Midnight Blue Says

And the hits just keep coming from Philly, the city that loves to tax bloggers. Now the city provides free parking for the political elite or politically blessed in this fair city. Miriam Hill of the Inquirer reports:

When Mayor Nutter took office, he reduced the number of free parking spaces awarded to city employees and to politically connected local VIPs.

But a lucky few got to keep their free spots, even though they don’t work for the city.

Michael Meehan, general counsel for the Republican City Committee, still parks for free in the 1500 block of Market Street.

He did not return a call seeking comment.

Democratic City Committee Chairman and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady nabbed a space, as did Elmer Brun, Charles Bernard, and Lou Farinella, who also work for the local party as aides to Brady.

Through a representative, they also declined comment.

This translates into a savings on average of $3500 to $4500 a year in parking fees the rest of us are required to pay out. I wonder if they are also exempt from business license fees as well? This is another example of political connections benefiting a select few while the majority foots their expense. Again, I remind my local readers, all 17 members of city council are up for reelection next year. To quote Madam Speaker – “It’s time to drain the swamp”.

Gotta love Philly – a midnight blue Democrat city that never found a tax it would not implement. So, if you blog in Philly and partake in advertising, Philadelphia department of revenue wants their cut even if you make no money on this endeavor.

Pay up:

Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year,” he adds.

So even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to be lucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising — the city thinks you should cut it a check.

Note, I don’t pursue advertising on this blog and never will. Although, I wonder how this applies to bloggers that accept G-Pal or PayPal donations?

UPDATE: Now would be a good time to remind my local readers that all 17 members of Philadelphia City Council are up for reelection next year. Change begins locally and we surely can find 17 more qualified individuals to run and replace the current council.

Ed Morrissey weighs in on this story, he thinks its crass but legit for the city to demand a license fee. I can’t wait till the city starts demanding a business license for children’s lemonade stands and sundry yard sales that can be found in practically every neighborhood. Like the Cordoba mosque, this is a really bad idea.

Blonde Sagacity looks at the finer point of taxing ‘potential profit’.

First In labels Philly as tax capitol of the world!!!

PaWatercooler has several thoughts on this issue.

Aaron Proctor: Philly’s new blogger tax gouges free speech and free thought

Thanks to all of you who have emailed and offered assistance in changing my blog address. Since I don’t earn any income from this blog via advertising or a tip jar,  I’ve nothing to report on my tax form.  Actually, I’m stunned by the absolute absurdity of this issue.

As a follow up to the scandalous Worst American’s poll which twisted the knickers of some conservative bloggers, John Hawkins posted to RWN the top 25 conservative picks for the greatest figures in American history.

Below is the list I submitted to John.  The bolded items are the ones that concur with John’s compiled list.

Audie Murphy

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

Ben Franklin

John Adams

Abigail Adams

Betsy Ross

Ronald Reagan

General David Petraeus

Thomas Edison

Pierre S. duPont

Phylis Schafley

Claire Booth Luce

Michael A. Monsoor

James Armistead Lafayette

Bill Gates

Albert Einstein

Alexander Graham Bell

Bob Hope

Frank Sinatra

Jimmie Stewart

Grace Kelly

What struck me as I thought of this list  was how many great individuals I had to eliminate because they were not American, interestingly, not one was arabic.  Why is that? Certainly food for thought.

What would your list look like? Post it in the comments section for all to see and dissect

It seems John Hawkins post Conservative Bloggers Select the 25 worst figures in American history has caused a tempest in teapot among the conservative blogosphere. Apparently, when a number of right-of-center bloggers to submitted a list of their top 25 worst Americans, some were SHOCKED to see a number of left leaning politicians made the cut instead of a sundry list of serial killers.

Apparently, Matt Lewis, Jazz Shaw and Rick Moran were none to pleased about the results of this blogger poll. Doug Mataconis summed up the reactions to this poll perfectly:

Obviously, this poll isn’t to be taken all that seriously but it has raised some interesting questions. Matt Lewis cites it as proof that American politics is broken, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher notes the blatant political bias reflected in the list, and Ed Morrissey notes that this question came up in the political blogosphere before, about five years ago.

For disclosure, I submitted a list of names to John. I’ve reprinted the contents of my email to John regarding this list. As you can see, I took a broader approach to what the critics above assumed I took based upon the results revealed by John Hawkins. Not all my responses made it on to the list and I was under no illusion that they would make the final list.

John, My list is as follows:

• Jimmie Carter
  George Armstrong Custer
  Andy Warhol
  Wesley Clark
  The Zodiac Killer
  Ted Kazinski
  John Hinkley
  John Kerry
  Jane Fonda
  Billy The Kid
  Richard Nixon
  Hilary Clinton
  Betty Freidan
  Oliver Stone
  Winter Soldiers

Tania

http://www.midnightbluesays.com

Interesting list and I’m sure some may disagree, as is your right.  However, you might notice that it does not correspond well with the RWN list.  As I see it, Matt Lewis, Jazz Shaw, Rick Moran and Tommy Christoper made wild-assed assumptions of the nature of politics and conservative bloggers based upon the final list publicized on RWN.  You have every right to disagree with the content of the list, however, making broad generalizations based on any type of blogger poll is disingenuous.  With exception of Tommy Christopher, I expect better analysis from Matt, Jazz and Rick.

UPDATE:  TSO from This Ain’t Hell shares a ‘History Lesson from A Dumb Conservative‘.  My favorite Troglopundit weighs in on the controversy.

FYI: John has sent around an email requesting a list of the greatest figures in American history. I’ll share my list after John posts his results. Check back soon!

So, how about the Chinese favoring the Euro over the Dollar?

Andrew Breitbart

This afternoon I attended the Uni-Tea Rally at Independence Mall. In the heart of a midnightblue-democrat city, I am constantly amazed by the turnout of these rallies. I’ve witnessed numerous anti war rallies at the same location, even at the height of anti war protests in 2006-2007, their numbers never rose above anemic with a distinct lack of pigment in their ranks.

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Help a worthy charity – Society of St.Vincent de Paul by clicking on this LINK

The fine folks at The Society Of St. Vincent De Paul are holding an unbelievable raffle. The grand prize includes 4 days in New York, a $3000 shopping spree, and a meeting with Bill O’Reilly. Heck, third prize is 2 Super Bowl tickets! They’re charging a $100 bucks a pop for the raffle tickets — and of course, the money they make will go to their charity

UPDATE: Just received notification from John Hawkins that I won a raffle ticket. Yeah!!

If you want to purchase a raffle ticket to support the work of the Society of St. Vincent De Paul you can do so HERE.

New Orleans 2010

Had too good of a time in New Orleans, it took me a few more days than I anticipated to get back to the blogs.

I’ve put together a set of photos and videos on Flickr for your perusal. Some of the photos I simply have no explanation for, so please don’t ask.

I will be emailing a photo to a certain Wall Street Journal employee. I hope to hear back from him and will post the response and the photo here.

A superb blogger and novelist, Andrew Ian Dodge, has penned article “Grassroots Conundrum:  ”Party Unity” or Princples“.  He takes a look at  one of the biggest growing pains of the Tea Party movement:

Tea parties across the US are starting to learn the realities of political life after the primaries. In this grassroots conundrum they have to suffer the sight of their tea party favorites appearing with many of the politicians that they set out to cull. Now that these candidates have gotten the nomination they become part of the party “establishment” and business as usual returns

Within the tea party movement, I’ve found that most groups are careful to state that their movement isn’t overtly democrat or republican – they see both parties as part of the problem. What I see are political opportunists that latch on to the Tea Party talking points; perhaps even organizing a tea party event in order to tap into the powerful grass root organizing power of the Tea Party. Some have even convinced prominent bloggers who identify with the tea party movement to cover their primary campaign. Once the candidate has used the Tea Party momentum to their advantage, it’s back to politics as usual; which leads to the well meaning activists getting screwed, yet again. This is the genuine weakness of this movement – part of being the new kid on the block – as some activists tend to latch on to any candidate who mouths Tea Party talking points without putting any effort into diligent research of the candidate.

I’ve found it wise to develop a keen political BS meter when it comes to candidates labeling themselves as the ‘Tea Party candidate’.  I believe as the Tea Party movement progresses, it will develop an overall political BS meter to avert candidates such as Rand Paul and Paul LePage.  We typically call this maturity. Remember, this movement has only been around for over one year. We have accomplished what was once unattainable in politics in that time, but we still are new kids and we have some growing ahead of us. I look forward to the journey as I look forward to 2010, 2012, 2014….

Another addition to the acclaimed collection of “Big” blogs at Brietbart.com – Big Peace -  was unveiled today, July 4th, our nation’s 234 birthday.

Andrew Breitbart describes the idea behind Big Peace:

As the site’s resident skeptic of main stream media accountability, I have noticed that the amount of reporters and media outlets covering national security and the war has dwindled and skepticism over American military commitment has waned now that there isn’t a Bush or a Republican in charge. The war beat is getting short shrift. Big Peace was created to fill this void and to provide biased coverage.

The site is pro-freedom, pro-liberty, and pro-American but will not be an outlet for false information or propaganda. The unique mix of Schweizer, Gaffney, and Blackfive and our collective reputations will provide a check and balance.

Ohhh, this is my kind of website. Can’t wait to see the liberal implosion with this announcement by Andrew Breitbart.

On June 1st 2010, RightWing News (RWN) published a compilation of 20 hot conservative women, to my delight, I was included among 20 accomplished and beautiful conservative women.

Within a few day of  this post on RWN,  Newsweek publishes a scathing rebuttal authored by a very male, very Caucasian staff journalist named David A Graham. While David racks up pixel space pondering the fine distinctions of the photos chosen to represent each woman; I was questioning why Newsweek and David A. Graham felt threatened by a cheeky, top 20 list of conservative women.

Sigh. Where to start.

Let us begin with the logic behind the author singling out Lori Ziganto’s blog ‘Snark and Boobs‘.

“…anyone who calls her blog Snark and Boobs knows she is trading on sex appeal.”

Snark and Boobs appropriately identifies the intent of a blog filled with biting posts about stupid people and stupid ideas in politics. Anyone who actually clicked on the link and read her blog clearly understands the intent of the title.
I’m glad John did not post a photo of me wearing a ‘Save the ta-ta’s‘ teeshirt. (Yes, I purchased one and so should all of you). According the author’s premise,  I would have been trading my sex appeal..for something. Unless I missed the author’s previous article harrumphing at the objectification of women wearing such teeshirts? In such case, I would be happy to link to the article.

One can rightfully question the sudden prudishness on display in this article? In case Newsweek and the author missed the memo – sex sells:

“That iPhone in your pocket? That’s for sex. As is pretty much everything you’ve ever bought, from the car you drive to the T shirt you wear — or so says evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. From mating to marketing, Miller explores how everyday consumer choices subtly — and sometimes not so subtly — reveal society’s misguided attempts at projecting four central traits (intelligence, conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness) to attract sexual partner.”

“Save the ta-ta’s” – It certainly works for breast cancer research.

Getting back to the article, it is clear the author is uncomfortable with women who possess intelligence, a conservative CV, while maintaining wholesome appearance.  He assumes there should be offense taken by the ‘values’ crowd. Note he puts quotes around the word ‘values’  - in order to project a lack of belief in any sort of values by the author.

“The failure of the right-wing ‘values’ crowd to decry contests like this is bad for them – it undermines their standing to comment on gender – and, most important, bad for women.”

The author spends much time making nebulous statements about conservative women without clearly defining what would be an acceptable format for highlighting accomplished and beautiful women.

Every woman on the Top 20 list can be credited for amazing, ground breaking work in the conservative movement. I am truly honored to be included with these women. This is a list of women one can use to inspire the next generation of young women to succeed and the confidence to reject the feminist construct of perpetual victim-hood. Breaking free of the vicious cycle is good for women, not bad as the author would lead you to believe. Freedom will always trumps perpetual victim-hood.

While one cannot ignore there are beautiful women who subscribe to the liberal feminist construct, it cannot be ignored that there is little more than that. Look beyond the surface of these women and you will find very little of consequence and very much hate.  It is not surprising to me that the author spends a majority of this article smearing a group of beautiful, intelligent and capable conservative women and neglecting to promote a list of opposing women that he would find acceptable.

Dick Morris takes a look at the upsurge of conservative female candidates across the nation. It is a good indicator of the progress conservative women, like the 20 listed in RWN, have made to the political landscape:

The primaries of June 8, 2010 were historic in that they represented a sweep by women in states as diverse as California, Nevada, Arkansas, and South Carolina. The feminists of the 60s would be upset that most of the candidates nominated in this landslide were Republican and pro-life, but the upsurge of women cannot be denied.

In short, this is why Newsweek and journalists like David A. Graham found themselves in apoplectic fits since 2008, when Sarah Palin stepped on to the national stage.  Capable women of beauty and substance who do not conform to the feminist status quo must be stopped – at all costs.  If this post contains too complex ideas for the author to digest, I suggest a beer summit with the Ladies of the List – it could be a teachable moment for a liberal dude.

Sigh.

It sucks to be Newsweek these days..or should I call it NewsMax?

PS: Because I believe in transparency, unlike our current administration, below the cut is the original, uncut photo used for my portrait on RWN Top 20 Hottest Conservative Women in New Media:

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