We keep reaching into that hotbed of unemployables, Congress, those that, with extremely few exceptions, never did meaning ful work, to find a totem to represent the country.

All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” –H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920

No, not yet, we came close last time. Perhaps this time we shall reach the nadir of success.

Lotsa Luck!

After listening to The One at the debates and the endless bumpersticker answers as solutions to the world’s problems, his problem is apparent; he’s constipated, totally backed up.

Joe the Plumber can take care of this quickly, by forcing the BS back down so that it ejects from the proper end.

Perhaps then, BHO, the Lightworker, might develop some gravitas and deliver forth a plan that is grounded in reality, not Marxism.

Joe Biden IQ = 146

Are you smart enough to be VP? He’s not

John McCain IQ = 138

Are you smart enough to be Prez? He’s not either

Obama’s the village idiot. I don’t wish to insult Down’s syndrome persons.

I wouldn’t run for office on a bet! I don’t have delusions of grandeur and tendencies to criminal activities.

Obama sees the AG bite the dust.

The merest hint of impropriety should be sufficient grounds to banish him for high office, according to the most ethical Democrats. 

It’s that tangled web, weaving and deceiving thing again.

The New England Republican’s astute social reporter, M. Hotspur, noticed the foibles of former Prez candidate Hairspray, first.

A murder of crows from the fourth estate descended upon Sen. Craig for his playing footsie with a flatfoot resulting in a misdemeanor plea. The hypocrisy of the episode outraged the MSM. Late night talk shows worked the incident for weeks. A grand crucifixion festooned the front pages of all the papers.

Here trots Elliott Spitzer, Super AG, promoter of righteous behavior and thigh magnets, who chased moneychangers and ill-reputed women. Not much ink wasted here. Talk shows did a perfunctory one-night monologue and moved back to Bush.

[snip] Edwards categorically denied the relationship, stating: “The story is false. It’s completely untrue, ridiculous.” As he rejected the Enquirer’s charges, Edwards was making his wife and their marriage a central component of his campaign. If Edwards had had no affair, he wasn’t a hypocrite, not then and not now.

But if Edwards had an affair and lied about it, shouldn’t he suffer scrutiny akin to that of Craig? At least three-dozen daily newspapers in the United States published the Craig news the day after the Roll Call scoop, according to Nexis, but this morning not a single U.S. daily mentioned the Enquirer piece. [snip]

Well ole Chuckie looked at his calendar and found there is room for another Easter! I can cobble some cruciform shape outa cast off rough boards and I have some rusted bent hails ‘round here, no need to worry ‘bout tetanus.

Get Hairspray out front; let him tell us if he channeled Elizabeth while channeling Rielle Hunter. He convinced a jury he could do that very thing with a fetus.
He denied and the cock crowed.

Forget not, this is probably the Chosen One’s Anointed AG Selectee. We cannot have the MSM mucking around in this slop, can we?
Not much chance of that!

Every candidate needs ground transportation that allows for the vagaries of campaign statements and miscues. Now thanks to Kerry Motors, Obama has such a charismatic vehicle. Additionally, the directional signals have been removed. No sense in having an item that just confuses the voters.

The Chosen now can navigate instantaneously to an opposing position before anyone becomes aware of directional shift.

The Woodchuck is proud to present this Classic Campaign contrivance.

Remember, Rangel wanted those earmarks for a building to be erected in Harlem and named for him. These individuals are quite shameless.

Report: Rangel Has Four Rent-Stabilized Apartments

Rep. Charles Rangel has four rent-stabilized apartments, one of which is used as a campaign office, the New York Times reported on its Web site. Three of the apartments are located on the 16th floor. Two or all three of them may be combined, making one “penthouse.” The campaign office is on the 10th floor.

According to state and city regulations, rent-stabilized apartments are only to be used as primary residences. (emphasis added)

Mr. Rangel paid $3,894 a month for his four apartments in 2007, according to the Times’ Web site. All four apartments are in Lenox Terrace, a luxury development in Harlem owned by the Olnick Organization where Governor Paterson also has a home.

Despite a joint income of $270,000 last year for Mr. Paterson and his wife, the couple pays $1,250 a month for a two-bedroom. Mr. Paterson also has a home in upstate New York and has access to the Governor’s Mansion in Albany. [snip]

These state and city regulators don’t understand. Rangel is in congress. Rangel supports Obama. Rangel is a Democrat. Most importantly, Rangel is black. All of these conditions confer immunity for any transgressions and from finger pointing

Patterson isn’t congress, but he is a governor. Patterson supports Obama. Patterson is a Democrat. And Patterson is black.

What’s not to understand? This is NY, what about MA, RI or CT? Are they pure of all mis and malfeasance?

In VT, everything all ready belongs to the people’s collective and we haven’t enough apartments to have luxury. Besides, using the oxymoronic rent stabilized luxury apartment appellation clues you to La-La land’s boundaries. Only a liberal would dare use that term!

This is not to say that Republicans don’t engage in naughtiness, but they don’t seem to associate in this type of petty, rip off the poor we say we protect actions. Just a higher class of malefactors, I deduce.

Well, it is a waste of corn.

Belgian Brewer InBev is offering a big payday to shareholders of Anheuser-Busch Cos. (BUD) (BUD) Inc., but its bid to create the world’s largest beer company is already facing a major obstacle - U.S. election-year politics. [snip]
Republican Gov. Matt Blunt said Wednesday he opposes the deal, and directed the Missouri Department of Economic Development to see if there was a way to stop it.

“I am strongly opposed to the sale of Anheuser-Busch, and today’s offer to purchase the company is deeply troubling to me,” Blunt said in a statement.

Web sites have sprung up opposing the deal on patriotic grounds, arguing that such an iconic U.S. firm shouldn’t be handed over to foreign ownership. One of the sites, called SaveAB.com, was launched by Blunt’s former chief of staff, Ed Martin.

“Shareholders should resist choosing dollars over American jobs,” Martin said in a statement Wednesday night. “Selling out to the Belgians is not worth it - because this is about more than beer: it’s about our jobs and our nation.” [snip]

Really? Politicians, from local to federal, spent the dollar to dirt, making everything from the Flatiron Building to BUD cheap enough to buy with pocket change.

What about the obscene profits made by Big Beer?

Bud’s profit margin is 8.74%, slightly more than all of Big Oil. We need to tax these windfall profits, products of misery from the mortgage meltdown.

Even as their overall profits have soared, major oil companies are earning a relatively modest 8.7 percent profit margin — the portion of the sale of each barrel that hits the bottom line. Major banks and drug makers, for example, enjoy profits margins that are twice as big.

Besides, slimming down BUD will free up more corn for ethanol; that puts more pressure on Evil Oil.

They should worry, BUD will be the only alcohol available for the family buggy fuel tank, about for what BUD is fit, if that.

Incumbents

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain any more so it eats it.

It’s rather like  re-electing a politician.

If Barack Obama is a leader and atypical politician, I’m still waiting for him to demonstrate it.  For example, look at this quote from a speech he gave on economic issues and the sub-prime mortgage crisis today:

“If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling through no fault of their own,” he said. 

No fault of their own?  He sounds like the average, cowardly politician to me.  A leader would point out that people who didn’t consider what higher interest rates would do to their adjustable rate loans bear responsibility for their own financial problems.  Instead, like a typical politician, he shifts responsibility from the culpable to the rest of us who got smaller houses and reasonable loans.  Now our families get to do with less so we can bail out the investment banks and irresponsible borrowers.

Far from being a leader, Barack is the worst type of liberal politician.

This cannot happen in Vermont;we have a Republican Governor.

Albany Starts To Wonder at Paterson

Concerns Grow Over His Ability To Carry Out the Governorship

[snip]
“Paterson’s persona has been really damaged,” a politics professor at Baruch College, Doug Muzzio, said. “On Monday, he was sitting on top of the world. It was, ‘I am David Paterson and I am governor of New York.’ It now becomes, ‘I am David Paterson and I am this philandering, pay-for-it-with-other-people’s-money type of guy,’”

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Paterson struggled to account for a 2002 payment, billed to the credit card of his campaign committee, for an Upper West Side hotel room where Mr. Paterson had a sexual liaison.

[snip]
His honeymoon clocked in at around 7 hours — from the moment he recited the oath of office before a jubilant, political star-studded audience to when the first report of his infidelities broke online.
Mr. Paterson finds himself lumped together with two disgraced former state leaders, Eliot Spitzer and James McGreevey, as charter members of the “Governors Gone Wild” club.[snip]

He’s just enhancing his Democrat CV.

Protein Wisdom opined thusly on the Spitzer cockup.

Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?

[snip]
he previously prosecuted — quite aggressively and publicly – several citizens for the “crime” of operating an adult prostitution business. That hypocrisy precludes me from having any real personal sympathy for Spitzer, and no reasonable person could defend him from charges of rank hypocrisy. And he should be treated no differently — no better and no worse — than the average citizen whom law enforcement catches hiring prostitutes.

But how can his alleged behavior — paying another adult roughly $1,000 per hour to travel from New York to Washington to meet him for sex — possibly justify resignation, let alone criminal prosecution, conviction and imprisonment? Independent of the issue of his hypocrisy — which is an issue meriting attention and political criticism but not criminal prosecution — what possible business is it of anyone’s, let alone the state’s, what he or anyone else does in their private lives with other consenting adults?

See that? He paid f****ng $1000 per hour! Certainly that precludes any question of victimization, right? Leaving aside the issue of legality regarding an offense over which he gleefully prosecuted others with reference to criminal statutes . . . I mean, do you think he ought to be held to the letter of the law? Should he be treated more harshly because he was in a position of public trust, pledged to uphold the law? [snip]

No, he should be treated harshly for showing no fiscal responsibility (a Democrat foible). Paying some bimbo $5000.00 exhibits no common sense, it didn’t even buy silence.

For the charge of hypocrisy, having his johnson pounded flat on an anvil by a 3 pound lump hammer is light punishment.

Like most elitist clayfoot clowns, however, they never run for election on the prostitution platform. I don’t know why? If the public actions were compatible with personal morals, would not they be a shoo in to high office.

Worse, Spitzer’s problem doesn’t seem to be about getting dipped. He engaged in the activity called structuring, which he should know is quite criminal. He prosecuted many on Wall Street for similar missteps.

Let us clean up the political mess. The following steps make it easy:

1. First a warm and fuzzy auto-de-fe.
2. Then public crucifixions for all miscreants.

Where did I put my rack and sack of stones? And what’s with the stupid wife?

Not everyone pays all these taxes in every state; some states tax unprepared food, others like New Hampshire tax the scenic view you have from your property. To insult you further all tax, at some level, your view of the coffin lid. Politicians will look you in the eye and tell you most of these aren’t taxes, they’re fees for allowing you to exist.
This list is by no means definitive. Many more state and local “fees” are in place, limited only by the imagination of the “Elected Elite.”
I’m using $1000.00 as monthly earnings for ease of math and understanding. Also, I’m using Vermont as the basis for other taxes, which may or may not have the same rates OR even be collected where you reside. All is computed as single, no exemptions, 0 dependents

Federal Income Tax: @ 15% of gross adjusted = $150.00 X 12 = $1800.00

State Income Tax: decoupled from the Federal when Bush’s tax cuts took place. $434.00

Federal Medicare Tax: @ $1.36% of gross =$13.60 X 12 = $163.20

Social Security Tax (FICA): 15.7% of gross = $157.00 X 12 = $1884.00

The fact that the employer is paying your other half means he isn’t giving that to you in wages. You still pay it.

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA): Average $1.00 to $3.00 per month $1.75 X 12 = $21.00

Workers Compensation Tax: $25.00 X 12 = $300.00

Property Tax: My town = $1.43 per $100.00 evaluation $200,000 =$2860

Renters as well as homeowners pay this. Seriously, do you think the landlord pays your share?
Phone Fees and taxes land Line:

Federal Subscriber line charge $6.40 X 12 = $76.80

Federal Universal Service fee $0.65 X 12 = $7.80

Vermont Universal Service fund $0.24 X 12 = $2.88

Vermont State tax $1.13 X 12 = $13.56

Federal Excise tax $0.59 X 12 = $7.08

Phone Fees and taxes Cell phone:

Federal Universal Service fee $2.01 X 12 = $24.12

Vermont State tax $13.18 X 12 = $38.16

Vermont Universal Service fund $0.67 X 12 = $8.04

Regulatory Program Fee $0.96 X 12 = $11.52

Utility Taxes: $100/month electric bill 4.5% =$4.50 X 12 = $54.00

Vermont residences do not pay sales tax on energy used, they do pay an Energy Efficiency Charge, between 4.5 and 5%, funds the statewide Energy Efficiency Utility
Gasoline Tax: $0.42 cents/gal Federal and State(some states add their tax as a percentage of the per gal charge) Thought this ruling is of interest. The state will have no untaxed gasoline in cars.

At 20 MPG, 100 miles =$2.10 X 15,000 miles/year = $315.00
Vehicle License Registration Tax: for pleasure /year $60.00

Rooms and Meals Tax: Eat out once a week

$30.00 dinner for two = $2.70 = $140.40

9% on everything from coffee to the motel room. Add up all those lattes and bagels for more tax, tip optional
Here’s the annual total of those taxes I can actually figure. You need to add the sales, use and other taxes as you believe you pay them:

TOTAL: $8161.56

Your income: $12,000.00

Percentage of income paid in taxes/year: 68% of Gross

With all this the Congress wants to let the “cuts” expire and raise taxes on “only the wealthy.” Aren’t you glad to be only poor.
Extras:
Sales Tax: Charged on everything except unprepared food and first $110 of clothing, State rate is 6% with some towns adding 1% to that.
Service Charge Tax: Same rates at Sales tax. Placed on services like medical, dental, construction etc. 6% with some towns adding 1% to that.
Use tax: Buy a item out of state for $100.00, pay the sales tax there, bring it into Vermont and pay 6% use tax here.
Marriage License Tax: to make legal what you are doing now, $15.00.
Excise Taxes: Federal taxes on things like tires for the car $3.00/tire added on to the cost, don’t forget the sales tax.
The following taxes you pay when you use any middleman for work, selling or buying, shipping:
Building Permit Tax; A variable fee based on the cost of the project, gets you a piece of paper with writing on it allowing you to alter your own property.
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA
Road UsageTax
Accounts Receivable Tax
CDL license Tax
Inventory Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gross Receipts Tax
Food License Tax
Corporate Income Tax:
Luxury Taxes
Real Estate Tax
Personal Property Tax
Cigarette Tax
Dog License Tax
Hunting License Tax
Fishing License Tax
Liquor Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Inheritance Tax
Well Permit Tax

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut.  After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies, ‘I cannot accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.’  The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Then, a Congressman comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies, ‘I cannot accept money from you.  I’m doing community service this week.’  The Congressman is very happy and leaves the shop.
The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.
And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the members of our Congress.
Vote carefully this year.

Hope and change are on the way so spend your way to wealth!

401(k) debit draws red flags

A new debit card that lets consumers use ATMs to withdraw money from their 401(k) plans is drawing a sharp reaction from financial planners.

The ReservePlus card is marketed by Reserve Solutions Inc., a New York financial firm that says it has 10,000 cardholders already. [snip]

“For every $10 you take out of the account, you only have $6 or $7 to spend, probably closer to $6, which means you’re giving up a third of your money,” said Stuart Ritter, certified financial planner for T. Rowe Price, a Baltimore asset-management company. “You’re also giving up money to spend in retirement, so you are by definition lowering your lifestyle in retirement.” [snip]

Employees always have been able to take out loans against their 401(k) accounts, but not with ATM cards. The ReservePlus program allows employees to transfer approved loans into online accounts that continue to earn interest. Employees then can withdraw cash from the account at ATMs, up to the maximum approved by their employers. They also can use their debit cards to buy goods and services. [snip]

“The need for individuals to save for retirement has grown over the year due to the uncertainty of Social Security, the shift away from pension plans and the increasing cost of health care,” said Jennifer Engle, spokeswoman for Fidelity Investments, a Boston money manager. [snip]

What’s with this uncertainty with Social Security? All the politicians, including the candidates for President say it is safe; otherwise, they would have fixed any inadequacies long ago. To complete the circle, we need Universal Health Care.

Regardless of the wisdom of waiting, the 401(k) withdrawal rate has been rising recently. [snip]

Besides, the government will protect you from yourself if something goes bump in the night. So feel safe to borrow for what you need/like/want/desire.