Mitt Romney: Ron Paul deserves to be laughed at. (Audio) | Ron Paul Republican Grassroots Newsletter
Mitt Romney: Ron Paul deserves to be laughed at. (Audio)
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Politics, guns, my home town and surrounding areas, loathing, and the observations of a very grumpy white male living in a suburb of Boston. "Lynn, Lynn, city of sin. You never come out the way you went in. Ask for water, they give you a gin... it's the darndest city I ever been in."
Mitt Romney: Ron Paul deserves to be laughed at. (Audio)
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9-11 Mossad Agents Admit Mission:
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Men Sentenced To Prison Time For Abusing Manatee - Miami News Story - WPLG Miami
A resolution: Abolish the income tax
Email|Print| Text size – + By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / December 30, 2007
ON ELECTION DAY five years ago, 885,683 Massachusetts citizens voted for a ballot measure to abolish the Massachusetts income tax - a 45 percent level of support that shocked the state's political establishment, which had expected the question to go down to ignominious defeat, not come within a few percentage points of passing. So when Libertarian leader Carla Howell launched a new effort to junk the income tax earlier this year, the powers that be made it clear that this time they would do everything they could to discredit it.
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* Patrick says eliminating state income tax would be irresponsible
*
In August, Howell's Committee for Small Government filed its updated ballot language, and Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation wasted no time pouring scorn on it. (Its name notwithstanding, the Taxpayers Foundation is a business lobby that often opposes broad-based tax relief.) Howell's proposal is "absolutely unreasonable," Widmer snorted. "Essentially she's trying to repeal the 20th century."
Undeterred, tax-repeal supporters collected 100,000 voter signatures on initiative petitions, well above the number required to move the measure forward. So Governor Deval Patrick is cranking up the rhetoric. He told the Associated Press last week that undoing the income tax is "just a dumb idea" that would utterly devastate Massachusetts.
"Patrick said he has lived in places with no taxes, including the time he spent in Darfur 30 years ago," AP's Steve LeBlanc reported. "He says there were also no bridges, no good roads, and no public safety there. 'Civilization costs something,' he said. 'If we could have something for nothing, which is the fiction that has been sold by the right for some time now, then we wouldn't have a $19 billion upkeep backlog for the roads and bridges.' "
If that is Patrick's best case for preserving inviolate the state income tax, maybe he shouldn't be tossing the word "dumb" around quite so freely.
To begin with, Massachusetts without a personal income tax would not be a "place with no taxes." It would be a place with corporate income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, meals taxes, hotel taxes, excise taxes, workers' compensation taxes, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, wine and liquor taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and real estate transfer taxes, not to mention the taxes ("license fees") imposed on a vast array of professions and occupations. The $11 billion collected in personal income taxes accounts for only 40 percent of state revenue. Take that away and the government of Massachusetts still helps itself to more than $16 billion a year. That's not exactly "no taxes."
It's not exactly Darfur, either. What a shameless comparison. Even Patrick cannot possibly believe that the misery and horror of Darfur is caused by insufficient taxation. A ballot initiative to repeal the state income tax is not an invitation to choose between life as we know it today or a life of poverty, lawlessness, and war. To suggest that those are the stakes is both ridiculous and disgraceful.
"Civilization costs something," the governor says, echoing the 1904 dictum of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society."
Maybe so. But in Massachusetts lately, taxes are also the price we pay for Big Dig corruption, for larcenous public-employee pensions, for state-owned golf courses, and for wretched public schools. Higher taxes are no guarantee of a more civilized society.
As a matter of fact, when Holmes defended taxes as the price tag of civilization, there were no federal and state income taxes. Massachusetts didn't begin taxing incomes until 1916, which means that for most of its history, the Bay State survived - even thrived - without an income tax. As Howell's ballot proposal advances, the fearmongers will shrilly warn that voting yes will plunge us into the Dark Ages. Like all addicts, those hooked on high taxes are terrified by the prospect of giving up their drug. They cannot imagine how much better they will feel when they learn to live without it.
Eliminating the state income tax would reduce government spending by about $11 billion, shrinking the budget to its 1995 level. But that $11 billion would not be lost. It would be back in the private sector - back in the hands of the men and women who earned it, and who are far more likely to spend, invest, or donate it wisely than the bloated state bureaucracy it goes to now.
Nine states - Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming - have no income tax. In 2008, Massachusetts has another chance to make it 10. Last time, the repeal campaign came close. Next year, let's put it over the top.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente Northern California are teaming up to investigate the straight-out-of-science-fiction syndrome whose symptoms include itching, biting and crawling sensations and filaments or fibers reported to emerge from the skin.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology also will assist with the study.
In order to contain costs, Kaiser requires agreement by planholders to submit patient malpractice claims to arbitration rather than litigating through the court system. This has triggered some discussion and dissent.[45] Some cases proceed to court and one argument is over whether the requirement to go through dispute resolution is enforceable[citation needed]
Kaiser has settled three cases for alleged patient dumping since 2002. During that same period, the Office of the Inspector General settled 102 cases against US Hospitals which resulted in a monetary payment to the agency.[49][50][51]
On November 16, 2006, Los Angeles city officials filed civil and criminal legal action against Kaiser Permanente for "patient dumping"--the delivery of homeless hospitalized patients to other agencies or organizations in order to avoid expensive medical care[citation needed]as reported by National Public Radio's All Things Considered.
The legal filings are intended to punish hospitals for releasing homeless hospital patients (often via taxis) on the sidewalk near relief shelters instead of accepting responsibility for releasing hospital patients into the care of a relative, or of a recognized agency.
The city's decision to charge Kaiser Permanente reportedly was influenced by security camera footage, allegedly showing a 63-year-old patient, dressed in hospital gown and slippers, wandering toward a mission on Skid Row, as outlined in a 20-page complaint. City officials say that as many as 10 other area hospitals are under investigation for possible future action for this practice.[52]
Since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the 2nd Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions, according to the Bush administration.
Paypal has frozen the fundraising account of the Granny Warriors, a Ron Paul supporters group who had been pushing for a recount in New Hampshire, causing a 3pm Tuesday deadline to be missed and the application rejected for lack of payment.
The Granny Warriors had raised the necessary $55,600 deposit for the recount but at the last minute before it was transferred to the New Hampshire Secretary of State, Paypal blocked access to the funds.
No explanation has been forthcoming from Paypal as to why the corporation froze the account.
Whitman is known as a supporter of former Massachusetts' Republican governor Mitt Romney's presidential campaign[3][4] in 2008 and is now on his "National Finance Team".[5] She is also listed as Finance co-chair of Romney's campaign exploratory committee. [6]
Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state
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"Rather than focusing on well-established measures for protecting the lives and health of Americans, policymakers have recently embraced an approach that views public health policy through the prism of national security and law enforcement," the ACLU report reads.
But the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said the group had misunderstood the government's approach and said current plans already incorporate many of the ACLU's recommendations.
The ACLU said it was worried that the plan called for military and police involvement in enforcing a quarantine.
The ACLU experts said they were especially disturbed by an October executive order from President George W. Bush that directed HHS to establish a task force to plan for potential catastrophes like a terrorist attack, pandemic influenza or a natural disaster that would ensure full use of Department of Defense resources.
The Bush order does not specify what the Department of Defense role would be, but also mentions military medical research facilities that have played a role in health for decades.
The Bush order does not specify what the Department of Defense role would be, but also mentions military medical research facilities that have played a role in health for decades.
"Pandemic planning today tends to emphasize mandatory vaccination and forced treatment," the ACLU's Tania Simoncelli told a news conference.
"It also means that sick people are being treated as criminals and enemies of the state rather than individuals in need of care."
The ACLU said plans should focus on how to help people stay home without losing pay, and instead of merely advising citizens to stockpile food, should provide for ways to help them do so.
"They have mischaracterized our planning efforts. They are confusing a containment attempt as our overall pandemic response once the virus has spread beyond our ability to stop it," Hall said in a telephone interview.
Germany's federal prosecutor has overturned the guilty verdict passed on Marinus van der Lubbe, the communist activist who claimed to have set fire to the Reichstag in 1933 to protest the Nazis' rising power.
Van der Lubbe, a Dutchman active in Germany's communist underground, was found guilty of treason and arson by the Reichsgericht, Germany's highest court at the time, and sentenced to death in December 1933. A month later, he was guillotined in a Leipzig prison yard, three days before his 25th birthday.
Inside the Reichstag following the fire in 1933Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Hitler used the Reichstag fire to consolidate his power
The burning of the Reichstag became a pivotal event as the power of the Nazis grew, as they used it to incite fear about the threat of communism. Adolf Hitler persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to sign a decree curtailing some civil liberties, paving the way for the suppression of thousands of communists and other groups targeted by the Nazis.
Legal ups and downs
After World War II, Van der Lubbe's brother attempted to have the verdict overturned, and had a short-lived success in 1980, when a West German court complied. Three years later, however, the Federal Court of Justice decided there had been no basis for re-examining the matter, and declared the West German court's decision illegal.
On Thursday though, the Federal Court, acting on a petition from a Berlin lawyer, lifted the death penalty verdict based on a 1998 law that makes it possible to overturn legal injustices perpetrated by the Nazis.
The acquittals of four other men tried alongside Van der Lubbe in 1933 remain in force, the prosecutor said.
This Just In!!!
And, this time, I mean it.
I just got off the phone with a very reliable source who told me of a Massachusetts resident who drove up to Atkinson, NH (just over the MA/NH state line) yesterday, told a voting official there that he was "thinking of moving to New Hampshire", showed a Massachusetts driver's license, was handed a ballot, and was allowed to cast a vote in the New Hampshire primary.
This individual also stated that there was a significant number of cars at the polling location with Massachusetts license plates.
Begs the obvious question, exactly how many people from Massachusetts (and elsewhere) were given ballots in yesterday's election and allowed to vote?
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Don't know if this will go anywhere. I was hoping to get an "official" statement from the aforementioned individual, but I just heard from my source that he (understandably) "doesn't want to get involved".
Police Cruiser Crash Closes 93 South WOBURN (WBZ) ― The morning commute to Boston was brought to a halt Wednesday morning by a crash involving a Massachusetts State Police cruiser. The crash happened at around 7:50 Wednesday morning on Route 93 South just north of Route 128 in Woburn. The Trooper was apparently driving in the left lane and rear ended a white S.U.V. stopped in traffic. Luckily no one was hurt in the crash. At one point all 4 lanes of 93 South were closed and later the two left lanes of the highway were closed; causing a major traffic back up at the height of the morning rush hour. All lanes are now back open. Traffic was backed up along the other side of the highway as well as curious drivers slowed down to look at the accident scene.
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"Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers in Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula ... to be ready to receive the Crusader slayer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula in the beginning of January and to receive him not with flowers or clapping but with bombs and booby-trapped vehicles," Gadahn, 29, said in Arabic.
"This just shows once again, al-Qaida offers nothing but violence and death," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "The purpose of President Bush's trip is to meet with mainstream Arab leaders and people to talk about a positive future for the region, based on hope and opportunity."
Earlier this month, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency would review the latest tape for intelligence value and vowed never to give up the hunt for Gadahn.
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire is the title of a 2000 book by Chalmers Johnson. In a chapter called "Stealth Imperialism," Johnson begins by asserting that "present American policy is seeding resentments that are bound to breed attempts at revenge." By now, most Americans have heard this argument many times and in many different forms, and it appears to be sinking in. But apparently nobody had ever had the guts to say anything like that with Giuliani in earshot.
"I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11," he fumed at Paul. Maybe he didn't know it at the time, but there were a few little holes in his foot. And six months after stepping on a porcupine, Giuliani netted a whopping 4% in Iowa.
"The ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing on our ships and ... the U.S. ships would explode," Cosgriff told reporters at the Pentagon via videolink from his Bahrain headquarters.
The Huckster File – An Open Letter to Those Considering Reverend Mike for President
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WEAPONS OF CHOICE
Shopper pulls gun, stops robbery cold
Held suspect at grocery store until police officers arrived
Posted: January 2, 2008
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com
A grocery store customer in Indianapolis is being credited with halting an armed robbery by pulling his own weapon and pointing it at the assailant until police arrived.
According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Charlie Merrell, 51, was in a checkout line at a grocery store called Bucks IGA on the city's south side when a "masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee."
The police report cited by the newspaper said the incident happened at 5:17 in the afternoon Monday as Merrell was doing some year-end shopping.
"While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers," according to the police report, "Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon."
(Story continues below)
The newspaper noted that Officer Jason Bockting, in his documentation of the incident, said when the suspect seemed to hesitate, "Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber."
At that point, the report said, "the suspect placed his gun and a bag of cash on the counter, dropping some of the money … the suspect removed his mask and lay on the floor."
Merrill, meanwhile, held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs.
Police reported Merrell had a valid permit to carry the handgun, and they recovered an unloaded .380-caliber handgun and $779 cash from the suspect.
Police records show Dwain Smith, 19, was being held in the Marion County Jail on a bond of $30,000 on initial charges of robbery, criminal confinement, pointing a firearm, battery and carrying a handgun without a license.
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