Theodore's World

Geithner Questioned on Tax Returns

Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary, failed to pay more than $34,000 in federal taxes over several years early this decade, and also faces questions about the employment papers of a former household employee, suddenly complicating what had seemed to be an easy confirmation process in the Senate.

In Mr. Geithner’s case, he has paid a total of $43,200 in back taxes and interest for underpayments from 2001 to 2004, according to the Obama transition office. The Finance Committee disclosed that he paid a slightly higher total of $48,268, which includes payments on unrelated tax liabilities the committee uncovered.

The issue involving a former housekeeper of the Geithner family is separate. The woman was in the country legally and was authorized to work when Mr. Geithner and his wife hired her in 2004, but her employment authorization expired three months before she quit working for them. The issue was discovered by the Senate Finance Committee, not by the Obama team, and it came as news to Mr. Geithner, according to a Democrat who was briefed on the situation.

And this…… it is Rush Limbaugh’s take on this and it is excellent:
RUSH: Now we have learned, ladies and gentlemen, well, we’ve learned a lot about Tim Geithner. He’s not gonna get away with ignorance. The International Monetary Fund informed Geithner on his taxes, they informed every employee four times a year when the quarterly estimates are due, what their taxes are. They are paid the gross. Oh, you know what else I learned about this? All IMF employees are paid the gross, and then every quarter they have to file estimated taxes based on their earnings for that quarter or a percentage of their previous year’s earnings divided by four, whichever is the most advantageous for you.
And they get statements every quarter, four times a year, explaining what their approximate tax is based on how much they’ve been paid. He knew all of this. He just chose not to pay it. He just chose not to pay it, but you know what else they did at the IMF? According to Byron York at National Review Online, the IMF grossed up all of their employees that are paid the gross. I’ll put it in terms you can understand.
Let’s say that your boss wanted to give you a $25,000 net bonus. Your boss would gross up whatever it cost so that your net would be $25,000 after all the taxes, fees, and everything else were deducted. So it might cost your boss $32,000 or $33,000 to get you a note bonus of 25.
The IMF grossed up the amount of taxes employees would owe so that their actual pay was a net, not a gross. And he still claimed ignorance. They sent out memos all the time from the IMF to their employees, they had a manual explaining all of this.
He’s the only one that understands the recovery, he’s the only one that can fix our recovery, he’s too big to fail, it’s an innocent mistake, it’s a mistake a lot of people make. I would love for Obama to give me the same kind of tax holiday that Geithner got. I wish the whole country could get that same kind of tax holiday that he got.
This guy intentionally evaded his taxes, it was not an honest mistake, the party of taxes has to start taking responsibility for it. Whether Lindsey Graham likes it or not, we put up with Charlie Rangel as a crook now running the Ways and Means Committee. He should be thrown out of office. There’s no reason to promote a guy who purposely didn’t pay his taxes.
Look, this resonates with the public, folks. A guy who was told how to pay his taxes; who knew he had not paid his taxes; who still didn’t pay his taxes; then in order to become Treasury secretary, paid them way late. This isn’t an honest mistake. It’s a guy who was evading responsibility. I resent it. Given the amount of money I pay in taxes, given the amount of money you pay in taxes, you ought to resent this, too.

And this from Smart Money
In an age of bailouts, Geithner is the original Bailout Czar. It was Geithner, after all, who was the instrumental figure in arranging JP Morgan’s (JPM: 22.82, -1.52, -6.24%) takeover of Bear Stearns, a deal in which $29 billion of taxpayer money was pledged as a backstop against illiquid and toxic assets.
It wasn’t Hank Paulson, but rather Tim Geithner who put together the plan to have the government rescue AIG, to the tune of $85 billion and growing.
It has been widely noted Geithner was in favor of stepping in with taxpayer dollars to save Lehman Brothers. I guess it’s pretty easy to spend taxpayer dollars when you aren’t even paying your own taxes.
If you are unfamiliar with Geithner, simply go the Federal Reserve’s web site to see a line-item balance sheet of his work: billions of tax dollars for AIG, Bear Stearns (look for “Maiden Lane LLC”; it’s the corporation created for Bear Stearns’s liquidation), commercial money markets and loans to primary dealers.
He has, according to The Wall Street Journal, been looking for “as much firepower as possible” as Treasury secretary. Take note: That “firepower” is your tax dollars.
Wealth is not created because of a bailout, backstop or government stimulus plan. Geithner’s history suggests he believes government intervention is key to growing the economy.
It hasn’t worked since Bear Stearns. Eight trillion dollars later…why would it work now?

.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
Let’s call it what it is ……decadence 101 runs wild in the Democrat party. We all know their many crimes and how they have broken the laws, Ted Kennedy ( MURDER), Congressman Charlie Rangel (writes tax code then disobeys it) , Barney Frank, Bll and Hillary Clinton ( too many crimes to list here), David Dinkins became Mayor of NY after it was disclosed that he hadn’t paid income tax for about a decade. The list goes on and on.haha Pelsoi, Reid oh yes non but the dishonest running wild in the halls of Congress and the streets of D.C.
So HO-bama’s picks fit right in. OH an Eric Holder and all his things, his love for terrorists so much he made sure there was pardon for them during the Clinton regime.
And of course the head leader in chief, Barack Hussin Obama, and his ever loving friend William Ayers.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

Obama sets up national network to help policy agenda
Los Angeles Times
The network, Organizing for America, will be a tool to press for policy. It reportedly will have an annual budget of $75 million, making it an unprecedented standing political army for a president.
Telling millions of campaign supporters that “what you built can’t stop now,” President-elect Barack Obama today took his first public steps toward transforming his massive grass-roots political machinery into an unprecedented national network to help pass his policy agenda.
Obama is calling the new network Organizing for America, and while he described it as a tool to press for policies such as fixing the healthcare system, ending the Iraq war and finding new energy sources, he also said the effort would be housed in a distinctly partisan place: the Democratic National Committee.
That means the organization, as it grows, will be well positioned to form the structure of his reelection campaign in four years while also bolstering campaigns of Obama-friendly Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections and putting pressure on those in his party who do not agree with him.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Great, now we have the Community-Organizer-in-Chief!
This is Organizing to make sure of a permanent Dem control of America. Obama is a Chicago hack politician. He may be in charge but he is not omnipotent.
From Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing:

“There’s another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.”

Saul Alinsky, The Latter Rain
http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/alinski.htm

AP
Sun Jan 18, 2:54 AM EST ( USA time)
Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip meant to end three devastating weeks of war against Hamas militants, but just hours later militants fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel, officials said, threatening to reignite the violence.
No one was injured in the assault in which five rockets were fired and four landed. But shortly afterward, security sources in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun reported an airstrike that wounded a woman and her child. The Israeli military had no comment.
In another incident after the truce took hold, militants fired small arms at an infantry patrol, which directed artillery and aircraft to strike back, the military said.

“Israel will only act in response to attacks by Hamas, either rockets into Israel or firing upon our forces,” government spokesman Mark Regev said. “If Hamas does deliberately torpedo this cease-fire, they are exposing themselves before the entire international community as a group of cynical extremists that have absolutely no interest in the well-being of the people of Gaza.”

Regev would not say what level of violence would provoke Israel to call off the truce.
The cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday local time after three weeks of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. At least 13 Israelis also died, according to the government.
Israel stopped its offensive before reaching a long-term solution to the problem of arms smuggling into Gaza, one of the war’s declared aims. And Israel’s insistence on keeping soldiers in Gaza raised the prospect of a stalemate with the territory’s Hamas rulers, who have said they would not respect any truce until Israel pulls out.
The military warned in a statement early Sunday that Israeli forces would retaliate for attacks against soldiers or civilians and that “any such attack will be met with a harsh response.”
The cease-fire went into effect just days ahead of President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration Tuesday. Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration welcomed Israel’s decision and a summit set for later Sunday in Egypt is meant to give international backing to the truce.
In announcing the truce late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would withhold fire after achieving its goals and more.
“Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed,” Olmert said.
If Hamas holds its fire, the military “will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us,” Olmert said. If not, Israel “will continue to act to defend our residents.”
Israel apparently reasons that the two-phase truce would give it ammunition against its international critics:

Should Hamas continue to attack, then Israel would be able to resume its offensive after having tried to end it. It was not immediately clear how many rockets would have to fall to provoke an Israeli military response.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I wish Israel would stop caring what the rest of the world thinks. They have to fight for their survival and with Obama in power soon there is no promise he will stand with Israel. This is so sickening what we are facing with the creep Obama and I do soooo wish, hope and pray we side with Israel always.
This is from Muqata blog a great site for information on what is happening.

“So this is a unilateral ceasefire. Gunfire from Gaza at IDF positions, IDF tnak responds with a shell and automatic gunfire (Channel 10, minutes ago). Our IDF troops are now sitting ducks in Gaza, and can only respond to attacks.”

……Thank you RAC for sending this graphic to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion – 1st Aviation Brigade – Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam

Michelle Obama: A salute to military families
By Michelle Obama
Navy Times
On Tuesday, as people from all walks of life come together in common purpose to begin the work of renewing America’s promise, my daughters and I will stand beside my husband as he takes the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States.
People have asked me how I’ll feel at that moment. As a wife, I’ll be thinking about how proud I am of my husband and how I believe so deeply that he will be an extraordinary president. As a mother, I’ll be bursting with pride at the thought of my girls now being able to envision endless choices for themselves and the joy it will be to watch them grow up in the White House. And as a daughter, I’ll be profoundly grateful to my parents, knowing that I am here only because of their lifetime of faith and hard work.
They’re my proof that the American promise endures. It’s that promise we all share — that our children might grow up with unlimited possibility, that our families might know the dreams of opportunity and prosperity, that people in every nation might look at the proud banner of this country and know the boundless meaning of hope.
As I take on my newest role — first lady — I’ll be thinking about what that promise means to all those whom I’ve had the humbling privilege to meet these past two years on the campaign trail: Americans across the country who opened their doors and hearts to share their stories with me — stories I carry to this day.
I particularly cherished my visits with military families all across the country. I met so many strong and inspiring military spouses eager to share their stories, their dreams for the future and the unique challenges they face because of their families’ selfless service to our country.
And if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that when our servicemen and women go to war, their families go with them. I saw how they take care of each other, heard how they fill in whenever the system fails and discovered that the trials they faced always were matched by the hope they shared that better days are still ahead.
The simple 35-word oath my husband will take and the peaceful transfer of power it completes makes it easy to forget that the great fortune of our citizenship isn’t free at all. It’s a responsibility inherited only because generations of Americans have fought and bled and died for it.
So as I watch Barack take that oath, I’ll be thinking especially about those members of our American family who stand guard across the world and the loved ones who await their safe return. Because even as we mark this moment in American history, there still will be empty seats at the dinner table; there still will be spouses struggling to juggle roles and responsibilities; there still will be children who mark the passing of a birthday without Mommy and toddlers who know their father only by a grainy video stream from a far-flung corner of the globe.
My husband and I are deeply grateful for the sacrifices that these families make to protect all American families. And we join them — today and every day — in praying for their loved ones and their safety. They don’t ask a lot in return, just a Washington that understands the challenges they face as part of their extraordinary commitment to our country.
My husband understands that commitment, and he will ensure America lives up to its end. As military families join us on Tuesday, in person and in spirit, I want each and every one of them to know that for as long as I have the tremendous honor of being your first lady, your voices will be heard, you will have an advocate in the White House, and the American promise you preserve always will extend to you, too.
All of us can learn a fundamental lesson from our military families: You don’t need to wear a uniform to serve your country. We all have something to contribute to the life of this nation.
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And to honor the legacy of a man who believed that everybody could be great because anybody can serve, my family and I will spend the day performing activities in service to others. And we’ll ask all Americans to join us in making an ongoing commitment to serve their community and their country, because in this new season of hope, that’s the only way we’ll begin renewing America’s promise for all who reach for it and all who defend it — as one nation and one people.
On Tuesday night, my husband and I will tuck in our daughters like we always do. Their bedrooms will be different, their home unfamiliar. But they will drift off to sleep protected by that same sacrifice that has kept all of our families safe and safeguarded our freedom for generations — the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and their families.
For that, we could not be more grateful — or more proud.

.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
“On Tuesday, as people from all walks of life come together in common purpose to begin the work of renewing America’s promise”
Michelle, America never stopped keeping it’s promise to me, nor to you. You just would not appreciate what America was about and what has made it the greatest country in the entire world.
“As a mother, I’ll be bursting with pride at the thought of my girls now being able to envision endless choices for themselves and the joy it will be to watch them grow up in the White House. And as a daughter, I’ll be profoundly grateful to my parents, knowing that I am here only because of their lifetime of faith and hard work.”
Excuse me babe, but your daughters had the chance for those choices from the day they were born. It did not just happen because ole don’t talk about my ears got elected.
You say ….”I’ll be profoundly grateful to my parents, knowing that I am here only because of their lifetime of faith and hard work.”
Excuse me Michelle, if it were not for Republicans fighting to free your people long ago you would be cleaning bathrooms in the White House and not moving in to be First Lady. I am so sick of the blacks on the left not getting this, not realizing it and not acknowledging this information when it is presented to them step by step.
“They’re my proof that the American promise endures. It’s that promise we all share — that our children might grow up with unlimited possibility, that our families might know the dreams of opportunity and prosperity, that people in every nation might look at the proud banner of this country and know the boundless meaning of hope.”
America was the symbol of FREEDOM and HOPE and the American dream but your husband and all he has said in his life teach us one thing. Socialism is HIS hope his dream and it is wrapped in communism and Marxism in a tight bow. There is NO Freedom in his dream since he wants to squash it.
“The simple 35-word oath my husband will take and the peaceful transfer of power it completes makes it easy to forget that the great fortune of our citizenship isn’t free at all. It’s a responsibility inherited only because generations of Americans have fought and bled and died for it.”
Michelle, that “simple oath” you refer to has the weight of meaning in it beyond what your husband understands. His speaking out against our Constitution will make his taking this oath have no meaning at all. He has dishonored that very oath even before taking it by not be qualified to be President.
“makes it easy to forget that the great fortune of our citizenship isn’t free at all”
Speak for yourself ! You are the only one in any political campaign that has ever said “this is the first time ” you are proud of America or proud to be an American. We Americans do not forget, so don’t get on your high horse and tell us how easy it is to forget. YOU have NOT earned that right!!!!
“My husband understands that commitment“….your husband doesn’t have a clue about the commitment of our troops and their loved one. More BS and more lies!

“Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And to honor the legacy of a man who believed that everybody could be great because anybody can serve, my family and I will spend the day performing activities in service to others. “
Now look Michelle, OMG the ego you have is shocking. Do you realize by comparing community organizing, volunteering in ones community to those serving ones country in the military is a night and day difference. When was a soup kitchen volunteer sleeping in a hole dug out in the ground, with rain pouring down on them and bugs creeping in and out of their uniform, skin itching because a bath was a luxury. When was a hospice volunteer walking the perimeter at great risk for their life of being killed with an IED or getting shot by the enemy.
It is wonderful that people volunteer Michelle, but to compare the two is an insult to our troops, and an insult to what our Veterans.
One more thing, you may not know this but there are thousands of people in our country that volunteer from their hearts and never expect to be thanked or praised and most certainly they would never offer how they are going to a-hem ” perform activities in service to others”. Why the word perform and why not just be more specific in what you plan to do. HUH? Come on name one thing, I have time to wait for you to come up with something.
Sorry Michelle, you entire essay is a kiss up to our military and their families, and not sincere. OH you have thrown in the lingo sporadically but the things in between are the real Michelle and because of that it takes back any of the good you have tried to say.

Friends of Israel have a lot of repair work to do — in America
by Caroline B. Glick
Jewish World Review….for complete article
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s diplomatic spat with outgoing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been a bonanza for strategic minded gossips. Olmert says that Rice was “embarrassed” because she planned to vote in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1860 which calls for an immediate ceasefire between IDF forces and Hamas terrorists. But, Olmert brags, he wrecked her plan by getting outgoing President George W. Bush to force her to abstain.
As far as the commentators are concerned, Olmert’s puerile attack on the American Secretary of State in the midst of a war shows that the he is still the same prideful, vain, motor-mouth that Israelis have come to know and despise over the past several years. Then too, by responding with borderline hysteria to Olmert’s statement, Rice has demonstrated, once again that she remains a thin-skinned whiner.
Their fight tells us two crucial things. First, it tells us that when President-elect Barack Obama enters office next week, Israel’s relations with the US will be at a low point.
The US’s abstention from the vote on Resolution 1860 is a stunning statement of US hostility towards Israel. As former UN Ambassador Dore Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Post on Sunday, Resolution 1860 is drafted in a manner that presumes moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas — an illegal terrorist organization — must stop fighting it says. The resolution also draws a false moral equivalence between Hamas’s illegal rocket campaign against Israeli civilians and Israel’s assertion of its right to close its borders to enemy traffic.
~ snipet ~
For instance, this week the New York Times reminded us that the US has refused to sell Israel refueling planes and bunker-buster bombs necessary to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. The US has also consistently refused Israeli requests to overfly Iraqi airspace. The Times’ story reports that the administration answered Israeli requests to this effect with a hearty, “Hell no!”
And it isn’t just that the Bush administration has in recent years preferred to indulge the Iraqi leadership’s kneejerk anti-Semitism over supporting Israel’s need to preempt threats of national annihilation. The Bush administration has also belittled those threats and so allowed them to grow. Rice pushed the US on the road towards accepting Iran as a nuclear power when she opted to join the EU-3 in their feckless negotiations with the mullahs in May 2007. Her decision was followed by the deeply mendacious National Intelligence Estimate released in November 2007 which claimed wrongly that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
The US’s coddling of Iran at Israel’s expense has also included its preference for the Hizbullah-dominated Lebanese government and military over Israel’s national security. In the 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel, the US forbade Israel from attacking Lebanese government targets and so left Israel with few good options for fighting Hizbullah to victory. The reason the US acted in this manner is because Rice wished to prolong the fiction that the pro-Western March 14 movement was in charge of the Lebanese government when in fact, they subservient to Hizbullah.
When Israel became bogged down, the US forced Jerusalem to accept a ceasefire that left Hizbullah in charge of southern Lebanon and allowed it to rebuild its arsenals and present its campaign against the Jews as a strategic victory for the forces of jihad. After Hizbullah staged a putsch against the pro-Western forces in the Lebanese government last May, rather than acknowledge that Hizbullah is now in full control over the government and the military, the US has showered Lebanon with money and guns.
As for the Palestinians, over the past three years, the US has been expansive, indeed obsessive in its support for Fatah – and through it for Hamas – at Israel’s expense. Rather than recognize that the Palestinian voters’ decision to elect Hamas to lead them in January 2006 constituted a rejection of the notion of a two-state solution on the part of Palestinian society, the Bush administration judged the move as an act of civil disobedience reminiscent, in Rice’s view, of the US civil rights movement.
Far from cutting the Palestinians off, the US massively increased its assistance to the Palestinian Authority. For the first time US taxpayers began financing the PA’s budget and so, indirectly paying the salaries of both Fatah and Hamas terrorists. Moreover, the US began a massive effort to train Fatah commandos in Jordan. With Fatah terrorists in Gaza shooting missiles at Israel alongside their Hamas terror buddies today, it is unclear what good can come of these US-trained Palestinian special forces.
In the face of all of this clear US hostility towards Israel, marked as well by the continued criminal prosecution of former AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin for their “crime” of discussing their concern about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Israel has played the role of Chicken Little.
Israel has offered no significant protest against the US’s moves. It has treated Rice and her colleagues at the CIA as friends and trusted allies. And Livni and Olmert have repeatedly boasted that Israel’s relations with the US have never been better, when in fact they have arguably never been worse.
It is because of the government’s refusal to contend with difficult truths that Israel was caught by surprise at the Security Council last week. And due to the government’s refusal to acknowledge the true state of Israel’s relations with Washington, the government has given little consideration to either how to improve them, or how to work around Washington’s hostility.
This situation is liable to only get worse next week with the inauguration of President-elect Obama. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton pledged in her Senate confirmation hearings that the new administration will immediately seek to engage Iran diplomatically. She also stated that the US intends to actively pursue better relations with Iran’s Arab satellite-state, Syria. Moreover, she pledged that the Obama administration will make an immediate push to establish a Palestinian state.
Clinton’s testimony makes clear that Obama’s major initiatives will all involve forcing Israel to pay a price. According to a source in close contact with Obama’s transition team, the first price that Israel will be pressured to pay will be the Golan Heights.
Obama has pledged that soon after taking office he will make a major speech in an Islamic capital to strengthen US ties to the Muslim world. And the source asserts that Obama intends to make that speech in Damascus. Moreover, he intends to exert pressure on Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria as “payback” for any Syrian indication that it will weaken its ties to Iran.

Throughout his tenure in office, Bush has been outspoken in his warm statements about Israel. Both his advisers and the many people who have come to know him over the past eight years are unanimous in their belief that Bush truly cares about Israel and views Israel as an important US ally. He recognizes that Israel and the US share the same enemies and that our enemies seek to destroy us because we represent the same thing: freedom.

But as many of his friends and advisors have ruefully noted over the years, Bush never learned how to translate his personal views into policy. As former Pentagon official Richard Perle wrote in an article this week in The National Interest, Bush was undercut on the most crucial foreign policy issues he faced by the State Department and the CIA, which either ignored his policies or openly sought to discredit them.

To read the entire article please CLICK HERE.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Good article and several interesting things I had not known about . So many things will be different after Obama is sworn in.
Those that are reading this from Israel. please know, we did not vote for Obama and we want to be friiends with Israel and do what we can to help.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

Hail King Obama: President for life
Move underway to repeal Constitution’s term limits
wnd
As Inauguration Day approaches and Barack Obama prepares to assume his first term as president, some in Congress are hoping to make it possible for the Democrat to not only seek a second term in office, but a third and fourth as well.
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering a bill that would repeal the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment prohibiting a president from being elected to more than two terms in office.
Rep. Jose Serrano, D -N.Y., earlier this month introduced the bill, H. J. Res. 5, which, according to the bill’s language, proposes “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.”
In the past, some presidents have been critical of the 22nd Amendment, including Eisenhower, Clinton and Reagan.

In 1807 Thomas Jefferson, however, warned that presidents not bound by term limits could use their popularity and power to become kings.

“If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution or supplied in practice,” Jefferson wrote to the Legislature of Vermont, “his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance.”

Presidential term limits, however, were not “fixed by the Constitution” until ratification of the 22nd Amendment. Congress passed the Amendment on March 21, 1947, shortly after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first and only president to be elected to more than two terms – in Roosevelt’s case, four. The Amendment was ratified by the required number of states on Feb. 26, 1951.

The 22nd Amendment states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

The Amendment limits presidents to a maximum of eight years in office – or, under unusual circumstances, such as succession following the death of a president, a maximum of ten years in office. Should Rep. Serrano succeed in repealing the Amendment, Obama would be cleared to run for an unlimited number of terms, restricted only by the vote of the electorate.
In order to achieve repeal of the 22nd Amendment, Serrano’s proposal must be approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states’ legislatures.
H. J. Res. 5 is not the first attempt by Serrano to repeal the 22nd Amendment. In 2003, during the Clinton administration, Serrano introduced H. J. Res. 11 to the 108th Congress to accomplish the same purpose. A similar resolution, H.J. Res. 25, was also proposed the same year and received co-sponsorship from a bipartisan group of six other representatives. In 1987, during Reagan’s term of office, Earl Michener, R-Mich., also proposed a repeal of the 22nd Amendment.
At the current time, H.J. Res. 5 has not tallied any cosponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Prior to Franklin Roosevelt, presidents honored the precedent established by George Washington, who – though widely popular – refused to run for a third term of office.

Thomas Jefferson, who became the second vice president of the U.S. after Washington declined to run for a third term and who then later became the third president, not only affirmed following the Washington’s example, but also foresaw the eventual passage of the 22nd Amendment.

“General Washington set the example of voluntary retirement after eight years,” Jefferson wrote in an 1805 letter to John Taylor. “I shall follow it, and a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to anyone after a while who shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget a disposition to establish it by an amendment of the Constitution.”

In the same letter to the Legislature of Vermont where he warned of a presidential monarchy, Jefferson further explained why he refused to run for a third term.

“Believing that a representative government, responsible at short periods of election, is that which produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind,” Jefferson wrote, “I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.”

Wild Thing’s comment………
The fraudulent illegal alien isn’t eligible for one term.
I am a huge Reagan fan but even so I am glad it did not pass for his Presidency. We have to always remember there are times when the Democrats will win elections and then we would be stuck with for example like we are getting on the 20th of this month.
This is a bad idea and it darn well better not happen. HO-bama would be hard to kick out, a person would have to get passed all the fainters, chanters, his Black Panther body guards etc.
And then there would be Michelle Obama. I have to tell you. I would not be physically as afraid of Barack Obama as I would Michelle. She has a mean look in her eyes that creeps right across her face from the depths of her ugly America hating soul. She looks like she would not hesitate to throw a right upper cut or a hard punch from the left.
Look out Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko ( Ukrainian boxers) hahaaha

Murder Spree By People Who Refuse To Ask For Directions
anncoulter.org
by Ann Coulter
In a front-page article on Jan. 2 of this year, The New York Times took a brief respite from its ongoing canonization of Barack Obama and returned to its series on violent crimes committed by returning GIs, or as I call it: “U.S. Military, Psycho Killers.”
The Treason Times’ banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.
So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn’t notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.

What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large — or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?

Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.
Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons — which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the ’80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.

Similarly, for its series about how America’s bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.

Perhaps the Times’ next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won’t ask for directions or share the TV remote.
Let’s compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large.
From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds — both male and more gentle females — committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.
Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 — or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.
But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.
So comparing the veterans’ rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.
But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we’re not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.
As I describe in my new book, “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America,” controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)
By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.
A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.
Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes “are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.”
With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it’s not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.
Many of these studies, for example, are from the ’90s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under 18 were being raised in one-parent homes — mother or father, divorced or never-married. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the U.S. were illegitimate.
That’s a lot of social problems in the pipeline.
Think I’m being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted “single mothers” have accomplished.
Even in liberals’ fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.
But the Times won’t run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.

Wild Thing’s comment………
The NYT is trying to post an association of serving in Iraq and murder, when in fact such veterans are less likely to commit this crime than others in the same demographic.
Coulter noted that there is a factual correlation between between single motherhood and numerous social ills. I believe our government with all the programs from the LEFT has done more to encourage this then anything else. Because they want to replace fathers with a government.
Awhile back I did a post about how TV commercials are really ripping apart families. They do all they can to try and make the Dad look stupid, or silly not funny but silly, clumsy, can’t do anything. It is a bad thing what they are doiing and it is propaganda. I really believe the far left want to destroy the family. They have tried their best to take over the raising of a child on some subjects that should be left to a parent to discuss with the child for one example.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

Wild Thing’s comment………
LOL I love these! You can tell they have a lot of fun making these videos too. God bless our troops!!

Immigrants ravage U.S. infrastructure
Financial analyst: $1.6 trillion required to repair devastation
wnd
The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals.
In his report titled, “The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure,” prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure:

airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems.

Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review, claims the nation is facing a crisis – with immigration responsible for at least 80 percent of spending needed to expand the U.S. infrastructure before the middle of this century.

“If the infrastructure crisis could be fixed by spending money, there would be no crisis,” Mr. Rubenstein explained in a statement. “Since 1987, capital spending on transportation infrastructure has increased by 2.1 percent per year above the inflation rate. At $233 billion (2004 dollars), infrastructure is already one of the largest categories of government spending. Our infrastructure is ‘crumbling’ because population growth has overwhelmed the ability of even these vast sums to expand capacity.”

While immigration policy has been hotly debated for a number of years, Rubenstein writes that its impact on infrastructure is rarely discussed.
Public schools

Some Los Angeles schools are so crowded that they have lengthened the time between classes to give students time to make their way through crowded halls. Los Angeles’ school construction program is so massive that the Army Corps of Engineers was called in to manage it.”

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 18 percent of all schools are considered overcrowded, and 37 percent use trailers and portable structures to accommodate growing student bodies.
Hospitals

Rubenstein cites a recent construction boom among the nation’s hospitals. As many as 60 percent of America’s hospitals are either under construction or have plans for new facilities.

Illegal aliens use emergency rooms more than twice as often as U.S. citizens, and providing their uncompensated care has been the death of many emergency departments.
Water and electricity

“Cities like San Antonio, El Paso, and Phoenix could run out of water in 10 to 20 years,” he writes. San Diego’s water company has resorted to a once-unthinkable option: recycling toilet water for drinking.”

National parks
Illegals wear roads and paths through parks.

“Their fires, trash, and vandalism have despoiled thousands of acres of pristine parkland,” he writes.

According to Rubenstein, illegals leave beer, water and milk bottles, personal hygiene items and medications, clothing and shoes, food and food cans, jewelry, paper trash, sanitary pads, disposable diapers, backpacks, blankets, towels, plastic bags, homemade weapons, disintegrating toilet paper and human feces on U.S. property while they journey into the country.
Border security costs

“While the U.S. builds a fence across much of the border, many illegals are taking a different route. Underground,” Rubenstein reveals. “Authorities have discovered dozens of illegal tunnels across the international border in recent years. Smuggling of drugs, weapons, and immigrants takes place daily through these underground passageways.”

Fiscal burden

Rubenstein cites figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, projecting that the U.S. population will reach 433 million by 2050 – increasing 44 percent, or 135 million, from today’s numbers.

For the complete article please CLICK HERE, thank you.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
This article starts off with talking about immigrants, but most of it is about illegals.
I liked the artilce because it broke down the various areas effected and it really covers about every area. This is a topic that should be discussed on the political talk shows on Sunday mornings. Instead of wasting time bashing Bush for 8 years which they spent horendous amounts of time doing, they should have been talking about things like this and how to fix it. How to plan for immigrant growth the legals coming here, and what to do about the border fence not being done as promised.
All of us came here or our families did from somewhere, this country is known for it’s welcome to immigrants. That is not a bad thing, I just worry about the ones coming here that are Muslims and whose intentions are not to be Americans but to change our country to their Islam culture and laws. And then of course the illegals as well .
Like JohnE PFC U.S. Army has said. The pressure from La Raza is much like the black community and how they have pressured citizens to join in their anti-American crimes etc.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

Calif. tax refunds to be delayed starting Feb. 1
My Way
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California’s controller says he will begin a 30-day delay on tax refunds and other payments starting Feb. 1 because the state is running out of money.
Controller John Chiang said Friday he must delay $3.7 billion in payments next month because lawmakers have failed to address California’s growing deficit.
With a $41.6 billion shortfall over the next year-and-a-half, the state is on the brink of issuing IOUs.
Chiang says his office must continue education and debt payments but will defer money for tax refunds, student aid, social services and mental health programs.
A severe drop in revenue has left the state’s main bank account depleted. The state had been relying on borrowing from special funds and Wall Street investors; those options are no longer available.

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Additional write up…………
California could run out of cash by Feb. 1, analysts say
The Sacramento Bee
The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office confirmed Wednesday that California could run short of cash as soon as Feb. 1 unless lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately cut spending and raise revenues.
The LAO’s Michael Cohen and Jason Dickerson said the following:
• California faces the “double whammy” of a severe drop in revenues coupled with an inability to borrow because credit markets are frozen.
• The longer lawmakers and Schwarzenegger go without adjusting the budget, the more difficult it becomes to determine whom to pay.
Schools and creditors have first claim on the state’s revenues, while state worker salaries and benefits, Medi-Cal claims and court-ordered payments are among those with secondary priority. State Controller John Chiang has said the first groups to receive IOUs or delayed payments will include Californians awaiting state income tax refunds and companies that do business with the state.
• A prolonged budget dispute could force parties to file legal challenges to claim their share of state money.
• The LAO recommended that lawmakers allow internal borrowing from several state funds to add $2 billion to the state’s cash cushion. It also recommended that lawmakers defer some payments to local governments and schools to preserve cash.
• A delayed budget agreement would mean the state would have to pay interest on IOUs or other borrowing. Such costs add to the deficit and have not been factored into the governor’s budget.
Meanwhile, the California Transportation Commision delayed allocation of $293.5 million in funding for transportation projects because of cash problems.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Ole Arnie better stop thinking like the Kennedy’s and start thinking like a fiscial conservative.
Given the choice between cutting pork and ripping off taxpayers due refunds, there’s little doubt which course Arnold will take.
When I livied in Calif. and I will always love the place for it’s beauty especially. But In 1994 the voters of California voted by a 59 to 41 percent margin for prop 187 which would have stopped government services and handouts to illegal aliens. One liberal judge blocked 187 from being implemented and the Governor, Gray Davis, would not pursue the case to the Supreme Court. The liberal courts make it impossible to implement any kind of change.