Obama Picks DOJ Tax Division Head, Never Practiced Tax Law

Oh goody!

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to move ahead with the nomination of Mary Smith to head the Justice Department’s Tax Division, over Republican objections that Smith lacks significant relevant experience.

At a committee meeting, three Republican senators spoke against Smith, noting that she has never held a job specializing in tax law. She has never written or spoken on tax issues, does not have a specialized degree, and has never taken a continuing legal education course in tax law, said the committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

“Tax law is very specialized and it’s certainly not an area where you learn on the job,” Sessions said. He argued that Smith could be an embarrassment to the administration, saying, “You should not put people in a job they’re not prepared to handle.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) called Smith the “worst choice” that President Barack Obama has made in all of his appointments. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the Republican whip, said there must be “thousands of highly experienced tax lawyers who would love to have a job like this.”

No Democrats spoke in defense of Smith before voting for her, though Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) noted that the committee has received letters supporting her nomination ….

Smith is a partner at Schoeman Updike Kaufman & Scharf in Chicago. … The committee voted 12-7 along party lines to send Smith’s nomination to the full Senate

Finding Some Public Accountability in UK

NOTE: MP = Minister of Parliment

MPs’ EXPENSES: The Telegraph’s investigation into how politicians – from Gordon Brown and his Cabinet to backbenchers of all parties – exploit the system of parliamentary allowances to subsidise their lifestyles and multiple homes.

It’s not just an American thing!

NYC Taxes People in Homeless Shelters

Compassion from a liberal city!

The Bloomberg administration has quietly begun charging rent to homeless families who live in publicly run shelters but have income from jobs.

The new policy is based on a 1997 state law that was not enforced until last week, when shelter operators across the city began requiring residents to pay a certain portion of their income. The amount varies based on factors that include family size and what shelter is being used, but should not exceed 50 percent of a family’s income, a state official said.

Vanessa Dacosta, who earns $8.40 an hour as a cashier at Sbarro, received a notice under her door several weeks ago informing her that she had to give $336 of her approximately $800 per month in wages to the Clinton Family Inn, a shelter in Hell’s Kitchen where she has lived since March.

“It’s not right,” said Ms. Dacosta, a single mother of a 2-year-old who said she spends nearly $100 a week on child care. “I pay my baby sitter, I buy diapers, and I’m trying to save money so I can get out of here. I don’t want to be in the shelter forever.”

Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?

So…could you?

Questions: What percentage of this year’s seniors and last year’s high school graduates could pass the following 8th grade test required in 1895, even if the few outdated questions were modernized? How many college students could pass it? For that matter, what percentage of high school teachers could pass it? And – – what percentage of today’s schools have standards for promotion from 8th grade equal to or tougher than those required in 1895?

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas – 1895

This is the eighth-grade final exam* from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken
from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society
and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10.Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10.Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

The top of the test states > “EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895 J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)”

According to the Smoky Valley Genealogy Society, Salina, Kansas “this test is the original eighth-grade final exam for 1895 from Salina, KS. An interesting note is the fact that county students taking this test were allowed to take the test in the 7th grade, and if they did not pass the test at that time, they were allowed to re-take it again in the 8th grade.”

Prostitute turn Senator? (No, not Pelosi)

Apparently the State of Louisiana may have competition for the upcoming 2010 Senatorial race with a prostitute running…for the Republican Party?

Destroying the Constitution, One Day at a Time

The honest truth of the government’s approach to the Constitution
What’s interesting is that a good majority of the people involved in the Chrysler dispute, including the lawyers, VOTED for Obama

To hell with the Constitution, the rule of law, the integrity of contracts and any other written limitation on their power – they will do anything they can get away with. Which means that we are all at risk, and the only reason some of us haven’t been targeted is that Obama simply hasn’t turned his attention to that particular sector yet. But he will – it’s only a matter of time.

Two, the moment anybody gets in the way of their grandiose communist plans, the Obama Administration’s first instinctive reaction is to threaten people with personal destruction. This suggests both a childishness – throwing a temper tantrum the moment it seems their object of desire might be put beyond their reach – and an evil large in scope.

When you stoop that low right out of the gate, the extremity of it indicates a total lack of conscience. Just ask Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin how it feels to be so instantly targeted by the left for annihilation. And the haste of it portends an intention to go much farther than that one area – hence the need to get it over with quickly, so as to proceed to the next victim.

Third, the fact that the Obama Administration would so confidently wield the press as a weapon indicates that they aren’t merely vomit-inducing in shoving their tongues up his teleprompter-dependent bunghole in blind worship. The media, by the White House’s own de facto admission in having issued this threat, will not only refuse to report and thus cover up the malicious misdeeds of their “messiah,” it will happily and obediently destroy his enemies upon his marching orders. They are, in essence, his club-wielding goon squad. (Whereas a Republican president so threatening people would result in screaming for impeachment and ululating echoing through newsrooms as they wrote veritable fatwas of jihad against him.)

That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave, as the two entities he presumed to be natural antagonists – the press and government – join forces to trash the founding documents and the nation he helped create.

Just what country and time are we living in? The United States of 2009, or Stalin’s Soviet Union of the 1930s?

“The Best Education for My Kids, But Not Yours”: Obama

Obama is willing to spend TRILLIONS for banks and unions but nothing to help DC kids get the same opportunities that he demands for his own children

Hypocrite

For more info, go here.