Poor Bill Boner. Not only is he named Bill Boner, but now the Tennessee county official faces allegations of sexual harassment. Couldn't have been bribery.
Predictably, the case has brought out the 12-year-old in the local media.
When a county property assessor named Bill Boner was accused of sexual harassment, Murfreesboro Post managing editor Michelle Willard knew her staff had to “get all of the cheesy headlines out of their system” before getting serious about the story.
She had them distribute their best, unprintable headlines, including:
BONER SAYS WOMEN FAKING IT
FEMALE WORKERS SAY BONER INTIMIDATED THEM
BONER TAKING IT HARD
“We had a lot of fun with it in the last week,” says Willard.
But staff writer Marie Kemph — the reporter on the Boner beat, if you will — says she’s working hard to play it straight.
And because I also can be a 12-year-old, I'll just say, that's what she said.
BREAKING NEWS: Indian government says test launch of missile able to reach major Chinese cities was a success
— AP Breaking (@AP_Breaking) April 19, 2012
Or there's this:
Defence analyst Rahul Bedi says a successful test flight of the Agni-V missile, which is capable of delivering a single 1.5-ton warhead deep inside nuclear rival China's territory, would strengthen India's nuclear deterrence once it comes into service by 2014-15.
Political curiosity Ted Nugent has a date with the Secret Service on Thursday to discuss his prediction that he will be dead or in jail a year from now if President Obama is re-elected.
I happen to know law enforcement from my days checking police logs and covering trials. And the most interesting question I have about all this is whether the agents assigned to interview Nugent will a) try to be hard-asses to make up for the bad press about the Cartagena hookers, or b) try to be bad-asses because they're fans.
Either way, Nugent-endorsed candidate Mitt Romney will probably end up preferring to talk about his dog.
Picture it... you're a 24-year-old unemployed good-for-nothing who hits it big on a lotto show and takes home a good $500,000 after taxes. You've been getting $200 a month in food stamps and figure, hey, why report the lotto winnings? The state hasn't cut off the card so it must be alright, right?
“I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn’t, I thought maybe it was okay because I’m not working," Amanda Clayton told WDIV when she was busted on a hidden camera investigation using her food stamp card to load up on Mountain Dew and snacks. She was serious when she said that, defending her pain by explaining how her $1 million ended up being really more like half that.
"I feel that it's OK because I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay," she said. "I have two houses."
Note: one of those houses was paid in cash.
"I mean, it's hard," she said, "I'm struggling."
RIGHT.
Here's the video:
Well justice has finally caught up to the struggling lottery winner (oh the humanity), who was arraigned Tuesday on two felony counts of welfare fraud. The state alleges Clayton illegally collected about $5,475 in food and medical assistance from August 2011 through March 2012.
Unfortunately, there's no happy ending to this case. They can fine the shit out of her, drain her winnings and leave her knocking on the state's door for help again OR they can imprison her for 4 years and have the people of the state of Michigan pay to keep her housed, fed and clothed.
Are you concerned about growing income inequality in America? Are you resentful of all that wealth concentrated in the 1 percent? I’ve got the perfect solution, a modest proposal that involves just a small adjustment in the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy. Best of all, it will mean that none of us have to work for a living anymore.
For several years now, the Fed has been making money available to the financial sector at near-zero interest rates. Big banks and hedge funds, among others, have taken this cheap money and invested it in securities with high yields. This type of profit-making, called the “carry trade,” has been enormously profitable for them.
So why not let everyone participate?
Under my plan, each American household could borrow $10 million from the Fed at zero interest. The more conservative among us can take that money and buy 10-year Treasury bonds. At the current 2 percent annual interest rate, we can pocket a nice $200,000 a year to live on. The more adventuresome can buy 10-year Greek debt at 21 percent, for an annual income of $2.1 million. Or if Greece is a little too risky for you, go with Portugal, at about 12 percent, or $1.2 million dollars a year. (No sense in getting greedy.)
Think of what we can do with all that money. We can pay off our underwater mortgages and replenish our retirement accounts without spending one day schlepping into the office. With a few quick keystrokes, we’ll be golden for the next 10 years.
We can each be INDEBTED to the Fed and use the debts to buy Treasury bonds (this is, indirectly, what we do on a daily basis anyway since it takes debt to the Fed and its member banks to meet our demand for money). Did you read that?! She actually said that.
Granted, this might be her attempt at humor but it's not a very good joke at all. It's fucking serious and she of all people should know that.
The cat in the story below is unrelated to these cats.
This is extra sad for me to read considering I inherited a then 13-year-old, cranky Tortie cat when my mother died. I've known that cat since I was a bratty high schooler way back when she was a kitten clawing the crap out of my ankles. She's 15 now and spends most of her time sleeping and complaining, seems like a decent life to me. She mourned my mom so I can only imagine the woman in this story wanted to save any of her future cats the stress of losing their owner. Or was completely out of her mind.
Bank goes to court to save cat from being euthanized:
For months, Boots, an 11-year-old cat from a suburb of Chicago, had been on "kitty death row." Her owner died last December, and a 20-year-old will stipulated any cats the woman owned at the time of her death be euthanized. But trust officers at Fifth Third Bank in charge of, um, executing the will, couldn't bring themselves to carry out the request. So they went to court. The bank asked a judge to set aside the provision, arguing that killing Boots "would violate public policy to euthanize a healthy housecat where an appropriate shelter has been identified." The judge agreed, and the bank was able to place her at a no-kill shelter.
Yay for these trust officers for doing the right thing.
One commenter on the original MSN post goes so far as to say the bank and court suck for violating this woman's last will and testament:
This court basically ruled that your *last will and testament* means nothing.
Yes, this crazy person who wanted to die with their cat should have been given some counsel from their legal representative about the direction of having the cat killed upon their own death. Suprise......a lawyer didn't do the right thing.
Where does this bank stop in their execution of the next will to pass through their office? If this bank is to be the executor of my will.....I would be a bit worried now.
WTF, you can't put "kill living things" in your will and expect those wishes to be honored. I can't write "oh and End the Fed" in my will and that's it, the world owes me that final batshit crazy request. It's not some postmortem wish list you write to the universe, it's your last binding contract with humanity. Killing a perfectly fine, loyal cat is not OK.
As a cat owner, I can totally understand what this lady was thinking, it's still not alright.
Senate Bill 1813 was introduced back in November by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Los Angeles) to “reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes” .
After clearing the Senate on a 74 – 22 vote on March 14, SB 1813 is now headed for a vote in the House of Representatives, where it’s expected to encounter stiffer opposition among the GOP majority.
In addition to authorizing appropriations for federal transportation and infrastructure programs, the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” or “MAP-21″ includes a provision that would allow for the “revocation or denial” of a passport for anyone with “certain unpaid taxes” or “tax delinquencies”.
Section 40304 of the legislation states that any individual who owes more than $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service may be subject to “action with respect to denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport”.
"Moving Ahead for Progress" huh? Perhaps someone should have named that "New and Not Improved Credit Agreements With the Chinese That Need to Be Paid."
Here's the thing... the IRS can already do this if you owe a ton of money (let them define "a ton" for you, it's obviously relative) and the GAO recommended this a year ago in their Potential for Using Passport Issuance to Increase Collection of Unpaid Taxes report. The State Department issues passports, obviously, and can deny you one if you owe excessive child support or have outstanding warrants but as is, the IRS can only intervene through federal criminal tax fraud proceedings.
