Category: West Burlington

Falcon:

I see where the Fiscal Cliff deal was pay day for many special interest organizations that will receive millions from the current administration even though the U.S. is broke.

Hollywood payback by Obama

Hollywood racked in $430 million in tax breaks for filming in the U.S.  It’s funny they would give an organization that has no morals and warps the minds of our children tax breaks which are probably tied to their support of Obama.

$9 Billion “sop for Wall Street banks and major multinationals”

As Dan Eggen has reported, this provision, first created in 1997, allows manufacturers and banks to defer taxes when they engage in a special type of financial transactions known as “active financing.” The break now costs $9 billion per year, and critics claim it encourages firms to create jobs overseas. But it’s a top lobbying priority for companies like GE and JP Morgan, who say that it helps them compete abroad, and it will get extended another year.

A Rum tax for Puerto Rico

Another longstanding item—this one dates back to 1917. Congress currently levies an excise tax worth $13.50 per gallon on all rum produced in or imported to the United States. Most of that money is transferred to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, who use the revenue to support their rum industries. In 2009, this tax raised some $547 million. The cliff deal would extend the current arrangement another year. (By the way, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in the House, Pedro Pirellis, thinks this tax set-up is too favorable to rum distillers.)

Cheaper office space for Goldman Sachs

Okay, it’s certainly not called this. Section 328 of the bill extends tax-exempt financing for the “Liberty Zone,” the area around the former World Trade Center, for another year. As Matt Stoller points out, this tax provision was supposed to help fund reconstruction after 9/11. Yet a recent Bloomberg investigation found the bonds have mostly helped finance new luxury apartments, not to mention the construction of Goldman Sachs’ new headquarters. Developers say the bonds were necessary to revitalize downtown Manhattan, but there’s a fierce debate over how they’ve been used.

Wind energy payday

The fiscal cliff deal has a bunch of provisions for clean energy—notably; it extends a key tax credit for wind power for one more year, thus preventing the U.S. wind industry from downsizing. (That credit will cost about $1.2 billion per year for 10 years.)

Help NASCAR build racetracks

Okay, it’s certainly not called this. Section 328 of the bill extends tax-exempt financing for the “Liberty Zone,” the area around the former World Trade Center, for another year. As Matt Stoller points out, this tax provision was supposed to help fund reconstruction after 9/11. Yet a recent Bloomberg investigation found the bonds have mostly helped finance new luxury apartments, not to mention the construction of Goldman Sachs’ new headquarters. Developers say the bonds were necessary to revitalize downtown Manhattan, but there’s a fierce debate over how they’ve been used.

Promote plug-in electric scooters

For years, Congress has been trying to promote electric cars through various tax breaks and subsidies. But what about electric bikes and scooters? Section 403 of the bill extends a credit for “2- or 3-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles.” Yes, these things do exist: The Observer recently reported that e-bikes have become ubiquitous in New York City, used for everything from Chinese food deliveries to expensive joyrides. Only problem? They might well be illegal to ride in New York, although the rules here are awfully confusing.

I think this enough of a sample to tell the American voter how their being constantly fleeced by Washington special interest debt paybacks.

LJ

Falcon:

Here’s an article from Townhall about why Fordham University banned Ann Coulter from appearing but decided to host Peter Singer, a known advocate for bestiality and infanticide to appear.

When the Fordham University College Republicans wanted to host conservative author Ann Coulter on campus, they were met with a disapproving statement from their school president, Rev. Joseph M. McShane, although he added he would not bar Coulter from speaking.  In the end, the group cancelled Coulter’s appearance.

But according to The Daily Caller, not long after the disagreement, Fordham agreed to host Peter Singer, a known advocate for bestiality and infanticide.  In his essay entitled “Heavy Petting,” Singer approves of intercourse with animals, stating. “sex across the species barrier…ceases to be an offence [sic] to our status and dignity as human beings.”

This guy appearing at Fordham is a classic example of what’s wrong with American higher education and how it warps the minds of the young.

LD

Falcon:

While living up on the northern boundary of Clinton Country in the Preston, Iowa area I noticed a strange habit that obviously has contributed to the decline of pheasant in Iwa, I also saw this in the Reinbeck area back in the 90’s.

Farmers are now cutting the ditches just as they cut their lawns destroying cover that was once used by the pheasant.  I noticed in Clinton County the country crews were knocking down all the trees along the fence and hedgerows and when I asked them why they were doing it I was told, “Farmers are complaining the spots of shade on the fields are causing them to lose crops.”  In Clinton County they just knocked down the trees with a back hoe splintering them something terrible leaving the landscape looking like a bomb had gone off.

Even in Des Moines County people living in the country are cutting the ditches to the extent they do their lawns eradicating a favorite place for Iowa’s once famed pheasant population to seek cover in.

I always wondered why a farmer would waste fuel to cut the ditches a quarter mile either side of this home and in some cases much further than a quarter mile.

The human population has done much to restrict the growth of the pheasant population as has anything Mother Nature has thrown at them.

KS

Falcon:

Donald Kaul should be committed to a mental institute provided Iowa has one left.  People like him are always the ones that not only shoot off their mouths but eventually end up threatening people with their radical thinking and then start shooting bullets.  This guy is obviously a nut case and belongs locked up to protect the general public.  After all it’s people like him that do the mass killings when they don’t get their selfish ways.

JK