joyfulchristian

Mi vida loco

Sorry about the lack of posting lately.  Between the end of our last busy season of the year and finding a new job, I've been swamped.  I've found the job I was looking for, though.  Unfortunately, that means we'll be looking for a new house and getting ready to move to OKC.  I don't know how any of this will affect posting.  We'll see.

In other news, if you haven't seen Elizabethtown, you really should.  The wife and I saw it last week and loved it.

Yes!

It's about time.

Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

President Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

"It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," Bush said. "Harriet Miers' decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the constitutional separation of powers -- and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her."

You've always got to hate it when you find yourself opposed to a nomination by a President that you really like.  I would have liked to support this nomination, but, frankly, the White House never produced anything that would make me think Miers was qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

Hopefully, we can put this experience behind us and the President will nominate someone conservatives can really get behind.

One little problem

You know, when I hear this sort of thing, I want to cheer:

            Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally.

"Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.

"It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," Chertoff told a Senate hearing.

Then, of course, I remember who Chertoff's boss is.  President Bush has made it pretty clear that this is not a priority of his.  He's even toyed with the idea of a blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants.  I like the rhetoric.  I'd like it more if thought that wasn't all it was.

And on a side note, I saw this towards the end of the story:

Chertoff's remarks in favor of returning "every illegal entrant, no exceptions" appeared to conflict directly with the US policy toward illegal Cuban migrants.

Though Cubans picked up at sea are returned to their country, those who reach US soil by air, sea or ground are allowed to stay and work -- a fact Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal emigration attempts.

Nothing like editorials in the news stories, is there?

Anyway, I'm not an attorney and haven't studied this, but it is my understanding that the "dry feet" policy is actually part of U.S. law.  If that's the case, anyone who's able to make it from Cuba to the U.S. on their own wouldn't be an illegal immigrant.  If my understanding is right, than his comments wouldn't be at all contradictory to U.S. policy on Cuban immigrants.

No kidding

Oh my goodness:

An IRS Appeals officer abused his discretion when he determined to proceed with the collection by levy of 48 cents, plus penalties and interest. The taxpayer and his wife had filed a joint return for the tax year at issue and, at the time of filing, paid approximately one-half of the total tax liability.

That's right, they filed a levy on the guys assets to collect $.48.  They tried to grab $440 in penalty and interest as well.  Fortunately, the Tax Court slapped these guys down.  Unfortunately, the taxpayers almost certainly spent a couple of grand fighting this. (Maybe more.)  I guess they were just fighting it on principle.  (An awful lot of tax case law is the result of angry people spending way more than the proposed liability just on the principle of not letting the IRS win.)

Vote her down

I've really been wanting to be able to support the Harriet Miers nomination.  I've been waiting for the White House to give me something, anything, to convince me that a) she's highly qualified, and b) she can be trusted to approach the Constitution in a textualist and originalist fashion.  To date, I've seen nothing remotely convincing in this regard.  The closest I've seen is Dick Cheney on the Rush Limbaugh show saying, basically, "Trust us."

Sorry, that's just not going to cut it.  At this point I'm going to have to oppose the nomination.  I intend to contact my senators and express that opinion.  That's going to have to wait until next week, however, as this week is CRAZY.

Heads up

Apparently, in the city commission meeting of Stillwater, Oklahoma last night, two of our commissioners started rumblings about denying certain hardship benefits to reservists who have drastic drops in income due to being called to active service.  At the moment, I'm waiting to get a transcript of the meeting so I can make sure that I know exactly what was said.  Once that's done, I'm hoping I can get some blogosphere help to get out the word and mount up some pressure against this lunacy.

I'll keep you posted.

The next time someone tells you that the rich don't pay taxes ...

... remember this.

The top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers, who earn a minimum annual income of at least $300,000, paid more than a third of personal income taxes in 2003, according to new IRS data.

The new figures reveal that the top half of all U.S. taxpayers accounted for all but 4 percent of the 2003 individual income tax receipts. The top 10 percent of taxpayers, with an income of at least $95,000, were responsible for two-thirds of personal income taxes paid for the year, the figures show.

The new data illustrates the “steeply progressive nature of the federal income tax,” according to Joint Economic Committee Chair Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J. In a press release issued October 4, Saxton noted that the share of taxes paid by the top half of taxpayers had climbed a percentage point since 1993, while the share paid by the bottom half accounted for a percentage point less.

It is true that, with proper planning, the rich have a greater opportunity to minimize the taxes they pay.  However, for most people, no matter how rich they are, their finances are not flexible enough to avoid paying substantial sums of money.  Unless, of course, they simply stop making money at all.

Somedays

... I'm tempted to advocate a movie-stars-can't-have-kids law. Or at least name them.  Nicholas Cage has named his newest child Kal-El.  Yes, that's right; he and Superman now have the same birth name. 

I don't even know what to say ...

This doesn't make me hopeful

Rush Limbaugh interviewed Dick Cheney today. A lot of the conversation was regarding the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. I scanned through the transcript and it appears that Rush kept asking, "How can we be sure she's a conservative?" and Cheney kept saying, "Oh, she is! Trust us."

Either they're missing the point on purpose or through political deafness.  The point is not that  conservatives think she's not one of them.  The problem is that we don't have enough information to know one way or the other. 

I'm sure that most conservatives would like to believe that "Trust us" is enough, but it's not.  For one thing, that's what we were told about Souter.  Another problem, as David Frum points out, is that while Bush has done a decent job of choosing judges, his record in choosing people to fill other slots is not that great.

If you want us to support your nominee, Mr. President, you're going to have to do better than, "Trust me!"  It's not your sincerity I doubt; it's your judgment on personnel matters.

A Supreme?

I see that InstaPundit has plenty of links discussing the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.  I don't have time to dive into this issue right now, but so far I'm underwhelmed.  I'd like to believe that she'd be a good Justice.  I'd like even more to believe that she'd be an originalist when it comes to the Constitution.  The evidence, however, is pretty thin.

I wish I could say I support this nomination, but I can't think of one good reason to do so.  That doesn't mean I have, at the moment, any reason to oppose it; I just can't think of any reason to support it.

Time will tell, I suppose.