Free Republic

This report just proves that Laz has never been to South Korea.

(Heads for the door.)

Our mortgage holder bank send us a check from their bank (letterhead and all) for excess funds in our escrow account. The mortgage account is the only account we have with this banking firm.

We took the check to cash at their local bank branch. They refused to cash their own check unless we had a checking or savings account. They acknowledged (1) we had our mortgage with them, (2) it was a valid check issued by them, (3) our IDs said we were the same as those listed on the check but still would not honor their own check unless we opened an account.

We cashed the check at the banking firm that has had our checking account for 20 years.

Perhaps a blanket Presidential pardon for anyone who committed the crime of illegal entry/visa overstay.

Tells them to report to their nearest homeland security office to register as a permanent legal alien and get a SSN while waiting for their citizenship package to be prepared/processed.

Which state / city tax is collected if I live in Virginia, conduct the online purchase from my Washington DC office, from a company based in Maryland, and have it delivered to my brother in California?

Will any states the package moves through also want part of the action? A shipping / transit tax?

What if I buy from England? Tariffs?

Could they just say a online purchase tax is collect by the vendor using the vendor's local rate where the vendor's HQ is located? Of course, this would cause vendors to move to states with no sales tax.

I though any amount forgiven is considered income that is taxable. Would this also create a lot of tax dead beats come next April?

Example: House appraised at 250k, loan at 450k, forgiven equals 450k - 250k = 200k. Income was 75k now the IRS will say it is 275k which is above the 250k for any tax break so will be looking for about 40% in cash or 110k. Kind of hard to do with an income of only 75k.

I can see lots of exceptions and loop holes if this is done. One would be: banks included in the forgiveness that would instantly balance their bad loan books.

The whole idea is bad.

Another possible reason for Greene's selection:

Demoncrat primary voters supporting Rawl figured he was a shoe in so crossed over to the Republican primary to mess with the important governor selection.

“J is for Jumblies, baby!” Austin Powers (or something like that).

Does the person getting the gift money have to declare it as income and pay tax on it?

Example: 100 of my closest friends each gift me $10,000 for a total of gift of 1,000,000 as their only gift for the year. They pay no gift tax as the amount is under the limit. Do I have to pay?

I think the answer is the amount equal to the current year’s gift limit ($13,000 for 2010, I think), is tax free and the remaining is counted as income and fully taxed.

Thoughts?

If Iran used a nuke, that would be...unexpected.

You said in the first post your plans to boycott the movie. Does that mean you had planned on seeing it? Or were you never going to see it and want to change others to your way of thinking?

I am wondering if you would share your left/right criteria for seeing a movie.

How many conservatives/patriots does it take to outweigh a leftie?

For example: One Code Pink actor and 100 USMC actors / directors / producers make a movie on, say, street fighting in Iraq. The movie theme supports the war effort enough that left leaning news-types call it right wing propaganda. Do you see the movie?

If everyone in this movie about a battle 2500 years ago was a conservative advocate except Persian minion number 742 who loudly declares his flaming liberal position on current events in a magazine, would you see the movie?

Personally, I would like to think one conservative was worth an army of liberals.

I am looking forward to seeing the movie for the story it presents and the manner of the presentation. Non-American lefty actor’s opinion on Iraq who appears in a movie generally supportive to conservative / freedom ideals, well his opinion is worthless.

LOL - so many posts so fast.

U.S. Army: '85 - '96 (Active)
U.S. Army: '96 - '05 (Inactive Reserve)
U.S. Army: '05 - '17 (Retired Reserve collecting VSI)

The Army's Voluntary Seperation Incentive obligation to me ends in 2017. Thank Bill Clinton for paying us to leave the military. I am collecting for 21 years while being entirely successful in my civilian life. He never should have made an offer the best and brightest would jump at.

Lichgod

Thanks for posting this. I hope to see more of how this shakes out. Micheal Graham is super! I wish he could switch his timeslot with Hannity.

Kabar is correct. Means testing is so wrong. Consider this:
Twins get the same job, earn the same amount each year and retire at the same time. No variables other than spending and saving. They pay the same into Social Security their entire lives.

Twin A lived a life style of "spend every penny." He leased nice cars, rented fancy apartments/penthouses, took fabulous trips abroad each year, regularly dined out at the best restaurants. When it came time to retire, Twin A is flat broke. Lease expired on his car, kicked out of his apartment, living on the street with just the clothes on his back. Asset value = $0.00 (zero)

Twin B lived the thrifty live with an eye to save as much as possible. Of course, he deprived himself of the finer things in life so he could save for the future. Bought and maintained his car for many years, bought a modest house, ate a simple diet cooked at home, and used his vacation time to relax at home. Doing so allowed him to save in a variety of investments. When he retired the same day as Twin A, Twin B had assets valued at $5,000,000 (five million).

Social Security kicks in with a means tests. Oh look, poor Twin A - he is broke. But Twin B, the evil rich capitalist exploiter is very well off. I guess the SS will take what money the greedy, money grubbing Twin B should get and give it to the exploited and disenfranchised Twin B to double his income. Thus everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they?

Means testing will discourage saving for retirement and also the transferring of assets to hidden accounts, children, trusts, and other loopholes prior to whenever the SS decide to conduct their means test analysis to determine if you are going to get back any of the money you put into the system. This "dodge" is also encouraged for every benefit the "poor" will get when they retire.

Means testing punishes the Ant and rewards the Grasshopper, if you remember your fables.

Means testing is just wrong.

Seven story wave. History Channel did an episode I saw on mysteries of the ocean. One part was on these rogue waves. Apparently, they do occur but often ships are completely lost that get hit with them.

Very detailed episode including replicating the scenario with model ships in wave tanks done at some university lab. They showed something like a rogue wave able to sink a ship in mere seconds.

I also saw something even more fascinating involving lighter than air gas released from the ocean bottom. How this changes the buoyancy of the water and makes ships sink as they are now heavier than the water can support. Also thought to impact aircraft flying over the same area. They set up a controlled test and found it possible to sink a boat but the amount of released gas needed was tremendous except for a big bubble.

Overall, it kept my interest when I not really too interested with anything involving the sea.

Or it could mean when he bashes the right, the left critizises him for not bashing hard enough.

I live in Prince William County, VA. Our property assessment value was increased 40% for 2004. If this rate keeps up, we will be selling our house in one or two years due to the difference in purchase/sale price getting taxed (more than 500k profit). We really like our home but hate taxes more.

To the higher wage crowd:

All you folks who think businesses should pay their employees more should understand that this pay raise gets transferred to the customer in the form of higher prices on whatever product/service the business provides.

Hey, here is an idea made for the feel-good idealists. Lets cut out the middleman! We cannot trust the evil business to take care of their employees who are obviously working there because the employer has some nefarious hold on his employees. (/sarcasm) So, as a customer, nothing is stopping you from giving money to any employee you see. Rather than pay higher prices, just give 20% more than your bill to the businesses' employees, like you tip at a restaurant. If you are going to spend a hundred dollars at Walmart, hand out twenty dollars to random employees, give $5 to four workers or $1 to twenty. Might even improve customer service. Do this everywhere! Buy gas? Give a tip! Use the drive through at McDonalds and the bill is $8? Why, give the window attendant a ten dollar bill and tell em to "Keep the change!" You will be a local hero in no time. Might even get your name in the paper! Start a new national trend! Even save America! We could be talking Mount Rushmore here....

(takes a deep breath)

Well, how about it? Going to put YOUR money where YOUR mouth is? Or do you demand the government use a gun on a business to do your bidding? How do you FEEL? I certainly know how I THINK.

There was an article?

Math does not support Kerry. Using his numbers, 2.5 mil barrels from MidEast (and all the bad things he says about the govts there) vs 3.2 bil barrels in ANWR (other estimates say much more but lets use his numbers).

3.2 bil / 2.5 mil per day = 1280 day supply = 3.5 years.

So we could replace all MidEast Arab oil for 3.5 years? That would have a seriesly hugh impact on the MidEast region who would be taking after cheese-eating surrender monkeys in trying to lower the price enough so as to get us to buy oil instead of risking our poor workers getting bitten by Moose in ANWR. (wow, after that run-on sentance, time to hit the shower.)

It doesn't pass the "Global Test." (runs for the door...)