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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 25th on 15:13
These are my links for April 25th from 15:13 to 15:45:
- President 2012: Karl Rove warns candidates about late start – For a long time, it's been the cool-candidate thing to take your time coming to a 2012 decision.
Casualness may soon be a casualty, Karl Rove said today on Fox.
"There gets to be a point at which you don't have enough time to raise the money you need, and you don't have enough time to get organized as deeply as you need to be organized for these contests.
That period is probably sometime in June or July."
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No later than Memorial Day.
BTW Ron Paul is announcing tomorrow in Iowa.
- Online Sales Tax a Bad Deal for California – In California there are 25,000 thriving small businesses known as “affiliate marketers” and right now the very existence of this industry is being threatened by misguided legislation; in these economic times can California afford to lose 25,000 more businesses?
The supposition of AB 153 (Skinner) and SB 234 (Hancock) is that by implementing an “affiliate nexus” tax, California will collect additional sales tax revenue. That is simply not true.
What is true is that if these bills pass, California affiliate marketers will have their incomes devastated, and the state will collect no new sales tax dollars.
Affiliate marketers are California companies that earn income from ads placed on their websites. In 2009, California affiliate marketers earned $1.6 billion and paid $124 million in state income taxes (plus business taxes, employment taxes, etc). Legislation such as AB 153 and SB 234 guarantees elimination of these fiscal contributions.
Proponents allege that because out-of-state retailers place ads on California-owned websites they should collect sales tax. But placing an ad on a website does not constitute a “nexus,” nor does it obligate out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax in California.
This holds true for California retailers that advertise in other states – they are not obligated to collect sales tax in states simply because they advertise there.
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Read it all.
And, it is a very bad idea.
- President 2012: Karl Rove warns candidates about late start – For a long time, it's been the cool-candidate thing to take your time coming to a 2012 decision.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 18th on 18:41
These are my links for April 18th from 18:41 to 18:49:
- Speaker John Boehner asks Dem Nancy Pelosi to join him in cutting funds from the DoJ to defend DOMA – Speaker John Boehner asked House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's for her support to cut funds for the Department of Justice and use them to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.
In a letter sent to Pelosi (D-Calif.) Monday, Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote that the funds Justice would have used to protect the law should be used by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to protect the act.
"The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born by DoJ, has fallen to the House," Boehner wrote. "Obviously, DoJ’s decision results in DoJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA. It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DoJ, defending DOMA."
The speaker also argued the funds Justice would have used to defend DOMA should be used by BLAG so that taxpayers aren't burdened with the additional expenses.
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Yeah and pigs fly.
By the way, Nancy Pelosi represents most of San Francisco where a large gay population resides.
- Illinois-based Amazon affiliates go dark because of Amazon Internet Sales Tax – JEREMY HOBSON: Today is the day thousands of retailers in Illinois had been dreading. That's because they'll lose their affiliation with online retailers like Amazon and Overstock.com, thanks to a new state sales tax for online purchases.
But as Tony Arnold reports from Chicago Public Radio, Amazon and others have already found a way around the tax.
TONY ARNOLD: Brad Wilson runs the aptly named BradsDeals.com — a coupon web site based in downtown Chicago.
BRAD WILSON: Ultimately, Amazon and Overstock hold the trump card in this situation.
Wilson says after today — Amazon will boycott business with BradsDeals — and roughly 9,000 other retailers in Illinois to skirt the tax. Illinois residents can still go online and get the latest best seller from Amazon, they just won't be getting that book from any Amazon affiliate in Illinois.
WILSON: We're looking at a lot of options that I wouldn't want to have ever had to think of, unfortunately.
Wilson says he's considering picking up shop and relocating to another state to make up for the money he'll lose. He wouldn't say how much.
One Amazon affiliate — FatWallet.com — has already moved its headquarters from Illinois to Wisconsin which doesn't have the online tax. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
Meantime, Overstock.com's president Jonathan Johnson confirmed his company plans to cut off Illinois affiliates on May 1st. Others like Zappos and Shoes.com are planning a similar move.
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Just like they will do in California if the California Democrats have their way with imposing a California based Amazon Tax.
- Speaker John Boehner asks Dem Nancy Pelosi to join him in cutting funds from the DoJ to defend DOMA – Speaker John Boehner asked House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's for her support to cut funds for the Department of Justice and use them to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.
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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.======
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….
- 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.
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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.
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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?
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