Labels: Culture
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.
Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.
"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.
"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.
Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.
"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.
Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700#ixzz0ePt0WaSw
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Labels: Health
Mon Feb 1, 4:09 PMand then pulled it.
By Terri Cullen
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NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.
Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.
Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
Mon Feb 1, 8:07 pm ETWhy? Because they don't want you to know that EVERY US citizen is going to have increased taxes to pay for the outrageous spending by the Democrat Congress and President Obama.
The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week.
Labels: Politics
The state of the union sucks but it is all George Bush's fault. I'm going to fix everything all by my lonesome by doing more of what already hasn't worked, i.e. throw away trillions of your great-grand babies' dollars. I'm sorry you were too stupid to understand what I was trying to do but that's ok as the Senate is also too stupid so I'm going to ignore them and the Supreme Court is too stupid and I'm going to try to work around them as well. Yes, I'm going to cut spending but only on things we should be spending money on. By the way, it is ALL about ME.I couldn't stand to watch. My wife did watch and listen. I was wandering around the house doing chores while I got updates from my wife. Of course she couldn't hear the TV over herself so she turned the volume UP. Consequently I could hear Barack I throughout the house.
Labels: Politics
Labels: Politics
Amidst the voter anger at Wall Street and Washington, D.C., ABC News has learned that the Senate Democratic leadership isn't sure there are enough votes to re-confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.Gee, with all the bank bashing are we to believe the Fed Chair had nothing to do with our current economic troubles? I mean he went along with the socialist free house loan stuff. Think Chris Dodd will vote for re-confirmation?
Bernanke's term expires on Jan. 31.
The White House did not respond to many requests for comment.
"The American people are disgusted with the greed and recklessness of Wall Street," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in an interview with The Associated Press last month. "People are asking, 'Why didn't the Fed intervene at the appropriate time to stop the casino-type activities of large financial companies?'"
Sanders, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., have all put holds on Bernanke's nomination, requiring 60 votes to proceed to a vote.
Labels: Criminals in Power
Labels: Politics
"I'm much more than a civil rights leader," King said of himself that year. A year later he told his Atlanta congregation: "There must be a better distribution of wealth. . . . We can't have a system where some of the people live in superfluous, inordinate wealth while others live in abject, deadening poverty."...and...
Today we do not honor the critic of capitalism, or the pacifist who declared all wars evil, or the man of God who argued that a nation that chose guns over butter would starve its people and kill itself. We do not honor the man who linked apartheid in South Africa and Alabama; we honor an antiseptic hero.When I was a young person, living in that time, watching the career of the Reverend Martin Luther King unfold as he fought for equality, listening to his speeches, I too had a dream. I too dreamed of a world in which people were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
We have stripped his life of controversy, and celebrate the conventional instead.
Labels: Criminals in Power
Labels: Politics
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.I have the perfect fix for this. The military can take a dremel tool to every sight to remove the serial number and then an electric pencil to mark them with a new serial, every one of which can start with "666". That will square things, right?
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
Labels: Culture
Massachusetts's top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy's former seat.But even though a Democrat operative says they can do it, Bareny Frank lashes out over accusations that Mass. Dems would stall a Brown certification
Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.
Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.
However, while the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy has yet to be decided, the Brown campaign has already charged that Massachusetts Democrats will find a way to keep Mr. Brown from being certified, should he win, before the final vote on health care legislation happens in the Senate. Fox News spoke to Mr. Brown about his concern on this issue.:No Barney not from the right wing of anything from the Democrat Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin!
"When I heard ... the machine, not only locally but nationally, is trying to manipulate the process and make sure that if I'm elected, a duly elected senator, I can't be seated in an effort to vote on this important piece of national legislation, it made me almost sick to my stomach," Brown said.
"Everything I've heard right now I don't like very much," said Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei, noting the secretary is signaling he will "drag his feet"
"That is the stupidest thing I've been asked in a long time. That is insane, the suggestion could only come from a demented right wing source," erupted Representative Barney Frank (D - MA), when asked by The Washington Times about what he thought of assertions that Massachusetts Democrats would stall the certification process should Mr. Brown win. "There isn't the slightest possibility of it happening---a way of doing it. That is conspiracy theory at its most contemptible."
Labels: Politics
The AP got a photo of her surveying the aftermath...Labels: Politics
Labels: Culture
Labels: Politics
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman does not file his own taxes in part because he believes the tax code is complex.I don't buy that last comment. The POTUS is supporting many pieces of legislation which will create enduring complications to the tax code.
During an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program that aired on Sunday, Shulman said he uses a tax preparer for his own returns.
"I've used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer," Shulman said.
Pressed on how he would make the tax code simpler, Shulman responded, "I don't write the tax laws. Congress writes the tax laws so that's a whole different discussion."
The IRS this month announced it will be scrutinizing the tax preparer industry. Shulman said the IRS is looking to set "a minimal level of competence in the preparer community."
Later in the C-SPAN interview, Shulman downplayed his use of a tax preparer, saying he has used one for 10 years. He noted that he and President Barack Obama are proponents of simplifying the tax code.
Labels: Politics
Labels: Politics
A pistol-packing pastor who drew national attention earlier this year for hosting a "God-and-Guns" event at his church is stepping down from the pulpit to serve his flock with a new mission.
Pastor Ken Pagano ended his 30-year career last month when he resigned from the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky., saying that he wants to focus on church security and Second Amendment rights — a crusade he insists is better fought outside the ministry.
"Thirty years was a good, long run, but it's time for a change," Pagano told the Washington Times. "If I can write my own ticket, I want to get involved more in Second Amendment issues as they affect the church, and I can do more from outside the pulpit than from behind it," Pagano told the paper.
About 200 people attended Pagano's "Open Carry Celebration" at the New Bethel Church in June. The event commemorated the roles of religion and gun ownership in American history, and included a handgun raffle. Attendees were also provided with firearms-safety information.
While Pagano says the event drew mostly positive responses, it made him realize that he might have another calling — keeping worshippers safe.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."He's actually apologizing for telling the truth. This is exactly why Obama was selected as the counter-Hillary candidate. Schumer's behavior pretty much supports this. It also points up one of Obama's characteristics, that he'll lie to get his way.
with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.We've seen him do that.
...this is the first time I've been proud...got the traction in the anti-Obama movement was because nobody who isn't black wants black people coming after them for something that their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc, MIGHT have done as much as 300 years ago.
Labels: Politics
Labels: Culture
























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