Repeal The Wheel Tax
The Wheel Tax was the brainchild of then-County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and his chief of staff, Mike Arms. We were told by Ragsdale that we would receive some wonderful new benefits, namely a new downtown library. We have the same old library 23 years later, and the other civic improvements never saw the light of day or the dark of night. Every single person who registers a car in Knox County has paid that tax on every vehicle every year since, which was then – and remains now – a double tax, meaning you are taxed twice for exactly nothing.
Some of the proceeds from the Wheel Tax were siphoned off by the two best-funded entities in all of Knox County government: the school system and the sheriff’s department. Most Knox Countians are not aware that nearly 75 cents of every tax dollar raised in Knox County is spent on schools and the sheriff’s department. Every other aspect of local county government – courts, parks, libraries, roads and the like – is funded from the remaining 25 cents.
The promised improvements never happened, but the Wheel Tax continues to this day in Knox County.
The Wheel Tax wasn’t needed 23 years ago, and it’s not needed today. The county commission should repeal the tax as quickly as possible. Commissioner Larsen Jay is sponsoring, along with County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, an ordinance to repeal the Wheel Tax in Knox County. Let your voice be heard!
The Terrorist Regime In Iran Needs To Be Wiped Out Forever
Could anybody really be surprised that the mainstream corporate media is either not reporting on the war in Iran or misreporting it. For those paying attention to the corporate media in this country, you’d think you were watching Al Jazeera. They aren’t reporting any of our country’s successes and seem to be sympathetic to the same people who just hung a 19-year-old wrestler for having protested. The Democrat-Socialists haven’t decried that atrocity, nor have their compatriots in the mainstream media. We’re being given the impression by the corporate media that the US is losing the war.
Iran’s Air Force has been decimated; most of their Navy lies at the bottom of the ocean; the Republican Guard has been under constant barrage. Many of the leaders of Iran have been killed. Iran has wished death for America and Americans for the better part of 50 years. That is no exaggeration. They’ve told us time and time again and have taken to the streets whenever they thought we needed to be reminded.
For decades, they have exported terrorism, dealing death and destruction, killing innocents with impunity. Allowing the mullahs and a country that savagely mistreats women and hangs gay people from construction cranes as a warning to have nuclear weapons would be sheer madness.
We have socialists, Marxists and illegal aliens masquerading as students here who have protested on behalf of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. The protesters here haven’t said a word about the Islamic Republic of Iran hanging Saleh Mohammadi for protesting. Two other young protesters, Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi, were murdered by the Iranian government along with Saleh Mohammadi. The reports coming from Iran indicate the three were tortured to get forced confessions of guilt to justify their murders. They had no lawyers, nor was there any real legal progress, just the same kind of show trials that have been the standard in dictatorships for years. Their true crime was raising their voices and protesting. Iran’s leadership has dealt in blood and death since the beginning of the Islamic Republic.
For the morons who refer to their opponents here as “Nazis,” what the Iranians did to the young champion wrestler is exactly what the Nazis did to their own political opponents.
And just so you know, the Islamic Republic would not tolerate for a moment the protesting of those doing it here, even on behalf of Iran. The morons, like the Iranian leadership, do not believe in free speech.
The pages of history are full of those who have died for freedom and keeping others free. Americans have fought for and died for freedom and free speech. Saleh Mohammadi just gave his own life for the same privilege.
The tyranny of authoritarians and those who enable them allows no dissent whatsoever. It was evil and disgusting then, and it’s evil and disgusting today.
