Woman Refutes Being Dead
Barbara Smith lives in Costa Mesa, a city in Orange County, California — or so she claims. The federal government demonstrated their doubt of this idea in early January, when they paused Smith’s Social Security and Medicare on grounds of her being dead.
Smith’s story was picked up by multiple outlets where she contended that she was, in fact, very much alive, and the government requested she write a paper and provide a photo of her driver’s license to substantiate her bold claim. As of January 3rd, the Orange County Register reported that this was sufficient evidence for the social security system and her bank, but that Medicare has not yet been forthcoming.
According to a comment from a Social Security spokesperson from the same piece, a nearly “10,000-strong army of the undead” exists whose deaths are incorrectly reported by Social Security each year.
LA Celebrates New Year With Smoking Deaths
This New Year’s Eve, a video of a group of Los Angelenos standing before a billboard popped up in many feeds watched as great electronic letters declaring Smoking Deaths This Year and Counting reset back to zero. Although it may have seemed strange to those who saw it, the tradition has been a part of West L.A. history for decades.
The sign was put up in 1987 by William E. Bloomfield, according to the L.A. Times. His website states the sign was meant to “generate awareness of the dangers of smoking and the threat posed by big tobacco companies. The sign counts up every few seconds, and a technician comes at the end of the year to reset it — a sight which people across West L.A. have gathered to see for at least 32 years.
The tradition seems morbid. But those who participate have voiced differently. Gideon Brower, an L.A. resident familiar with the sign, wrote in 2012 for the L.A. Times that the tradition feels “strangely like a rebirth… it’s like spring.”
External Revenue Service
Essentially all Americans are familiar with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the federal agency that collects taxes. Amidst the slew of executive orders Trump recently signed, one stands out as a subversion of the familiar tax-collecting department: the ERS.
The concept of the ERS lines up with the Trump administration’s promises to impose heavier tariffs and revenue-collection from other countries. Similarly to the IRS, the ERS is posed as a government body to collect revenue, but from external rather than internal sources.
Trump claimed the agency would make foreign nations “start paying… their fair share.”
What exactly the ERS’ function would be remains a point of confusion. Newsweek points out that “it is likely to offer the same function as the preexisting Department of Commerce and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).” Time calls into question the “external” part of the new department’s name, writing that “economists have said the cost of the tariffs will be passed on to consumers.”
Nonetheless, the idea of the IRS — perhaps the most omnipresent government entity in the average Americans’ lives — gaining an antithetical, sister agency remains a novel one.
