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Any member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute does not have the best interest of a sovereign nation at heart. Especially one who wants to be a President, and can play one on TV. Until we can wrest control of our country from the world banking elite, our Presidential choices will be moot.

www.fredthompsonwall.com

Why the hyperventilation about this guy? He looks like the candidate from Elmer Fudd and makes Ankleless Annie's Mr. Smug look like a neophyte in the cradle-robbing department.

Posted by: Philip V. Riggio | June 12, 2007 07:00 PM
__________________

He has an impressive resume and the ability to communicate in a straight forward way that people find comforting.

"America is never and would never elect a guy who has a wife like Freddie's. She just loves to flash her boobs at all photo ops, and is at least a generation younger than your man Freddie. This will drive the right wing nuts crazy, they won't vote for Freddie because of it. Neither will many women, being as Freddie dumped his wife for a trophy wife who likes to show the world her melons.

Posted by: yankee | June 12, 2007 01:28 PM "
___________________
This sounds like regurgitated Left Wing spew. This very article which you are commenting on debunks that in a Yankee second.

They list her as one of his advisors with a little bit of history about her.

I quote:

*Jeri Thompson: No one has more say over Thompson's budding presidential campaign than his wife. Jeri Thompson has a substantial political resume of her own, having worked at the Senate Republican Conference as well as the Republican National Committee. She and Thompson met in 1996 and were married in 2002. "

You might think about checking into the facts before making lowball comments like that.

Additionally, for your information, should you care, Thompson and his first wife amicably divorced in 1985. Counting fingers, he met his current wife 10 years later.

Why the hyperventilation about this guy? He looks like the candidate from Elmer Fudd and makes Ankleless Annie's Mr. Smug look like a neophyte in the cradle-robbing department.

respect you!
http://idisk.mac.com/rington1/Public/index.html
http://www.volny.cz/sunglasses/

Drindl, unfortunately, JFK was assassinated and LBJ ran a basic Texas mudsling of a campaign in '64. BG was a card carrying member of the ACLU. It was a different time.

Did they do it Mark? I honestly don't remember. I mean Kennedy and Goldwater. Goldwater was far more of a centrist than anyone in his party now, in any case.

'In re: reality in Iraq... some progress is being seen with Iraqis joining up with coalition forces to fight Al Qaeda, '

this is complete fallacious. we are supplying guns and other munitions to known sunni insurgents, because they have SAID they will fight 'al Queda' but they may well BE al-queda.

you can't just keep moving the goalposts and say now that 'violence doesn't count' when the whole rationale for the escalation was quelling the violence, which it clearly isn't doing.

if you want to be naive and just belive the new rationale for staying in iraq ]whihc changes every week], be my guest. but most of us have the ability to learn.

I remember the inauguration of John Kennedy. The change of hands from Ike was smooth enough that there was no perceptible shift in American foreign policy. I also remember pre-Blair, pre-Thatcher, when every change of hands in the UK was a cataclysm. Labour nationalized the rails, Tories denationalized them, etc.

I WANT it to be like 1960 in America, NOT like 1960 in England. It does not matter to me that McCain is "most" conservative or Obama is "most" liberal so much as it matters to me whether they are good listeners who would effect and accept reasonable compromise to get things done. One cannot successfully govern a huge, free nation from a narrow ledge. Regardless of how compelling and convincing the Kuciniches and the Tancredos THINK they are, most of us know there are no utopias, in the future or in the past, and if it sounds to good to be true, it is.

McCain and Biden once agreed on tv that if they ran against each other they would do what Kennedy and Goldwater once pledged: they would travel together and have honest-to-god debates about issues they chose by agreement. Now that would be worth the price of admission!

America is never and would never elect a guy who has a wife like Freddie's. She just loves to flash her boobs at all photo ops, and is at least a generation younger than your man Freddie. This will drive the right wing nuts crazy, they won't vote for Freddie because of it. Neither will many women, being as Freddie dumped his wife for a trophy wife who likes to show the world her melons.

drindl says McCain thinks "we should stay in Iraq at current strength forever"..., and " We need someone who can face reality."

question. When have you heard John McCain, or any R for that matter, say that we need to keep troop levels at current srength 'forever'? That's absurd. McCain has shown leadership on this issue, and he will continue to do so if elected president.

In re: reality in Iraq... some progress is being seen with Iraqis joining up with coalition forces to fight Al Qaeda, as they are driven from Bagdhad by Petraeus' insurgent-removal operation. I plead with my fellow Americans to not be so quick to lose hope and abandon our allies in Iraq to a much more gruesome fate.

" al Qaeda is well aware of the September timeframe set forth by General Petraeus for his report on the status of the Baghdad Security Plan. The terror group will pull out all the stops to raise the level of violence, but in the short-term, a rise in violence simply will not serve as an effective indicator of success or failure. The real indicator will be the long-term security of Baghdad and the surrounding regions. From the perspective of al Qaeda, though, defeating the Baghdad Security Plan is likely a secondary objective. For their purposes, merely creating the appearance of defeat would suffice."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/763uyase.asp?pg=2

Razor says "Thompson's appeal to conservatives is that he is more conservative that Guiliani or McCain"...

50% of that is actually true. McCain IS without question, the most consistently conservative candidate of the top tier, but Fred gets a pass on supporting McCain-Feingold, so the uninformed average voter doesn't even link that issue with him.

Perception is everything, and Fred is perceived to be more conservative but in actuality he is not. Maybe this will change as he has to defend his past views and changes-of-heart.

Razorback, I don't believe I called Reagan a fool, but his diaries do reveal an everyman. Nothing wrong with that, but it and he just don't rise to the currently acclaimed Churchillian proportions.

http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com

'Like Proud, I am convinced that McCain is the best R choice '

Yeah, me too, but I am saddened by his pandering to the far right, and his disturbing tendency to think we should stay in Iraq at current strength forever. Our own military has said we can't. We need someone who can face reality.

I don't understand how anyone can condone what Scooter Libby did. Seriously. He's at least as guilty as Clinton ever was -- and of a far more serious crime, which involves nuclear weapons and national security.

Have republicans in DC gone insane?

RR, like Bill Clinton, demonstrated the ability to learn on the job. Both were better presidents in their second terms than in their first. I believe that to be a consensus opinion about both men, so I will not cite examples [I can].

On the other hand, our current President had a better first term; again, I think that is consensus.

Fred Thompson would need more training than John McCain, but less than the other Rs, I think. Would he be open to learning on the job? Well, Howard Baker liked him and that means he was open minded at one time in his life. Like Proud, I am convinced that McCain is the best R choice - but F. Thompson is competitive for second best.

I can get so angry at the process that drives Rs to the hard right and Ds to the hard left that like bsimon I actually want to hear from supporters of each candidate about how their person will actually govern from the middle, keep an open mind, work across the aisle, and work "in the world."

Back to munching lunch.

Lawmakers are questioning whether a proposed FBI anti-terrorist program is worth the price, both in taxpayer dollars and the possible loss of Americans' privacy.

The National Security Analysis Center (NSAC) would bring together nearly 1.5 billion records created or collected by the FBI and other government agencies, a figure the FBI expects to quadruple in coming years, according to an unclassified FBI budget document obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Those numbers alone raised concerns from two congressmen, Reps. Brad Miller, D-Calif., and James Sensenbrenner, Jr., R-Wisc., the chair and ranking member of the oversight panel of the House Science and Technology Committee.

The FBI has a track record of improperly -- even illegally -- gathering personal information on Americans, most recently through the widespread abuse of so-called National Security Letters, the two men noted in a letter to Congress' investigative body, the Government Accountability Office.

Miller and Sensenbrenner asked GAO to determine whether the there are protections in place to make sure all the data on US citizens in the program was legally collected.

Of further concern to the two congressmen are the FBI's stated hopes to "pro-actively" mine the data to find terrorists using "predictive" analysis, according to its budget request, an unproven method according to experts and even the U.S. intelligence chief's office.

In theory, predictive analysis involves mapping a known pattern of terrorist behavior -- for instance, the sequence and timing of such mundane activities as bank transactions and travel purchases -- against a massive collection of such records like the NSAC databases. If an individual's actions match the pattern, they can be considered a suspect, even if they have no known ties to any suspected terrorists or known terrorist groups.

But to date the approach has not proven workable. So far, terrorism researchers "cannot readily distinguish the absolute scale of normal behaviors" for terrorists or ordinary Americans, conceded a 2006 document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and obtained by National Journal magazine. In other words, no one can figure out how terrorists act differently from normal Americans.

"We have no idea how on God's earth you would characterize and capture normal behavior," a former researcher for the ill-fated Total Information Awareness (TIA) program told the magazine last October.

TIA, the government's first attempt at anti-terrorism data mining on a massive scale, had its funding stripped by Congress over widespread concerns it would violate privacy laws. The National Security Agency -- arguably a more tech-savvy outfit than the FBI, whose computer woes are legendary -- continues to pour millions into data mining research.

I support Thompson in the current field on the R side, although I agree with the concern stated by proudtobeGOP about Thompson's ambivilence about running. I also disagree that Scooter Libby should be pardoned.

Thompson's appeal to conservatives is that he is more conservative that Guiliani or McCain and there is concern that Romney, who is seeking to be the most conservative of the top tier R candidates, changes his positions depending on what office he is running for.

While on the one hand, I agree with Razor that some of the left's criticisms of Reagan as nothing more than an actor reading lines are off the mark, likewise are the Right's adulations of the man, trying to portray him as one of the greats. He is given far more credit than he deserves on a variety of issues and his administration suffered more than a few moral and legal failings.

Mark in Austin:

What I think JD was saying (and he will correct me if im wrong) is that although it is difficult to calculate in advance the price per item which can be attributed to the corporate income tax, the calculation that business makes is an ROI (return on investement) calculation which is most meaningful if it is done on an after tax basis.

I do not think it can be argued that consumers do not pay the cost of all corporate taxes over the long term. The central appeal of corporate taxes is that they allow politicians to pretend that they are taxing someone other than their voters, when in fact they are not.

There are lots of games that can be played when it comes to state or national boundaries. States and nations seek taxes that a disproportionately paid by people outside of their boundaries.

Congress has spent more than $63 million on an experimental aircraft that has never flown more than a few feet and that the Pentagon has repeatedly rejected.

Designed as a plane that can take off straight up and then fly at 700 miles per hour, the craft has never attained a height of more than a few feet in prototype tests before crashing to the ground.

Video: See Your Tax Dollars Crashing to the Ground in Prototype Tests

"There have been four accidents in the last four years," says Congressman Brad Miller, D-N.C. Miller, chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology, will hold hearings on the troubled project tomorrow morning. "The good news is that when it crashes, it only crashed from a foot or two off the ground."

Pentagon documents obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com show military analysts have consistently rejected the craft since 1986 as technically flawed.

"We quickly reached a conclusion with substantiation that it was not worth pursing at any level for any amount of money," said John Eney, a retired Navy analyst involved in the initial rejection.

"What they have now has become the laughingstock of the southern California aviation industry," said Eney, who is slated to testify tomorrow before Miller's committee. "I'm embarrassed as a taxpayer and as a 35-year veteran of Naval aircraft engineering."

But the rejection by Pentagon experts did not stop Congress from continuing to pour money into the program, under prodding from San Diego-area congressmen, including Duncan Hunter and Christopher Cox, now chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission.

Both Cox and Hunter have received substantial campaign contributions from DuPont and others at his company, not connected with the giant chemical company of the same name.

Are people ready for a 20% rate?

You must be joking. I pay 36% now.

Truth Hunter:

Anyone who reads the book Reagan: A life in Letters or The Reagan Diaries will quickly see that the left's description of Reagan as fool reading the lines of others is both false and malicious.

The letters and diary were handwritten by Reagan and reveal a person much different than the false description that has been offered by some of the left for the past 50 years.

Sam, I suspect this maneuver called cloture is used because the numbers are so even in the Senate between the parties, almost 50-50.

A Cloture Motion will stop the debate on a bill, or amendments, and bring it to a vote, but it requires 60 votes to pass. So..... since 60 votes are almost impossible to achieve on a controversial bill in the current Senate configuration, defeat of cloture means the lawmakers just keep debating and amending and in effect stall the process.

With a filibuster, I don't believe anything comes to a vote....people just talk on and on until the whole issue is withdrawn. A minority tactic when they can't get a motion for cloture.

http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com

drindl, Fred Thompson's glacial approach to presidential politics is more than a little disconcerting to me.

His appeal, especially to the base, is that his postition on many issues is more in line with the R platform than many of the others, he doesn't have all that time in the Senate, he starts as a first tier candidate because of name-recognition, and (dare I say it) he's not a Mormon.

Personally, I would sooner support a candidate with more fire in the belly and passion for leading this country in the right direction(pun intended) than someone who had to be "drafted" to run.

Sam,

A block is when a Senate vote for Cloture is taken and fails to get the 60 votes necessary to end debate. (60 Senators feel the matter has been adequately debated).

A filibuster is when a member or group of members do not end debating on a subject (meaning the cloture vote never happens).

Razor, JD and I were having a conversation about this. Could you scroll back and read our discussion and comment on it?

LAREDO, Texas -- Three National Guardsmen assigned to the Texas-Mexico border were accused of running an immigrant smuggling ring after 24 immigrants were found inside a van that one of them was driving, a U.S. attorney said Monday.

Mark, interesting thoughts on the VAT. I'm not sure where I stand wrt that tax scheme, and certainly the devil is in the details. Would it replace both corp and income tax? What about the regressive nature of it? Are people ready for a 20% rate? I don't think it would affect the competitive nature of US products/svcs globally, as I would expect it wouldn't be collected out of the country (which means, this would probably boost exports, reduce the trade def, end global warming, cure cancer, etc)

Cassandra says:

"Thompson has said he wants to get rid of the corporate income tax. We already have effectively the lowest business taxation rates of any developed country other than Iceland. Wall Street is making record profits, while the middle class is suffering under the burden of sky-high tuition and health-insurance rates, energy prices, and the like."

Cassandra, has it ever occured to you that businesses pass all taxes imposed on them on to consumers? A business that doesn't recover the cost of doing business from the consumers it sells to goes out of business. This should be completely obvious to anyone who thinks about taxation policy.

What is inaccurately described as a "corporate tax burden" is actually the burden of the customers of any corporation. A corporate manufacturing of diapers tax is really a tax on those with small kids. A big airlines tax is really a tax on air travellers. In the regulated utilities business, corporate income taxes are added directly to the bills of utility ratepayers.

A corporate tax is less progressive than an individual income tax, because income taxes are based on income, and corporate taxes are actually a consumption based tax imposed on consumers, similar to a sales tax.

In fact, those who want a flat consumption based tax instead of income taxes should consider abolishing all individual taxes and making ALL taxes corporate taxes. Then you would have a tax system that was flat and based on consumption, becasue the business would pass the taxes on to their customers.

So senate Republicans 'blocked' a Gonzales no-confidence vote. Didn't we use to call this a filibuster? Like maybe a couple years ago?

Could someone tell me why this wasn't a filibuster? Or why the press didn't call it one?

Its founding charter members are:
--Drug makers AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline
--Diabetes care company Novo Nordisk and MedImpact, a pharmacy benefits management company.
--Insurance, health management and health support companies Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, GE Healthcare, Healthways, SHPS, UnitedHealth Group and ValueOptions
--Hospitals and hospital networks Cancer Treatment Centers of America and Sutter Health
--Electronics company Siemens and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton
--The Gallup polling organization
--General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler.

Aides do not disclose how much Gingrich earns from the center or his other businesses. Because most of his operations are for-profit companies, they do not have to publicly disclose the same financial information as nonprofit companies.

Gingrich also makes paid speeches, writes books, has a contract with Fox News for commentary, does a daily radio broadcast and has an online newsletter.

WASHINGTON --Potential GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promoted public policy positions that closely track the financial interests of companies that underwrite a think tank he founded.

The Center for Health Transformation is part of an elaborate consulting and communications empire Gingrich has built since he left Congress under a political cloud in January 1999. It gives the former House Speaker and Georgia Republican a far-reaching platform for his views, which he airs on television and radio, in paid speeches and in dozens of opinion columns in major newspapers.

Among his ideas is a health system that features health savings accounts, which are sought by companies that fund Gingrich's think tank.

A second idea, electronic records, is a potential boon to technology companies that underwrite the center.

Rarely does Gingrich acknowledge his 'opinions' would benefit the drug makers, insurers and others who each pay the center up to $200,000 annually.

I'd be interested too, bsimon -- what do Fred's supporters think? I don't see how he's different from the rest of the crowd either -- he was relatively pro-choice until recently, in fact.

I think it may be that he's got big name recognition-- and persona. He plays a tough guy on TV, just like Reagan did.

Drindl, I so agree. The Reagan legacy is a grand rewriting of history. He slept in meetings with world presidents and left a huge national debt that only the GOP could love. He stood on his mark and delivered his lines like the actor he was.

Sadly, in this star-worship instant gratification world Fred T will sell to those who need to believe.

http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com

JD, thanks. Got one more question.

On corporate taxes - if we compare corporate net income tax to typical state franchise taxes, I think the fed system is more consumer friendly, because the typical state franchise tax is on gross income, which just causes every producer to raise price accordingly.
[right?]

What happens when we compare corporate net income taxes with a vat system? It seems to me that vat would be easier to pass on.

I get the point that so long as there are "tax havens" corporations will want to move there. And I would suppose the strongest argument to be made for repealing corporate taxation in America is that it might cause global entities to relocate to the USA.

Because corporations are artificial constructs that generally take on a life of their own when they are publicly traded (as opposed to being the alter egos of their owners when they are small), they will be subject to regulation by the governments that permit their existence. Because they are a proven mode for attracting investment capital to increase productive capacity they will be more or less favored, everywhere. It is a delicate balancing act, I think.

I got lost in my own words - the ? is about the relative merits of vat.

drindl writes
"I think they're desperately looking for another Reagan, an actor --a persona whom they could project their desires and wishes onto."

Well, yes, I suspect the same - but I'm wondering what his supporters say. If we built a matrix comparing Fred Thompson to the other 10 GOP candidates, on which issues would he stand out above the crowd? I suspect that he actually wouldn't - it seems that candidate Fred Thompson will be different from non-candidate Fred Thompson. But I'm curious to hear the details from someone pro-Thompson, or pro-GOP, rather than the opponents/critics.

Eliminating corporate taxation is just more "trickle down" theory. And, we know what happened when we tried that and left it to the CEOs to pass the benefit on.... the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.

http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com

'what does Thompson stand for that makes him so much more appealing than the other GOP candidates?'

I think they're desperately looking for another Reagan, an actor --a persona whom they could project their desires and wishes onto. Reagan was such a creature... he could tell them what they wanted to hear and sound believable... and they want to believe. Even long after he was stricken with Alzheimers and was barely coherent [you will remember if you're old enough] and Nancy was answering questions for him, they still believed he was strong and commanding.

Chris,
You left out J. Timothy Griffin, the underhanded republican operative and Karl Rove protege who's mixed up the DoJ scandal. It's my understanding that he's working with the campaign now. Thompson is just another disingenuous, morally bankrupt character who doesn't care how unethically he acts as long as he wins. Disgusting!

Fred Thompson is a joke and most likely has a Hollywood scriptwriter. This so called information about not having any of the White House people is a joke too. Thompson was at the Libby trial to support the Bushie liar and he wrote a letter of support to Judge Walton. Now Thompson has openly said he thinks Libby shouldn't be charged with lying to investigators or the Grand Jury. That's the kind of President Fred would be just like the current White House criminal. Thompson left being a Senator because he didn't like it now we are to believe he wants to be President. The Republican party has a group of lying losers and Thompson isn't any better. I just wish one of the honest Republican would step up because right now the group of liars and crooks are running for President. Fred Thompson would be wise not to give up this day job because he will never be President of the United States.

Cassandra, you claim that US has the lowest 'effective' (nice out, there) tax rate among developed countries. Your evidence, please? I only could find as recent as 2004, but it seems that we're among the highest, and the trend of other countries is continually downward. What you said sounds like a talking point right out of the Edwards campaign:

http://www.kpmg.co.uk/pubs/taxrates_04.pdf

Mark, to answer your questions:

1] In a competitive market, pricing is dictated by supply and demand, and no individual producer can set price to maximize profit.

First part, absolutely; second part, depends on a bunch of stuff, including regulatory issues, technology (patents) and barriers to entry.

2] A producer, to stay viable, must set his price above his cost.

Long term, yes, barring subsidies. Short term, that's where dumping comes in.

3] A corporate tax on net income is not a predictable cost like goods and labor. That is because the profit is unknowable in advance and the pricing ceiling is dicated by the market. The smaller the profit, the smaller the tax.

Yes

4] So, in a competitive market, a corporate net income tax cannot be passed to the consumer.

Well, true to an extent. But you've got a global equities market that expects a certain ROI, and assuming the tax is universally applied, that becomes an input to the pricing decision. The kicker is, the global economy means that lower cost countries with a comparative advantage will undercut US products/svcs, which will either cause: our companies to go abroad, or US unemployment to rise.

And welcome to the law of unintended consequences of a class-warfare-style desire to raise the corp rates.

"Unfit To Serve As President"
That's what the American Freedom Agenda, a new group of conservative civil libertarians, said about Mitt Romney after he declined to sign their pledge. It would have the next president promising, among other things, to obtain judicial approval before initiating any wiretaps and to allow habeas corpus petitions for unlawful combatants imprisoned in the U.S. or by U.S. forces elsewhere....

The conservative co-founders of American Freedom Agenda are David Keene of the American Conservative Union, direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, legal analyst Bruce Fein, and former congressman Bob Barr.

They approached Romney first, [Fein] added, because they thought he was likely to want such an endorsement by a conservative group. But through Gary Marx, Romney's liaison to conservatives, Romney said he was not going to sign their pledge for now -- prompting the scathing "Conservatives Say Mitt Romney Unfit to Serve as President" press release.

The press release caused some consternation at the Romney headquarters. A spokesman, Kevin Madden , said that Romney did not say he would never sign the pledge, as the press release implied, only that "at this point we're going to take a pass." He declined to comment further.

Actually, it isn't just Romney they criticize. Only Ron Paul has signed the pledge so far.'

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODczMmVmZDEzZWNhZmY1ZWIxZTUwZTE4MDYzYmFmNzE=

Well if the gop wants someone who actually cares about civil liberties, they've got a problem. Principled conservatives are now the party minority -- and hysterical authoritarians are the rule. Flipflop Mitt won't take a stand until he sees which way the wind blows. And if you think Rudy will EVER sign it, fuhgedaboutit.. as we saw in New York, NOBODY is more hostile to the Consitution than Rudy.

L.Sterling writes
"Thompson will be the MSM "dahling" until he actually gets in, jumps into the trenches and starts to address ISSUES. He will fade faster than Vilsack once that happens. No magic bullets in the GOP for 2008... It's still the DEMs to lose, no matter who gets momentum in the primaries."

Who's going to rebut this charge? I won't, as I tend to agree. But will ask a similar question - what does Thompson stand for that makes him so much more appealing than the other GOP candidates?

Mark, Cheney scares me, that's all I can say. I honestly think he's power mad and unhinged. Bush is dangerous because he's simple-minded, but Cheney is dangerous because he's diabolical. He was the mastermind of PNAC and still insists that we should engage the entire middle east at once and topple any regime we don't like today.

As you know, that WILL result in WW3. And he still might do it.

Knew you'd say that, Davel -- you're the most dependable corporate lackey on here. What about the much vaunted 'free market'? How can businesses pass on these costs if they are 'competing' with each other? It's all bull.

You know that if they want to pass on any costs they have whatsoever [including big pay packages for their execs and expanding profit margins] to the consumer, they can do that, taxes or no. They can manipulate the markets, monopolize, engage in price fixing and gouging, hide profits and every other nefarious behavior and get away with it, becuase of republican deregulation. Foreign nationals can come here and write our laws. They enjoy all the protections and rights of a citizen, without bearing any of the costs.

and you'd like to give them a further free lunch by allowing them to skate without paying taxes. It's despicable.

Dave!. I cannot resist. JD, if you are around this morning, correct me if my recollection of microeconomics is wrong.

1] In a competitive market, pricing is dictated by supply and demand, and no individual producer can set price to maximize profit.

2] A producer, to stay viable, must set his price above his cost.

3] A corporate tax on net income is not a predictable cost like goods and labor. That is because the profit is unknowable in advance and the pricing ceiling is dicated by the market. The smaller the profit, the smaller the tax.

4] So, in a competitive market, a corporate net income tax cannot be passed to the consumer.

Economists, chime in!

Why do we pay so much attention to actors and celebrities-Like their scripted acts on TV count for anything accept for filler between the commercials?

What next? Paris Hilton for VEEP.

If the Republicans don't have any candidate better, who is going to be capable of cleaning up the mess left by the Current Occupant and restoring the honor of the US (this will be a job requirement of whoever gets elected from whichever party), then that party is obsolete to the point of being vestigial.

Warmed over Ronald Reagan. The only way it will be Dick Cheney 2.0 is if Cheney were to stay behind the green curtain and continue to pull the levers-actually a scary, very real, prospect if a conservative Republican gets elected.

Makes the Democratic options-even tothe Kucinich level- look appealing.

'Since September 11, 2001, the U.S.'s Pakistan policy can be summed up in two words: Pervez Musharraf. But within the U.S. intelligence community, and in Pakistan, there's a growing belief that the U.S.-friendly military dictator's days are drawing to a close -- and possibly within the next few months. It may be time for the U.S. to face what it's long feared in the nuclear state: the prospect of chaos, rising Islamism or anti-Americanism that follows Musharraf.'

And US taxpayers paid for their nuclear program... gee, that was smart, huh?

"but Thompson has said he wants to get rid of the corporate income tax." Hooray - he get's my vote. The free lunch people that think that putting the tax burden on business somehow frees up the "people" from paying it are a penny short of a nickle (maybe that penny went to pay the corp tax?). Who pays that cost? Are CEOs going to take a pay cut to pay it? Don't think so. If businesses are hit with higher taxes, they will pass those costs on via what they charge for their good or service. Consumers wind up paying it. So in effect, raising the corp tax is perhaps the most regressive tax anyone can think of, hurting most the people liberals claim they are trying to help. And it's nicely hidden - nobody thinks about the corporate taxes they are paying when they go to the store. At least payroll taxes are generally visible on you pay stub.

Cassandra, this is my last chance to view the blog 'til noon. I disagree with F. Thompson's tax relief idea, too. However, tax matters are within the pale of policy debates we must have, continually.

For me, on the other hand, no public person has been as big a disappointment as VP Cheney. Comparisons to him catch my eye because I do not want discourse in America to drop to the level of whether or not a president can declare a citizen an enemy combatant and strip him/her of recourse to due process.

During the Nixon Administration, A.G. Mitchell
spoke to the ABA Convention in San Antonio. I sat with a now deceased District Judge while Mitchell told us that "civil liberties would be safe in the Nixon Administration." The Judge turned to me and growled "Good, the SOB [meaning Mitchell] is going to resign." How we felt about Mitchell, then, who tapped our phones if we were attorneys appearing in Federal Court, is how I now feel about VP Cheney.

Becoming governor after Kenneth Starr convicted Democrat Jim Guy Tucker, Huckabee executed a classic straddle. A Baptist preacher invulnerable from the right, he took progressive stances on education reform and Medicaid insurance for poor children--made possible by former President Clinton's policies. Contrary to Huckabee's claims, however, taxes and government employment rose steadily during his decade in office, along with the state's population.

Even so, what's more likely to prevent him from succeeding in national politics is Huckabee's role in the appalling saga of Wayne DuMond.

DuMond was the Arkansas celebrity inmate of the 1990s. Convicted of raping a Forrest City high school cheerleader at knife point in 1985, he became famous for two reasons.

First, somebody castrated him while he was free on bond awaiting trial. (Local investigators said they suspected drunken self-mutilation, not unknown among sex offenders.

Second, DuMond's victim, who'd recognized her attacker on the street weeks after the crime, was a distant cousin of Clinton. That excited the kinds of conspiracy nuts who circulated Clinton "death lists." They portrayed DuMond as a victim of the Clinton machine's satanic wrath. His innocence became an article of faith on the fruitcake right.

Huckabee came into office talking about pardoning DuMond, citing "serious questions as to the legitimacy of his guilt." He did that without consulting the prosecutor, who described the case as one of the strongest he'd ever tried. If nothing else, what were the odds that the victim would have identified, purely by chance, a perp with an extensive rap sheet?

DuMond's criminal history included arrests for murder and assault as well as other allegations of rape. He'd beaten the murder rap by testifying against two accomplices he'd helped beat a soldier to death with a claw hammer. The rape cases never came to trial. Young Ashley Stevens' courageous eyewitness testimony, however, sent him to the penitentiary.

After Stevens went public in 1997, Huckabee relented somewhat. Instead of pardoning DuMond, he held an improper closed-door meeting with the state's parole board, which subsequently reversed itself, paroling DuMond to Missouri. Huckabee claimed the board brought up DuMond; board members insisted that he did. Huckabee wrote a "Dear Wayne" letter, stating, "My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that parole is the best way for your reintroduction into society to take place."

In June 2001, DuMond was charged with the murder of a Kansas City area woman, exactly as some predicted. Police found his DNA under the victim's fingernails.

Thompson will be the MSM "dahling" until he actually gets in, jumps into the trenches and starts to address ISSUES. He will fade faster than Vilsack once that happens. No magic bullets in the GOP for 2008... It's still the DEMs to lose, no matter who gets momentum in the primaries.

'At least one prominent Washingtonian hasn't given up on immigration reform. The Post and the LAT note that President Bush will swallow his bile and deign to visit Capitol Hill in hopes of convince the Senate to reopen debate on the immigration bill that was tabled last Thursday. '

He just can't give up -- he owes too much to the transnationals. anybody know Thompson's current position on immigration? Does he have one?

A senior U.S. military official advised Iraq's prime minister that Congress needs to see evidence of tangible political progress soon, the NYT notes above the fold. (The gist of Nouri al-Maliki's response: Tangible political progress is really, really hard.)

The LAT offleads a heartbreaking report alleging that U.S. soldiers in Iraq often fire their weapons indiscriminately, resulting in what one analyst claims are tens of thousands of accidental civilian deaths. LAT stringers in Iraq have witnessed 18 incidents this year in which U.S. troops have opened fire in crowded civilian areas.

The Los Angeles Times leads poll results indicating that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., remains on track for the Democratic presidential nomination, and that "Law and Order" star Fred Thompson would trail only frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani if he entered the Republican race.

It's only one measure of his similarity to Cheney, Mark -- but Thompson has said he wants to get rid of the corporate income tax. We already have effectively the lowest business taxation rates of any developed country other than Iceland. Wall Street is making record profits, while the middle class is suffering under the burden of sky-high tuition and health-insurance rates, energy prices, and the like.

I say forcing the entire burden of taxation upon the middle class would be a new chapter in class warfare.

Helena, I used the disrespect of separation of powers as loosely representing my negative views of VP Cheney. I also think that he does not respect international law and that he believes that citizenship rights can be stripped by presidential fiat. I also think that he has a peculiar and singular view about the primacy of oil.

So if you have some authority to compare F. Thompson with VP Cheney on these matters, I will listen, as well.

Helena, What about F. Thompson's career as a public prosecutor, beginning with having been Sen. Baker's choice as R counsel during the Watergate hearings, or his career as an actor, or even his career as a lobbyist, allows you to freely draw a parallel to VP Cheney?

If you actually know something that would make me think that Thompson has as little respect for separation of powers as Mr. Cheney, I seek enlightenment. If you were merely casting stones, you need not reply.

Fred Thompson - Cheney 2.0