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Re: “Goodbye, Amazon — we're tired of your cheating ways”
Local business don't"charge" sales tax. They collect it on behalf of the state and remit it as required by law facing huge fines and penalities is they don't. You do not get to spend your Amazon tax savings on something else. You are required to remit it yourself. The state still wants your $7.00 and by law you are supposed to give it to them.
Re: “Goodbye, Amazon — we're tired of your cheating ways”
If I make a $100 purchase from Amazon and pay 7% sales tax, the state takes $7 that I no longer have to use at local shops and stores. The state may do some things I like with the money, but the state may also turn around and give it to another company in an attempt to lure that company to Tennessee.
If I make a $100 purchase from Amazon and do NOT pay 7% sales tax, I have $7 to put toward lunch locally or toward another good or service purchased locally.
Amazon coming to Tennessee is not going to entice gobs of people to suddenly start purchasing Amazon – if people are going to buy from Amazon they most likely already are so doing. The “lost” revenue from the sales tax hasn’t been collected so far with Amazon out of state, so the local shops already have that “discount” to compete against. For purchases over $25 that have no shipping costs, there is no change. For purchases with shipping costs, that is to the advantage of the local shop.
Of course the sales tax would make Tennessee residents pay 7% more to purchase from Amazon than people in other states? Why would this be good for Tennessee?
Tennessee, like other states, routinely gives millions of dollars to entice companies to relocate to, or stay in, Tennessee (a practice that could be seen as an indirect way of getting around interstate commerce laws as interpreted from the Constitution). If there is going to be a complaint, complain about that.
Re: “SlutWalk Nashville makes strides against sexual violence — literally”
Jo-Jo: what a wonderful article!!!! Congrats!
I hate that whole "rape is wrong. . . now put some clothes on" statement. It proves our point! That mentality is STILL victim-blaming!!
Re: “Goodbye, Amazon — we're tired of your cheating ways”
Not shopping at Amazon when you're broke is like not shopping at Walmart when you're broke, you're only hurting yourself financially. If you can afford to pay extra to shop other places, kudos to you for being in a better financial position than most are, but for those of us who have to watch every dollar...the amazons and the walmarts of the world help us keep our finances on track.
Re: “An ICE dragnet in Bedford County targeting Latinos wasn't subtle — which may have been the point”
Shameful just Shameful! What kind of state have we become -lets put Jim Crow back where he belongs in the Grave!
Support people rights to live and work where they choose . No ICE for Tennessee
Open Those Borders ,Tear Down Those Walls -The Lord G-d Created Us ALL!
You Can't Say Amen Until G-ds Children Are In- Rev Dr. James Forbes
Re: “Goodbye, Amazon — we're tired of your cheating ways”
Great Article and Amazon does charges salestaxes on their Ebooks and I resent paying a salestax when I know its bilking my state out of its salestax and that hurts every person and every business. Jeff Bezo,out on your "Man"pants and become a Pro-American citizen and pay your retail sales tax like the rest of the retailors do in Tennessee .
Re: “An emotional hearing puts Gaile Owens on a possible path to freedom”
Wow, you guys really need to read the story before you make assumptions. You're no better than the shoddy lawyers she had. This is not about whether or not she is guilty, it's about the bad lawyering in her trial. She wanted to plead guilty from the beginning but wasn't given that option...read her story.
Re: “Jim Cooper and Dick Durbin blast Tennessee's new voter ID laws, brought to you by Bill Ketron and the Koch brothers”
We need a photo ID to drive a car (and we are required to purchase car insurance as well), purchase alchohol, enter a nightclub, open a bank account, cash a check, pay with a check in person, open a post office box, apply for a job, and many other things I have neglected to name, yet being required to show ID (in order to prove you are who you say you are) when voting is an undue hardship just short of Jim Crow? Oh yeah. I forgot, this is The Scene. They don't get out much.
Re: “Jim Cooper and Dick Durbin blast Tennessee's new voter ID laws, brought to you by Bill Ketron and the Koch brothers”
Most people have to pay for government issued ID, and those who are not going to be required to do so under this new law are going to be greatly inconvenience in requiring the new ID. Thus, many will probably just not fool with getting the ID and just not vote. What just do you call this attempt to weed out voters? I call it unconstitutional.
Re: “An emotional hearing puts Gaile Owens on a possible path to freedom”
dreifma, are you aware that Mrs. Owens' death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment? She is no longer death eligible.
Re: “An emotional hearing puts Gaile Owens on a possible path to freedom”
'We need stop wasting time and money on this case. She needs her lethal injection as soon as possible, before people forget how their loved one was murdered by her, before they run out of the drugs involved. We rehash the case until people rescind the sentence so the case will go away.
she e
Re: “An emotional hearing puts Gaile Owens on a possible path to freedom”
So this lady admits that she's responsible for the deaths, yet you guys are rooting for her release, all because she was supposedly "abused" by the husband? Wow, spousal abuse justifies murder. That's certainly harsh.
Re: “Jim Cooper and Dick Durbin blast Tennessee's new voter ID laws, brought to you by Bill Ketron and the Koch brothers”
The requirement to have a photo ID in order to identify yourself compares to a form of poll tax. Right!
If you liberals don't start to be more sensible, I'm afraid the people of Tennessee will simply have to deprive you of one of the remaining two seats you have left in Congress. I hope that doesn't happen because I've always felt that a 9 to 2 conservative to liberal ratio was about right.
Re: “Jim Cooper and Dick Durbin blast Tennessee's new voter ID laws, brought to you by Bill Ketron and the Koch brothers”
""I believe the greatest participation by the electorate leads to the soundest election results and really legitimizes our democracy."
I'm actually kind of surprised that one of our "conservative" gadflies hasn't come in to lecture everyone that we are a republic, not a democracy.
But the previous quote from Weyrich about wishing less people would vote is telling because other Movement Conservatives have essentially said the same thing, pretty much putting the lie to their argument that vote fraud laws are only about rooting out largely non-existent vote fraud. Their main interest is making it harder to vote for people that they know tend to vote Democratic. They will be pushing poll taxes next. If you don't believe me, it's already been floating around in right-wing blogs:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blogge…
The comments are, ahem, interesting to say the least.
Re: “Jim Cooper and Dick Durbin blast Tennessee's new voter ID laws, brought to you by Bill Ketron and the Koch brothers”
Yes ,ALEC has taken over our country via the Republican Tea Party.
Re: “The arrest of recent Overton High grad Mercedes Gonzalez raises more troubling questions about Nashville's deportation proceedings”
Wow, maybe this could have been stopped if they had used an immigration attorney. They are really good about preparing legal papers to make sure that everything is going good with the immigrated person.
Re: “The effect of 9/11 on American policy and politics has been a tragedy unto itself”
Perhaps the real tragedy (besides the loss of life) and legacy of 9/11 is that it gave Bush and Co the excuse they needed to invade Iraq so that companies that had supported Bush in the 2000 elections could make billions from the spoils of that war. Halliburton, Cheney's own company, was the classic example of such greed. And the fact that Bush - whom we mustn't forget was a draft dodger who used his father's good offices to get out of serving in Vietnam and was placed 1st on a long list of applicants who had applied to serve in the Texas National Guard - used this tragedy to enrich his supporters is the greatest outrage to come out of all this. Bush was the most self-serving president we ever had and I still can't understand how or why anyone reelected him in '04.
Re: “The effect of 9/11 on American policy and politics has been a tragedy unto itself”
'One way to mark the anniversary of 9/11 is to solemnize — a pageant of grief and sorrow honoring lives pointlessly sacrificed to extremist madness.'
Even more so the date of 3/20 (2003), the start of the Iraq War. As horrific as 9/11 was, the idiotic invasion of Iraq was many times worse, particularly because it was a self-inflicted tragedy, driven chiefly by the extremist madness of one man - Dick Cheney.
Re: “The effect of 9/11 on American policy and politics has been a tragedy unto itself”
I agree completely. Does anyone else find it odd that the patriot act (which is expansive and exhaustive and gives even more power to the Feds than they have yet to use- frightening in and of itself) was ready to go soooo quickly after 9/11. Almost like it was, I dunno, already written and waiting on an excuse to enact it? I have never committed a crime in my life, but I am scanned, radiated and patted down like a suspect just to fly. Meanwhile, all this extra security (thanks, Patriot Act) has FAILED to stop more loonies (like the underwear bomber). He made it through the crack team of $8/hour "security experts" only to be stopped by an average guy with a real set who happened to be on the same flight. I only wish Bruce would have expanded this article to include the ways in which the current administration has failed to reign in this abuse of power, instead opting to expand the powers of the the Department of Homeland Security (oh, and naming the average American citizen the NEW face of terror). I guess the infowars continue....
Re: “An ICE dragnet in Bedford County targeting Latinos wasn't subtle — which may have been the point”
This is beyond redemption. You mean to tell me that federal law enforcement officers had the audacity -- the gall -- to track down and arrest convicted criminals who had violated their paroles? Shameful. Why don't these federal cops do what they're paid to do? Oh . . . that IS what they're paid to do, isn't it?
Never mind.