Free Republic

I know I shouldn't have waited til the last minute, but wanted to ask tax-savvy FReepers two questions: 1) What are the odds that the figure on line 54 (Total Credits) of your 1040 is going to be the exact same number as that on line 62 (Federal Income Tax Withheld)? Wouldn't that be one heck of a coincidence, if true? Should I start playing the lottery? 2) Also, my accountant told me to put $510 in a ROTH IRA to get a higher refund. Although I can't find a line item on the 1040 where making such a contribution...

Source is link only. STORY

This is a bad, selfish use of FR bandwidth and I will admit that up front. However, I've searched the internet high and wide for a solution, to no avail. If you have DISH NETWORK, you might see a screen with the floating DISH logo and the words "press SELECT to continue." I cannot press SELECT, however, due to the fact that the dog chewed up the remote (5-7 days for a new remote to arrive). Is there anyway I can watch TV in the meantime? I looked on the DISH receiver itself for a SELECT button, but there is...

Breakdown of how each region’s external debt around the world has evolved through the decades, starting back in 1970, all the way until today. We all read about the U.S. national debt, and whether we should be concerned that it’s in the $12 trillion range these days. But the United States isn’t the only country carrying a huge amount of debt. In fact, it seems that operating just about any country is a money losing proposition. According to the CIA’s Worldbank data, the majority of countries carry huge sums of national debt. And for most countries – although there are...

The Occupy movement lost one of its most ardent supporters in the media Friday night. On HBO's Real Time, host Bill Maher surprisingly said of the protesters, "As I watch them on the news now I find myself almost agreeing with Newt Gingrich. Like, you know what - get a job...Now it's just a bunch of [d-bags] who think throwing a chair through the Starbucks window is going to bring on the revolution" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning): BILL MAHER: Let me ask you about another occupation, because this is - and you would be good on...

The Shark Tank has learned that Congressman Tom Rooney has announced that he is running for re-election to Congress in one of Florida’s two newly created congressional districts, and that Congressman Allen West will run for re-election in Congressman Rooney’s 16th Congressional District. The speculation will now begin as to which Republican will run in Allen West’s 22nd Congressional District. It is possible that either George LeMieux or Adam Hanser could abandon their Senate candidacies and run in the district, as both are from the area. The possibility exists that other current candidates for Congress in adjoining congressional districts could...

Oct 25 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc shares slumped after reporting weaker-than-expected results as it spent heavily on a new tablet computer and other long-term projects. The stock plummeted 14 percent to $194.31 after hours, after closing at $227.15 on Nasdaq. The world's largest Internet retailer said on Tuesday its third-quarter net income was $63 million, or 14 cents a share, versus $231 million, or 51 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue was $10.88 billion, up 44 percent from the third quarter of 2010, it added. Analysts had expected Amazon to report third-quarter earnings per share of 24 cents on...

WASHINGTON—The Senate has voted to effectively block the Justice Department from undertaking gun-smuggling probes like the flawed "Operation Fast and Furious" program that was aimed at breaking up networks running guns to Mexican drug cartels but which lost track of hundreds of the weapons. Some of the weapons were used to commit crimes in Mexico and the U.S. Tuesday's vote would block the government from transferring guns to drug cartels unless federal agents "continuously monitor or control" the weapons.

Vietnamese woman Nguyen Thi Phuong now looks like a septugenarian after the rapid aging affliction took hold following an allergic reaction to seafood. Her sad story began in 2008, when her youthful beauty began to fade over the course of just a few days, leaving her with sagging, wrinkled skin all over her face and body. Until now she has been forced to wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but now doctors are attempting to establish what caused her sudden and horrifying aging. Her husband, carpenter Nguyen Thanh Tuyen says his love for his...

Reuters: Greece to cut pensions over 1,200 Euros per month by 20% Just a headline for now. Gotta be a lot of people collecting more than 1,200 Euros per month. My guess is that if the rioting hasn't started (again) it will shortly.

This is all for now: Solyndra execs will decline to testify at Congressional hearing Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, submitted her resignation as a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. According to the floor of the House: The House received a communication from the Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Ms. Wasserman Schultz submitted her resignation from the Committee on the Judiciary. The resignation was accepted without objection. Rep. Wasserman Schultz still serves as a member of the House Budget Committee, Chief Deputy Whip for the minority, as well as Chair to the Democratic National Committee.

(CNSNews.com) - Foreign ownership of U.S. government debt declined in July for the second straight month, according to Treasury Department data released Friday. Overall, foreign holdings of U.S. debt dropped from an all-time high of $4.5115 trillion in May to 4.4956 trillion in June and then to $4.478 trillion in July.In June and July, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders were negotiating legislation to increase the legal limit on the U.S. government’s debt. In August, Obama signed legislation that will permit the Treasury to borrow up to another $2.4 trillion.Among major foreign creditors of the U.S. government, entities in Russia led the...

Hmm. Obama’s solargate Solyndra scandal may actually be worth a full billion, rather than half a billion! According to the Daily Caller, the failed solar panel maker Solyndra’s filings show that seven months after the Obama regime approved a $535 million federal loan guarantee, Solyndra applied for a second one valued at $469 million. It’s unclear if they ever received the money as the Department of Energy refused to respond for Daily Caller’s request for comments. Solyndra told the federal government it needed a total of $642 million to complete Phase II, most of which would have been covered by...

Three people are dead after a robbery and shooting at a West Philadelphia store. It happened at Lorena’s Grocery Store on North 50th Street shortly before 8 p.m. Police say it began as a robbery and soon escalated into a shooting. No word yet on any suspects, motives or the identity of the victims.

If someone can post the chart, that would be great. It's not an image file, though, so I can't post it. :( Go to the link above, however, and you will see it.

I am using a family member's Mac this weekend. I have a bunch of stuff I moved to the trash that I want to delete. However, they already had their own stuff already located in the trash. So, both of our junk is in the same trash. With Windows, it's very simple to delete specific files from the Recycle bin. Is it even possible to delete only specific files from the trash on a Mac? My googling tells me this is not possible. For real? What the Mac forums tells me is this: Create a new folder on the desktop...

Darrell Issa is a brilliant businessman who made a lot of money the old-fashioned way: he earned it, rather than marrying or inheriting it as so many Democratic politicians do. Which is another way of saying that he is just the kind of man we need in Washington.The Left, of course, doesnÂ’t see it that way. The New York Times hates Issa because, as Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he has launched several investigations of wrongdoing that have embarrassed the Obama administration. So ace reporter Eric Lichtblau, no longer occupied with illegally leaking national defense secrets...

**snip** We are an overextended empire and commonwealth facing strategic and fiscal bankruptcy. If Obama is to lead the nation out of the crisis it confronts, he has to preside over a downsizing of the welfare-warfare state – the same state that sustains his base. Not to worry, we are told. When the lazy days of summer are over, Obama will present Congress with his big plan for resurrecting the economy and ensuring the long-term solvency of the nation. Obama's September program – indeed, any credible plan to revive the economy and bring our books into balance – has to...

"We're supportive of the president, but we're getting tired. We're getting tired. So, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show -- to show what he can do and what he's prepared to lead on," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a Congressional Black Caucus-sponsored gathering yesterday in Detroit. "Our people are hurting," Waters added.