Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick hanging out with Guy Fieri on New Year's is only half the problem.

Politicians are the worst people on this planet, so it shouldn’t have surprised people this morning when news leaked of the sordid inclusions in the fiscal cliff deal, from a heavier rum tax on Puerto Rico to financing Goldman Sachs’ new headquarters. Good, those guys needed a break. But also included is the so-called “NASCAR loophole”, which has a lot of people really pissed off right now.

However, it’s not like the government is just giving a ton of our hard-earned cash to the good ol’ boys who spend their days turning left. It’s much sneakier and more complex than that. Basically, it’s a nice, big tax break for the billionaires behind the International Speedway Corporation, and most notably the France family. So what, then, does this loophole give them?

The so-called NASCAR loophole allows anyone who builds a racetrack to receive a small tax benefit through accelerated depreciation. This tax break cost roughly $43 million the past two years and will get extended for another year. Sounds tawdry, right? And yet, supporters claim the break is necessary so that NASCAR can compete on a level playing field with other theme parks. Looks like they got their wish. (Via Washington Post)

Now I’m no fancy, big city slicker lawyer type with a degree in smartness, but I’ve read enough USA Today pie charts in my day to know that this isn’t much of a surprise. Look, millionaires and billionaires get all the breaks. We’ve just got to learn to live with that. I mean, take Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, for example. He fleeced an entire major city government into funding his ridiculous, giant new stadium, and he did it all on the paper wings of a promise that he was committed to building a contender. Classic rich dude crapping on our dreams scenario.

Instead of Loria, though, it’s just NASCAR and International Speedway executives who get to act out the “We need these tax breaks to build new tracks and fix the old ones so we can create jobs because America!” routine. But this is all unfair speculation and the biased ramblings of a lower class American just trying to get his next meal. Let’s see what the NASCAR fatcats have to say in response…

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As I pointed out last week, Jose Canseco, the former baseball player who uses Twitter to beg Major League Baseball teams to consider signing a 48-year old designated hitter, now has a new gig as a columnist for Vice. In his debut at that site last week, Canseco weighed in on the necessity of guns in the wake of the Aurora, CO shooting. Canseco’s ultimate point was that if you’re not a juiced up martial artist, you need guns because you’re not an imposing force of fists like he is.

This week, Canseco is back to discuss something that’s more near and dear to his heart – bankruptcy. Canseco admits that he just filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week, and that’s shocking. I thought for sure that the guy who was once evicted from his home and needed pro bono legal representation to get his chandeliers back would have been doing just fine. Shows what I know.

Regardless, please allow the man who now claims to be a victim of the government’s evil ways to dispense his incredible amazing financial advice.

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EIGHT F*CKING YEARS. That’s how long federal prosecutors spent trying to throw Barry Bonds in the slammer for 12 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice and whatever else they had a boner over. So when the verdict came down last week, what did the millions of dollars of taxpayer money get us? Guilty on four counts to the tune of a $4,000 fine, home confinement for 30 days and two years of probation. Oh, and he has to do 250 hours of community service.

Let justice be done though thy heaven’s fall.

A lawyer for Bonds, Allen Ruby, asked by reporters which side he thought had come out ahead in the sentencing, said: “It depends on whether justice was done. If justice was done, then everyone’s a winner. As to what we think, we’re not talking.”

The prosecutors in the case declined comment immediately afterward. But in court, assistant United States attorney Matthew A. Parrella took issue with Illston once it became clear from her presentence comments that there would be no jail term.

In response to her comment that Bonds’s obstruction of justice was a departure from an “otherwise law-abiding lifestyle,” Parrella said Bonds was “well versed in misleading people” and cited the illegal use of drugs and “mistresses through two marriages.”

“He wasn’t convicted for any of those,” Illston responded.

(Via the New York Times)

Ah, the old “He cheated on his wife so he must be a criminal” strategy. Pure brilliance. I’d love to expound on my outrage that tens and maybe hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the government on trying to prove that Bonds used steroids when any person with a working set of eyes could figure that out, but I’ve already been distracted by the most compelling argument.

After the jump, meet the Barry Bonds fan who puts our whole legal system to shame.

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“The message to kids is that there’s no American dream!”

That’s the punchline to this amazingly American news report filmed outside of the U.S. Open in my old hometown of Bethesda, Maryland, depicting the government shutting down a kid-run lemonade stand and fining their parents $500 for operating an Our Gang cliche without a license. Meanwhile, people who live nearby are charging $60 dollars a pop for front yard parking and it’s okay, because hey, they paid their tithes.

Watch the video below.

The worst part is the back and forth between officials and parents. The inspector says there’s a difference between “cute little kids making five or ten dollars” and hundreds, noting that they’ve got “coolers and coolers” of lemonade. But whoops! Turns out it was to raise money for cancer. The guys making thousands (or tens of thousands, if you believe the report) letting people park on their begonias? They’re doing it to raise money for rich assholes who live near a golf course.

I’m not sure if this experience has disproven the “American Dream” to a ragtag bunch of neighborhood youths (and hopefully “the American Dream” hasn’t become “sell drinks to tourists”), but hopefully the next time they set up shop it’ll be far away from melodramatic adults.

[via Jay Busbee @ Devil Ball Golf]

Republicans in Minnesota tried to conduct an NCAA tournament-style betting pool on the outcome of a state budget crisis that threatened the future of local government and the jobs and livelihood of over 36,000 workers.

“This is an ‘IN-HOUSE’ document intended for staff only-just for fun. Thanks, and good luck”.

Players would a wager on the likelihood of an increase in Minnesota’s income tax, the expansion of state gambling, and the chances of Gonzaga making it past the second round. Only a dollar to play! A dollar, and absolutely no f**king compassion for the people you’re supposed to be representing.

From CBS Minnesota, which sounds like the oldest, slowest thing ever:

“This is disgusting,” said Eliot Seide, the head of AFSCME, Minnesota’s largest state workers union. “Thanks and good luck? Make a bet on how long our people are going to be out of work? What kind of sick people are these?”

Republicans say the pool was never distributed.

“It’s incredibly inappropriate”, said Michael Brodkorb, Executive Assistant to the Senate GOP Caucus, who said neither he nor any Republican leaders were aware of the pool. “It wasn’t distributed. Copies were discarded and no bets were taken.”

“The popular kids were running the pool,” said Brodkorb, whose last name looks like something spelled backwards. “When I asked them about it later they said I was in third place, but they also said that to my friend, so I think they’re just lying to us and keeping our dollars.” That joke was brought to you by how unpopular I was in high school.

You can take a look at the pool sign-up sheet here. I’m voting “yes” on increase fees (duh), and “no” on Duke.

[H/T Off the Bench]

Whether one plays Texas Hold’em in brick-and-mortar casinos or pot-limit omaha online, there was bad news to digest for the poker world over the weekend. The federal government seized the domain names of three FIVE of the biggest poker sites operating in America. PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker have also been named in indictments accusing executives of those sites in illegal gambling, money laundering and bank fraud.

In addition to the indictments and domain seizures, Friday’s federal actions were accompanied by a civil lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of $3 billion in ill-gotten gains from the money laundering – 1.5 billion from the PokerStars; $1 billion from the Full Tilt Poker; and $500 million from the Absolute Poker.

Although there have been renewed efforts recently to legalize online gaming, it remains illegal in the U.S., one of the few countries where that remains the law. Some challenge the idea that poker is really gambling, arguing it’s a game of skill not chance. –ReadWriteWeb.

The effect of the seizures on the game itself remains to be seen. Last year’s World Series Of Poker Main Event entries–a crude but often-watched barometer of the health of poker today–were the second-most attended tournament ever (and they eventually turned people away). That 7,319 figure will almost certainly drop now, as many of those participants come from satellite games put together by players pooling their money to allow the winner to pay that $10,000 entry fee.

This is sad for anyone that loves playing cards and the camaraderie that comes with that. Many of you will remember that I covered the WSOP’s Main Event in Vegas last year, and the pros that I met there were as down-to-earth and as friendly as anyone a sportswriter could hope to cover. They’re going to be hurt by this, all in the name of “money laundering.” It’s hard to express my disappointment here, but I’m comforted by the knowledge that things usually become more badass with each crackdown from the government. So there’s that.