Divemedic

The IRS is shutdown, and that is going to be a significant problem for me. The IRS made a major mistake with one of their tax forms. The problem is that there is a lawful deduction that I am eligible for because it is still in the tax code, but the IRS screwed up and didn’t leave any way to legally file for that deduction. The IRS can’t fix the mistake because of the shutdown. In fact, they can’t even be notified of the mistake, because no one is there to answer the phone.

If I file my taxes without taking the deduction, it will cost me an extra $150K plus in taxes that I am not legally required to pay, an amount of money that I simply do not have.

Even if I DO take the deduction, I am going to owe the IRS more than $150,000. Don’t tell me that the rich don’t pay taxes.

John Morgan, the ambulance chasing personal injury attorney that made his fortune using his tagline “for the people,” has gathered signatures to put a constitutional amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. That amendment would raise Florida’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Since Disney has already taken this step, the biggest player in the state will likely back the measure in order to level the playing field.

Morgan appears to be making a play to run for public office in the future. You may remember that he was the force behind legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing recreational marijuana in the state.

Nearly all assault weapons bans define assault weapons in terms of being semiautomatic. The proposed 2019 ban is no exception. It defines “assault weapon” like so:

The term `semiautomatic assault weapon’ means any of the
following, regardless of country of manufacture or caliber of
ammunition accepted:
            “(A) A semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept
        a detachable magazine and any 1 of the following”

There is a huge hole that can be exploited.

 The term “semiautomatic rifle” means any repeating rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge. (emphasis added)

Here is an interesting article about crime in the island nation of St Lucia. The money quote:

Many people who are inclined to defend the tourism industry in St. Lucia may say things like “crime happens everywhere” or point to violent U.S. cities like Chicago.  But the fact is that St. Lucia as a country has a per capita murder rate in 2017 of over 33 homicides per 100,000 (up from around 20 per 100,000 in 2012) and around 24 homicides per 100,000 in 2018 whereas an admittedly deadly city like Chicago has a 2017 per capita homicide rate of around 24 per 100,000. The U.S. as a country has a per capita homicide rate of less than 5 per 100,000.

New York City has passed a minimum wage of $15 an hour. The demand has been there for years. I first blogged about it in 2013. Now here we are, a bit more than five years later, and that is no longer enough. Now they are demanding $33 an hour.

This nation is rushing straight into a Marxist future. I wonder how long we have until the camps open.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, despite the fact that he is completely unqualified academically,  because of the movie Risky Business.

Something big crashed into Uranus and changed it forever

Back on January 10, I had posted that breweries could not release any new brews during the government shutdown. It turns out that this is because the labels must be approved by ATF. The breweries, with the help of Alan Gura, have decided to sue ATF claiming that the restriction on new labels is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the brewery and stating that just because the government is shut down for lack of funding does not eliminate the rights of the citizens.

The complaint can be found here.