New Jersey's Motley Crew of Democratic Challengers To Corzine

If you think that the New Jersey GOP is in bad shape, consider the situation for the Democrats. Yes, they have Gov. Jon Corzine who's run the state's fiscal ship aground. But, they have a bunch of challengers who are even more out of touch than Corzine is. Of the three others seeking the nomination, only one is even reasonably in touch with reality and not engaging in conspiracy mongering or pushing crazy theories.

First, we meet with Jeff Boss of Guttenberg, who says the government plotted the 9/11 terrorist attacks and vows that legalized sports betting is the key to solving New Jersey's budget woes. Then, we travel to Glen Ridge to speak with Carl Bergmanson, former mayor of Glen Ridge, who blasts Corzine for failing to deliver on the promises he made four years ago. Finally, we head out Route 78 to meet with Phillipsburg factory worker Roger Bacon, who says he's running to lead a march on Washington against NAFTA.

This is such a motley crew of people.

There's the good, bad, and just plain ugly.

First the good: Former Glen Ridge Mayor Carl Bergmanson thinks he's got a shot. His platform makes sense, and he says many of the right things, including calls for the elimination of all toll roads, noting the costs in traffic and pollution and the nickle and diming of taxpayers. He also calls for a constitutional convention to eliminate the Supreme Court's involvement in property taxes and school funding. Specifically, he's looking to eliminate COAH, which is the affordable housing requirement, which is anything but affordable.

His biggest problem is that he doesn't have the bankroll that Corzine does.

The bad: Roger Bacon is a perpetual gadfly and candidate for office with no chance for winning. He's attempted runs for Congress and now Governor. He has no chance of winning, but he's going to make a show of it. What is his platform? He wants to march on Washington to repeal NAFTA.

Here's the flat-out ugly: I actually met Jeff Boss the other day as he was handing out fliers announcing his positions in Hoboken. I didn't realize that at the time, but with the photo accompanying the Star Ledger story, I've now made that connection. I wish I had known who this guy was because I felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards.

His flier reads more like a manifesto than a clear and lucid approach to governance. As the Star Ledger reports, Boss thinks that the solution to the state's fiscal mess is to jump on the sports betting bandwagon, but that's just a tip of this iceberg. Boss also thinks that New Jersey residents should get a total pass on having to pay NJ Turnpike or GSP tolls. It should be imposed on out of state drivers, as though that would ever pass constitutional muster, let alone represents even a modicum of fiscal responsibility.

Worse still is that he's a 9/11 conspiracy monger. He thinks that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. If there's a reason to send Boss packing, that's it. More to the point, the other candidates should be running this kook out of the room.

With opponents like this, it's no wonder that Corzine does so well.

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Hsu Wont Fly: Former Clinton Bagman To Plead Guilty

When last we recounted the story of Hillary Clinton's bagman, Norman Hsu, he was awaiting trial. Well, today we learn that he's pleading guilty to 10 charges of wire and mail fraud and operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded people out of $20 million.

Hsu made illegal political contributions to quite a few politicians, including Sen. Hillary Clinton. (HT: Jammie)

Also receiving largesse from Hsu? Bob Kerrey, and the DSCC, Ed Rendell, NYS AG Andy Cuomo, NYS former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and the TN and MI Democratic Parties.

Last year, Hsu was sentenced to prison in California for jumping bail and being on the lam for years - and turning himself into a major domo within the Democratic party money machine.

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Shocker: Manny Ramirez Suspended For 50 Games For Testing Positive For Steroids

This guy was considered one of the most fearsome hitters of our generation. Now, Manny Ramirez is just another statistic of those caught doing steroids.

Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and will be suspended 50 games starting today, The Times has learned.

The test result and suspension is expected to be announced later today. The Dodgers informed triple-A outfielder Xavier Paul this morning that he was being promoted to Los Angeles.

UPDATE:
ESPN has much more on this, including that Ramirez claims that he was taking the medications at the behest of a doctor who was treating an undisclosed medical issue, except that the facts don't quite fix:

However, testing by Major League Baseball showed that Ramirez had testosterone in his body that was not natural and came from an artificial source, two people with knowledge of the case told ESPN's Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn. The sources said that in addition to the artificial testosterone, Ramirez was identified as using the female fertility drug human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG.

The sources said Ramirez was suspended for using hCG because baseball had documentation to prove his use of the drug. A Major League Baseball source said Ramirez's representatives indicated they would fight a suspension for using artificial testosterone.

Ramirez, in a statement issued by the players' union, said: "Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me.

Now, what kind of medical problem would require taking these medications? Ramirez needs to say more about his condition if he wants people to believe what he has to say.

Frankly, I couldn't care less what excuses Ramirez proffers. I don't trust what he, or anyone else in baseball has to say about steroids. I don't trust any players on whether they have been clean during the past decade. How am I to trust them? Their actions, and those of the players union, have been one of obfuscation and doing anything imaginable to thwart testing and to protect those who had been taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in the past.

Those who were clean during that time didn't speak out louder against those who were taking steroids - and the reasons are many - from attacking teammates to union loyalties, but the fact remains is that by their silence, everyone is tarnished by the steroid era.

Truly, the sad thing is that the most trustworthy person on the steroid era is Jose Canseco. And when Canseco is the most trustworthy person in baseball, you really have a problem.

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Check the Numbers

This is a mantra that should be repeated at all levels of government.

The New York State legislative leaders and Governor David Paterson say that they've fixed the MTA's budget problems, which includes raising payroll taxes, hiking fares, fees on vehicle registrations, and imposing surcharges on taxi usage.

The numbers don't add up, especially if the rosy projections do not come to pass. That means that even with the expectation of further fare increases, the MTA will be running structural deficits for years to come.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli must examine the deal and see whether it's all just smoke and mirrors.

Meanwhile, President Obama is supposedly going to cut $17 billion from his just announced budget. How exactly is that a fiscally responsible thing to do? He proposed a multi-trillion dollar spending package that was all deficit spending and back-loaded so that the public might possibly see construction just before his reelection campaign gets underway, but which was larded with tons of pork to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. His latest fiscal year spending package is $3.4 trillion, far in excess of anything ever proposed by the US government, and he's calling for $17 billion in cuts?

President Obama has said for weeks that his staff is scouring the federal budget, "line by line," for savings. Today, they will release the results: a plan to trim 121 programs by $17 billion, a tiny fraction of next year's $3.4 trillion budget.

The plan is less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings. And like most of the cuts Bush sought, congressional sources and independent budget analysts yesterday predicted that Obama's, too, would be a tough sell.

"Even if you got all of those things, it would be saving pennies, not dollars. And you're not going to begin to get all of them," said Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who waged her own battles with Congress as a senior official in the Clinton White House budget office. "This is a good government exercise without much prospect of putting a significant dent in spending."

It's a fraction of a percentage, and even worse, it's half of what President Bush called for in cuts during Bush's last year in office. Proportionally, it makes Obama's budget cuts look even more paltry.

There is no one in politics that appears to be willing to be the taxpayers' advocates and protect taxpayers from profligate spending and irresponsible budget proposals that do nothing to impose fiscal responsibility on anyone at any level of government.

It has to start somewhere, and in New York, that means the comptrollers offices at the state and local level. They must stand up and demand accountability and audit the books of all the relevant parties to insure that the taxpayers aren't being taken for a ride. It's their obligation and fiduciary responsibility to do so.

UPDATE:
DrewM at Ace points out that most of the $17 billion comes from one area of the budget, national defense. It's specifically relating to the Defense Department cessation of the F-22 project and choosing not to update/replace the Presidential helicopter fleet. Also, much of the rest of the cuts will be restored by Congress, which does this stuff as a matter of policy.

Instead of focusing on the dollar value of his bloated budget, he's touting the number of programs supposedly touched by his cuts. It's smoke and mirrors, much in the same way that the Administration now classifies successfully defeating the recession and unemployment figures by the nonsensical "created or saved jobs".

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Which One Of These Is Not Like The Other?

Which one of these folks is getting raked over the coals for their position on gay marriage, and which one is skating without so much as a raised eyebrow? This person, whose topless photos have apparently caused quite a stir:



or, this person, whose topless photos also cause quite the stir (and tingling in the pants of Chris Matthews):


Carrie Prejean or President Barack Obama? Both hold precisely the same view on gay marriage, which is to say both personally oppose it, and yet it's Prejean who's being attacked in the media for her position, while President Obama, who actually is in a position to take action on gay marriage and to use the bully pulpit to further the gay rights movement, has not received a fraction of the scrutiny on his gay marriage posture that Prejean has.

Prejean, for those who aren't paying attention, was Miss California and had a truthful answer about gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant. The fallout has revealed just how thuggish the left can be. Jammie has the details.

It still doesn't explain why the President's position on gay marriage hasn't come under the same kind of withering attack unless it is because the media is willing to look the other way and forgive Obama on this issue knowing that they'll get so much of the rest of their agenda adopted?

Does the media understand how asinine this all looks? Do they even care?

My position on gay marriage is this: if the individual states want to impose it legislatively, it is entirely up to the individual states. They can decide for themselves, based on how conservative or liberal they choose to be on the matter. And this isn't simply a GOP/Democratic party split on the matter, given that the overwhelming majority of African Americans oppose gay marriage even as they vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. The California Proposition 8 ballot shows this point explicitly.

Gay marriage should not be imposed from the bench, despite the will of the people of those states. Judicial diktat is not the way to make this happen. Maine has become the latest state to legislatively authorize gay marriage. That's the right course to take.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia has passed a bill authorizing gay marriage, over the opposition of Marion Barry and black church leaders throughout the city. It now goes to the Congress to approve within 30 days. If Congress takes no action on the bill, it automatically becomes law.

In the meantime, I await President Obama's leadership on the matter [that's sarcasm for all you folks out there].

UPDATE:
Even the New York Times is finally calling on the President to get engaged and speak out about the gay marriage issue. Of course, there are also those who think that Obama's opposition to gay marriage thus far is nothing more than a political ploy to curry favor in the African American community, and I'm inclined to believe that to be the case.

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Barbarians Inside the Gates

The Taliban engage in barbaric practices, and the news coming out of the frontier provinces and nearby provinces fully inside Pakistan are truly horrific. The Taliban are misogynists, and they treat women worse than chattel. They slaughter people on a whim, and even those Muslims who initially welcomed these thugs with open arms are horrified at what has resulted.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

The reports also show just how reluctant the Zardari government is in engaging in a proper offensive against the Taliban. They're not sending the regular army against the Taliban, but rather the paramilitary forces, which have gotten bloodied on a regular basis and who have regularly lost ground against the Taliban, who are asserting dominion over Swat and nearby provinces outside the frontier.

The Pakistani government claims that they are busy killing Taliban as they find them in Swat, but the reports are grim. Taliban are patrolling large areas of Swat and have pushed deep inside Pakistan proper.

Reports from Swat are confused as the military claims that they've killed dozens of Taliban, including suicide bombers, while other reports suggest that they were civilians attempting to flee.

It's an absolute mess, and it shows no signs of improving. The cause for all this misery; years of doing nothing to stop the Taliban from laying the groundwork in the Frontier Provinces and inside Pakistan proper that would seek to usurp power from the Pakistani government and traditional power brokers. The government in Islamabad, including Musharraf and Zardari, regularly engaged in crackdowns and appeasement, which offered the Taliban the insight they needed to simply outlast any sustained effort to stop the Taliban.

Each deal that the Pakistani government cut was one deal more that the Taliban would break knowing that another deal would be forthcoming. Each successive deal would further erode Islamabad's position, and the refusal to send the military to crush the Taliban has repercussions throughout the region.

The Obama Administration is engaging in wishful thinking if it believes that the Pakistani government and the Afghan government are going to crack down and crush the Taliban, even with US assistance. The Pakistanis lack the political will to do so, which means that no matter how much the US or Afghan governments pledge to do so, the safe havens in the frontier provinces will be off limits. It will take the Pakistanis to do what must be done, and their reluctance has brought the region to the precipice.

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Louisiana Voters Have Candidate Who Really Knows How To Screw Constituents

Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, is setting up to run against GOPer David Vitter for his US Senate seat in Louisiana in 2010.

Stormy Daniels: I think so. I think that’s one the things that people find kind of entertaining about the whole thing but you’ve got to remember what I do is legal and what he did is not. So, yeah, I think that people find that very interesting. I hear the word karma a lot.

Chetry: You still haven’t filed the papers yet, right? How seriously are you considering this run for Senate?

Daniels: Well, I’m seriously considering it. That’s the whole reason why I’m here this week doing the listening tour. I think that before I can decide whether or not I’m going to move forward with actually campaigning and undertaking a possible candidacy, I want to do the responsible thing and do a listening tour so I can get a better feel of what the people here really want me to do.

Chetry: You had your first experience with that yesterday in Baton Rouge. What was the reaction from people? Are they taking you seriously and do they hold your past in adult film against you?

Daniels: You know what, I was really, really overwhelmed by how positive and how good the turnout was yesterday. Every seat in the place was taken. There was tons of news there. Everyone had very serious, positive questions for me. I was expecting at least a little bit of controversy but surprisingly there was none. And everyone’s questions seemed to be very serious.

Chetry: And so what did you tell them when they were seeking answers about help with the foreclosure situation there, help with job losses? How are you telling them you’re going to be able to make their lives better?

Daniels: Well you have to remember this isn’t the actual campaign, this is the listening tour. So the whole idea of me going there yesterday was I was supposed to be asking the questions to them. I wanted to get their feedback so that I could decide what my platform was going to be on each of those topics. I was very impressed with the turnout. I was very pleased with the turnout and the response but I was, quite honestly, I was a little disappointed that more people didn’t speak up and let me know what their issues were. I think they were very intimidated by the amount of television crews and cameras that were in the room. Of course everybody wanted know to how I felt about taxes. A couple of people wanted to know about David Vitter and the same thing that I said yesterday is I wasn’t there to talk about him. I’ve done enough of that. If they had questions about David Vitter they needed to go and talk to David Vitter about that, but overall I mean I am here to listen to decide what their opinions are.

Chetry: So your supporters have this website up, draftstormy.com. They say it’s a chance to start with a clean slate, to elect a representative we can be proud of, who will work tirelessly, who will change the status quo. If people are saying okay maybe this isn’t a joke, what are you saying to convince them that you would make a good Senator?

She's not the first porn star to contemplate running for higher office in the US, and other countries have elected porn stars to political office, including Ilona Staller (aka La Cicciolina). Here in the US, Mary Carey ran for governor during the recall elections in California.

We'll just have to see if Daniels has staying power and gets a leg up on the competition.

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Throwing Israel Under the Bus To Get Iranian Nuclear Disarmament?

This is about as asinine a step that the Obama Administration could take in dealing with the mess that is known as the Middle East and the Iranian situation in particular. Iran has repeatedly made it known that they seek nothing less than Israel's annihilation, and is working to that goal with a combination of missile technologies and nuclear enrichment programs that are designed to give Iran nuclear weapons capabilities.

The time frame for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is unknown, but it is a simply a function of time, given that Iran has thousands of centrifuges spinning furiously to separate uranium into its constituent parts - including weapons grade uranium. It is only a matter of time before those centrifuge cascades have run long enough to provide enough materials for nuclear weapons.

It is not a question of if, but when.

Iran's mad mullahs and genocidal thug Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction, engaged in rhetoric calling for the United States to fall, and basically fund international terrorists to further those goals - including Hamas and Hizbullah, who both actively engage in terror operations against Israel on a regular basis.

It is with that backdrop that the US now wants to force Israel to disarm its own nuclear program (which itself has never been declared and is not subject to the NPT). Israel has maintained an ambigious stance on its nuclear arsenal, and counterstrike capabilities are the one thing that keeps most of the other countries in the region that are still at a state of war with Israel from engaging in the kind of overwhelming attack against Israel that would decimate Israel. The proxy wars by Hamas and Hizbullah are stand-ins for the nation-states that fund those groups.

Direct conflict is minimized, but the conflict remains. Syria and Iran continue to seek Israel's destruction, and their funding and assistance of those groups remains a key stumbling block. They simply do not recognize Israel's existence.

Forcing Israel to give up a strategic pillar of its national security is not going to improve Israel's security situation, nor will it improve US national security since the Iranians would simply use the opportunity to speed up their programs, and to hasten further attacks on Israel since the US is throwing Israel to the wolves.

Further, it shows that the US is willing to throw all of its allies under the bus in the hope of placating rogue nations. Why would any nation seek to ally itself with the US under any circumstances given that the US would just as soon as turn against that nation the moment the Administration thinks that peace overtures should be obtained from rogue nations.

Consider that this move is akin to the US forcing the South Koreans to give up a substantial part of its military in order to make a deal with North Korea to give up its nuclear program. South Korea would be nuts to put its national security in the hands of the least stable regime and the one most antithetical to its existence.

It would be putting Israel's security in the hands of the very enemies most antithetical to Israel's existence. How does that improve American national security when Iran seeks America's demise just as surely as it does Israel's?

Then, there's the issue of nuclear proliferation in the region:

"We did not want to accept any operational language that would put Israel at a disadvantage and raise the question of whether Israel was a nuclear power," he said. "That was not a discussion that we thought was helpful. We allowed very general statements about the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East as long that language was hortatory."

Israel began its nuclear program shortly after the state was founded in 1948 and produced its first weapons, according to Mr. Cohen's book, on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli defense doctrine considers the nuclear arsenal to be a strategic deterrent against extinction. But its nuclear monopoly is increasingly jeopardized by Iranian advances and the possibility that Iran's program could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region.

Israel's arsenal has also been an open secret for decades, despite the fact that Israeli law forbids Israeli journalists from referring to the state's nuclear weapons unless they quote non-Israeli sources.

A nuclear arms race in the region wouldn't be Israel versus Iran. It would be Iran against all the other Sunni-majority countries in the region since Iran is majority Shi'ite, and the longstanding hatred and conflict between the two strains of Islam would stand on the precipice of Iranian intentions to dominate the Middle East and beyond to show the supremacy of Shi'ism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and other nations in the region would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear program any more than Israel would, and are just as threatened by such a program. The nuclearization of the region isn't due to Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, but rather the theocratic opposition by Sunni Muslims to Shi'ite Muslims possessing weapons that could threaten their standing theocratically speaking.

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UN Demands Compensation For Gaza Damage?

The UN should be ashamed of itself for demanding that Israel compensate the United Nations for damage to UN property in Gaza as a result of going after Hamas during Operation Cast Lead.

A United Nations demand for financial compensation for Israeli strikes on UN facilities in Gaza could come to $11 million, a government official in Jerusalem said yesterday in response to a UN report that criticized Israel for the attacks. The incidents occurred during Operation Cast Lead in January.

The official said Israel would begin negotiations with the UN on this and other matters in the coming weeks.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Israel yesterday of lying about attacks on the facilities, including one said to have killed more than 40 people outside a school compound, and formally demanded compensation. He said a UN investigation found conclusively that Israel was responsible for attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the organization's Gaza headquarters. Some of the weapons used in these attacks contained white phosphorous, he added.

The report, which was presented to the Security Council yesterday, accuses Israel of intentionally firing on the UN institutions and using excessive force.

Keep in mind that the UN repeatedly looks the other way as the terrorists in Hamas regroup and rearm right under UN noses throughout the Gazan refugee camps that are operated by the UNRWA, UN peacekeepers failed to disarm Hizbullah pursuant to UN Security Council resolutions, which led to a major war in 2006 that decimated Southern Lebanon and severely damaged the Israeli economy.

Israel is being singled out for damaged property? Why is the UN not seeking reparations from Hamas for the damage done by terrorists operating in such close proximity to UN facilities so as to use them as human shields an which led to damage to UN facilities when those terrorists attacked Israel.

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Construction Follies

There's little reason why this particular construction project to rebuild a bridge on the heavily trafficked Route 46 should take as long as this report claims.

Work to replace the Route 46 bridge deck between the Hazel Street and Broad Street exit ramps began March 1 and is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

But local business owners said the project has affected business, and motorists and residents said they’ve been forced to add more time to their commutes in order to get through the traffic scrum.

Michael Troissi, 40, of Clifton, who uses the road to get to work, said he understands that the construction is for the greater good, but he doesn’t understand why the work has to be done during the day.

"It’s been horrible," Troissi said. "It’d be nice if they could do their work at night or over the weekend."

The bridge is in a commercial area and the bottleneck can extend to the Garden State Parkway because the construction is just past the merge from the Garden State Parkway offramp onto Rt. 46 East. Traffic is a nightmare during rush hour, and yet the DOT doesn't seem to have any incentives to complete the work faster, or that construction take place during nights and weekends.

I travel that route fairly regularly on weekends, or at least I now try to avoid it at all costs because of the traffic, particularly in the East bound direction.

The state should look into speeding the construction. The state and construction companies behind the rebuilding of the Essex Street overpass on Rt. 17 somehow managed to complete the work months ahead of schedule and claimed bonuses for doing so. Why is that not done in every construction project in the state? Time is money, and commuters and businesses along the Rt. 46 corridor are losing time and money because of the construction delays.

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Scare Force One Photos Wont Be Made Public

After claiming last week that the flyby of the VC-25 aircraft that is designated Air Force One when the President is on board was meant to upgrade the file photos of the airplane over national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the US Air Force now says that they wont make the photos public.

Are you kidding me? After spending $328,835 [ed: corrected the figure] to make the effort and causing quite the scare and stir in the NY metro area because of the low flying aircraft that no one except a chosen few in the FAA and a few people that the FAA informed, the Air Force and White House owe it to the taxpayers and the New York metro area residents to see what they got for the trouble.

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

"We have no plans to release them," an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

"The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

New Yorkers said they could not understand how a president who shares intimate snapshots from the White House could justify classifying these.

"So we're not gonna see the fruits of this cruel joke?" said Frank Antonelli, 39, one of the Wall Street traders spooked by last week's flyover.

Also, after claiming he was angry that the photo op caused such a stir, the President must make the photos available.

This only adds an unnecessary diversion to the White House (which could be precisely why they're going this route?).

UPDATE:
Don Surber links. Thanks! Don also notes that the White House is hell-bent on releasing hundreds of photos showing alleged abuse of detainees. So, it's real easy to find reason to criticize the US (and particularly the prior administration), but if you find reason to criticize the current occupant of the White House, those photos remain classified (although not for long as Michelle Malkin has filed FOIA requests to release the photos and other information stemming from the overflights).

UPDATE:
This is top quality snark, courtesy of Ace of Spades reader C.Jordan:

Perhaps the photos were ruined by people running for their lives in the background?

Let's see if he was right.

Like Ace, I'm wondering why the Administration is stonewalling on this minor issue, particularly because everyone knows that it was a screwup, including by the President's own admission. What does he stand to benefit by maintaining the secrecy of the photos unless there are none to be released at all, and he and his staffers were lying about the purpose of the flyover? Occam's Razor is starting to get the tingles on that front, and unless the Administration can come up with a better answer, this is going to needlessly simmer.

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MTA Bailout Deal Reached?

It's going to include increased payroll taxes, a taxi surcharge, and increased fares, but the State Senate apparently has the votes to make this deal happen. The proposed deal will forestall serious fare increases and doesn't involve tolling the East River Bridges.

I'm concerned about the math, given that the MTA claims to be in dire fiscal shape and needed hundreds of millions of dollars that only the tolling of bridges could have provided. Instead, the bulk of the deal is contingent on the payroll tax hikes on the 12 counties that make up the New York City metro region.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved increases ranging from 23 percent to 30 percent, but agreed to shelve its plan if the bailout is approved. Under the bailout, the fares would still rise about 8 percent on average, but layoffs and service cuts would be avoided.

A $1 fee per taxi ride has been cut to 50 cents. That would fund what Smith called a ``modest'' capital improvement at the MTA. A proposal for another 50 cents per trip to leverage about $1 billion in aid for bridge and highway work upstate and on Long Island was dropped, but Smith said it will be reconsidered in October when a full MTA capital plan is devised.

The proposal now goes to the Democrat-led Assembly where it is likely to be approved despite some concerns. All 30 Republican senators have said they are opposed to the bailout proposals, meaning Smith will need every Democrat in his 32-30 majority.

State Sen. Brian Foley of Suffolk County and Sen. Craig Johnson of Nassau County said they agree to what Smith called ``a framework ... to bail out the MTA.''

``We are going to limit the devastating fare increases, and you're going to see the end of service cuts,'' Johnson said.

Foley called the tentative agreement a watershed event for the Senate because the schools to be protected will be from Republican-represented districts as well as districts represented by Democrats.

Smith said the deal will include a ``graduated'' payroll tax that will decline in the outer rings of the 12-county MTA service region. Under the proposal, employers in Dutchess, Orange and Putnam counties north of the city would pay a tax of 25 cents per $100 of payroll. The remaining counties in the 12-county MTA district, including the city and those on Long Island, would pay 34 cents per $100 of payroll.

Smith said he was seeking a formal deal this week with Paterson and the Assembly's Democratic majority, which must also approve the bailout.

The deal wont prevent further fare or toll increases, nor does it address structural problems with the MTA budget, but it will prevent the so-called Doomsday budgets that would have seen massive fare and toll increases.

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Sen. Chris Dodd's Moral Muddle

Let's set aside all his many problems with being the focal point of the financial meltdown and various other ethical flaps.

Let's just focus on this nastiness courtesy of Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd:



Dodd takes Godwin's law, throttles it, waterboards it, throws it into a plastic shredder, and still finds that what Bush authorized in harsh interrogations is worse than what the Nazis did to murder six million Jews during the Holocaust.

These people have no clue. They are destroying the meaning of the English language with these kinds of pronouncements, and dishonor the memories of those murdered at the hands of the Nazis (who regularly engaged in torture, medical experimentation, rape, and other nastiness and pure unadulterated evil, which in no way shape or form could even remotely be compared to allowing harsh interrogations of three self-admitted terror masters, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who helped plan and instigate the 9/11 attacks.

Dodd also misstates the facts surrounding the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in claiming that he was waterboarded 180+ times. He was in fact waterboarded a grand total of five sessions, and the 180+ times refers to the individual instances water was sprinkled on his face.

This was done to obtain information of a critical nature to prevent further terrorist attacks, and KSM was no saint. He was behind multiple terrorist attacks and planned dozens of major bombings and high profile attacks, including assassinations, hijacking and destroying multiple airliners, flying hijacked airlines into other buildings, mass casualty attacks, destroying key infrastructure, and causing all manner of mayhem around the world, and focused specifically on US interests worldwide.

Dodd's attempted equivocation between what the Administration did to obtain needed intel and what the Nazis did is reprehensible.

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Pakistan's Appeasement Deal Falling Apart

The Taliban can see that they're gaining and that there's no reason for them to continue abiding by the deal with the Pakistani government. If that deal falls apart, the Sharif government will have nothing to show for their efforts, and will have to admit that their appeasement failed miserably.

It would also mean that the Islamists will have gained a serious foothold in Pakistani territory and that the government has no answers to stop the Taliban advance.

Muslim Khan, the spokesman for Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah, said the peace agreement "practically stands dissolved" as the military is attacking Taliban forces throughout the Malakand Division.

The government signed the Malakand Accord with Taliban front man Sufi Mohammed on February 16. The peace agreement called for the end of military operations in Swat, the end of Taliban operations, and the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, in the districts of Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, Chitral, and Kohistan, a region that encompasses nearly one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province.

"Our peace agreement with the NWFP government practically stands dissolved," Khan told The News. "Forces are attacking us and our fighters are also retaliating" against Pakistani security forces and government officials.

"If the Awami National Party [the ruling, secular Pashtun party in the Northwest Frontier Province] supports us, we will not harm them," Khan said. "But if they sided with the government, they too will become our target."

Khan said the Taliban would focus on Pakistan's federal government and the military because they are carrying out the policy of the United States. "However, our main target will be security forces and the rulers of Pakistan," he noted. "We will also act in other cities of Pakistan but will not target the general public."

Amir Izzat Khan, the spokesman for Sufi Mohammad, the leader of the banned pro-Taliban Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed [TNSM or the Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammed's Law] and father-in-law of Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah, told The News that the peace agreement is still intact but it would end if the military operations in neighboring Dir and Buner continued.

Once again, we see how the Taliban are dictating the terms here - instead of the Pakistani government. The Islamists and Taliban are busy warning that the deal will fall apart if the government doesn't stop going after the Taliban advancing throughout the frontier provinces and towards Islamabad, particularly in Dir and Buner.

No, this deal is falling apart because the Taliban's need for the deal is no longer present. They're accomplishing what they set out to do, and the Pakistani government is not in a position to do anything about it.

There are good reasons why the US is gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan. The Pakistani nuclear arsenal may still be secure for the moment, but there's no telling how long that will last. The government isn't doing a good job holding off the Taliban, and the military still hasn't thrown its full weight into going after the Taliban in the frontier provinces despite the existential threat posed by the Islamists.

Adm. Mike Mullen, who visited Pakistan and Afghanistan last week, added that while fighting continues in Iraq, and the U.S. remains committed to the mission, "the main effort in our strategic focus from a military perspective must now shift to Afghanistan."

Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon Monday that the Taliban, aided by Al Qaeda, are "recruiting through intimidation, controlling through fear and advancing an unwelcome ideology through thuggery."

"The consequences of their success directly threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home," Mullen said.

Mullen was speaking ahead of a joint meeting in Washington, D.C., this week with President Obama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss economic, political and security benchmarks for ousting militant forces from the region.

Mullen expressed concern that the political leadership and military leadership in Pakistan are working at cross-purposes. Taliban operatives have moved through the Swat Valley, which Pakistan's government essentially ceded to the fundamentalists last month in hopes of batting down additional confrontations.

However, Monday morning, the mayor of Methar Lam City, north of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, was assassinated, and militant forces continue to expand their area of control throughout the border region.

The cross purposes is the mixed messages sent by the Pakistani government- appeasement on the one hand, which only encourages the Taliban to further violence because they see the benefits of doing so. The Taliban continue gaining territory and the recalcitrant Sharif government is incapable of defending Pakistan's national interests in maintaining control and sovereignty over all of Pakistan.

It has all but ceded control of the Pastun regions to the Taliban. However, the Taliban aren't satisfied with just controlling those regions, but see bigger prizes on the horizon.

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Systemic Failure in Newspaper Business

The New York Times Co., which owns the Boston Globe and other properties, is contemplating shutting down the Globe's newspaper business within a matter of weeks. The Times simply can't find a way to make money, and they're selling anything and everything that either has a chance of making money to keep the Times afloat or canning entire businesses because they have no chance of making money.

Some see this as a ploy to extract more concessions from the unions that continue to ignore reality and the failings of the newspaper business model.

The Times has already engaged in a sale-leaseback of its headquarters in New York City to raise capital, and it looks like they're trying to sell the company's share of the Boston Red Sox to majority owner John Henry. That's probably the most profitable sector of the company, which has lost most of its share value and net worth over the past few years. Editorial decisions haven't helped either, as the paper essentially caters to less than 50% of the marketplace.

Instapundit thinks that this is a lose-lose situation for the unions and the company. I see it as poetic justice for the leftists at the paper who now have to play union-breaker after hollering about how other businesses and industries treat unions so poorly. The reality is that the unions and management here have done such a poor job adjusting to the economic situation, that both are going to suffer all the more for it.

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Illinois Pay To Play?

On the one hand, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias may have used public funds from the state's college savings fund to pay for a brand new SUV. That's a criminal misuse of public funds, a breach of fiduciary duty, and criminal and civil charges ought to be forthcoming.

On the other hand, Giannoulias claims that the money came from the fee paid to the treasurer's office by an investment firm that manages the fund. That would be considered pay-to-play in many circles, and it raises nearly as many questions as it answers.

In any event, Giannoulias deserves to be thoroughly investigated to determine whether he's engaged in pay-to-play or other civil and criminal misconduct in administering the Illinois college savings plan. (HT: Honorary Youper at LGF)

That's all on top of problems with the fund and a possible breach of fiduciary duties by allowing the fund to invest in riskier securities. It seems that he allowed Oppenheimer Funds to invest in riskier securities, including mortgage backed investments, despite all the risk of being so highly leveraged.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias' office has stopped answering questions about problems in the investment portfolio of the state's $2-billion Bright Start college savings program.

Mr. Giannoulias says his lawyer (Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan) has advised him to keep quiet, lest he undermine settlement talks with Bright Start manager Oppenheimer Funds, which he asserts may have violated its fiduciary duty by sticking money in risky mortgage-related securities.

There is some truth in that. The manager who ran Oppenheimer's Core Bond fund left the company earlier this year, and analysts at Chicago's Morningstar Inc. have said the fund was leveraged to the hilt. Ms. Madigan's office has put some limits on public comment.

But Mr. Giannoulias is exaggerating -- perhaps because the questions just keep on arising about whether he properly managed Oppenheimer, or just let it do what it wanted amid a rising number of red flags.

The Bright Star Program lost $85 million last year, and the problems keep mounting for Giannoulias.

The kicker is that Giannoulias is looking to raise funds to campaign for President Obama's former Senate seat. Good luck with that one.

UPDATE:
Lest we forget, this is a name that party instance. Giannoulias is a Democrat.

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Specter's Atrocious Assault on GOP Over Jack Kemp's Passing

Sen. Arlen Specter, who just switched political affiliations in the US Senate because he's reading the tea leaves showing that he'd lose badly in the GOP primaries, now makes the atrocious claim he switched parties because the GOP should have spent more on cancer research, which would have meant former Congressman and former VP candidate Jack Kemp would have continued living. Kemp died over the weekend after a prolonged battle with cancer.

"Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn't want me as their candidate," Mr. Specter said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "But as a matter of principle, I'm becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats' approach. And one of the items that I'm working on, Bob, is funding for medical research."

Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."

Mr. Kemp passed away Saturday, after fighting with cancer. Mr. Kemp ran for the White House in 1996 with Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

Sorry to break it to Specter, but that's about as atrocious a claim as one can find. It doesn't even begin to bear any rational relationship to reality. It's a spurrious and bogus claim, particularly because federal funding for cancer research increased nearly 50% during the 1990s under GOP control of Congress. That's not exactly chump change.

There have been tremendous advances in cancer research, and yet there will always be people who die from cancer. It doesn't matter how much money is spent, as old age and disease will eventually catch up with every person on the planet. We can only forestall the inevitable for a little while longer, and unfortunately, Jack Kemp passed away over the weekend after succumbing to cancer.

Had Specter focused on his own battle with cancer, he might have had a point, but even there, it was tremendous amounts of spending on research and technological developments over the years that have enabled Specter to survive and thrive after his own battle with Hodgkin's disease starting in 2005. For all the tremendous medical advances, it still comes down to an individual case and the specific situations - whether the diseases were caught early, how the patient responds, and other factors that go beyond spending on research and development.

For Specter to make his comments is absurd and shows an abject lack of class. He should be ashamed of himself.

UPDATE:
Shouldn't Specter be slamming the Administration and Democrats in Congress for contemplating a budget cut to the National Cancer Institute? As one of Jammie's readers points out, After all, the FY 2009 budget was $4.83 billion, while FY 2010 shows a $4.81 billion budget - that's a net loss of $200 million. Specter moved to the party cutting the NCI budget? How can he live with himself? Then again, it was always about what was best for Specter's career, political affiliations be damned.

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Roxana Saberi Briefly Hospitalized Over Hunger Strike

Iran continues incarcerating American journalist Roxana Saberi on trumped up charges after holding a sham trial. Saberi protested her treatment by engaging in a hunger strike. The Iranians then said she did no such thing, so she stopped taking all liquids, sending her to a medical clinic briefly according to her father.

The press freedom group said 32-year-old Roxana Saberi, accused by Iran of spying for the U.S., was taken Friday to a clinic at Tehran's Evin prison, where she has been held since her arrest in January. She was released from the clinic within a day after again drinking water, the group said.

Saberi's Iranian-born father, who traveled to Iran to seek his daughter's release, said last month that she was drinking only sweetened water while refusing food to protest her eight-year jail sentence.

Reporters Without Borders said her father, Reza Saberi, told the group over the weekend that she stopped drinking water after Iranian authorities denied she was on a hunger strike.

''So following that, she decided to do a complete hunger strike,'' Soazig Dollet of the Paris-based group told The Associated Press. ''So she was really weak and went to the clinic inside the prison for the day, but not more than a day.''

Saberi's father did not answer phone calls seeking comment on Monday.

The Obama administration has called the espionage allegations against Saberi baseless and demanded her immediate release. Iranian authorities have promised a fair review of her appeal.

Saberi, a dual Iranian-American citizen, has lived in Iran for the last six years. She was born in the U.S. and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota.

She was initially accused of working without press credentials, but authorities later made the more serious charge that she passed intelligence to the U.S. She was convicted on the espionage charge after a one-day trial behind closed doors.

There were also claims that she had initially purchased alcohol, which is illegal under Islamic law. In any event, the Iranians are testing the Obama Administration, and thus far the Administration has taken the tact of calling for her immediate release all while continuing to pursue other diplomatic entreaties to open up new lines of communications.

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Feds Probing John Edwards Campaign Contributions

This really should come as no surprise. There were signs that John Edwards was being less than truthful about his relationship with Rielle Hunter and how she came to be paid off. Now, federal investigators are wondering whether Edwards used campaign funds from his failed Presidential bid to pay off Hunter.

They're sifting through the records, and Edwards says that the investigators wont find any improprieties. Given how often Edwards has lied to the public, and to his wife Elizabeth, about his affair, I don't think anyone should take anything he says seriously. It will be difficult to pick apart the financial trail, particularly because nonprofits aren't subject to the same disclosure rules as corporations, but if I were Edwards, I wouldn't be going to bank on exoneration just yet.

There's also speculation that Elizabeth knew that John was using campaign funds to keep Rielle quiet.

That's bad news for the Edwards clan. Then again, so is gaming the so-called campaign finance laws that have investigators so suspicious:

Laws prohibit candidates from spending campaign money on personal expenses they would have incurred had they not been running for office. But nonprofits created to support a candidate or his message have different requirements.

The Alliance for a New America, the group that received Mellon's millions, was kept at arm's length from Edwards, a requirement of campaign finance law. Nonprofits known as 527 groups primarily pay for media messages that closely align with a candidate's stance.

The alliance was launched by Nick Baldick, Edwards' campaign manager in 2004. At least one donor, San Francisco attorney Jim Finberg, said he was advised the money would pay for ads in Iowa supporting universal health care. He knew the group was linked to Edwards; by law, however, Edwards couldn't be involved in the group's activities.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, the alliance in 2008 paid $3.3 million in “political consulting” costs to a limited liability corporation called AFNA. That LLC was registered in Virginia in 2004 and dissolved in 2008. Efforts to reach anyone associated with the company failed. Baldick could not be reached.

Edwards partly funded his unofficial launch into the Democratic primary race with funds from a different nonprofit he started in 2005.

The Center for Promise and Opportunity, a nonprofit organization allowed to shield donors' identity but still make political expenditures, paid for much of Edwards' early groundwork in New Hampshire and Iowa.

The organization's statement of purpose, filed with its tax disclosures, never mentioned Edwards, even though Edwards was the center's honorary chairman, according to 2006 media reports.

“They play this charade. Refrain from saying they are a candidate, so they don't have to follow the rules,” said Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan group. “They're gaming the system. If they play carefully enough, they can avoid running afoul of the law.”

In 2006, Edwards traveled the nation, walking picket lines and talking to crowds about poverty and his regret in voting to fund the war in Iraq, travel paid for by the Center for Promise and Opportunity.

The center also paid for Edwards' trips abroad, where he met with foreign leaders and visited developing nations plagued by squalor. Rielle Hunter was at his side filming.

UPDATE:
Hot Air also notices the investigations.

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Dodgy

It was a dumb idea when Rep. Charles Rangel was busy calling for reinstating the draft. It's just as dumb when James Baker calls for reinstating the draft.

There is absolutely no reason to reinstate the draft. It would pull resources away from training those people who actually want to be in the US military and would reduce the overall capabilities of the US military.

It would have the exact opposite result of what Baker intends.

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Hudson River Tunnel Boondoggle?

The idea was an excellent one. NJ Transit and Amtrak needed to increase the number of tracks between New Jersey and New York in order to improve reliability and capacity. Access to the Region's Core was the solution. It would be the first new tunnel link between New Jersey and New York since the early part of the 20th Century and the first new link of any kind since the lower level of the GWB Bridge was built.

Well, it looks like New Jersey Transit is getting its link, but Amtrak is about to be screwed, even after nearly $8.9 billion is expected to be spent on the new tunnel.

The reason that Amtrak is about to find itself without additional track traffic? NJ Transit claims that they can't build the tunnel to link with NY Penn Station because of soil conditions that would add additional cost. Never mind that it would cost billions more to build additional Amtrak tracks years down the road, but the whole point of the track construction was to improve the service on both Amtrak and NJ Transit.

Also, if you look at the maps provided, you'll see that the NJ Transit project includes single-seat rides into Manhattan from the Bergen/Main/Pascack Valley lines, which currently stop at Secaucus Transfer. The stop at Secaucus Transfer would not be required if those trains now are able to go directly into Manhattan. That's $850 million spent on Secaucus that was an expense that cost taxpayers and commuters plenty.

Even more troubling to some, NJ Transit and the Port Authority eliminated a connection to the existing Penn Station. Passengers can walk along the sprawling underground concourse to get there, but trains using the new tunnels won't be able to pull alongside the station's platforms or continue on to Connecticut and Boston.

As a result, Amtrak will be relegated to the old tubes, and NJ Transit will continue to use them even when the new tunnels are open. In a testy letter to the ARC project director last April, former Amtrak president Alex Kummant complained the expensive initiative was now for the "sole benefit" of NJ Transit.

What's more, he said, the decision to drop the Penn Station connection could require the construction of yet another rail tunnel to help Amtrak meet its expected growth in ridership.

Amtrak's current president, Joseph H. Boardman, declined to comment for this story, but as chief of the Federal Railroad Administration last year, he echoed Kummant's concerns in a letter to the head of the Federal Transit Administration, which had final say on the ARC project.

"Given the complexity and cost of such an undertaking, we must make sure that the project delivers every ounce of capacity and flexibility that is reasonably possible," Boardman wrote. "Unfortunately, I do not believe NJT's plans achieve this goal."

A coalition of passenger groups continues to complain bitterly about the project, calling the new dead-end station a waste of money.

"It's one of the greatest bamboozle schemes ever put out by a mass transit agency," said Albert L. Papp Jr., vice chair of the National Association of Railroad Passengers. "What NJ Transit has done is propose to build a brand new railroad for its exclusive use. This is unconscionable. There's only one chance to get this right in our lifetime."

NJ Transit, the lead design agency, said it dropped the Penn Station connection only out of necessity, after test drilling showed unstable rock above the new station's proposed location. As a result, engineers were forced to lower the cavern depth by more than 30 feet. The mezzanine of the new station, known as the Penn Station Expansion, will now lie 150 feet below ground.

NJ Transit and Amtrak must figure out a way to make the additional tracks to Penn Station work. The costs demand as much.

The President may need to get involved to get this project through to help Amtrak, which is one of the Administration's stated infrastructure mass transit goals. By failing to get the tunnel connection to Penn Station, it would limit Amtrak to using century old tunnel systems that are constrained by capacity issues. The new tunnel would best be served by linking with Penn Station to maximize its usage.

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Environmental Talking Points

Apparently, global warming is out. Climate change is in. Cap and trade is now cap and cash later (as in never, but never mind the complexities involved).

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

It's all about what will sell with the public, not even what the science is.

The science is anything but settled, but the environmentalists and politicians are busy trying to figure out the best way to take your money and make you feel privileged to do so.

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The Smoke and Mirrors Tax "Cut"

Everyone recalls the tremendous applause given for President Obama and his tax cut, which was in the form of a rebate and reduced withholding that amounted to $13 a week ($400 to $800 for the tax year).

Well, don't go spending that money, because many taxpayers are going to need a chunk of that change come tax time. PT Barnum said that a sucker was born every minute. In this case, it's the millions of people who thought that President Obama was actually cutting their taxes.

Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring.

The government is going to want some of that money back.

The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month.

But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time.

At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from their pension payments and Social Security recipients with jobs that provide taxable income.

Small is the operative word. You're getting a little bit more in your paycheck now, but the IRS will be looking for that money next year when it comes to tax time. Withholding is meant to provide the government with your tax obligation over the course of the year. The government makes money off that withholding in the form of interest. Taxpayers are supposed to calculate their tax obligations and determine whether they've overpaid or underpaid on their tax obligations including the withheld amount.

In other words, those people who are struggling to make ends meet and two-income jobs are going to see that their tax obligations are going to increase at tax time next year. They're getting more money now, but will have to pony it back up for the IRS when their 2009 income tax returns are due.

What the Administration and the IRS did was to adjust a few numbers so that people would not withhold as much money during the course of the year, but will have to pay more at tax time because their withholding doesn't cover their total obligation.

It was a phony tax cut because you're still going to be paying the same amount at the end of the tax year. All the Administration did was shift when the money was provided to taxpayers - either in the refund or via reduced withholding.

The actual tax rates remain unadjusted.

UPDATE:
Don Surber and Jammie have more.

UPDATE:
Oh, this gets so much better. It seems that the Administration knew that this would hit the very folks that President Obama said would help most, but no one wanted to get that story out since it would undercut the whole idea of providing tax relief.

This isn't relief. It's a huge headache for tax preparers come tax time next year. It's more needless complexity that will cost taxpayers more time and effort to complete their returns and still more money trying to figure out what is actually owed.

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The Souter Retirement

The announcement yesterday at Justice David Souter is retiring shouldn't surprise anyone. It had been expected that he would retire at some point during President Obama's term.

This just provides an early glimpse in to Obama's choice and direction for the Supreme Court. Expect him to replace Souter with another liberal on the court.

In other words, don't expect the court's direction to change. Souter was already on the liberal side of the court and his retirement doesn't change that calculus.

Neither the Supreme Court nor the White House would confirm the likely opening on the bench. "The president has not received a formal communication from Justice Souter, who deserves the right to make his own announcement," a White House aide said Friday.

Souter's retirement is unlikely to alter the ideological balance on the closely divided court because Obama is almost certain to replace the liberal-leaning justice with someone with similar views.

But the vacancy could lead to another woman on the bench to join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, currently the court's only woman.

Souter has indicated in the past that he wanted to leave Washington and return to his native New Hampshire.

At 69, Souter is much younger than either Ginsburg, 76, or Justice John Paul Stevens, 89, the other two liberal justices whose names have been mentioned as possible retirees. Yet those justices have given no indication they intend to retire soon and Ginsburg said she plans to serve into her 80s despite her recent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Even should Ginsberg or Stevens retire, the ideological split on the bench wouldn't change. It would take the retirement of Anthony Kennedy or something unexpected from Antonin Scalia,
Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice Roberts, or Sam Alito in order for the balance of the court to tip to the left. Right now, Kennedy is the swing vote on most issues.

MSNBC also floats possible choices for Souter's replacement:

The Associated Press reported that potential replacements include recently confirmed Solicitor General Elena Kagan; U.S. Appeals Court Judges Sonya Sotomayor, Kim McLane Wardlaw, Sandra Lea Lynch and Diane Pamela Wood; and Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. The AP said men who have been mentioned as potential nominees include Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein and U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo of Chicago.

Sotomayor is a 2d Circuit Justice and she enjoys the support of Sen. Chuck Schumer and others as a possible replacement.

It will be interesting to see how the Obama Administration vets candidates given all their woes in handling the nomination process for all the other positions in government (including all those that remain unfilled, including Surgeon General and those at the Department of Treasury), to say nothing of the ethical, legal, and tax woes that have followed many of those nominees who actually were supposedly vetted.

UPDATE:
President Obama wants to find someone with an "independent" mind. That's his prerogative as President of the US, but that does not exactly warm the cockles of my heart given that independent means that whoever he selects will likely consider the US Constitution to be a living and breathing document that can be suitably altered to suit the political needs of those in charge. It means that those GOPers questioning the prospective nominees must ask questions about whether the nominee seeks economic justice on a variety of issues, even where the legislative branch has ruled to not allow such things (think slave reparations and economic redistribution).

Souter will retire at the end of the session, which means that this summer will be entertaining for those covering the Court and the nomination process.

It's also curious how many people expect Souter's replacement will be a woman. Why a woman? Why not the best qualified for the job? As noted in both the comments and above, there are distinguished jurists who could be nominated - the candidates' gender (or race or religion) shouldn't be a factor. Their legal qualifications should be paramount.

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