More tax and government follies

This guy's among the best truth sharpeners in a while now:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-war-on-terror-is-a-fraud-1/why-are-dhs-and-ice-stockpiling-ammo-.html
Why are DHS and ICE stockpiling ammo?

He gets an A on taking things as far as you can before getting yourself thrown off the air. The real mega-story the Boston Terrier was designed to camouflage was, of course, CISPA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CISPA

......the bill designed to take away my freedom* to write this posting, and your freedom to read it. Naturally the System enjoys killing as many birds (and normal healthy people) as it can with one stone -- why let a good crisis go to waste, especially when it was you that set it in motion?

......Are you regularly enjoying the politically rich "weird news" category yet? No? What do you want, a personal invitation? Via newsoftheweird.com:

-- Among the lingering costs of U.S. wars are disability payments and compensation to veterans' families, which can continue decades after hostilities end. An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records, released in March, even found two current recipients of Civil War benefits. Vietnam war payments are still about $22 billion a year, World War II, $5 billion, World War I, $20 million, and the 1898 Spanish-American war, about $1,700. [Associated Press via MassLive.com, 3-19-2013]

-- Each year, Oklahoma is among the states to receive $150,000 federal grants to operate small, isolated airfields (for Oklahoma, one in the southern part of the state is so seldom used that it is primarily a restroom stop for passing pilots). The payments are from a 13-year- old congressional fund for about 80 similar airfields (no traffic, no planes kept on site), described by a February Washington Post investigation as "ATM(s) shaped like (airports)." Congress no longer even requires that the annual grants be spent on the actual airports drawing the grants. [Washington Post, 2-25-2013]

Transportation Security Administration rules protect passengers against previously employed terrorist strategies, such as shoe bombs, but as Congressional testimony has noted over the past several years, the perimeter security at airports is shockingly weak.

"For all the money and attention that in-airport screening gets," wrote Slate.com in February, "the back doors to airports are, comparatively, wide open -- and people go through them all the time." Perimeter breaches in recent years astonished officials at major airports in Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; Atlanta; and New York City (mentioned in News of the Weird last year, recounting how a dripping-wet jetskiier who broke down next to JFK airport climbed the perimeter fence and made his way past its brand-new "detection" system, and was inside the Delta terminal before he was finally noticed). [Slate.com, 2-20-2013] Most Gullible Pervert In March, Stephen Thresh, 47, voluntarily handed in his computer at a police station and confessed to possessing hundreds of (illegal) images of women having sex with animals, including a snake, a tiger and an elephant. Thresh said he had earlier downloaded a message of unknown origin notifying him that "law enforcement authorities have been informed," and he thought they would go easier on him if he turned himself in. (Police denied knowledge of the message.) Thresh insisted that possessing such images was not a problem that needed addressing. [Daily Mirror (London), 3-11-2013] Update The Associated Press reported in March that a Philippines man was crucified for the 27th time during the annual Good Friday festivities in San Pedro Cutud. Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 52, once again endured several minutes pierced by the sterilized, 6-inch nails driven into his palms and feet to atone for yet another year's passing in which he had so seriously sinned. Enaje was joined by several other sufferers (as News of the Weird mentioned, by as many as 16 one year and, in 2005, by wayward police officers from a local force who used the crucifixion as proof that they could be safely reinstated). The country's Catholic Bishops Conference, of course, said the crucifixions are "not the desire of Jesus Christ." [Associated Press via Las Vegas Sun, 3-29-2013]

In March, Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, apparently upset that bicyclists use the state's roads without paying the state gasoline tax for highway maintenance, proposed a 5 percent tax on bicycles that cost more than $500, pointing out that bicyclists impose environmental costs as well. Since carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas, he wrote one constituent (and reported in the Huffington Post in March), bike riders' "increased heart rate and respiration" over car drivers creates additional pollution. (Days later, he apologized for the suggestion that bicyclists actually were worse for the environment than cars.) [Huffington Post, 3-4-2013]

Is there no end to the tax games politicians play -- or their stupidity?

U.S. companies large and small legally deduct the expenses of doing business from their gross profits before paying income tax, but purveyors of marijuana (in states where possession is legal and where prescription marijuana is dispensed) cannot deduct those expenses and thus wind up paying a much higher federal income tax than other businesses. As NPR reported in April, "Section 280E" of the tax code (enacted in 1982 to trap illegal drug traffickers into tax violations) has not been changed to reflect state legalizations. The effect, experts told NPR, is that legal dispensaries in essence wind up paying tax on their gross receipts while all other legal businesses are taxed only on their net receipts. (The federal government, of course, continues to regard marijuana as illegal.) [NPR, 4-2-2013]

-- "Even to Icelanders accustomed to harsh weather and isolation," reported The New York Times in March, the city of Grimsstadir "is a particularly desolate spot." Nonetheless, Chinese billionaire land developer Huang Nubo has announced he intends to build a luxury hotel and golf course in the area for his countrymen seeking "clean air and solitude." Since snowfalls often run from September until May, locals are skeptical of Huang's motives, but he continues to press for a long-term lease covering about 100 square miles for a project estimated to eventually cost about $100 million. [New York Times, 3-22-2013]

The above item is no laughing matter. See the latest issue the South Carolina Conservative Action Report for a piercing account of how China is now going to massively colonize the USA with the full blessing of "our" government! Copies will be available at PN meetings for awhile.

/\/.\/\/.

*or as others would benightedly say, "my right"