Microsoft’s Right-Wing Lobbyist Apologizes, Sort Of

Century Strategies, the public relations and lobbying firm run by Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, now says it won’t urge influential people (AP) to personally lobby George W. Bush on Microsoft’s behalf.

Now that’s progress. Sort of.


Internet Taxes — Governors Respond to Stacked Panel Report

The anti-tax crowd managed to stack the Internet tax commission, but they couldn’t get the two-third majority they wanted for a recommendation that would continue the current unfair advantage that goes to Internet businesses over Main Street businesses. They did put out a majority report to that effect, but only after offering specific breaks to the businesses that were represented on the panel.

The entire charade infuriated more than two-thirds of the nation’s governors, many of whom have reputations as tax-cutters. And they’re about to letting Congress know (New York Times) just how bad a job the commission did.


H-1B Visas — No Limit?

That’s the latest ploy (Mercury News) from a powerful member of Congress. The H-1B scandal just gets worse.


Winter in Detroit

They played the first big-league baseball game yesterday at the new Comerica Park in Detroit. It snowed in the morning, and a chilly sprinkle fell in the afternoon.

Comerica Park, named after a bank that’s spending big bucks on the sponsorship, is the replacement for Tiger Stadium, a ballpark I frequented when I lived here in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It’s also a monument to corporate greed, political spinelessness and taxpayer stupidity.

Uncountable tax dollars are supporting this project, which wasn’t needed in the first place. Tiger Stadium was old and creaky, but it was a great place to see a ballgame, and could have been fixed up for much less money than was spent on the new edifice.

But this is the era when billionaires who employ millionaires extort hundreds of millions from taxpayers to build new entertainment arenas. And that’s what major league sports are — entertainment. The squandering of taxpayers’ money for these things is unconscionable even in these boom times. Detroit taxpayers are particularly ill-served.

The other new landmarks in Detroit are two monumentally ugly casinos, another legacy of politicians’ determination to fuel what they call “economic development” no matter what the cost to the people they allegedly serve. The Detroit casinos extract a million dollars from the local economy every day, by one estimate.

One of the casinos has already been the site of a suicide. An off-duty police officer lost more than he could afford at one of the blackjack tables at the MotorCity Casino, pulled out his gun and blew his brains out (Detroit Free Press).

I’m told the casino had the table back in operation within a few hours.

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