Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with a comment on our post about Techdirt’s focus as of late, in response to another comment asking for recommendations of other good outlets:

Wired has been pretty much head of the pack at covering Musk’s government takeover.

ProPublica might be the best national news outlet in the country at this point. It’s independent and donation-supported.

404 Media is owned and operated by journalists who were laid off from Motherboard; they’re doing good work in the same tech-oriented vein as Techdirt and Wired.

You may also want to look into supporting your local paper and your local PBS affiliate. And maybe your local NPR station? I kinda got burned out on mine by one too many “let’s go to a diner and talk to Trump supporters to see if they’re still Trump supporters” Cletus safari, but they’re still better than the for-profit news media.

In second place, it’s Bobson Dugnutt with a comment about some of the latest Musk/DOGE nonsense:

Putting the government in charge of preparing people’s tax returns is a good idea actually

As the subject line says, if the government were in charge of doing people’s taxes for them, it would be vastly more efficient and fair than the current kludge we go through.

Several years ago Vox did an article about how taxes work in Japan. Over there, its treasury does exactly that. The government prepares the citizens’ taxes for them, and it’s the citizens that audit the government’s work. The government mails out a tax return, and the taxpayer checks it. If there’s a dispute and the taxpayer notices too much tax was paid, there’s a remedy process. Yet very few tax forms end up disputed.

What is especially silly about the U.S. system is that, with an act of Congress, the IRS could easily switch to this system. The IRS is already one of the U.S.’s largest employer of accountants, and more importantly, the IRS has most individual and corporate taxpayers’ data already. If you get a W2, the taxes have already been collected and the data had been transmitted to the IRS and the state tax authorities. Corporations already file reports and pay taxes at regular intervals.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with Thad‘s followup comment to the one that won, adding a few more suggestions:

The Onion may not speak truth to power, exactly, but it’s very good at calling out bullshit in a pointed way.

Teen Vogue’s political coverage is consistently excellent, and I’m not being facetious.

Next, it’s an anonymous comment about Brendan Carr investigating Verizon:

The thing about capitulating to an abuser is that it doesn’t only happen once. It happens over and over.

When you give an abuser power, there is never a point where they stop using it to abuse you. The whole point of their getting and having power is getting to flex it.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous suggestion about nomenclature:

Stop calling them the doge crew. They’re twitler youth.

In second place, it’s Stephen T. Stone with a comment about the LA Times using AI to offer political “insight” like softening the KKK:

And on the other hand, we have the New York Times, which does all the same bullshit without AI.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got a pair of comments from Pixelation, starting with a good ol’ lightbulb joke:

How many MAGA’s does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None, Trump will declare it has been done, and they will all applaud in the dark.

And finally, a comment about Samuel Alito’s recent dissent:

Alito said…

“I am stunned.”

Of course, he misspelled stupid.

That’s all for this week, folks!