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“Been pretty good guy on most of the issues.”Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told PJ Media that Attorney General Eric Holder has been put in a “bad fix” but remains a “pretty good guy on most of the issues.” Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told PJ Media that Attorney General Eric Holder has been put in a “bad fix” but remains a “pretty good guy on most of the issues.” Conyers was asked for his opinion on the panel investigating Holder’s role in seizing the emails...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared recently at the Brookings Institution, "The rich are not paying their fair share." She then went on to praise Brazil as the tax holy grail for the rest of the world: "Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what—it's growing like crazy." At first blush those kinds of words must make her neosocialist boss, President Obama, jump for joy. But is the secretary of state actually a supply-side subversive? Take a look at Brazil's income tax rates—they are lower than ours. The highest rate is a mere 27.5%, far...

Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union who now sits on President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said the United States needs an economic plan that does not include “worshipping” the free market. “America needs a 21st century economic plan because we now know the market-worshipping, privatizing, de-regulating, dehumanizing American financial plan has failed and should never be revived, worshipping the market again,” Stern said in remarks at the annual conference of the liberal activist group Campaign for America’s Future in Washington on Monday. “It has failed America and everyone that works here,”...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The House is expected to vote this week on whether to quadruple the oil tax to pay for the damages from the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But as dramatic as the increase might seem, analysts say that consumers will barely feel it. The House "oil spill response" measure, included among others in a larger bill, proposes that the tax be increased from its current rate of 8 cents a barrel to 32 cents. This is projected to raise nearly $10 billion over the next 10 years for the Oil Spill Liability Trust...

What is it about the Obamas that causes people peering through the glass at the White House to start seeing flashbacks to the excesses of life under the French court before the Revolution? I don’t mean casual “dates” via Air Force One to catch a Broadway show in Manhattan, inconveniencing the country’s largest city. And I certainly don’t expect the American President and his wife to have leftover meatloaf for dinner. But the image we see of the Obamas via the besotted press is one of wretched excess. In a time when nearly a quarter of America’s population is either...

This time it is actual clear-cut stealing, not just cushy benefits — the General Services Administration inspector general reports that employees of the Federal Protective services used government purchase cards to buy gold coins, flat-screen televisions, and even gym memberships. From the Washington Times: Twenty-one FPS employees took advantage of an 18-month transition period during which the security agency was moved from the General Services Administration to the Department of Homeland Security “to loot GSA resources by purchasing unauthorized goods,” according to the GSA’s office of inspector general. Investigative documents obtained by The Washington Times through a Freedom of Information...

One aspect of a new and improved federal regulatory scheme is the seizure of 401(k) retirement plans and the subsequent government-administered disbursement of the funds. In Chapter 3 of the Annual Report on the Middle Class released in February by Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, the Obama administration calls for enhancing the “retirement options” for the middle class by imposing “new regulations to improve the transparency and adequacy of 401(k) retirement savings.” The plan, as sketched in the 43-page document, calls for the creation of something called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs). Biden...

Democrats Have Increased Taxes by $670 Billion and Counting… List Includes 14 Tax Hikes Totaling Over $316 Billion on Middle Class Families. Since January of 2009, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have enacted into law gross tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, or more than $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The list of tax increases includes at least 14 violations of the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples.

Rangel gift$ to lawyersBy S.A. MILLER Last Updated: 4:07 PM, February 3, 2010 WASHINGTON -- Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel spent huge amounts of campaign cash in the last quarter of 2009 on lawyers to fend off congressional ethics investigations, campaign-finance reports show. The Harlem Democrat dropped $575,000 on five teams of lawyers since Oct. 1 -- the lion's share of the $687,000 he spent that quarter. It's far more than the $354,694 Rangel's campaign says he raised during that three-month span. For the past year, the House ethics panel has been probing Rangel's use of congressional letterhead to raise money...

Thought this needed started. Live stream at the link once the man is ready.

What is America's most prominent Muslim advocacy group hiding? The Council on American-Islamic Relations is delinquent in filing its tax returns by nearly two years, the IRS has confirmed, raising new suspicions the embattled nonprofit group is concealing from the American public details about its already shadowy financial activities. Washington-based CAIR, which receives revenue from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, is required by federal law to file its tax returns annually with the IRS to maintain its tax-exempt status. However, it still has not filed its 2007 returns, according to the IRS. Its 2008 tax filing is also late....

AIG Bailout: How American Taxpayers Saved European Banks by: Prieur du Plessis January 28, 2010 While the AIG (AIG) controversy rages and the enquiry into the bailout gathers momentum, Professor Linus Wilson of the University of Louisiana (via Clusterstock) has put together a helpful chart showing exactly how the bailout was constructed and indicating which banks got how much. Two things stand out: The Treasury’s overpayment for preferred stock was a crucial part of the bailout, and though Goldman Sachs (GS) is usually held up as the bad guy here, SocGen (SCGLY.PK) received $2.5 billion more, remarked Clusterstock. Fascinating stuff,...

The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, told C-SPAN on Sunday that he uses a tax preparer to do his federal income tax return because he finds the tax code too complex to handle the job himself. “I use a preparer,” Shulman told C-SPAN anchor Steve Scully on the network’s Newsmakers program. "I've used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex, so I use a preparer.” Scully followed up by asking Shulman, “How would you make it easier? How would you make it less complex?” Shulman said: "I don't write the tax...

A House committee is planning to grill Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about his role in the massive bailout of failed insurer American International Group Inc. The House Oversight Committee is responding to news that key details about AIG's bailout were suppressed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York while Geithner was its president. A growing chorus of lawmakers says Geithner must explain his involvement in deals that diverted billions from AIG's bailout to Goldman Sachs and other big banks. New York Democrat and committee Chairman Edolphus Towns says the hearing will examine the rise and fall of AIG and...