Thursday, June 26, 2008 _Viewpoints Rigttth Pont Some pointers for Obama Having advised John McCain on campaign strategy last week, it seems only fair that I should do the same for BarackObama-not that either candidate is likely to be influenced by your humble correspondent. Senator Obama started his campaign by sounding like the uniter, insisting that this campaign is not go- ing to be about race. That was a good move, and ex- actly the right thing for the first serious black candi- date to be saying. He took too long to disassociate himself with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but he needs to cull his circle of friends and associates even further. He's not just running in Chicago this time, A smart move was hiring a script writer for Michelle Obama. Intemperate remarks by a.candidate's wife are harder to overlook than those uttered by his preacher. Barack is a good speaker and he would be wise to assign a low profile role to his bride. Consider John Kerry's dilemma four years ago. Candidate Obama also needs to get real about some of the major issues. The "change" mantra might make some teeny-boppers swoon and liberal journal- ists get tingly feelings, but it's not going to get over with working class Americans who are concerned with, among other things, how much it costs to gas up the pickup to get to work. People who work for a living frankly don't give a damn if we poke a few holes in the frozen tundra (I'm talking about ANWAR, not Lambaugh Field) and sink a few oil derricks out in the Gulf. They want some re- lief from high gas prices and the resultant inflation of food and other commodity prices. It doesn't take, a certified economist to figure out that taxing the oil companies' profits and their product to the consumer will only make filling up more expensive than it al- ready is. The war in Iraq is going better now than it has in a long time. American casualties are way down, the Iraqis are assuming a greater role in fighting the ene- my, and things are generally going our way Pull out now, and all that goes down the drain. Worried about our nation's image abroad? Why would anybody trust the United States if we abandoned Iraq to the terror- ists at this point? Obama needs to be very, very careful about doing, business with Hillary Clinton. A year ago (and a long time before that), she considered herself heir-appar- ent to the presidency and was anticipating a corona- tion at this year's convention. She is giving lip ser- vice to supporting Obama, but she is not a happy camper. Look at it this way: If Obama loses this elec- tion, his superstar status will have faded in four years, President John McCain will be a geriatric 76, and Senator Hillary Rodham.Clinton will be a com- paratively youthful 65. Thus, it seems reasonable to suppose that Hillary doesn't really want Barack Obama to win the White House this year. If he got in, did a credible job and won a second term, that would leave Hillary ap- proaching geriatric status herself by 2016. If Barack didn't win a second term, she'd be facing an incum- bent Republican in 2016, assuming she could even get the nomination by then. Would selecting Hillary as his vice-presidential can- didate help Obama? Perhaps, but her proximity to her dream of the presidency would carry its risks. His wife doesn't like her, and in this case, perhaps Barack needs to heed Michelle's counsel. Some of his critics have accused Barack Hussein Obama of being a "closet" Muslim. I don't know if that's true, but if not he needs to become more con- vincing on that score. Likewise with border security In short, Barack Obama needs to realize that he will. not be performing exclusively for a stadium full of adoring admirers between now and November. If you would like to send a letter to the editor, please mail it to editor at P.O. Box 5030, Cross City, F1 32628. You can also mail your letters to editor( !dcadvocate.net, For consideration to be included, you must include your name and town. The Bank Bailout Bill's Nasty The Dixie County Advocate 174 NE 351 Hwy. P.O. Box 5030* Cross City, FL 32628 Ph. 352-498-3312 Fax (352)498-0420 PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS Letters to the Editor, Ads Editoredcadvocate,net News News(dodcadvocate.net $24.99............................ In Dixie County $29.99................. ............ Elsewhere Includes Tax OFFICIAL ORGAN of DIXIE COUNTY Katherine McKinney......... ........ Editor Eli Loy..................... Production Manager Brandi Barber................... Receptionist/UPS David Ryman............. Webmaster/Reporter Chuck ElIton........................... Photography John Kelley..................... Sports Reporter The Dixie County Advocate is owned by LSA Media, LLC. of Dixie County Deadline for news and announcements is 5:00 p.m. on Monday Deadline for advertising and classified ads is 12:00 Noon on Tuesday. 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THE DIXIE COUNTY ADVOCATE (USPS 158-760) is published weekly Every Week,without Fail, Since July 1, 1921 2007 Dixie County Advocate Dear Editor, Please, to anyone it may con- cern. How can our court sys- tem and child-support system be so screwed up? Listen to our story Hopefully someone may have an answer or two! In 2005 my stepson came to live with my husband and our family Yes, at this time he was paying support to the De- partment of Revenue to settle his debt to the mother for our son. In Jan: 2006 we went to court in Alachua County Child sup- port was stopped and arrears were set. With out any pay- ments coming from the moth- er. Yet we still paid on our debt to her every month.. In March 2007, after paying for fifteen months and a tax intercept, the mother went and signed a "Request for Clo- sure". At this point we thought it was over, case closed, they took no more money for our household. Fearing that the mother may leave the state with our son, and the fact that custody was never established, we filed December 2007 in Dixie for custody of our son. We got a fast hearing by default "The mother never responded to the petition." My husband was given custody in Febru- ary 2008. In this order is stat- ed 'Any child support obliga- tion that the father owes. the mother is hereby terminat- ed." This is after showing our: Judge this Closure Request the mother signed off on in - March of '07. With still no or- der for the mother to pay sup- port to us. In March '08 one year after, we receive a letter from the Department of Revenue stat- ing that my husband once again is going to have to pay on arrearages. It seems that the mother who has not had, nor helped with the wellbeing of my son was able to walk into her local welfare office and request that the case be reopened while she receives Public As- sistance, (Taxpayer monies, your money). My husband and myself have taken, faxed, certified mailed, and called that lovely 800 number; no one will or can help. So far the only thing we have received was a letter from the Department of Treasury in June '08, (Four months after a court order), stating they had sent our full stimulus check to the Department of Revenue to be disbursed to the mother, We have been waiting two months to get a court hearing to get this fixed and it took this mother all of thirty min- utes to get Public Assistance. Where is the Justice for my son and our family? Any ideas please contact us. Thank you, Cynthia Crowley Cross City, FL ttle Secret 1 Li S by Kathy McKinney Have you read Sen. Dodd's Housing Bailout bill? No, and he's counting on it that you haven't, and that you won't. Aside from the ugly fact that he's presenting a bill to give gazillions of your tax dollars to Countrywide, the lender who gave him a "special VIP deal" on his personal mort- gage, there are other dirty deeds afoot. A new provision was slipped into the bill this week that has nothing to do with mortgages....but lets the government track your personal credit card use. The Senate Bill summary says: Payment Card and Third Party Network Information Reporting. The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant ac- quiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their be- half, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the partici- pating payee. Reportable transactions include any pay- ment card transaction and any third party network transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a payment card as payment and third party net- works who accept payment from a third party settle- ment organization in settlement of transactions. A pay- ment card means any card issued pursuant to an agree- ment or arrangement which provides for standards and mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an ac- count number or other indicia associated with a pay- ment card will be treated in the same manner as a pay- ment card. A de minimis exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200 transactions or less applies to payments by third party settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up withholding provi- sions apply to amounts paid after December 31, 2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over ten years. Whew! That's a lot of legalese, but what it means is, that any time you buy or sell anything on Ebay, or use Paypal, or use your credit card ANYWHERE, the credit card company will be sending a copy of that transaction to Uncle Sam, via the IRS. Every single one, with no pesky warrants or judges required. Sell- ing your used books on Amazon? The government will know. Making a little money on the side selling your used electronics on Ebay? Using epassporte to load your PokerStars Account? The government is go- ing to be knocking at the door, wanting their tax mon- ey, because Ebay, Amazon and Paypal will have to tell them who you're doing business with and how much No-Kill Policy It may be a while before we have a no-kill poli- cy by animal control in Dixie County Why? I believe, it is because animal control, in Dixie County, has not been run as well as it could be. For example when was the last time a request has been made for a grant or a.donation for low cost spay and neutering (like Alachua has just received)? Low cost spay and neutering is a necessary step on the t'oad toward a no-kill policy! At present, animal control, here in Dix- ie County, is under the sheriff's dept., and in defense of the sheriff's dept., I can understand that animal control is way down on the list of priorities, and rightly so, for the sheriff's dept. ' has many more urgent matters to attend to. For this reason I will attempt to met with the sheriff and ask him to reccommend to the, County commissioners that animal control be turned over to the Dixie County Humane Soci- ety so that we can give it top priority! Then shortly after I will go before our County Com- missioners and request that they contract ani- mal control to the Dixie County Humane Soci- ety Now, I ask all members of the Dixie County Voter's Union and all animal lovers to "stay tuned". I will keep you informed of my progress. If these representatives of the people will not bend to the will of the people, we may again have to show our strength, as we did at the last election! With respect, Pamela (mad-dog) Swanson President Dixie County Voter's Union Page 2 www. dcadvocate.net "Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home." Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice your customer spent. How far behind the IRS do you think the State of Florida will be, wanting their sales- tax money, too? Big Brother will be watching you while you're at home, doing business on the 'net in your pink Tweety Bird jammies. (Oh, no wait, that's just me.) Privacy groups are screaming to the high heavens, quite rightly protesting that the identity thieves will have a field day with this database. Most people doing ' business through Paypal and similar services are small companies who use their personal social securi-' ty numbers to do business. The Center for Democracy and Technology says that "At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America's payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on pa- role by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is an- other reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have timeto examine its full implications." Notice that the legal wording includes an exclusion for amounts under $10,000 and under 200 transactions for THIRD PARTY transactions. That's only compa- ' nies like Paypal. Your credit card usage will be fair game to any federal busybody who wants to take a gander. President Bush has promised to veto this bill. De- mocrats will scream that he's dooming the "poor American homeowner" to foreclosure. We know bet- ter. He'll be telling the banks to clean up their own messes and telling the government to butt out of our shopping. -1. 0 0