reactions coming out of Iran, however. Reports that tell of jubilation in Iranian media.
That should tell you all you need to know about Iran.
It should also remind President Biden that it isn’t such a great idea to try and re-start nuclear negotiations with that outlaw country. Whether or not the coming days implicate the Iranian government and the mad mullahs in the attack on Rushdie remains to be seen. The point is that this is not a country to be trusted. Instead of releasing funds to them and turning a blind eye to their nuclear development, we and our allies should be turning the screws on this outlaw regime, the largest state sponsors of terrorism in the world. They are reportedly close to having a nuclear weapon and have repeatedly promised to wipe Israel off the map. These are religious fanatics we are dealing with here. Unlike the former Soviet Union, the mad mullahs don’t care if they themselves are destroyed by nuclear weapons. It is all based on religion for them.
Unfortunately, our current leaders are not focused on curbing the Iranians. They are more focused on chasing down and destroying Donald Trump in the very name of national security. But that is a subject for a different essay.
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18 Responses
I can’t speak to the Biden administration’s priorities, but I’m pretty sure they don’t want to see a re-empowered Iran any more than you or I do.
As for Donald (The Demagogue) Trump, the Justice Department isn’t out to destroy anyone. They’re doing their job of enforcing the law, which involves investigating when it’s potentially been violated and holding people accountable if it has.
I did not specifically mention the DOJ (for whom I worked for 23 years), but here is my overall perspective on that issue. Having had some professional experience dealing with the FBI, my own perceptions are mixed.
https://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2022/08/is-reform-still-needed-in-fbi.html
While I still think the rank and file of the FBI are doing their job honestly, the top level of the FBI has, indeed, been trying to destroy Trump since 2016. That is also true of the Dems in Congress. As to the latest FBI raid this week, we will wait and see. If the FBI has truly found something serious in their search, fine. Trump will have to deal with it and face the music. If this turns out to be another Steele Dossier, Carter Page, Michael Flynn caper, then the FBI may never recover the public trust.
Your claim that the FBI “has been trying to destroy Trump” is a fantastical one. The FBI is an impartial government agency. The investigations you mentioned were not politically motivated (the Inspector General testified as much December 2019), also it isn’t like there are no question marks over the character of the individuals you mentioned.
The Steele dossier wasn’t the work of the FBI, and although they investigated its contents, it was not taken seriously in the Mueller Report (actually, I should remind you of its proper title, The Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, of which the Report did find evidence). Furthermore Christopher Wray, the current head of the FBI, is a Trump appointee and a Republican.
You should have more belief in your government and its institutions, and not abandon that belief when it’s inconvenient.
No, it is not a fantastical claim. The FBI is supposed to be an impartial agency, but today it is not. Had you read the link I sent you, you would have noted that I said that the rank and file agents are honest and trying to do a good job, but the problem is at the top.
You can’t tell me that Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and Lisa Page were not out to destroy Trump. Strzok talked of “an insurance policy” to ensure Trump didn’t become president. Their tactics of snaring Flynn were despicable. To date, there have never been any charges against Page.
You are correct that the Steele Dossier was not the work (creation) of the FBI. It was the creation of people hired by H Clinton and the DNC to find dirt on Trump. The FBI used it as the basis for their FISA warrant against Carter Page, 4 times. In the initial affidavit and for the 3 subsequent renewals. The Michael Horowitz IG Report concluded there would have been no FISA warrant against Page without the Steele Dossier.
As for the Mueller investigation, nobody should take that seriously, as his performance testifying should have demonstrated to all.
As for my belief in the government and its institutions, I worked for the government for 25 years (Treasury Dept and Justice Department). It’s not out of convenience if and when I lose belief in them. I was proud to have worked for both, but the DOJ and FBI have engaged in questionable political activities. Go back and read the link I sent you. I wrote it, and I think it was fair and reasonable. The FBI needs reform at the top. There are a lot of rank and file FBI agents who are appalled at what is happening. As for DOJ, I was appalled at the way Eric Holder ran that dept, especially with Op Fast and Furious. Merrick Garland does not inspire confidence.
Did you have a lot of faith in the IRS when the Lois Lerner revelations came out? And now the administration wants to hire 87,000 new IRS agents? Where are they going to put them all, in the Superdome?
And I am perfectly aware Wray was appointed by Trump. Not a good choice.
Although we don’t live in a perfect world, our government by and large operates impartially and according to laws and established procedures. None of your claims (some of which might have truth to them, some of which I feel are partisan exaggeration) cast doubt on that basic fact. On the contrary, some of the details of the cases you cite even prove it.
There is no way in hell the FBI would be giving Donald Trump the attention they are if there weren’t solid reasons. That’s the bottom line.
Trump Mar-a-Lago search warrant, property receipt show agents found trove of classified docs
A lawyer for former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a statement in June that said all classified material held in boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence had been returned to the government, the New York Times reported
https://i.postimg.cc/ZYH5mfMn/1.jpg
I am most persuaded by the following explanation: The Biden administration, anxious to leave the Middle East and anoint a pro-US gendarme in the region, wants to assign the job to Iran, which has the requisite size, wealth, military power, and religious legitimacy. This seems to explain the Administration’s patently obsequious behavior toward Iran. Yet, it seems that the Islamic Republic has a somewhat different agenda. Trump, to his credit, understood that.
I would sort of disagree with your last sentence. Donald Trump wasn’t exactly a guy who had a serious interest in his duties (as reported by more than a few administration
insiders).
If his antagonistic stance toward Iran was the correct one, I’d put it down to a combination of advice from the people around him, his preference for behaving that way, and obvious common sense. If it’s to his credit, it’s to his small credit. He messed up plenty bad elsewhere (the NK negotiations, which were clearly a play for prestige, and the Taliban deal, just off the top of my head).
Koolaid,
“There is no way in hell the FBI would be giving Donald Trump the attention they are if there weren’t solid reasons. That’s the bottom line.”
And there was no way in Hell, the FBI would use the STeele dossier that they knew was unverified to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page if there weren’t solid reasons.
Just as there were solid reasons Trump was investigated for colluding with the RUssians to turn the 2016 election.
I’m not going to waste time on whataboutism and demagogic arguments. The search warrant and property receipt have been released by the Justice Department. If you don’t want to talk about those, fine.
“Whataboutism and demogogic arguments”? I was refuting your statement about solid reasons the FBI was “giving Trump attention”.
“In 2010, the IRS had about 94,000 employees. That number dipped to about 78,000 employees in 2021.”
“many of the new hires would fill positions left open by employees who are projected to leave the agency over the next decade. At least 50,000 of the agency’s current employees are expected to leave over the next five years because they’re eligible for retirement”
https://www.vox.com/2022/8/16/23302798/irs-audit-inflation-reduction-act
It sounds to me like just the latest case of conservatives trying to confuse and mislead.
Good grief! When I was in DEA, we only had about 2500 agents. You’re talking one hell of a big turnover. $80 billion increase in the IRS budget and 87,000 new hires? And you think they are only going to concentrate on the top 1%? We only have about 700 billionaires in the US.
It is obvious that the government has big plans for the IRS, and you think it’s just routine that it is included in this monstrous spending package, laughingly called the Inflation Reduction Act. Enjoy your nap.
With all respect to the DEA and its important task of fighting drug trafficking, I don’t believe the scope of its mission is anywhere near broad as that of the IRS, which is tasked with determining the tax burden of every adult in the United States as well as businesses of all sizes, ranging from mom and pop corner stores to corporations that span the globe and are worth hundreds of billions.
Here’s some basic math. Those 87,000 IRS employees you’re complaining are too many, divided by fifty states, come out to 1,740 employees per state. That’s nothing at all.
Similarly, if we take the American population of 330 million and divide it by 87,000, that works out to one IRS employee working on the taxes owed of 3,793 people. I would say that’s not bad at all.
If we further divide those 3,793 people by the number of working days in a year (52 weeks x 5 = 260), that’s an IRS employee helping process an entire year’s earnings, deductions, gains and losses from playing the Wall Street casino, etc. etc. of fourteen people, daily. Divide that again by an eight hour workday and that comes out to just under two people’s numbers crunched per hour. Again, not bad at all.
The above calculations don’t even consider all the corporations, public and private, and what I have no doubt you’ll agree is the vastly more complex task of figuring their taxes (it’s where I’d bet much, if not the bulk, of the IRS’s manpower and time actually goes).
I can’t be bothered to spend a lot of time on this so I’ll keep it simple and just use the total federal tax collected figure from this page, which is $4.047 trillion. Even at the most favorable interpretation to your argument possible of 75,000 current employees plus 87,000 extra, that still works out to about $25 million collected per IRS employee per year. But a more realistic figure is $40 to $50 million.
“Holy cow, 87,000 people! Why, that’s enough to fill the Superdome!” is a mope-on-a-street-corner argument. It considers none of what is involved.
On the subject of that $80 billion figure, you’re aware that that’s $80 billion to be spent over ten years, and not $80 billion annually…right?
“Part 3 of Title I, Subtitle A of the draft Inflation Reduction Act […] would appropriate to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and related agencies a total of $79.6 billion, to remain available through the end of FY2031.”
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11977
“Yellen wrote in the memo to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, reviewed by Reuters, that the operational plan ‘should include details on how resources will be spent over the ten-year horizon on technology, service improvement, and personnel.’”
“The $80 billion in new resources is a key revenue-raising provision in President Joe Biden’s $430 billion tax, climate and prescription drugs law […] The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the new resources would result in collection of an additional $204 billion in tax revenues over 10 years through improved tax compliance.”
Yellen tells IRS to produce $80 bln spending plan within six months – Reuters
The conservatives pushing this nonsense are either morons who can’t read, or scumbags with bad intentions. Whichever one it is, they have a fairly lengthy track record of making claims that turn out to be incorrect, and for that reason you shouldn’t be so quick to believe what they say.
Good night.
Good night indeed. You must have spent the whole night figuring out and putting your information to paper. I will not try to go tit-for-tat on that one.
I am no statistician or economist, but let me just say I find it hard to swallow that his mega-bill is going to reduce inflation. I also find it telling that they are talking about an $80 billion budget/87,000 employee increase for the IRS. Where are the increases like that for the FBI-DEA-ATF-Border Patrol?
And people who share my skepticism are hardly morons or scumbags.
You’re right that it took me the better part of an hour to get those facts together, but it was worth it, because I thoroughly demolished your uninformed, emotion-based, street-corner argument.
Your talk of budget increases for other agencies sounds like an attempt to change the subject. I’m pretty sure that if you took the time to look up the answers you’d find that all those agencies’ budgets and manpower are significantly larger (not just in inflation terms but in real-money terms) than they were in your day. But I’d bet none of those agencies provide a return to Uncle Sam that comes close to 40 to 50 million dollars per employee.
Skepticism is good. But I think you’ve been focusing yours on the wrong places and the wrong people.
Actually, in my day, DEA surpassed its annual budget in revenue to the Treasury in the form of asset seizures, cash, boats, planes, cars, assets from drug trafficking.
One thing about all those figures you assembled. Much of it was based on the total population of the US (330 million). Yet, the administration (Biden) claims that they are only going after that notorious 1% who are not paying their “fair share”. I would infer that we will all be affected by this IRS increase in budget and personnel. You seem to have refuted Biden’s statements yourself.
Whatever, dude. I’m satisfied that I showed that you have no clue what you’re talking about when it comes to the IRS, its budget, and increases to said budget.