The Biden administration has announced plans to begin deploying armed IRS officers to seize guns from Americans, regardless of whether their firearms were purchased legally or not.

In a disturbing first step, the IRS sent twenty armed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents to carry out a raid on a gun store in Great Falls, Montana, seizing all Form 4473s – documents that contain the buyer’s information. It is believed this information will be used by the IRS in the near future to conduct unconstitutional raids on Americans.

Tom Van Hoose, owner of Highwood Creek Outfitters, says he has been under constant surveillance by state and federal agencies for over two years, according to KRTV.

Thegatewaypundit.com reports: On Wednesday, the gun shop owner reported an unexpected visit from 20 heavily armed IRS agents at his store.

The agents reportedly arrived at the shop early in the morning, as Van Hoose was opening for the day.

“We have now confirmed that both the IRS and the ATF were at Highwood Creek Outfitters in Great Falls around 7 am this morning. Both the IRS and ATF would not say why they were there,” KMON Radio reported.

“A spokeswoman for the IRS would only say they were there on official IRS business. The ATF says it was providing assistance to the IRS. We attempted to enter the store today and were stopped by agents at the door who would only say that the gun store is closed and will reopen tomorrow,” the news outlet added.

According to Hoose, the federal scrutiny began two years ago and has involved various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and now, the Internal Revenue Service.

“They must think we’re making a fortune in the gun business to investigate us like this, assuming we’re hiding thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. However, anyone familiar with gun business profit margins would know that’s not the case,” Van Hoose told MTN News.

Van Hoose claims that he was simply told his business had been reported, although he remains in the dark about who reported it or why. He believes the whole episode was politically motivated.

“I can only assume that it’s because of the style of weapons that we have and the press that’s so against them,” said Van Hoose. “The current administration seems to be hell bent on getting those guns out of the hands of average Americans.”

The day’s operations were disrupted, leading to a significant loss of revenue.

“I had about 30 minutes to operate, making just a single $16 sale,” Hoose said.

Highwood Creek Outfitters is America’s largest online firearms and accessories mall, according to its website. The store is known for selling what Van Hoose calls “fun guns,” including AR-15’s and AK-47s.

The Great Falls Police Department confirmed it was informed about the investigation and provided security, according to KRTV.

Although the Montana Department of Justice claimed no involvement in the incident, an IRS spokesperson confirmed their presence at Highwood Creek Outfitters but refrained from providing further details.

The recent incident has attracted political attention, with Congressman Matt Rosendale expressing his concern over the IRS and ATF’s actions, interpreting them as another example of the Biden regime’s weaponization of federal agencies against hardworking Americans.

“I’m incredibly disturbed by initial reports that the IRS and ATF closed Highwood Creek Outfitters without any warning today,” said Rep Rosendale in a statement.

“This is yet another example of the Biden Administration weaponizing federal agencies to target and harass hardworking Americans. We cannot allow Biden to continue expanding these agencies to infringe on our liberties,” he added.

On Friday afternoon, the congressman announced he sent a letter to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, asking for answers.

“The weaponization of our government must be STOPPED, which is why I sent a letter to ATF Director Dettelbach and IRS Commissioner Werfel demanding answers about this outrageous attack and have used every tool available to me to remove funding for the 87,000 additional IRS agents!” Rep. Rosendale said.

Read the full letter here.

Rep. Matt Rosendale joined Chris Salcedo to discuss the incident.

“Here’s what they took out. IRS – financial records, accounting, making sure what transactions were taking place. No, they took all of the 4473 forms. The 4473 forms are what everyone fills out when they go to purchase a firearm,” said Rosendale.

“And it’s just a big disclosure to make sure that you don’t have a criminal background or other reasons where you should not be purchasing a firearm. So the IRS took every single one of the 4473s that Tom Van Hoose had in his possession there at Highwood Creek Outfitters,” he added.

An editor at Radio New Zealand has been suspended and is under investigation for the time-honored practices of providing balanced and factual reporting

Violent Maidan coup in Ukraine, 2014. (Wikipedia)

By Tony Kevin
in Canberra
Special to Consortium News

An editor at Radio New Zealand has been suspended and is under investigation for the time-honored practices of providing balanced and factual reporting.

On Friday The Guardian Australia website carried a news report, with a follow-up piece on Monday, whose implications for free speech are profoundly disturbing.

They concern a Radio New Zealand, or RNZ, broadcasting employee — unnamed, but everyone in the small New Zealand broadcasting world will soon know who it is — who has been placed on leave while their professional conduct is investigated.  Obviously, a career hangs in the balance. 

The malign ghosts of Orwell’s 1984 stalk this story.

‘Russian Garbage’

This unnamed person in RNZ committed the cardinal sin of “inappropriate editing” of incoming Reuters news feeds on the war in Ukraine to insert “Russian garbage” in the contemptuous words of Paul Thompson, chief executive of RNZ. That is to say, they drew on Russian news sources to insert balancing pro-Russian material to the incoming Western news agency feeds.  

The Guardian tells us that in fact accurate information about Ukraine was added to the Reuters copy:

“The articles in question made a range of amendments: adding the word ‘coup’ to describe the Maidan revolution; changing a description of Ukraine’s former ‘pro-Russian president’ to read ‘pro-Russian elected government’; adding references to a ‘pro-western government’ that had ‘suppressed ethnic Russians’; and on several occasions adding references to Russian concerns about ‘neo-Nazi elements’ in Ukraine.” 

And more truth was added to the story, The Guardian says:

“In one article, a paragraph was added reading: ‘The Kremlin also said its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the Minsk agreement peace accords, designed to give Russia speakers autonomy and protection, and the rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine since a coup ousted a Russian-friendly Ukrainian government in 2014.’

Another added that Russia launched its invasion ‘claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.’”

This, it seems, is an offence not to be countenanced any longer in New Zealand. “An RNZ spokesperson, John Barr, said in a statement after the first article came to public attention that ‘RNZ is taking the issue extremely seriously and is investigating how the situation arose,’” the newspaper wrote.

The Guardian, in its effort to “correct” the story, says: “Ukraine says these claims are discredited Kremlin propaganda … The anti-corruption movement was peaceful and had widespread public support. Yanukovych fled to Russia months later after his security forces shot dead more than 100 unarmed protesters.”  

‘Gutted’

The RNZ executive Thompson was “gutted” to learn what has been going on under his watch. We read that 250 past published articles have been gone through “with a finetooth comb” to investigate and counter such offensive inserted material, and thousands more are being reviewed.

Sixteen such offending  articles have been found and warning commentaries added to them. Investigations continue while the staffer remains indefinitely suspended. The responsible minister is being briefed. Clearly these editors have not delved very deeply into the Ukraine story.

Luke Harding’s Involvement 

Both Guardian articles carry a tagline that says “Additional reporting by Luke Harding.” This should be a key warning to everyone in New Zealand’s and Australia’s broadcasting world, indeed in the entire English-speaking world.

Harding carries a formidable reputation as an inveterate anti-Russian British journalist with alleged strong links to the U.K. anti-Russian disinformation system and even to MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service.

He was heavily involved in the Julian Assange affair and in the now discredited campaign to label former U.S. President Donald Trump as under Russian control. He is known as a leading Western disinformation warrior.

Normal Editorial Practice

Australian Broadcasting Company journalists edit incoming feeds from Reuters and other wire services all the time. They add context, link to previous stories, add Australian-relevant material. 

The problem is, this person in RNZ was adding such context from the “wrong ‘side.’”

The ABC has long been exposed as an obedient servant of the U.S.-dominated Five Eyes intelligence network and runs along approved anti-Russian and anti-Chinese editorial lines. RNZ, by contrast, is still widely respected in New Zealand. But it committed the sin of allowing counter-perspectives to be heard on the responsibility for the present tragic war in Ukraine.

Rendering of the “Five Eyes” intelligence network that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. (@GDJ, Openclipart)

Read the two Guardian articles to see what exactly Harding in London and his colleagues in U.K. disinformation appear to be objecting to. It sends a strong message across the Tasman Sea, from New Zealand to the Australian media world: We watch every word you say and every word you write.

Cancelled for the Same Thought Crimes  

The examples of journalistic misconduct identified in the two articles match exactly research and opinions on the historical context and causes of the war in Ukraine and mounting Russia-West tensions that I have been trying to express publicly in Australia as an expert former senior diplomat since publication of my book Return to Moscow in 2017.

As a result I have been cancelled, unpersoned, silenced — dropped down the Australia Broadcasting Company memory hole, never to be allowed on its airwaves again. 

An innocuous interview I conducted from Moscow with Paul Barclay for the respected ABC program “Big Ideas” in February 2022 was “disarchived” — yes, you read it right — a few weeks later, under pressure from unidentified critics.

Ukraine is Losing

The war in Ukraine now winds steadily towards its inevitable pro-Russian denouement. Russia clearly has the military edge and this will not change now. Billions of dollars’ worth of supplied U.S./NATO equipment continues to be destroyed in combat.

In suicidal offensives ordered by the doomed Zelensky regime in Kiev, an estimated half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or crippled since February 2022. [Exact casualty figures are very hard to come by]. Many more proxy warriors will die in coming weeks as this brutal war of attrition demanded by the U.S. and NATO continues to destroy what is left of poor Ukraine. 

Australians and New Zealanders with naïve faith in the professional integrity of their national broadcasters will continue to be insulated from these tragic truths. 

Fortunately, for those who dare to read them, there are now plenty of accessible reliable sources of alternative perspectives on Russia-West relations and the pivotal importance of the war in Ukraine in transforming the world. This world now looks very different from outside the Western laager. We are in the midst of huge global changes.

But, thanks to the likes of Harding and his Anglo-American friends, we won’t find such information anywhere on the ABC or RNZ. We Antipodeans in the colonies  will be the last to know. 

[…]

Via https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/13/suspended-for-providing-balanced-news-on-ukraine/

By Travis Gillmore and Siyamak Khorrami

Recent Internal Revenue Service data showing a net loss of more than 425,000 people between 2021 and 2022 indicates California is losing residents to states with lower or no income tax, according to a Chapman University professor.

“We are losing more of the high-income earners than the low-income earners, and it’s an increasing proportion of the total loss,” Jim Doti, president emeritus and professor of economics at Chapman University, told Epoch TV’s California Insider. “They’re more mobile and have the greatest incentive to leave because they’re paying 13.3 percent marginal income tax.”

High taxes are motivating wealthier residents to leave, with those making more than $200,000 per year increasingly choosing to relocate to states with no income tax like Texas, Florida, and Nevada, according to Doti.

California ranks as the second highest-taxed state, trailing only New Jersey, and IRS data show a flow of taxpayers from those with higher tax rates to those with lower rates or none.

https://0f0d8d5624063f6fd3f15985cf5016ba.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“Right now, if you’re in that in $200,000 or above … by crossing the boundary into Nevada where they’re developing higher-income residential areas, you save 13.3 percent on your marginal tax rate,” Doti said. “That’s not chicken feed, and that’s why people are leaving.”

Doti related the ongoing situation to an economic theory known as the Laffer Curve—a formula developed by economist Arthur Laffer showing that reduced taxation spurs economic progress—with the exodus unfolding as businesses and taxpayers seek cost savings by relocating.

“State-to-state migration is so easy,” Doti said during the 30-minute interview. “And you save a lot of money.”

The Golden State experienced a $29.1 billion loss in 2021, according to the most recent data available from the tax agency, approximately triple the amount lost in 2019.

“Cumulatively, we’re talking about nearly a half trillion dollars in income lost in five years between 2016 and 2021,” Doti said, noting that the effects of taxable income loss compound over time.

Doti sat down with host Siyamak Khorrami to provide more details about the consequence to the state of the population decline and loss of businesses after being featured in EpochTV’s Leaving Californiadocumentary.

Less taxable income means less revenue for infrastructure, social services, and government programs, according to economists.

Businesses are also fleeing in record numbers, and a survey conducted by Doti and Chapman University revealed that one-half of responding CEOs reported they were contemplating moving, with one-third already having plans in place to leave the state.

Strict environmental regulations and a lengthy permitting process are common complaints from business leaders, according to experts.

“The need to bring down regulation was cited by CEOs as the number one reason for leaving because it hamstrings operations, making it difficult to expand,” Doti said. “This needs to be dealt with expeditiously and with a high level of priority.”

Jobs and businesses leaving the state fuel the loss of workers, exacerbating the economic impact by limiting and removing revenue streams from local communities, according to experts.

Significant loss of human capital and intellectual capacity is one of the most concerning aspects of the California exodus, according to Doti.

First theorized by Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the idea that human capital is the greatest source of wealth for a state is based on the notion that well-trained, educated workers are most capable of producing the prosperity needed to maintain a sustainable, thriving economy.

Public education systems including the University of California and California State University are subsidized by the government in recognition of this value, and the loss of graduates to other states is detrimental to the future of the state, according to Doti.

“If you lose them, you lost all that investment,” he said. “Younger people are thinking about forming families and buying a home, and in other states, they can find a starter home and a piece of the American pie.”

With a current median California home sale price of more than $728,000, according to Zillow—an online real estate listing company—many new graduates are priced out of the housing market, according to experts.

Population declines are expected to continue, as the problems facing California are significant, and solutions would require lawmakers to refocus their priorities, according to Doti.

“Not only are they not focusing on the proper issues, they’re not going to the root cause of the problem,” he said.

Lack of access to resources and housing boils down to high taxation and regulation, as less job creation and economic activity are the inevitable results, according to Doti.

“If we can reduce taxes and regulation, people will stay, and we will have greater prosperity,” he told California Insider. “We will begin to generate the kind of vital economy that can finally do something meaningful about the problems we’re facing: homelessness, crime, and an educational system, especially in the inner city, that is failing.”

[…]

Via https://peckford42.wordpress.com/2023/06/18/take-note-canada/

“Turbo cancer” is a non-medical term that has arisen to describe very aggressive and rapidly progressive cancers following Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and suppression of the immune system.

I have written 13 substacks about turbo cancers so far:

• turbo cancers in Canadian doctors (click here)
• turbo cancer leukemias (click here) and children (click here) and (click here)
• turbo cancer lymphoma (click here)
• turbo brain cancer glioblastomas (click here) and (click here)
• turbo cervical cancer (click here)
• turbo testicular cancer in athletes (click here)
• turbo cancer of appendix (click here)
• turbo sarcomas (click here)
• turbo colon cancers (click here)
• turbo gastric cancers (click here)

[…]

Via https://makismd.substack.com/p/turbo-lung-cancer-24-year-old-uk

How the Other Half Lives

by Jacob A Riis, Edited with an introduction by David Leviatin

Bedford/St Martin’s 1996

Book Review

Jacob A Riis was a Danish carpenter who immigrated to New York City in 1870. As a police reporter, he became fascinated by flashlight photography technology (employing explosive magnesium allowing photographers to take indoor pictures for the first time.  Riis used it to photograph the inside of dilapidated tenements that housed the city’s immigrant population between 1880 and 1890. As one of the world’s first photojournalists, he published his photos together with descriptive text in his 1890 How the Other Half Lives.

The book details how the population of New York started its rapid increase after the war of 1812 triggered massive European emigration. Over 35 years, the cty’s population increased from under 100,000 to 500,000. Beginning in 1830, property developers began subdividing former family homes into flats to accommodate them.

The 1840s and 1850s saw an influx of Irish immigrants during the Potato Famine, with demobilization of Civil War veterans creating another population influx in the late 1860s. The 1880s saw yet another wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe. By 1890, three quarters of New York’s population lived in tenements. The rents families paid were so high, that some landlords made a 75% annual profit on their investment.*

How the Other Half Lives gives us a tour of the various ethnic neighborhoods that comprised the slums of New York in the 1880s.

• Italian – according to Riis, Italian adults had a monopoly on the city’s fruit stands and their sons on the boot black trade. Many Italian immigrants were brought to the US by padrones expecting to collect rent from them, as well as a percentage of their wages. Because Italian families had to work so hard to pay off the padrone, they had little time to learn English.
• Irish – First generation Irish immigrants worked has hod (coal) carriers, with their sons moving into bricklaying.
• Chinese – the Chinese had a monopoly on the laundry business, with laundries sometimes serving as cover for clandestine opium dens and fan tan games. The Chinese quarter was always the cleanest, with the residents immaculately clean and neat.
• Negro – unable to find jobs in Southern cities, Blacks began filtering into New York City after the Civil War. According to Riis, they were victims of serious prejudice and greed. Denied admission to trade unions, they were forced to give up trades they practiced under slavery (carpentry, bricklaying and barbaring) for unskilled work. They were also charged obscene rents because white families refused to live in the same tenements with them. They tended to disguise their poverty with nice clothes, pianos and parlor furniture. Regular church attendees, they also frequented the penny lottery, numbers games and fortune tellers.
• Jewish quarter – here tenements were much more crowded, with most housing sewing workshops employing up to 12 people per room. Half the clothes in New York’s major department stores were made in these sweatshops.
• Bohemian (Czech) quarter – about half the residents made cigars (including half the women, as they were also excluded from US trade unions). Typically working seven days a week they also had no time to learn English (to help qualify for better jobs).

Despite the tenement reform movement, which started in 1879 (Riis was a member), the Tammany Hall machine running New York was loathe to enforce the city’s laws against overcrowding because Tammany Hall politicians depended on (bought) tenement votes at election time. More than half the city’s voters lived in tenements.

The book includes excellent chapters on homeless children in the tenement quarters, as well as their gangs and the private philanthropists and charities that set up schemes to get them off the street.

*In one example a landlord with a $800 building charged 10 families $5 per month each, for a net annual profit of $600.

Dr William Makis MD

See https://makismd.substack.com/p/canadian-fires-are-being-set-deliberately for videos.)

Quebec Fires started simultaneously across entire province on June 2, 2023 (source)

Alberta fires started simultaneously on June 7, 2023:

Fires in Edson, Alberta:

Fires in British Columbia (Jun.8, 2023, New York Times)

Fires in Nova Scotia (May 28, 2023)

ARTICLES:

June 8, 2023 – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pledges arson investigation into 175 wildfires with no known cause

June 8, 2023 – Satellite footage raises possibility that arson, not climate change theory, to blame for Quebec fires (Lifesitenews)

June 8, 2023 – There are Now 250 “Out-of-Control” Fires in Canada, Here’s Why Some Say It’s All ‘Planned’ (Kyle Becker)

June 7, 2023 – Media blames ‘climate change’ for Canadian wildfires despite arrest of multiple arsonists

June 5, 2023 – Police in NS say some fires deliberately set

Via https://makismd.substack.com/p/canadian-fires-are-being-set-deliberately