What you can and cannot do (In your home)

I truly hope this one doesn't get out of hand. I can't think of anything more unconstitutional than dictating what people can and cannot do in their own homes. Even if they are renting said home from another.

In Belmont California, it is now illegal to smoke inside of apartments. Headlining the pissed off responses is 72 year old Edith Fredrickson. After smoking 2 packs a day for over 50 years, she is now enraged to find out that “They’re telling you how to live and what to do, and they’re doing it right here in America.”

Like I've said before: It should be up to the bar owner as to whether or not s/he wants a smoke free establishment. It should also be up to the apartment building owner to consider how important it is to him/her if s/he wants to dictate what tenants can do in their own apartments. In NO case should big government be the one to decide such things.

This one scares me. I'll bet they start breaking out that 'third hand smoke' study that was released last month... What fun to watch our personal rights get swallowed up by an ever-expanding government that is barely functional at best. As stated in the NYT article:
Public health advocates are closely watching to see what happens with Belmont, seeing it as a new front in their national battle against tobacco, one that seeks to place limits on smoking in buildings where tenants share walls, ceilings and — by their logic — air. ... none has gone as far as Belmont, which prohibits smoking in any apartment that shares a floor or ceiling with another, including condominiums.

Legislating what little old ladies can and can't do in their own homes...

THIS is whycalifornianspaytaxes.

An arm and a leg

Multiply that times thousands, toss in thousands of deaths, and you get the cost of politicians putting their careers ahead of their jobs.

The military knew in 1994 that humvees were, as they called it, a "deathtrap."
However, while considering a different fleet of safer vehicles,
The Pentagon didn't develop such a fleet because championing the vehicles wasn't seen in the '90s as a "good career move," said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org. The military had spent hundreds of millions on Humvees and drawn-out ground wars were seen as a thing of the past, he said. (usat)

And, of course, that brilliant strategist and great humanitarian Donald "Go to war with the Army you have" Rumsfeld and his cronies ignored the boys on the ground in 2005.
Combat Development Command did not create a plan to field the vehicles or obtain funding for them despite receiving an urgent request from field commanders in Iraq for MRAPs in February 2005.(usat)

Its all under investigation now, but I imagine there are a lot of pretty bold men and women that had the balls to defend their country (even if many of them didn't realize what that meant) wishes they would have investigated it up front.

The military politicians in the pentagon in pursuit of the American dream at the cost of thousands of other Americans' Dreams...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Tough crowd

A few days ago, I wrote about Daschle and Geithner and their and their forays into the wonderful world of tax evasion. I had completely missed the news that our [almost] Chief Performance Officer Nancy Killifer had to step down because of her tax evasion. (Don't worry, its not really tax evasion when you simply aren't paying the payroll taxes on your illegal immigrants...) Now Daschle has stepped down as well.

So. Wow. Are there any Democrats left that have paid there taxes? We could really use a functional government right now! Preferrably not someone who knows their way around the system so well that they have completely worked their own way around the system...

Paying our taxes so our government officials don't have to...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

(little did we know that change we can beleive in simply meant they wanted to change the people that were actively scamming the system! I love that the same people who are willing to scam the IRS out of their personal tax burdens are the same folks we are to beleive can be trusted with white house power...)

IOU (Your money back)

Tonight has been a good night for me to catch up on some of the things I've missed lately...

California's IOU Tax Refunds(onion)
Calif. Taxpayers Due Refunds May Get IOUs(nbc) (I saw it at the onion first...)

Either way, the headlines sum it up. The money that Californians pay out of each and every one of their paychecks without delay and without question will not be refunded to them in accordance with their laws.

I'll bet they keep on taking the taxes out of the paychecks though!

THIS is whycalifornianspaytaxes.

Free Beer

The amount of money spent on beer every year in the United States is roughly the same as the annual cost of the occupation of Iraq. So they could just give everyone free beer instead. (metro)

This COULD BE whyipaytaxes...

Do as I say, not as I do

This one is already older than the hills, but I'm sure a lot of people missed it the first time...

With great fanfare, pomp, and, of course, circumstance, Obama has created a new rule to prevent lobbyists from working with the government and vice versa. This process had gotten quite out of hand with the last administration in cases where fine, upstanding government employees would give out contracts to a business, then leave the government and join the business with all the lucrative contracts. Or, a former board member of a company would then step into a government role that gives out contracts to the company they recently worked for. You can see how it would get messy.

Good rule, right? Then why is the new administration already making exceptions to the rule?

Open and honest government. You know, starting right now...

THIS is whyipaytaxes...

The Church of GM

It must have been when we all deposited some of our tax money into the plate GM had set up by the door that GM thought to start modeling itself after a church.

After all, I can't think of anyone else that gets to operate in this country tax-free.

GM lobbies Congress to avoid tax(dn)

I'm also particularly excited that GM is using their bailout to lobby congress for more bailout. Trust me, lobbying don't come cheap. I wonder how many hummers they have to sell to foot the bill? (Of course, if they can't sell anymore hummers, we'll cover it!)

The amount in taxes GM hopes to avoid: $7 BILLION...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.