Trump’s ‘Unserious Stuff’ Recalls SCOTUS 1895 Ruling, and Some Other Things…
Happy birthday to a man who is still the commander in chief in a lot of people’s eyes, Donald J Trump.
Yesterday Trump fLoATeD the notion of abolishing that part of every American’s hard earned check that makes them shake their head in disgust.
The income tax.
I’d already had a few thoughts on this story last night, but had decided not to write on it, until I read a few more things on it this morning.
It was interesting to note that one publication, The New York Post, said that the proposal was a part of a joke-filled pep talk with congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill, the first time Trump had been there since the riot he didn’t at all start over three years ago. I mention this because CNBC’s article chose to end its piece there–a practice in argumentation called end focus, which is the last impression left on the reader. This is propaganda.
Market Watch included the fact that the fLoAt was “fundamentally unserious stuff.”
First of all, if you haven’t by now, start noticing how numerous publications use the same exact wording in their headlines. Float! Trump floated! This is a classic tool of the propagandist–repetition repetition repetition, until readers are so bludgeoned to death with a story that they’re practically forced to believe it.
This is what they have been doing to us for decades, if not longer.
Even if you are not an economist, you can see where this story certainly has legs, and for more than just floating.
The fact that the story is the latest assault on any Trump idea is tell number one that it is worth listening to.
Tell number two is the insistent repetition of the word “float” in the headline. This is all coming from a single source.
Tell number three is that it was said in a joke-filled pep talk, a context in which Trump is famous for “floating” the double entendre–all the while knowing full well by now that the media is going to foolishly do all the heavy work for him and bring the story front and center to the very eyes he’s wanting to reach, eyes that would not care one bit about politics if the establishment media didn’t bring the TDS drama to the airwaves every day.
Tell number four is that several left-leaning articles left out the part about the joke context, even though, again, Trump rarely jokes without saying something more serious too. It is something else on which he outmaneuvers them. Instead of including the joke context, which would weaken their assault, they are forced to leave a key fact out, which makes them look bad anyway.
And finally, tell number five is the language the economists are using. “Fundamentally” is classic inflation of language. We’ve seen this time and time again when “baseless” conspiracy theories and “extremist” far-right wing groups are discussed. They are hoping these descriptor words stick in the American conscience and build distrust toward their targets.
They still do stick in some, and that is really, really unfortunate for those people. But for most, it’s a gig that has gotten easy to recognize. They’re making master poker players of us all.
The Supreme Court and 1895
Such clear propaganda brought to mind a Supreme Court ruling I’d once come across, and with just a little DuckDuckGo searching, I located the 1895 POLLOCK V. FARMERS’ LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY ruling that actually abolished the federal income tax.
It was in 1894 that the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act established what was called a “peacetime income tax,” as Study.com reports (it also cut tariff rates). The peacetime income tax was applied to every citizen, corporation, and business entity, but a year later, after a certain Massachusetts investor took issue with something a company he held stock in was planning, things changed drastically.
According to Britannica, stockholder Charles Pollock filed a lawsuit against the Farmer’s Loan and Trust Company after they declared that their business would pay the aforementioned income tax and furthermore provide an elaborate list of each and every one of its shareholders to the government. Pollock claimed that the Tariff Act was a violation of his privacy, his personal income, and — in a broader sense — Article I, section 9 of the Constitution. As it turned out, the Supreme Court shared his belief and suspended the income tax (per Oyez).
Pollock’s triumph ultimately ended up being short-lived, as the 16th Amendment (1913) overturned the Supreme Court’s 1895 decision. “ARTICLE XVI. The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration,” it read. Once again, the income tax was applied to all citizens and market operations and has been ever since.
Now that we know, after the last nine years of a slow-but-sure healing of the brainwashing we’ve been under, that 1) US Congressmen are bought and paid for, that 2) all those billions and trillions of dollars don’t actually go to the things they claim to need them for like infrastructure but instead to funding never ending wars, that 3) we know the Deep State’s infiltration of every branch of our government, does it interest us in the least to wonder what it is Trump plans to say further about this, perhaps even campaign on?
Can you imagine some Democrat opponent defending the taxation of Americans so government can have the money for infrastructure when all of the money has been going to Ukraine and elsewhere forever?
Can you imagine the American people’s response to that?
If there is a game going on right now, perhaps that was the long-play all along. It would be yet another trap from which the Uniparty couldn’t wiggle free.
Establishment media, including Fox News and the Con Inc world, would have to make pro-tax arguments–that would inevitably lead to questions and digging about the legality and constitutionality of such money grabs in the first place.
It is a conversation that must take place if nothing else.
And if the left is going to go with “fundamentally unserious stuff” as their play when Americans have been watching point-blank those little numbers being subtracted on their pay stub, they will look like unadulterated morons.
Fundamentally so.
What would it mean to average Americans to consider that the government has just been robbing them their entire lives? Where might that rabbit hole lead?
What was the date of the ratification of the 16th Amendment?
What was the date of the passing of the Federal Reserve Act?
What was the meeting at Jekyll Island and who was there? What was this “altar” some folks talk about?
And if you really want to go deep…
What was the Titanic?
Is Trump “floating” such things to the IRS-hating American people so they’ll go digging themselves? He’s never done that in a play to circumvent the nemesistic media, has he?
Such extremist, baseless far-right conspiracy theories abound, all in a fundamental effort to make globalists look bad. I wouldn’t put much stock in them….
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May everyone named directly or referenced indirectly ask forgiveness and do penance for their sins against America and God. I fight this information war in the spirit of justice and love for the innocent, but I have been reminded of the need for mercy and prayers for our enemies. I am a sinner in need of redemption as well after all, for my sins are many. In the words of Jesus Christ himself, Lord forgive us all, for we know not what we do.
