Wonkette

Hillary Clinton is afraid that Americans are going to start prancing around in knee socks and filming radioactive giant lizard-based horror films, now that we are sinking into a “Japanese-style malaise.” But these terrible tragedies can be avoided if we resort to crazy nanny state policies like having the Federal Housing Administration purchase underwater mortgages. MORE »

COURAGEOUS RON PAUL SAVES BABIES FROM TAXES, GUN CONTROL: He has a natural “pocket of support” in Alaska, where locals share his love of firearms, hatred of the income tax, and favorite hobby: swaddling one-armed infants in flags. [Wall Street Journal]

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Bush decided to do a little work today on his way to Crawford, signing the $555 billion budget (and bitching about the earmarks in it) and freezing the Alternative Minimum Tax for a year. Now, time for brush clearing. [LA Times]

As of January 1, 2008, it will get a little more expensive in Texas to go to one of the state’s 150 strip clubs. As of 2008, every person patronizing a strip club will have to pay a $5 tax at the entrance, most of which will go to programs to help rape victims. Some club owners, naturally, are suing to prevent the tax from taking effect claiming that the selective taxation is a violation of their First Amendment rights and some of them “resent the implication that strip clubs lead men to commit sex crimes. Yeah, there’s definitely no correlation whatsoever between the relentless objectification of women in our society and sex crimes. [Yahoo News, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research]

Although no one inveighs against taxes and overseas involvement more than Ron Paul, it turns out that one candidate managed to combine his love of Caribbean island tax havens with an interest in lowering people’s taxes. Mitt Romney, while at Bain Capital, helped arrange and manage two shell companies in offshore tax havens to help lower taxes for Bain’s clients. He, himself, also invested in those shell companies. His spokesman denies that Romney paid less in taxes because of the arrangement - in fact, if reports of their profitability are to be believed, he probably ended up making more money and paying more taxes than he otherwise would have. Unlike John Edwards’ time at a private equity company minting money, there’s nothing at all hypocritical about a rich Republican making more money by helping other rich people pay less in taxes. That’s their whole purpose. [LA Times]

“Senate Republicans blocked a broad energy bill Thursday because it included billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies.” In an ideal world, of course, the new taxes proposed in energy bills would be targeted about hobos and the other riff raff of society. [CNN]

Screw turning off your lights and buying efficient appliances to help mitigate global warming, Barry Walters, an obstetrics professor at the University of Western Australia has a better idea: stop breeding so damn much. Since humans are the ultimate cause of global warming, Barry and his supporters think that it would be a grand idea to slow population growth by taxing people that decide to have more than two children (i.e., enough to replace the two parents and no more). Those of us who refrain from breeding would get a carbon tax credit for not contributing to pollution. The other, darker consequences of paying certain people not to breed are not discussed. [International Herald Tribune via TaxProf Blog]

During this weekend of pronouncements designed to combat the perception that he doesn’t really give a shit about winning the race, Fred pointed guns in South Carolina and pointed out that Rudy is pro-gun control and the Mittster used to be pro-life. But, like a good fiscally-conservative Republican, he saved his best pot-shots for the tax code.

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The GAO is releasing a report today showing that some Medicaid providers owe $1 billion in back taxes on money paid to them by the federal government. The Senate is holding a hearing, people! Not that this is surprising, since GAO reported last March that Medicare providers also owe $1 billion in back taxes on money they earned from the federal government. Kicking them off the rolls means fewer services for the poor, which is what they’re counting on to scam the IRS. Naturally, no one has been able to figure out how to just withhold their taxes from the payments like how it works for the rest of us workaday schlubs. Different strokes for different folks, people. [Yahoo News, U.S. Senate, GAO]

Blackwater claims its murderous thugs are independent contractors (1099) rather than employees (W2); now Congressman Waxman wants to nail this sinister mercenary army for tax evasion.

If Mitt Romney is elected president, he promises to immediately present permanent gridlock with the presumably still Democratic congress. Because, you see, he has extensive experience working with a liberal legislature as governor, making compromises, and governing effectively, and now that he wants to be the Republican nominee for president he needs to renounce all of that. Romney’s Hill agenda following his landslide election (lol): MORE »

Just look at the stunning evidence from his latest hit video: MORE »