Mike Billy

I demand a right to beer arms!

In which I’m quoted in a Daily Caller about energy drink regulations in Illinois:

Caffeine was likely dropped from the bill in order to make it more popular, wrote Mike Billy, a reporter for the Illinois News Network.

“I think the legislators knew the bill would never pass if they included caffeine in the definition because caffeine is too popular and people would realize just how ridiculous the regulation is,” Billy wrote in an email to The DC News Foundation. “A server at a restaurant would have to check the age of anyone buying a soft drink.”

But practical considerations aside, permitting caffeine while banning taurine makes little scientific sense, he said.

“Caffeine actually has health risks and there have been no reports of negative health effects associated with taurine, guarana and ginseng in the amounts found in energy drinks,” he wrote. “It’s an arbitrary way to define an energy drink without any regard to science and it accomplishes nothing.”

Read the whole thing here.

My original story published on the Illinois News Network: 

Illinois taxpayers can use the state’s income tax form to donate to child abuse prevention, childhood cancer research and military family relief.

But if you want to make sure your money actually gets to the charities, you might want to give them a check directly instead of using the state as a middleman.

That’s because the money in these charity funds isn’t protected from pillage by politicians.

“Illinois is in a state where they are financially destitute and people think these funds are restricted, but they aren’t,” said Gordon Jumper, a Jacksonville, Ill., certified public accountant. “It’s an account that is controlled and under the discretion of the state of Illinois and it’s not protected.”

In 2010 the state took $434,000 from these charity accounts through sweeps, or transfers, into the general fund. There is no requirement for the sweeps, which were approved by Gov. Pat Quinn and the Legislature, to be paid back.

In 2011 Illinois borrowed $1.1 million from the charity funds, which it eventually paid back.

Tom Williams, a 48-year-old Springfield resident, compared the sweeps to theft.

“If you mailed a bill to the electric company and the lady at the electric company took it home and spent it on something else that would be theft,” said Williams. “If you are making a charitable contribution to someone, that is where the money should go.”

Susan Hofer, spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Revenue, said that money will not be swept from the charity funds this year, but she did not rule out the possibility of borrowing from the funds.

“If it’s borrowed and repaid before any charities can receive the grant money then it has no effect on the charities,” she said.

But Jumper said the fact that these funds are even subject to sweeps or borrowing should be enough to keep people from donating their money through the income tax form.

“I don’t think it’s particularly well known that the money in these accounts is subject to these sweeps,” he said. “If it was, there would probably be less people donating through the tax return.”

Statism: The most dangerous religion in the world. 

“Under Democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed and are right…” - H. L. Mencken

Scumbag Boehbama

President Obama and Speaker John Boehner both claim to be for transparent government, but neither will release the details of their backroom dealings.

Carter on the Drone Wars: 

“I personally think we do more harm than good by having our drones attack some potential terrorists who have not been tried or proven that they are guilty,” Carter said in an interview with Russia Today.

“But in the meantime, the drone attacks also kill women and children, sometimes in weddings… so this is the kind of thing we should correct,” he added.

Déjà vu