Don’t our elected officials have access to Ballotpedia? If the California Democrats did, they’d know that the Amazon Tax being taken up this afternoon in the legislature is unconstitutional under the state Constitution. And it’s not some old, obscure provision that’s violated either. It’s the brand-new Proposition 26, a constitutional amendment passed in November, that the tax violates.
Put simply, Proposition 26 doesn’t let the state raise new revenue without a 2/3 requirement, so the Amazon tax cannot be passed with a simple majority. And no, Proposition 25, another constitutional amendment also passed in November, doesn’t change that fact.
Continue reading »
The cyberterrorist groups Anonymous and its apparent splinter group Lulzsec are getting bold. The latter gang of criminals is attempting to blackmail the United States Government after attacking government networks, which is just insane and I hope will lead to mass arrests. While the former is attacking the Spanish government after arrests made there, and suffering further damage from mass arrests in Turkey.
I hope when the Lulzsec gang gets rolled up, just like Anonymous is getting slammed, that some of them resist. OK, that was a mean thing to say, but it’s how I feel.
Anonymous hub 4chan still refuses to take basic steps to mitigate the groups’ ability to propagandize and recruit, such as requiring account registration or closing down unmoderated sections of the site.
Oh yes, and despite all the above attacks plus one on the IMF, Mary Bono Mack’s answer is to blame the victims instead of rounding up and sending to Gitmo or Alcatraz the perpetrators.
In further news, lots going on at RedState today. Erick Erickson and Dana Rohrabacher are fighting the good fight on the America Invents Act, the Patrick Leahy giveaway that punishes inventors and favors lawyers and patent mills, in an attempt to make us more like Old Europe. I’ve been warning about this bill for a while, so I’m sure glad to see opposition growing.
Continue reading »
State governments are timid beasts. So often the country will refuse to move in a new policy direction unless one state jumps out ahead and acts first. In the past, California was often the dynamic frontrunner. Now, Texas is increasingly the example that other states ought to follow.
When it comes to the Amazon Tax, or the plan to change the tax laws in Texas to punish Amazon for out-competing its competitors, it looked like Texas was ready to lead in the the right direction. Governor Rick Perry vetoed HB 2403, the initial attempt at passing a special Amazon Tax in the state.
But the forces of tax-and-spend politics haven’t given up yet. Even as Texas celebrates its first all-funds spending reduction in decades, it seems like some people haven’t given up on raising taxes. So, the Amazon tax was re-inserted into SB 1 in the special session.
No matter what bill it’s in, a special Internet Sales Tax is a bad idea, and takes Texas in the wrong direction.
Conservative think tanks and activist groups are aligning against the proposal. However the sneaky bit about this second attempt at the new tax is that Governor Perry does not have a line item veto. So it’s time to put pressure on the legislature to fix SB 1 for smaller, Constitutional government.
Free Press is getting the heat. It’s been exposed through FOIA that the far left front group was secretly coordinating media strategy with people at the FCC, including Commissioner Michael Copps. So when Copps makes a statement about media regulation, Free Press’s pet issue, I have to assume they wrote it for him. Media Reform is their code for nationalization of the press, after all.
So now that they’re getting exposed, it’s almost not surprising that Free Press and their allies at the FCC are getting violent against conservatives and others exposing the truth about them.
Let me interrupt the Free Press update with some great news, though: Spain has made some arrests in connection with the Playstation Network attack I would love for every one of these antisocial online goons to get real jailtime.
Continue reading »
I am so sick of California. While it’s good that the “privacy” bill didn’t make it out of the Senate, it’s not so good that the Amazon tax is going on to the Senate. Texas: Don’t be like us. Defeat your Amazon tax in SB 1.
And the hacks go on: Anonymous attacks.. Iran?, its apparent offshoot lulzsec attacked PBS and Sony, but leaves itself open to law enforcement action? And yet, somehow, our elected officials think the victims are the people to be grilling. I can’t think of a metaphor that doesn’t overstate the situation some, so I’ll be direct: finding fault with the victims is what we need to do only after we’ve exhausted our options related to frogmarching the attackers.
One question though: Why isn’t the House talking to RSA, after the breakin it suffered not too long ago? Is SecurID broken wider open than the Congress wants known publicly?
Continue reading »
Lots to cover tonight, thanks in part to skipping Monday for Memorial Day. But of course I’ll start with my own post on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, explaining from the ground up why the George Soros/Sprint arguments contradict themselves. Government should get out of the way, especially state governments like California’s getting too big for their britches. It’ll be better for all of us who buy wireless services.
Speaking of states running amok, here’s the bill that tax-and-spend Texans have put the Amazon tax into. Unless I’m mistaken, which is possible since I’m not particularly familiar with Texas inside baseball, SB 1 is being considered in the special session of the legislature. Let’s hope Texas can strip that tax out, after Governor Perry already vetoed it once. Texas needs to be America’s example of small government. Texans: get loud and back up the Governor! Give the Governor a harrumph!
Continue reading »
This week I already called upon Rick Perry to veto the Texas Amazon Tax, and now I’m left to hope that California Democrats will be less stupid than Joe Straus. Sigh.
Meanwhile the posturing around the AT&T/T-Mobile deal continues. We find from a press conference with COMPTEL CEO Jerry James that the Rural Cellular Alliance is joining with radical left, George Soros/OSI-funded group Public Knowledge to favor government intervention. If only they realized Soros will turn on them as soon as they’re no longer needed to pursue their socialist agenda.
The Wall Street Journal has also looked into the unholy alliance against AT&T. The leading members are of course direct competitors: Leap Wireless, MetroPCS, Sprint. Verizon is also mentioned, but the WSJ lists good reasons Verizon really wouldn’t mind either way. I also see one good reason for Verizon to want to see AT&T and T-Mobile win this: Anything that happens to AT&T now can also happen to Verizon, and Verizon becomes public enemy number one if it’s the undisputed leader of the industry. Sprint, meanwhile, doesn’t have to worry about being #1 because Sprint these days literally has to mooch off its competitors with things like the FCC Data Roaming order just to service its customers, so relatively little does it invest in its network anymore.
John Conyers and Edward Markey are also pressing for big government here. Look, even if you’re the biggest T-Mobile fan, the writing is on the wall regarding the fans of government intervention here. Everyone who is opposing this deal is self-interested, socialist, or both.
Continue reading »
I like Texas. The state has many great things going for it, including a friendly tax and business climate. However Texas has to keep working to stay on top, so when South Carolina is backing down from its refusal to work with Amazon, and Tennessee has dropped its Amazon tax bill, it’s disappointing and frustrating to see Texas moving forward with punitive taxation against an innovative business that creates jobs in Texas.
So Governor Perry, do the right thing and veto HB 2403. Make Texas an example and strike down this attempt to use government to reverse the free market’s choice of Amazon as a winner in the marketplace.
Continue reading »
Ah, Claire McCaskill. Her not particularly active Twitter account said this week that she wants to be careful about regulation of privacy online, lest those regulations cause us all to have “less access to amazing stuff.” True statement I think. Too bad she refused to stick to her guns on the radical left’s key policy, Net Neutrality. On that issue, McCaskill told MyDD government regulation could cause “an open and free exchange of information” and that she would be “happy to wage” the fight to regulate.
Not sure how to reconcile these two positions except that when the radical left tugs on Claire McCaskill’s leash, she jumps, regardless of what’s good for America or for Missouri.
Continue reading »
Curse Firefox. I’m getting to this much later tonight than I would have, thanks to a stinking Firefox 3.6 rendering bug, plus Firefox’s refusal to make it easy to work around Firefox rendering bugs. Microsoft Internet Explorer makes that easy with conditional comments. Firefox has no such feature, pretending it’s always right. Which is fine, except when Firefox 4 and Firefox 3.6 render the same page differently, and 3.6 does so wrongly.
Anyway. It’s still hard to argue against Free State Foundation and others who want to roll back the FCC wholesale when the FCC simply can’t tell the truth. Eight billion dollars of stimulus money went into broadband Internet in 2009. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well, consider that the industry spends seventeen billion a year on it lately. This is a thriving, competitive market rushing to get better, faster, to keep and attract ever more customers.
And yet, the FCC’s claiming the market is failing. This is ridiculous and politically motivated. I discussed this on Friday but Seton Motley has more today on the lies in the Section 706 Report the FCC is mandated to put out every year. Two years in a row, just as wireless broadband is expanding the universe of competition like never before, the FCC is set to declare the market a failure. A letter grade of F. As Motley says, “the FCC is lying through it bureaucratic teeth.”
This is a ploy to prepare for a power grab. Watch your wallet, and your market.
Continue reading »