• Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 12th on 00:41

    These are my links for April 12th from 00:41 to 08:32:

    • California courts: A judicial fight may be averted – William Vickery's announcement that he would retire as the chief administrator of the California judicial system may cool off a red-hot political fight that pits judges against judges.

      Officially, Vickery, the top executive at the Administrative Office of the Courts, or AOC, was merely fulfilling a previously made decision to step down. But it occurred as Vickery was receiving big-time heat from rebellious judges, the state auditor's office and legislators over management issues, especially a much-troubled, very costly computer system.

      To critics, the California Court Management System is symbolic of efforts by the recently retired Supreme Court chief justice, Ron George, to centralize judicial management, bypassing locally elected judges.

      Rebel judges created the Alliance of California Judges and are sponsoring legislation that would affirm the right of local courts to manage their affairs. The AOC, under Vickery, has been organizing opposition to Assembly Bill 1208 by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier.

      When State Auditor Elaine Howle issued a highly critical report on the computer system, it gave the rebels more ammunition.

      "AOC has consistently failed to develop accurate cost estimates," Howle said. "Projected in 2004, the AOC's earliest available cost estimate for the system was $260 million, an amount that grew substantially to $1.9 billion based on the AOC's January 2010 estimate. Over the same period, complete deployment to the superior courts has been postponed by seven years, from fiscal year 2008-09 to fiscal year 2015-16."

      After the report was issued, several legislators called for Vickery to resign.

      The computer system was to be George's crowning legacy, along with a $5 billion courthouse construction project. Both legacies, however, are tarnished by their implementation.

      ======

      Former chief Justice Ronald George was an idiot and everyone is glad he is gone (retired.

      The California court system is a disgrace, costs too much money and needs to live within its means.

      I say cut their bloated budgets and pare back the judge's salaries.

    • Amazon Tax: The Internet Tax Mirage – Governor Pat Quinn recently added to his reputation as America's most taxing politician by signing a law applying the state's 6.25% sales tax to Internet purchases made in Illinois. Within hours, Amazon, the online book and merchandise seller, announced it would discontinue using any of its 9,000 Illinois small business affiliates to avoid having to collect the tax. Congratulations, Governor.

      The issue of whether and how states should tax Internet sales is back as one of the hottest in state legislatures. Colorado, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island already impose some version of what has become known as the "Amazon tax," and at least a dozen other deficit-plagued states are advancing similar bills. This political brawl unites liberals with brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, against taxpayers and such online retailers as Amazon and Overstock. Internet sales reached $165 billion last year and have been growing by nearly 15% annually.

      The first issue is whether the Amazon tax is constitutional. New York's law is now being challenged in court as a violation of the Supreme Court's landmark 1992 Quill decision. In that case the High Court ruled that a state cannot impose a tax on a company if it does not have a physical presence in that state.

      This decision originally applied to mail order sales, but the same principle applies to firms that sell over the Internet. If the company does not have an office, store or warehouse inside a state, the state cannot compel the firm to collect sales tax. Illinois and others are trying to broaden the concept of physical presence to include doing business with any affiliate inside the state's borders, such as online advertisers.

      The Quill standard may be the last line of defense against what would become a raid by governments at all levels on interstate online commerce. One virtue of the U.S. federal system is that it allows states to compete on tax policies. The courts should insure that a firm has a genuine physical presence in the state—not merely an online presence—to impose its taxing power. States retain the right to collect a "use tax" from their residents who make purchases from out-of-state companies or over the Internet.

      Even if the courts rule against online sellers, states are fantasizing if they believe this tax will raise as much money as they hope. As in Illinois, Amazon has announced that it will cease doing any business with affiliates in any state that imposes this tax, and the firm hasn't been bluffing. So far it has closed its affiliate program in every state with the tax, except New York (where the law is under challenge).

      Paul Dion, head of Rhode Island's revenue analysis office, says that "To date nobody has come forward to remit sales tax to us under that [online sales tax] statute." North Carolina's tax office reports that the state had raised all of $4.6 million as of January from the new tax, a small fraction of what legislators predicted. A study by the Tax Foundation has found that because of the retaliatory steps taken by Amazon, Rhode Island and North Carolina may have lost money because online marketing companies have closed down, or relocated outside the state.

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      The Amazon Tax will NOT solve the states budget problems and will lead to a loss of jobs.

      How stupid do these states have to be?

    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-04-12 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-04-12 #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Links and Comments for April 11th on 16:35 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for April 11th on 16:35 #tcot #catcot
    • Dilbert April 9, 2011 – The Parallel Universe | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Dilbert April 9, 2011 – The Parallel Universe | Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog
    • California Federation of Teachers Adopt Resolution of Support for Convicted Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – California Federation of Teachers Adopt Resolution of Support for Convicted Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal | Flap's …
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Daily Extraction: Three Upper Molars and Sinus Perforation – (500)
  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for March 22nd on 09:10

    These are my links for March 22nd from 09:10 to 09:12:

    • Can California tax Internet purchases? – California's severe budget squeeze and a stagnant economy have rekindled a political war over how Internet purchases should be taxed – if, indeed, they could be taxed.

      California already has one of the nation's highest sales tax rates, approaching 10 percent in some communities. But it's applied only to transactions inside the state or to mail order and Internet sales when the seller has a "physical presence" in the state.

      The latter condition – decreed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 – is the rub.

      Technically, Californians who buy from distant sellers are supposed to pay an equivalent "use tax" on state income tax returns. Few do, and enforcement is virtually impossible.

      That would seem to be that, but the potential revenue gain – officially at least a few hundred million dollars a year – and pressure from brick-and-mortar merchants about untaxed competition have sparked efforts to mine the Internet and mail sales vein.

      The situation's bête noire is Amazon, the huge Internet seller of almost everything. New York seized upon Amazon's use of affiliated sellers as the "physical presence" or "nexus" that would require it to collect sales taxes. But the New York law is tied up in the courts, and Amazon has threatened to cancel affiliate relations in any state that follows suit.

      Some California legislators want to emulate New York, prompting Amazon to issue a declaration that it not only opposes four pending taxation bills as violating the Supreme Court decision, but "would be compelled to end its advertising relationships with well over 10,000 California-based participants in the Amazon associates program." Overstock.com issued a similar warning.

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      Read it all.

    • Levin 1, Wehner 0 – Advantage, Levin. Even if you don’t believe the seemingly apocryphal stories about Reagan regretting the 1986 bill, it clearly failed. (The amnesty part worked. The border enforcement part was blocked.) It’s one thing to say Reagan supported this policy the first time. It’s another to claim he would have supported making the same mistake a second time–and that this is the “conservative” approach. … P.S.: It’s particularly disingenuous for Wehner to claim that Bush “never supported” a Reagan-like “amnesty.” The main difference between Reagan’s approach and Bush’s is that Reagan was honest enough to call it what it was (“amnesty”).  Bush and his apparatchiks preferred poll-tested confections like “path to citizenship.” …  Also, Bush’s amnesty was bigger. …

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      Bush's Amnesty Plan or Path to Citizenship would have been a MAJOR disaster.

      Reagan's "Amnesty" was bad enough – Mark Levin was correct.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for March 18th on 18:23

    These are my links for March 18th from 18:23 to 18:25:

    • President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.

      Who said? "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system." Well, those words would never have passed Reagan's lips. It was infamously said by Bush, in defense of his massive spending spree in the last weeks of his presidency. There's nothing conservative about it. But it sums up Bush's lack of confidence in the free market system, and his repeated and excessive use of government intervention in American society.

      Bush never claimed to be the conservative Reagan was, nor did he spend his early political career challenging GOP orthodoxy, which, until Reagan won in 1980, was mostly incoherent mush of the Rockefeller-Scranton-Nixon-Ford-Bush/41 kind. George H. W. Bush and other mainstream Republican primary challengers sought to thwart Reagan because, they insisted, his conservatism would be rejected by the voters. Now, Pete insists that as president, Reagan's record, in virtually all respects, is inferior to George W. Bush's, in advancing conservative principles. This is not only counter-intuitive, it is factually defective. As I proceed with this discussion, I believe it will become evident.

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      Mark Levin's response to Peter Wehner.

      Read it all

    • President 2012: Answering Mark Levin’s Challenge – Re: Sarah Palin – On his Facebook page, Mark Levin takes exception to some of us who have said critical words about Sarah Palin.

      In his response, Mark groups Karl Rove, David Frum, and me, all of whom served in the Bush administration. While having gracious words to say about me, Mark argues that “Bush’s record, at best, is marginally conservative, and depending on the issue, worse.” He raises this point not to compare Bush to Palin, he says, but “to point out only a few of the situational aspects of the criticism from the Bush community corner.” He adds parenthetically that “If necessary, and if challenged, I will take the time to lay out the case in all its particulars, as well as other non-conservative Bush policies and statements. No Republican president is perfect, of course, but certainly some are more perfect that others, if you will.”

      The gold standard for Levin is Ronald Reagan, which got me to thinking: from a conservative policy perspective, how does Bush’s record stand up to Reagan’s?

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      Read it all.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for March 18th on 18:23

    These are my links for March 18th from 18:23 to 18:25:

    • President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.

      Who said? "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system." Well, those words would never have passed Reagan's lips. It was infamously said by Bush, in defense of his massive spending spree in the last weeks of his presidency. There's nothing conservative about it. But it sums up Bush's lack of confidence in the free market system, and his repeated and excessive use of government intervention in American society.

      Bush never claimed to be the conservative Reagan was, nor did he spend his early political career challenging GOP orthodoxy, which, until Reagan won in 1980, was mostly incoherent mush of the Rockefeller-Scranton-Nixon-Ford-Bush/41 kind. George H. W. Bush and other mainstream Republican primary challengers sought to thwart Reagan because, they insisted, his conservatism would be rejected by the voters. Now, Pete insists that as president, Reagan's record, in virtually all respects, is inferior to George W. Bush's, in advancing conservative principles. This is not only counter-intuitive, it is factually defective. As I proceed with this discussion, I believe it will become evident.

      ======

      Mark Levin's response to Peter Wehner.

      Read it all

    • President 2012: Answering Mark Levin’s Challenge – Re: Sarah Palin – On his Facebook page, Mark Levin takes exception to some of us who have said critical words about Sarah Palin.

      In his response, Mark groups Karl Rove, David Frum, and me, all of whom served in the Bush administration. While having gracious words to say about me, Mark argues that “Bush’s record, at best, is marginally conservative, and depending on the issue, worse.” He raises this point not to compare Bush to Palin, he says, but “to point out only a few of the situational aspects of the criticism from the Bush community corner.” He adds parenthetically that “If necessary, and if challenged, I will take the time to lay out the case in all its particulars, as well as other non-conservative Bush policies and statements. No Republican president is perfect, of course, but certainly some are more perfect that others, if you will.”

      The gold standard for Levin is Ronald Reagan, which got me to thinking: from a conservative policy perspective, how does Bush’s record stand up to Reagan’s?

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      Read it all.