Monday December 17, 2012 Interesting Items 12/17 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Taxation 2. Shooting 3. Stimulus 4. Riot 5. Medical Device Tax 6. Buy Media 1. Taxation. One of the favorite dreams of conservatives has been to somehow defund the left. The current budget festivities may be an opportunity. National Review Online (NRO) suggested eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes as a way to stick it to the Blue States and raise $800 billion. The coastal blue states are the heart of the political strength of the left. They are also among the richest parts of the nations. In the words of Slow Joe Biden “Time to have some skin in the game” folks. Note that I despise raising taxes. Unfortunately with a gutless deal maker in charge of the House majority, we are going to have to play along whether we like it or not. So if we must play, let’s have at it. Another thing to do would be to start taxing unions like corporations, and do it at the same rate. This forces the unions to also have some skin in the game and act as something other than simple laundering vehicles for democrat campaign donations. As long as we are on a roll, perhaps we ought to revoke the non-profit status of all non-governmental organizations – and do it on the right and the left. This would include but not be limited to all environmental organizations, all foundations, all fraternal organizations, universities (public and private), and public interest legal firms, etc. The only entities that ought to be exempt should be faith-based organizations and charities. The foundations, environmental organizations and universities are the heart of the democrat indoctrination effort on our children and the low information voters. Time for them to have a little skin the game also. The House could pass legislation with these changes and dare the senate to take it up. It would change the discussion on which rich people and small businesses to screw the most. Time to start screwing the left. NRO article on removing the deduction for state and local taxes can be found here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335632/blue-tax-editors 2. Shooting. A mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown CT Friday killed 20 kindergarteners and 6 adults. The shooter was a 20-something troubled youth, who lived with his divorced mother. She was a survivalist and was well armed. He used her weapons with her being the first victim. Every single report of details of the shooting initially was wrong. Every single one of them. Media and democrats, not wanting to waste yet another crisis, instantly launched into the sadly predictable gun control rant, which is still building at this writing. The perp shot himself when the cops showed up 20 minutes into the event. It turns out that the perp had some level of mental illness and was on some sort of drugs for his condition. Gun sales spiked over the weekend as calls for bigger, better and more powerful gun control laws increased. A gun dealer in Texas started offering discounts for teachers taking concealed carry training. Some red state politicians have also started talking about allowing concealed carry in public schools. There were three copycat shooters since Friday – one in San Antonio, where a security guard put four rounds into a guy trying to shoot up a restaurant; one at a mall in Clackamas OR, where a shooter was confronted by a concealed permit carrier. He later committed suicide via gunshot. And a shooter in southern CA was stopped by a pair of bicycle cops before he could pull the trigger. Solution to all of this? Sadly, it won’t be easy. There are some things we need to do right off the bat. Among the first would be immediate repeal of federal legislation prohibiting weapons carry in schools, federal buildings and military installations (Fort Hood, anyone?). Anyone with a concealed permit should be allowed to carry in locations based on state law. Decisions to limit carry should be made at the state level. Second issue would be to start addressing how we handle mental health. There are significant anecdotal problems associated with the widespread use of anti-depressants, psychotropic drugs, and Ritalin on young men in the schools. For the most part, the happy juice works well. In a few, they appear to have devastating side effects, making their users suicidal and deadly dangerous. We need to have a significant discussion about how we handle the mentally ill; what impact the widespread use of Ritalin on young men and boys in the public schools is having, and the side effects of anti-depressants on the mentally ill. And it should start sooner rather than later. 3. Stimulus. Not so stealth spending is being pushed during this session of the mad duck congress. This time is a cool $60 billion wealth transfer from the rest of the nation to some of the richest states in the union – NY, CT, NJ – all in the name of disaster relief from the Sandy storm. As with all stimulus spending, this one will be larded up with all manner of pork to grease the skids of future elections for democrats and their supporters in the public employee unions. So much for the fiscal cliff. 4. Riot. Union goons (redundant) reacted poorly to the passage of union reform in Michigan last week with a near riot outside the state house. During the festivities, they tore down a tent set up by Americans for Prosperity (AFP). There were people inside it while the goons tore up the downed tent and sliced it up for souvenirs. They busted up and destroyed a hot dog stand operated by a black entrepreneur in that location for over a quarter century. The entrepreneur was also roughed up a bit. One of the thugs, an IBEW member sucker punched Fox News reporter Steve Crowder, hitting him four times before he was pulled off. Crowder is a martial arts / MMA kind of guy and did not return fire, likely in fear for his life. But his film crew did get the festivities on film and it was shortly posted on You Tube for all to see. The left blogosphere instantly charged that the Fox video had been edited. The major networks ignored the assault and battery. Conservatives did manage to get the name of the perp and posted it online. Crowder filed a criminal complaint against the thug late in the week. We will also hope the complaint and following civil suit also includes the unions themselves. Lansing police did not immediately step in and quell the mayhem, apparently in sympathy with their union brothers. The legislation passed and signed in Michigan essentially removed the requirement for employers to automatically deduct and pay union dues from paychecks for union members. This essentially defunds the unions and destroys their membership, for when they turn from a forced membership organization to a voluntary one, membership walks away pretty quickly. In Wisconsin, membership in the local teachers’ unions have dropped in some instances by over 55% as teachers are now having to write checks directly to the unions rather than having their dues automatically deducted. Michigan unions started this fight by pushing a ballot initiative that would have made it unconstitutional for Michigan to pass any right to work legislation. That overreach was defeated by voters with just over 57% against. This fight will continue in elections next year, which may end up being too late for the unions. 5. Medical Device Tax. 16 democrat senators including such notables as Al Franken (D, MN) and Elisabeth Warren (D, MA) wrote a letter to the Obama administration asking it to hold off on implementing the odious medical device tax passed as part of ObamaCare. It turns out that there are corporations in MN and MA (among other states) that traffic in medical devices and will be run out of business by the new tax. This tax is a particularly odious one, as it taxes medical device companies 2.3% on the total revenues rather than the profits. If a company makes no profits for a particular year, it still pays the new tax on its gross revenues. Add 16 democrats to 47 current Republicans and you get 63 senators, enough to override a democrat filibuster and almost enough to override an Obama veto. This is a real opportunity for House Republicans, as they can pass a quick repeal of this tax; send it over to the senate where it will pass; and on to Obama for his veto. Of course, Boehner is too busy giving away the entire store in budget negotiations to take advantage of this opening, which is why he should step down as Speaker. 6. Buy Media. One of the ways the Obama administration won was via setting the stage for conservative defeat during the continuous campaign. Obama and leftist friendly media – women’s magazines, newspapers, small local publications – all ran a continual series of positive fluff pieces on Obama and the democrats. In parallel, the very same publications also ran a series of articles painting conservatives in general and Republicans in particular as the Spawn of Satan. Over time, this worked, leading to a suggestion last week that big donors to Republican campaigns should reconsider writing large caliber checks to the beltway consultant class. Rather they should use that money to purchase troubled media companies and start doing the same thing to democrats and the left. Do it in the Latino media. Do it in black media. Do it in women’s’ magazines and on the daytime programs. Do it now. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Anchorage Daily Planet http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/ MatSu Valley News http://matsuvalleynews.blogspot.com/ Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ -- When replying to this message, plz cc: [email protected] to assure prompt reply. 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