Rick’s Blog: Cigar Tax Madness-- A Vicious Attack by Anti-tobacco Zealots

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net

As I sit here puffing on my exquisite Bock Y Ca longsdale cigar, word reached me of a congressional campaign to tax the living crap out of cigars, effectively putting an international industry out of business. This new excise tax would kill the golden goose, since tobacco taxes bring in billions of dollars for our government to squander on an ill-conceived war in Iraq and other boondoggles. But zero times zero is zero, Senators!

Yes, our mealy-mouthed hypocrites on the Hill (Senators) are trying to pull a fast one on the tobacco industry by sneaking an excise tax on cigars attached to a bill to fund health coverage for poor children. The proposal would raise the tax on cigars by a whopping 20,413% (not a misprint) to a maximum of $10.00 a cigar. Moreover, a floor stock tax would be assessed on all products in inventory. If this is passed, it is not only the largest tax increase on any product in the entire history of the United States, but it will effectively kill the entire cigar industry in one fell swoop.

Hey stupid, you can’t tax a dead industry. Yeah, the Hill gang is adept at wasting our tax dollars. Some anti-tobacco zealot thought, hey, lets fund this health coverage for poor kids by making smokers pay through the nose. Tobacco and liquor are already taxed at ridiculous levels. Yet, these dunderheads want to bring back a new form of prohibition, when fine cigars are bought and sold on the black market. Of course, we pleasure seekers (nicotine addicts) will get our cigars one way or another. Why did our ancestors dump tea in Boston harbor? It was a tax protest against the British empire. Taxation without representation!

We cigar smokers everywhere are fighting back by writing our Senators about the unfair tax. I wrote to my Florida Senators Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson and got the typical non-committal response. These guys can write a thousand words and not say anything. God forbid if they tell their constituents the truth–they don’t give a damn! They spend their time in Washington either getting reelected, getting blown, or running for President. If this bill goes through as written, thousands of tobacco workers in other countries will lose their jobs and a viable industry will die.

If that’s what they want, then they are screwing themselves. Stupid is as stupid does.

Rick’s Blog: Punk-ass Thugs Ripped My Flesh July 22, 2007

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net

I’m back with a vengeance to blog about dark forces that have raised my adrenalin level to the danger zone, ripping my flesh like an angry wolverine.

Now, I feel compelled to rant about sports celebrities who make obscene amounts money and then show their true colors by behaving like punk-ass thugs! Of course, I’m speaking of Michael
Vick’s alleged involvement in an incredibly cruel dog fighting ring. The Atlanta Falcons quarterback is accused of running a criminal enterprise by financing the dog fights across state lines from his house, that was built with kennels for that purpose. He is also accused of animal cruelty for participating in killing of the dogs by electrocution, drowning, shooting, and beating the defenseless dogs to death with a crow bar.

Not only is this extreme cruelty to these innocent animals driven mad by mistreatment, but anyone who would do this does not deserve to be in the NFL or be revered by millions of young people. Yes, Vick has been indicted on numerous Federal charges. But because he is a filthy rich celebrity and can afford the best lawyers money can buy, he will probably get off with a fine and probation. We only have to raise the specter of O.J. to make that point. However, I hope and pray Vick is fired from the NFL and goes to jail. He’s nothing but a thug who happens to have talent at playing football.

More significantly, Vick is not the only sports celebrity that has run afoul of the law. Every day, some overpaid athlete is caught driving drunk or high on drugs, or involved in violent acts like beating their wives, raping hotel employees, and even being arrested on first degree murder. This disgraceful behavior has turned me off professional sports which has turned into nothing but a money game. Young men who get a ticket to ride like Kobe Bryant, who was drafted into the NBA right out of high school, and then lead their lives with no moral compass should be fired. More disturbingly, they encourage millions of impressionable young black men to emulate their behavior by embracing the thug lifestyle and worshiping money as their God. The whole thug philosophy is expressed in today’s hip-hop fashions (inspired by prison garb) and gansta rap. "Money for nothing, and the chicks for free!"

If those of us who deplore today’s sports celebrities acting badly would stop viewing professional sports on television and stop buying tickets to the games, it would send a powerful message that these young punks have to live by a moral code when they are ordained as special VIPs by receiving megabucks in signing bonuses and ridiculously bloated salaries for their athletic prowess. We can vote to oust them by our boycott of their sport. Yeah, but that’s not going to happen. People are mad about football and other high profile sports. Wake up people–smell the foul odor of fans being played as fools.