The Respectfully Republican Conversation

Obama's making some bad choices for his cabinet.  Forget to pay taxes?  How in the heck you you do that.  We are CONSTANTLY reminded of APRIL 15TH. 

And about that socialist idiot...doesn't surprise me.  She's also with some group that wants to take our free conservative speech away from the radio and tv talk host. 

All his "good things" need to be put out there. 

So many are clueless it seems due to the temporary BO bright light.   HELP.   

Where's Oliphant et al with a fire extinguisher.   Bad news arising from the BO camp but are we surprised?   NO.

I watched the LKL interview with Bush and Mrs. Bush and enjoyed it thoroughly especially when Mrs. Bush got her frisk on and spoke up in defense of her husband.   

He did say it would be weird to wake up on the morning of the 21st and no "briefing" to attend.

I bet he will love being able to breathe and in time the nere do wells will realize they cannot pin all the worlds ills on President George W. Bush. 

On inauguration day I will be at the lab getting my blood work getting ready for my next appt. with my oncologist.  I planned it this way in hopes the lines will be zilch. 

Rock * I hope you feel much better after the antibiotics kick in.

Rock just has cooties, that's all.    

Sherri.  In case the lab person is an O supporter I better stealth in.  No buttons.  No comments.

Keep Mum and Run. 

I wish I knew how to post all those photos. Then I would be able to post Rock's Avatar with the snow ball mustache. DIDN"T I TELL YOU NOT TO RUB IT IN?? By NOOOOO you just could not resist passing on that it is 86 degrees warmer where you are.

Sahalie, it was nice to hear you bring up Laura Bush. She has been an incredible first lady. It makes me mad how little credit the press has given her. Remember how they were everywhere with Hillary, taking pictures of her on some camel or whatever. Laura has worked behind the scenes bringing relief to Africa and helping women around the world. I must give Hillary a little credit though because at least she did acknowlege yesterday, that Laura Bush had made a lot of inroads for women and she was going to continue this. Too bad Barbara Boxer and Hillary did not mention the fact that the reason they can now help women in the middle east is because George Bush got rid of a tyrant who imprisioned them and has enabled women all over the middle east to now have an opportunity to get an education and have a voice.

Well, I gotta go shovel. At least the sun is out.  I need some vit. d

Vivre, I guess you didn't like the idea of putting up a sigh selling unassembled snowmen.  Rock would buy two of them and pay shipping and handling.

I just don't understand why some people get a pass at FORGETTING to pay their taxes.  And he's gonna be over the IRS? 

Moody, you are excused from reading this. 

Obama: Geithner will be confirmed at Treasury Treasury pick failed to pay $34,000 in taxes while at IMF The Associated Press updated 3:22 p.m. ET, Wed., Jan. 14, 2009

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama called disclosures about Treasury choice Timothy Geithner's tax problems an embarrassment Wednesday but said Geithner's "innocent mistake" shouldn't keep him from confirmation as the new administration's top official in urgent efforts to revive the economy.

The revelations that Geithner had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes several years ago derailed Senate Democrats' plans to speed him to confirmation by Inauguration Day, but senators in both parties said the information was unlikely to torpedo his chances in the end.

Obama had hoped for approval by Tuesday, but senators now have scheduled Geithner's confirmation hearing for next Wednesday, with Senate debate and a vote sometime after that.

Two Republicans objected to scheduling a confirmation hearing this Friday at the Senate Finance Committee after the panel disclosed Geithner had failed to pay taxes he owed for several years. Democrats were working to clear away the obstacles, holding out hope that he could still be confirmed the day Obama is sworn in.

The president-elect, asked about the situation on Wednesday, said, "Look is this an embarrassment for him? Yes. He said so himself. But it was an innocent mistake. It is a mistake that is commonly made for people who are working internationally or for international institutions. It has been corrected. He paid the penalties."

"My expectation is that Tim Geithner will be confirmed," Obama said.

He spoke at his transition office after a meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about their recent trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kuwait.

Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee voiced strong support for Geithner, who was phoning senators individually in an effort to persuade them his tax problems were the result of innocent errors, not deliberate attempts to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service.

Senators' comments suggested that Geithner's tax troubles are being viewed on Capitol Hill more as embarrassing mistakes than as disqualifying misdeeds. That's despite the fact that tax problems have sunk other government nominees, including Zoe Baird, Bill Clinton's choice for attorney general, who stepped aside when word leaked that she had hired illegal immigrants as household workers and failed to pay their Social Security taxes.

"It's an honest mistake," said Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the committee, adding that Geithner's confirmation was "a given."

Geithner is "very, very competent, and add to that the country needs to have an economic team in place immediately to address the dire economic problems," he said.

Sen. Jon S. Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican, is blocking the hearing by insisting on rules that require a full week's notice for scheduling such a session, according to an aide close to the confirmation process. Kyl's objection was disclosed on condition of anonymity because the aide was not authorized to announce it.

A second Finance Committee Republican, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, was also balking at expediting the hearing.

"Senator Bunning did not feel it was appropriate to rush forward with the hearing this week in light of the late-breaking information," said his spokesman, Mike Reynard. "He wanted more time to carefully consider" the disclosures.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the senior Finance Republican, said he was not inclined to oppose a quick hearing. He planned to meet individually with other GOP members of the panel to see whether they could agree on the Friday session.

"I'm not saying at this point it's disqualifying," Grassley told reporters in a conference call. "But it's a little more important about income tax for somebody that's overseeing the IRS than there is, maybe, for the secretary of agriculture, as an example."

Whenever he goes before the Finance panel, Geithner - whose responsibilities in his new post would include authority over the IRS - is likely to face a grilling about his tax errors.

He failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned from 2001 to 2004 while working for the International Monetary Fund, according to materials released by the committee Tuesday.

He paid some of the taxes in 2006, after an IRS audit discovered the discrepancy for taxes paid in 2003 and 2004. But it wasn't until much later - days before Obama tapped him to head Treasury late last year - that Geithner paid back most of the taxes, incurred in 2001 and 2002. He did so after Obama's transition team found that Geithner had made the same tax mistake his first two years at the IMF as the one the IRS found he made during his last two years there.

Despite the disclosures, several committee Republicans appeared to be leaning toward backing Geithner. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah called the tax problems "a mistake that a human being can make."

"I'm confident in the man's ability. I think he's a very fine man. I'm not one that holds mistakes against people," Hatch said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who said he spoke with Geithner for about a half-hour Wednesday morning, said he didn't foresee trouble for the nominee.

"I don't think I see enough in there to cause a problem," Ensign said. "It's very, very easy to make honest mistakes."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he'd probably vote to confirm Geithner.

Obama's team informed Baucus and Grassley of the problems in early December, and a subsequent investigation by their staffs unearthed another embarrassing detail about Geithner: that a housekeeper he employed in 2005 allowed her legal immigrant work status to lapse for three and a half months.

It was the unpaid taxes, though, that were proving more damaging. Obama's team says his mistake was a common one for people hired by international organizations and foreign embassies that don't pay the employer share of Social Security taxes. The IRS estimated in 2006 that as many as half those employees had made tax-filing mistakes, and offered a group settlement to let them correct the errors.

But the Finance Committee, in 30 pages of documents released on Tuesday, noted that the IMF issues several clear guidelines each year for its employees detailing their responsibility to pay all their self-employment taxes, and that Geithner had signed annual statements saying that he would do so. He also had experience dealing with such taxes, the panel noted.

Another case of:  If both sides of the aisle like you, you can be above the law.  Pay taxes, not a worry.  I'm beginning to dislike all politicians.  They've been there too long.  They need to come down to earth and live amongst us mere mortals who schlep to work, pay our taxes, or we do get slapped with fines that we do have to pay with interest. 

I've been listening to them make apologies for Greithner today.  Oh, innocent mistake, nothing to it.  Let's test the waters, let's all have an innocent mistake, or an honest one and see how much it would cost us.

Well, I think the model they should follow is like the founding father's did it ... have a career, have a business and return to it.  We really should have term limits.

Bush muscles in on Arctic

Cites threat of terror, orders aggressive stance in North

Mike Blanchfield and Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service

In his final days in power, President George W. Bush asserted U.S. military "sea power" over the oil-rich Arctic on Monday, in another forceful rebuttal of Canada's claims of sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

The White House released the text of a sweeping new directive on the Arctic, two years in the making, just eight days before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president.

Bush's policy challenges the ambitious Arctic sovereignty agenda put forth by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that includes bolstering Canada's military presence and fostering economic and social development.

The presidential directive reiterates that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway -- a rebuttal of Canada's claim of sovereignty over what is emerging as a major global shipping route because of the shrinking polar ice cap -- and it highlights a boundary dispute in the resource-rich Beaufort Sea.

"I think Canada has gotten a real wake-up call with this," said Rob Huebert, a University of Calgary political scientist and leading expert on Arctic issues.

He said he couldn't recall the U.S. ever articulating its disagreements with Canada "in such black and white terms. There was no effort here to sugar-coat anything."

Huebert noted that the bold assertion of American interests in the Arctic came only weeks after a similar statement by European officials also posed challenges to Canada's polar strategy.

"Freedom of the seas is a top national priority," the White House directive states. "The Northwest Passage is a strait used for international navigation, and the Northern Sea Route includes straits used for international navigation. Preserving the rights and duties relating to navigation and overflight in the Arctic region supports our ability to exercise these rights throughout the world, including through strategic straits."

The Arctic's untapped energy potential has sparked a 21st-century scramble in the far north that has included a Russian submarine planting a flag on the North Pole seabed and Canada's expressions of its own Arctic aspirations under Harper, which include a greater military land and sea presence.

Ottawa and Washington have disagreed in the past on the environmental impact of new drilling for oil in the Arctic, as well as Canada's sovereignty claims over the Northwest Passage.

Harper's office had no immediate

comment.

Bush's memorandum directs several key agencies to define the full extent of U.S. Arctic boundaries because of its "compelling interest" in the region. It cites climate change, defence against possible terrorist threats and a "a growing awareness that the Arctic region is both fragile and rich in resources."

The directive also contains a suggestion of the unilateralism that has sparked much international criticism of Bush.

"The United States has broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic region and is prepared to operate either independently or in conjunction with other states to safeguard these interests," the text says.

"The United States also has fundamental homeland security interests in preventing terrorist attacks and mitigating those criminal or hostile acts that could increase the United States'

vulnerability to terrorism in the Arctic region.

"This requires the United States to assert a more active and influential national presence to protect its Arctic interests and to project sea power throughout the region."

The document also urges U.S. co-operation in a number of bilateral settings, including the Arctic Council and the International Maritime Organization to develop "new international arrangements" as human activity in the region grows.

It instructs the U.S. to aggressively resolve border disputes, particularly in the Arctic seabed, so it can determine where it may lay claim to resources.

"Defining with certainty the area of the Arctic seabed and subsoil in which the United States may exercise its sovereign rights over natural resources such as oil, natural gas, methane hydrates, minerals, and living marine species is critical to our national interests in energy security, resource management, and environmental protection," it states.

The policy also notes that Canada and the U.S. "have an unresolved boundary dispute in the Beaufort Sea . . . the United States recognizes that the boundary area may contain oil, natural gas, and other resources."

Bush's directive is the first U.S. Arctic policy update in 15 years. It is not yet clear whether Obama would adhere to this policy, dump it or create his own.

In the heat of the U.S. presidential race last summer, Obama acknowledged the need to co-operate with Canada on energy issues, saying that completing the Alaska Gas Pipeline with Canada would help ease U.S. dependency on oil.

Energy and environmental issues will feature prominently when Obama arrives in Ottawa in the coming weeks for a meeting with Harper on what will be his first foreign trip as president.

I read K.T. Mcfarland says the meeting didn't go well but I don't think we'll hear anything about it.

Jake Tapper writes:

The legendary Ann Compton reports that George Will continues to be mum on the dinner, offering only, "What happens in Chevy Chase Village, stays in Chevy Chase Village."

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P.S.- I find it bizarre why anyone on earth would consider Andrew Sullivan (The Conservative Soul) a conservative after this political season. --Well at least he was included in the liberal Rachael Maddow group.

I haven't been on this thread for a while and it's good to see it being so active.

OK, please don't be upset  with me BUT I think Geithner should be nominated.  He is far from the ideal citizen BUT he might be just the best man for a job accroding to the libeal AND CONSERVATIVE economists. There does not seem to be any other name that comes close to him. He is not  being nominated for Attoreny General. We have huge problem and need very qualified people to get on the top of it, unfortunately he is it.  The market and economy are so scary now.

Ok I am going into hiding now

IBC, I'm gonna write you a song...LOL

I know you and Cam are so tired of this rigmarole.  My brother who lives in Ohio will be headed to the VA in Dayton.  He's got lung cancer.  They'll need to biopsy it, do a PET scan, and if surgery is doable they'll do two weeks of building up his lungs.  If he can't have surgery I guess it'll be chemo and rads.  Not enough known yet.  I really wish he use a private doctor instead of the VA.  He's ready to get something going.  This has been going on for six months!

When will you be heading home?  Not soon enough I'm sure.

To tell ya the truth, ijl, those people over <-------------------------------- will definitely need some counseling when the Messiah takes office.  I might would even like him a little, but when I read over <-------------------------------------- I say, NAH!