– The most surprising thing about this poll is that 32% of Seattle voters think McGinn did a good job handling the police department. Who?
– Erica C. Barnett has a not good for McGinn take on the poll.
– Vermont is the 4th state with a Death with Dignity law.
– It feels like we’re overpaying our college sportsball coaches.
– Virginia is for haters.
Oklahoma tornado tragedy: On the news today, the Republican Congressman from Moore, Oklahoma (the suburb hit hardest by the tornado) had nothing but nice things to say about President Obama, who made a telephone call to him last night. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name.
Other representatives in Oklahoma are split on disaster relief, with some of them saying it shouldn’t be passed unless matching cuts are made elsewhere in the budget.
I’ll give them high marks for consistency (they voted this same way for Sandy relief), but at what price? Maybe they should go to Moore and explain the intracacies of Washington politics and the budget to their neighbors there. Think they will understand?
First Thoughts – putting things into perspective
Following Friday’s wreck, it appears the Metro-North New Haven line will return to service. They were allowed to remove the damaged trains Sunday, and have one track rebuilt with service North of South Norwalk, Connecticut resuming with Wednesday’s afternoon rush. This is a very busy route, and very old infrastructure.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/st.....id=9107844
1)I would expect a Congressmember to be their for the constituents. In a time like this, partisan politics should be put aside, but that is not always the case.
2) Oops, I misread the article, full service restored tomorrow, limited service for the Afternoon rush in and out of Grand Central Terminal on the New Haven line, Boston-NYC Amtrak service to Penn Station resumes in the afternoon. The crews must have worked even faater, which if one believes the stereotypes, our trolls would think was impossible.
Re: The fourth citation above (Apple and its taxes)…the same should by all rights apply to Crossroads GPS.
“We need prayers.” -Oklahoma Governor Mary Franklin
No you dumb ass. You need Money to pay for construction, heavy equipment, emergency food and water and the Corp of Engineers. None of that will come to you as a result of the entire country sitting in pews praying.
http://www.redcross.org/
6)Her last name is Fallin. Besides what she said, she also said she had been in contact with the President. I remember in 2010, she was one candidate who did not want to directly debate her opponent.
•He has said gays and lesbians are “very sick people, psychologically and emotionally” whose minds are perverted. He has also said homosexuality “poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies”
So I guess he believes heterosexuals are saints. Do I have to debunk him. Would Darryl allow it?
6: Your basic point stands, but the Red Cross has taken flack in recent years for being more into fundraising during these disasters then providing direct assistance.
Tornado warnings and sequester idiocy:
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/2.....rvice_now/
Heh. Morons like our favorite right wing jerk said the sequester was Obama’s idea.. So what did Republicans do to stop it?
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Congress today his company pays “every dollar of tax owed.” Is he that stupid? The issue is not what Apple owes, or whether it pays what it owes, but whether it should owe more because it owes and pays little.
Many big corporations owe no taxes. Does the fact it’s legal make it right? Do we let the status quo define what our tax policies should be? That’s nonsense.
When you get right down to it, Cook makes a circular argument: We don’t owe anything, therefore we shouldn’t owe anything. That doesn’t explain why it should be this way. He sounds like a toddler clutching a toy and screaming “it’s mine!” when his parent asks him to share.
Tim Cook should have stood up and pointed at each Member on the panel and said….”We have taken advantage of the rules that YOU put in place. The rules which benefit YOUR special interest, and YOUR special interest, and YOURS, and YOURS, and YOURS.” pointing at each one in turn. “When you pull your heads out of your asses and your hands out of the lobbyists bag we will be glad to participate in a discussion of tax policy”.
I heard a search and rescue team from Joplin went to Oklahoma to help, they said they were just returning the favor.
Am I supposed to be surprised that Sarkisian is the highest-paid state employee in Washington? It’s been that way for a long time.
I recall that, at some time in the distant past, Don James was the only state employee earning six figures.
From 12,
Time for a flat-rate tax maybe??
Although I too young to to remember Alabama coach Paul Bryant, but I saw a great documentary on him once. It was said, as for his salary from the State of Alabama, he only wanted the same salary as a department head, but had the ability to negotiate the team’s tv deal.
I loved this sound bite:
That’s the problem. I don’t think they care that taxes are needed for the common good.
Sen. Ran Paul, the Kentucky Republican and libertarian, Tuesday defended Apple’s tax machinations, saying he was “offended” that Apple CEO Tim Cook was being “dragged” before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to explain how the company could attribute nearly two thirds of its income to Irish entities that have no employees, no physical residence, and are not taxed by any government anywhere, but are totally controlled by Apple.
Already, some are saying the government did it.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2.....eap/194167
@12
The Apple hearings are political theatre to put the absolute lie to the claim that America has the highest corporate tax rates. In fact the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax payments in the fully industrialized world.
Every American who has ever filed a 1040 knows the difference between taxable income and adjusted income. Corporations have become very very good at LEGALLY making their adjusted income so low as to remain virtually untaxed.
It’s all legal but it’s the kind of thing the stupid don’t seem to grasp. They hear the usual media frauds talk about corporate tax rates and they lap it up and never question why so many corporations that employ tens of thousands of people and profit in the hundreds of millions pay very very small tax bills in real dollars or as a percentage of income.
Microsoft is among them.
If this hearing makes a single fiscally conservative/socially liberal Republican voter say…wait, what?…it’s been effective.
One interesting observation that I noticed about the ruling party in British Columbia,the BC Liberals, is it is not the only case where once you get outside of the US, the term “Liberal” has a different meaning than what the American conservative definition of it is. In Australia, the main center-right party is the Liberal Party of Australia, and in Germany, the Free Democratic Party is often refered to in the German media as”the Liberals”, and currently are the junior partner to the Christian Democrats in the governing coalition.
http://m.spiegel.de/internatio.....188-4.html
The FDP is pro business but socially Liberal. Up until 1998 this party was the kingmaker, no matter if the Christian Democrats or the Social Democrats won the most votes. That was when the Green Party made enough inroads to be an acceptable coalition partner. The Social Democrats may be socialists, but they have been reasonable over the years. In 2003 they enacted welfare reforms that cost them votes to Die Lienke, the former East German communists. Which put the Christian Democrats in the Chancellory in 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F....._(Germany)
In September, it could be fertile ground for the Social Democrats at the Federal Election, there is fragmentation on the right. Some Christian Democrats, opposed to the Euro bailout formed a new party, the Free Democrats have been swept out of several state elections, and the Greens won enough votes in a conservative state, to be the lead party in the government. For a party to win representation, they must win 5% of the vote, or three district seats.