A year ago the FCC “deregulated” the Internet. It was only “regulated” for two years (too many) but the regulators prophesied doom. Well, after a fashion, they were right. Doom has befallen their narrative. ISP’s would crank down the screws? Your connection speeds would crawl?
Nope. The Internet is faster.
Commercial culture update. Black Friday. Early Black Friday. After Black Friday. All resulted in a decline in bricks and mortar foot-traffic. The people who pay attention to such things estimate 9 million fewer shoppers passed through the doors of retailers.
by Jon DiPietro Nobody asked me what the NH GOP’s biggest problem is. And few, if any, will care what I have to say. But that’s OK because I’ve been through this before in another volunteer organization and I know how change works. More on that later. In this article, I’m going to answer the … Read more
You’ve heard the phrase, “It’s not what you know but who you know.” Connections. Networking. The insiders game.
How about, “it’s not what you’ve done but who you follow?” Could who you track on social media, regardless of whether you just lurk or engage, get you excluded from things in the real world like jobs or admission to a college? This lawyer says yes.
The recent scramble to “do something” after the Wayfair decision said states could tax internet sales was big news.
When the New Hampshire House killed the ‘bipartisan’ draft language that was big news.
What should be even bigger news is that the language the committee used to draft the proposed legislation could hand some measure of “tax administration rulemaking” over to an out-of-state third party.
A legislative committee met to iron out a remedy to the Wayfair Decision. That Supreme Court ruling could require New Hampshire businesses to collect and remit taxes for other states. No one, regardless of party, seems to want that at least and until New Hampshire Democrats find a way to institute a tax they could then try to make other state’s collect.
We’re not there yet and hopefully never will be, but that’s not even why I’m writing this.
Some new and nice things will soon be happening to GraniteGrok, chief amongst them being a new site with better security, newer features for authors to better get our message to you, better ways for readers to get feedback to us – lots of things to look forward to including items not in cyberspace (but more on that later). One thing that may not be coming soon, maybe not even at all, is a result of what Steve wrote about: SCOTUS Upholds South Dakota’s Right to Tax Online Sales From Retailers Outside the State.
The Commerce Clause must not prefer interstate commerce only to the point where a merchant physically crosses state borders. Rejecting the physical presence rule is necessary to ensure that artificial competitive advantages are not created by this Court’s precedents. This Court should not prevent States from collecting lawful taxes through a physical presence rule that can be satisfied only if there is an employee or a building in the State….
New Hampshire’s Congressional delegation is unified in its defense of the Granite State from efforts to make online purchases taxable. Their primary objection, and I’ll use Senator Shaheen as my whipping donkey for this, is the burden it puts on small business owners.
As a former small business owner, I know that most small businesses operate on small profit margins and struggle to keep overhead low. That’s especially true for small online retailers. It is unacceptable to impose major new administrative costs on small businesses while making it harder to compete with big-box retailers.
Obama has met the enemy and this time, it may be the Internet?
Or, as the post said: “What Happened When One Man Pinged the Whole Internet A home science experiment that probed billions of Internet devices reveals that thousands of industrial and business systems offer remote access to anyone” And he found some disturbing stuff about security, too. Larger picture if you click twice (and go to … Read more
Google today became the first Internet company to shed light on a highly secret — and controversial — warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI.
The technique allows FBI officials to send a secret request to Web and telecommunications companies requesting “name, address, length of service,” and other information about users as long as it’s relevant to a national security investigation. No court approval is necessary, and disclosing the existence of the FBI’s request is not permitted.
Google’s admission, part of its transparency policy, could not include specific details, but they did say this much.
Attacks on 9/11 we knew were coming, a video no one (inflamed) has or will ever see that inflaming Islamists, dead Americans on foreign soil, and repeated claims that in America, the government can’t control everything that goes up on the internet… Sounds like an excuse for Democrats to argue that the US government Should. … Read more
Mr. ‘Spread-the-Wealth’ “You-didn’t-build-that” Obama is having another bad week after reading a bit too much off the left side of the TelePrompTer. His Divine Luminance seems to have forgotten what country he is trying to lord over.
We thought DickNH was trying to set a record for a state employee posting comments at the Concord Monitor on taxpayer time. He was posting comments and promoting his Democrat union agenda during office hours. But since our discovery and the ongoing effort to pursue a 91-A Right to Know Request to determine just how deep and wide this rabbit hole goes, at least three things have become clear.
1) Prior to March 7th 2012 Dick de Seve (DickNH) was misappropriating significant amounts of taxpayer time and services on State equipment to advance his own personal political agenda, if not more than that.
2) The Department of Environmental Services seems to be in bureaucratic duck and cover mode because the abuse went on almost daily on a public platform for more than three years without notice.
3) Mr. de Seve is not the only state employee whiling away their taxpayer funded days commenting at the NH Democrat Party paper of record, the Concord Monitor. (We’ll get around to the other papers, be patient.)
We’d like you to meet Gaia, the handle of another state employee whose internet abuse may just put Dick de Seve to shame.
Democrats like to manage society, ever more so when they believe it has misbehaved. So here’s an idea the left ought to embrace with both left arms.
Because it is against state policy to use state computers for activities outside their intranet, like reading online news or–heaven forbid whiling the day away commenting on news portals like the Concord Monitor while on the taxpayers payroll–why hasn’t one of the states IT guru’s blocked all those IP’s from within the states network? (We know they have not.)
The policy is very clear yet the system is left open to abuse. So is this trust that the government is extending to state employees, something its leftist advocates are loath to offer to regular citizens on a wide range of things. Well, that trust has been broken.
Is the Federal Government’s move to pass the Stop On-line Piracy Act, intentionally or not, putting another foot in the door for federal censorship of the online universe? Here’s the actual text of the thing. (No, I have not read it yet.) As with all Federal legislation intent should be considered irrelevant. Potential is what … Read more
Dick Durbin, Richard, Rick, Ricky, Dicky, Dickard, The Dickster Durbin is suggesting an intervention for his state of Illinois. Apparently the tax and spender state implemented an internet sales tax on retailers. They were thinking that it might help them with their budget problem; I guess they left Terie “Billion Dollar Deficit” Norelli in charge of spending over there as well.
Recent discussion about opposing opinions being mandated alongside existing internet content got me thinking. Could we apply this to everything on-line? Ads for fruit would need to include references to candy-bars of salty snacks. Omaha Steaks would need to include a click through to Purdue chicken. Every business would need to permit you to access competing … Read more
