George Rebane

A one percent increase in the amount of sales tax that California consumers pay on most purchases goes into effect today, raising the rate from a minimum of 7.25% to at least 8.25% statewide.

This is a typical report of the actual 13.8% increase in the California sales tax that goes into effect today.  The MSM reporting this as a ‘1% increase’ (e.g. NPR this morning) is a pile of unadulterated crap designed to make the un-inquiring innumerate sheep give a passing nod and ignore another such seemingly insignificant pinprick from the government.  Our ignorant electorate has been taken for such rides time and again over the years, and the train is now picking up speed under the current regime.  I am among the minority who protest being unwilling passengers on that railroad.

Another example of the same is reported by Russ Steele on NC MediaWatch.  Reps Waxman and Markey are planning to put us back into a WW2 rationed economy while advertizing (here) that it will “create millions of clean energy jobs”.  The kind of jobs that this legislation creates was last seen on the streets of the Soviet Union when battalions of people were mustered to clean the nation’s roadways using homemade brooms.  Yes, millions were working such jobs all over the permanently tanked USSR economy, and yes, you could call them ‘clean energy jobs’.

And these are not April Fool jokes.