The always brilliant Ben Shapiro at Brietbart.com has written a great piece concerning things for which you can do without being subject to a lifetime ban by the NBA.
Things For Which The NBA Won’t Ban You
50 Amateur Fencers vs 3 Olympians
50 Amateur Fencers vs 3 Olympians
A Japanese TV program pit three Olympians against 50 amateur fencers. You’ll be surprised who wins.
Or maybe not.
Visit BillLawrenceTrivia.com for Omnibits
Pa Tax Code Changes Pondered
State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129) reports that the Pennsylvania Legislature is considering changes to the tax code to benefit small business.
Cox says “like-kind exchanges” would be allowed so a small business can sell property and reinvest the proceeds into similar property without immediately having to pay taxes on these proceeds. Pennsylvania is the only state which does not currently allow for this provision.
Also small businesses would be granted the ability to use the Net Operating Loss deduction when filing their Pennsylvania taxes. Only large businesses can use this deduction. I
Also a technical change would be made to allow small businesses to have access to the same Section 179 deductions as large businesses. A Section 179 deduction is one that can be made toward a business’s tax liability when the business purchases new property, equipment or even software.
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Napoleon Salvation
This Off the Internet for April 30 is by Bill Federer of American Minute and comes courtesy of Carris Kocher.
The size of the U.S. doubled on April 30, 1803, with the Louisiana Purchase.
Nearly a million square miles at less than three cents an acre – it was the greatest real estate deal in history!
The Louisiana Territory had belonged to France since 1699, being named after Louis XIV, ‘the Sun King’, the longest reigning monarch in European history.
Louis XIV had a global empire stretching from the Far East to the Caribbean, Africa to America.
Centralizing power, Louis XIV was reputed to have said “L’État, c’est moi” (“I am the state”) and “It is legal because I wish it.”
His grandson, Louis XV, lost the French and Indian War in 1763, leaving Britain to control of the French Territory east of the Mississippi.
As the war was ending, France ceded the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, 1762, to keep Britain from getting it.
France’s next King, Louis XVI, sent his navy during the Revolutionary War to help America win the Battle of Yorktown and gain independence from Britain.
Ironically, France’s accumulated enormous war debt weakened the monarchy.
The French Revolution began in 1789, and on January 21, 1793, a mob beheaded 38-year-old Louis XVI.
A Reign of Terror began in France with 40,000 beheaded in Paris by the Committee of Public Safety, and hundreds of thousands killed across France who refused to embrace the new secular government.
Out of this chaos, Napoleon staged a coup d’état in 1799 and installed himself as First Consul of France.
Napoleon pressured Spain to sign the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, giving the Louisiana Territory back to France.
In 1802, Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to purchase land in New Orleans to dock ships.
Needing cash to fight Britain and the other European countries, Napoleon offered to sell the entire 828,000 square miles of Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million dollars.
President Thomas Jefferson agreed to the purchase and sent Lewis and Clark to explore it.
Not everyone in America was happy. The State of Massachusetts threatened to secede from the Union, arguing that the adding of so large a territory would dilute the influence of existing States.
Jefferson brokered a compromise with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, commenting in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805:
“I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger the union, but who can limit the extent to which the Federative principle may operate effectively?”
The rush to turn the Louisiana Purchase into new States, either slave or free, was a factor leading up to the Civil War.
Another contributing factor to Napoleon selling the Louisiana Territory was the slave rebellion in Haiti.
Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti, calling the island Hispanola, with the capital city of Santo Domingo named for Columbus’ father, Dominic.
The French took half of the Island in the year 1660, and calling it Saint-Domingue, and later Haiti.
It was one of the wealthiest colonies in the world, producing sugar, indigo, cotton and coffee.
Plantations deplorably used slave labor.
While the French Revolution abolished slavery in France, they let it continue in Haiti.
Slaves revolted from 1791-1804, with tens of thousands of French, Mulattos, Blacks, and even Polish, dying with horrible brutality on all sides.
After losing Haiti, France wanted another tropical colony so Napoleon invaded Egypt, 1798-1801.
Napoleon’s fear that Haiti’s slave rebellion might spread to the Louisiana Territory was a contributing factor in his rush to sell it.
During his career, Napoleon fought in over 100 battles conquering large areas of Europe.
When Napoleon put his brother Joseph, a future resident of New Jersey, on Spain’s throne in 1808, Venezuela declared independence in 1810, followed by Central American countries of Chili, Argentina, and eventually Mexico.
On June 23, 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with nearly a half million men. Six months later he retreated with less than 50,000.
This disastrous loss forced him to abdicate the throne and he was exiled to the Mediterranean Island of Elba.
Napoleon escaped February 26, 1815, and returned to rule France for 100 days.
After losing the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, Napoleon was permanently banished to the tiny island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) had resulted in an estimated 6 million deaths from battle and related diseases, starvation and exposure.
On the island of St. Helena, Napoleon began to reflect on his life and even began reading the Bible.
A few years before dying at the age of 52, Napoleon commented to General H.G. Bertrand, as recorded in “On St. Helena,” 1816:
“The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the heavens.
The Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension. Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others (here the Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it):
I never omit to read it, and every day with new pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army…The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide…”
Napoleon continued:
“Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison; He is truly a Being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.
Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudices, the only one which proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country, the bosom of the Creator, God.”
Napoleon concluded:
“Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify one only and the same thing-eternity. What a proof of the divinity of Christ! With an empire so absolute, he has but one single end – the spiritual melioration of individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul…
Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled; and the soul can never go astray with this book for its guide. Once master of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God even is our friend, our father, and truly our God. The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she nurses…”
Napoleon ended by telling General H.G. Bertrand: “If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well: then I did wrong to make you a general.”
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Racist Owner Dem Donor
Racist Owner Dem Donor
For some strange reason it is not being widely reported in the old media that Donald Sterling, the owner of the NBA Los Angeles Clippers whose racist remarks were secretly recorded by an angry girlfriend, was a supporter of Democrats and leftist causes.
Why would a racist support Democrats and leftist causes?
Well racists want gun control. Racists want blacks to have easy access to abortions. Racists want to keep blacks illiterate in failing schools.
Racists don’t want to associate with blacks unless they really, really have to.
All these are causes supported by the left and opposed by right-thinking people.
Let’s never forget that Jim Crow was government policy instituted by laws that imposed strict regulation on business. It was never something a free-market libertarian could imagine supporting.
And a final point regarding the lynch-mob hate directed at Sterling: technology is going to soon make a whole lot of our thoughts and words transparent. If we don’t start practicing mercy and forgiveness for general human stupidity things are going to get pretty unpleasant for everybody.
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Breakfast Helps Honor Flight
The Women’s Auxiliary of American Legion Post 667 will hold an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast, 9 a.m. to noon, Sunday, May 4, a the post, 1112 Steel Road, Havertown, Pa.
On the menu are pancakes covered with warm maple syrup, country breakfast sausage, fresh brewed coffee and orange juice.
Cost is $5.
Proceeds benefit Honor Flight Philadelphia whose next event is June 21.
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SB76 Hearing Tomorrow
The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a public hearing 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, April 30, in Hearing Room 1 of the North Office Building in the state Capitol to consider the Property Tax Independence Act (Senate Bill 76), reports state Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).
A rally is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on the front steps of the Capitol to show support for the bill.
SB76 Hearing Tomorrow
Sobering Talk Concerning Pa
With Matt Brouillette of Commonwealth Foundation (center) are Whitey Coyne, Lisa Esler, Charles Martini and William Lawrence Sr.
Matt Brouillette, president and CEO of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, one of the nation’s top think tanks, gave a sobering talk this evening, April 28, about what taxpayer activists and fighters of corruption face in Pennsylvania.
He said the reform Gov. Tom Corbett is pushing regarding the state-controlled distribution of liquor is “not about getting the government out of the booze business but giving the appearance of convenience.”
The privatization of the state owned “Wine & Spirits Shoppes” is popular with the populace across partisan lines. It’s not going to happen because it is not popular with special interests who send the bucks to legislators.
On a much more frightening note, Brouillette also said critically needed pension reform is not going to happen either. He said state workers were “circling the wagons” to stop legislation to change their pension from a defined benefit one to the defined contribution one now the norm in the private sector.
He said the largest state-backed pension funds SERS and PSERS, that handle the retirement money for state workers and school teachers respectively, have unfunded liability of $57 billion and it’s “going up”. He noted that local school districts are on the hook for half of PSERS money so expect massive property tax hikes.
“There is a general lack of will to tackle the pension crisis,” he said. He said the solutions being proposed involve the state cutting its regular contributions and will only make things worse.
“If Republicans controlled the governor, house and senate, we might get some resolutions,” he said. After a pause, he said “You are supposed to laugh at that” the punchline being that the Republicans do have complete control in Pennsylvania.
“It’s not funny,” said a woman in the audience.
Brouillette agreed.
“The Big Government Party is the majority party in Pennsylvania,” he said. “And it has both Republicans and Democrats.”
Brouillette said that is the reason why his group is pushing paycheck protection as the priority.
Paycheck protection is found pending legislation HB 1507 and SB 1034 that ban the use of public resources to collect, bundle and transmit public sector union dues and PAC contributions.
“If an elected official tried to have money automatically deducted from an employees paycheck (to use for a campaign) they would go to jail.”
The PSEA and other government unions can do just that legally and without the employees permission as how to use it.
He said this is the main reason why the Big Government Party is in the majority in the state.
Brouillette says the Republicans are two votes shy in the senate of getting the reforms passed.
Brouillette also said that HB 1154, the bill that would end the allowance for union members to stalk, harass and threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction during labor disputes, was amended in the Senate in a way that supporters in the House fear that it was neutered.
In other matters, support was requested for Megan Rath who is taking on Democrat Congressman Bob Brady in Pennsylvania’s 1st District and for Bob Guzzardi who is running against incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett in the May 20 Republican Primary. Guzzardi, who is also a vocal opponent of Common Core, has made fighting for pension reform a linchpin of his campaign.
Lisa Esler noted that the group will be participating in an NRA Women on Target Instructional Shooting Clinic, June 28, at the Northern Chester County Sportsmen’s Club. The cost is $35 and covers the use of firearms, ammunition, shoot supplies, a t-shirt and goodied bag along with snacks. Call Theresa Reynolds at 610-304-5873 for information or email her at theresa6733@gmail.com
Maria Heider announced that there will a Twitter clinic co-hosted by Americans for Prosperity, 6:30 p.m., June 19, at the Marple Public Library. Call 610-572-3442 for information or to register.
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Bob Guzzardi Statement
Since Gov. Corbett has for some strange reason been flooding the airwaves with advertising this primary season, we figured we bring you this statement by his opponent.
By Bob Guzzardi
The Republican establishment during the three years that it has controlled Harrisburg has pursued polices that will raise the annual tax burden by close to $1,000 for many Pennsylvanians by 2018— at least those who own homes and have jobs.
If this angers you, if this sickens you, if this makes you feel betrayed vote for me on May 20.
I am running to be the Republican nominee for governor against incumbent Tom Corbett.
I will not implement the Corbett gas tax
I will move to sell the liquor stores.
I will fight to ban school strikes and other things that cause unnecessary increases to your property tax.
I will stop Common Core.
I will not sign any union contract that contains automatic forced union dues deductions.
I will not sign any budget that spends more this year than last and I will gore the special interest spending oxen to protect The Forgotten Taxpayer.
Tom Corbett cannot win in November. I can.
Read more articles about Pennsylvania politics at BillLawrenceDittos.com
Delco Pats Draw Flea Market Crowd
The Delaware County Patriots on this fine April Sunday drew heavy traffic to their booth at the Newtown Square Fire Co. Auxiliary Flea Market in the Newtown Square Shopping Center. What drew the crowds was their explanation as to the pain being inflicted on Pennsylvania’s children by the Bill Gates-sponsored, neo-feudalistic Common Core educational standards now being imposed by Gov. Tom Corbett. The standards would be laughable if the damage was not real.
The Patriots will be sponsoring an evening with Commonwealth Foundation CEO Matt Brouillette, tomorrow, April 28 at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 327 N. Newtown Street Road (Route 252), Newtown Square, Pa. 19073. Commonwealth Foundation is one of the premier think tanks in the state. The event is free. Light refreshments will be served including Mrs. Chef Bill’s Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies. Doors open at 6:30. Meeting starts promptly at 7.
Call 610-572-3442 for information.