Saturday, June 30, 2018

IT’S CRAZIES ALL THE WAY DOWN

IT’S CRAZIES ALL THE WAY DOWN

Just in the last few days, the liberal outrages have been hard to keep up with: hounding the Secretary of Homeland Security out of a restaurant, then “demonstrating” on her lawn with chants and blaring audio of crying children; denying the White House Press Secretary and her family dinner at a Virginia restaurant; trying to get Hall of Fame basketball player Kevin McHale fired from his job as an NBA announcer because he attended a speech by the President of the United States; falsely accusing an ICE agent who is a double amputee as a result of an IED explosion in Afghanistan of being a neo-Nazi; confronting the Attorney General of Florida as she left a movie theater. And that is only a partial list, covering only the last few days.
You will note that usually, when harassment takes place in person, the victim is a woman. I suppose members of the fascist “Resistance” are afraid of getting punched. They should be.
How many Americans know about these outrages? How many understand that the Democratic Party’s most stalwart supporters are stark, raving mad? Not enough. The liberal press generally covers up, downplays, or tries to portray in a positive light Brownshirt tactics by its allies. But it is important to understand that there is no “respectable” Democratic Party that is distinguishable from the disgusting Brownshirt “Resistance.”
Have you seen a single Democrat politician denounce, criticize, or try to distance himself or herself from any of the outrageous incidents itemized above? I haven’t. The fact is that Democrat politicians view “Resistance” Brownshirts as their storm troopers, leading the way to victory in November and beyond.
Earlier today Maxine Waters, one of the most senior and most powerful Democrats in the House of Representatives, explicitly endorsed harassment of members of the administration, something we have never seen before in American history. Ryan Saavedra captured her on Twitter:

We are rapidly approaching the point where there won’t be any alternative but to fight fire with fire. Where does Waters do her grocery shopping? Where does she gas up her car? Does she go out to eat? Does she attend movies or concerts? Does she walk on foot to her House office? Any time Maxine Waters is in public, why doesn’t she fear that a mob of conservatives will descend on her like the mobs of Democrats she incites?
Obviously, she relies on the knowledge that conservatives are better people than liberals and will not engage in the liberals’ contemptible tactics. But that assumption has gotten to be way too comfortable for liberals. Isn’t it about time that we act to deter further outrages from the Left, like the ones we are now seeing on a daily basis?

TRUMP SAYS IT’S TIME TO DENY ENTRY TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CAN HE?

TRUMP SAYS IT’S TIME TO DENY ENTRY TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CAN HE?

Philip Rucker and Dave Weigel, two of the Washington Post’s most incorrigibly biased anti-Trumpers, lead off their latest editorial thinly disguised as a news report this way:
President Trump on Sunday explicitly advocated for depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the United States illegally are invaders and must immediately be deported without trial or an appearance before a judge.
Trump’s attack on the judicial system sowed more confusion. . . .
Rucker and Weigel are among the confused. Either that or they are hiding the ball.
8 U.S.C. §1182(f) of the U.S. Code confers on the president the power to turn away immigrants at the border. It provides:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
Rucker and Weigel do not mention this presidential power. But its existence undermines their suggestion that Trump would be denying “due-process rights” if he decided to deny entry to immigrants without granting them a trial or an appearance before a judge.
Section 1182(f) says nothing about a trail or appearance before a judge. If the president decides that the entry of class of immigrants is detrimental to the interests of the United States, members of that class of immigrants have no right to enter and no right to use our judicial system.
Daniel Horowitz discusses §1182(f) and the case law surrounding it here. His main points are:
1. The criteria for exclusion [are] not based on “national security concerns” or “terrorism.” It’s anything that, in the determination of the president, would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” That includes public welfare, health concerns, values, attitudes, etc. Thus, in this case, where the surge has already created the worst drug and gang crisis in the history of the country, the president would be justified in invoking this power.
2. Just like the president has the authority to completely shut off immigration, he may impose any restrictions on entry even if he chooses to continue various forms of immigration. Thus, in order to abide by the Geneva Conventions on asylum, the president can condition any asylum claims on applying at a U.S. consulate in Mexico, not at the border – or turn them back immediately.
3. This is not the type of provision in which a court can demand evidence that the condition of “detrimental to the interests of the United States” was met. The delegation of authority was designed as plenary power. The courts have absolutely no authority to second-guess the president’s determination. That is up to Congress and the electorate. As a recent Congressional Research Service report observes, from the House report on the 1952 immigration bill that granted this authority: “The bill vests in the President the authority to suspend the entry of all aliens if he finds that their entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, for such period as he shall deem necessary” (H.R.RPT.1365, 82d Cong.,2d Sess., at 53 (Feb. 14, 1952)).
Citing United States v. Ju Toy, an old Supreme Court case, Horowitz adds that a person who comes to the country illegally is “to be regarded as if he had stopped at the limit of its jurisdiction, although physically he may be within its boundaries.”
The plain language of §1182(f) and the case law involving it notwithstanding, one can easily imagine certain judges second-guessinging a determination by this president that the “detrimental to the interests of the United States” has been met. Maybe some judges would find that the crisis of family separation the left has been screaming about is not detrimental to the interests of the U.S. More likely, they would demand that some other “solution” (i.e., catch and release) be employed.
Such judicial activism would amount to an attack on our system of government. President Trump shutting down the border in response to recent developments would be nothing of the kind.

Why mainstream media hysteria is increasing

Why mainstream media hysteria is increasing

The past week featured well-known cable news hosts in tears over the separation of children from their parents at the border, a practice that was common in the Obama administration, drawing little notice and no weeping.  And every day in the United States, when the head of a single-parent household is arrested, children of American citizens are separated from their family and placed in the custodial care of others.
Were Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell entirely ignorant of this reality?  Was last week the first time they realized that parental criminality breaks up families?

Screen grab, MSNBC.

I sincerely doubt that either of them was so ignorant of the realities of the criminal justice system.  So what accounts for their total loss of composure on air?
A cynic would argue that the tears were artificial, intentionally forced out of tear ducts and emotions faked.  Maybe so, but this then raises the question of why they felt driven to such emotional manipulation of the audience.
And what if the emotions were real?  What could drive seasoned professionals to such a loss of self-control if manipulation were not the intent?
I think the answer in both scenarios is the same: genuine mass hysteria is gripping the mainstream media.  The first source is the political rise, election, and continuing successes of Donald Trump, currently presiding over the best economic times since the Reagan administration.  Trump violates all the political norms that they learned, embraced, and enforced in their own rise to media prominence.  When norms are violated, anger is the dominant response of members of the group that holds the norms.
But what accounts for the hysteria that results in loss of self-control?  I think a second factor is at play.  The mainstream media perceive that they have lost the ability to shape public perceptions beyond the 30% or so of the populace that is committed to left-progressivism.  The majority of the public no longer trusts or believes what they have to say.  And this sense of powerlessness in the face of a hated opponent is literally driving them crazy.  Even before the Rasmussen poll showed the futility of their efforts ("54% of Likely U.S. Voters say the parents are more to blame for breaking the law ... only 35% believe the federal government is more to blame for enforcing the law"), they must have realized that their efforts were failing.  Knowing no other means of persuasion than intensifying the current efforts, they pulled out all the stops: anger and sadness replaced facts and logic, which don't really stand up to scrutiny anyway.
Andrew Malcolm, writing at Hot Air, describes the awful truth to which they are awakening with horror every day: they no longer have traction.
Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans' thoughts about media.  In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they're exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).
They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent).  And they're sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.
They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And – maybe you've felt this way too – more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports.  They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of media integrity.
The sense of loss must be destabilizing for those who devoted their life's work to changing society via their media activities.
There is a clear trajectory at work.  Media effort to destroy Trump's political support are failing, and their old tools are disintegrating as they are wielded.  Stormy Daniels failed, and the border children are failing.  Adapting to reality and reconsidering their views is an impossibility considering the solidarity among media figures in opposition to Trump.  Anyone defecting to the position that "Trump may be different, but he's working out pretty well in terms of economy and national security" would be immediately sanctioned with cries of traitorous behavior.
So the only option is metaphorically turning up the volume.  As the midterm election nears and the fantasy of a blue wave diminishes in prospect, expect to see even more hysteria.  What lies ahead?  Who knows?  But look for dramatic gestures, such as chaining themselves to the gates of facilities they object to, hunger strikes, and (of course) more weeping and yelling.
The mainstream media are caught in a vise of their own making, slowly being crushed between the jaws of Trump's successes and their own impotence.
We are watching the disintegration of the progressive mentality.
The past week featured well-known cable news hosts in tears over the separation of children from their parents at the border, a practice that was common in the Obama administration, drawing little notice and no weeping.  And every day in the United States, when the head of a single-parent household is arrested, children of American citizens are separated from their family and placed in the custodial care of others.
Were Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell entirely ignorant of this reality?  Was last week the first time they realized that parental criminality breaks up families?

Screen grab, MSNBC.

I sincerely doubt that either of them was so ignorant of the realities of the criminal justice system.  So what accounts for their total loss of composure on air?A cynic would argue that the tears were artificial, intentionally forced out of tear ducts and emotions faked.  Maybe so, but this then raises the question of why they felt driven to such emotional manipulation of the audience.
And what if the emotions were real?  What could drive seasoned professionals to such a loss of self-control if manipulation were not the intent?
I think the answer in both scenarios is the same: genuine mass hysteria is gripping the mainstream media.  The first source is the political rise, election, and continuing successes of Donald Trump, currently presiding over the best economic times since the Reagan administration.  Trump violates all the political norms that they learned, embraced, and enforced in their own rise to media prominence.  When norms are violated, anger is the dominant response of members of the group that holds the norms.
But what accounts for the hysteria that results in loss of self-control?  I think a second factor is at play.  The mainstream media perceive that they have lost the ability to shape public perceptions beyond the 30% or so of the populace that is committed to left-progressivism.  The majority of the public no longer trusts or believes what they have to say.  And this sense of powerlessness in the face of a hated opponent is literally driving them crazy.  Even before the Rasmussen poll showed the futility of their efforts ("54% of Likely U.S. Voters say the parents are more to blame for breaking the law ... only 35% believe the federal government is more to blame for enforcing the law"), they must have realized that their efforts were failing.  Knowing no other means of persuasion than intensifying the current efforts, they pulled out all the stops: anger and sadness replaced facts and logic, which don't really stand up to scrutiny anyway.
Andrew Malcolm, writing at Hot Air, describes the awful truth to which they are awakening with horror every day: they no longer have traction.
Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans' thoughts about media.  In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they're exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).
They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent).  And they're sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.
They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And – maybe you've felt this way too – more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports.  They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of media integrity.
The sense of loss must be destabilizing for those who devoted their life's work to changing society via their media activities.
There is a clear trajectory at work.  Media effort to destroy Trump's political support are failing, and their old tools are disintegrating as they are wielded.  Stormy Daniels failed, and the border children are failing.  Adapting to reality and reconsidering their views is an impossibility considering the solidarity among media figures in opposition to Trump.  Anyone defecting to the position that "Trump may be different, but he's working out pretty well in terms of economy and national security" would be immediately sanctioned with cries of traitorous behavior.
So the only option is metaphorically turning up the volume.  As the midterm election nears and the fantasy of a blue wave diminishes in prospect, expect to see even more hysteria.  What lies ahead?  Who knows?  But look for dramatic gestures, such as chaining themselves to the gates of facilities they object to, hunger strikes, and (of course) more weeping and yelling.
The mainstream media are caught in a vise of their own making, slowly being crushed between the jaws of Trump's successes and their own impotence.
We are watching the disintegration of the progressive mentality.


Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/why_mainstream_media_hysteria_is_increasing.html#ixzz5JJRxloh3
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Friday, June 29, 2018

When the left wins

When the left wins

If you think leftists are insufferable now, wait until they regain power.  It is not enough that we disagree about the ideological path forward for our country; the left has ascribed animus to our worldview, and by extension, to us individually.  Leftists alone care for humanity – we (in their opinion) are advancing its death.
Watch the nightly news.  We are Nazis, fascists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, white supremacists, misogynists, and murderers.  We are ripping children from their parents.  Border Security is anti-immigrant.  We and the NRA want dead children.  Tax reform was designed to benefit the evil rich, at the expense of the poor.  Health care reform will kill millions of Americans.  Being tough on North Korea is reckless, but willingness to discuss the surrender of nuclear ambitions is more reckless still.   Education reform is intended to suppress people of color.  Christianity is hatred toward women and gays.  Opposition to climate change prognostications is science denial.
Hyperbole and projection much?  Ascribing evil intentions to our worldview justifies their actions – any action, up to and including violence.

Antifa (photo credit: Flickr).
When reason (and sanity) has been abandoned, how does one bridge these ideological divides?  In my opinion, our political and ideological divide will never be bridged.  Our saving grace is that we conservatives currently hold a small majority of the political seats of power.  If and when the left regains power, do not think for a minute that leftists will work to bridge our differences.  No, when they regain power, expect draconian measures to suppress the open expression and the living out of our worldview.
We err in thinking that because we've had constitutional protections, those protections will continue in perpetuity.  Throughout history, cultural and political systems have been overcome by revolution, mob rule, military coup d'état, and the ascension of democratically elected despots.
We are in the early stages of the coming leftist epoch (what Christians refer to as the Tribulation Period).  Among Deep State sabotage; the lying Media-Industrial Complex; energized radical mobs; manipulative social media platforms; and a woefully ill informed, emotionally manipulated electorate, I believe that our constitutional republic is approaching its eventual demise.
Historic low unemployment figures – won't matter.  A de-nuclearized Korean Peninsula – won't matter.  A decimated ISIS – won't matter.  A growing economy – won't matter.
Perpetuated lies, the manipulation of thought, the dishonesty of narrative, with an appeal to a brighter, peaceful future will be the campaign promise that will be used to assuage our angry, divisive nation.  The left (and its media sycophants) will present the Democrat candidate as one who will bring hope and change (and rainbows) to a dark, gray, and angry (read: Republican) world.
The rainbows will turn to storm clouds shortly after victory, followed by suppression of free speech, severe limits on gun ownership, and regulations against Christians and other people of faith (save Muslims), eventually followed up with re-education camps and prisons for those who don't "fall in line" and open attacks against those who don't comport to the newly empowered cultural-political elite. 
I hope I am wrong.
If you think leftists are insufferable now, wait until they regain power.  It is not enough that we disagree about the ideological path forward for our country; the left has ascribed animus to our worldview, and by extension, to us individually.  Leftists alone care for humanity – we (in their opinion) are advancing its death.
Watch the nightly news.  We are Nazis, fascists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, white supremacists, misogynists, and murderers.  We are ripping children from their parents.  Border Security is anti-immigrant.  We and the NRA want dead children.  Tax reform was designed to benefit the evil rich, at the expense of the poor.  Health care reform will kill millions of Americans.  Being tough on North Korea is reckless, but willingness to discuss the surrender of nuclear ambitions is more reckless still.   Education reform is intended to suppress people of color.  Christianity is hatred toward women and gays.  Opposition to climate change prognostications is science denial.
Hyperbole and projection much?  Ascribing evil intentions to our worldview justifies their actions – any action, up to and including violence.

Antifa (photo credit: Flickr).
When reason (and sanity) has been abandoned, how does one bridge these ideological divides?  In my opinion, our political and ideological divide will never be bridged.  Our saving grace is that we conservatives currently hold a small majority of the political seats of power.  If and when the left regains power, do not think for a minute that leftists will work to bridge our differences.  No, when they regain power, expect draconian measures to suppress the open expression and the living out of our worldview.
We err in thinking that because we've had constitutional protections, those protections will continue in perpetuity.  Throughout history, cultural and political systems have been overcome by revolution, mob rule, military coup d'état, and the ascension of democratically elected despots.
We are in the early stages of the coming leftist epoch (what Christians refer to as the Tribulation Period).  Among Deep State sabotage; the lying Media-Industrial Complex; energized radical mobs; manipulative social media platforms; and a woefully ill informed, emotionally manipulated electorate, I believe that our constitutional republic is approaching its eventual demise.
Historic low unemployment figures – won't matter.  A de-nuclearized Korean Peninsula – won't matter.  A decimated ISIS – won't matter.  A growing economy – won't matter.
Perpetuated lies, the manipulation of thought, the dishonesty of narrative, with an appeal to a brighter, peaceful future will be the campaign promise that will be used to assuage our angry, divisive nation.  The left (and its media sycophants) will present the Democrat candidate as one who will bring hope and change (and rainbows) to a dark, gray, and angry (read: Republican) world.
The rainbows will turn to storm clouds shortly after victory, followed by suppression of free speech, severe limits on gun ownership, and regulations against Christians and other people of faith (save Muslims), eventually followed up with re-education camps and prisons for those who don't "fall in line" and open attacks against those who don't comport to the newly empowered cultural-political elite. 
I hope I am wrong.
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/when_the_left_wins.html#ixzz5JISgOCme 
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SCOTUS decision on internet taxes could bankrupt thousands of small online businesses

SCOTUS decision on internet taxes could bankrupt thousands of small online businesses

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states can force internet retailers to pay sales taxes, even if the company has no physical presence in that state. The ruling overturns a previous decision that kept states from assessing sales taxes on companies that did not have a store, outlet, or warehouse within a state's borders.
CNNMoney:
In making their decision, justices ruled that South Dakota can collect sales taxes from online retailers like Wayfair, which was sued by the state. In doing so, the court reversed a 1992 ruling that allowed states to levy taxes only on those businesses with a brick-and-mortar location within the state. The court said that law effectively incentivized businesses to "avoid physical presence" in states and led to "a judicially created tax shelter." Ultimately, the justices deemed the current law outdated.
"The Internet's prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "The expansion of e-commerce has also increased the revenue shortfall faced by States seeking to collect their sales and use taxes."
Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst with Forrester, called the ruling "bad news" for thousands of major online retailers. "Now those companies have to assess taxes on customers or they get sued. For products like furniture, jewelry, electronics, people will likely start to shop local again," she said.
It isn't just the act of collecting sales tax that will prove to be a burden to small businesses. Tax compliance fees, filing fees, attorneys, accountants - all of these will be necessary in every state - and probably hundreds of counties - if the retailer has customers in that location.
Laurence Kotlikoff, a small, online retailer, writing in Forbes:
I have a small online business, www.economicsecurityplanning.com, which sells personal financial planning software. During our 25 years in business, I've lived in fear of today's decision. We have employees and, thus nexus, in 6 states. Each time we hired someone in a state, we immediately registered to pay sales taxes.
But doing so required further tasking our sales-tax processing company at, for us, a very high price, to process yet an additional state's sales tax payments. It also led, as I discovered to my horror, to our needing to file a corporate tax or gross receipts tax return in each of the 6 states, annual reports in several of the 6 states, reports in several states about workers compensation and unemployment insurance and a variety of "small" fees. The compliance cost of hiring the sales-tax processing company, paying our accountant and responding to the weekly and sometimes daily letters about filing this form or that is already costing my company $50,000 a year.
So what happens when he has to comply with tax laws from 48 states?
$50,000 a year is a huge sum for a small company, especially one like mine that is investing every penny it earns to grow and just breaking even. Based on the Supreme Court decision, my company's tax compliance bill as opposed to tax bill could easily come to $150,000 if, as I suspect, states will be emboldened by this ruling and apply what they call "economic nexus" and levy corporate income or gross receipts taxes to any company selling any products to any entity in their states.
Yes, South Dakota, which prevailed in this decision, is currently exempting, from sales taxation, small businesses with $100,000 or less in state sales or fewer than 200 individual transactions. My company's cheapest product -- www.maximizemysocialsecurity.com -- sells for $40. If we sell 200 licenses of this program to folks in South Dakota, revenue from that state will total $8,000. So it doesn't take a large dollar volume of business for my company to be forced to pay sales tax in South Dakota. Fortunately, South Dakota doesn't tax corporate income or gross receipts. But it's only one of two such states that taxes neither. The other is Wyoming.
I'm not sure that the Supreme Court Justices understood that forcing companies, large and small, to pay sales taxes will, over time, likely force companies, large and small, to pay corporate and gross receipts taxes in the 48 states that levy such taxes.
Statists have been trying to tame the wild west internet since the beginning. To tame it, they must control it. Taxation is the most basic means of control and in so doing, they will ruin thousands of independent businesses. The expected windfall for states will not materialize. Internet commerce will be severely affected, leading to far less revenue than states are greedily anticipating.
Some analysts believe that the ruling will be a boon to local brick and mortar stores. I don't think it will matter much. If most people are like me, I will simply take my business to larger online retailers, most of whom already collected sales taxes because they had a physical presence in that particular state. 
Internet websites allow tens of thousands of people to supplement their income or make a living selling online. Something went out of the internet yesterday, something important. I wonder if it will be worth it.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states can force internet retailers to pay sales taxes, even if the company has no physical presence in that state. The ruling overturns a previous decision that kept states from assessing sales taxes on companies that did not have a store, outlet, or warehouse within a state's borders.
CNNMoney:
In making their decision, justices ruled that South Dakota can collect sales taxes from online retailers like Wayfair, which was sued by the state. In doing so, the court reversed a 1992 ruling that allowed states to levy taxes only on those businesses with a brick-and-mortar location within the state. The court said that law effectively incentivized businesses to "avoid physical presence" in states and led to "a judicially created tax shelter." Ultimately, the justices deemed the current law outdated.
"The Internet's prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "The expansion of e-commerce has also increased the revenue shortfall faced by States seeking to collect their sales and use taxes."
Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst with Forrester, called the ruling "bad news" for thousands of major online retailers. "Now those companies have to assess taxes on customers or they get sued. For products like furniture, jewelry, electronics, people will likely start to shop local again," she said.

It isn't just the act of collecting sales tax that will prove to be a burden to small businesses. Tax compliance fees, filing fees, attorneys, accountants - all of these will be necessary in every state - and probably hundreds of counties - if the retailer has customers in that location.
Laurence Kotlikoff, a small, online retailer, writing in Forbes:
I have a small online business, www.economicsecurityplanning.com, which sells personal financial planning software. During our 25 years in business, I've lived in fear of today's decision. We have employees and, thus nexus, in 6 states. Each time we hired someone in a state, we immediately registered to pay sales taxes.
But doing so required further tasking our sales-tax processing company at, for us, a very high price, to process yet an additional state's sales tax payments. It also led, as I discovered to my horror, to our needing to file a corporate tax or gross receipts tax return in each of the 6 states, annual reports in several of the 6 states, reports in several states about workers compensation and unemployment insurance and a variety of "small" fees. The compliance cost of hiring the sales-tax processing company, paying our accountant and responding to the weekly and sometimes daily letters about filing this form or that is already costing my company $50,000 a year.
So what happens when he has to comply with tax laws from 48 states?
$50,000 a year is a huge sum for a small company, especially one like mine that is investing every penny it earns to grow and just breaking even. Based on the Supreme Court decision, my company's tax compliance bill as opposed to tax bill could easily come to $150,000 if, as I suspect, states will be emboldened by this ruling and apply what they call "economic nexus" and levy corporate income or gross receipts taxes to any company selling any products to any entity in their states.
Yes, South Dakota, which prevailed in this decision, is currently exempting, from sales taxation, small businesses with $100,000 or less in state sales or fewer than 200 individual transactions. My company's cheapest product -- www.maximizemysocialsecurity.com -- sells for $40. If we sell 200 licenses of this program to folks in South Dakota, revenue from that state will total $8,000. So it doesn't take a large dollar volume of business for my company to be forced to pay sales tax in South Dakota. Fortunately, South Dakota doesn't tax corporate income or gross receipts. But it's only one of two such states that taxes neither. The other is Wyoming.
I'm not sure that the Supreme Court Justices understood that forcing companies, large and small, to pay sales taxes will, over time, likely force companies, large and small, to pay corporate and gross receipts taxes in the 48 states that levy such taxes.
Statists have been trying to tame the wild west internet since the beginning. To tame it, they must control it. Taxation is the most basic means of control and in so doing, they will ruin thousands of independent businesses. The expected windfall for states will not materialize. Internet commerce will be severely affected, leading to far less revenue than states are greedily anticipating.
Some analysts believe that the ruling will be a boon to local brick and mortar stores. I don't think it will matter much. If most people are like me, I will simply take my business to larger online retailers, most of whom already collected sales taxes because they had a physical presence in that particular state. 
Internet websites allow tens of thousands of people to supplement their income or make a living selling online. Something went out of the internet yesterday, something important. I wonder if it will be worth it.


Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/scotus_decision_on_internet_taxes_could_bankrupt_thousands_of_small_online_businesses.html#ixzz5JIMBRnMY
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

AP Deliberately Manipulates—Then Stealth Updates—Immigration Horror Story to Tie Obama-Era Abuse Case to Trump

This image provided by the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center shows part of the interior of the building in Staunton, Va. (Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center via AP)
On Wednesday night, the Associated Press ran an article that spread quickly Thursday morning across social media and other news outlets describing an horrific story of unbelievable abuse of minor immigrants in the custody and care of the United States government. Dubbed "Abu Ghraib for eighth-graders" by a Daily Beast reporter, the allegations in the explosive story included children being handcuffed, beaten, left in solitary confinement and, unimaginably, even worse.
In that Associated Press article describing these terrible and outrageous conditions, President Donald Trump's name came up four times. It makes sense that Trump and his immigration policy would be a part of the story, considering the news of the last week regarding family separation and the detainment and detention of minor children.
However, the allegations in this article covered a time period prior to Trump ever taking office. The specific court case cited involves alleged incidents occurring before and during 2016, when Trump was still on the campaign trail and we had a different president.
That president, Barack Obama, was mentioned exactly zero times in the article.
Below is an excerpt from the court filing against Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia. The dates are clearly shown. The dates are not, though, *clearly* shown in the AP article. Instead, the lawsuit and allegations are described in summaries and quotes, and interspersed with commentary like this:
Many of the children were sent there after U.S. immigration authorities accused them of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.
Trump said Wednesday that “our Border Patrol agents and our ICE agents have done one great job” cracking down on MS-13 gang members. “We’re throwing them out by the thousands,” he said.
And this:
Most children held in the Shenandoah facility who were the focus of the abuse lawsuit were caught crossing the border illegally alone. They were not the children who have been separated from their families under the Trump administration’s recent policy and are now in the government’s care. But the facility there operates under the same program run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.
That was subtle, making it seem as if the material difference isn't the time of the detention but rather the manner of it and the details of the apprehension. They weren't separated but crossing alone, it says. Not "This was years before Trump."
They also finally include this line:
It was not immediately clear whether any separated children have been sent to Shenandoah Valley since the Trump administration in April announced its “zero tolerance” policy toward immigrant families, after the lawsuit was filed.
It's not "clear" if any of the recently newsworthy separated children made it to this specific facility, they say. Oh, also the "zero tolerance" policy was enacted after the lawsuit was filed. But still no "the alleged incidents occurred during the Obama administration under Obama policy while Obama was president and not Trump."
The story itself is a shocking expose and excellent reporting, except for the blatant manipulation to pin it to Trump. In fact, it is the fact that the story is so important and terrible and relevant that makes the manipulation infuriating.
Here is some of what is described, in blockquotes.
The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States with federal contracts to provide “secure placement” for children who had problems at less-restrictive housing. The Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility in California has faced litigation over immigrant children mischaracterized as gang members. In Alexandria, Virginia, a board overseeing the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center voted this week to end its contract to house federal immigration detainees, bowing to public pressure.
The Shenandoah detention center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes. Since 2007, about half the 58 beds are occupied by both male and female immigrants between the ages of 12 and 17 facing deportation proceedings or awaiting rulings on asylum claims. Though incarcerated in a facility similar to a prison, the children detained on administrative immigration charges have not yet been convicted of any crime.
[...]
The lawsuit filed against Shenandoah alleges that young Latino immigrants held there “are subjected to unconstitutional conditions that shock the conscience, including violence by staff, abusive and excessive use of seclusion and restraints, and the denial of necessary mental health care.”
The complaint filed by the nonprofit Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs recounts the story of an unnamed 17-year-old Mexican citizen apprehended at the southern border. The teen fled an abusive father and violence fueled by drug cartels to seek asylum in the United States in 2015.
After stops at facilities in Texas and New York, he was transferred to Shenandoah in April 2016 and diagnosed during an initial screening by a psychologist with three mental disorders, including depression. Besides weekly sessions speaking with a counselor, the lawsuit alleges the teen has received no further mental health treatment, such as medications that might help regulate his moods and behavior.
The lawsuit recounts multiple alleged violent incidents between Latino children and staff at the Shenandoah center. It describes the guards as mostly white, non-Spanish speakers who are undertrained in dealing with individuals with mental illness. The suit alleges staff members routinely taunt the Latino youths with racially charged epithets, including “wetback,” ″onion head” and “pendejo,” which roughly translates to dumbass in Spanish.
Note the mention of 2015 and 2016 there, notably not remarking on policy at the time. Here are the listed dates from the lawsuit.
Again, it would have been easy, not to mention more thorough and accurate, to simply state that this took place under Obama's term in office.
It would also have been fine not to bring up administration policy at all. What they did instead was mention Trump four times and Obama zero times.
And the reason why? Just ask the director of the ACLU Human Rights Program, Jamil Dakwar. Here was his reaction.
There were dozens more. Mission accomplished, AP?
What's worse is that there was no new "news hook" to bring this story up as "breaking" on Thursday. In fact, the last activity on the case was in January. The next hearing isn't until July.
Breaking?
This is an awful story and the allegations, which the center denies, are serious. That makes it only that much worse that it was manipulatively used by the AP reporters to pin the scandal to Trump and to ignore Obama-era policy, not to mention the actual dates of the incidents alleged. It's a cynical and grotesque move.
It's also one they were conscious of. Because after there was pushback against the story's blatant omission, they stealth updated during the day on Thursday.
Here is the new (single) mention of Obama.
ORIGINAL:

STEALTH UPDATED:
Playing politics is a term people use a lot, and it's something everyone, including the Trump administration, has been doing with immigration policy and the border. Trump adviser Stephen Miller and former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon believe in and advocate manipulation in this way. They argue that it's merely a response to how the media manipulates news every day. That certainly happened here.
Today, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced an investigation into the claims discussed in the AP article. Hopefully, some good will come of that investigation. It is an important story, which the AP exposed. And while they exposed it they tried to use it for partisan political purposes. Even if good comes of it, that's not acceptable.
Do better.