Category Archives: government, law, and politics

Still Want to Keep Incumbent State Legislators? Read on.

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The Tribune-Review has provided some more reasons for a good Clean Sweep. Brad Bumsted covers the legislators who made the most in terms of per diem’s. What’s a per diem? Per diem’s are a flat daily supplement to a legislator when he’s "on the job".

You see, it’s not enough that we slop the hogs (er, pay the legislators) with the biggest paychecks this side of Sacramento, we have to make sure that they should not SPEND the *$&*# paychecks on things like food and transportation. Yes, we give ’em more money for that.

Caesar Can Get Bent

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[BSMETER.GIF]What a crock.

"Did you buy anything through the Internet last year without paying sales tax at the time? If you did, state tax collectors warn that you’d better say so by April 17 and write a check–or else."

"Online purchases from sites like Amazon.com and eBay may seem to arrive in a state of untaxed bliss. But the law actually requires shoppers to pay their own state’s sales tax rate–the concept is called a ‘use tax‘–and voluntarily cough up the exact amount owed each year at tax time."

"Tax bureaucrats for years have lamented the difficulty of collecting use taxes on catalog and mail order sales. Now, with online shopping growing rapidly and nearing $100 billion a year in consumer sales, tax collectors are adopting more aggressive tactics."

"New York state has added a line to income tax returns requiring all residents to calculate how much they should pay on Internet, mail order or out-of-state purchases. The threat is explicit: Anyone who creatively underestimates will face stiff penalties if an audit occurs."

If Amazon.com, et al., start charging sales tax, I won’t be thrilled, but it won’t stop me from buying from stores on the net.  Why isn’t that being done?  Expecting folks to tax themselves is asinine.

The Hyperventilating Left

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Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite.

Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha…

*whew* I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Since when has the Left ever been polite?!? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not patting the Right on the back here. In case you’ve forgotten, both sides piss me off. However, what I’ve noticed in my blogosphere travels, is that while both sides can be rude, obnoxious, and insensitive, it’s overwhelmingly those on the Left that use crude, filthy language to make their points.

"But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack. And with Republicans in control of Washington, they have much more to be angry about."

[…]

"To what, effect, though? Do the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to Daily Kos, who sign their comments with phrases such as ‘Anger is energy,’ accomplish anything other than talking among themselves?…How about the 125,000 or so daily visitors to Eschaton? Or the thousands who visit Rude Pundit, the Smirking Chimp or My Left Wing?"

"Put another way, can one person sitting alone in a living room, typing her fingertips numb on a keyboard, make a difference?"

Not to me they can’t. They can’t change my mind on any issue if I won’t listen to them, and I won’t listen to them until they stop foaming at the mouth and cursing every other word.

"…O’Connor [of My Left Wing] describes a trip she took to Washington last September for a rally against the Iraq war. It was a ‘buoyant’ experience, she says, ‘exuberant,’ right up until the moment that the speakers onstage began yammering about things that had nothing to do with why they had gathered."

"Free Palestine? Free some death-row inmate? End global warming? ‘That was when I just freaking lost it,’ she says. ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ she remembers screaming into a bullhorn."

Now, there’s some anger I can identify with. It drove me nuts when the anti-war protest of ’03 in Pittsburgh was hijacked for women’s reproductive "rights". I hate mission creep.

"Meanwhile, over on Eschaton, Dave is writing, ‘As a matter of fact — I do hate Bush!’ On Rude Pundit: ‘George W. Bush is the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to [expletive].’ On the Smirking Chimp: ‘I. Despise. These. [Expletive]!’"

That kind of purile ranting might be good for rallying other Lefties, but it’s not going to help them change minds or motivate folks (like me) in the middle. Give me intelligent, reasoned explanations of your points and I’ll listen. Go all Exorcist on me and you’ll get plonked.

If any of you frequent Lefty blogs whose authors aren’t rabid, let me know.  Don’t worry about plugging blogs on the Right.  Being a Christian blogger already puts me into contact with more Righty blogs than I can stomach.

What is it About Bipartisan Politics?

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I tuned into a program that talks to state lawmakers and discusses various issues they’re debating. It’s interesting, because it’s so easy to forget that there are people intensely focused on the needs of a single city or county. But while I conceptually like the program, I was dismayed to see how much they talked about party politics. When they talked about a spending bill or initiative with bipartisan support, it’d always be couched in the form of, "This issue is so obvious that even that party is willing to look at what we’ve proposed," as if people were shocked–shocked! I say–that the two parties could agree on legislation.

To stop myself from rolling my eyes, I began replacing that party with "Hitler." The show became much more entertaining when I imagined them saying, "I’m working on a spending bill that will cut 50 million from this program. That’s a savings we need so desperately that even Hitler will support it!" Because really, that’s what it sounded like they wanted to say.

I’m pretty sure most people want to pass good, sound legislation. Can’t we do that without all the partisan bickering, especially when the parties agree for once?