LOL, snusgetter! I don't like to fly, because you can't open the doors, which is why I don't have a passport. I like having the freedom to get the heck out whenever I feel the need. But as Janis Joplin once said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Maybe I need to get myself a passport...
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Originally posted by CoderGuy View Post
What if I do Canada and sneak back in as a Franco-Mexican?
Of course, I'd have to work on my disguise...
Beleevagabull, right??Comment
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Originally posted by dreed2 View Post
At today's passport prices ...... cheaper to smuggle snus!Comment
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snusgetter if that was you, everyone on this board would destroy you. kthx.Comment
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Snusgetter... you're much more voluptuous than I imagined!Comment
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Originally posted by c.nash View Post
Quesadilla?
Yoo say dat wit a strayt fase?
I cook yoo good goose!!Comment
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maybe free to leave for now if you get your papers, RFID passport and submit to a body search. The walls are literally going up so you better hurry.Originally posted by snusgetter View PostComment
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Yes, I am quite sure that our government is working overtime to try and figure out how to get us snus without infringing on our rights.Comment
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I'm sure amending the PACT Act will take three years, taking into consideration all of the red tape behind politics. By then, the war in Afghanistan will probably be over.Comment
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This article appeared in the Buffalo News yesterday and was posted over at snuffhouse by Devilock76. It is one of the best I've seen on what is going on right now with PACT and lets you listen in on some of the deliberations (which by the way sound very very promising-- if this is the way the court is thinking then the bigger case may indeed be hopeful).
Anyway........... read it
Rachel Kingston Reporting
rkingston@entercom.com
Buffalo, NY (WBEN) -- U.S. District Court Judge Richard Arcara expects to made a decision this week, on whether Seneca Nation cigarette sellers must comply with the newly-passed PACT Act.
The 140 members of the Seneca Free Trade Association and one other independent Seneca tobacco retailer, Aaron Pierce, have asked Arcara to grant them temporary exemption from the law, while they fight to have it declared unconstitutional in a higher federal court.
Related: Cigarettes seized from one of Pierce's shipping trucks; Pierce says, in retaliation for his lawsuit
Attorneys for Seneca businesses and the federal government were back in Arcara's courtroom on Tuesday. Each side was appealing the split ruling that Arcara handed down on July 30, but for different reasons.
On that day, Arcara had said that the Senecas must obey the part of the law that bans shipping cigarettes in the mail. But the judge also ruled that the Senecas do not have to comply with local and state tobacco taxing policies. That is the portion of Arcara's ruling that the government is appealing.
Gerald Kell, the attorney representing the U.S. Department of Justice, argued in court on Tuesday that allowing the Senecas exemption from the PACT Act would have "a tremendous negative impact on tax collection, competition, and public health."
If the Senecas are not held to law's requirements, Kell said, then "underage consumers will continue to be exposed to tobacco, state will continue to lose tax revenue" and non-Native tobacco companies "will continue to face unfair competition."
According to Kell, members of Congress passed the PACT Act because they were concerned that the Senecas' online/mail-order sale of cigarettes was having a "significant and detrimental" impact on consumers. Specifically, Kell argued, that method of buying and selling makes tobacco products more accessible to minors.
"Protecting minors is a silly argument," Arcara responded. In that case, the judge asked, "Why not make [cigarettes] illegal?"
"If kids want cigarettes," Arcara said, "they can get cigarettes any which way they want to get them." There is no evidence, Arcara said, that the PACT Act has cut down on the number of minors buying cigarettes.
"Isn't this about money? Isn't this about taxes?" Arcara pressed. "If I grant your stay [meaning, make the Senecas comply fully with the law], what's going to stop a minor from going to 7-Eleven and buying cigarettes?"
Arcara and Kell also sparred over the government's claims that the PACT Act will not set a precedent for Congress to be able to tax other consumer goods at will.
In his previous ruling, Arcara had written that, if Congress can enforce cigarette taxes on the Senecas, "then it has the authority to do so on all commercial products, not just cigarettes."
Kell assured Arcara that Congress has no intention of taxing any other goods in this manner, or of setting a precedental effect with the PACT Act.
"Well, that's today," Arcara replied. "Congress can change its mind tomorrow."
Lisa Coppola, the attorney representing Pierce, contended that "the government's arguments fail to meet standards for a stay." She also told Arcara that the Senecas' mail-order tobacco sales were doing no harm to the federal government, but that the federal government is "most certainly doing irreparable harm" to Aaron Pierce by trying to enforce the PACT Act.
Several Senecas were in court to watch the proceedings, including Seneca Free Trade Association Chairman Richard "Rick" Jemison and William Parry, who owns the Wolf's Run retail outlet on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation.
Parry told reporters after the court proceedings, he does not do any mail-order business, but he knows plenty of people who do, and they're hurting.
"Right now, they're all shut down. So there's a lot of people out of work, and people that are going to be going out of business... if it's not lifted. It has a rippling effect, because all the money that we make on the reservations, we spend off the reservation. So, when we go buy a car... who gets the money?" Parry pointed out.
Parry explained that the diminished tobacco sales don't just give the Senecas less money to invest in Western New York. He says with the decline in business, hundreds of the 4,000 employees of the Seneca tobacco industry are being laid-off. Two-thirds of those 4,000 workers are non-Indians.
"To me, [the PACT Act] is just a ploy for Philip Morris," Parry said. "Philip Morris is mad because Native Americans started manufacturing cigarettes. That's what it really is. If we were hurting them so bad, how come they're not all closed up? We're just a little piece of the pie."
Parry's departing remarks reflected the increasingly tenuous relationship between the United States government and Native Americans.
"We have treaties that clearly state, no taxation. We shouldn't be subject to any state or federal taxes. We shouldn't have to ask the federal government for anything."
When it's my time to go, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my uncle did....... Not screaming in terror like his passengersComment
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Originally posted by Snusdog View Post
Dangit, Buffalo Dog.... I completely missed this story (the 1 day I didn't bother checking)
Good for Judge Arcara in his parry with the gov reps and calling a spade a spade:
""Protecting minors is a silly argument," Arcara responded. In that case, the judge asked, "Why not make [cigarettes] illegal?"
"If kids want cigarettes," Arcara said, "they can get cigarettes any which way they want to get them." There is no evidence, Arcara said, that the PACT Act has cut down on the number of minors buying cigarettes.
"Isn't this about money? Isn't this about taxes?" Arcara pressed. "If I grant your stay [meaning, make the Senecas comply fully with the law], what's going to stop a minor from going to 7-Eleven and buying cigarettes?""
So, according to the judge this is all about money and not the kids.
Kinda looks like he took the words right out of our mouths!!Comment
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I thought it was about funding terrorists?Comment
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This just in...
Originally posted by Snusdog View Post
Truckload of untaxed cigarettes to be returned
ALBANY -- Just two days after seizing the truck owned by a Seneca Nation businessman and the thousands of untaxed cigarettes inside it, the tax department backed down Wednesday.
Amid mounting criticism by Seneca leaders, the Paterson administration retreated and said it would return the truck and the cigarettes to Aaron J. Pierce following the seizure by agents along a rural road between the tribe's Allegany and Cattaraugus reservations on Monday.
"The department determined that while the stop and seizure were indeed lawful, a review of the facts we've obtained in the last 48 hours has led us to advise their counsel that the vehicle and their contents are going to be returned," said Brad Maione, a tax department spokesman.
Maione said there will be no prosecution of tax laws, as he suggested a day earlier following what he said was the transportation of illegal cigarettes on public roads.
"We were investigating and some facts came to light since we seized the vehicle, and it was determined that it was within our discretion to return it to the owner," he said.
Maione would not say what facts surfaced.
Seneca leaders, who did not immediately return a call for comment, said the state had no legal right to stop the flow of commerce between its reservations. Pierce's lawyer did not return calls for comment.
The seizure came as the state is gearing up to put an end to tax-free cigarette sales on Indian reservations as soon as Sept. 1 under a new law passed this legislative session in Albany.
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Isn't it great that Congress, with their PACT Act, has disrupted so many aspects of
what used to be called The American Life: from our soldiers overseas to Native
Americans, to the greedy politicians and bureaucrats, to the children ........ whoops!
wait on... didn't the judge say this act really doesn't affect the children:
Well, don't that beat all! That's not what all the do-gooders and their political lackeys"If kids want cigarettes," Arcara said, "they can get cigarettes any which way they want to get them." There is no evidence, Arcara said, that the PACT Act has cut down on the number of minors buying cigarettes.
have been selling us. Could the judge be wrong? Are we wrong for agreeing with
Judge Arcara?
Wonder what's next?
I guess it depends on which way the smoke is blowing!!Comment
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Originally posted by tom502 View Post
No, Tom, you're thinking about
Funding Citizen Terrorists Act
the FUCT Act...
Another smokescreen to hide the general malfeasance of our revered politicians.
It's due for passage in the next session of Congress.Comment
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Hi all!
I know PACT act seems to be almost like saying racist against tobacco users now days but, I also noticed that no one had posted the... -
In a Nutshell:
- mailed packages must state the name and address of the sender
- the sender must be a member of the Seneca Free Trade Association
- mailings
09-07-10, 12:11 PM -
We wanted to make sure all lovers of Swedish snus had access to the PACT Act in it's entirety! So, for all to read, here's the entire bill:
03-04-10, 05:49 AM -
The Republican Tea Party: Contract With America
For the better part of the past year, Republicans have tried to come up with a new agenda... -
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Repeal of health bill to be GOP battle cry
September 21, 2010
WASHINGTON — Republicans are serious. Hopeful of picking...
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