Someone mentioned that infant mortality is higher in our country as compared to others. For this reason, the so-called pro-lifers should be in favor of health care reform. If you want to outlaw abortion, why is it OK for the babies to die once they're out of the womb?

Speaking of abortion, if the Republicans believe that life starts at conception, and they're in favor of tax cuts, shouldn't a woman with a postive pregnancy test be able to claim an extra dependent on her taxes?

Was very glad to hear of who the Canadian man that went to Miami for his heart surgery and why he did it there. Please stress more when talking to the "fearful Republicans" the deaths of the 45,000 who could not afford health care. That is where they should be fearful.

President Obama should challenge the Senate and Congress to drop their health care until the American people get a health care plan. He should also drop his health care to show his solidarity with the the uninsured.

Carl Ryan

The "Unemployed Party" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=344143284642&ref=mf is an idea: let unemployed people get together and work for our common interests.

It doesn’t surprise me that a blue dog like Rep. Gene Taylor would call on Obama to pull out of NAFTA in six months, since scapegoating our “friends and neighbors” is always a useful tool for both the right and the left to score political points with people looking for scapegoats. I regard people like Taylor as craven and imprudent, because with NAFTA we have the closest thing to a real “free trade” agreement that benefits all concerned to varying degrees, while our trade with the rest of world can hardly be characterized as such. NAFTA does have its faults, one presumes, but some of them benefit the U.S., such as tariffs on Mexican produce. Mexico and Canada actually absorb more of our exports in relation to their consumer capacity to do so while we absorb much less of their exports in terms of our capacity. The real and alleged manufacturing jobs we have lost to Mexico has been excessively overstated for propaganda purposes, and if we decided to scrap NAFTA without addressing our trade issues with countries like China, India or any of the other countries that we “freely” import from but allow to block our exports, than we can expect a much worse trade situation to develop. Whatever manufacturing we have lost (or alleged to have lost) to Mexico or Canada will simply go someplace else overseas while we may lose the markets we gained from our now antagonized neighbors, and “help” to further destabilize the situation on our borders. What the U.S. has to do, instead of bemoaning what it has lost, is to regain its technological and inventiveness edge and rebuild from there.

Also, last Wednesday USA Today featured on its front page a story concerning how this year’s census (I haven’t received a census form myself yet) will be “different” because it will give people greater “flexibility” on how they choose to define themselves, namely people of mixed race. But this seems to me a way to deliberately dilute the impact of the minority presence, particularly since many people who are part-white have this notion of being “superior” over the “others,” and don’t want to lumped in with “them.” Reality for these people is hard to face; it doesn’t matter what they think, it only matters what white people think. If white people don’t think you are white, you’re not. Tough luck. Barack Obama mother was white, but white America sees him as he has chosen to see himself: Black.

Thom,

Once Congress faces up to the fact that the GOP will NEVER support ANYTHING that Democrats support, it SHOULD BE SEEN AS EXTREMELY LIBERATING.

No longer worrying about convincing Republicans to get onboard and do what's right, Democrats should be passing HCR with a STRONG Public Option, passing STRONG financial reform and a Consumer Protection Agency, then let the chips fall where they may.

If the results are good, Democrats will be rewarded in November (and obstructionist Republicans punished).

But as things currently stand, we face a likely crippled HCR "reform" that isn't, and a Financial Reform that helps no one. No improvement means Democrats will suffer in November as voters blame incumbents for the lack of progress.

I would like to share with you an experience. I do not know how many times you have gone for a job interview. I recall one interview. While I was in the interview, the person who would do the hiring said to me that cream rises to the top. Those words are truisms but why mention it during the interview?

A week or so passed before I received my rejection letter. At least I was given the courtesy of a letter. Today, such letters are no longer sent.

After the rejection letter arrived, I gave some thought to the words, “Cream rises to the top.” These words were on my mind for several months until I had a new experience.

As I was on the toilet having a mother load of all mother loads, I stood up to see whether or not I would be able to flush the toilet without the need of a plunger. I noticed that some turds were floating on top of the water. Let me say that there are cases when shit rises to the top as well.

We need to only look at the turds in Washington, D.C. to realize that these turds are running our lunatic asylums and they rose to the top. Cream does not always rise to the top because Washington, D.C. is a perfect example of shit rising to the top.

As a side note Americans must stop their wanton appetite in the killing of God’s children. Americans have an insatiable taste for human blood.

It's Friday so this comment about a discussion on Wednesday is not as timely as I would have liked.

I listened to the gentleman whose website offers ways for people to walk away from their mortgages.

Encouraging people to walk away from a debt they freely entered into represents to me a seminal change in our culture. I was raised to accept personal responsibility for my actions. This discussion implied that people should feel no guilt about walking away from a commitment.

I understand that people lose their jobs through no fault of their own and cannot pay their bills. They should be provided all the help we can however there were many people who freely accepted variable rate mortgages and purchased homes that they simply could not afford and when the rates adjusted they were in trouble.

That fact that people gambled and lost when the value of their homes declined does not make it acceptable to simply stop making payments on a debt they incurred.

This new age, guilt free society we have would not be recognizable to previous generations.

Mike

Thom,
In Canada we have just had our latest budget brought down by our embattled neo-cons trying to hold onto power.
Funny, seems you have also been governed by a Conservative Minority Government. I hope both their days in power are numbered.

The budget is basically holding on hoping that our relatively good economic position with regulated banks etc. will allow enough growth to make them look good. They really just avoided doing anything that would get them turfed out right now. I don't trust them, we have a great phrase here; 'lack of confidence', but I will give them credit for one positive tax measure.

I haven't looked into it in detail and I'm sure the well heeled will have ways around it soon, but the new budget restricts some of the stock option loopholes for CEOs etc.
You can search 'Globeandmail' for 'Ottawa closes stock option tax loophole'

This is really just making it either a write-off for the company or a capital gains break for the CEO instead of both.. but it is a start and surprising from a Conservative Government..

It leads to something I have thought of for a long time for your system or ours.
Earned income gets treated differently for different people in our tax systems. Capital gains is treated differently, allowing the wealthy to pay lower taxe rates than the wage-earners.

Why not treat different sources of capital gains differently as well?
If you make money on the sale of your family home, fine. If you buy stocks and hold them a while before selling at a profit, sure.
If, however, you get stock options as a way to defer your income and flip them for an instant profit, maybe the tax rate should be more like what you would have paid for an actual salary.

I'm sure there would be cries of too much complexity but that will always be the case and along with realistic social security, medicare and other health-care contribution bythe higher income taxpayers, any steps would help.

So, what about a scale of taxes on capital gains?
Cheers,
Rick

Tax protesters claim the income tax Amendment is invalid because Ohio wasn't a State until 1953, and President Taft wasn't a "natural born citizen" because he was born in Ohio.

Congress passed an enabling act in 1802 that allowed the territory to organize a government and become a state - which it did in 1803, but Congress never passed another act officially "admitting" Ohio. Previous states had been "admitted", but not all were "enabled", and after Ohio the enabling acts generally made it clear that admission was automatic. But there was never any doubt that the government and courts considered Ohio a proper state all along.

A controversy arose in the 20th century about the legitimacy of Ohio (mainly a Bircher obsession), but it was taken up by Congess who passed an act in 1953 *retroactively* admitting Ohio in 1803 to the Union during the Ohio Sesquicentennial - in fact, they maneuvered the timing to make it during 1953 rather than 1952 to commemorate the 150th birthday of the State. But that "admission" was all Kabuki Theatre, Ohio has been a state all along.

re: the gay-bashing legislator stopped for DWI: Im sure he'll say he was doing "research" into the "gay problem'.

PS Im no relation to the guy.