Another day, another nominee tax problem

This time it's HHS nominee, Kathleen Sebelius. Of course since she is a Democrat it is only an "unintentional error".

Apparently taxes are only for plumbers.

Bawney Fwank - payroll aparatchik

Not content with controlling executive pay, the House Financial Services Committee would allow the government to control the pay of all employees of companies receiving bailout funds.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

Meet the new board of directors :

Why the New York Times is only fit for fishwrap

Stories that don't fit the pre-conceived liberal template never make it past the editor. How else to explain why the Times spiked an October story linking ACORN to the Obama campaign.

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”

Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.

During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.

By all means, let's have the Democrats, via the federal government, bail out newspapers. What could go wrong??

President Narcissus

Victor Davis Hanson with a good catch of the focus of Obama's auto nationalization speech at (on?) The Corner.

My Auto Task Force

And so today, I am announcing that my administration will...

In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan.

I am committed to doing all I can to see if a deal can be struck...

Now, I know that when people even hear the word "bankruptcy" it can be a bit unsettling, so let me explain what I mean. What I am talking about is..

What I am not talking about is a process where a company is broken up, sold off, and no longer exists. And what I am not talking about is having a company stuck in court for years...

It is my hope that the steps I am announcing...

let me say it as plainly as I can ...

I'm directing my team to take several steps.

I want to work with Congress to identify parts of the Recovery Act..

(emphasis Hanson's)

Somebody better adjust the humility setting on the 'prompter.

Barack Obama, CEO

Not content to simply run the executive branch of the federal government, the community organizer with 2 months of executive experience under his belt has decided to try his hand at an auto company. Politico reports that Obama has demanded and received the resignation of GM's Rick Wagoner.

So we have now come to the point where government can now dictate how corporations staff their executive positions. So the same folks who bungled the AIG bonuses are now going to try to run a car company.

And before you whiny liberals start to bark about how they took federal funds so there are now strings attached; you had better think twice. Are you ready to carry this principle to accepting welfare, student loans, social security or having the government cover your medical expenses??

The next question is: who decides the new CEO?? Will it be Obama?? The UAW ?? Will the stockholders even have a say ?? I don't believe it is an understatement to say that this may be the first step toward nationalization of industry. This could serve as a precedent for feds taking over the banking industry.

Finally, this will have a severe chilling effect to the extend federal bailouts are truly wise and/or necessary.

So, now the Obama administration runs the banking and auto industries. Whose next ??

Kudos to Mark Levin

Instapundit has video of the truly massive crowd for his book signing today in Tysons Corner, VA. It is encouraging to see that the November's defeat is not lingering and that there is still a willingness to stand for conservatism. Or at least to stand against far left liberalism.

I have to make sure I get my copy.

Football health advisory

Watching your team lose the Super Bowl can kill you.

Well that's just great!! As an Eagles fan I won't be buying any ripe bananas.

What happened to the seas receding??

The residents of Fargo, ND probably want to know. Or are Teleprompter Jesus' aquatic miracles limited to the salt water variety???

As an aside, I think he is right to not create logistical problems/distractions during the crisis. Just as W was right not to go to New Orleans during the Katrina operations. But the media clearly has double standards. Think there will be any questioning about whether Obama hates white people??

Earth Hour

And hopefully, the Slacker house will look like this....



Yeah, I know it's out of season but it will really piss off the neighbors. For good measure I will also drive around my SUV -- with the high beams on.

I intend to have the carbon footprint of a Sasquatch.

UPDATE:
Or celebrate Human Achievement Hour (it's probably the more mature thing to do)



H/T: Instapundit

What the hell were they thinking??

This moonbat, John Murtha, has received the Navy's highest civilian honor citing

Murtha's "courageous leadership, vision, and loyalty to the men and women of the Department of the Navy," Winter presented the influential chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel with the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award, an honor bestowed in "those extraordinary cases where individuals have demonstrated exceptionally outstanding service of substantial and long term benefit to the Navy, Marine Corps, or the Department of the Navy as a whole," a Murtha release stated.

But this is the same Murtha who accused a squad of Marines as being cold-blooded killers claiming they murdered civilians in Haditha. Murtha never gave his fellow Marines the benefit of the doubt nor did he even wait to hear any of the evidence before pronouncing judgment. So a few Marines get smeared, court martialed or jailed, small potatoes when you are gunning for your party to take over Congress.

Nor has Murtha cared that the Marines have since been exonerated.

When the dust settled more than two years later, six of the eight Marines and Sailors accused of crimes in the Haditha incident had their cases dismissed, one was found not guilty and the last has been continued indefinitely. ...

Murtha has refused to recant his accusations or apologize to the Marines he accused of war crimes. When asked by Military.com in late 2007 whether he regretted his initial statements and owed the exonerated Marines and Sailor an apology, Murtha refused to comment, saying the cases were still being adjudicated.

And now he is being honored by the Navy. Even more shameful is that he has no reservation about accepting such a high honor from the very armed forces he smeared. Murtha lacks honor despite his service.

A petition has been circulated asking the Navy to do what is right and rescind the award to this jackass. Please consider signing.

Hooray for Congress

And I am serious. The Senate has decided to inject itself into the debate over how college football determines a national champion by reviewing antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series. Now many see this as more government over-reaching into ever more areas of life. Others also believe that this issue is not a priority given the current state of our economy. But they are all wrong.

The simple fact is that they can't help themselves. They always feel compelled to get involved and "do something". And there is little doubt that they will only make a bad situation worse for the NCAA. But think people. Would you rather have them screwing up college football or your health care. If they are debating playoff formats they aren't molesting the economy.

Of course the NCAA is SCREWED!!! But better them than me.

And in case there is any doubt, a little sample of our Congress in action, ironically enough, on the subject of a college football champion here.

We are doomed.

Words have meaning ?? Transparency = mind your own damn business

After the last Democrat president attempted to redefine "is" and "sexual relations", the latest version has begun to remake the language in his own image.

Out is "enemy combatant". We can empty Gitmo of such simply by calling them something else. It is similar to the lunatics at PETA who want to convince people to stop eating fish by calling them "sea kittens". "Global war on terror" is now an "overseas contingency operation". Terrorism itself has been reduces to "man caused disasters".

Of course some old liberal standards never fall by the wayside. Taxes are "contributions" and spending is "investment".

But now comes a new opportunity to re-define a word that, until now, been clearly understood. President HopeNChange has decided that his tax reform task force will meet behind closed doors.

But there are obstacles.

However, there are potential complications. Sending the task force’s report to the full board, which will meet publicly and includes CEOs and union leaders not represented on the smaller panel, means the potential for dissent and a split vote on whatever the subcommittee proposes. Of course, there is likely to be some dissent on the smaller panel, too. Feldstein has already written an op-ed denouncing Obama’s proposal to limit charitable deductions.

The legal standards here come in large part from a 1983 federal appeals court decision on a challenge to secret task forces of an anti-government-waste board best known as the Grace Commission and set up by President Reagan. The court said that task forces “could well” be subject to the open meeting requirements if their “reports are transmitted directly to federal decision makers before they are made publicly available” or if the main board “is merely ‘rubber stamping’ the task forces’ recommendations with little or no independent consideration.”

After transcending party and race the boy prince also must transcend legality:

Of course, these standards are like Swiss cheese for those intent on secrecy. Task force members could bounce tentative recommendations off of the White House through a variety of channels while not technically sending a “report.” And the advisory board’s votes on the tax plans could be carefully counted in advance while formally tallied at a meeting that doesn’t give outward evidence of “rubber stamping.”

But Obama has promised to create "an unprecedented level of openness in Government.” Given that Democratic lawmakers have called the subcommittee exception a “loophole” in federal law and that a House committee voted early this month for a bill that would close that “loophole,” it may look a bit odd if the White House tries to leap straight into a "loophole" their congressional colleagues are trying to close.

We wouldn't expect The One to be bound by the constraints of mere mortals. Besides, law, like taxes, are for the little people.

Hope you didn't make any spending plans for your tax cut

Just like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama lied when he talked about cutting taxes. Bill Clinton campaigned on a middle-class tax cut but abandoned the idea just weeks into office. And now so will Obama. (Unless you call increased welfare payments a tax cut.)

Similar to Clinton, Obama campaigned with much populist rhetoric excoriating deficits. This aversion to deficit spending has gone down quicker than a $5 crack whore. But are these historic deficits sustainable??

Byron York reports on a conference call with Budget Director, Peter Orszag.

The deficit issue could be one of the most, if not the most, consequential of Obama's unkept campaign promises. Just how consequential was made clear last week in a little-noticed conference call featuring Budget Director Peter Orszag. Orszag was trying to explain to reporters how the Obama administration calculated its rather rosy forecasts for economic growth. Near the end of the call, he was asked whether deficits along the lines of those predicted by the Congressional Budget Office are sustainable."

Orszag at first dodged the question, saying he was sure the final Obama budget will "reflect a fiscally sustainable path." But the questioner persisted: Are those deficits sustainable? Relenting, Orszag said such deficits, in the range of five percent of the Gross Domestic Product, "would lead to rising debt-to-GDP ratios in a manner that would ultimately not be sustainable."

The simple version of that is: If the Congressional Budget Office projections are correct, we're headed for hell in a handbasket.

Look folks, this is really simple. If a Democrat tells you they are cutting taxes, they're lying.

Hush Rush ?

I guess the White House based campaign to take out Limbaugh hasn't quite worked out as planned. The result, his already commanding ratings have soared.

Some specific examples:

Chicago, saw another huge move, with Rush affiliate WLS also taking first place during his timeslot (12 and older), from 5.2 share to 6.9 and a total local listenership of 396,700 in the third-largest market.

KSFO / San Francisco saw similar results, despite the extreme-left bent of the Bay Area: 4.7 to 6.0 share, now ranking second overall and with men aged 35-64. Total audience: 346,000.

And during this time Teleprompter Jesus has seen his own ratings slip.

It's whitey's fault

Thanks to Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, we now know the cause of the current international economic meltdown.

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”

He added: “I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis.”