BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family’s new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to his cash-strapped home state.

If the Isabel were kept at the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee’s summer vacation home on Nantucket or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

Kerry spokesman David Wade said Friday the boat is being kept at Newport Shipyard not to evade taxes, but “for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes.”

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

The “Debt Free America Act” (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent “transaction tax” on every financial transaction — whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day — whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal.

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

House Democrats are readying an alternative budget measure that would set next year’s spending levels without requiring a vote on deficits.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.) said the alternative would be the “functional equivalent” of a full-fledged budget. But because it won’t be a traditional budget resolution, it will be silent on future deficits, which are expected to average nearly $1 trillion for the next decade.

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

New York Post

Congressional Democrats say they want to defend Israel — but without taking on Israel’s enemies.

Bizarre choice — so bizarre as to make their professed support for Israel practically meaningless.

At issue is a resolution proposed by Rep. Pete King (R-Long Island) that calls on Washington to quit the US Human Rights Council — which two weeks ago voted 32-3 to condemn Israel’s raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla.

Incredibly, not a single House Democrat — not even from the New York delegation — is willing to co-sponsor King’s resolution “unless we take out the language about the UN,” he says.

Why? No Democrat wants to go on record disagreeing with President Obama’s decision to end the Bush-era boycott of the anti-Israel council — whose members include such human-rights champions as Iran and Libya.

At the time, the White House insisted that its presence would help reform the United Nations’ Geneva-based body.

Some reform: Yesterday, the HRC released a report from its Mideast investigator, Richard Falk, calling for a global economic and cultural boycott of Israel, which it compares to apartheid South Africa.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s Geneva mission distributed to council members a statement by Fidel Castro charging that Israel “would not hesitate to send the one and a half million [Palestinians] to the crematoria, where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis.”

And, just two weeks ago, Syria’s delegate to the HRC said during a debate that Israeli children are taught to sing about sucking the blood of Arabs.

And this is the outfit that Democrats want the US to remain part of.

“I hope they put our relationship with Israel above their relationship with Obama,” says King of his Democratic colleagues. Not likely.

Disgraceful.

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

A new NPR poll of 70 battleground districts (60 of them won by Democrats in 2008, and 10 held by Republicans) finds that despite the conventional wisdom of a broader anti-incumnbent sentiment, it’s really the Democratic Party that Americans are turning against.

In districts where there is a Democratic incumbent, just 34 percent said they wanted to reelect their representatives, compared with 46 percent who said they wanted to vote for somebody else. Yet in districts where there is a Republican incumbent, the opposite is true — 49 percent want to re-elect their representatives, compared with 37 percent who want to vote for somebody else.

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year’s huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy’s free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. “We must take these emergency measures,” he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.

The letter comes as rising concern about the national debt is undermining congressional support for additional spending to bolster the economy. Many economists say more spending could help bring down persistently high unemployment, but with Republicans making an issue of the record deficits run up during the recession, many Democratic lawmakers are eager to turn off the stimulus tap.

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

The Helen Thomas episode is only underscored by the progressives heckling Madame Speaker at a progressive lunch, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel. Let’s all hope that all Americans who care about Israel take note of who their real friends are. The times they are a-changing.

Read more…..

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and Victoria Kennedy, the late senator’s wife, are expected to be named co-chairs this week of a $125 million campaign White House allies are rolling out to defend health reform amid growing signs the party is failing to get political traction on the issue.

The extraordinary campaign reflects urgency among Democrats to defend health reform.

The estimated budget is $25 million a year, for five years. Grossman has begun raising money from unions, foundations and corporations.

Read more….

  • Google Gmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AOL Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
  • Blogger Post
  • PrintFriendly
  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with:
 
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes

Switch to our mobile site