Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Growler bill pits Florida microbreweries against big-money beer interests

Florida’s Republican lawmakers frequently talk about creating a business-friendly climate. But Monday, the Senate Rules Committee voted 9-4 for a bill that would heavily restrict a burgeoning industry in Florida: craft breweries.

What started as an effort by Florida microbreweries to sell beer to consumers in popular half-gallon “growler'’ containers has morphed into a measure some say could put them out of business by strictly limiting retail operations.

SB 1714 is heavily backed by the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association, which has controlled beer distribution in the state for decades. The group has at least doubled its contributions to the re-election campaigns of senators who have voted on the measure, which was approved Monday by the powerful Rules Committee.

Call it a sobering civics lesson in the power of campaign cash.

“It’s classic crony capitalism,” said Joey Redner, the founder of Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing, after the Rules Committee vote.

Specialty beer establishments can already sell their beers in containers of a gallon or more, and in containers of a quart or smaller. Fans say the half-gallon — equal to four, 16-ounce servings — is ideal for home consumption in a day. Only Florida, Idaho and Mississippi forbid craft beer to be sold in the half-gallon size.

SB 1714 would allow micro-breweries selling up to 2,000 kegs a year of their own brew to sell growlers of any size. But if they sell more than 2,000 kegs, they would be prohibited from selling their brew in sealed cans or bottles for home consumption directly from the microbrewery.

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Friday, April 18, 2014

The IRS is Taking a Page From the NSA’s Playbook and Snooping on Social Media

If you thought you were frustrated with filing your taxes recently this post will probably not help.

According to Marketplace the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which loses an estimated $300 billion due to tax evasion every year, is using data from social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in order to investigate those who don’t file taxes or file suspicious returns.

From Marketplace:

We’re all just trying to get through this time of year without losing our shirts and—of course—without getting audited. The IRS is kicking into high gear, too. Their goals are a bit different than ours, though. The agency is hoping to catch tax dodgers. It loses an estimated $300 billion a year to tax evasion, and getting that money isn’t getting easier. Because of budget cuts, the IRS will have fewer auditing agents than at any time since the 1980s.

Enter robots. After all, the IRS may not have a whole lot of money or manpower, but it has a gold mine of data on you. A lot of it from… well… you.

“It’s hard to believe that anybody who puts anything on Facebook has any legitimate expectation of privacy,” says Edward Zelinsky, a professor of tax law at the Cordozo School of Law.

Those fancy vacation photos you posted on Instagram? The Facebook status update about your new car? The tweets about your wildly successful side business?

All fair game for the IRS.

This sort of social media mining is nothing new to the National Security Agency (NSA).

[Read more…]

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Disabled Boy Records Bullies Tormenting Him, Police Charge Him With Illegal Wiretapping

The disabled boy in this new incident was not named specifically, but his mother’s name is Shea Love, and she did not demand that her son record what the bullies were allegedly doing to him. The 15-year-old boy was previously diagnosed with a comprehension delay disorder, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder. The boy claims he was constantly being bullied at his school, and in order to prove to his mother that he “wasn’t lying” he decided to use his school-issued iPad to record the bullying:

“I was really having things like books slammed upside my head. I wanted it to stop. I just felt like nothing was being done.”

Unfortunately, the school also deleted the evidence off of the iPad, but Mrs. Love, who is an Air Force morse code operator, transcribed the seven-minute audio. The teacher in the classroom is heard attempting to help the boy with a math problem, and one of the bullies is heard saying, “You should pull his pants down!” Another bully replies, “No, man. Imagine how bad that (c**t) smells! No one wants to smell that (t**t).” The teacher attempts to get the other students to settle down but then a loud sound is heard, which the boy claimed was the sound of a book being slammed down after one bully mimed hitting him in the head with it. As the boys laugh, the teacher yells at them and the guilty bully responds, “What? I was just trying to scare him!”

After Mrs. Love submitted the recorded evidence to the principal of South Fayette High School, the administrators called police, but not before they made the boy delete the recording. Lieutenant Robert Kurta then charged the boy with the crime of felony wiretapping because he made the recording in a place where there was an expectation of privacy. They then attempted to interrogate her “visibly distraught” son.

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Ron Paul group to defy IRS

Ron Paul’s nonprofit Campaign for Liberty will fight the Internal Revenue Service’s demand that it reveal its donor list to the agency, despite having already been fined for refusing to do so.

“There is no legitimate reason for the IRS to know who donates to Campaign for Liberty,” Megan Stiles, the communications director at Campaign for Liberty, told the Washington Examiner in an email on Tuesday. “We believe the First Amendment is on our side as evidenced by cases such as NAACP v. Alabama and International Union UAW v. National Right to Work. Many 501(c)(4) organizations protect the privacy of their donors in the very same way as Campaign for Liberty. For some reason the IRS has now chosen to single out Campaign for Liberty for special attention. We plan to fight this all the way.”

Ron Paul suggested that the group will refuse to pay the IRS fine in an fundraising email to supporters about the agency’s request for information.

“Paying this outrageous extortionist fine — just to exercise our rights as American citizens to petition our government — may even be cheaper in the short run,” he wrote. “But it’ll just embolden an alphabet soup of other federal agencies to come after us.”

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Monday, April 14, 2014

Victory for Cliven Bundy, Nevada rancher who challenged feds

Citing safety concerns, federal agents are withdrawing from the Nevada cattle ranch where they had engaged in a week-long showdown with Cliven Bundy, a 67-year-old rancher who claimed the federal government had no right to tax and regulate property his family has owned since 1880.

The Bureau of Land Management had dispatcher agents, helicopters and four-wheelers to remove several hundred of Bundy’s cattle that they claimed were encroaching on federal lands–and may have posed a threat to an endangered tortoise habitat. A BLM spokesperson also claimed that Bundy owed over $1 million dollars in fines that he accrued since the early 1990s.

Bundy and his family challenged BLM’s authority to “manage my ranch out of business,” he said, according to ABC News.

Federal policies had starved out all the other cattle ranchers in the area, and Bundy saw his dispute with BLM as a challenge to destructive federal power.

“People are getting tired of the federal government having unlimited power,” said Bundy’s wife, Carol, in a statement.

Last week, government agents descended upon the property, which is 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. They set up a blockade on the road leading to the ranch, and clashed with several hundred protesters. Tasers were used on at least one person: Bundy’s son, Ammon. Another son, Dave, was briefly taken into custody by authorities.

The establishment of a designated “First Amendment zone,” drew criticism from many people, including Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican. Citizens’ free speech rights were protected only when they were standing in the First Amendment zone.

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