Tag: Obama administration

Torture and Spying

It was a c-y-a ruse and those responsible should justify their actions under penalty of the law.

I was upset to read the prisoner torture memos which came out last week. I suppose I’m not totally surprised. It’s still upsetting.

I am equally upset the Obama administration won’t pursue those responsible.

To summarize, in order to legitimize what was otherwise cruel and despicable acts which violate our laws, treaties and nearly everything this country stands for, Justice Department attorneys redefined black as white, day as night, light as dark. The letter of the law was wholly removed from the spirit. It was a c-y-a ruse and those responsible should justify their actions under penalty of the law.

President Obama said he doesn’t want this type of examination, so it probably won’t happen.

The same thing goes for internal eavesdropping by our spy agencies. Those responsible should be held responsible.

A lot of people probably find my thinking naive, but I believe we must live by certain moral parameters. If our enemies force us to abandon these moral guidelines we have already lost.

This is a day filled with disappointment.

Dodd’s Goose Is Cooked

Dodd’s goose is cooked. He’s in a pretty deep hole.

We had Senator Christopher Dodd on Channel 8 this afternoon talking about the AIG bonuses. This isn’t a Channel 8 website. I am writing for myself alone, but I thought Mark did a really good job.

Dodd danced around Mark’s tough questions but it was obvious he had little wiggle room. At one point during the interview, while Dodd was obviously obfuscating, Davis raised his voice to put the Senator back on track.

A fuller admission by Dodd came out in his next interview seconds later with Wolf Blitzer. I suspect it was because Dodd realized he had no believable defense as Mark grilled him.

Dodd’s goose is cooked. He’s in a pretty deep hole. He was already facing a serious challenge from Rob Simmons and others. Two years out, his chances look bad.

This is also a deep wound to the Obama administration. Trust is graded pass/fail. Today they failed.

Taxes Done

One of my relatives once claimed to work backwards, deciding what he wanted his refund to be then entering numbers that made that happen. I don’t have the stomach for that.

When I got out of bed Sunday Helaine already had the minutiae of our previous financial year on the kitchen table. Kitchen tables are where the best tax work is done.

For the past few years we’ve done ours using the online TurboTax website. Last year was problematic, but we were back for more and it was back to reasonably painless. In fact TurboTaxes software seems to be friendlier and easier.

If you haven’t done your taxes online one of the big advantages is it remembers what you did last year. It knew to fill in and in some cases go online to retrieve crucial data. Maybe I should feel insecure knowing all this stuff is online, but I don’t.

Before Helaine and I got together there was a period where I “forgot” to do my taxes. I mentioned this to an accountant I met at a party and within a week he had me in his office paying my penalties and squaring things. The funny thing is, two of the three years I was due a refund! There is no penalty when you shoot yourself in the foot financially. It should be called the insult to injury exclusion.

The tax form avoidance was when I was on my own and operating in the “no attention to detail” mode. I plead the Michael Phelps defense.

Helaine and I don’t cheat on our taxes. With over 98% of my income coming as an employee there aren’t many ways to cheat even if I wanted to. I’m mentioning this because as you finish your return a screen comes up comparing you to others in a similar tax bracket. I’m missing something or a lot of other people are being very creative–very. We are way down on the deduction side. Bernie Madoff will become B’nai Brith Man of the Year before we’re audited.

One of my relatives once claimed to work backwards, deciding what he wanted his refund to be then entering numbers that made that happen. I don’t have the stomach for that.

Does this put me on the new short list to serve in the Obama administration?

Why does TurboTax charge more for the Connecticut return than the federal? It’s just taking the same numbers and re-plugging them. The return itself is much less complex. The simple answer is, it does it because it can. Most folks look at the federal price only. There’s no price competition at the state level.

Our two refunds will each be about 1% of my income. That’s not an insubstantial amount. However, all it means is I overpay on a weekly basis. I do that on purpose, though it’s considered foolish. There is some solace in knowing you won’t… or shouldn’t owe.

Before I went to bed the feds had already accepted our return. Today Connecticut. The money should be in our account in a day or two.

On The Economy

I’m not saying Citibank should have their Dassault Falcon 7X. I’m saying there are lots of mixed signals in the economy and this is one of them.

I know a guy who sells used corporate jets for a living. He’s today’s child molester, right?

“ABC News has learned that Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company’s new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to “fix it.””

I’m not saying Citibank should have their Dassault Falcon 7X. I’m saying there are lots of mixed signals in the economy and this is one of them.

A friend was let go today from a local radio station. It was a bloodbath with longtime employees chopped.

He says the station was cash flow positive in its day-to-day operations. I bet it was. But his company has $717 million in debt. There’s nowhere near enough cash flow to pay that off.

Who is the idiot who lent them that money?

Don’t complain there’s a lack of credit. There was too damned much credit. This is like a crack addict complaining when supplies get tight.

So, my friend’s now unemployed. He now will spend less. The rest of the economy will suffer. Unemployment is cascading.

Can the nation or the world recover as employees are being fired en mass? I don’t think so.

I am sad for my friend. I am sad for my friends.

Best Day For Bad News

When a company or governmental agency wants to bury some information they release it late on Friday. It then enters some netherworld where it’s exists, but quietly. If the news is exceptionally bad it gets released on or just before Christmas Eve! It’s Christmas. People’s minds are elsewhere.

When a company or governmental agency wants to bury some information they release it late on Friday. It then enters some netherworld where it exists–but quietly. If the news is exceptionally bad it gets released on or just before Christmas Eve! It’s Christmas. People’s minds are elsewhere.

With this in mind two stories that should be heard but were released to be buried:

From Forbes.com – “Wal-Mart Stores has settled 63 wage and class-action lawsuits, and just in time for Christmas.

The company expects the settlement to costs between $352.0 million and $640.0 million. “

The suits had to do with employees being required to work when they were “off-the-clock.”

Wal-Mart is fiercely anti-union. It closed one Canadian tire center when its employees voted to organize. Wal-Mart is not looking forward to the Obama administration.

Our other under-the-rug story centers on Yale University. You could shoot a cannon across campus the day this story hit–the 23rd.

From Yale Daily News – “Yale has agreed to pay $7.6 million for allegedly making false claims on federal research grants, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Haven said Tuesday, concluding a two-year investigation of Yale’s grant administration. ”

I’m sure there are other similar stories, but there’s just so much holiday cheer one guy can spread.