Paramount Should Sue the IRS

The IRS, whose sole purpose is to strip Americans of cash, used some of that cash to make a dreadful, stupid, and trademark-infringing video to train fellow IRS drones on how to take more cash from Americans. The video is below, but I had to stop watching a quarter-way through due to a cringe-factor of 9.

From FoxNews here:

While taxpayers may be getting used to seeing federal agencies fritter away their money, there’s something ironic about the IRS doing it.

The tax-collecting agency is under fire over a training video from a 2010 conference that parodied “Star Trek” — and cost tens of thousands of dollars to make.

The IRS now says the video was a mistake and wouldn’t be made today. But Republicans were steamed as they portrayed the tape as yet another example of the government wasting tax dollars at a time of trillion-dollar deficits.

“There is nothing more infuriating to a taxpayer than to find out the government is using their hard-earned dollars in a way that is frivolous,” Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said. “The IRS admitted as much when it disclosed that it no longer produces such videos.”

The agency says the six-minute video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show “Gilligan’s Island,” cost about $60,000. The “Star Trek” video accounted for most of the money, the agency said.
The video features an elaborate set depicting the control room, or bridge, of the spaceship featured in the hit TV show. IRS workers portray the characters, including one who plays Mr. Spock, complete with fake hair and pointed ears.

Its wrong to call this video a “parody” because it is as humorless and any tax collector. But it is an infringement on the trademarks of Paramount, and I’d love to see lawyers sue the pants off the IRS. Make it so.