Leon Walker of Rochester Hills, Michigan, has come face-to-face with BIG government. Seriously, you cannot get much bigger than charging a husband for reading email on a computer he shares with his wife.

Evidently his wife has a friend in Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper. She described Walker as a skilled hacker. He is employed by Oakland County as a computer technician.

Just last night Aunt Brice told me she’d been logging into one of my Facebook accounts to "see what I was saying." Honey, your admission, freely given as you tickled your palate with some of Napa Valley’s finest, could put you in jail if we lived near Detroit. You see, Detroit doesn’t have much crime and prosecutors up there go out looking for criminals like you.

Of course there is more to the story – much, much more. You can continue reading below the ads, but be sure and come back to the ads so find out about other stuff or to buy something because these good folks help pay my bills.

Her Cheating Heart

Clara Walker, the aggrieved party according to the prosecutor who is now divorced from Leon, has three divorces on her resumè. Her email revealed that Clara was having an affair with her second husband, a man who had been arrested for beating her in front of her son from husband number one.

Leon, worried about further domestic violence from the man who was in flagrante delicto (fancy legal term commonly used to describe being caught in the act of having sexual intercourse), turned the email over to husband Number One who then filed for custody of the child.

Kudos to the Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press broke this story on December 26, interviewing all parties involved except Clara Walker who, according to her attorney Michael McCulloch, declined the interview. L. L. Brasier is the staff writer at DFP. Click the link to read the entire article,
Is reading wife’s e-mail a crime? Rochester Hills man faces trial.

Brasier brings up another point at the close of his article. Attorney Deborah McKelvy asks, "What’s the difference between that and parents who get on their kids’ Facebook accounts?"

Prosecutor Cooper says Leon used his wonderful skills because of his high training to hack into his wife’s password-protected email account. Leon says his wife kept all of her passwords in a book beside the computer. Now I’ll admit that reading is a wonderful skill. Clara also says that in spite of the fact that Leon bought and used the laptop, it was hers alone.

Note: According to neighborhoodscout.com, crime in Detroit registers 525 crimes per square mile; the national average is 49.6.

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Why is there such a ruckus about the estate tax? Less than 1% of wealthiest Americans pay it. The real estate bubble brought it to the forefront a few years ago. People who had bought a house for $30,000 in the 1960’s found that its value had risen in some parts of the country to about $1,000,000.

The $600,000 exemption still meant that had to pay estate taxes for whatever portion of that remaining $400,000 that couldn’t be reduced by other deductions.

A simple matter would have been to raise the exemption.

Here’s what the IRS says, "The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death. The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you acquired them. The total of all of these items is your Gross Estate. The includible property may consist of cash and securities, real estate, insurance, trusts, annuities, business interests and other assets.

Once you have accounted for the Gross Estate, certain deductions (and in special circumstances, reductions to value) are allowed in arriving at your Taxable Estate. These deductions may include mortgages and other debts, estate administration expenses, property that passes to surviving spouses and qualified charities. The value of some operating business interests or farms may be reduced for estates that qualify.

After the net amount is computed, the value of lifetime taxable gifts (beginning with gifts made in 1977) is added to this number and the tax is computed. The tax is then reduced by the available unified credit. Presently, the amount of this credit reduces the computed tax so that only total taxable estates and lifetime gifts that exceed $1,000,000 will actually have to pay tax. In its current form, the estate tax only affects the wealthiest 2 percent of all Americans." (Source: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=164871,00.html) – continued below

It only affects the wealthiest 2% of all Americans. Where have we heard that before? Let’s talk dollars for a moment and then we’ll talk sense.

There was no estate tax for the wealthiest 2% of Americans in 2010. This, of course, was part of the Bush Tax Cuts set to expire December 31, 2010.

Obama Proposal for the Estate Tax

The Obama Administration proposed raising the exemption to $3.5 million from what was once $600,000. The tax rate proposed was 45%, about 10% lower than the old days and the same rate the Bush tax cuts lowered it to for 2009.

Robert Ball Has a Suggestion

Robert Ball served as a Social Security Commissioner during the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Ball proposed using the 2009 Bush estate tax plan and dedicating the revenue to the Social Security Trust Fund. Actuaries estimated that such an estate tax plan would close more than one-fourth of the Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years. (Source: Center on Budget and Policy Profiles)

Estate Tax Congressional Action

The United States House of Representatives passed the Obama proposal. Republicans in the Senate blocked it. Again I say, does that sound familiar?

The December 6, 2010 Compromise

The DEAL with the Republicans to move forward provides a two-year plan for the estate tax with an exemption of $5 million and a tax rate of 35%.

The Estate Tax America Needs

Please notice I did not use the word "want" in that heading. We the people need to begin looking at what we need more than what we want. We need, at a minimum, the estate tax proposed by the Obama Administration, and we need to dedicate it to the Social Security Trust Fund as proposed by Robert Ball.

This should be the first step before any measures aimed at reducing Social Security costs are undertaken. Add this footing to the program and let the actuaries then see what’s needed in the future.

Call to Action: Make sure your representatives in Congress know what they should do to protect America’s finances. You can also Stumble this article, Digg it, Tweet it or stick it on your Facebook page.

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Roman Emperor Nero was said to have fiddled while Rome burned in 64 A.D. Of course the story is not true because there were no fiddles in Rome at the time, but it makes a good story.

Move forward in time to the year 2010. The Roman Empire is gone, but fiddlin’ while the American people suffer seems to have been resurrected from Nero’s time. One thing that has not been brought forward is Nero’s treatment of the poor and disadvantaged people. A cry arose in the land that the poor were being overly taxed, and Nero cut the tax almost in half. Restrictions on bails and fines were put in place and lawyer fees were limited. Secret government tax records were made public and the cost of food imports was lowered by virtue of tax exemption.

Roman historian Tacitus says that after "the fire" that destroyed a good portion of Rome, Nero organized a relief effort paid from his own funds. He opened his palaces to shelter the homeless and arranged for the delivery of food supplies for the needy. He then established a new building program to make houses safer. To pay for the project a tribute was imposed on the provinces of the Empire. In Roman times, the tribute usually applied to land, landowners or slave owners (the rich).

Okay, so here we are in 2010. The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty states that 3 million people in America experience homelessness each year with 1.3 million of those being children. On November 5, 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that 14.8 million of Americans were unemployed with 6.2 million of those having been unemployed longer than six months. They also estimate another 2.6 million have fallen off the unemployment rolls and still have not found employment because jobs are scarce. That same BLS report showed that people who do have jobs are working more hours.

What is Congress Doing?

A December 1, 2010 article entitled Unemployment benefits: not until Bush tax cuts pass, Senate GOP says, pretty much says it all. The extension of unemployment benefits was not acted on by the United States Senate in time to prevent 800,000 out-of-work Americans from losing benefits and another 2 million expected to lose benefits on January 1. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts objected to the bill being brought up for a vote, effectively blocking the required unanimous consent. Brown stated his party’s objection to the $56.4 billion measure not being offset by cuts in other programs. Of course, his party favors extending $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that are not offset by cuts in other programs.

Redistribution of wealth? Have you heard that phrase before? From Republicans? Sure you have, only it doesn’t apply if you take money from the poor and give it to the rich – according to Senate Republicans.

In the meantime, Congress is planning to spend about $33 billion on Great Ape Conservation by virtue of HR 4416. The bill states, "The Secretary may award a multiyear grant under this section to a person who is otherwise eligible for a grant under this section, to carry out a project that the person demonstrates is an effective, long-term conservation strategy for great apes and their habitats."

Did you know the U. S. Department of Defense is working with General Dynamics to develop a lightweight .50 caliber machine gun? DOD gave General Dynamics $9 million to try and develop the weapon. Now, this isn’t the first time. General Dynamic’s earlier version called the XML312 was rejected. The new one is being called the LW50MG. Lt. Colonel Mike Ascura stated that the new weapon will not replace the heavier M2 .50 caliber machine gun. It will simply be a new gun.

Military Airplane with Spare Engine

The F-35 fighter jet is a great example of what’s wrong with American government. According to WTNH in Hartford, Connecticut, 83 of the fighters have received authorization and appropriation, and the military has expressed an interest in acquiring over 2,000. For starters, why would we need over 2,000 fighter aircraft, much less over 2,000 of the same model? But that’s not the story here. You see, the F-35 uses a Pratt & Whitney engine manufactured in Democrat Representative John Larson’s district in Connecticut.

Other members of Congress want a piece of the pie and have recommended that a back up engine be made for the F-35, one made by General Electric and Rolls Royce. The military has said they do not need the backup engine. Its production, however, is being planned for two Congressional districts outside Connecticut: Republican John Boehner’s district in Ohio and Republican Eric Cantor’s district in Virginia.

Conclusion

Anybody got a fiddle?