Bits: Rain in Hong Kong; American fascist; Tax stuff

It's not global warming or climate change. It's just the weather. Torrential rains pounded southern China, flooding low-lying homes and roads, choking expressways, and prompting officials to suspend classes while the record-breaking storms lingered over the region.

In other weather, Greece:

Brazil:

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Musk cut internet to Ukraine’s military as it was attacking Russian fleet. SpaceX cut off Starlink satellite internet service to Ukrainian submarine drones last year just as they were launching an attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, according to a new biography of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. The new details of the previously reported incident underscore how dependent multiple governments have become on a man who controls both a dominant means of high-speed communication and a major platform for public discourse, X.

I'm winning!!

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The AP reports about an IRS plan to try to collect back taxes from millionaires and corrupt businesses:

The IRS announced on Friday it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes.

.... a massive hiring effort and AI research tools developed by IRS employees and contractors are playing a big role in identifying wealthy tax dodgers. The agency is making an effort to showcase positive results from its burst of new funding under President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration as Republicans in Congress look to claw back some of that money. 

House Republicans built a $1.4 billion reduction to the IRS into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress this summer. The White House said the debt deal also has a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert that money to other non-defense programs.

With the threat of a government shutdown looming in a dispute over spending levels, there is the potential for additional cuts to the agency.

One can reasonably anticipate some howls of self-righteous outrage from the tax cheats claiming they are innocent patriots being viciously persecuted in an outrageous political witch hunt. One can also expect lots of howls of sanctimonious outrage from the authoritarian radical right Republican Party about this evil socialist, communist, fascist, pedophile Democratic Party tyranny and oppression of innocent patriots. Let our tax cheats go free!!

This country is in the toilet.