Competition or Cartel Control? An Entrepreneur’s Fight for Fairness

-By Warner Todd Huston

How government uses its powers to regulate and license to act as a cartel for established businesses and to exclude new businesses

Artist, veteran, and entrepreneur Julie Crowe wishes to provide a female-friendly vehicle-for-hire service for students in the Bloomington-Normal community, but her attempts are thwarted by city officials who insist students have no need for her services. With the help of the Liberty Justice Center, Ms. Crowe fights back.

In Bloomington, Illinois we have just such a case. Julie Crowe had an idea for a business, one that seemed to be in demand in that college town. Crowe had the idea that she would start a driver-for-hire business, one where she would be sure to take passengers not to a single drop off and pick up spot but right to their door if they wanted.
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Competition or Cartel Control? An Entrepreneur’s Fight for Fairness”


Red Light Cameras: Government’s ‘It’s For Public Safety’ Lie

-By Warner Todd Huston

Red light cameras are a mixed bag across the USA. Big cities love them, small cities increasingly less. But one thing is universal where ever they are tried. The whole thing is about revenue generation, not public safety. Most city administrations try desperately to hide their greed behind hoary claims of safeguarding the public, but at least Toledo, Ohio has dispensed with some of that subterfuge and is admitting straight out that making money is a main goal.

Last month Toledo’s finance director told the city council that they were installing 11 new red light cameras with the expectation that the project would “raise” $320,000. What did the city need that new revenue for? More government spending, of course.

Oh, and it’s for the children, too. Toledo Councilman Steve Steel was excited to get the new revenue. “It does restore the biggest thing we were looking for, which was giving kids something constructive to do in a positive atmosphere,” he crowed.

So, now officials will berate you if you stand against these useless devices that are just a means to give government more money to spend on pet projects because, darn it, it’s for the children! WHY do you hate kids, taxpayers?
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Red Light Cameras: Government’s ‘It’s For Public Safety’ Lie”


Indiana Democrats Fleebagging Again, Abandoning Their Jobs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Indiana Democrats are playing the fleebagger game. Because they don’t have enough votes in the Indiana Statehouse, Hoosier Democrats are abandoning their rightful duties and fleeing the Capitol over Indiana’s right-to-work bill currently under consideration in Indianapolis.

Indiana Senate Bill 269 and House Bill 1001 would make it illegal to require workers in Indiana to join a union as a condition of being allowed to have a job. Allowing workers a choice seems like an inherently American idea, doesn’t it?

After all, how could anyone tell you that you must belong to a union or you’re not allowed to have your job? That sort of forced association seems so contrary to the American character. But forcing people to join unions just so that they can have a job is precisely what Indiana Democrats are fighting to protect.
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Indiana Democrats Fleebagging Again, Abandoning Their Jobs”


VIDEO: The Story of Broke Response, Why Annie Leonard is Wrong… AGAIN!

Extremist “progressive” Annie Leonard recently perpetrated another video attempting to “explain” why capitalism and the United States is evil. Well, LearnLiberty.org couldn’t let her lies and left-wing propaganda go by unaddressed. So, they made this excellent video…

Prof. Art Carden responds to “The Story of Broke”, a recent video by the creators of “The Story of Stuff.” In “The Story of Broke,” Annie Leonard claims that the government isn’t actually broke. Rather, the government just wastes resources on the wrong things like subsidies to the dinosaur economy and war. She claims that the government should change its ways, and instead, subsidize firms that will bring us the future we really want.

Art Carden agrees with Leonard that war and subsidies are wasteful, but is skeptical of notion that there is one unified vision for the future. To Carden, everyone has a different vision for the future. Our path to the future, he argues, is determined by the interactions of billions of unique individuals pursuing their own objectives.

Additionally, Carden questions Leonard’s distinction between bad subsidies and good subsidies. Every subsidy, deemed good or bad, must be allocated through the political process. Lobbyists and special interests exert a large degree of influence on political decisions, and they use this power to direct subsidies in their own favor at everyone else’s expense.

Carden concludes that government spending won’t buy a brighter future. A brighter future will emerge when people are allowed to spend money on things they care about. Put another way, positive change will come from billions of people cooperating freely and voluntarily with one another, not from pushing trillions of dollars through a broken political process.


RATE Coalition: We Are on Track to Have the Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World

A group called Reform America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) has a new video:

Reducing the corporate tax rate would be a boost for American competitiveness, investment and job creation,” the video concludes. “To get America back on track and bring jobs back where they belong, Congress must act and Reform America’s Taxes Equitably … This is our economy fair and simple.

RATE’s goals are to reform the tax code, making it fairer and simpler and improving the prospects of growth and jobs in the U.S. economy by reducing the corporate income tax rate to make it more competitive with our nation’s major trading partners.

http://www.ratecoalition.com/
http://www.facebook.com/RATECoalition


Reality TV Tax Hikes? ABC Pushes a Kim Kardashian Tax

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here’s a new way to try and hip-up the boring, ages-old, left-wing idea of tax hikes: link it to reality TV star Kim Kardashian. That is just what ABC News tried to do on the Wednesday, January 4 edition of ABC World News Tonight when the venerable news program helped advertise an effort by a small group headed by a former Democrat operative that wants to hike California’s income taxes. It is a two-pronged approach of hitching a big government, big spending, high tax agenda to the TV reality show star in order to drag younger people into the left’s class warfare game.

ABC highlighted a California Millionaires Tax policy recommendation from a group called Courage Campaign. The group is headed by Rick Jacobs who is the former head of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign in California, a Huffington Post writer, and leader of this admittedly “progressive” group.

ABC reported that the “liberal group” (and kudos to ABC for actually identifying them as a liberal group for a change) is upset that Kim Kardashian, who made some $12 million in 2011, only paid one percent more than the average middle class wage in the Golden State.

Here is what the extremist high-tax group says on it’s website about this:
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Reality TV Tax Hikes? ABC Pushes a Kim Kardashian Tax”


What Economic Turnaround?

Obama and his cohorts want to sell the American people a bill of goods. DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz is telling the country that Democrats “own” the “recovery.” Only one problem. There ain’t one.

Don’t buy the lies, folks. Don’t do it.


VIDEO — Who’s More Responsible: Charlie or Washington?

Who is more fiscally responsible: Charlie Sheen or Washington? Duh! Charlie the Warlock. Washington spends $30 million, the same as Charlie’s salary, in less than five minutes. Now that’s a fastball… At least Charlie knew not to spend more than Two and a Half Men was paying him.

Courtesy of Bankrupting America.


Sunshine Review Announces Illinois Winners of the Annual Sunny Awards

From SunshineReview.org

Award recognizes state, local governments with perfect transparency scores

ALEXANDRIA- The nation’s leading government transparency advocate, Sunshine Review, announced on Thursday the 112 winners of its 2nd annual “Sunny Awards.” The 2011 awards, which more than double last year’s number, recognize the best state and local government websites in America that exceeded transparency standards. The Sunny Awards announcement preludes the launch of “Sunshine Week,” a period nationally recognized by hundreds of media and civic organizations, that celebrates the efforts of activists and the strides taken towards open government.

“Sunny Award winners deserve recognition for making information available to citizens and for setting a transparency standard that all governments can, and should, meet,” said Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review. “Access to information empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable. Official accountability is the cornerstone of self government and liberty.”
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Sunshine Review Announces Illinois Winners of the Annual Sunny Awards”


Sunshine Review Launches Premier Online Government Transparency Wiki

From sunshinereview.org

Website gives the State of Illinois an “B” transparency grade, counties get “D”

ALEXANDRIA, VA – State and local government transparency champion Sunshine Review has announced a relaunch of its award winning transparency website, sunshinereview.org. The bold, innovative design provides users easy access to a database just under 60,000 articles while simultaneously building a social media platform for citizen researchers, activists, journalists, and anyone interested in government transparency and accountability. Attracting over fourteen million total page views and boasting nearly 1,200 members, Sunshine Review allows thousands of online users to build data and grade their local and state governments on transparency. According to the President of Sunshine Review, Michael Barnhart, “Sunshine Review is a community of citizens who have worked tirelessly to open up their governments. From exposing state checkbooks to ensuring that school board and county board minutes are posted publicly online, our community is advocating for transparency – the simplest function of government.”
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Sunshine Review Launches Premier Online Government Transparency Wiki”


Beware When They Say a Government Program Will ‘Make Money’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times had a small story that it likely thought was just an amusing little tale of a quirky government program from Los Angeles. Centered on the gift shop run by the L.A County Coroner’s Department, the Times indulged such lines as “we’re dying for your business,” and headlined the piece “Dealing in Death, and Trying to Make a Living.” But one little part of the story should serve as a warning not to believe any politician or government hack that says their office or project will “make money.”

According to the Times the gift shop at the L.A. Coroner’s office was initially started in the early 1990s when a secretary working for the county noticed that mugs and T-shirts with the county coroner’s logo on them were popular items at forensics conferences. The county thought that a gift shop would be a moneymaker and when the coroner’s office floated the idea to the county government it claimed that the money the shop would make would pay for an anti-drunken driving course for teens.

Turns out it’s the ‘tother way ’round.
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Beware When They Say a Government Program Will ‘Make Money’”


Feds Build $1 Billion Virginia Office Complex Without Parking Or Roads to Get To It

-By Warner Todd Huston

The federal government has built a one billion dollar office complex in Virginia to house some 6,400 Pentagon workers that are to be moved soon. It’s a beautiful new office complex that rises like a mountain next to Northern Virginia’s I-395. But there are a few little problems. There is no parking for one thing and for another, even if there was a parking lot for 6,400 workers, there are no roads to GET them there!

That’s right, there is no access that won’t cause tremendous traffic jams for the area. Worse, there aren’t any bus or Metro train stops anywhere near the building so workers cannot even take advantage of the Washington area’s extensive public transportation network to get to their new offices.

Since the problem was fully realized the state and the feds have been arguing back and forth about the traffic problem all to no avail. No ramp from the highway has been built because the plan offered put that ramp too close to a nature area and no local roads can handle the additional traffic for 6,000 some workers.
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Feds Build $1 Billion Virginia Office Complex Without Parking Or Roads to Get To It”


$400 K For State Employee That Never Showed for Work For 12 Years

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNN reports that an employee contracted with the state of Virginia for 12 years seems to have never actually done any work for the agency she was attached to, Norfolk officials say.

This employee was discovered by the new director of the Norfolk Community Services Board who was looking through the office’s records finding the no-show job. Once the new director found this freeloader she was terminated and charges may be filed over the more than $400,000 she was paid for her “work” these last 12 years.

Apparently this woman “worked” for some sort of community program that isn’t run directly by the city that supplies some of its funding. These politically created “jobs” are mandated by law and seem to have little or no oversight.
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$400 K For State Employee That Never Showed for Work For 12 Years”


Mayor Daley Rips Anti-War Hypocrites: ‘We Won the Election. Now We Go Home.’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Chicago’s WBEZ Radio has a nice blog set up. Naturally there aren’t any conservatives there. Take Cate Cahan’s recent report on Mayor Richard “King” Daley’s appearance at the 16th Annual Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards, for instance. She so missed the point, she so badly spun it in the wrong direction, that it is a laughable attempt to salvage something positive for the left-wing out of Mayor Daley’s mocking of the anti-war movement from the podium.

In his own inimitably garbled grammar, from the podium, Daley passionately delivered the following mocking of the anti-war movement:

“Where are the anti-war people? Where are they? They disappeared! What happened? I thought war was evil? Where are the people that believed in their heart against George Bush? [mockingly] ‘We’ve have to organize and walk down Michigan Avenue and Clark Street!’ What happened? I thought they believed in their heart? Oh, we won the election. Now we go home. What happened to America?”

(Hear the audio at the WBEZ page.)

It is glaringly obvious that Mayor Daley is calling these antiwar protesters hypocrites. They’ve won the election with Obama in office, da Mayor is saying, so now they’ve gone home ignoring the fact that Obama has continued “Bush’s” several wars.
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Mayor Daley Rips Anti-War Hypocrites: ‘We Won the Election. Now We Go Home.’”


Why Is Chicago losing Trade Shows?

-By Warner Todd Huston

This photo is a great example of why Chicago’s MacCormick Center is cost prohibitive for trade shows and why so many of them have pulled out of the city.

I’ve been to the auto show several times (not this year, but last) and I’ve seen these whateveryoucallthem workers that loll around the show with a plastic bag in one hand and a feather duster in the other. They lazily stroll about occasionally taking a swipe at something with their little duster but other wise just enjoying a nice leisurely stroll about the place.

This woman in this picture and all the union guys that twist in a light bulb, the union guys that plug in an extension cord, the union guys that move things, the union guys that pull the legs down on a fold-up table… each with their own unions and each forced on the exhibitors at union scale of up to $40 an hour.

It makes you realize why these trade shows are leaving Chicago like it was still on fire, fer cripes sakes!

Wouldn’t it make much more sense to have the guys manning the booth to be the ones to keep their own inventory dust free and save the stupid union costs that no one can afford anyway?

Yep, no wonder no one wants to be robbed in Chicago. Who needs Al Capone when we have Richard “King” Daley and his union thug army?
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Why Is Chicago losing Trade Shows?”


The Illinois Township: A Layer of Govt That is Pure Waste

-By Warner Todd Huston

This week ABC 7’s Chuck Goudie aired a report made in conjunction with the Better Government Association that explored the efficacy of the Illinois Township and what they discovered is just more waste and ripoffs of the Illinois taxpayer.

Townships were originally created for two main purposes: raising taxes to take care of roads in unincorporated areas and to provide temporary aid to the poor. Unfortunately the I-Team and the BGA have discovered that this extra layer of government is collecting large amounts of taxes, spending only a fraction on the two purposes for which they were created, and banking all the rest amassing huge surpluses all the while hiring friends and family members for false, make-work jobs that create no wealth for the community.

This report finds that most of the money that these townships take in goes to salaries for township employees.
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The Illinois Township: A Layer of Govt That is Pure Waste”

Here is Where we WILL Hurt if Journalists Lose Their Jobs En Masse

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of course our purpose here at NewsBusters is to shed light on the obscene bias often underlying what passes for journalism here in the United States (and in Canada and Europe sometimes, as well). We here at NB, however, want to stress that we aren’t out to “destroy” journalism itself. We understand how important a free and open press is to keep our democratic republic on the straight and narrow. And, with this piece I’d like to present one reason why seeing journalists lose their jobs in such massive numbers should serve as a warning to us all about the health of our system.

Journalists have traditionally been antagonistic toward government, we all know. Certainly, they sometimes take this antipathy too far and become responsible for nearly treasonous actions — The New York Times is the perfect example of that these days. But this antagonism is not all bad because while in practice it can and does lead to exposing the sort of government corruption that can and should be stopped but won’t be unless it becomes public knowledge. The light that journalists shed on these corrupt government officials using open records requests is an integral part of our system and not one we should so blithely forget about while hoping to see the field of journalism get its comeuppance.

A recent little blog post by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a non-profit legal assistance agency for journalists (est. 1970), gives us a warning that we should all heed, which I repeat in it’s entirety:

Continue reading “Here is Where we WILL Hurt if Journalists Lose Their Jobs En Masse”

Senator Tom Coburn (R OK), Hero of Cutting Gov’t Spending

I don’t usually just reprint another website’s article in full, but this one bears repeating.

+++++

Coburn’s cognition

By David Keene, The Hill

Tom Coburn’s Senate colleagues don’t know quite what to make of the doctor from Oklahoma. Many of them find him personally likable, but they can’t understand why he seems to want to change the way the exclusive club to which they all belong has been doing business for so long.

And what’s worse, they have no way of controlling the man. Coburn (R) left the House in 2000 after three terms there because he had voluntarily term-limited himself, and he says that he’ll retire from the Senate after two terms there to go back to practicing medicine in Oklahoma. What that means, of course, is that he won’t be around quite long enough to chair an important committee even if the GOP should retake the Senate at some point — and that, therefore, he doesn’t have to watch his manners lest party leaders squelch his ambitions.
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