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H R Pickens

@hrpickens.bsky.social

520 followers 240 following 1.4K posts

I don't expect to be followed back. When I find your stuff interesting, I don't necessarily expect you to find my stuff interesting. That photo is fake. It's not me. But also, basically, it is.

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Reposted by H R Pickens

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 9h

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
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(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 10h

I always feel better when it's the other side desperately looking for a working strategy.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 11h

How about a simple "purporting to" so that you don't look like a bunch of hacks?

Reposted by H R Pickens

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 1d

Every time a Democrat gets caught on tape saying like “Some Trump voters are racist” we have a national scandal and JD Vance demands an entirely new kind of apology and meanwhile every Republican group chat is like “Good morning fellow SS members. Who’s ready to respect Hitler today?”

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 1d

It'd be an entirely unsurprising, if disappointing, result, and there'd be no need to look for nefarious explanations.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 1d

She has won statewide elections in Maine a couple times, I guess. That tells me she's popular there. In the regrettable event that she wins the primary, I think we'd have to conclude that the people of Maine who've voted for her more than once already have just done so again.

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 1d

The point of the "bad apple" metaphor is that the rot in one apple very quickly spreads to all the others.

So often people get it exactly backwards, and use it to suggest that we shouldn't presume that the rot has or will spread.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 1d

Enemy is that way.

There's no benefit in you two going at it over nothing

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 1d

The end of Dianne Feinstein's life and career were a disaster for all involved.

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 2d

Old enough to remember Pete Rose.

Jarrett Seidler @seidler.bsky.social · 2d

you can do "it's only money" and "better he have the money than the billionaire" until the cows come home, and you're wrong, because teams are never capable of figuring out in real time when players are completely cooked, and he will likely play for many years at negative value before being benched

Reposted by H R Pickens

Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @csmfht.bsky.social · 5d

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

There's gonna be a great movie someday in which some handsome young actor explains this shit to Steve Carrell who just sits there gobsmacked.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

They're gonna have a devil of a time hiding. Such a wide paper trail. IRS. Social security admin. State tax boards. Mortgage applications.

And whichever of their comrades turn state's evidence. These guys better hold on to some evidence so they have something to offer prosecutors down the road.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Goddamn slave-catchers. May they never know a moment's peace.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah, best get at it. Those bases aren't gonna load themselves.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Posters wear vests with special sensors so that judges can tell, to an accuracy of five milliseconds, who said 'privilege' first and thereby won the exchange.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

That was some little-league bullshit right there.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Redeemed!

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Ah well. Two stanzas of timeless genius ain't bad.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Is this about the regrettable turn it takes in the third stanza?

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

Makes sense. If you're reducing the use of vaccines, disease is going to spread far more easily.

So you'll need to fire the people who measure this or else they're going to produce data that embarrass you.

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Reposted by H R Pickens

Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 4d

One very procedurally easy thing the next Dem administration can do is just have the AG say “we are not going to indemnify Bivens claims against federal LEOs who engage in willful constitutional violations”

If ICE guys want to do this, they can lose their house over it

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 4d

New — Video shared with me shows ICE officers in DC detaining a man on Friday.

Bystander filming asks man for his name. ICE agent lies and says he’s not allowed to speak to him “by law” and another says “We’ve arrested American citizens for being too close…If he gets any closer, put him in cuffs.”

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H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 4d

"This person" is an important and usually reliable voice. Anyone can get fooled by an AI video.

Comments aren't turned off.

And she's had no activity at all since posting it, 10h ago as of now, so I don't see any willful refusal to delete it.

So far, it just looks like an innocent mistake.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 5d

It was pretty embarrassing when Obama got it.

We were all super excited that he'd won, and had high hopes for him. But they gave it to him like five minutes after he took office. Clearly it was just for the awesome achievement of being Not George Bush, and the bar ought to be far higher.

H R Pickens @hrpickens.bsky.social · 5d

Good God and the serene, impenetrable smugness of those bigots.

That's the stuff of nightmares. Those people sounded like they could join the right kind of lynch mob and sleep soundly after.

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