TP crashes plane into IRS building!

[grixit]

And heeeeeeeere's Demo!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586904,00.html

Who now can say she needs to add another chapter to her book

[The Observer]

And Wesley Snipes weighs in with his opinion on the attack:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100219/ap_ ... ipes_taxes

[Doktor Avalanche]

And Wesley Snipes weighs in with his opinion on the attack:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100219/ap_ ... ipes_taxes

Just...wow.

Mr. Snipes, you wrote letters to the IRS basically daring them to come get you and you can't understand why they did?

Allow me to break it down succinctly for you, Wes - you dared the IRS to come get you.

[LPC]

Mr. Snipes, you wrote letters to the IRS basically daring them to come get you and you can't understand why they did?

Allow me to break it down succinctly for you, Wes - you dared the IRS to come get you.

He did? I don't remember that.

Are you sure you're not confusing Larken Rose with Wesley Snipes?

[The Observer]

Recent news:

It appears that Stack may have intended to to do more damage that what his plane was potentially capable of.

And Mrs. Stack makes an apology.

[The Observer]

Oh yeah, no IRS news would be complete without a quote from Bob Schulz:

Bob Schulz, founder of the anti-government We the People Foundation, said that while he only advocates non-violent means of protest, he can understand Stack's motives and said it is a reflection of a movement unlike any he's ever seen.

"There's a huge patriot movement," Schulz said. "I've been doing this kind of work for 30 years. Never have I seen the likes of what's going on now. It's delightful."

Schulz believes Stack was simply beaten to the point of desperation by the government.

"The government is routinely allegedly violating the Constitution... Then when you call them on it, they ignore you too. That's enough to drive a lot of people together and to start, you know, some kind of movement," he said. "There are people that are out there so frustrated that say 'Hey it's time to lock and load.'"

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/patriot-mo ... id=9889443

[Nikki]

And Wesley Snipes weighs in with his opinion on the attack:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100219/ap_ ... ipes_taxes

Did he hurt himself doing his own stunts, or was he always that stupid?

[fortinbras]

Stack's wife issued an apology and condolences:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... attac.html

If it seems a bit restrained, keep in mind that, before going to the airfield, Stack set fire to their home .... with her inside!

I don't know if anyone has described the other offices and tenants of the Echelon Building, as the IRS was only one of several tenants. It might cool some people's enthusiasm for Stack if they knew, say, that his act disrupted the payments to farmers or Social Security, etc.

[The Observer]

If it seems a bit restrained, keep in mind that, before going to the airfield, Stack set fire to their home .... with her inside!

That was an incorrect initial report. It was later reported that Mrs. Stack had spent the previous night at a hotel with her daughter to get away from Stack who was apparently having a tantrum. She came home to find the residence on fire.

[Doktor Avalanche]

Mr. Snipes, you wrote letters to the IRS basically daring them to come get you and you can't understand why they did?

Allow me to break it down succinctly for you, Wes - you dared the IRS to come get you.

He did? I don't remember that.

Are you sure you're not confusing Larken Rose with Wesley Snipes?

No, I'm pretty sure it was Wesley Snipes. Even David Cay Johnston agrees with me.

It's odd you don't remember this, Dan, because you're the one that posted this article.

viewtopic.php?t=2026

Jury to Start Deliberations in Wesley Snipes Tax Case

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: January 30, 2008

OCALA, Fla. — The most prominent tax prosecution in nearly two decades went to the jury Tuesday after defense lawyers argued that while a defendant, the actor Wesley Snipes, did in fact owe tens of millions of dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties, he had not committed a crime.

Defense lawyers used the words “kooky” “crazy” and “dead wrong” to describe the views of Mr. Snipes, 45, on taxes. But they insisted that he had not broken any laws and should be acquitted of fraud, conspiracy and six counts of failing to pay taxes on more than $58 million of income for the years 1999 through 2004.

Two defense lawyers, Robert E. Barnes and Robert G. Bernhoft, said the position that Mr. Snipes had adopted, and which has been invoked by thousands of others who deny the legitimacy of the tax laws, had no merit. But “no merit does not equal fraud,” said David Wilson, a lawyer for another defendant, Douglas Rosile, a disbarred accountant. Mr. Wilson repeated the point two dozen times in 30 minutes.

Mr. Barnes also argued that Mr. Snipes had not committed a crime because he had told the government his reasoning for not paying taxes. “There was full, open disclosure,” Mr. Barnes said, “no fraud, no deceit.”

While lawyers said Mr. Snipes should have to pay his taxes, interest and penalties, the government should have filed a civil suit against him and not a criminal case.

But Robert E. O’Neill, the United States attorney for central Florida, ridiculed the assertions in his rebuttal. Mr. Snipes simply wanted to escape paying his taxes, Mr. O’Neill said, and had sent hundreds of pages of “gibberish” to impede and delay the Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. Snipes sent the I.R.S. a 600-page document in which he called himself a “nontaxpayer” and asked why the I.R.S. would not help him and others “in not complying with laws they clearly are not subject to.”

The jury of seven women and five men will begin deliberations Wednesday.

The third defendant, Eddie Kahn, who ran a business promoting the tax position taken by Mr. Snipes, told Senior Judge William Terrell Hodges that the court has no authority over him. He added that he would rather sit in his cell than attend the trial. Mr. Snipes and Mr. Rosile are free on bail.

Mr. Snipes, who has appeared in more than 50 films since 1986, has earned at least $103 million since 1993, court papers show. He has built a worldwide following portraying intrepid law enforcement agents, vampire slayers and a basketball hustler in movies like “Murder at 1600,” the Blade trilogy of horror films and “White Men Can’t Jump.”

He quit paying taxes in 1998 and sought a $7 million refund for taxes he paid in 1997 and lesser amounts for three years before that, court papers show.

Mr. Barnes, the defense lawyer, said that Mr. Snipes owed so much that it would take him two decades of work to pay the amount. If convicted, Mr. Snipes faces up to 16 years in prison.

Mr. Snipes tried to get the trial moved to Manhattan, saying he could not get a fair trial because of a long history of Ku Klux Klan activity in central Florida, including a statue of a Klan leader a block from the courtroom.

Mr. Bernhoft argued Mr. Snipes should be acquitted because he does not live in Florida. But prosecutors presented the Florida driver’s license of Mr. Snipes and a sworn statement, filed to get a homestead property tax break, in which Mr. Snipes declared his house in nearby Windermere, Fla., was his permanent residence.

One prosecutor, Scotland Morris, asked why, if Mr. Snipes sincerely believed he did not have to pay income taxes, he sent the government three phony financial instruments to pay $14 million in taxes. And he asked why the signature statement on a tax document was altered to say it was signed under “no” penalty of perjury.

Mr. Barnes, the defense lawyer, said the “bills of exchange” were not intended as payment of taxes even though they were sent with a payment coupon. He noted the space on the coupons for writing the amount being paid was left blank.

The signature statement, or “jurat,” was altered, Mr. Barnes said, “because Mr. Snipes wasn’t sure about the advice he was given” by his co-defendants, Mr. Kahn and Mr. Rosile.

A crowd of fans gathered outside the courthouse and Mr. Snipes autographed envelopes, newspaper pages and photographs of people whom he posed with during the two-week trial.

[wserra]

It's odd you don't remember this, Dan, because you're the one that posted this article.

According to the board, I have 3800 posts, spread over seven years. God knows I don't remember all the stuff I've posted and linked to.

Dan has more than double that.

[LPC]

Mr. Snipes, you wrote letters to the IRS basically daring them to come get you and you can't understand why they did?

Allow me to break it down succinctly for you, Wes - you dared the IRS to come get you.

He did? I don't remember that.

Are you sure you're not confusing Larken Rose with Wesley Snipes?

No, I'm pretty sure it was Wesley Snipes. Even David Cay Johnston agrees with me.

It's odd you don't remember this, Dan, because you're the one that posted this article.

viewtopic.php?t=2026

Mr. Snipes sent the I.R.S. a 600-page document in which he called himself a “nontaxpayer” and asked why the I.R.S. would not help him and others “in not complying with laws they clearly are not subject to.”

Asking the IRS for "help" in "not complying with the tax laws" may be stupid, but I don't think its the same as "basically daring them to come get you."

[LPC]

I wonder if the people who consider Stack to be a "hero" also consider the 9/11 hijackers to be the same kind of heroes?

It's odd how one person's definition of heroism can also be the same person's definition of terrorism.

[Doktor Avalanche]

Asking the IRS for "help" in "not complying with the tax laws" may be stupid, but I don't think its the same as "basically daring them to come get you."

He went a lot further than that. In that letter he threatened "damage" if they went after him so, yeah, he was asking for it.

[The Observer]

The Christian Science Monitor had an quote from a law professor:

Jonathan Siegel, a law professor at George Washington University, tells the Wall Street Journal that the tax-protester or tax-denier movement has been fueled in the past two decades by technology.

Yet, Mr. Siegel adds, “Mr. Stack doesn't fit the traditional profile of a tax denier because, while he appears to have complained about taxes and sought to evade them, he didn't claim he was under no legal obligation to pay them.”

It would seem that either Mr. Siegel either did not read Stack's rant or else missed out on Stack's attempt to evade taxes through a phony church scam. And just because Stack filed returns later on doesn't necessarily mean that he gave up on being a tax denier. I interpret his failure to acknowledge that liquidation of his IRA would result in taxable income as being passive-aggressive, perhaps in the hope that he would fly under the radar. And it is hard to believe that an intelligent person as Stack appeared to be would not notice that over $12,000 of income had failed to be included on a return - a return that he said was in line with his estimation of what the bottom line would be; in addition his attempt to blame the IRS and the accountant for the resulting tax does not indicate someone who believes he has a legal obligation to pay. Otherwise this would have been a very simple audit. But he goes on to say that there were a number of tax transactions that now could not be justified; this implies that there were probably a number of deductions being claimed that had nothing to do with how much income was being reported on the return and were being disallowed.

This is the kind of misperception that plays into the hands of those trying to turn Stack into a victim of the system (and for others, a rallying point for their own pet peeves) instead of recognizing him for what he really was: an angry man who drank the koolade.

[Nikki]

This was just released:

Authorities investigating the crash have positively identified the remains of Vernon Hunter, 68, said family spokesman Larry McDonald. Hunter had been missing and presumed dead since Thursday, when software engineer Andrew Joseph Stack III slammed his plane into the building where Hunter worked as a manager for the IRS.

from Doug Shulman, Commissioner, IRs

It is with great sadness that I must inform you that we have received formal notification that one of our IRS colleagues perished in Thursday’s Austin plane crash. As we feared, authorities confirmed that Vernon Hunter died in the senseless attack on the Echelon 1 Building.

Vernon, a Collection field group manager in SB/SE, was a dedicated American and civil servant, working 27 years at the IRS serving the nation’s taxpayers. Before joining the IRS, Vernon served in the U.S. Army, including two tours of duty in Vietnam.

He was a proud father and grandfather. And for Vernon, the IRS really was a part of his family. He is survived by his wife, Valerie, who works as a revenue officer. Fortunately, she escaped safely from the Echelon Building.

I’ve spoken several times to Valerie since the crash, and I’ve let her know that the thoughts and prayers of all IRS employees are with her as well as their many family members, friends and colleagues.

As we mourn the loss of our dedicated colleague, the events of Thursday are more clearly coming into focus. Investigators assessing the plane crash and cataclysmic fire tell us the building took a devastating hit.

In all, there were 13 employees with relatively minor injuries. In addition, an investigator with the Texas Comptroller’s Office was hospitalized. It could have been far, far worse without the heroic efforts of IRS employees in the building. Stories are emerging about how our employees helped each other quickly escape the burning building. IRS employees evacuated the Echelon Building in just minutes.

In the difficult days ahead, we will continue to work with and provide assistance for the people impacted by this dreadful event. We have established a command center in Austin to help us move forward. And we will do whatever is necessary to assist the employees who have been affected by this horrible event.

As we begin the rebuilding process, it’s even clearer to me that the IRS is a family. It’s a family filled with people like Vernon Hunter who love their country and demonstrate that every day working for America’s taxpayers. And like a family, we will pull together and face adversity and tragedy together. And together we will move forward.
--Doug Shulman

I repeat my sincere wishes that the SOB burned, slowly, to death.

[Nikki]

I, and many like me, are seriously angry.

A number of the TP and Sovereignty web sites are now hailing the murderous pilot as a hero, as someone who stepped up to act for all of them.

It's a shame that all of those weasels are hiding under the electronic rocks of the Internet.

If any of them actually had the balls to step out in public and make those statements, there would be a large number of people who would be SO willing to ensure they never spoke again.

It's so easy for them to sit in their comfy chairs in front of theri computers and call for a mass uprising.

Let me just say that there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them and we are not willing to sit back and take shit from them.

If they had the courage to stick their heads up, we'd find an appropriate pike.

[Nikki]

If they had the courage to stick their heads up, we'd find an appropriate pike.

I have a halberd (8' from tip to butt), a Fat Max wrecking tool and a 4' long steel wrecking bar that I would be more than willing to use.

I have other implements, but they are not as personal and visceral.

I'll sign you up. But you'll have to wait in line.

Given the devastation the recent snow storm has caused to the landscaping around 1111, it will be necessary to find some new decorations.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...

I repeat my sincere wishes that the SOB burned, slowly, to death.

Sorry, but at 100+ knots a straight in an impact like that meant instantaneous death - most likely from the aorta being dislodged. As I understand it, he was not gliding in for a student-like landing. If there's enough left they'll probably find he was at maximum power, and the fact that he hit a little low probably saved dozens of lives.

[Nikki]

Thanks. Perhaps, with any luck, he is burning slowly elsewhere