Surely you heard, Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ are threatening to take legal action against the IRS for picking on conservative groups. If we follow the logic of the story highlighted yesterday, we can expect income taxes to rise 2% as a consequence. Fortunately, the local daily has since rewritten the story to correct the implicit ergo segue.
Continuing down the path of boring you, here’s more. Local hero Billy Graham and his son Franklin have added their names to the list of the persecuted. Franklin said they had to waste time and money donors had sacrificed to help homeless, starving people in devastated parts of the world on servicing IRS auditors.
“Mr. President, the IRS has already publicly acknowledged it operated in a less than neutral and nonpartisan way,” [Franklin] Graham wrote. “We also now know that the target of their improper actions was much wider than political or Tea Party organizations. Will you take some immediate action to reassure Americans we are not in a new chapter of America’s history — repressive government rule?”
According to the Cato Institute, groups were singled out not only for the use of trendy political hype phrases like “tea party” and “patriot” in their names. They were getting roughed up if their organizations purported to pursue the objectives of “limited government” or “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” (Granted, those who educate on need education.)
Political Analysis: It appears the hassling arose as Democrat operatives instigated Republicans to egg on Democrats to do the dirty work so they could get caught. Democrats calculated Republicans would not anticipate the public would perceive the obvious attribution of error to the Democrats as a thinly-veiled coup by the Republican Dirty Tricks Committee. But, since mom never sees who threw the first punch, the Republicans were probably the ones who fooled the instigating Democrat operatives in the first (which was technically the thirty-first) place.
Nondisclaimer: We’re not supposed to get political at the tea-partying, patriotic John Locke Foundation as we advocate for the principles of limited government outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. However, if said attitudes are now considered partisan, then one party is unabashedly advocating over-reaching government, higher taxes, and treason.
No CommentsVeteran reporter Nelda Holder covered the last meeting of the Metropolitan Sewerage District for the Mountain Xpress. Along with talk of the City of Asheville’s lawsuit, rate hikes, and the city’s vice mayor’s participation on two boards that will likely go against each other in the litigation, Holder mentioned the recent dumping incident:
The Wednesday meeting offered little discussion of what had been major MSD news during the past month — the accidental spill of millions of gallons of raw sewerage into the French Broad River on April 30. No audience members spoke or raised questions during the public comment period, and the general manager referred to the incident only briefly. He noted that he had sent ongoing reports to board members during and after the incident, and a “lessons learned” session had followed.
Following this line of logic, if we really want to get smart, we should discharge lots more sewage so we may revel in the corrective action reports – or was that the other way around.
No CommentsThe Cato Institute now sells La Declaración de Independencia y la Constitución de los Estados Unidos de América. Discounts are available for buying in bulk.
No CommentsRepresentative Nathan Ramsey’s latest newsletter recounted his recent visit to Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company is complaining they cannot find enough people with high enough skills. I wager any job-seeker with a math or engineering degree and a modicum of common sense would have done some light research on the company and been repulsed by its acceptance of ARRA funding and its cooperation with ISO certification games. Taking frivolous money from a country massively in debt is not sustainable. Continually rewriting pages of policy wherein precision exceeds reasonable margins of error is not science. The combination is crony capitalism, bureaucracy, and an affront to true practitioners.
The same reasoning underlies the perpetual shortage of math and science teachers in public schools. It is a brave soldier indeed who, after undergoing rigorous training to become logical and weed out nonsense, submits to the psychobabble in order to try to effect some good.
No CommentsNo CommentsThe City of Saluda plans to amend its animal control ordinance next month to allow the Saluda Community Land Trust (SCLT) to place goats at the city’s wastewater treatment plant to eradicate kudzu.
The Metropolitan Sewerage District, which is supposed to be the big leader of the yet-to-be-created Regional Water and Sewerage Authority, is talking about raising rates 2%. It has been argued multiply that the City of Asheville cannot run its water system, and the MSD can, because the city would increase water rates, even though rate increases have consistently fallen under recommendations proffered by the consulting firm the city hired for the water system. In covering the news item, the local daily, like a housecat slinking innocently away from the broken lamp, announced the raise and with implicit ergo segued into a story about the city suing the state to prevent the utilities merger.
No CommentsIf you’re tired of reading about corruption, slime, and greed; here‘s a cute little story about better and best. The cartoon is adorable, too.
No CommentsAt tonight’s meeting of Asheville City Council, Deputy City Manager Jeff Richardson provided an update on anti-Asheville legislation. He framed the matter more neutrally, of course. The first shocker was the announcement that Governor Pat McCrory had signed H488, after he said he wouldn’t. As it turned out, the NCGA web site had erroneously said so, when he in fact had not. H488 would gift the city’s water system, with its humongous, pristine water reservoir, to a regional authority.
Meanwhile, City Attorney Bob Oast was in Wake County to obtain a temporary restraining order. It was announced the attempt was successful, and so the city didn’t have to fork over the water system today in a massive train wreck. Time was purchased to make the General Assembly look graceful as the city learns to make bricks without straw.
The city intends to first sue to have the legislation declared invalid. That failing, they will sue for financial relief. The process is expected to be protracted.
Announced yesterday was a rider to a bill that would exempt properties annexed by the City of Asheville after 2005 from compliance with the municipality’s sign ordinance. This is clearly an attempt to address changes in health and public safety induced by big signs that became effective that year. I think it had something to do with sunspots. (At the time of this post, the updated text of the bill had not been posted on the NCGA website.)
The remainder of the threatening bills are more or less chilling in committee, for now.
No CommentsThe Buncombe County Commissioners approved Project X. That is after two people bothered to show up and speak against the absurdity of inviting the public to comment on a black box promising oodles of economic boon. The only thing the commissioners added to the public’s knowledge was economic multipliers. For example, the 52 jobs paying on average $40,000 (That means one guy gets $2,079,949 and the other 51 get $1.) will create 33.4 indirect jobs and 25.8 induced jobs. In other words, each person employed will on average create half a job with his salary. Yes, subtraction is for the advanced students.
No CommentsBorgWarner is considering an investment of $24 million in equipment at its Cane Creek Industrial Park plant, which could result in about 80 new jobs.
What comes next?
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