Beginning Wednesday, May 15, committees registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will be able to go on-line to create a new electronic filing password, retrieve a forgotten password or change their existing e-filing password.
The problem with compromising your principles means that you have to give up some of them, and for the past 45 years, GOP leadership has been willing to hand off our 2nd amendment rights in exchange for nothing more than, at best, attempting to quiet down the chattering class of the left.
Those of us 50 and older learned a long time ago that the left will never be satiated. They will never have a government to suit them. They will never have enough welfare programs. Nobody will ever pay their fair share. And no amount of private firearm ownership is permissible.
Of course, the manipulations always come with demeaning, condescending statements from both sides of the aisle, assuring us that nobody wants to take guns away from everybody. They only want to decide who is allowed to have them.
They're liars. They are too politically savvy to actually talk about repealing the 2nd Amendment. Instead they content themselves with taking our rights away through incremental-ism. Every snippet of freedom the government allows us to keep in the name of compromise moves to the top of the list of the next loophole to close. Private sales of guns, for example. But make no mistake - the long term agenda of the big government politicians is to take all guns away from anybody not carrying a government ID.
Written by an Iowa State senior by the name of Barry Snell, there's so much good stuff in it that you'll have to read it for yourself. Here's a few key points, but I'd be doing him a disservice if I didn't stress that there's much, much more at the link below:
The emotional mob does not rule in America.
... you have to be a complete idiot to think the Second Amendment is about hunting.
... concealed carry is now legal nearly everywhere, and guess what? Violent crime continues to go down.
...many of us can’t understand how an anti-gun liberal can simultaneously be in favor of abortion.
I subscribe to a myriad of email lists from lots of different political organizations, including Project Veritas from James O'Keefe. You might remember him as the activist filmmaker who created a series of undercover videos that forced ACORN out of business to change their name.
These emails routinely end up routed to the spam bucket, probably the result of people who either didn't realize they signed up or got tired of seeing them and clicked "spam" instead of "Unsubscribe." That action sends a message back to Google's e-brain, essentially telling the system that because lots of people seem to think this is spam, it probably is.
I check my Spam folder every few days and add the misdirected newsletters' email adddresses to my address book, which seems to route things to my inbox .
I've seen lots and lots of misdirected mail. From eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, MoveOn.org, The GOP, The DNC my dentist, my eye doctor...the list goes on and on. But what I haven't seen on them is this:
A message from Google, implying that O'Keefe had used previous communications to scam recipients.
I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but like I said, I've pulled plenty of list-type messages from my spam folder, and I've never seen any of them with this red warning emblazened across it.
In fact, just this morning, Michelle Malkin's newsletter was also in my spam box. Not surprising, because I just signed up for it, and her email wasn't in my inbox. But it didn't have a big red scary warning splashed across it. (Yet?)
And just to clarify - I have seen this red message before but only on emails from real scammers. You know the type - the ones that claim to be from Paypal, your bank, or a Nigerian prince asking for your account number and password.
So, I had to ask: Why is Google now telling people that James O'Keefe is an identity thief?
...Interim Township Manager Dexter Mitchell called for the resignation of Clerk Gloria Platko, who can be heard on the recording using the N-word to describe (Buena Vista) Township Supervisor Dwayne Parker.
Mitchell said he recorded the call in January without Platko’s knowledge because he didn’t want her to twist his words. About six minutes into the recording, Mitchell asks, “Would you be willing to sit down with (Parker)?”
Platko told Mitchell that Parker is “just rubbing me the wrong way.
“He is just doing whatever he can. You know what I think of Mr. Parker right now, and I know you’re not even going to like this,” Platko said in the recording. “But he’s just an arrogant (N-word). And I’m sorry to say it that way, but that’s the way I feel.”
She's an elected offical. Want to guess what party she's affiliated with? Hint: if it was a Republican, the article would mention it. And her party would be calling for her to resign. And it would be national news.
The Daily Caller has a fluff piece about an appearance by comedian-turned-pundit Dennis Miller on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor, where he called for abolition of the American welfare state.
You can click to read and see the whole thing, but the headline sums it up quite tidely:
This attitude perfectly exemplifies the key reason that the GOP keeps losing elections, and rightfully so.
He might as well be saying, "Let them eat cake."
I'm certainly not opposed to ending the welfare state, especially at the federal level, but these neocon clowns would take all that money and pass it out as international welfare.
It's taken 3 generations to get people addicted to the government teat and the citizens are not ever going to vote to go cold turkey, even if DC had the will. Who in their right political mind would think that centerists are going to buy into a plan that doesn't cut overseas spending while leaving its own citizens to fend for themselves?
Or even that they should?
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Today, the Washington Post ran a story about a woman who gets paid to sign up people for food stamps. Surprisingly enough, it isn't a federal job - the state of Florida pays her, the logic being that the money taken from the federal government and spent in Florida stimulates the Florida economy.
The only thing I would add is this: Can you imagine the liberal outcry if WalMart hired people to do just that? Seriously, what if the greeters started asking if customers would be interested in signing up for government assistance, and even passing out a couple of free things to stimulate interest?
As an occasional eBay seller, my email box has been filling up with messages urging me to call my Senators to oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would require internet retailers to collect sales taxes even in jurisdictions where they have no physical presence.
As an accountant, I can only imagine the nightmare this is going to cause. I predict that a new service industry will emerge, much like ADP emerged when multi-state payroll became complicated enough to warrant a stand alone speciality.
But this is worse. First of all, this is coming from a Republican. Sneaky Senator Mike Enzi has been quietly trying to push this thing through for 12 freaking years. This time, he has 4 Republican and 16 Democrat cosponsors.
Next, this isn't about making the markets fair. Markets make themselves fair, without any government intervention required. As usual, this is big corporations using the government to destroy any advantage their smaller competition might have.
The way things work now is pretty simple. If a seller has a physical presence in a state, then they are required to collect sales tax on behalf of that state if they are selling their merchandise to a resident of that state. For example, if I sell a book to a fellow Michigander, I am required to collect sales tax. If I sell to a resident of any other state, then I am not.
So, since Amazon does not have a warehouse or an office in Michigan, I do not pay sales tax if I buy from Amazon. I do pay sales tax if I buy from a third party Amazon vendor who happens to live in Michigan.
The bigger retailers think that isn't fair, even though that's been the law for as log as I remember. They believe that buyers use their stores as "showrooms" then go home and buy the item of their desire off the internet specifically to save the sales tax.
Balderdash. While people who shop on-line are indeed cost-driven, the price of postage and handling more than raises the apples-to-apples cost. For example, I can buy a $10 shirt on eBay or at Walmart. If I pick Walmart, I pay 6% - .60 - in sales tax. If I pick eBay, I pay $4.00 in shipping. When prices are the same, clearly shopping locally is the cheaper option most of the time.
And we can't forget the immediate gratification factor. If I buy my shirt at Walmart, not only do I get the benefit of trying it on beforehand, I can drive home and wear it that very night if I choose. But if I choose the internet, I have to wait.
Different customers making different choices based on different factors. I think there's a phrase that describes that, but it isn't coming to me right now...free something?
Nobody wants that, I guess. Especially the states who fund their operations with sales taxes. They have been salivating over the thought of finally getting the chance to tap into a revenue stream that has heretofore been denied them.
They've tried to demand that their citizens pay the tax by passing laws requiring citizens to 'fess up and admit they bought goodies across state lines at tax time. Guess how that worked out?
This national sales tax thing will have the biggest impact on mid-size retailers, as our corporate Congress has wisely used the "divide and conquer" strategy when they exempted small sellers, like me, by including a floor. If a seller doesn't sell more than $500,000 per year, they're exempt.
But that really puts the larger small sellers in a bind. While the mega-corporations already have entire departments devoted to taxes, the single-location operators don't have that luxury, nor do they have the margins to set up and maintain a system like that. Coupled with the fact that they don't get the huge discounts the mega-retailers get when buying merchandise, they're going to be priced out of the markets in no time flat.
Of course, I can't help but notice that a lot of the trade organizations that are pleading with me to lobby on their behalf are the same organizations that didn't hesitate to pressure eBay into giving them huge discounts on their listing and final value fees, at the expense of the smaller sellers. What goes around...
Don't worry, Professional EBay Sellers Association. I called my Senators for you, but they never met a tax they didn't like so it was a pretty unexciting couple of calls. (Seriously, I'll be so glad when Levin is gone - his staff is horribly snotty. I really, really detest those people.) And my Rep isn't any better, so I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be.
But if it's any consolation, barring hyperinflation I'll never sell anywhere near $500,000 in a year, so you can at least rest assured that your price-shopper customers will be in good hands with me.
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