More Corporate Welfare

Stories this morning reveal that the Obama Administration, like every other political arm, wants to lower the amount that corporations pay in taxes. Everyone decries our 35% statutory corporate tax rate as being one of the highest in the world. I could understand that argument, if it was true and that was really the tax rate that corporations actually paid, but…

Here’s the headline from WSJ a few days ago;

With Tax Break, Corporate Rate Is Lowest in Decades “Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.”

Taxes as a percentage of GDP (click for bigger)

So, for the last three decades or so actual corporate taxes ran about 10% below the statutory rate (not the highest in the world) and last year, they fell to a 40-year low. Does this sound like they need more, rather than fewer, tax breaks? This is still one of my favorite graphs although it’s getting a bit dated. It shows how corporate taxes have been falling for the last 50 years, all the while the shortfall is being made up by you and I paying higher taxes for Social Security and payroll taxes. Income taxes are actually fairly stable, running both sides of about an 8% average of GDP, but corporations continue to pay less and less with each passing year due to their extensive lobbying campaign. Corporate profits and corporate pay are at all time highs and they continue to push for lower taxes at the expense of you and I.

With corporate taxes currently at an all-time low and the economy in the toilet, would you be happy paying 12% tax on your income? Or, 25% for that matter? Do corporations really need another 7% chopped off of their already puny taxes at our expense? The sad thing is that they will probably get their cut because this is an election year and corporate money finances our political process. Can you say “Public campaign financing”?

Baldwin Chucks It

After nearly three grueling months on the campaign trail and four more to go, Chuck Baldwin has withdrawn from the race for lieutenant governor.  After quickly finding that there was no money to be made in Montana state politics, DVD salesman and self-promoter Baldwin decided to move on to more lucrative ventures, once again proving that his campaign was never about ideology, but only about finding new ways to separate sycophants  from their wallets.

“Bob Fanning and I are going to be the team that will bring excitement and energy to this gubernatorial race! In this race, we are the champions of constitutional government, State sovereignty, and personal liberty.” But only if there is some filthy lucre in it for Chuck I guess. Even though Chuck truly believed that they were the only candidates that espoused the one true religion and could save Montana from the evils of Agenda 21, “a globalist ploy to destroy our national sovereignty and prepare America for assimilation into the one-world government headed up by the United Nations.” Chuck jumped ship because he couldn’t make enough money from his paranoid supporters.

In making his announcement to run, Baldwin praised Fanning and declared; “Needless to say, I am very honored to have had Bob invite me to join his campaign. In fact, he is the only candidate for governor that I believe in enough to run with.” Now, not so much;

I believe that my departure from the Governor/Lieutenant Governor race will allow me to continue to pursue whatever opportunities the people of Montana would believe were best suited for those abilities and attributes that I may have in our mutual pursuance of liberty and constitutional government. And, no, I will not endorse a gubernatorial candidate at this time.

Bye, bye Chuck. You won’t be missed.

Resolve to Evolve

Once again ’tis the season for celebration. Centered on the birthday of Charles Darwin on Feb. 12th, events around the world will celebrate science and reason.

Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

Born the same day as Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin has become the symbol of science and humanity around the globe. As the world becomes a smaller place, science becomes our common language and Darwin’s theory of evolution is the common bond joining together these various threads of what it means to be human. As the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr so ably put it,

“Almost every component in modern man’s belief system is somehow affected by Darwinian principles.”

So, get out there and celebrate reason and humanity this weekend.

In Kalispell, the Flathead Area Secular Humanist Association will be showing two films on Saturday Feb. 11 at the Flathead County Library conference room at 2pm. ““Are You a Secular Humanist?” and “Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life”, with a question and answer period to follow. Enjoy and learn.

In Billings, the Billings Area Humanists will once again sponsor “Evolve, Fish, Fly” at 12pm at Amend Park on King Avenue East. A school of 4′ wide kites that were constructed and painted at a Humanist event last year and will be hovering around a giant 10′ wide Evolve kite. Sounds like a hoot.

If I missed your event, sorry, but you still have no excuse to not get out this weekend and celebrate Darwin Day.

Bonner County, on the forefront of liberty

Thank Gawd we have allies like the Kootenai Environmental Alliance to keep us informed about the dastardly plans of the U.N. to control our very lives. They reported on Tuesday about a “Major New Weapon in the Fight Against the UN” . Yes, that Major Weapon is the Bonner County Property Rights Council.

“Obviously, if Agenda 21 and its mindset of government control is to be reigned in, clearly, something needs to be done to provide a strong voice for protection and defense of the property owners. Such a plan of action has now been developed by County Commissioner Cornel Rasor of Bonner County, Idaho. He calls it a Property Rights Council.”

The last bastion of American Liberty now falls to the Bonner County commissioners. “The mission of the PRC is to review county government activities and inter-governmental activities to determine whether the activities may cause adverse impact to private property rights.”  Who would have thought that the safety and security of our Great Nation would rest on the sturdy shoulders of these able Idaho patriots? You may well wonder just how these nefarious “inter-governmental activities” affect our daily lives. Well, it’s obvious you haven’t been paying attention.

In some communities, to meet arbitrary energy restrictions, local government is forcing homeowners to install new energy efficient appliances and windows,and even new roofs, on occasion. There are reports of inspectors actually entering homes and systematically removing incandescent light bulbs and replacing them with the new green models, without the knowledge and against the will of the property owner. Repairmen are instructed to lower temperatures on water heaters as they repair them, and so forth.

Sure, you may not be a member of such a community. You may not even know of such a community, and so forth, but that don’t mean it ain’t true. If we wait until we are invaded by appliance repairmen bent on world domination it will be too late. The U.N. will have won and you could have new light bulbs and possibly a roof. So, just bend your knee and thank your Lord and Savior that we have paranoid concerned citizens over in Bonner County, Idaho willing to sacrifice their time, reputations and sanity to protect us against the coming of the commie-bastard Evil Empire.

Nuff Said

Mitt Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor…”

Franking my dear, you should give a damn

Want to donate to Dennis Rehberg campaign for the Senate? Oh sorry, you already did. He just forgot to tell you. The Montana Democratic Party is once again complaining about Rehberg sending out campaign literature on your dime. The mailer portrays Denny as that great Montana sportsman who is tirelessly working for you in Congress. This latest propaganda is about how Denny and the County Sheriff want to protect you from Canadian terrorists.

See that cute little message at the bottom left? It reads “Public Document . Official Business, This document was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense“. That means you paid the cost and it’s officially called “franking”, a privilege that allows Congress to communicate about what they have been doing for constituents. It’s not meant to convey what they are trying to do “to” constituents. Even though he has to sign a certification that ” to the best of my knowledge, the attached material submitted for review does not contain any logo, masthead design, slogans, photographs or facsimiles thereof contained in the campaign literature of a Member, or any specific campaign promises or pledges of a Member or political party“, Denny has a hard time figuring out just what campaign literature really is.

In 2006 Denny sent out 147,000 glossy mailers costing about $60,000 that opponents called “blatant campaign literature”. Of course that’s only for the mailing cost and  doesn’t include stuff like producing all the fancy graphics and pretty pictures of the Congressman as well as publishing costs that go into the propaganda that goes on your tab. In 2008 and 2010 Denny once again sent out pretty picture-filled brochures about how he is fighting to end costly earmarks;

2006

2008

Getting the picture? These pretty, and expensive, brochures that you paid for always seem to show up in your mailbox only during election years.

During Rehberg’s all-out fight against congressional earmarks, he was named the #1 earmarker in Congress. Yes, this is the same Dennis Rehberg that is reported to vote with his party 91% of the time so, you don’t really need to know what his positions are.

According to OpenCongress, Mr. Rehberg has sponsored 15 bills in the House, 0 of which made it into law. He has co-sponsored 138 bills, of which 5 became law. You are not only paying for all this pretty mail that you immediately toss or recycle. You are paying this ineffective guy an actual salary to do this to you.

Oil for lives

This is what Keystone bribes will buy - Tar Sands Mine, north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.

Your entire congressional delegation is pushing for expedited construction of the Keystone XL pipeline based on faulty information. It’s not surprising given that Senator Baucus and Representative Rehberg have accepted more than a million dollars in dirty energy campaign money. They need to hear from you now.

The proposed 36-inch pipe will have a capacity of 900,000 barrels per day of some of the most filthy oil on the planet. This pipe carries tar sands crude which creates three times the amount of greenhouse gases as normal crude oil extraction. The pipe will cross hundreds of streams and small drainages in Montana. Any spill of this stuff into Montana waters would be many times more damaging than the Yellowstone River spill earlier this year.

TransCanada makes extravagant claims for the jobs created by this pipeline, but a recent State Department report puts the number of jobs during construction at only 5,000 to 6,000, almost all of which would disappear after construction. Republicans are calling this a shovel-ready jobs creator, but the majority of the shovels would be wielded by workers cleaning up the spilled crude. The existing Keystone pipeline had 12 major spills last year. The 2,794 pipeline spills last year included 275,000 gallons in Michigan and 126,000 gallons in North Dakota and killed 161 people. For comparison, the spill into the Yellowstone River was about 40,000 gallons and reported cost Exxon $135 million to clean up. If you think those costs aren’t coming out of your taxes or transportation costs, think again.

Almost all of the oil from the tar sands will be transported to Texas for export abroad. Not only will the tar sands oil not help with the U.S. oil imports, it may actually increase gasoline costs to U.S. consumers by relieving a current glut of Canadian crude oil in the Midwest which would be picked up by the XL pipeline.

President Obama recently delayed approval of the XL pipeline, but the big oil money is pushing Congress for speedy approval with millions of dollars in bribes to legislators. Congressman Rehberg has sold out to big oil once again by authoring legislation to give the administration 60 days to make this important decision. Montana’s Senators and Representative need to hear from Montanans that this pipeline is just a disaster waiting to happen. Let them know that we don’t need to become a conduit and dumping ground for more foreign oil at the cost of our pristine Montana environment.

Email Denny Rehberg

Email Max Baucus

Email Jon Tester

Bull Trout vs. Lake Trout

Native fish in the West have been severely pummeled by lake trout and other invasive species for a hundred years. Don’t miss the great article by Steve Woodruff in the Winter edition of Trout Magazine.

Deep Trouble in Western Waters

Fast growing, long-lived populations of Salvelinus namaycush are decimating native fish populations in more than 200 lakes and watersheds around the west. Native trout have faced every challenge thrown at them for more than 10,000 years, but are no match for these voracious non-native predators.

The article highlights attempts to do something about the lake trout invasions in Yellowstone Lake, Lake Pend Oreille and in the Flathead Basin. In just a few years the native cutthroat spawning run in Clear Creek, tributary to Yellowstone Lake, has dropped from 50,000 fish to only about 500 today due to lake trout predation. In Flathead Lake, less than 3,000 native bull trout remain in our largest western freshwater lake. The lake trout population has more than doubled in the last 20 years under a feeble attempt to reduce lake trout numbers using only recreational angling. As crowded lake trout radiate out from Flathead Lake, we have lost native fish populations in 12 of our stronghold lakes including Swan Lake, which became a catch-and-release fishery for native bull trout for the first time this year due to lake trout predation.

There are some success stories. Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho is seeing a rebound in their native bull trout populations as well as a hopeful return of their popular kokanee fishery nearly decimated by lake trout. They have applied an aggressive lake trout netting program and a bounty system. It’s not a matter of wiping out lake trout in our western waters. Once they have established a foothold, lake trout are here to stay, but if we ignore the problem much longer and don’t make the attempt to reduce lake trout numbers and re-balance some of these important native fish waters, we face the very real danger of losing one of the West’s greatest genetic treasures, not to mention many dandy fishing opportunities.

(cross-posted from Flathead Valley Trout Unlimited)

Welcome to “An American Town”

In a new four-part series, Media Matters for America examines how, “A recent influx of white supremacists and Patriot group members to the town of Kalispell, Montana, is causing alarm.” Okay, I’m alarmed, but I would also remind you that a couple dozen gun-totin’, racist, crazy people ain’t much of an “influx”. You’ll probably want to keep up with the series. These folks are so over-the-top eighties that they would be a hoot if they weren’t also heavily armed.

Also check out the new article by the Southern Poverty Law Center, A Gathering of Eagles: Extremists Look to Montana. Both articles have plenty of good information on our favorite perpetual candidate and DVD peddler, Chuck Baldwin who moved to Kalispell a couple of years ago because he knows these anti-government neo-Nazis will shower money on almost anybody who knows the right rhetoric. And, boy does he know the rhetoric. Along with “Crazy Bob” Fanning, he has thrown his helmet into the race for Lieutenant Governor.

Bob and I are committed to fighting for constitutional government, opposing Agenda 21, protecting the right to life of the unborn, preserving State sovereignty, opposing federal government land grabs, and protecting the right of states to govern themselves, which includes defending Montana’s duly established medical marijuana laws.

Well, they aren’t committed yet (although they should have been years ago), first they need you to send them as much of your retirement savings as they can squeeze out of you;

To launch the Fanning-Baldwin campaign, we need 200 people to give $500. Or 400 people to give $250. Or 1,000 people to give $100. You get the idea.

Yeah, I get the idea. Chuck found out years ago that you can separate crazy people from their money more easily than rational folks. I bet old Chuck can even tie a new DVD and maybe a couple of books into the campaign to squeeze a few more schekels out of the true believers. Although he is running for Lieutenant Governor because he seems to want to run the government of the Treasure State, his latest book, “Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission, shows with overwhelming evidence that submission to government is limited and that the obey-government-no-matter-what argument is false!” (Chuck likes exclamation points) So, I guess he wants to be the government, he just doesn’t want you to pay attention to the government. Anyway, enough about the Chuck & Bob Show. We’ll get lots of that later in the campaign. For now, you need to read these articles and pay attention to what is happening on the lunatic side of town.

This apparent militarization, or at least such rhetoric from many of the movement’s most visible figures, has grown increasingly worrisome. Several judges and law enforcement officers say the concerns are real, just as they were two decades ago. People are coming to court armed with a vitriolic distrust of government — and, on occasion, sidearms.

These are the folks who plan to be our bastion of defense when the George Soros-sponsored black UN helicopters swoop down on Montana to take away our guns, farms and freedom. But, in the mean time, please send all your spare change in check, cash or money order, to Chuck Baldwin, Kalispell, Montana. I don’t know what it is about Montana that draws crazy people, but I suspect that if we could fix it, a lot of us wouldn’t be here. Just because they’re bonkers don’t mean they ain’t dangerous.

Border Posse

Congressman Dennis Rehberg has been taking it from all sides on his bill to give federal agents from Homeland Security and the Border Patrol free reign over our public lands.  What could be the reason?

The proposal would let the Border Patrol circumvent dozens of environmental laws from the Clean Water Act to the Endangered Species Act in areas those laws were created for: the nation’s most-protected wilderness areas that fall within the 100-mile border zone with both Mexico and Canada.

Oh, yeah. Well surely they would never use the new powers to actually build roads, ditches and guard towers in our National Parks and wilderness areas…

[Border Patrol spokesman James] Frackleton said that designated wilderness areas that prevent motorized access are a frustration for border agents, and pointed out his agency views access differently than the Forest Service or Park Service.

I can certainly understand their frustration with having to walk or ride horses through some of the most spectacular wild country in the U.S. Why don’t we just let them use ATVs in Glacier Park? They would be careful on their snowmobiles in the North Cascades. How much harm could they do on Mt. Ranier with a bulldozer anyway?

Luckily, Denny has come up with an amendment that will solve the entire problem of runaway federal agents. Now the bill will give the county sheriff dominion over the Border Patrol. Now instead of the Border Patrol having to go through all that red tape from state and federal land managers, they can just stop by the sheriff’s office and get a hall pass. Everybody knows that the county sheriff is the most upright and righteous citizen in the county anyway. There ain’t never been a crooked county sheriff. Nobody could buffalo the sheriff for Chrisakes.

But, I’d like to go one step further. Instead of federal agents having to mess with the sheriff or all those closed-minded, environmental whacko, feds. Why don’t we just let the county sheriff patrol the border? Think about it. Look how well the sheriff protected us from evil terrorists in the past. After all, did you ever see Butch Cassidy or Jesse James in this county? Of course not and that’s because they knew we had a county sheriff who wouldn’t stand for that kind of crap. The bonus would be that there would be no road building, black helicopters or noisy, smelly ATVs in our wilderness. Everybody knows that the sheriff and his posse ride horses and they all carry Winchesters. Just think of all the money we would save. The sheriff just heads out to Main Street and tells everybody to mount up for Terror Patrol. No sweeping federal land grab. No need for all those taxpayer funded Border Patrol agents with their fancy automatic weapons and Predator drones. It’s an all volunteer effort. I bet the sheriff would even invite Denny, if he ain’t too pie-eyed to sit a horse.

Shitfire boys, saddle up, lock ‘n load! We’re burning daylight. YeeHah!