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Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski
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Given the US government’s track record for disinformation a congressional investigation needs to be made (as I mentioned before). There are lots of examples the government lies to its citizens that even may have change the outcome of elections and put us in wars that cost this country trillions and countless human lives. How many times can the democrats blame it on the “Russians” (or some other source our so called “intelligence” agents point their finger at) and you still believe them before you start questioning what they are saying? Just the entire BS Powell unloaded on the UN in front of the entire world should have been enough. Hopefully Powell is burning in hell for the lies he told and the people that died because of it. It should be obvious that either the US lacks “intelligence” or just lies a lot of the time for their own disinformation campaigns. If it’s not then you are drinking the kool-aide made out of pure BS like a lot of people are that lack the ability to remember history and think critically. Even 50+ so called “intelligence” agents (both former and current) all have signed their name to it history has told us we have to question what they are saying."If there is one thing I am, it's always right." -Ted Nugent.
"I honestly believe saying someone is a smart lawyer is damning with faint praise. The smartest people become engineers and scientists." -SU.
"Yet I still see wisdom in that which Uncle Ted posts." -creek.
GIVE 'EM HELL, BRIGHAM! -
Wow, that's a huge problem you posit. No doubt a congressional investigation will get to the truth of it all. Or MHver3?Originally posted by Uncle Ted View Post
Seriously though, I am sure congresspeople from both sides of the aisle are requesting and getting briefings on the recent leaks, as well as regular updates on the war against the Russians via the appropriate committees.Last edited by myboynoah; 04-17-2023, 03:09 AM.Give 'em Hell, Cougars!!!
For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.
Not long ago an obituary appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune that said the recently departed had "died doing what he enjoyed most—watching BYU lose."
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We get better "intelligence" from @MHver3 than we do from our government,Originally posted by myboynoah View Post
We are taxed at 40% and all we have to show for it is $30+ trillion in debt but let's throw some more billions on the Ukraine dumpster fire. Once the dollar falls from being the world's reserve currency good luck trying to inflate our way out of it. When the Union dissolves hopefully the Republic of Texas will have enough nukes to keep everyone else from messing with us.
The only good news about our government is the IRS still has major IT problems and about to implode under its own weight... They have failed trying to do a major upgrade of their IT in prior attempts so there is really no hope of their success with yet another attempt. This is going to be great to watch!
Maybe ChatGPT can help.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-irs...report-1dcdc87What Happened When the IRS Got Audited
Ben Cohen
Obsolete software. Archaic code. Tech so old it makes the typical member of Congress look young. The IRS has an IT problem.
It’s one of the country’s most powerful and least popular organizations. It collects trillions of dollars every year from hundreds of millions of Americans. It runs on clunky technology that was outdated several decades ago. And it’s a source of professional obsession for Dave Hinchman.
There are few outsiders who understand the inner workings of the Internal Revenue Service better than someone with his curious job: He audits the auditors.
Mr. Hinchman is a director of the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s information-technology and cybersecurity team, and he recently published a surprisingly fascinating report about the agency that makes so many people so nuts.
He knew the IRS had IT problems. He was still floored by what he found. As it turned out, 33% of the custom-built software applications critical to the agency’s operations counted as “legacy IT,” which means they relied on archaic code or tech so old that it makes the typical member of Congress look young.
Mr. Hinchman’s report is a timely reminder of how easy it is to overlook the hidden systems that underpin society. You don’t think about the risk models of financial institutions until you’re scrambling to pull your money during a bank run. You don’t think about faulty airline systems until your flight gets canceled and you’re eating Christmas dinner at the airport Chili’s. And you almost certainly don’t think about the IT constraints of the IRS until your tax refund is months overdue and you can’t get anyone to explain why.
But something as basic as information technology has a profound influence on taxpayers, and right now it’s closer in age to the Apollo space program than Apple products.
IT is the key to making the experience of interacting with the IRS more tolerable—or at least slightly less miserable.
The agency itself agreed with Mr. Hinchman’s findings and recommendations, calling his analysis “a generally accurate description of the agency’s operating environment.” But after fits and starts in recent years, that environment appears to be on the verge of changing. For real this time.
Last year, Congress provided the IRS with $80 billion to spend over the next decade. Last week, the IRS unveiled a strategic plan for spending a chunk of that budget on a digital transformation. It calls for rewriting decrepit tech in today’s programming languages and offers a more precise timeline for retiring the databases that nearly qualify for Medicare. “We must take steps to modernize the agency’s technology infrastructure,” said Danny Werfel,
the new IRS commissioner, when the plan was released.
Other business leaders and company executives could say the same about their own organizations. In both the public and private sectors, projects often fail because of IT deficiencies. We only hear about the bureaucratic inefficiencies and government inadequacies because they get highlighted by watchdogs like Mr. Hinchman.
A former U.S. Navy lieutenant, Mr. Hinchman has been a government auditor since 2002, which is long enough to know that people tend to recoil when he tells them what he does for a living. This is the great irony of his job: They assume that he works for the IRS.
“The IRS is… unloved,” he said. “For lack of a better word.” (You might have some better words.)
After promising that he has nothing to do with their taxes, Mr. Hinchman explains the value of his role at the independent, nonpartisan GAO, where success means identifying points of failure in the federal government.
“We literally exist to make sure your tax dollars are being spent as well as possible,” he says.
One of the lessons that he’s learned from his work is that anything that can’t be seen is often forgotten about. So when it was time for Mr. Hinchman to poke around the shabby IT of the IRS, he took it upon himself to shine a light on all that stuff he couldn’t initially see. “We’d never taken as close a look as we did,” he said.
To understand what he found and why it matters, it helps to know what he was looking for. The GAO routinely audits the IRS, as does the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, but Mr. Hinchman had a narrow mandate for this oversight report: determine how much of the IT was obsolete and describe the agency’s existing plans to replace it.
IT complications usually come down to having too much information or not enough technology. The IRS suffers from both.
The agency doesn’t function like a bank or credit-card company, where the person you call on a toll-free line instantly pulls up your account. It can’t. There is no single point of access for every specific piece of data about individual taxpayers. Even the “Where’s My Refund” tracker has a hard time answering that very question, since the disparate parts of the IRS’s patchwork system are incapable of working together. “There are 60 different case-management systems throughout the IRS,” said Nina Olson, the former national taxpayer advocate, “and they don’t all talk to one another.”
It’s difficult to build on a creaky tech foundation. And the closer that Mr. Hinchman looked, the weaker those crumbling structures appeared.
There were hundreds of IRS applications that have been around for at least 25 years and dozens that have been in existence for more than 50. There were also pieces of software running 15 updates behind the current version. Fifteen! That’s like using a new iPhone with the iOS from the original iPhone. The IRS tends to be risk-averse for cybersecurity reasons, but falling behind on tech is a risk of its own.
Even the most important application used by the IRS requires employees to be fluent in a programming language no longer taught in schools. In fact, there are likely more college graduates these days who can read Latin than write in Cobol. Of course, computer-science majors aren’t going to work in Washington when their talents command huge sums of money across Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But fewer people every year have the niche expertise to keep the agency’s essential systems working properly. That imperils the IRS’s ability to perform its core business: collecting money so the government can pay the bills.
The price of tech neglect is not just higher financial costs. It’s more torment for taxpayers.
It’s no less painful for the employees sifting through paper forms, circling numbers with red pens and dealing with these inefficiencies every day. The agency has pledged change for longer than some of them have been alive. They are still waiting.
There is no such thing as an overnight radical transformation, least of all in the federal government, but even marginal improvements would make a meaningful difference. At the top of the list of taxpayer complaints is getting “incomprehensible letters,” said Ms. Olson, and it’s exactly the type of problem that would benefit from a piecemeal approach to change. It shouldn’t require a complete overhaul of the entire system to send a letter that makes sense.
But getting the biggest stuff right is what really matters, and that’s the focus of the IRS’s latest strategic plan. Mr. Hinchman was delighted to read it. He also said he’s psyched to dig into the IT nitty-gritty.
Then he told me something else that makes him unlike just about everybody in the country.
“We just started our latest audit,” he said, “and I’m looking forward to engaging with the IRS.”
"If there is one thing I am, it's always right." -Ted Nugent.
"I honestly believe saying someone is a smart lawyer is damning with faint praise. The smartest people become engineers and scientists." -SU.
"Yet I still see wisdom in that which Uncle Ted posts." -creek.
GIVE 'EM HELL, BRIGHAM!Comment
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and yet your skepticism and rebellion against the kool aid has brought you… here. retweeting russian state disinformation. confirmation bias, ted.Originally posted by Uncle Ted View PostTe Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est.Comment
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Classic Ted post. When faced with the prospect that you got suckered by Russian propaganda hook, line, and sinker; just redirect to something completely different!Originally posted by Uncle Ted View Post
We get better "intelligence" from @MHver3 than we do from our government,
We are taxed at 40% and all we have to show for it is $30+ trillion in debt but let's throw some more billions on the Ukraine dumpster fire. Once the dollar falls from being the world's reserve currency good luck trying to inflate our way out of it. When the Union dissolves hopefully the Republic of Texas will have enough nukes to keep everyone else from messing with us.
The only good news about our government is the IRS still has major IT problems and about to implode under its own weight... They have failed trying to do a major upgrade of their IT in prior attempts so there is really no hope of their success with yet another attempt. This is going to be great to watch!
Maybe ChatGPT can help.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-irs...report-1dcdc87Comment
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Ted:
The government is bloated and inefficient.
Government:
We are trying to streamline and improve efficiencies.
Ted:
Haha let's hope they fail.Comment
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Bingo.Originally posted by BigFatMeanie View Post
Posting a steady stream of links to the most questionable sources out there, many of them proven to be total crap and/or from Russia or China, doesn't give one a strong basis from which to question the credibility of USG intelligence.
Help us @MHver3, you're out only hope.Give 'em Hell, Cougars!!!
For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.
Not long ago an obituary appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune that said the recently departed had "died doing what he enjoyed most—watching BYU lose."Comment
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The juxtaposition of Russian citizens that criticize the war getting 25 year prison sentences, and this American-born (New Jersey) ex-military lady from Washington being an outlet for Russian and Wagner pro-war propaganda just boggles my mind.Comment
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https://t.me/AnAmericanWhoSupportsUkraine/1255
Good holy hell! This is as close to combat as most people will ever get. Absolutely incredible combat footage. I can't recall ever seeing anything like this, except the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, only this is real.
SHOWS MULTIPLE RUSSIANS BEING SHOT ON CAMERA (in combat, not executed).
"Wuap's "problem" is that he is smart & principled & committed to a moral course of action. His actions are supposed to reflect his ethical code.
The rest of us rarely bother to think about our actions." --SolonComment
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"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creeksterComment
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Wait, if Kim Dotcom is suspect, should I be wary of Cat turd also?Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post"...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
"You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
- SeattleUteComment
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Kim looks an awful lot like a guy that used to hang out here.Comment
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Here's a story the highlights the fight in Bakhmut. The story is from a couple of months ago.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65313367Comment
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