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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 18th on 10:17

These are my links for April 18th from 10:17 to 11:28:

  • President Barack Obama coming to Reno on Thursday – President Barack Obama is making a three-day swing to explain his vision for reducing the national debt and it concludes Thursday in Reno.

    The White House issued a press release that day Obama will come to Reno to discuss " the ways the leaders in Washington can come together and meet the expectations of the American people."

    It follows town hall meetings on Tuesday in northern Virginia and on Wednesday in Palo Alto, Calif.

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    Hitting all of the key battleground states – Virginia and Nevada.

    Plus, fundraising in California.

    Obama does know how to run a campaign. Too bad he sucks as a President.

  • Former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey writing tell-all book – Due Out in May – When a book is called "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin," you can guess it's not a happy story.
    An imprint of Simon & Schuster announced Monday that it had signed up "Blind Allegiance," a long-rumored tell-all by former Palin aide Frank Bailey. The imprint, Howard Books, will release Bailey's book May 24. Excerpts from an early draft were leaked to reporters earlier this year.
    Bailey worked with Palin while she was governor of Alaska and when she was John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket in 2008.
    Howard Books is calling "Blind Allegiance" a "chilling expose." Author Ken Morris and Alaska political blogger Jeanne Devon helped write the book.

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    Now, this should be interesting summer reading – but only if Sarah is running.

  • Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Election Snafu Is a National Wake-Up Call – It's been over a decade since the Bush-Gore recount in Florida was supposed to spur a wholesale modernization of our election systems. But a stunning mistake made by a Wisconsin county clerk in a nationally watched state Supreme Court race reminded us of how far we have to go.

    Wisconsin voters went to the polls on April 5 in an election that could have flipped the state Supreme Court's majority from conservative to liberal. On the morning of April 6, liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory by a margin of some 200 votes. But the next day Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced that she had excluded some 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield when she gave her final tally to the Associated Press on election night. The revised tally put conservative incumbent David Prosser more than 7,000 votes ahead of Ms. Kloppenburg, and he has since been verified the clear winner.

    Ms. Nickolaus's error could have been easily avoided through transparency. She had ended the prior clerk's practice of reporting election results for individual cities because it was "not her responsibility" and she didn't "have the staff to enter all the data"—an absurd statement given that many smaller counties post such data on their websites. Many states, such as Kentucky, offer user-friendly websites to track returns statewide.

    Not so in Wisconsin—and if we don't view this month's mess as a wake-up call, we'll have only ourselves to blame if next year's presidential election turns into a rerun of Florida 2000. Americans know it could happen: The Brookings Institution reports that in a 2004 poll of 37 nations, Americans were more likely than citizens of any country save Russia to say that their elections are "very dishonest."

    Mexico—which has a national photo ID requirement for voting—spends roughly 10 times more per capita than the U.S. and has virtually eliminated charges of voter fraud or incompetence. We can vastly improve our system with much smaller investments.

  • Why California Should Tax Online Sales? Or Not… – On this “Tax Day” and throughout the year, millions of Californians do their part to sustain the schools, health care, public safety, and other foundations of a healthy state. But projections show today’s collection will come up at least $1 billion short of what is due because most Californians won’t add the sales tax they owe on online purchases to the bottom of their California income tax form. With the state once again facing tough budget times, these dollars could go a long way to close our gaping budget gap.

    Most Californians may not realize that if a retailer fails to collect the sales tax due on a book, a pair of shoes, or other purchase made online, the purchaser still owes the tax. This requirement is nothing new – it’s been part of state law since 1935. The hitch comes in trying to collect the tax. In fact, only 1 percent of those who buy online from out-of-state companies like Amazon.com currently pay the taxes due. As online sales soar, they also take a big, and growing, bite out of the state’s revenue collection.

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    There is NO good reason and these leftists use the fairness argument to justfy their redistribution schemes and the right of the state to YOUR money.

    One problem which I have written about extensively is the loss of jobs and the fact the state of California really won't realize any more revenue.

    Oops….