finknottle

It's not. Nor is it any different from the biometric photo/prints they make you take in some foreign airports. But DNA sounds scary!

And how exactly does the government extending the hours of a family planning clinic or refurbishing restrooms in Yellowstone help somebody who has lost, is going to lose, or is afraid of losing his job?

I'm not sympathetic to his problems, but he may have something. I do my own taxes - by hand in the past, but last year I used Turbotax for the first time because of some extra complexities with deductions. Guess what I discovered after I mailed in the returns? Turbotax had screwed up on the simplest part. It had overreported my salary income! It took a couple of properly inputted W-2 numbers and simply added them wrong. I've spent hours trying to figure out why, to no avail.

No, it was 11k in late fees/penalties. What I originally read was that he didn't claim about a 100k in actual income, and had 30k worth of problems with undisclosed compensation (ie the cars) and inappropriate deductions. To me not disclosing the income is far, far more serious that the other problems - it strikes to the heart of public integrity.

On NPR they were airily dismississing his problems as 'failure to realize he needed to pay taxes on loaner cars." Nothing about not disclosing *employment income.* He must have been driving a corporate loaner a hell of a lot for the tax bill on it to have hit $140,000.

The problem is that he had the wrong guy cluing him in. One word: malaise.

Back to the original question - maybe they didn't create millions of new jobs, but saved millions instead. I know, not my idea, some sharp dude in the current administration came up with that clever bit of fine print.

That's like complaining that Pepsi discriminates against poor people because they require them to pay a higher portion of their income than they do rich people.

Very little - but you'ld know that if you actually looked. Current running tab for Iraq: $627 million. TARP committment: $750 million Est Stimulus Package: $850 million http://budget.house.gov/doc-library/2007/0...ing_summary.pdf http://zfacts.com/p/447.html Plus there is now talk of a 'bad bank' on the order of 3 more trillion, and whispers of this not being the only stimulus package needed over the next few years. But unlike the Iraq War, some of the spending initiated by the stimulus bill will become recurring entitlements - things like increasing the earned income tax credit, funding for child care, etc. No politician is going to take away these services next year once granted. Pelosi is doing in one year what took Bush five! Way to go!

I think you are confusing the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Satisfied Consumer Hall of Fame.

It should be pointed out that Steele wasn't the only african-american candidate. Two of the six were black, and the other (Ken Blackwell of Ohio) was generally considered to be more of a party insider. (Blackwell was the only african-american of either party to be nominated for governer in Ohio, losing in 2006. He was previously SecState there.) I'm inclined to agree with the speaking part - he's pretty good.

Have we ever had a tax policy that redistributed income upwards? Or even one which was neutral, such as a flat-tax? Or just policies that were not deemed 'sufficiently progressive.'

We'll help you out here. Daschle wasn't reporting his income after he left the Senate. It shouldn't be that hard. On another note, I see that it turns out that Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg was an active consultant to a lobbying firm specializing in international clientele, but was not registered as a lobbyist or a foreign agent. A statement says he provided 'strategic consulting,' but the matter was not looked into at his confirmation.

Wow - your inability to read and comprehend is nothing short of embarrassing. The wiki passage was given because it was clear you hadn't been researching anything and needed to be caught up to the basic outlines of the controversary. If you have a reputable source that contradicts that summary, bring it on. Wiki is not my source, as I have explained repeatedly. Despite over an hour researching it, I cannot find any reputable source substantiating your claims. Hence my repeated request. Even your links are a joke. Both WTOP radio and the Baltimore City Paper, bastions of investigative reporting, contradict what you have been saying. The sad thing is that you can't see why. That's it for me.

For a guy who insists on credible reporting, you seem a bit hypocritical - you have yet to post a single link. Can you give a reputable link that quotes Steele as saying anything you attribute to him? As far as I can tell, the oreos on the floor were his first comments on the matter - I found no record of his ever saying he was hit. Give us this original story of yours where he exaggerated - I'd like to see it. And can you back up your claim that the cleaning staff saw no evidence of cookies? I'll that I've read is that the building manager was asked three years after the event and he said he didn't see any. (Remember, Steele was in the audience - it was a gubernatorial event). Here, I'll save you the time and give the wiki account: That's a far cry from what you are saying. As for 'nobody, no Republicans, etc,' what about this? http://www.nationalcenter.org/2005/11/mich...o-incident.html Btw, I'm still waiting on you to see where 95% of his claims were debunked.

Well, moving up the ladder to stratospheric compensation usually entails a career of risks, gambles, compulsive work, and luck. For every guy who is getting a million, there are a thousand that gambled on the wrong field at the wrong time, or made the wrong move, or just couldn't cut it. Starting a company is one path, but it sounds like you prefer a safer more conservative career. That's fine, and probably smart. But begrudging the ambitious their rewards is the quickest way to throw a wrench into an innovative economy.

Is a company which is expanding overseas to be punished? If you are going to export, you generally need an overseas presence. And we do need to export things unless we plan an end to imports. What about a company that opens an overseas office, but closes an unrelated US office? Punish? And what about the flip side? Would it be good if foreign companies were taxed extra by their governments for opening a plant in the US? Gee, that sounds great! And to your original point: do we really want to disuade billionaires like Rupert Murdoch from immigrating to the US for the sin of vast overseas holdings? By all means, lets stick with illegal immigrants!

Hey, I can only tell you what people were saying in my neighborhood and on the local political scene. I'll let you be the arbitrator of 'truth.' I assume you can give me a link to a newspaper finding that 95% of the claims were fabricated? I looked but could only find blog stuff claiming to debunk it. There seems to be no controversy about Steney Hoyer calling Steele 'token' in 2002 or describing him to black businessmen as "slavishly supporting the Republican Party" in 2006. I guess its not racist innuendo when you use those words against Republicans, unlike using 'Fairy Tale' to describe the rise of a Democrat. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6101701440.html Or that a staffer for Cardin wrote (and was fired for) an anomyous blog chronicling the day-to-day racism and anti-semitism, including the handing out of - you guessed it - oreo cookies. (Steele denied that he was pelted as reported, but said some were at his feet. Nevertheless oreo's became symbolic among democrat partisans.) Steeles claim that his credit records were illegally investigated by staffers of Chuck Shumer's Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee who appropriated his SSN. One plead guilty. http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/democrat-...steele-case-hb/ Or that the DSCC sponsored (broken off after objections) a racist blog attacking black Republicans, with doctored photo's of Steele and the caption "I's Simple Sambo And I's Running for the Big House." http://www.nysun.com/national/dscc-removes...d-racist/22478/ Nor have I found anything to deny reporting that Senate President Mike Miller called him an "Uncle Tom," or that Delegate Marriott likened him to 'a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside.' It was a heated race with excesses on both sides, and there will always be staffers and self-annointed spokesmen who will cause embarrassment. But I defy you to find a race in the last 30 years where this sort of thing went on with the parties reversed. Or, at least, show me a debunking of 95% of the claims. I suspect you are making that up.

$140,000 apparently. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/j...hle-nomination/ Change you can believe in. Fool me once (2000), shame on you. Fool me twice (2004), shame on me. Fool me a third time (2008), I deserve what I get.

I was watching "Washington Week in Review" last night, and one of the guests quipped something along the lines of 'what a remarkable year this has been, two outsider candidates taking leadership of their parties promising sweeping changes but thin on the details.' It was met with silence.

The Yellowstone Caldera ia actually a giant hotspot - think of an opening 35m by 45m whose skin has solidified (for now). If it blows (unlikely in our lifetimes, but there has been recent troubling movement), it would be cataclysmic to he US. According to wiki, the last time it blew was 640,000 years ago and released 240 cubic miles of goop. There is a very entertaining account in Bill Bryson's book "A Brief History of Nearly Everything."

But it's not man-made, so we don't have to worry about the effects.

Is something preventing you from starting a company?

So basically, Obama is saying "we are in a crisis and must pass this stimulus bill immediately without lengthy deliberation, and oh by the way lets put in all the other stuff my party wants." Sounds like something Bush would do - I frequently confuse the two.

I have to agree with VABills. I lived in Maryland during both races, and voted Democrat. The 'Uncle Tom' racism was quite real. I learned from those years that nobody spews open racism like the grassroots Democrat party machine, and they always get a pass. The racial politics was far worse than anything I remembered living in WNY (though I may have been too young to notice it then).