Mail address:
Martin 9/12 Calendar (& City of Stuart)
Thomas Babbington
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Congressman Lynn Westmoreland: FAIRtax — The Answer To Our Broken Tax System
FAIRtax — The Answer To Our Broken Tax System
05.13.2015 by: Congressman Lynn Westmoreland
Before I had the privilege of serving the good people of Georgia’s Third Congressional District, I was the proud owner of a small building company in Fayette County, Georgia. I worked hard to grow my company, play by the rules, and support my family. But being a small business owner taught me first-hand how Americans are being suffocated by our tax code and its effects on job creation. And like all Americans, I dreaded tax day when I had to hand over my hard earned money to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) instead of putting it back into my company to create jobs.
Our complicated tax system just doesn’t make sense. How can we expect to grow our economy and promote the American Dream, when our federal system doesn’t encourage opportunity? The burden the federal tax system places on our families and businesses is one of the reasons why I first ran for office, and continues to be a motivation in my role in the U.S. Congress.
Americans must be able to keep more of their hard earned money. The current federal tax code is long and so complicated that most people have a hard time completing their own taxes. When it takes additional help to comply with our own laws, something is seriously wrong. We need less government, not more. And the solution is simple: The FairTax.
Every year since I have been in Congress, I have supported and co-sponsored the FairTax Act. By implementing a consumption-based tax, we will catch elements of the underground economy that currently pay no taxes, while significantly reducing the annual burden on every taxpayer, and overhead costs to companies which will result in lower prices for consumers. Most importantly, no one will have to fill out tax forms each year, or have money withheld from their paycheck each month. With a simplified tax system, there will be no need for the IRS. Eliminating the IRS will be a step forward toward a fair system, and the elimination of the complex tax code will guarantee uniformity across the board.
In addition to my co-sponsorship of this bill, I also signed on to a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan requesting that the FairTax Act be included in the overall debate on comprehensive tax reform through a hearing. I believe this type of complete tax reform should be at the forefront of a real discussion and deserves the time to be reviewed by the committee of jurisdiction.
Creating an opportunity economy for all Americans starts with reforming our broken tax system, and passing the FairTax is the first step. It’s a commonsense alternative that doesn’t discriminate or favor one class, corporation, or group over another. It’s a simple and fair solution, and together we can fight to make the Fair Tax Act a reality for all.
Congressman Lynn Westmoreland is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 3rd congressional district.
- See more at: https://fairtax.org/articles/congressman-lynn-westmoreland-fair-tax-the-answer-to-our-broken-tax-system#sthash.pqyu2KTh.dpuf
Apple Supports the TPP, and Has a Friend in the Right Place
Apple Supports the TPP, and Has a Friend in the Right Place
by Alex Lazar on May 13, 2015
President Barack Obama and big business haven’t always agreed on hot-button issues, but they both seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
One such business is the enormously profitable tech company Apple, which is listed as a member of the U.S. Business Coalition for TPP. Happily for Apple, it has a friend in the higher echelons of the Obama administration who’s well aware of the firm’s particular concerns: Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Catherine Novelli.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
The Bankruptcy of U.S. Trade and Foreign Policy
By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN • May 8, 2015
In the first quarter of 2015, in the sixth year of the historic Obama recovery, the U.S. economy grew by two-tenths of 1 percent.And that probably sugarcoats it.
For trade deficits subtract from the growth of GDP, and the U.S. trade deficit that just came in was a monster. As the AP’s Martin Crutsinger writes, “The U.S. trade deficit in March swelled to the highest level in more than six years, propelled by a flood of imports that may have sapped the U.S. economy of any growth in the first quarter.”
The March deficit was $51.2 billion, largest of any month since 2008. In goods alone, the trade deficit hit $64 billion. As Crutsinger writes, a surge in imports to $239 billion in March, “reflected greater shipments of foreign-made industrial machinery, autos, mobile phones, clothing and furniture.”
Thursday, May 7, 2015
IBD: De Blasio's Contract With America: This Isn't Progress
De Blasio's Contract With America: This Isn't Progress
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | May 06, 2015
Going Backward: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will reportedly issue next week a "Contract With America" for so called progressives. Without ever seeing it, we can guarantee that there is nothing progressive about it.
If there is another political group more incorrectly named than liberals — who are liberal only with other people's money — it is the progressives, almost all of whom are simply liberals who don't like that name.
There is nothing truly progressive about progressives' ideas. Their thinking is pulled directly from the recycling bin of tired, aging and discredited thought.
De Blasio, one of these mislabeled politicians, will unveil on May 12 "a 13-point progressive agenda that he hopes will be the left's answer to the Contract with America," Politico tells us.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Schlafly: Justice Kennedy Learns a New Word
by Phyllis Schlafly
May 6, 2015
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy learned and used a new word during the Supreme Court’s oral argument about Marriage. He said, “The word that keeps coming back to me in this case is millennia.”
He wasn’t talking about the new voting bloc of young people called the millennials. He was referring to the thousands of years in which the public has honored marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
“And suddenly,” as Justice Stephen F. Breyer said, “you want nine people outside the ballot box” to change that by judicial fiat. That sounds like somebody is seeking government by judicial supremacists instead of by “We the people” (as our Constitution says).
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
THE AGE OF COMMUNISM LIVES
Excerpt:
"The communist holocaust, like the Nazi, should have brought forth a flowering of Western art, witness, sympathy, and an ocean of tears, and then a celebration at its downfall. Instead, it has called forth a glacier of indifference. Kids who in the 1960s hung portraits of Lenin, Mao, and Che on their college walls—the moral equivalent of having hung portraits of Hitler, Goebbels, or Horst Wessel in one’s dorm—came to teach our children about the moral superiority of their generation. Every historical textbook lingers on the crimes of Nazism—rightly so—seeks their root causes, draws a lesson from them, and everybody knows the number six million. By contrast, the same textbooks remain silent about the catastrophe of communism, everywhere it held or holds power. Ask any college freshman—try it if you don’t believe me— how many died under Stalin’s regime and they will answer even now, “Thousands? Tens of thousands?” It is the equivalent of believing that Hitler killed hundreds of Jews."
Monday, May 4, 2015
Black Anger: Who's to Blame?
By Paul R. Hollrah
from the Blog:
BLACK REPUBLICAN: National Black Republican Association E-News
On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a black high school student from Miami, was shot to death during an unprovoked attack on neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic. The incident occurred when Martin became concerned that his movements were being observed by a person or persons unknown. When attacked, Zimmerman was awaiting the arrival of local police after having reported the presence of a suspicious-looking person passing through his neighborhood.
In the afternoon of July 17, 2014, on a sidewalk in Staten Island, New York, 43-year-old Eric Garner, a black man, was approached by police officers when he was observed selling individual cigarettes from packs without tax stamps, a violation of New York state law. Garner complained about being “harassed,” and when an officer attempted to place handcuffs on him he slapped the officer’s hands away. Garner, a very large man who suffered from asthma, struggled with five officers, during which time he was allegedly held in a chokehold for approximately 15 seconds. Officers called for medical assistance but Garner expired an hour later of cardiac arrest.
Just before noon on August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown, a 6 ft. 4 in. 292 lb. black man staged a strong-arm robbery of a convenience store in Ferguson, Missouri. Minutes later, as he and an accomplice strolled down the middle of a local street, they were told to move to the sidewalk by a white 28-year-old Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. When Brown refused and Wilson attempted to exit his police vehicle, Brown attacked him and attempted to take his firearm. Brown ran away for a short distance, but then turned and charged the officer, during which time he was mortally wounded by several shots from the officer’s handgun.
On April 2, 2015, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a 44-year-old black man, Eric Harris, was a suspect in an investigation in which he allegedly arranged to sell a handgun to undercover officers of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office. As Harris attempted to evade arrest he was tackled and brought to the ground. However, as he continued to resist arrest he was shot in the back by 73-year-old Robert C. Bates, a white Tulsa County reserve deputy, who mistakenly retrieved his Smith & Wesson revolver while attempting to reach for his Taser.
On April 8, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, a white police officer, Michael Slager, stopped a Mercedes sedan with a broken tail light driven by a 50-year-old black man, Walter Scott. Slager ordered Scott to remain in his vehicle; however, as Slager ran a radio check on Scott for outstanding warrants, Scott exited his vehicle and fled. When he refused to stop, Officer Slager pulled his Taser and fired at Scott. When that failed to stop him, Slager pulled his handgun and fired eight shots, mortally wounding Scott.
At 8:40 AM on April 12, 2015, in Baltimore, Maryland, 25-year-old Freddie Gray, a black man, was injured when he attempted to elude police. As Gray was being taken to a police van he would not, or could not, walk and was physically dragged to the vehicle by two officers. When he was taken to a hospital, doctors determined that his spinal cord was 80% severed at the neck. Gray died on April 19, 2015, and in the week that followed, the City of Baltimore was plagued with arson and riots.
It was here, during the War of 1812, that Francis Scott Key huddled behind the ramparts of Fort McHenry and penned the immortal words of the Star Spangled Banner, which later became our national anthem. If Key were alive today he would be saddened to know that the fires that swept across Baltimore in recent days were not the result of a British naval bombardment, but of the criminal acts of street thugs, our fellow citizens, who gave vent to their frustrations by putting the torch to the homes and businesses of their friends and neighbors.
So what is the common denominator in all of these incidents, if any? It is that, in each instance, the black men involved were either resisting arrest or fleeing to avoid arrest. With that level of fear and resentment of police within the black community, it causes one to wonder whether or not we have passed the point of no return in race relations where it is no longer possible to create a color-blind society. What is undeniable is that young black men have created a stereotype for themselves… a stereotype that must be fully understood by all concerned before we can even begin to deconstruct it. So, if black people did not set out to purposely create a subculture in the freest, most prosperous nation on Earth… a subculture typified by poverty and hopelessness… then they must have had some very determined help. And we know who that was. [more...]
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Executive Summary — Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism
Posted on MAY 2, 2015 Written by NAS.ORG
“Sustainability” is a key idea on college campuses in the United States and the rest of the Western world. To the unsuspecting, sustainability is just a new name for environmentalism. But the word really marks out a new and larger ideological territory in which curtailing economic, political, and intellectual liberty is the price that must be paid now to ensure the welfare of future generations.
This report is the first in-depth critical study of the sustainability movement in higher education. The movement, of course, extends well beyond the college campus. It affects party politics, government bureaucracy, the energy industry, Hollywood, schools, and consumers. But the college campus is where the movement gets its voice of authority, and where it molds the views and commands the attention of young people. [CONTINUE READING]