WHAT’S IN THE DAILY NEWS?
Re: George Neumayr’s South
Heads East and R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Get
Off Stewart’s Case:
A brief commentary on today’s [Wednesday’s] Internet news
stories:
Garry South bailing on Gray(out) Davis to join the Lieberman
campaign is clearly a case of a rat leaving a sinking ship for one
that will soon run aground.
That Martha Stewart, who is merely irritating and greedy, is
facing a stretch in the Big House, while Hillary Clinton, who has
harmed this nation at every opportunity, sits on her fat butt in
the Senate at the taxpayer’s expense, may be taken as proof that
God really does have a sense of humor.
That President Bush appears to believe that the Palestinians,
who are possibly the largest assembly of serial Jew-killers since
the Einsatzgruppen, will actually live in peace with Israel,
indicates that he might have fallen off the wagon.
Is Mel Brooks now writing news stories under a variety of
assumed names? I sure hope so.
— Tillman L. Jeffrey
Manteca, CA
TAKING STOCK
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Get
Off Stewart’s Case:
The shares involved in this transaction would have to be 3,900
shares, not 39 shares. No one could save $45,673.00 on a sale of 39
shares unless it was one of the Berkshire Hathaway stocks!!
Besides, it’s obvious that Ms. Stewart was privy to information
that you and I were not aware of! I’m sure this happens often, but
Ms. Stewart is a pedigree and with a clamor within the republic to
punish greed she will be made an example of! In fact, she may have
done what Leona Helmsley did, which in her case involved tax
evasion, but she lied to the feds! When her husband offered to pay
huge fines etc. to spare her jail, they basically responded, tough
situation, Harry! If the petard fits you might be strung up with
it.
— Edward Del Colle
END OF THE ROAD MAP
Re: Jed Babbin’s Cannon
Fodder, Terror Fatigue:
Once again, Babbin is right on the nose! Everything he said I
believe to be exactly right. Abbas has absolutely no stroke. The
Arabs will never agree that Israel has the right to exist. Period.
And the terrorists will continue to kill Israelis forever, as long
as they know they are welcome to do so by Syria, Jordan, Iran and
Egypt. We may be the only country who can stop this business, but
it will never be stopped by negotiation.
— Mike Webster
Dallas, Texas
Your commentary about the dangers of that “God awful” road map just
exploded in this A.M.’s news as G.W. demonstrated he ain’t about to
drop his pursuit of the map as he just bashed Sharon across the
side of his head for attacking a Hamas terror leader. Blasting the
good guys to placate the bad guys’ “feelings” as he has just done,
the Prez is dangerously eroding his rep as a “peace maker” earned
in Iraq as he understood the need and use of force to “make a
point.” Hitting Sharon for doing the same for his country is
incongruous to me.
— Ken Wyman
TAX DRIVERS
Re: David Hogberg’s The
Taxing Life of Riley:
Reading your article about some of the Republican governors
moving into the “raise taxes” camp causes me to cheer our Missouri
legislature. The Democratic Governor Bob Holden has and continues
to propose tax increases to balance the state budget and the
Republican led legislature (so far, at least) has resisted,
pointing out that three times in the last year or so state wide
votes on tax increases failed.
Doesn’t it still boil down to; the legislative branch writes the
law, the executive branch executes the law (i.e., does what the law
says to do).
If the Missouri legislature successfully prevents a tax increase
in this state, shouldn’t your complaint also include the various
legislatures in those other states you listed? (Alabama, Alaska,
etc.)
In Illinois, the legislature has passed tax increases for, among
others, casinos. At least one casino in the St. Louis area
immediately announced that they would rethink their expansion plans
in light of the higher tax burden, providing a clear example of the
economic impact of tax increases.
A great article; please continue to monitor state activities as
well federal activities re tax policy.
— Richard Renken
Chesterfield, MO
A couple of years ago, to great public fanfare, New York State
exempted clothing from the state sales tax. When the idea was first
floated, most of the counties agreed to exempt their sales tax as
well, rendering clothing tax free. Gradually, however, most of the
counties quietly reversed their decisions. Even so, for a couple of
years New Yorkers paid only the county sales tax on clothing,
generally cutting the tax bite in half.
Then last month, in another attempt to stanch the fiscal
bleeding, New York State reinstated its sales tax on clothing, and
for good measure they raised it, from 4% to 4.25%.
There was no public fanfare of this decision, as when they
exempted clothing, and no real advance notice for the affected
businesses, either. Only a few inconspicuous whispered mentions in
the papers.
I work in an outlet shoe store in Corning, NY, and first read
about this early Friday morning, May 30th, two days before June
1st, the day the new tax was to be charged. This meant that in my
county of Steuben, clothing would be taxed at 4% on Saturday then
jump to 8.25% on Sunday. I called our district manager, who knew
nothing, who in turn called the regional manager, who probably
called the head office. The shoe company was caught unawares, as
many clothing businesses in the state apparently were. Our
customers got a tax break on Sunday, June 1st, but it was business
as usual by Monday morning.
This added tax is troublesome to the county as it borders
Pennsylvania, a state where clothing is tax free, and it’s
especially troublesome to Corning, which has been clawing out of
its own economic quagmire. Pennsylvania is noted for its outlet
malls and New Yorkers used to flock to them by the busload.
Shoppers didn’t make these pilgrimages just to buy some underwear,
as they might closer to home; they made an entire day of serious
consumerism and bought in quantity. New York State exempted its
portion of the sales tax on clothing in an attempt to keep New
Yorkers’ dollars within New York. This added tax will once again
ship them and their money south.
Gov. Pataki is supposedly on record as having opposed this tax,
which might be why David Hogberg’s article did not include him.
However, most of us conservatives in New York view Gov. Pataki with
a jaundiced eye at best, so I’m certain I’m not the only New Yorker
who read this article looking for him. Maybe Mr. Hogberg will be
writing an update in the near future, as I hear that New York State
is considering raising the sales tax again to 4.75%.
— Kitty Myers
Painted Post, NY
What is it about Republican governors? For once, they hold the
cards in the high stakes game of politics, and somehow they manage
to shoot themselves by raising taxes? That is one sure way of
really making certain they are never re-elected. Maybe they were
never conservative to begin with, but rather sheep in sheep’s
clothing…
— Cari Gravellinini
Cambridge, MA
TRAIN WRECK
Re: “To Hillary and Back” in Wlady’s
Corner:
Hillary Clinton’s book leave us with only two choices about her:
either she is lying about all of the subjects that have made so
much news over the last week, in which case she is unqualified to
be President, or she is telling the truth and is impossibly naive
and gullible, in which case she is unqualified to be President.
There is no middle ground.
— Warren Mowry
CATHEDRAL FOLKS
Re: Tod M. Tamberg’s letter in Reader Mail’s Sprewing
for Mahony, George Neumayr’s General
Stonewaller and Reader Mail’s Mahony
Falls:
George Neumayr’s “Cardinal Stonewaller” so perfectly-expressed
Roger Cardinal Mahony’s ruthless hypocrisy that it requires no
additional comments. Tod M. Tamberg’s spew in response pretty much
captures the attitude of the archdiocese (and undoubtedly Comrade
Mahony himself) toward all traditional and conservative/doctrinally
orthodox Roman Catholics.
It is clear from Toddy Tamberg’s rather pissant-hysterical rant,
that in his (and Mahony’s) view, we traditional Catholics — who
yearn for beautiful liturgy that is God-centered rather than
Man-centered; who dislike ICEL’s bad, banal and politically correct
translations of liturgy; who prefer sacred music to the
astonishingly banal and badly-executed trash plinked out on
badly-played guitars too often accompanied by tambourine-bangers,
rattle-shakers and hand-clappers; who strongly prefer to worship in
beautiful Churches instead of Wal-Mart-inspired “worship spaces”;
who despise Mahony’s Fascist-grandiose “cathedral” where a
Soviet-Realism-style statue stands near an entrance trying to pass
itself off as an image of the Blessed Virgin; who despise the
yearly Mahony-patronized Religious “Education” Congresses that are
essentially pulpits for every nominal-Catholic dissenter to promote
his or her own junk theology and pet heresy intended to undermine
the true Catholic Faith — we are all 14th Century
medievalists.
Because we favor orthodox Roman Catholic teaching on morality
(reflecting what it actually says in the Bible instead of what
happens to be politically correct in our profoundly self-indulgent
and carnal culture); because we want priests who are holy instead
of the warped products of corrupt and immoral seminaries (such as
described in Michael S. Rose’s Goodbye Good Men) we are
hatred-filled.
Combine Tamberg’s contemptuous spew with the emails from Mahony
to one of his chancery-office lawyers discussing strategies for
obstructing the DA’s investigation into boy-molesting priests.
These emails — that somehow ended up in the hands of two local
radio personalities who read them on the air (John & Ken on KFI
AM640) for the titillation of all of Los Angeles — were so dark,
so self-protective, so Richard Nixon in attitude, that it became
clear to everyone who cares (excluding certain blindly-obedient,
blindly faithful ethnics) that either Mahony needs to convert and
become a Roman Catholic again (if he ever was one) or he
has got to go (along with Tod Tamberg and all of Red Roger’s other
myrmidons). No wonder so many conspiracy theories about plots to
destroy the Catholic Church from within abound (e.g. Malachi
Martin’s roman à clef, Windswept House,
Diary of an Anti-Apostle by Marie Carre; Dodd’s 1950’s era
testimony to HUAC, to name a few)
Tamberg, Sitrick and Company — how many flaks does Red Roger
need anyway? And why should any of my money, siphoned out of Sunday
collections, have to pay for them? Oh, to have a Roman Catholic
Cardinal in Los Angeles again!
— Alice Ramirez
I agree with George Neumayr. He speaks for me, and I have seen that
Los Angeles “Cathedral.” It is a monstrosity and the result of a
sick mind set. There is nothing holy about it or its
creators. The Cardinal should be forced into retirement for
allowing such an insult. However, it does reflect him quite a bit
and all he stands for.
— Mrs. Scott
Houston, TX
NEW WAVE
This is great! I’m glad to see you’re back. I love the site.
— Jonathan Shultz
