...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.
From a piece about the Boston Bombers on The Daily Beast:
“We’re seeing that blowback,” retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, Obama’s former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. “If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
Snicker. Former Obama Chief Staff and possible future Illinois governor has written a piece for the Washington Post, in which he openly sobs about giving a candidate money but not getting a vote he wanted.
I have had a long career in government and politics, but I don’t donate heavily to political campaigns. When I contribute, it’s because I know the candidate well or am really impressed with the person. Heidi Heitkamp was one of the latter: She struck me as strong-willed, principled and an independent thinker.
Apparently he didn't think that "independent thinker" thing through, because Heitkamp didn't vote with her party when she voted no on the gun control bill cloture.
And here's the best part:
Here in Chicago, we know how serious a problem gun violence is.
Did you get that? No, not the fact that guns are illegal in Chicago - the other thing! He doesn't live in her district! Nowhere near it. But her vote, which likely coincides the odds of her getting reelected, was a betrayal to him, because he paid for it.
Having lived in Chicago for a while, I actually understand why he feels that way. People from outside don't get it, but it's just the way business is done in Illinois. If you want something, you grease the hand of the local politician. It is really so entrenched the people there don't even consider it wrong - it's just the system.
It's the same system that put 3 of their last 4 governors in prison, too. And it looks like buying politicians apparently isn't the way they do it in North Dakota.
Rand Paul was named one of Time Magazine's top 100 influential people or something. In the very least I don't pay much attention to Time Magazine, so it didn't exactly thrill me. But Ol' Beltway Joe seems a little dismissive about the issue.
These days, anything that Joe says about the GOP might as well be coming from the Democrats. Or is it just me?
Most people either don't know, don't care or won't admit that the FBI knew about the bombers in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing before they actually bombed the building. They had an informant on the inside who wanted to replace the explosives with a harmless substitute. Instead, the FBI reassigned him, and the bombing was successful.
Do I think that the FBI wanted people to die in the Tower that day? No. But do I think that someone should have been held accountable, and that the FBI is perfectly capable of being every bit a sluggish, inefficient bureaucracy as all the other government agencies are.
From today, this is an interview with the mother of the Boston bombers. Listen and tell me if you hear what I heard.
What I heard was that the FBI were monitoring the older brother because he was visiting Muslim extremist sites on the internet. His Mom knew about the monitoring because the FBI had come to her repeatedly and told her that he was in deep. They thought he was a leader and they were afraid of what he might do.
I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction was that they should have stopped him, but I'm not sure what laws he broke. I'm pretty sure that while I'm probably in the minority as usual, I don't want to give the FBI the power to arrest people based only on what sites they visit.
My second reaction was to wonder if they had warrants to follow this guy around the internet.
And my third reaction was sadness, because based on the lack of protest I see over the de facto martial law in Boston today, it's pretty clear that most of us actually don't cherish freedom over security.
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