But how do they know what they know about your income? Didn’t you (or your employer on your behalf) already volunteer this information to the government in the first place? Or is your government monitoring your private financial transactions without your express consent?

If you need to check it, then maybe they are not calculating your taxes for you, so much they are taking their best guess and asking you to sign off on it. If their best guess is as good (or better) than yours, there is no difference in practice. But there is still a difference in principle: whether a citizen is permitted to declare their own income or whether the government is obliged to determine it for them.

The IRS calculates an employee’s taxes based on the income and withholding information provided to the IRS by the employer. The employee “volunteers” his tax information (and IRS witholding payment, if any) with each paycheck. The accounting for all this is listed right there on the paystub.

We have a “voluntary” tax system in the U.S. – that’s always been the situation. “Voluntary” doesn’t mean that that you can choose to not volunteer to pay your taxes. It mostly just means that the way we run things, by default, it is each citizen’s responsibility to calculate and pay their taxes each April.

American taxpayers filled out 1040 forms in the days before computers, a lot like they do now. The IRS selected certain fillings for audits, just like they do now – sometimes because of an apparent discrepancy, and sometimes just at random.

It would be a lot more work, take a lot more resources, and be prone to a lot more error and lawsuits, if the IRS tried to calculate everyone’s taxes for them. Even now that we are in the days of computers, it is much more efficient for the IRS to only audit a fraction of the filings submitted each year.

I’m also pretty sure our “voluntary” tax filling system has something to do with the Fourth Amendment and other privacy concerns. A lot of Americans very strongly believe that it is not the government’s place to be all up in their private business.

It’s not just for quality, but for authenticity too, I think.

Foods that are fermented or aged can take on a unique flavor profile, based on the unique blend of bacteria and mold and yeast in the area. Even using the same milk from the same cows and processing it the same way, cheese that is naturally aged in a cave in France might taste different from cheese that’s aged in a cave in West Virginia. Not necessarily better or worse, quality-wise, but different. Not authentic.

Weather patterns, seasonal changes, and soil conditions are also distinct and varied in different places. The same grapes grow differently in German soil than they do in Kansas. The grass that the cows eat grows differently in different places, and this can have a significant impact on the flavors of the milk and cheese.

I’m American, but I used to work in a fancy wine store that sold a lot of imported cheese and groceries. I imagine that in practice, PDO must seem like an annoying mix of over-regulation and jingoistic propaganda – especially to someone in Europe. But it does seem to serve a purpose, even if in an overbearing way.

I think being proud of local food culture is more like community spirit or neighborhood pride. It’s like saying, “here’s something ingeniously delicious we created using only our limited local resources.” I don’t think of that quite the same way as “pride” about race, gender, sexuality.

A pastor usually leads a Protestant church. Catholic churches are led by priests.

Confession of sins to (God though) a priest is a rite in the Catholic church, but not in Protestant churches. Protestant churches often encourage members to ask forgiveness for their sins directly to God through prayer.

There are more Catholics than protestants in the world, but there are more protestants than Catholics in the U.S. The type of Christianity most often associated with socially conservative Republican/MAGA primary voters is Protestant “evangelical” Christianity.

Evangelicals are a hardcore subset of Protestants who take the Bible literally. They’re sometimes called “Born-again Christians” because of their belief in the importance of personal conversion. That is, you’re not really a real Christian until, as an autonomous adult, you willingly choose to surrender yourself, mind body and soul, and devote your life to (your pastor’s teachings about) the teachings of Jesus.

Anyway, now I’ve done an eight-hours-later four-paragraph TED-talk riff on what is otherwise quite a fine and clever comment. I mean no offense and hope none is taken. I mostly just wanted to note that when Nikki Haley talks about “pastors,” she isn’t talking to Catholics; she’s talking directly to the GOP evangelical voter base.

I wonder if Meadows will flip next.

It looks a lot like Meadows may already have some sort of a deal with Jack Smith and the feds, but that doesn’t do him any good if he’s convicted in Georgia.

If Meadows does cut a deal in Georgia, though, it will be made public (just like the last four flips have been). Unlike whatever he may have going on with the DoJ, so far.

It would be his “Michael Cohen moment.” The point of no return.

It sounds like this Scott Graham Hall guy flipped on Sidney. So now who’s Sidney going to flip on?

She was in a lot of meetings with a lot of people, including Trump and Giuliani. I bet she has a lot to say about that.

Giant food stores in Mid-Atlantic US

What does that mean though, “anti-war party,” “anti-war politician”?

Did your “anti-war party” stop being so because they’d ended the war we were in? And if so, wasn’t that a good thing, for those with an “anti-war” outlook?

Back in the late 1930s, I’m pretty sure America’s “anti-war party” was mostly isolationists and some Nazi sympathizers. It was FDR, one of the most progressive Democrats ever elected to the office, who led the country to war back then.

If your entire political belief system is based on avoiding war at all costs, you deny yourself any real-world context in exchange for that purist ideology.

Those who are anti-war above all else lose everything they have and everything they stand for, the first time someone (anyone!) else decides to threaten them with war. The first time that someone sneak-attacks their Pearl Harbor, or crashes planes into their Twin Towers, or whatever else.

Maybe war is like abortion (in this singularly metaphorical political sense). Nobody ever really wants it to happen, and most people do their best to try to avoid it for themselves and others. Yet sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, it ends up being the safest and healthiest way, sometimes the only way, out of an untenable situation not completely of our own making.

I’m not arguing that World War II was a “good” war and that W. Bush’s Iraq was a “bad” war. That may comport with my personal beliefs, but my real point is that everyone has their own personal beliefs. Everyone has something that is most important to them.

If you say that war is never justified for any reason, then you are also saying that your call for pacifism is more important than whatever the reason for the war may be. Not just more important for you, but for everyone else too.

There is a phone app, that pretty much allows you phone to work like the scanner gun. I’ve used it before and it works fine, but my phone’s camera is not as good as the guns at scanning barcodes.

Also, as much as I realize I am trading privacy for control, I figure there’s no need to have the grocery store’s app living on my phone, when it is just as easy for me to use the dedicated device they provide in-store.

In the produce section, they have scales that print out barcoded price stickers. I look up the item I’m weighing (or enter the PLU) and it gives me a sticker I can scan.

In the bakery section, where you can pick out individual muffins or donuts, they have barcodes printed on the self-service case above each item. I can just scan the barcode for whatever I take.

(I do also have the option of checking things out at the end, if I didn’t scan them with the gun.)

==

EDIT to Add:

Ironically, the only time I remember taking something from that store without paying for it was a time that my self-scanned order had been flagged for an audit. I was trying to buy a watermelon on sale, but the sale price didn’t come up when I scanned it, so I set it aside to figure out at checkout.

When I got to checkout, my order was flagged for an audit. (Maybe even precisely because I had scanned the watermelon but then removed it from my cart when it came up at the wrong price.)

The guy running the self-checkout saw the flashing light at my register. Without comment, he came over to perform the ritual of scanning the certain number of items in my cart to reset the transaction and allow me to pay and be on my way. He and I had both been through this procedure many times. He probably performed it several times each shift he worked there.

I was distracted by the audit, however, and I forgot about the watermelon. When he scanned enough items and punched in his code, the register came up with my total and asked me how I was going to pay. I stuck in my credit card, clicked “yes” to the transaction amount, and made my way out of the store with a pilfered watermelon.

The grocery store I shop at has handheld scanner guns for customer use. I check out a gun by scanning my loyalty card, then make my way around the store, scanning each item as I put it in my cart. When I’m done, the handheld scanner displays a barcode that I scan at the self-checkout scanner. My entire order shows up on the screen there, along with the total cost. I pay, take my receipt, and head out to the parking lot.

I like scanner-gun shopping a lot. I like it because it’s efficient, but also because it puts me in control. I can see the real price of everything I take off the shelf, in real-time. If something doesn’t ring up at the price it’s marked, I know instantly. The device keeps a running total as I shop.

Most days, my entire grocery experience involves no direct interaction with any store employee whatsoever, except maybe to exchange pleasantries with a stockperson. I do 100% of the work of checking myself out. I imagine the money the store saves on me in labor might make up for a lot of the money it loses in shrink.

But the store gets something else from my use of its scan-as-you-shop service. It gets to collect a huge amount of data on the way I shop. Not only does it record everything I buy, but it knows when and where I buy it. It knows the patterns of how I move through the store. It can compare my patterns to the patterns of all the other shoppers who use store scanner guns. It can analyze these patterns for useful information about everything from store layout to shoplifting mitigation.

One of the ways the store mitigates shrink from scanner gun shoppers who might accidentally “forget” to scan an item they put in their cart is point-of-sale audits. Not usually, but every so often and on a regular basis, my order will be flagged for an audit when I go to check out. When this happens, the cashier running the self-checkout area has to come over and scan a certain number of items in my cart, to make sure they were all included in my bill.

My main point in all of this was to offer a narrative that runs counter to the narrative I picked up from the article. I prefer to have more control over my checkout experience, and I will willingly choose to surrender personal information about my shopping habits and check-out procedures in order to gain that control, every chance I get.

How can Tuberville hold up all these nominations, all by himself? I had to look it up. The way Senate rules work, they figure out nomination approvals in committee and then pass them on the floor with votes of “unanimous consent.” By withholding his consent, Tuberville forces all the committee work to be done on the floor of the Senate.

That is to say, he is hijacking the nomination approval process. This process has developed and become institutionalized in the Senate over many decades. Tuberville is hijacking this process for a largely unpopular, far-right political purpose that is, at best, only tangentially related to the services with vacant leadership positions, and that is in no way related to the actual nominations in question.

Ironically, perhaps, the reason this glitch in the Senate rules allows one person to hold up all the nominations for everyone is itself just another institution. Senate “holds” have been around for decades as well. It wasn’t until 2011 the that a bi-partisan group of Senators voted to change the rules to disallow “secret holds.”

So Tuberville is exploiting one Senate institution in order to shut down another Senate institution, just to generate propaganda for his federally mandated forced-birth agenda.

It’s like an echo of Gingrich in the '90s: It’s like he’s saying, “The interests of the people who elected me are more righteous than the interests of the people who elected all the rest of you all, so there will be no compromise from me on anything. We will run things my way or I’ll use my position to shut it all down.”

The only difference is that Gingrich shut down all the post offices for a few weeks. This asshole Tuberville is trying to shut down our military.

EDIT:

Maybe this could be McConnell’s saving-grace swan song, before he gives up his GOP leadership position in the Senate. As the leader of Tuberville’s party, I’m pretty sure rules allow him to end the hold that Tuberville requested.

Doing so would go against precedent and it would go against the spirit of the institution. But Mitch McConnell is no stranger to going against precedent and disregarding institutions when he thinks it serves his purpose.

It wouldn’t earn him much forgiveness from people like me, but it would make him look a little better on his way out.

Michael Steele used to be Republican Lt. Gov in Maryland, then was the chair of the GOP campaign in 2008 when John McCain and Sarah Palin were on the ticket.

After he lost his reelection bid for party chair, he went to work for MSNBC as a commentator, and he’s been on there all the time ever since.

EDIT to clarify: Steele was not a fan of the proto-MAGA movement represented by Palin on the 2008 ticket and he has been a never-Trumper Republican from the start

Since the rise of Trump in the party, not sure if Steele still a registered Republican.

There are many reasons that George H.W. Bush chose to nominate Thomas, but one of them is almost surely that Thomas is black. The seat Thomas was nominated to fill was the one left by Thurgood Marshall, who retired in declining health.

Justice Thurgood Marshall was a consistent liberal vote and a strong proponent of civil rights protections. Before becoming a Justice himself, Marshall argued dozens of civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall’s “sliding-scale” situation-informed style would seem to be in direct conflict with Thomas’s unyielding “textual originalism.”

I was in my early 20s that summer when the Clarence Thomas confirmation, and Anita Hill’s testimony, were everywhere on the news. I even remember it in an episode of the sitcom Designing Women, albeit in a plausibly deniable “bothsides” kind of way. The story raged because of its high stakes and titillating content, but it also prompted some frank. worthwhile discussion about some uncomfortable topics.

And then Thomas publicly complained that the sexual harassment complaints against him amounted to a “high-tech lynching.” And then, slowly but surely, we all came to understand it was pretty much over.

“He played the race card,” his detractors complained. But his supporters answered, weren’t those detractors playing the race card too? What if the real racist is the person who automatically assumes the word “lynching” was intended to be taken in a race-related context in the first place?

It went back and forth like that for a while, as the public spotlight on the story faded out. But we weren’t talking about Anita Hill’s testimony anymore. We weren’t even talking about Thomas’s suitability as a Supreme Court Justice anymore. It was pretty much all “race card” stuff from there on out.

There are many, many reasons that GHWB nominated Thomas. At least one of them is that Thomas is black, and that it would have been a bad look (politically and otherwise) to nominate someone who was not black to replace Marshall.

Thomas is black. That gives him the right to “play the race card,” as far as I’m concerned. But fair play calls for laying your cards on the table, for everyone to see. Thomas has always cared more about the cards he keeps up his sleeve.

I agree with others here who point out that merely having a PoA in place is not a reason that Feinstein should resign. As to whether she should resign for other reasons, I tend think she probably should. But then I think about all the reasons that she shouldn’t.

Feinstein is a high-ranking member of the senatorial judiciary committee. Back in April, she asked to be temporarily replaced in that position, but the Republicans blocked that from happening.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/republicans-block-temporary-replacement-for-sen-feinstein-on-judiciary-committee

The judiciary committee slot is important, because those are the guys who confirm all the federal judges. After sandbagging Obama’s appointees for _eight six years, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed a flurry of judges under Trump.

To try to catch up now, the currently Democrat-controlled (by the thinnest possible margin) Senate Judiciary Committee wants to confirm as many Biden-appointed judges as it can while it still can. A year-and-a-half from now, who knows who will control what?

Sure, Feinstein should step down, and I think even she probably knows that, but she also knows that when she does so, the Democrats lose their razor-thin Senate majority, at least until Newsom can appoint a replacement.

No matter how quickly Feinstein could be replaced, the transition would offer Republicans easy opportunities to further delay nominations and block legislation of the very sort that Feinstein was elected by the people of California to pass. Nominations and legislation we have every reason to believe that she fully comprehends, regardless of any PoAs in place, and even despite her recent display of other age-related lapses in focus.

Anyway though, maybe her tragic act of hubris in all this was running for another term way back in 2018. If she had resigned back then, instead of next year, we wouldn’t be here now. But now that we’re here, I don’t blame her for recognizing the no-win nature of the situation.