Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said many lawmakers were loath to tap more traditional tax sources during a downturn.
“What’s pushing it is this incredible desire to raise revenue,” he said. “But it’s coupled with the desire not to raise the general and sales and income taxes.”
Whether such proposals can pass is another issue, though each idea has its supporters. Betty Yee, chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization, the state’s tax collector, said that legal marijuana could raise nearly $1 billion per year via a $50-per-ounce fee charged to retailers. An additional $400 million could be raised through sales tax on marijuana sold to buyers.
The law would also establish a smoking age — 21 — effectively putting marijuana in a similar regulatory class as alcohol or tobacco. Marijuana advocates argue that legalization could also decrease pressure on the state’s overburdened prison system and law enforcement officers.
All of which, Ms. Yee said, at least makes the proposal worth talking about in a state with chronic budget problems and a law already on the books allowing the medical use of the drug.
That would be great, but here’s a better plan: tax the hedge funds, tax the ultra-rich and don’t let unregulated greed line the pockets of individuals or corporations. Its one thing to believe that its American to become rich. Its another to actually have some Americans make billions of dollars of income a year while their industries are being rescued and subsidized by regular working Americans.
Taxing every little transaction might get us over the crunch, but it doesn’t solve the billion dollar problem that got us INTO the crunch.
I believe in redemption and rehabilitation, but domestic violence is so damaging: physically and emotionally. We, as a culture, watched as Rihanna’s beaten face photo leaked from the police. Chris Brown’s half-ass apology – why not just say I am so sorry I busted up the woman I love – sounded like a self-protective statement.
Apparently Chris was a witness to domestic violence when he was little?
“I don’t want to mention the person’s name – it wasn’t my real father – but somebody hurt my mom and me, I had to deal with that from seven all the way to 13. It affected me, especially (my behaviour) towards women – I treat them differently. I don’t want to put a woman through the same thing that person put my mom through. I was scared and timid when I was little. I used to pee in my bed… I think it was me being nervous, and scared to get up (out of bed) and see what was going on. My mom used to try and hide it from me and my sister, but we knew. Anybody that’s going through it, just try to deal with it, talk it out.”
This statement of his has also come into question.
So how do we as a culture handle the reuniting of a beaten girl and her beater boyfriend?
Just before 8 p.m. ET on Friday, People.com published a story citing an unidentified source as saying of Brown and Rihanna, “They’re together again. They care for each other. While Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves.”
Approximately two hours later, UsMagazine.com cited a “Rihanna pal” as confirming the reunion and saying, “She’s not listening to anyone. And of course Puff [Diddy] got involved in this.”
The site also reported the pal as saying that Brown has been seen “smiling, riding a jet ski, and flexing his arm muscles,” and that Rihanna arrived four days ago.
Not an hour later, Us quoted Rihanna’s father, Ronald Fenty, as saying, “I love my daughter with whatever road she takes. I’m behind her win or lose. I will be supportive. If that’s the road she wants to choose, I’m behind her. I hope to see her soon. I talked to her after her birthday, and she told me she’s OK.” Fenty had spoken with both magazines earlier this month, and told People that he hoped Rihanna would “stand up for women all over the world” and added of Brown, “You think you know somebody, but you really don’t.”
Reports have confirmed that Rihanna and Chris Brown have indeed reunited at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ house on Star Island in Miami.
We refuse to believe it!!!!
“It’s not easy to shut off a relationship she invested so much in,” close sources to the Umbrellasinger say.
Of course it’s not easy, but it’s absolutely possible!!
Rihanna arrived via private plane from Mexico to meet with Brown a couple of days ago on the island, where Chris has been seen “smiling, riding a jet ski, and flexing his arm muscles.”
Flexing his arm muscles???
We know just how strong Chris is – we (and the rest of the world) have seen the pictures!
Chris — who looks like he’s recreating the wind up leading to the punch that left Rihanna bloodied and bruised — doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.
And here’s an interesting tidbit — Rihanna is being shadowed by one of Jay Z’s beefy bodyguards.
Princess RiRi of the Universe is reportedly back with the bitch who busted two horns in her wondrous tenhead three weeks ago. That’s what People claims and they are usually right. Unfortunately.
A source said, “They’re together again. They care for each other. While Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves.”
The source went on to say that they are hiding out in one of Diddy’s houses. Wait. Are they the ones having tantric sex with Diddy? That would explain why RiRi took that bitch back. Any kind of sex with Diddy will make you delusional in the brains.
But seriously, WHY?! Why, Riri?! When a dude tells you he’ll never do it again. Nine times out of ten, the motherfucker is lie-telling. Majorly. RiRi really needs to rent What’s Love Got To Do With It? to see how this is going to play out. Don’t eat the cake, RiRi! In fact, walk away from the fucking cake!
A source close to the singer told the Chicago Sun-Times that the singer is appalled by Brown.
”All of us, including Rihanna, don’t understand how he can say he’s sorry on the one hand, but still … does not admit any guilt,” said the source. “He should have expressed more contrition.”
Another source who is said to be a close associate of the singer in Los Angeles says Rihanna is ”royally pissed off” by what Rihanna calls Brown’s ”cavalier and arrogant statement.”
Rihanna (real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty) is also said to have split from Brown, according to her father.
“The relationship is over and I am pleased. She doesn’t want to speak to Chris. She is being very brave about things and said that she will be back on stage performing soon,” Ronald Fenty told The Sun.
We will watch and see how Rihanna handles this reunion. Can we as a society rehabilitate the batterer so that the girlfriend can be safe and flourish? If Chris were my son, I’d have him in intense counseling and pull him from his ‘people’ for a while, the people who swept in and drove him away from the scene of the battering. I’d have him gingerly spend time with his girlfriend, with no guarantees. I know he’s a big boy, but he’s an alleged criminal and needs to be yanked to safety until he can break his own violent cycle. Jet skiing and showing your ‘guns’ shows you don’t understand what damage you have done.
Ryan’s YouTube account alone has 24 million channel views, this video has 1/2 million views and 20,000 comments. He also has a MySpace account that has similar performance numbers.
He’s won awards at YouTube: #2 for Most Subscribed (All Time), #2 for Most Subscribed (All Time) Comedians.
That means that ANY music he uses allows millions of listeners to hear the tune in a new context, which helps cement it in memory.
I agree with him. We’re in a new world with instantaneous repetitive communication. We need looser rules.
In an ABC interview, Laura said she did not watch President Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday night, because “she totally forgot about it.”
Really, REALLY, Laura?
With no awareness of the irony or insulting nature of her words, Laura Bush says she didn’t watch Obama’s speech, forgot about it and didn’t think about it at all.
Hmmm, she was there during the 8 years of destroying the American economy but can’t be bothered to watch like a regular American to see how her government is going to get out of this epic downturn.
I understand that the Bushes are DONE with Washington, but it is unseemly to so vocally blow off the new President who inherited your trillion dollar war, your tanked unregulated economy, and your desperate American citizens who now can’t make ends meet.
Meanwhile, Laura is having dinner parties for 16 at her new Dallas home, borrowing tables and chairs from the Secret Service house next door! Oh, Laura, you’re so intrepid! Kinda like Barbara Bush when she brilliantly said about relocated Hurricane Katrina refugees, “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
You two are such insightful ladies! I just wish you were empathetic and could hang in there to help clean up the mess you made.
This is a sorrowful post to write, because of the depth of the loss of each life, both of our American soldiers and foreign civilian ‘collateral damage’ casualties. But look at our war dead we must, in order to honor the young men and women who died representing us, believing that they were protecting us.
You know that George W. Bush banned photos of caskets returning from Iraq.
At the time, I vehemently disagreed. As a mother, I know that you have to see the consequences of your actions, if you want to live in integrity. You have to feel the pain of your mistakes and experience the joy of your successes.
They, and 4,885 others, died without Americans seeing their flag draped (because we honor them with the symbol of our country) casket.
IF YOU CANNOT LOOK AT THE FACES OF DEAD SOLDIERS, THEN YOU CANNOT SEND THEM TO WAR. Its just that simple. You have to be able to live with the reality you create. We know that very few politicians allow their own children to serve in the Armed Forces, which is itself a damning fact. Bush’s own twin daughters were out drinking with fake ID’s while their peers were brought back in caskets.
I am sure that regular Americans are brave enough to honor our dead for their sacrifice. Instead, the bodies of our soldiers were hidden in the dark of night.
When we do not SEE our dead, then the symbols of death rise in our culture.
Look at this $300 silk top, with AK-47’s on it:
Look at the playful skulls on stationary.
Just as George W. Bush got away with funding the war in Iraq by NOT allowing Congress to have a say, he also effectively got away with prolonging his war by hiding our dead brave soldiers from us.
Seeing our war dead should bring us to our knees with whatever deep gratitude or prayers we can muster for the lost futures of these young people, for the families who have to go on day to day without their loved ones, for the children now being raised without this parent, for the community that will not have the wisdom of this citizen as he or she ages.
We need to SEE our war dead. Its the first step to knowing the TRUE COST OF WAR.
I’ll focus on Mayor Dean Grose and his UNBELIEVABLE statement that he did not know that showing row upon row of WATERMELONS growing in the front yard of the White House, now inhabited by the first African-American President, would have a racist connotation.
Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn’t mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.
He said he and Price are friends and serve together on a community youth board.
“Bottom line is, we laugh at things and I didn’t see this in the same light that she did,” Grose told the AP. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t sent to offend her personally – or anyone – from the standpoint of the African-American race.”
Here is an informative website, Dave’s Garden, that lists two thousand plants that might grow well around Washington, DC. Hmmm, NO WATERMELON LISTED, that I can see! Here’s an information page about growing watermelon and it suggests watermelons are sensitive to cold temperatures and even a mild frost can severely injure the crop.
Mayor Dean Grose didn’t show these luscious vegetables sold at Next Step Produce:
He didn’t show the White House front lawn covered with something much more believable, CHERRY TREES:
HE SHOWED ROWS AND ROWS OF WATERMELON.
He knew it would at least pique her attention, he says as much by admitting he thought it was funny.
He should be fired. This is racist. It shows an incredible dullness of intelligence and character.
Each and every racist act needs to be countered, yanked out like weeds, before we can have a healthy garden where all can grow.
Good column in Times of London on how people are treated differently, depending on whether they mugged you on the street or in the banking system.
Our system for regulating markets and for prosecuting market crime is completely broken. If you mug someone in the street and you are caught, the chances are that you will go to prison. In recent years mugging someone out of their savings or their pension would probably earn you a yacht.
How did we get here? Well, financial deregulation undoubtedly released great energy and wealth into the markets and did so in part by giving bankers and financiers more space. But this space had another effect. It created a growing distance between wealthy and powerful individuals and the agencies designed to police their behaviour.
This should be required viewing at every Elementary School, Middle School, High School, College, place of work, gas station as you stand pumping your gas, cocktail bar where they show sporting events on big screens. You get my drift. Its so simple.
This should also be shown to every single member of the US Senate and House of Representatives, to every corporation that does business in any way with the United States, to the people who give Lobbyists clout in exchange for donations.
Its a universal lesson that America needs to re-learn.
Milk’s screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, just gave the most incredible acceptance speech after being awarded Best Original Screenplay tonight at the Academy Awards. glaadBLOG is proud to present it here in its entirety.
Oh my God. This was, um. This was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, and our entire cast, my producers, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus, for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story. When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married.
(He chokes up, audience begins to applaud.)
I want to thank my mom who has always loved me for who I am, even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours. (Wild applause from the audience.) Thank you, thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk.
I am raising my kids to believe that it appears to humans as though god has many faces, that people believe in many different aspects/faces of god. I believe that God is Love and that he/she did not create any ‘mistakes’ or ‘aberrations’. We as a nation have stumbled over and over again, when we try to carve out groups of people that are ‘different’ from a norm. There is no norm, though, except that we are all part of the global family of man. Its time to live in peace, letting each blossom into the unique person they were born to be. That way, no other young man or woman needs to die alone in the dark of night tied to a cattle fence in Wyoming, like Matthew Shepherd did just a few years ago.
Prejudice kills.
Kindness and love heal.
Its time to heal. Time to allow equal rights for ALL.
Milk’s screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, just gave the most incredible acceptance speech after being awarded Best Original Screenplay tonight at the Academy Awards. 
