What's New Law---and What Isn't

Several stories in the news lately about Gov. Culver signing bills before the Tuesday 12 midnight deadline,
here, here ,here ,
here
and here

Here is the whole list of bills signed or vetoed by Culver, via his website. I must say, It's nice to see that a page like this exists. It makes things much easier for people to find out what's going on with the bills Culver has been sent.

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Some Reading For Your Wednesday

Cal Thomas takes on the subject of "unending war," arguing that it's not the US who is pushing it, as some would have you believe. Rather it's Al-Qaida who is responsible.

Jonah Goldberg looks at some of the controversies John Edwards has found himself in lately. Here's a piece I rather enjoyed:

A few years ago, when it was reported that "virtuecrat" Bill Bennett, the former Education secretary, liked to gamble in Las Vegas, columnist Michael Kinsley spoke for much of establishment liberalism when he declared, "Bennett has been exposed as a humbug artist who ought to be pelted off the public stage." I thought this was unfair, as Bennett never inveighed against gambling, nor did his church consider it a sin. Edwards, who gets choked up and misty-eyed from his own relentlessly recounted stump speech about "two Americas," is more of a humbug artist than Bennett ever was. You would think that when Edwards looks in the mirror in one of his new, 28,000-square-foot house's six bathrooms, inspecting whether it's time for another $400 haircut, he might feel the slightest twinge of conscience about his us-versus-them shtick.

Thomas Sowell writes about how the use of words work in the political arena. It's an interesting piece that could complement Frank Luntz's book Words that Work.

Finally, Rich Lowry has a piece up about Americans and their love of cars. Lowry has several interesting statistics in his piece. We hear about how raising fuel standards will help, however for every 10% increase in fuel economy, people drive 2% more. Most interesting though are his comments about Europe. Cars make up 88% of travel in the US. Europe isn't that far behind, with cars making up 78% of travel, and driving per capita is increasing more that twice as fast as the US. Just as interesting was what Lowry said about the cost of mass transit. Gas would have to be $15 a gallon in order for driving to be more expensive than flying or taking the train or bus. In fact, while the working population has increased since 1960, the number of people using mass transportation has dropped.

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Al-Qaeda Tortue Manual

You may have seen something about this before. The Smoking Gun got a hold of an Al-Qaeda torture training manual, and published photos from it online. Here is a Pajamas Media post on the subject as well, including some blog reaction.

BE WARNED: THESE ARE GRAPHIC IMAGES. They are not for the faint or weak hearted. So don't click on these links if you don't think you can handle it. I post them because it's important to remind everyone just exactly who it is we are fighting. Here are what the images portray:

--Drilling Hands
--Severing Limbs
--Dragging Victims Behind Cars
--Eye Removal
--Blow Torch To The Skin
--Suspended From Ceiling and Electrocuted
--Breaking Limbs and Restricting Breath
--Binding and Beating
--Suspending and Whipping
--Clothes Iron to Skin
--Victim's Head in a Vice

Our troops in Iraq are discovering torture rooms where this stuff takes place. It's happening. And the people we are fighting are the ones who are doing it.

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The "Successful" New Congress

Ronald Cass has a piece at Real Clear Politics today about how "successful" the new Democrat Congress has been so far.

Cass nails the Democrats on several aspects:

--The failure to get only one of their "6 for '06" agenda into law. That was a staggered increase in the minimum wage. President Bush agreed to sign that legislation at his first meeting with the new Democrat leadership, but the Democrats still had to pack it in with the defense spending bill. Don't forget, the "first 100 hours" became the "first 100 legislative" hours.

--Democrats railed against the "culture of corruption" during the election. When it came time for leadership elections, Madam Pelosi supported John Murtha as House Majority Leader. Murtha has a shaky ethical past. Neither has anything been done about Rep. William Jefferson, the man made famous by the $90,000 in cold, hard, cash found in his freezer in an FBI raid of his home.

--Serious delays--109 days-- in getting funding to our troops in war zones because Democrats had to please their anti-war constituency but including withdrawal deadlines in the bill. Today on his radio show, Glenn Beck brought up a conversation he had with his nephew in Iraq about how he and a couple of guys in his unit were wearing older helmets "that looked like they were out of WW2" because they couldn't get replacements. The nephew also asked Glenn to send food, not snacks, but food, because the military have had to start rationing in the past few weeks. Maybe it's only an isolated incident, but it's still a frightening thought.

The Democrats didn't win on anything substantial except on the perceived negatives the public had about Republicans. But for a few thousand votes in either Montana or Virginia, the Senate would still be in Republican hands. Several house seats were decided by very narrow margins, and most of the Democrat winners were more conservative--at least that is how they portrayed themselves--than their party's mainstream.

When you hear Democrats talking about their success like this in the future, remember---for all of their "successes", Congress still has a lower approval rating than President Bush.

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Conservative Theories and Today

Two articles are up on the net today discussing more of the intellectual aspects of conservatism.

Peter Berkowitz at OpinionJournal.com has a piece up about, as he says in the subtitle: "The American Right is a cauldron of debate; the left isn't." Berkowitz digs in a little to the roots of conservatism, quoting some of it's past leaders and thinkers. But it mainly points out that what looks like splits in the movement are actually just debates about where to go from where we are at now.

The other piece, by S.T. Karnick at TCS Daily, looks at the "classical liberalism" arguments about what's happening in Iraq. While I don't think you can argue with the logic of classical liberalism, I do believe that the line between nation building and national security is much blurrier than what Karnick leads readers to believe. We don't want to make Iraq into something of a US colony, but at the same time we don't want to leave Iraq as a terrorist safe haven or as a sphere of influence for Iran. The blurry line comes with determining when pushing the Iraqi government to stand up so we can draw down becomes dictating Iraqi government policy.

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Memorial Day

Here are a couple of links for this Memorial Day.

Peter Collier has a piece up at OpinionJournal on some of the stories of Memorial Day. Collier includes a handful of the many stories of courage and heroism in American Military History.

Power Line blog has a short post up about an article at the New York Times about a group of Civil War buffs who are identifying and restoring the head stones of over 3,000 Civil War Veterans buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

Michael Yon has a post up on Memorial Day. For those of you who do not know who Michael Yon is, he is one of the few journalist who regularly go out on patrols with our troops in Iraq, and spends much more time with our troops than most journalist over there do. Many consider him a modern day Ernie Pyle. Bookmark his site, and visit often.

Even through Memorial Day weekend has become more and more just another 3-day weekend, it's important to remember those who have served our nation in the military. God Bless all of our veterans.

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Now They Are Comming For Your Internet

A ban that prohibits states from taxing internet use is close to lapsing. From CNET News

At issue is the scheduled expiration on November 1 of a law, initially enacted in 1998, that says local governments generally cannot tax Internet access, including DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission services. The law also prohibits governments from taxing items sold online in a different manner than those sold at brick-and-mortar stores, but it does not deal with sales taxes on online shopping.

The article goes on:

But previous attempts at renewing the ban for more than two to four years have failed, in part because of resistance from state and local government lobby groups. State government representatives caution against making the moratorium permanent, saying it would deprive states indefinitely of vital revenue sources and that its original purpose--boosting the nascent Internet to commercial viability--has essentially been accomplished.

The argument is that the state is entitled to your money---that simple.

A separate issue on one politician's mind was what to do about the collection of sales taxes on the Internet. State governments have long griped that they are losing revenue to booming e-commerce businesses that aren't required to collect taxes from customers in states where the businesses don't have a physical presence. Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said he was planning to try again at enacting a bill designed to address those concerns.

Newsmax.com also has a story up about this:

Proposals in the U.S. Congress could lead to taxes on Internet shopping, broadband connections and even e-mail by this fall. State and local governments are lobbying Congress to gain the ability to impose the new taxes.

Sen. Michael Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, has introduced a bill that would usher in mandatory sales tax collection for Internet purchases, the CNET News.com Web site reported.

And the House has held a hearing to decide whether to let a temporary ban on Net access taxes lapse when it expires in November.

"With Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill,” according to CNET.

But Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, said he prefers "an impregnable ban on taxes on the Internet.”

If the ban on Net access taxes is allowed to lapse, states and municipalities could impose an array of access taxes, just as they now do on telephone bills.

Internet users could then see a tax on e-mails, said Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., who added:

"They might say, ‘We have no interest in having tax on e-mail,’ but if we allow the prohibition on Internet taxes to expire, then you open the door on cities and towns and states to tax e-mail or other aspects of Internet access.”

Can you believe this? This just goes to show that the government wants its hands on everything. It's one thing to discuss the issue of sales taxes on online purchases, but taxing internet use itself, and even email use? I remember these as rumors way back in the late 90's, but it sounds like its all too real now.

It should be obvious to everyone that if this ban lapses, taxes will increase. And I would be surprised if Iowa Democrats didn't go after it. They are already want to tax Internet downloads, seriously looking at it this past session. With how much they are increasing spending during this legislature's sessions, the Democrats are going to be looking for as many tax dollars as they can get. All I can say is hold onto your wallets.

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