EckerNet.Com

Oh how cute, Senator Dorgan (D - ND) is in a tizzy about corporations and how much in taxes they pay.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released today, said two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, and about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO’s estimate.

“It’s shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Sigh.

Let me make this easy for you Dorgan. Companies don’t pay taxes, income or otherwise…..ever. However, companies do occasionally incur costs, imposed by the government, that they simply pass on to their customers in the form of higher prices. You may call these costs taxes, but businesses call it “cost of doing business”, and taxpayers (and voters) call it high prices they can’t afford.

In much the same way, companies don’t really have profits. Profits end up going to either stockholders, or else they are invested in further business, which creates more jobs. This investment may or may not make them more “profits”.

It’s really that simple guy. Try to keep up.

When Nancy Pelosi took over the House Speaker position, she famously declared

We pledge to make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history

Which makes me wonder why, when I went to her official website blog, she has closed comments on all her rantings. Clearly this is some definition of “open” I wasn’t previously familiar with. I guess I would have figured that since her Congress is so “open” she would be willing to hear from those she means to rule.

It’s especially ironic considering one of her promises was

Achieve energy independence within 10 years by investing America’s energy dollars in the Midwest instead of the Middle East.

and the reason I was visiting her site was because she has recessed the House without addressing any sort of energy legislation. Hell Republicans are still in Washington, protesting on the House floor how we need energy legislation. Meanwhile San Fran Nan would rather head out on her book tour, although admittedly that appears to be necessary, considering her book is selling absolutely horribly.

So rather than achieve energy independence, she’s left to line her own pockets, while leaving Americans to suffer under high gas prices. Honest, ethical and open indeed.

Either Republicans stopped putting saltpeter on their breakfast cereal or they’ve hired some good people lately. On the heels of a hard-hitting McCain ad comes this from the NRCC.

Not to mention that this coincides with the House Republicans staging a protest on the House floor when Pelosi recessed her do-nothing house for a vacation without voting on an energy bill.

Thursday morning myself and a fair number of other bloggers participated in a conference call with Congressman John Kline. The conference call was about Kline’s new effort to Stop The Pork, essentially to stop the madness and corruption that is earmarks. He’s got a petition at the site, that you can and should go and sign. Go on now, I’ll wait for you…….

Now I’m not gonna give you the summary of what was discussed. If that’s what you want, you can read the writeups by Chief, Janet, Gary, Psycmeister or the Lady Logician. I think they cover all the aspects of the call but one.

And that aspect was the most refreshing part and gives me hope that something might actually result from this effort. Partisanship while it does have value, also is a great inhibitor to causes that otherwise should have virtually unanimous support.

Now John never actually came out and said it, but reading between the lines and picking up pieces of comments it was obvious that he gets this is not a partisan issue. When he talked about building momentum from the original 12 legislators supporting this effort, to the current level of 50, he talked about how he didn’t feel momentum until Democrats started joining in. He also pointed out that this is a problem that really started under Republican leadership, but it has gotten out of control and has to be stopped.

Rather than retreating into a partisan shell, he admits were the initial fault lies. Rather than screaming, “but the Democrats do it too”, he has refused to request earmarks. Rather than slinging mud, he’s trying to bring Democrats into the fold so that this effort can take real momentum.

Bipartisanship, sadly has become less of a reality and more of a punchline. However, this is an issue that needs and most certainly deserves bipartisan support. Governmental waste and political corruption is something that should not be supported, or even tolerated, by either party. And it’s refreshing to see that John Kline is fighting against it in a way that hopefully pulls both sides together.

We can fight and scheme each others demise later, how about we get this out of the way first yeah? So regardless of your ideology or political affiliation, head on over to StopThePork.Com and help your self out (or at least your wallet) by helping John Kline out.

[Crossposted at True North]

The New Yorker, hardly the pinnacle of right wing thought, created a cover that liberals, conservatives, McCain, Obama everyone has condemned, and rightly so in my opinion. But what’s more amazing is the New Yorkers rationale for the “artwork”

The July 21 cover, titled “The Politics of Fear,” is intended to be a parody, an attempt to show how “scare tactics and misinformation” are being used to try to derail Barack Obama’s campaign, says cover artist Barry Blitt.

“I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous,” Blitt wrote in an e-mail to the Huffington Post. “It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.”

Ahhh, so it’s supposed to be a parody of how the right treats Obama? Yeah see, one problem with that. It’s been almost exclusively the left that has pursued this angle, most notably the Clinton camp in a desperate attempt to knock the Messiah off his pedestal. It’s also the left that has spread photos of Obama in his “native dress”. Mention of this story line by conservatives have largely been restricted to conservatives giggling in barely restrained glee from watching liberals eat their own.

And I might note that even if conservatives were the one pushing this angle, it’s nothing compared to the disgusting representations of President Bush, Condi Rice and Laura Bush over the years.

It’s a shame really, because the article that went with the cover is a pretty damn looking at Obama’s past, as detailed quite extensively by Capt Ed.

Congress has made history by having approval ratings in the single digits for the first time since these sort of things have been tracked. One would think that since Democrats have a majority in both houses of Congress this would be a major boon for the Republicans. After all clearly the public is rejecting Democratic leadership right??? WRONG. The public still prefers the Democrats by a large margin over Republicans in a generic ballot.

I’d love to just chalk this up as a brilliant political move by Democrats, but unfortunately Republicans have to take the full credit for the enormity of this suckitude. They have utterly failed themselves on several counts.

First of all they have failed to link in the public’s mind the lack of progress to the Democrats who lead Congress. It should have been a fairly easy task. The Democrats are in charge of the bus, the bus is broke down and has a boot slapped on three of it’s tires, it’s gotta be the Democrats fault right? Well Republicans have failed to make that link in the public’s eye. The Democrats have utterly failed to do anything they said they would and instead done their damnest to mimic the Ministry of Silly Walks.

In addition, Republicans have managed to alienate themselves even further from their base. Instead of a few isolated RINOs roaming around, we have entire swaths of the Republican delegation who have convinced themselves that instead of representing those that voted them into office, their constituent’s job is to adopt the stupid crap they pull out of their ass on a daily basis.

The Democrat led Congress has not only managed to sink itself into the basement of public opinion, but then they decided to dig. This should be a sweet moment for Republicans, but instead of jumping in the lifeboat and watching the Democrats sink, our elected Republicans have instead loaded that lifeboat with any lifesaving equipment they possessed, threw on the Captain’s daughter for good measure, and then set the lifeboat ablaze.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people. On behalf of the American people, I declare a misdeal and request a new set of cards.

Many conservatives, myself included, have stopped giving to party organizations. They simply support far too many RINOs. Now you can arguments, some valid, about why they have to do this. But the reality is many conservatives simply don’t want to support, even indirectly, RINOs and the misguided legislation they bring to the table. Years back, it even motivated some conservatives bloggers, most notably Caption Ed, to take a Not. One. Dime. pledge. Instead, many (most?) have taken to donated to specific candidates only, ones that share their values….as rare as those may be.

So it was with great interest one I noted that one of the few true conservatives in the US Senate, Sen Jim DeMint, started a PAC with the intent to only support candidates that were true conservatives. The Senate Conservative Fund (SCF)….perhaps a PAC I could support?

But then I noticed under their Candidates tab a list of the 20 most competitive Senate races and requesting commentary. Problem is those races include RINOs like Ted Stevens, Susan Collins, Norm Coleman and Gordon Smith. It also included conservatives that while otherwise okay, have a huge trail of earmarks behind them, like Jeff Sessions and Elizabeth Dole ($180 million each on the Defense bill alone). It’s not exactly encouraging that a PAC purporting to support only true conservatives has such candidates being considered for support.

I sent off an email indicating as much, expecting no response I figured this was just another misguided attempt to convince conservatives to support RINOs.

However, the next day I got a response from the SCF, stating :

Good point. The list was not meant to indicate those candidates SCF is considering; just the top Senate races. We changed the wording to be more clear.

Wow, instead of a knee-jerk defensive reaction, they actually addressed the source of the misunderstanding.

So while it’s still a bit early for me to advocate everyone donating the the SCF, it appears encouraging. The true test is which candidates they choose to support.

Ok sure, you’ll snicker and laugh at it now, but months from now, when we’re well into the presidential race and you’re sick and tired of politics, you’ll WISH, you’ll BEG for politics as amusing as this.

I wonder what sort of protection Russian politicians use?? Full body condoms or what??

Ok Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor and the prognosis does not sound good. While I disagree with Kennedy on virtually every issue, politics is far too trivial of a matter to wish ill will upon another human being.

Much to the chagrin of my family and loved ones, I’ve long considered medicine to be “guesswork in a lab coat”. So let’s hope that as usual the doctors don’t know what the hell they are talking about and he pulls through.

Of course I would also hope that this experience changes him and he sees the fault in liberalism and that politics isn’t about creating an entire segment of society dependent on government, but rather allowing people to control their own destiny.

Perhaps both wishes are too much to ask for, but I wish them anyway.

Finally our wallets and checkbooks are safe….for at least a little while. The MN legislature finished up their business. Sure we have to learn to live with the aftermath, but at least more abuse isn’t coming down the pipeline from our legislature.

Good luck…