Heard this morning on 106.1 WRDU that the guy who shoot up a local grocery store, then took his own life, was a member of the Occupy Raleigh movement.
Members of the Tea Party:
These are not the 99% folks, they just aren’t.
Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National
Tagged 99%, Tariq Taylor
We all know that if you buy goods on Amazon you get to avoid state sales tax. Buy your whole Christmas on line and you might be able to save a hundred bucks. Maybe two.
Should states be able to reach out to those online retailers and tax them as if they were selling goods in state:
Garner, N.C. — A group of North Carolina citizens is lobbying Congress to require companies not based in the state who sell online to start charge state sales tax.
The Alliance for Main Street Fairness, which has branches in several states, said not all companies are doing so, which creates a less even playing field for local businesses.
“People come into the store. They look at the appliances. They go online. They find it cheaper. The cheaper is (because) they’re saving $70, $80, $100 on sales tax,” Alliance for Main Street Fairness spokesman Christopher Dean said Sunday.
The issue affects businesses like Garner TV and Appliance, which doesn’t have an online store.
“It’s a huge, huge impact on our business that we worry about every day and what we can do to stop it,” the company’s Vice President of Operations, Randy Pleasant, said.
I guess it depends upon how you look at it.
If the state is simply saying that we want to generate revenue on goods sold, then yeah, online sales should be taxed. On the other hand, you could argue that sales tax is meant to pay for infrastructure that isn’t being consumed by out of state businesses.
Either way, state governments would be wise NOT to use the sales tax as a means of “even the playing field” for business. THAT is most certainly not the role of government.
Posted in Government, Liberty, Politics: National
I got this from Occupy Raleigh’s Facebook page.
Very refreshing to see some semblance of non-partisan content.
Posted in Government, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National
Tagged Goldman Sachs, Occupy Raleigh
So, two months ago local talk radio show hosts were taking phone calls on their show. The guys at Brad and Britt are Liberal. I don’t think that they’d object to being described as left of center. Anyway, they took this call from a listener and it turned out he subscribed to the more conservative point of view. Britt, clearly having taken the opposite point of view went into his “Little Rush” imitation. This is where he puts on Rush’s radio bumper music and does a fantastic impression of Rush. By itself, Little Rush is hilarious and spot on, using it to yell over an earnest caller is obnoxious.
I called him out:
Keepin’ it real.@bradandbritt losing the debate again. Catch it live at fmtalk1011.com #LittleRush
— pino (@pinotarheelred) October 11, 2011
That Tweet got me “blocked”.
Meanwhile, Britt feels it’s totally appropriate to call out Neil Boortz in a much less polite tweet:
And now @talkmaster says @barackobama is as bent on destroying the USA as the Japanese were 70 yrs ago. He’s so full of shit it ain’t funny
— Britt Whitmire (@brittwhitmire) December 7, 2011
This is how the Left rolls. Free speech for me, censorship for thee.
UPDATE:
It would appear that The TalkMaster blocked Britt months ago:
@pinotarheelred you might want to amend your blog to include that @talkmaster blocked me months ago #nicetrypenis
— Britt Whitmire (@brittwhitmire) December 7, 2011
Not sure that this makes any difference what-so-ever, but Britt felt it was important to include.
Done.
Posted in Fun, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Life, Politics: National
Tagged Brad and Britt, Neil Boortz
Oh my!
How are we going to protect our young, poor, rural elderly Democrats from having babies?
WASHINGTON – In a surprise move, the nation’s health secretary stopped the Plan B morning-after pill from moving onto drugstore shelves next to the condoms, deciding Wednesday that young girls shouldn’t be able to buy it on their own.
The Food and Drug Administration was preparing to lift a controversial age limit and make Plan B One-Step the nation’s first over-the-counter emergency contraceptive, available for purchase by people of any age without a prescription.
But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius intervened at the eleventh hour and overruled her own experts.
Plan B instead will remain behind the pharmacy counter, as it is sold today — available without a prescription only for those 17 and older who show an ID proving their age.
It is clear that Democrats hate Democrats.
Posted in Government, Liberty, Politics: National
I have been harsh in my critique of the Occupy crowd. In reality, the majority of the protesters are unemployed kids who’ve been coddled through life and feel that the world owes them …. something. They don’t even know what.
Whatever.
I was very surprised today to read something that shocked me. An idea generated from the 99% that could get even me to join in. They wanna start a bank:
Members of Occupy SF announced their ambitious plans to turn protesters into bankers by creating the People’s Reserve Credit Union. According to Occupy SF’s Facebook page:
The goal of this project is to encourage San Francisco residents, businesses, as well as nonprofit and city agencies to keep their money out of the big banks and to redistribute that money locally. Initial services will include micro-loans for the working poor and homeless, and subsidized student loans at low interest rates.
This is EXCELLENT news. And not only because I think that young energetic people who have nothing better to do with their time should get a job, but because I have long LONG begged for the Leftists of the world to unite and build a company, a non-profit, that would put their beliefs into action.
Wanna get food to poor people cheaper? Open a not for profit grocery store.
Wanna make gasoline affordable? Open a not for profit gas station.
Cars too expensive? Open a car dealership?
Jobs for everyone and cheap shit too!
Even more impressive, in my mind, is the actual definition of a plan. Something that the Left can’t do. EVER.
Tax the rich, make them pay their fair share!
More money for education; you hate kids!
More money for homeless kids; you hate the poor!
But when asked how much that would be? When would enough be enough?
Gotz. Nada. Nothing. Blank “I went to Yale and learned bullshit” looks.
But these kids, they got game:
- Accumulate capital assets of $7 million or more, through investments by different organizations, members, et al.
- Open two credit union branches within the city of San Francisco. The first branch location in the mid-Market Street corridor , in the former Social Security Administration storefront (MOCD) , with the assistance of other local nonprofits. Each branch will have a cafe within it and a commercial kitchen available to rent.
- The credit union will employ students and homeless, creating 60 part-time jobs.
- Issue 300 to 500 micro-enterprise loans (max. $5,000).
- Add 1,000 people overall to the city employment payroll.
- Finance and start a food co-op large enough to support a neighborhood.
If THIS is what the 99% is talking about, count me in!
The Supreme Court decision that started it all.
See, a long time ago, in 1942, a small time farmer, Roscoe Filburn, grew wheat for consumption by his animals on his private property. He was doing nothing more than growing food for his own personal use and had no intention of selling it.
This violated the government limit on wheat production per acre. Mr. Filburn was ordered to destroy some of his crop and pay a fine. Being a reasonable man, Mr. Filburn declined.
See, the Federal government at the time felt that one of the ways out of the Great Depression was to raise the price of wheat. And to do that one had to control the supply; so they imposed a limit per acre. The case made its way all the way to the Supreme Court where they decided that had Mr. Filburn NOT produced the extra wheat, he would have been forced to purchase it market prices. Wheat, being subject to a national trade, was therefore granted regulatory viability under the Commerce Clause.
In the office I work at, we call that Un-fuckin’-believable.
And to make matters worse is the back story.
See, the Supreme Court at the time was not a Liberal court, on the contrary, it was Conservative. However, the President was one of the worst in History; FDR. See, he threatened the court that if they did not side with his agenda, he would simply appoint additional members to the Supreme Court until he had the majority he needed. The Court, not wanting their power and influence diminished, gave FDR the decision he wanted.
What amount of tragedy would have been avoided had Wickard v. Filburn been adjudicated according to Liberty and law? The horrors of dictatorial power in the hands of the gentle Left.
Posted in Government, Liberty, Politics: National
Tagged FDR, Supreme Court of the United States, Wickard v. Filburn
It seems that Newt stepped in it a bit:
“Remember, this is the best food stamp president in history. So more Americans today get food stamps than before. And we now give it away as cash — you don’t get food stamps. You get a credit card, and the credit card can be used for anything. We have people who take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii. They give food stamps now to millionaires because, after all, don’t you want to be compassionate? You know, the Obama model: isn’t there somebody you’d like to give money to this week. That’s why we’re now going to help bailout Italy because we haven’t bailed out enough people this week, the president thought let’s write another check. After all, we have so much extra money.”
It turns out that people can’t actually buy tickets to Hawaii with their EBT cards. I don’t know if Newt was literally trying to make that case or if he was just making the larger point that we have fraud in the food stamp program, and, even if we didn’t, the program is bloated beyond reasonable expectations.
Anyway, I found this at Laura Ingram via:
The program works. For sure.
It doesn’t matter the organization. Or the society. Or the group.
People stratify.
It is the nature of man to maximize self interest. It’s bred into us through 1000’s of years of evolution. We look out for ourselves. And when ourselves are looked out for, we look out for “the us”. We are tribal individuals. We just are.
If you can find a system that changes humans from the selfish creatures we are to ones that live in “peace” and “harmony”, then we can talk about how better to arrange human society. But until then, free and open markets are the single best way to organize ourselves. If you don’t like human greed and our focus on the material thing, open a church or a synagogue or a mosque. Something that speaks to improving a man’s character. His inner self.
But don’t legislate it.
Which brings me to Jon Stewart. And Occupy Wall Street.
Jon continues to be my 2nd source of comedy; Modern Family is hands down #1. And in this episode he actually takes down the Occupy crowd. To his credit.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided
I love the fact that the park has segmented into two classes. And my favorite part is when the protester dweeb is rambling about “access to the goods of life”. You know, the guy who is worried about “personal property” as opposed to “private property”.
Props to Jon for a humorous sketch on OWS. Good stuff.