Category: Politics

(As you might recall mortgage is from two Latin rules “mort” meaning death and “gage” meaning grip.)

With all the mortgage troubles that folks are experiencing, some folks view a “short sale” as a way to get out from under their debt. However, you might be in for a surprise. The portion that the bank looses in the transaction might be considered taxable income to you by our friends in the Eternal Revenue Service. Yeah, you could be the astonished recipient of a Form 1099C from your lender.

There are IRS tax rules in place for when lenders are forced to foreclose because home owners have become delinquent in their mortgage payments. You will owe taxes on the difference between what the lender gets for the home and the outstanding mortgage loan balance. The same is true for a mortgage short sale. You will owe taxes on the amount of your loan or mortgage that the bank or lender has forgiven. That’s right, you are taxed even when you don’t receive any actual money.

IRS instruction for Form 1099C

If a federal government agency, certain agencies connected with the Federal Government, financial institution, credit union, or an organization having a significant trade or business of lending money (such as a finance or credit card company) cancels or forgives a debt you owe of $600 or more, this form must be provided to you. Generally, if you are an individual, you must include all canceled amounts, even if less than $600, on the “Other income” line of Form 1040.

Remember, the first rule of holes is stop digging. See a tax professional before you go down this path.

Yesterday, talk radio, voters and a bi-partisan group of Senators saved George Bush from himself. Bush has always had a blind spot when it comes to illegals from Mexico. He was ready to push for this type of amnesty legislation when he was first elected in 2000 but his plans were thwarted by the terror attacks on 9/11.

Unfortunately, President Bush is incapable of seeing border security as an integral part of the War on Terror. The evidence is plain for any unbiased person to see but it just doesn’t register in his view of the world. To say that his time as governor of Texas was formative for his views is an understatement. When it comes to Mexican illegals, he is trying to turn the whole country into a Texas type paradigm. He keeps looking at the issue with the same impotence that many state officials do. It is a Federal problem. He just doesn’t get the concept that he is on the other side of the looking glass now and he not only has the opportunity to fix it but the obligation.

Bush lacks the vision and the desire to solve the broken immigration system. His managerial skills have compounded the problem. Instead of appointing good people to be strong in areas where he is weak, he has appointed longtime friends and people of like mind, often with disastrous results. Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General are two examples.

Either we are at war or we become ostriches to the threat of radical Islam. President Bush seems to oscillate between both beliefs. I wish he would return to the path of stopping terrorists and act accordingly. His neglect of most domestic issues at the expense of winning the war is not the best alternative but understandable. If he wants to do something constructive domestically, he should help get Republicans elected in 2008, especially, in the White House. Committing political suicide and destroying our national sovereignty is not a constructive or rational policy.

Hopefully, the President will take a cold shower and go to Crawford for a week of barbequing and reflection and return to Washington ready to work for the American people. We need his help and leadership not more backstabbing of the folks who voted for him. Secure the borders, win the war, confirm the judges.

Today seems like stupidity in journalism day. First I read that the Minneapolis Star Tribune has dumped the James Lileks as a regular columnist. Lileks is probably the only thing worth reading in that paper. Listening to him each week on Hugh Hewitt is consistently one of the best segments on his program. Lileks is always laugh-out-loud funny.

Next I turn on Rush Limbaugh, and find out the television station that I watch each evening is all up in arms about the Rush Limbaugh parody “Barack the Magic Negro.” First, this parody is two months old. Second, Barack has been asked about the parody and did not take offense. Third the reporters never bothered to get the context about the song. They act like Limbaugh made the whole song up just so he could say “negro” on the air and bash Obama.

Any regular listener to Limbaugh knows that Rush took a series of articles written by Liberals who were dumping on Obama because of his race and strung them altogether to point out that these allegedly enlightened Liberals are just a bunch of racists who look at skin color and not qualifications. For Liberals it’s all about categories, groups and quotas. Dr. King wanted folks evaluated by “the content of their character” but his alleged successors are exactly the opposite. This is the classic definition of hypocrisy and low hanging fruit for Limbaugh to use to bash them as they so richly deserve.

Walter Martin often stated “a text without a context is a pretext, usually for error.” Local television station KOVR has proved once again the truth of that axiom.

Finally this has gone public. Our local Republican Central Committee has been covering this up for several months. It’s unfortunate that the liberal media has to break the story because we can’t police ourselves.

The local Chair of the county party helped herself to over $35,000 and others in the party covered it up. The story can be found at Sacramento Bee Newspaper (registration is required).

The resignation of former Sacramento County Republican Party Chairwoman Donna Schalansky has become the flash point in an internal party battle that centers on whether thousands of dollars of reimbursements she received were in violation of state law.

State law requires information about “third-party payees” be disclosed for reimbursements of $500 or more. But financial disclosure forms filed with the secretary of state’s office show Schalansky received 29 payments of $500 or more—a total of $35,922—between 2003 and 2006 without receipts showing who received the payments for which she was reimbursed.

Thus far no audit has been done and none is schedule. Members are not being allowed to see the books and no complete treasurer reports are being given out at the meeting. I have it on good authority that others are involved and that this may involve the state party as well.

I have been wondering lately who has the worst public relations and marketing division. After a few seconds of thought I came up with the following list:

United States Department of Defense (especially the US Army) for its ongoing work in Iraq. Most Americans can name as many military victories by our Army in Iraq as New Yorkers can name political accomplishments by Hillary Clinton; namely, none.

The Republican Party whose specialty is the circular firing squad. Republicans spend so much time stabbing each other in the back that there is nothing left to oppose the Democrats. (Hence the appropriateness of this topic on this particular date.)

Microsoft After five years and at least as many billions of dollars in development markets Windows Vista with “Wow”. What a great slogan. You can even say it backwards.

Speaking of Vista, I will soon be installing my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate on my new super computer. Once I get it running I will post my review.

Barack Obama, the Democrat phenomenon of the 2008 Presidential Campaign, is probably at or near his peak of popularity and as voters get to know him, his popularity will fade significantly.

Obama is for Democrats what Colin Powell was a few years ago for the Republicans; namely, at “tabula rasa.” Both men were initially popular because voters knew nothing about them but attached their own hopes, desires and beliefs to both men. Until they actually took a position on things, voters want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that each man is “one of us.”

Powell alienated a majority of Republicans by embracing abortion and other liberal social positions. His initial strength of appearing apolitical and above the frey of politics was subsequently revealed to be something much different. Powell had no core values guiding his politics. He was just another squishy, liberal Republican.

Obama is called a different type of Democrat. This is wishful hoping and not reality. He has no new or original ideas. He doesn’t have a new way to fix any problems or right any wrongs. For many disillusioned Democrats, he is an empty vessel that they can invest their hopes and dreams in. This is a fictional construct.

Obama represents a repackaged collection of the same failed policies that are the hallmark of modern socialists and liberals at the core of Democrat party.

Solomon said “there is nothing new under the sun.” Not much has changed in the 3,000 years since. Obama is just the same lies delivered by another messenger.

It seems that Arnold Schwarzenegger has morphed into a caricature of Maria’s Uncle Ted Kennedy.

When I voted to reelect Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, he had an “R” next to his name. While I knew he was on the fringes of the Republican Left, he was better than the other guy.

This week however, he seems to have completed the metamorphosis that he began after the failed special election just over a year ago. If you recall, he dumped many on his staff from the Pete Wilson camp and replaced them with others further to the left including some Democrat activists. (Any Republican getting to the left of Wilson is a remarkable feat all by itself.)

I wonder if these changes started with his motorcycle accident.

In recent weeks we are seeing just how far the Governor has gone. With universal healthcare and the myth of global warming as his main issues, I’m wondering what happened to the man who promised fiscal responsibility and blowing-up the boxes of government waste.

Arnold has been playing a shell game of reducing the deficit spending that he inherited from Gray Davis and trading it for tens of billions of dollars in bonds. (If Schwarzenegger gets Phase II of his plan, the bond debt will be in the hundreds of billions.) He is mortgaging our future to pay the legislative credit card debt of the past and present. He is not addressing the structural flaws in the current budgetary system.

For and analysis of Arnold’s healthcare idea see RomneyCare vs ArnoldCare at this link.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/8e266ace-3c9d-4c8e-aaf3-aba37fff76bf

The sundering of the Democrats is underway. The motley group of single-issue hippies and socialists that vanquished their common enemy, the GOP, is now dissolving their coalition and going for each other’s throats. This is the result of them not having a unified view of policy on the Global War on Terror and other issues confronting our nation. Heck, most don’t think there is a War on Terror. To them, 9-11 was just a fluke.

The multitasking granny, Speaker Pelosi, has already broken every promise of ethics, reform and openness that she made during the campaign at least twice and she isn’t even done with her second week. It is unclear whether the new crop of freshman in her party will stick to their conservative campaign promises or back Nanny Pelosi in here quest to deconstruct our national defense and economic prosperity.

The fever swamp wants impeachment and withdrawal from Iraq while Nancy wants her party to get the White House in 2008. Before summer, she will have alienated most in her party and put the legislative branch in gridlock.

Nancy’s claim to be the most powerful woman in the country was an insult to Mrs. Clinton. Without the Senate, Nancy’s utopian dreams are unachievable. With the amount of mistakes she has made thus far, we will see how long Speaker Pelosi can ride her wave of glory.