Another One. Oy.

How many Republican politicians owe back taxes?

Strikes me as some pretty minor stuff, frankly. Totally removed from Daschle’s situation.

From the linked story “Kirk routinely gave any speaking fees he earned to Austin College, the committee said, and did not list them on his tax returns”
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Isn’t that how the government got their claws into Joe Louis? He would give his purses to the Army or Navy Relief Fund and then he got socked for not paying income tax.

How many taxes are the big corporations not paying? How much money are said corporations funneling to Congress members?

Does this have anything to do with how available these records are now? Maybe there were undotted I’s and uncrossed t’s in the earlier tax records of earlier appointees, it’s just that now these things are more transparent?

I mean, as long as we’re going on a “Thou Shalt Not Evade Taxes” witch hunt, we might as well round everyone up.

Cliff,
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I agree. I propose we go at it with the idea that you can’t do your own taxes or at the very least, that you get to check your neighbor’s taxes to ensure they are paying everything they owe.
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But then, I bet we would still have errors and mistakes. Our tax code is just to dang complicated. Paying your taxes totally correct would require avoiding charitable donations except for cash gifts, buying only one house, keeping every receipt and cataloging them correctly, etc…who has time for all of that. We need to be working our way out of the economic quicksand that we are in currently.

KT:
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This isn’t “another one”.
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The Senate Finance Committee’s memo says this:
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Mr. Kirk’s nomination questionnaire explained that he routinely asked that his speaking honoraria be assigned to Austin College, his alma mater, to help fulfill a pledge he had made to the college for a scholarship fund. Since he asked for the honoraria to be assigned to Austin College, he did not think the honoraria were taxable income to him. His paid preparer also thought this was proper.

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So:
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Cleared to do so by a qualified tax accountant, Ron Kirk donated every cent of those speaking fees to a scholarship fund, instead of claiming that money as income.
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How could this possibly be an embarrassment for Obama, unless scandal-mongerers are allowed by a complacent or willing press to turn good deeds into “questions” to be exploited by desperate and unscrupulous political enemies?

When will Palin resign?

bryan – I agree that the tax code could use some simplifying. But I’m afraid that a narrative is being built here of, “All Democrats cheat on their taxes” – not from this piece alone, but from this and the numerous other articles on Obama appointees with tax problems.
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I would like to see if it really is limited to Democratic politicians, or if it’s endemic to the system.

Minor stuff — AND the person will pay the minor amount, plus penalties.
TRULY significant: Millions in taxes not paid by means of “tax havens” for the well-connected wealthy. Some of whom even run for national office. Example: Mitt Romney. Quoting from a Massachusetts newspaper: “While in private business… utilized shell companies in two offshore tax havens to help eligible investors avoid paying U.S. taxes, federal and state records show.” He’s hardly the only multi-millionaire using this type of trickery. Truly damaging to country. Should be broadcast as outrageous. Why is THIS whole topic “off limits”, dear press people??? Come on, why??

It would seem that the Obama vetting process includes a free tax audit.
So yes, let’s offer a free tax audit to all our elected representatives, shall we?
Let’s see who accepts the offer, and what we learn.

Small potatoes. According to Stuart, no potatoes.

This is far more disturbing.

DOJ Releases OLC Memos: Why Hide Bradbury’s Legal Smackdown?

The DOJ has released a number of previously suppressed OLC memos today, including one dated October 6, 2008, in which Steven Bradbury calls prior DOJ/OLC/WH and other governmental counsel rationale into serious question.

In fact, it reads like a thinly veiled, but ever-so-politely worded, call of “bullsh!t.”

It’s laugh out loud funny. Or would be if it weren’t for the fact that it took more than 7 years to issue it — during which time the government was still operating under the craptastic legal assumptions, one presumes.

Why was this kept hidden?

One would guess because the Bush WH refused to declassify the memos on which this legal bullsh!t calling was based. But I smell a hefty dose of CYA with a side of keeping Cheney’s and Addington’s ginormous egos in check from the Mukasey crew.

http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/03/02/doj-releases-olc-memos-why-hide-bradburys-legal-smackdown/#more-37692

I suspect that if we audited the top 5% of earners in this country we could probably get the government a few billion dollars…

This is small potatoes. We should separate those who willfully failed to pay tax or where the facts are so egregious that a willful failure can be inferred, e.g., Geithner and Daschle. Kirk doesn’t rise to that level, at all.

Of course, if we’re going to cover taxes and appointments, shouldn’t Swampland be asking about the taxable implications of Dodd’s and Conrad’s sweetheart deals with Countrywide. And what about Rangel’s failure to pay tax on the difference between the rent-controlled rent that he paid and a fair market rent, when the real estate company was not under legal obligation to rent at rent-controlled rates. And then there’s Conyers. He didn’t pay tax on the fair market value of the services he coerced from staffers when those services constituted taxable income. Then there’s the big enchilada. What about the taxable issues arising out of Barack Obama’s home purchase. He paid less out of pocket than he would have but for his bringing Rezko to the table–the amount he saved is taxable income.

Oh, and speaking of Conyers, look what his charming wife had to say today: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/02/attention-eric-holder-lets-talk-about-the-bigots-in-detroit/

Let’s see how much press that gets. The “you don’t look like me” out of a white politician would be instant political death, as a California mayor has recently found out after he made a crude watermelon joke.

Is this why the Republican Senator from that New England state decided he didn’t want to be in the Obama administration?
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Maybe he couldn’t pass the Tax test?????
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The whole policy disagreement thing could have just been a side show!!
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I swear the MSM never thinks.

“The “you don’t look like me” out of a white politician would be instant political death, as a California mayor has recently found out after he made a crude watermelon joke.”
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Why shouldn’t it be, spoob? Are we supposed to be advocating for people who hand out insults? I don’t even have to invoke race here. It’s that simple. What’s wrong with you anyway?
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On top of that, instead of this really small potatoes stuff you keep ranting about, what about the Bernanke/GOP handout of 7,200,000,000,000 dollars, or, an amount of money so large, that at 0%, it will take you, at $131/Month*, the entire Hadean, Archean, Proterazoic, and Phanerazoic eons to pay it off!

Shuster is trying to get Barrasso to say Rush is wrong but Barasso won’t do it.

Uh, spoob, I know you aren’t all that bright, so FYI, those aforementioned eons span 4,586,000,000 years!

Predictably, Karen Tumulty asks: “Is the answer here simpler tax laws?”

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Ms. Tumulty: The answer for the darlings of the Washington press corps (i.e., Democrats) is for those Democrats to stop cheating and evading the taxes that they owe.

Oh, I almost forgot the footnote that asterisk* was attached to:
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*At the time of the formation of the Earth (Hadean era) it is estimated that one day lasted some 7 hours, and the moon orbited in approximately 26 hours, requireing some sort of adjustment to the terms of the note.

The Borgen Project has some good info on the cost of addressing global poverty.

$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget

yes, simpler tax laws. please.

Uh 53_3, go f * * * yourself. I didn’t say that the white politician shouldn’t be cooked. I was merely talking about the double standard. And that, you f’in moron, is obvious from my post.

And if you think that elected officials not paying their fair share of taxes is not an issue, well, then we’ll just have to disagree. Would be interesting to see a Time Magazine political reporter ask about these tax issues, now that taxes and officials are such a big deal. And by the way, 53_3, the point is not that the money is small potatoes, but rather that the tax law is a great way to clean up corruption.

And 53_3, what are you a geologist? Or do you just google things so that you can show off on a blog. In any event, you could have just said from the beginning of the earth until now. But hey, you gotta show off, SFB.

Uh, 53_3…7 TRILLION dollars?? Excuse me? And what exactly does any of your response have to do with what spob said?

53_3, thanks for the tip. I had forgotten that the moon used to be a lot closer to the earth and that the earth used to spin a lot faster. Whatever.

Simpler tax code? Yes, please.

This is me, holding my breath.

So the guy donated money he earned in speaking fees to his alma mater which is the bulk of the money requiring him to pay back taxes and thats supposed to be a big deal? It certainly isn’t to me.

“Or do you just google things so that you can show off on a blog. In any event, you could have just said from the beginning of the earth until now. But hey, you gotta show off, SFB.”
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I know more about just geology than you will ever know about life in general spoob.
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I actually agree that everyone should pay their taxes, spoob, but it is your compatriots who raised it, and general corruption, to a high art.
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Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
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And as far as rubbing it in, hey, I figure it this way, just like in say, maybe 2002, or 2003:
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If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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Oh, what’s another nugget? Oh yeah:
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Love it or leave it!
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Or how about this one:
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Traitor!
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Or better yet:
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Get a life!

Yoshiattack:
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Yes, that is TRILLION.
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/bailout_total_trillions/2008/11/24/154693.html
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Just to show where you and spoob’s priorities are.
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BTW Yoshi, there is an old saying:
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They took my neighbor, and I said nothing.
They took my brother, and I said nothing.
Then, they came for me…
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Think about that next time you give Rush Limbaugh’s “Magic Negro” skit a listen!

Love it…

By the way lets look at some of Nolan Finley’s previous articles.
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Americans are about to learn that when it comes to protecting their civil liberties, they can’t relax no matter which party is in power in Washington.
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After spending eight years wailing about President George W. Bush’s relentless disregard for the Bill of Rights, Democrats are preparing to launch an assault on the most precious individual freedom of all — free speech.
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They are trying to shut down conservative talk radio, the primary source of criticism of their programs and policies.

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Finley is a right wing nut. Nobody would believe anything he says other than some dumb ass right winger.

Michael Steele apologized for questioning the perfection of Rush Limbaugh. They are all terrified of him. Maybe they snorted oxys with him or something.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19517.html

I guess we should be happy that free speech includes assassination innuendo and death threats.
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Set Rusty Free!

trifecta:
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That is too shameful.
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How can one toss their dignity away like that and still look themselves in the mirror?

Steele apologized/”clarified” to Politico. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

53_3, when you stop talking like a childish rascal then people might actually take you seriously. I mean, spoob? You must think you’re oh so very clever.
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By the way, the Man is now a Democrat and the Congress is now solidly Democratic (and a lot of Republicans were against this bailout). So the whole blaming Republicans for the sins of their fathers thing is getting old as a get out of jail free card. That’s about the only thing I can understand about your “arguments” anymore.
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I also noticed you’ve confirmed Godwin’s Law is real, again, in your response. Exactly what is that quote supposed to mean, in this case? Given your mention of “Magic Negro,” might you be saying that I’m going to get it eventually because I’m a minority and Republican? Thanks for the sanctimonious garbage.

Dang it I said by 5pm. I was off a little
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19517.html

“Thanks for the sanctimonious garbage.”
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Well, if you like rubbing elbows with ‘em, by all means, join ‘em.
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I’ve watched the Republicans for 40 years and there is a lot of history you conveniently ignore.

“So the whole blaming Republicans for the sins of their fathers thing is getting old as a get out of jail free card.”
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The last eight years actually did happen Yoshi. And like I said, if you can stand the stench, by all means, stay there!

“(and a lot of Republicans were against this bailout).”
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What a load of malarky, Yoshi. The Bernanke handout was a GOP thing, and it dwarfs virtually everything else, except perhaps, the GDP of the entire planet!
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Besides that, they are advocating something that won’t sell, and that has been shown historically to be an effective action in times of economic trouble.

Yoshi, the way I really read it is that you don’t have a problem with the endemic racism in your party.
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And that is a problem, now that we see it displayed openly in internal GOP warfare.
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Of course, my sentiments are that you should stand proudly on the bow of the Titanic, while these rabid rats run all around you, jumping off, biting whatever is in sight, in a feeding frenzy of hate and an unwillingness to accept the fact that the American people have spoken.
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Priceless…

53_3,
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Tax cuts and carefully dog-whistled bigotry constitute the entire platform of the Republican Party at this point. Give our trolls a break – they’re doing the best they can with the material they have.
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Oh, I left out spying on innocent Americans. My bad.

Yes KT, the tax code is too complicated. The trouble is that there are too many people who benefit from that fact. As long as there’s money to be made gaming the system, there will be little incentive to simplify it.
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On the particulars, I can certainly see why he would have assumed the speaking fees would be exempt, the sports tickets on the other hand……

“Besides that, they are advocating something that won’t sell, and have been against something that has been shown historically to be an effective action in times of economic trouble.”
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Preview is my friend.

Friar:
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I know. I’m done.
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It’s just better to toast our trolls than it is to argue with our own. When I sees it, I goes after it…

I’m as guilty of being an attack dog here on Swampland as anyone, but I just want to point out that Yoshi has pretty reliably been a reasonable poster.
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He’s not a troll, because he’s not here to disrupt our conversations.

Cliff:
True. He actually is one of the better rw posters. I was actually going after spoob when Yoshi went after me, so I am guilty as charged.
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I’m done with it.
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Back on track though, I honestly do think that cleaner clearer tax laws without so many loopholes would make it much easier to avoid problems like Kirk and others have.

One would think that Obama’s vetting team would be overly gun shy and cautious to the point that even a whiff of tax problems would have sent Kirk packing. Apparently not…

Shouldn’t Obama find someone to fire and publicly humiliate over this?

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Well since we are done with that can we move on to hurling insults at Steele for begging Limbaugh for forgiveness?

Of course Yoshi isn’t a troll –this isn’t DailyKos.

How do you describe someone with such low self esteem that they can crawl under a snake and is less principled than a…?

Lie, cheat, steal, obfuscate?

Just another day of the OBAMA NATION.

No big whoop.

Move On (to Wall Street).

How many tax cheats does that make now?

That 70′s Show had fewer belly laughs!

All,
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I stand corrected.
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My apologies, Yoshi.

Keep defending the Loose Changers, media libniks!

Spiro Agnew would expect no less.

Where’s Michael Phelps smoking dope or Thug Brown smacking the girl or Fancy Leftosi watching 500 million zillion jobs a month go poof or some other BWI brat, when the Obama Nation needs it (to take the media’s Black Rock eye off the tax cheaters ball)?

Hillary’s still doing the Mideast, of course.

Bound to be another Eric WHAT PARDONS Holder moment there soon…

No offense taken, thanks to all who IDed me.
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Anyway, 53_3, this Republican+Racism theme that you keep sticking Republicans with is irritating and cannot go on forever. There are clear cut examples of racism on both sides of the aisle. It’s just human nature. Only wishful thinking or blindingly rose colored glasses can relegate it to exactly one major political party or another. And that is what you seem to be doing.
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To put it shortly, I accept that there’s racism in the Republican party. It’s time for you to accept there’s racism in the Democratic party, por ejemplo, against minorities who are Republican and thereby perceived as “race traitors” by some.
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One other thing that you forget is that the Republican Party has been a so-called “big tent” for a while now. We’ve got the social conservatives who try to stick the gay marriage issue to the forefront, to the detriment of the party, we’ve got the fiscal conservatives (who are jerked around these days), we’ve got low-income people, we’ve got the Wall Street suits…there’s a lot of different opinions. Thus, naturally, we have some Republican officials who are racist and some who are not. So just because I vote Republican, although it might mean that I’m voting for the same ticket as some racists (as I did in this last presidential election), doesn’t mean I’m voting FOR RACIST PRINCIPLES. I would note that there was a bit of racism on the other side as far as a number of people voting for Obama because, well, he was black. (it means that you weren’t voting for the other guy because he was white. Go figure)
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I vote conservative because I believe that conservative principles are the best way to make this country work. Voting Democratic just because we have Strom Thurmonds or Pat Buchanans on the same side as me would be antithetical to my beliefs on how government should work. So don’t tar everybody on the right with the same brush. That’s simplistic, it’s far from any way to get things done, and it’s intellectually dishonest.

As for this handout being totally a GOP thing…you must be forgetting that to get through a Democratic controlled Congress, TARP had to have Democratic votes. Uh oh.

If your own tax professional tells you that you’re clean, what more are you supposed to do? That he wasn’t, in fact, clean indicates that, yeah, maybe the tax laws could use a rewrite. Will it happen? Like the other poster, I’m not holding my breath.
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As for the Repugs, of _course_ they’re clean. They put their money in legal off-shore tax havens. The smart ones, anyway.

Well since we are done with that can we move on to hurling insults at Steele for begging Limbaugh for forgiveness?
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Absolutely: Steele is a little girl and he likes to braid ribbons into his hair.

OBAMA NATION JOB APPLICATION (Rev 309)

Name: ________________________________

Slave Name: __________________________

Alleged Place of Birth: ______________

Relationship to Kenya: _______________

ACORN Membership Number: _____________

Indonesian Passport Number: __________

PayPal Gaza Account E-mail: __________@arafat.ir

Years Known Blago: ___________________

Years Paid Blago: ____________________

Month Denied Blago: __________________

Cell Number: _________________________

Subpoena Number: _____________________

Favorite Malt Liquor: ________________

Last IRS Audit (Julian date): __________

Back Taxes Due (in thousands):

________________________________________

Relationship to Spiro Agnew: ___________

Favorite Shredder: _____________________

Year Built: ____________________________

Where Pawned: __________________________

Free Tickets Received To Next Week’s
White House Willie Nelson Concert: _____

Years You’ve Been Willie Nelson: _______

Favorite NBA Team (from Illinois): _____ Bulls

Season Pass Holder Since: ______________

% of Union Ownership of Season Pass: _00%

If Chosen To Work For The Obama Nation,
I Would Be Interested In Working For (check any)…

___ The department that likes the money

___ The department that prints the money

___ The department that spends the money

___ A guy named Timmy

If Chosen To Work For The Obama Nation,
I Would Refrain From The Following (check any)…

___ Smoking

___ Drinking

___ Paying Taxes

___ Cleaning My Mess After The Inaugural Meet Up

Your Unique KSA’s (check any)…

___ Vetting and/or macramé

___ Stalin era folk tunes

___ Hate speech as urban theology (Rev Wright sect)

___ Hate speech as political liability (Rev Wright schism)

___ Rezko Realty Associate

___ Wall Street lobbyist / Old Clinton friend

___ Offshore shelter specialist / Old Clinton friend

___ Labradoodle trainer

___ Typical white people overseer

___ Legal coward

___ Eric Holder and other resurrections of Tawanna Brawley

___ Buffalo Soldieries

___ Former mayor of Detroit

___ President of Canada

___ Hawaiian has been

“It’s just better to toast our trolls than it is to argue with our own”
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No offense to fitty, but I say it’s not better, and certainly not more productive. Not that trashing a real troll isn’t amusing at times, mind you. Tearing apart Sponge Bob (Rush Limbaugh writ small) might be fun, but that’s what Joe’s schtick–raising up right-wing talking pts. only to disassemble them (or perhaps dissemble them).
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IMHO, the GOP is currently irrelevant. If the MSM reflected that reality, we could go about the business of solving the problems that ail America. But due to self-interest, they have to sell a still legitimate GOP. The dems have all the power, and the fight should be between our corporatist-hawkish wing and our more progressive wing. That would be far better/more productive in my book, and more likely to shape Obama’s decisions going FWD, against further escalation in Afghan, lingering empire in Iraq, insane tax cuts et al.
~
I outright reject that harmony or unity vs. a fragmented GOP is in our long-term interests. Perhaps in the dem’s political interests but that’s an entirely ‘nother matter.

Ridiculous. The guy basically gave away his labor as charitable donations. He deserves to be able to fully deduct those speaker’s fees. By not reporting them, he actually saved the IRS money.

How do you describe someone with such low self esteem that they can crawl under a snake and is less principled than a…?
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53_3:
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“Troll” is a very specific, very precise term, not to be used to describe general douchebaggery.
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It’s especially important not to describe people with whom you disagree –even violently — as engaging in trollery, because you are effectively asking the moderator to ban comments.
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Here’s a decent definition of “troll”:
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An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]

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Sometimes Question Hillary (hulagate/Obamish, etc.) engages in trollery. Many more times QH does not.
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The entire point of trollery is to destroy the discussion forum through surreptitious means.
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When rightists go to DailyKos, and pose as debaters arguing in good faith, with the intent to disrupt honest debate, and inflame conflict between unaware participants, that is trollery. Because many people are stupid or new at DailyKos, sometimes they call each other trolls, and use the mechanisms that allow certain users to hide the commentary of other users, simply because they disagree with commentary. This was especially the case during the Hillary/Obama primaries, and many Kossacks have much for which to be ashamed. It resembled the rightists at RedState banning Ron Paul supporters, or calling John McCain supporters “liberal trolls”. It sometimes very eerily resembles movement conservatives’ tendency to call anybody to the left of Hitler a “liberal”, and the centrist press corps’ tendency to call any opinion not shared by a consensus of their colleagues “liberal”.
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Trollery is a real and ugly phenomenon, and must be combatted vigilantly. It’s especially effective in political discussion forums because of the propensity for people to argue like idiots when confronted with other people who do not share their perspectives.
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Mis-naming opinion-holders –especially unpopular or minority opinion-holders– as “trolls” –especially “Concern Trolls” or “Purity Trolls”– is just as real and ugly a phenomenon, used in its lowest form to suppress dissent and real debate.
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When people call rightists trolls in order to brand opposing commentary as “unreadable”, they’re wrong to do so –much more wrong than the rightists are to make poor or even racist arguments. The democratic necessity for free and honest debate between opposing ideas to be heard by people who might otherwise not be exposed to those ideas compels us to protect our forums from trolls and those who would seek to use the word “troll” for short-term political or personal gain.
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I’m sure that you knew all of that already, 53_3, but I just thought a reminder might help everybody here, including myself, of course.

Yoshi, Having worked closely with Democrats I can attest that there are racists within its ranks. In fact, it is often the most insidious kind because they pretend to be liberal as they patronize you into the back of the bus. However, while I clearly don’t speak for everyone here, I’m sure many here would agree that there is a major difference between those incidents of racism among Democrats and those of the GOP.
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Democratic racism is on the individual level. No groups or party can be held completely responsible for the prejudices of its individual members. However, the GOP has intentionally used race and race baiting as a tool to achieve electoral success. Since the 1964 civil rights act, the GOP has systematically, pit lower-income whites against minorities.
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According to the GOP affirmative action is responsible for every white male that is unemployed and most recently, minorities are responsible for the fall of the housing market.
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African Americans, especially the church going, born-again type are socially conservative and would be a natural constituency for the GOP, they have never been able to attract this group in any great numbers because of their southern strategy which is not now nor has it ever been limited to the south.

“…It’s time for you to accept there’s racism in the Democratic party, por ejemplo, against minorities who are Republican and thereby perceived as “race traitors” by some…”

…

That would require intellectual curiosity, moral clarity, and a completed 6-year Associate’s degree in candor — commodities rarely found at any DNC hack time on Time.

To echo Dee
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If you can find an attack ad by a Dem that is similar to this one in the last 40 years then I will say that both parties are equally racist. But we all know there is only one party that race baits this way at that level.
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Of course the sick part is that a minority did the add for Jesse Helms. Go figure.

Stuart,
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It was my fault, not 53_3′s in this case (unless I’m apologizing to the wrong thread), but your comments are, as usual, useful and on target.

My apologies, 53_3, I must have misread.

“When rightists go to DailyKos, and pose as debaters arguing in good faith, with the intent to disrupt honest debate, and inflame conflict between unaware participants, that is trollery.”

…

Sorry, but WHO was elected to split these flame throwers from the thinking lefty rabble?

Kos, Hoofy, Move On, DNC, and the other all-knowing liberal loon sites are largely censored, which I can’t even say about this repository.

I’d suggest a computer program to subjectively alleviate the mental misfit clap trap, beginning numerically between 52 and 54.

The IRC is domestic terrorism, cloaked in professional malfeasance, for the benefit of NTEU scum. Nothing more.

The proper response would be the revenue stream overhaul we’ve long neglected but for the benefit of urban Congressional districts (dems) with paper parsing as a career move.

Compliance can easily be increased, openly, with a national sales tax replacing all other common federal, state, county, and municipal draws on the enterprise stream.

Such efficiency of purpose would unemploy the dead weight at Treasury, and launched exponential private sector job growth and commerce — but why quibble over national fiscal care when Obama’s doing such a fine job.

“Having worked closely with Democrats I can attest that there are racists within its ranks.”

========================

STOP PICKING ON BILL, HILL, BILL, BARRACK, BILL, MICHELLE, ERIC, AL, JESSE, JOE, GERALDINE, BILL…

Sorry, but WHO was elected to split these flame throwers from the thinking lefty rabble?
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You know what, QH…I said “rightists”, but I should have said “comedians”. Rightists are not in any way solely responsible for the trollery at DailyKos.
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I get your point about Republicans not being welcome there. I’ve always had a problem with it in theory, but I do understand that the site is an activist site for Democrats to use in grassroots organizing, and not really an open forum, so I’m not upset about it. Debate between left and right isn’t their goal.
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I don’t like the more Maoist aspects of it, for sure. Self-correction was tested and failed miserably during the primaries. There were a lot worse usernames than “Question Hillary” going around dKos at that shameful time, QH, more like “F*ck That Racist Hillary”. Your theories on Hillary Clinton would have made front page –I even saw mention of Vince Foster’s “murder” once, I believe.

…and by the way, QH, many liberals are capable of intellectual honesty.

Yes. Simpler tax laws.

KT:
” .. Is the answer here simpler tax laws? …”
That would severely limit our options when we want to get THEM – the targeted ones. The more convoluted the process is, the easier it is to trap our victim.
Think about the nebulous world of “judicial discretion” that under our system of institutionalized racism, tends to disproportionately incarcerate certain targeted members of our society when accused of certain crimes – quite “legally”.

WisconsinLiberal Says:
” .. I suspect that if we audited the top 5% of earners in this country we could probably get the government a few billion dollars…”

Aren’t computers meant to make it easier to unravel such a tangled web that cheats Uncle Sam out of tax dollars?
So why don’t we invest in the speediest supercomputers for the project – with payback in two years or less?
Hint: Many more lawmakers may thus be snagged. And the top 5% of earners – the off-shore banking, tax-shelter ferrets with unnamed Swiss bank accounts who contribute heavily to our lawmakers’ election campaigns – would vehemently oppose it.
And the troubled lawmakers are the ones to approve the project.
Need I say more?

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No, I don’t have a racist Democratic ad. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a race-baiting ad…see Obama’s Rush Limbaugh smear of McCain in the general election (in fact, there are a lot of examples from the usual suspects). However, I do note that since you claim Democratic racism is the result of bad apples, posting an attack ad by a Republican -individual- is not the best way to go about it. (yes, I know more than one Republican has done this in the past…)
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http://washingtontimes.com/news/2005/nov/01/20051101-104932-4054r/
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This is an example of systematic race-based slurs by the Maryland Democratic Party. “invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master,” MD Senate President using the term “Uncle Tom,” “racial jabs are fair…” Maybe Oreo cookies, although that may have been benign.
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When it comes down to it, racial faults are always the actions of individuals. I’m sure you were expecting me to bring this up, but Steele’s election at least proves that the people afraid of Obama’s skin aren’t a big enough group to prevent a black man from ascending to the chairmanship. On the other hand, I hate to say it, but a guy who belonged to an all-white country club apparently was a serious contender for a while. Which is embarrassing.
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Which brings me to something else. Republicans’ most general philosophy on race is that it should be near-completely inconsequential. In my opinion, it is somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction to Al Sharpton and his ilk’s grandstanding, although it’s hard to say if the chicken came before the egg. As Sharpton and many in the Democratic establishment oftentimes jump the shark in an effort to make themselves relevant, some Republicans polarize and try to become racially INSENSITIVE instead of color-blind. IMO this is what was going on in the RNC ballot. “So what if he belonged to a club that’s never had a black member in 126 years? He’s qualified!”
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One other thing about talking about race: usually, the word is code for “black vs. white” or something of that nature. Now, exactly why is that? Why, when people posit the racist Republican thesis, do they forget Bobby Jindal being a popular Indian Republican governor? Why do they forget Joseph Cao? To take this further, why was the question about a first black President so bantered about prior to Obama’s even emerging on the national stage when “first Asian President,” “first Jewish President,” “first Hispanic President” was never a considered question, even though discrimination against those groups by WASP supremacists also exists?
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No, probably not racist by omission. But freaking weird. It just shows how America is so FIXATED on blacks and whites. Maybe if we just stopped that habit then we would get along better. To wit: when our new AG said we were “a nation of cowards” about race, yes, he basically meant black vs. white, and he just was stoking the fire. That’s not the right way to go about it.

Another thing: as I said before, these racial issues really don’t have much of a stake in the politics of either side. Conservative vs. liberal is a divide over finance, constitutional interpretation, defense, etc…but not race. Just like social conservatism and its oft-attached evangelical principles don’t really have a lot to do with either side, which is why Obama felt that the evangelicals were in his reach.
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That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe social conservatism is important sometimes – I’m not pro-choice. But the divide really is about methods of governing for me and many other voters.

(this can be seen, of course, by the shift from the Republican Party as a Northern construction to its absorption of Southern Democrats in the 20th century)

the word “oy” expresses my sentiments exactly. nothing we can do about this until people are responsible enough to take care of their own tax liabilities.