Britney's Tampon On The Loose
Apparently a tampon in Brit is like a hot dog in a hallway-
Apparently a tampon in Brit is like a hot dog in a hallway-
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Iowa Gay Marriages Begin
Iowa Judge Waves Three Day Waiting Period
Shelley Wolfe, left, holds hands with Melisa Keeton, as Rev. Peg Esperanza, center, performs their wedding ceremony outside the Polk County administrative building, Monday, April 27, 2009, in Des Moines, Iowa. Iowa became the third state to allow gay marriage when the state Supreme Court ruled April 3 that a ban on same-sex marriage violated the Iowa Constitution. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
DES MOINES, Iowa - Same-sex couples in Iowa began filing marriage license applications Monday after a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay unions took effect, and the first legal gay weddings took place shortly afterward.
Melisa Keeton and Shelley Wolfe were declared "legally married" by pastor Pat Esperanaza during a ceremony in front of Polk County administrative offices in Des Moines. It didn't take long before they were referring to one another as "wife."
"It's not very romantic is it?" Melisa Keeton joked about the location and media attention at the ceremony.
They will share the last name Keeton.
The marriage came less than an hour after the state Supreme Court ruling took effect. The couple was allowed to bypass the state's three-day waiting period before licenses are considered valid.
Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor speaks to the media at a press conference after the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Friday April 3, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa. The lead architect behind the lawsuit said "today's victory is a testament to the strength of love, hope and courage. Our clients have shown an abundance of all three for many years and now at long last they will be able to marry. This will go down as another proud day in Iowa's long history of protecting individual rights."said (AP Photo/Steve Pope)
Denny Schrock, left, and Patrick Phillips were among those waiting outside the Polk County Recorders office on Monday to apply for a marriage license.
Officials have reported same-sex couples applying for marriage licenses in several counties.
Waiting for building to open
In Des Moines, about a dozen gay and lesbian couples waited in the rain for the Polk County administrative building to open.
Grant Lan, 35, and his partner Andrew Mahoney-Lan, 32, were first in line. The Windsor Heights couple planned to seek a waiver that would let them marry Monday.
"It's huge to be here first," Mahoney-Lan said.
Alicia Zacher, 24, and her 22-year-old fiancee Jessica Roach, both of Des Moines, said they have a 4 p.m. appointment to get married if they can get a waiver. They want to get married immediately after seeing how California voters reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage.
"You just never know when they'll try to take it away," Roach said.
A handful of Iowa's largest counties were seeing a rush right away, but foot traffic from same-sex couples began to slow toward midmorning.
At the Pottawattamie County recorder's office in western Iowa, Marilyn Hebing said about 10 couples filed their applications after the office opened, and more were slowly trickling in.
"It was pretty exciting, they were cheering out there," she said of the early morning crowd.
Many telephone calls
Dubuque County Recorder Kathy Flynn Thurlow said three couples had come into her office within the first few hours of opening. Her county, which borders Wisconsin, had gotten many telephone calls inquiring about the licenses.
"I expected even more (applications), already but we just don't know," she said.
In eastern Iowa, Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter, Iowa's only openly gay recorder, said that when she saw the court's declaration "we rolled open our windows and we've been busy."
She said that within the first half hour they had accepted about a half dozen applications and had about 10 more couples waiting to file. Some waited outside on the street under a tent and sipped coffee in what Painter called a "festive atmosphere."
Painter said she and her partner plan to apply to be married this week.
Rumors surfaced over the past week that some recorders would refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples over conflicts with their personal beliefs. Some conservative groups and lawmakers were accused of trying to recruit recorders to refuse the licenses.
State agencies sent out information to recorders statewide last week saying they could be removed from their positions if they don't follow the law and issue the licenses.
"There's a lot of people fishing around out there, but we'll see," said Painter. "I am quite optimistic that all 99 recorders will follow the rule of law and issue licenses."
No problems with licenses
Marilyn Dopheide, the Carroll County recorder and president of the Iowa County Recorder's Association, said that within about an hour of the recorders' offices opening there had been no problems with licenses being issued.
The Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous and emphatic decision on April 3 made Iowa the third state to allow same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. For six months last year, California's high court allowed gay marriage before voters banned it in November. Vermont has passed a law that will take effect in September.
(courtesy AP)
Shelley Wolfe, left, holds hands with Melisa Keeton, as Rev. Peg Esperanza, center, performs their wedding ceremony outside the Polk County administrative building, Monday, April 27, 2009, in Des Moines, Iowa. Iowa became the third state to allow gay marriage when the state Supreme Court ruled April 3 that a ban on same-sex marriage violated the Iowa Constitution. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)DES MOINES, Iowa - Same-sex couples in Iowa began filing marriage license applications Monday after a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay unions took effect, and the first legal gay weddings took place shortly afterward.
Melisa Keeton and Shelley Wolfe were declared "legally married" by pastor Pat Esperanaza during a ceremony in front of Polk County administrative offices in Des Moines. It didn't take long before they were referring to one another as "wife."
"It's not very romantic is it?" Melisa Keeton joked about the location and media attention at the ceremony.
They will share the last name Keeton.
The marriage came less than an hour after the state Supreme Court ruling took effect. The couple was allowed to bypass the state's three-day waiting period before licenses are considered valid.
Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor speaks to the media at a press conference after the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Friday April 3, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa. The lead architect behind the lawsuit said "today's victory is a testament to the strength of love, hope and courage. Our clients have shown an abundance of all three for many years and now at long last they will be able to marry. This will go down as another proud day in Iowa's long history of protecting individual rights."said (AP Photo/Steve Pope)Denny Schrock, left, and Patrick Phillips were among those waiting outside the Polk County Recorders office on Monday to apply for a marriage license.Officials have reported same-sex couples applying for marriage licenses in several counties.
Waiting for building to open
In Des Moines, about a dozen gay and lesbian couples waited in the rain for the Polk County administrative building to open.
Grant Lan, 35, and his partner Andrew Mahoney-Lan, 32, were first in line. The Windsor Heights couple planned to seek a waiver that would let them marry Monday.
"It's huge to be here first," Mahoney-Lan said.
Alicia Zacher, 24, and her 22-year-old fiancee Jessica Roach, both of Des Moines, said they have a 4 p.m. appointment to get married if they can get a waiver. They want to get married immediately after seeing how California voters reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage.
"You just never know when they'll try to take it away," Roach said.
A handful of Iowa's largest counties were seeing a rush right away, but foot traffic from same-sex couples began to slow toward midmorning.
At the Pottawattamie County recorder's office in western Iowa, Marilyn Hebing said about 10 couples filed their applications after the office opened, and more were slowly trickling in.
"It was pretty exciting, they were cheering out there," she said of the early morning crowd.
Many telephone calls
Dubuque County Recorder Kathy Flynn Thurlow said three couples had come into her office within the first few hours of opening. Her county, which borders Wisconsin, had gotten many telephone calls inquiring about the licenses.
"I expected even more (applications), already but we just don't know," she said.
In eastern Iowa, Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter, Iowa's only openly gay recorder, said that when she saw the court's declaration "we rolled open our windows and we've been busy."
She said that within the first half hour they had accepted about a half dozen applications and had about 10 more couples waiting to file. Some waited outside on the street under a tent and sipped coffee in what Painter called a "festive atmosphere."
Painter said she and her partner plan to apply to be married this week.
Rumors surfaced over the past week that some recorders would refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples over conflicts with their personal beliefs. Some conservative groups and lawmakers were accused of trying to recruit recorders to refuse the licenses.
State agencies sent out information to recorders statewide last week saying they could be removed from their positions if they don't follow the law and issue the licenses.
"There's a lot of people fishing around out there, but we'll see," said Painter. "I am quite optimistic that all 99 recorders will follow the rule of law and issue licenses."
No problems with licenses
Marilyn Dopheide, the Carroll County recorder and president of the Iowa County Recorder's Association, said that within about an hour of the recorders' offices opening there had been no problems with licenses being issued.
The Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous and emphatic decision on April 3 made Iowa the third state to allow same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. For six months last year, California's high court allowed gay marriage before voters banned it in November. Vermont has passed a law that will take effect in September.
(courtesy AP)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Cosmic Close-Up: Saturn
The Ringed Planet In Incredible Detail
These stunning images of Saturn taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft show the ringed planet, its moons and rings in the most incredible detail yet.
Extraordinary glimpses of the planet's atmosphere and surfaces add to our expanding understanding of the sixth planet in the solar system, as the Equinox mission approaches its second year.
The images show the incredible differences within the Saturn system. In one image, serene-looking rings are elegantly stacked up around its equator, making a striking contrast to the cratered appearance of its plethora of moons.
(click on images for high resolution download)
This image was taken by Cassini as it moved above the dark side of the planet. As very little light makes its way through the rings, they appear somewhat dark compared with the reflective surface of Saturn. This view combines 45 images taken over the course of about two hours-
Pan, a 17-mile-wide moon coasts into view from behind Saturn (the small white dot within the black horizontal strip in the centre of the image). This photograph was captured from a distance of 1.1million miles away-
The body of the planet itself cuts an even more striking contrast with its moons, with swirling vortexes revealing a seething cauldron of activity. It also shows its largest moon, Titan, to have intriguing parallels with Earth.
‘We're looking at a string of remarkable discoveries - about Saturn's magnificent rings, its amazing moons, its dynamic magnetosphere and about Titan's surface and atmosphere,’ said Dr. Linda Spilker, deputy project scientist.
Rhea, another moon, drifts in front of Saturn. The image was taken at a distance of approximately 358,000 miles away-
The Cassini spacecraft looks through Saturn's translucent inner C ring to capture its yellow-blue atmosphere-
Some of the mission highlights so far include discovering that Titan (Saturn's largest moon) has Earth-like processes and that the small moon Enceladus has a hot-spot at its southern pole - jets on the surface that spew out ice crystals and evidence of liquid water beneath its surface.
The Cassini spacecraft first blasted off from Earth in 1999. In the first five years of its illuminating voyage, it photographed the moon, Mars and Jupiter, only approaching Saturn on June 30, 2004.
The first close-up study of the ringed planet, which ended in June last year, provided such opportunities for exploration and discovery that the space agency extended it for another two years.
One of Saturn's moons, Rhea, passes in front of the planet's largest moon, Titan (lit from behind by the Sun). The Cassini mission found Titan to have parallels with Earth.-
This composite of two images shows Pan, left, and Prometheus, right, in nearby rings. Pan is trailed by a series of edge waves in the outer boundary of the gap. Prometheus just touches the inner edge of Saturn's F ring, and is followed by a series of dark channels-
This image was taken during Cassini's close approach to the moon Iapetus. It was taken with a wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 2,400 miles-
The extended mission has been called ‘Cassini Equinox’ in anticipation of Saturn’s approaching equinox in August this year, when its equator and planetary rings will align vertically below the sun.
Saturn’s equinox, like that of Earth, is a period of change in the planetary system.
The space agency believes monitoring seasonal shifts in the atmosphere, oceans and land at that time is critical to gain the most insight into the planet’s workings.
Cassini tracks the moon Prometheus as it orbits Saturn. Prometheus is just about to pass behind the planet, and a faint streamer of ring material lies below and to the right of it, in the faint, inner strand of the F ring-
Saturn's high north is a seething cauldron of rolling cloud bands and swirling vortices. This image was taken at a distance of approximately 336,000 miles-
During the extended mission, the spacecraft will orbit Saturn a further 60 times, fly past Saturn's moon Titan 26 more times, Eleceladus seven, and once past each of the moons Dione, Rhea and Helene.
Using a collection of powerful instruments, Cassini scientists will focus on seasonal changes in particular on Titan and Saturn, and unique ring events during the passing of the equinox, including the shadows seen in the rings as the sun passes.
The complex Saturn system has 61 known moons plus hundreds of ‘moonlets’ concealed within its rings.
Small, battered Epimetheus before Saturn's A and F rings, and and smog-enshrouded Titan beyond. The colours here are artificial in order to approximate the scene as it might appear to human eyes-
This bizarre scene shows the cloud-streaked area of Saturn in front of the planet's B ring. The ring's image is warped by the diffuse gas in Saturn's upper atmosphere-
Observations of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, have shed new light on the likely appearance of Earth before life evolved, Nasa believes.
Experts claim the many parallels can be seen in its land formations, which include lakes, rivers, dunes, mountains and possibly volcanoes.
Weather patterns also show striking similarity to those on our own planet, with clouds, rain and snow.
This image shows Saturn's rings and the shadow of nearby Mimas. They are now nearly edge-on toward the Sun, and long moon shadows drape across them. Scientists are now studying the clumpy, disturbed ring material, stretching up to two miles above the ring plane - contrasted with an estimated normal ring thickness of only six feet-
This image shows Saturn through the thick smoggy haze of the upper atmosphere from its largest moon, Titan-
The shadow of Tethys drifts across the face of Saturn. Nearby, shadows of the planet's rings form a darkened band above the equator-
Saturn's northern hemisphere is seen here against its nested rings. The rings have been brightened relative to the planet to enhance visibility-
Stars provide a serene background in this view of Enceladus while it was in eclipse, with Saturn's shadow moving over it. The view shows the moon's south pole-
Cassini looks toward Rhea's cratered, icy landscape with the dark line of Saturn's ringplane and the planet's murky atmosphere as a background. Rhea is Saturn's second-largest moon-
The spacecraft Cassini looks through the fine, smoke-sized ice particles of Saturn's F ring toward the cratered face of Mimas-
Mimas appears to hover above the colourful rings. The large crater seen on the right side of the moon is named after William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789-
These stunning images of Saturn taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft show the ringed planet, its moons and rings in the most incredible detail yet.
Extraordinary glimpses of the planet's atmosphere and surfaces add to our expanding understanding of the sixth planet in the solar system, as the Equinox mission approaches its second year.
The images show the incredible differences within the Saturn system. In one image, serene-looking rings are elegantly stacked up around its equator, making a striking contrast to the cratered appearance of its plethora of moons.
(click on images for high resolution download)
This image was taken by Cassini as it moved above the dark side of the planet. As very little light makes its way through the rings, they appear somewhat dark compared with the reflective surface of Saturn. This view combines 45 images taken over the course of about two hours-
Pan, a 17-mile-wide moon coasts into view from behind Saturn (the small white dot within the black horizontal strip in the centre of the image). This photograph was captured from a distance of 1.1million miles away-The body of the planet itself cuts an even more striking contrast with its moons, with swirling vortexes revealing a seething cauldron of activity. It also shows its largest moon, Titan, to have intriguing parallels with Earth.
‘We're looking at a string of remarkable discoveries - about Saturn's magnificent rings, its amazing moons, its dynamic magnetosphere and about Titan's surface and atmosphere,’ said Dr. Linda Spilker, deputy project scientist.
Rhea, another moon, drifts in front of Saturn. The image was taken at a distance of approximately 358,000 miles away-
The Cassini spacecraft looks through Saturn's translucent inner C ring to capture its yellow-blue atmosphere-Some of the mission highlights so far include discovering that Titan (Saturn's largest moon) has Earth-like processes and that the small moon Enceladus has a hot-spot at its southern pole - jets on the surface that spew out ice crystals and evidence of liquid water beneath its surface.
The Cassini spacecraft first blasted off from Earth in 1999. In the first five years of its illuminating voyage, it photographed the moon, Mars and Jupiter, only approaching Saturn on June 30, 2004.
The first close-up study of the ringed planet, which ended in June last year, provided such opportunities for exploration and discovery that the space agency extended it for another two years.
One of Saturn's moons, Rhea, passes in front of the planet's largest moon, Titan (lit from behind by the Sun). The Cassini mission found Titan to have parallels with Earth.-
This composite of two images shows Pan, left, and Prometheus, right, in nearby rings. Pan is trailed by a series of edge waves in the outer boundary of the gap. Prometheus just touches the inner edge of Saturn's F ring, and is followed by a series of dark channels-
This image was taken during Cassini's close approach to the moon Iapetus. It was taken with a wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 2,400 miles-The extended mission has been called ‘Cassini Equinox’ in anticipation of Saturn’s approaching equinox in August this year, when its equator and planetary rings will align vertically below the sun.
Saturn’s equinox, like that of Earth, is a period of change in the planetary system.
The space agency believes monitoring seasonal shifts in the atmosphere, oceans and land at that time is critical to gain the most insight into the planet’s workings.
Cassini tracks the moon Prometheus as it orbits Saturn. Prometheus is just about to pass behind the planet, and a faint streamer of ring material lies below and to the right of it, in the faint, inner strand of the F ring-
Saturn's high north is a seething cauldron of rolling cloud bands and swirling vortices. This image was taken at a distance of approximately 336,000 miles-During the extended mission, the spacecraft will orbit Saturn a further 60 times, fly past Saturn's moon Titan 26 more times, Eleceladus seven, and once past each of the moons Dione, Rhea and Helene.
Using a collection of powerful instruments, Cassini scientists will focus on seasonal changes in particular on Titan and Saturn, and unique ring events during the passing of the equinox, including the shadows seen in the rings as the sun passes.
The complex Saturn system has 61 known moons plus hundreds of ‘moonlets’ concealed within its rings.
Small, battered Epimetheus before Saturn's A and F rings, and and smog-enshrouded Titan beyond. The colours here are artificial in order to approximate the scene as it might appear to human eyes-
This bizarre scene shows the cloud-streaked area of Saturn in front of the planet's B ring. The ring's image is warped by the diffuse gas in Saturn's upper atmosphere-Observations of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, have shed new light on the likely appearance of Earth before life evolved, Nasa believes.
Experts claim the many parallels can be seen in its land formations, which include lakes, rivers, dunes, mountains and possibly volcanoes.
Weather patterns also show striking similarity to those on our own planet, with clouds, rain and snow.
This image shows Saturn's rings and the shadow of nearby Mimas. They are now nearly edge-on toward the Sun, and long moon shadows drape across them. Scientists are now studying the clumpy, disturbed ring material, stretching up to two miles above the ring plane - contrasted with an estimated normal ring thickness of only six feet-
This image shows Saturn through the thick smoggy haze of the upper atmosphere from its largest moon, Titan-
The shadow of Tethys drifts across the face of Saturn. Nearby, shadows of the planet's rings form a darkened band above the equator-
Saturn's northern hemisphere is seen here against its nested rings. The rings have been brightened relative to the planet to enhance visibility-
Stars provide a serene background in this view of Enceladus while it was in eclipse, with Saturn's shadow moving over it. The view shows the moon's south pole-
Cassini looks toward Rhea's cratered, icy landscape with the dark line of Saturn's ringplane and the planet's murky atmosphere as a background. Rhea is Saturn's second-largest moon-
The spacecraft Cassini looks through the fine, smoke-sized ice particles of Saturn's F ring toward the cratered face of Mimas-
Mimas appears to hover above the colourful rings. The large crater seen on the right side of the moon is named after William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789-Its the Ice Icehole
So, How Is Antarctica Higher Than Mt. Everest
As the driest continent, Antarctica is actually a place of low precipitation (rain, snow) but intense cold. In general, the air is much colder than the ocean water. The ocean water is usually between a +5 and -2 degrees Centigrade but the air may be well below -2 degrees Centigrade. It is like a desert (in the sense that there is little precipitation) however; any precipitation that does fall rarely melts and adds to the polar ice cap. The south polar ice cap gets only 2 inches of precipitation each year (this is more than some deserts get). The accumulated ice never melts, is over 15,000 feet thick in some areas, and depresses the continental land mass under its weight (over 2,000 feet in some areas). The bottom of this ice pack may be over 100,000 years old and holds a record (layer by layer) of the history of earth with each layer.
As layers of frozen snow and ice crystals build up (left) (from any moisture in the air), the pressure from the cap pushes out toward the ocean, squeezing the ice between a few of the tall mountains that still protrude. In many areas this ice movement is much like a river (although in slow motion as flowing ice rather than flowing water) and called a glacier. Usually the glaciers meet the ocean as tidewater glaciers or as ice shelves. Although over 98 percent of the continent of Antarctica is covered in ice there are a few areas without ice (some unique dry valleys where there has been no precipitation for 2 million years, and along some of the coastlines during the summer melt). If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, the oceans would rise 200 feet!! As a result, the continent of Antarctica would rebound (rise) without the weight of the ice and the world would be a very different place. The presence of all the permanent ice in Antarctica makes it the highest continent, with the average elevation at 7,100 feet and large areas in the interior over 13,000 feet. The ice sheet thins as it reaches the edges of the continent melting back during summer and exposing rocky beaches and headlands, or forming ice shelves and tidewater glaciers.
As the driest continent, Antarctica is actually a place of low precipitation (rain, snow) but intense cold. In general, the air is much colder than the ocean water. The ocean water is usually between a +5 and -2 degrees Centigrade but the air may be well below -2 degrees Centigrade. It is like a desert (in the sense that there is little precipitation) however; any precipitation that does fall rarely melts and adds to the polar ice cap. The south polar ice cap gets only 2 inches of precipitation each year (this is more than some deserts get). The accumulated ice never melts, is over 15,000 feet thick in some areas, and depresses the continental land mass under its weight (over 2,000 feet in some areas). The bottom of this ice pack may be over 100,000 years old and holds a record (layer by layer) of the history of earth with each layer.
As layers of frozen snow and ice crystals build up (left) (from any moisture in the air), the pressure from the cap pushes out toward the ocean, squeezing the ice between a few of the tall mountains that still protrude. In many areas this ice movement is much like a river (although in slow motion as flowing ice rather than flowing water) and called a glacier. Usually the glaciers meet the ocean as tidewater glaciers or as ice shelves. Although over 98 percent of the continent of Antarctica is covered in ice there are a few areas without ice (some unique dry valleys where there has been no precipitation for 2 million years, and along some of the coastlines during the summer melt). If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, the oceans would rise 200 feet!! As a result, the continent of Antarctica would rebound (rise) without the weight of the ice and the world would be a very different place. The presence of all the permanent ice in Antarctica makes it the highest continent, with the average elevation at 7,100 feet and large areas in the interior over 13,000 feet. The ice sheet thins as it reaches the edges of the continent melting back during summer and exposing rocky beaches and headlands, or forming ice shelves and tidewater glaciers.Monday, April 20, 2009
Matthew Stafford - University of Georgia
#1 NFL Draft Prospect
by Jameson Cooper
April 21, 2009
There aren't many great quarterbacks available in this year's draft, but this stud is making things very interesting in the days leading up to Saturday's NFL draft. Presumably, Stafford will go No. 1 to Detroit.
Position: Quarterback
Birth Date: February 7, 1988 (age 21)
Hometown: DALLAS, TX
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 237 lbs.
College: Georgia
Class: Junior
Jersey: 7
Overall: Rank 7th
Position: Rank 1st
Overview
Matthew Stafford is a former quarterback at the University of Georgia, where he was a three-year starter. Stafford chose to forgo his final year of eligibility at Georgia to enter the 2009 NFL Draft. Matthew Stafford, born in 1988 in Tampa, is 6-feet, 3-inches tall and weighs 237 pounds.
Prep Career
Matthew Stafford was an All-America quarterback at Highland Park High School in Dallas. Stafford was also a three-time All-State selection. He threw for 2,945 yards and 36TD as a sophomore, and followed that up by throwing for 1,748 yards and 18 TD as a junior. In his senior season, he threw for 4,018 yards and 38 TD, leading his team to its first championship since 1957. Stafford was the No. 1-ranked quarterback in the class of 2006 according to ESPN's Scouts Inc, and considered Michigan and Texas before deciding on Georgia.
Freshman Year
In 2006, Matthew Stafford became the first true freshman to start for the Bulldogs since Quincy Carter in 1999. Stafford finished the season 6-2 as a starter, appearing in 13 games. He totaled 1,749 passing yards and seven touchdowns, leading Georgia to wins over three ranked opponents (Auburn, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech). Stafford was named the Offensive MVP of Georgia's Chick-fil-A Bowl win over Virginia Tech.
Sophomore Year
Stafford started all 13 games as a sophomore, throwing for 2,523 yards and 19 touchdowns to lead Georgia to a berth in the Sugar Bowl. Stafford threw for 175 yards and a touchdown in the 2008 Sugar Bowl against previously unbeaten Hawaii, the Bulldogs' first win in a BCS Game since the 2003 Sugar Bowl.
Junior Year
Heading into his junior season, Stafford was on most watch lists for the Davey O'Brien Award as the nation's top quarterback. He ended up earning semifinalist honors, throwing for a career-high 3,459 yards and 25 touchdowns. His standout individual performance came in the Bulldogs' regular season finale, in which he threw for a career-high 407 yards and a school-record-tying five TD in a loss to Georgia Tech. Stafford finished his Georgia career with 7,731 passing yards, which ranks third on the school's all-time list behind David Greene and Eric Zeier.
Personal
Stafford is the son of John and Margaret Stafford. His sister, Page, currently attends the University of Georgia. During his time at Georgia, Stafford majored in speech communication.
Matthew Stafford, Georgia: Stafford is a candidate to become the seventh quarterback in the past nine drafts to be taken No. 1 overall. Detroit, coming off the first 0-16 season in NFL history, has done extensive due diligence on him and could look to Stafford to be their quarterback for years to come.
Stafford, who comes out after his junior season, passed for 3,459 yards and 25 touchdowns with 10 interceptions in 13 games with the Bulldogs in 2008. His attributes include a cannon for a throwing arm as well as good mobility and size. (6'-3", 237 pounds).
He possesses rare physical tools, and all of his weaknesses at this point can be improved with good coaching and hard work. Bottom line: Stafford will develop into an elite starting quarterback in the NFL as he learns his limitations, develops more touch on underneath throws, and becomes more disciplined with his footwork. There's no doubt that a team will gamble a top-10 pick on Stafford's upside. After taking a look at all that is out there, it's obvious that Stafford is the best quarterback in the 2009 class.
Interviews and Highlights
by Jameson Cooper
April 21, 2009
There aren't many great quarterbacks available in this year's draft, but this stud is making things very interesting in the days leading up to Saturday's NFL draft. Presumably, Stafford will go No. 1 to Detroit.
Position: Quarterback
Birth Date: February 7, 1988 (age 21)
Hometown: DALLAS, TX
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 237 lbs.
College: Georgia
Class: Junior
Jersey: 7
Overall: Rank 7th
Position: Rank 1st
Overview
Matthew Stafford is a former quarterback at the University of Georgia, where he was a three-year starter. Stafford chose to forgo his final year of eligibility at Georgia to enter the 2009 NFL Draft. Matthew Stafford, born in 1988 in Tampa, is 6-feet, 3-inches tall and weighs 237 pounds.
Prep CareerMatthew Stafford was an All-America quarterback at Highland Park High School in Dallas. Stafford was also a three-time All-State selection. He threw for 2,945 yards and 36TD as a sophomore, and followed that up by throwing for 1,748 yards and 18 TD as a junior. In his senior season, he threw for 4,018 yards and 38 TD, leading his team to its first championship since 1957. Stafford was the No. 1-ranked quarterback in the class of 2006 according to ESPN's Scouts Inc, and considered Michigan and Texas before deciding on Georgia.
Freshman Year
In 2006, Matthew Stafford became the first true freshman to start for the Bulldogs since Quincy Carter in 1999. Stafford finished the season 6-2 as a starter, appearing in 13 games. He totaled 1,749 passing yards and seven touchdowns, leading Georgia to wins over three ranked opponents (Auburn, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech). Stafford was named the Offensive MVP of Georgia's Chick-fil-A Bowl win over Virginia Tech.
Sophomore YearStafford started all 13 games as a sophomore, throwing for 2,523 yards and 19 touchdowns to lead Georgia to a berth in the Sugar Bowl. Stafford threw for 175 yards and a touchdown in the 2008 Sugar Bowl against previously unbeaten Hawaii, the Bulldogs' first win in a BCS Game since the 2003 Sugar Bowl.
Junior YearHeading into his junior season, Stafford was on most watch lists for the Davey O'Brien Award as the nation's top quarterback. He ended up earning semifinalist honors, throwing for a career-high 3,459 yards and 25 touchdowns. His standout individual performance came in the Bulldogs' regular season finale, in which he threw for a career-high 407 yards and a school-record-tying five TD in a loss to Georgia Tech. Stafford finished his Georgia career with 7,731 passing yards, which ranks third on the school's all-time list behind David Greene and Eric Zeier.
PersonalStafford is the son of John and Margaret Stafford. His sister, Page, currently attends the University of Georgia. During his time at Georgia, Stafford majored in speech communication.
Matthew Stafford, Georgia: Stafford is a candidate to become the seventh quarterback in the past nine drafts to be taken No. 1 overall. Detroit, coming off the first 0-16 season in NFL history, has done extensive due diligence on him and could look to Stafford to be their quarterback for years to come.
Stafford, who comes out after his junior season, passed for 3,459 yards and 25 touchdowns with 10 interceptions in 13 games with the Bulldogs in 2008. His attributes include a cannon for a throwing arm as well as good mobility and size. (6'-3", 237 pounds).
He possesses rare physical tools, and all of his weaknesses at this point can be improved with good coaching and hard work. Bottom line: Stafford will develop into an elite starting quarterback in the NFL as he learns his limitations, develops more touch on underneath throws, and becomes more disciplined with his footwork. There's no doubt that a team will gamble a top-10 pick on Stafford's upside. After taking a look at all that is out there, it's obvious that Stafford is the best quarterback in the 2009 class.
Interviews and Highlights
Saturday, April 18, 2009
American Flag Jigsaw Puzzle
48 Piece Puzzle
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Friday, April 17, 2009
Top Ten Republican Tax Day Lies
Lie#1: President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses
John McCain introduced this fraud along with Joe the Plumber during the 2008 campaign. McCain proclaimed Obama's plan to restore 1990's tax rates for taxpayers making over $250,000 meant "the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now." In February, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) regurgitated the long-debunked talking point:
"I don't think raising taxes is a great idea, and when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they are really talking about is small business."
Of course, they're not talking about small business. As CNN concluded in October, "fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan." But in case there was any doubt about the Republicans' deception on the point, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center quickly put it to rest:
Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The other 34.3 million - or 98.6% - would be unaffected by Obama's proposed rate hike.
Lie #2: The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms
This Republican scam over the so-called "death tax" is as bogus now as it was when President Bush first perpetrated it eight years ago. The House GOP budget, fittingly unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan on April Fool's Day, would eliminate the estate tax altogether. While Nevada Senator John Ensign recently griped, "It destroys a lot of small businesses and a lot of family farms and ranches in America," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) groused:
"People who aren't wealthy, who may have built up value in land over generations and many family farms find themselves in situations where they've got to sell the farm in order the pay the taxes."
But as the Washington Post explained, under President Obama budget, 99.76% of estates would pay no taxes whatsoever:
The estate tax is scheduled to disappear in 2010, only to be resurrected the following year at its 2001 level, when it applied only to estates worth over $2 million per couple at a rate of 55 percent. In fact, no one expects it to return to that level -- although letting it do so would be a far more rational response to the current crisis than the Lincoln-Kyl approach. Rather, President Obama has proposed holding the tax at this year's level: an exemption of $7 million per couple, with a 45 percent rate for amounts beyond that; this would cost $484 billion over 10 years. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has endorsed this solution, with indexing for inflation. This would hardly be punitive. At that level, 99.76 percent of estates would incur no tax whatsoever. Those who owe would pay, on average, $2.25 million less than they would have paid at the 2001 exemption level. Why in the world should these folks get more of a tax cut?
Why? Because even in a time of national economic calamity, the Republican Party remains committed to dramatically shifting the tax burden away from the wealthiest Americans. (And unfortunately, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and nine other Democrats are aiding and abetting that transfer by supporting a lower tax rate of 35% for estates starting at $10 million per couple. The price tag? $250 billion.)
Last week, the Tax Policy Center quantified just how few family farms or small businesses are actually impacted by the estate tax proposals under consideration:
We estimate that under the Obama proposal, 100 family farms and businesses would owe tax. (We define such estates as those where farm or business assets are valued at under $5 million and comprise the majority of estate assets.) The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would cut the number to 40. Even under current law, fewer than 2,700 family farms and businesses would owe tax.
Lie #3: 40% of Americans pay no taxes
This canard, too, has been in circulation since last summer. Parroting right-wing papers including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the McCain campaign argued, "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give 'welfare' to those who pay none." While Sean Hannity and Rudy Giuliani echoed the "welfare" charge in January, on Monday, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer kept up the drum beat, deeming Obama's middle class tax cuts a "moral problem" when "50% of the country gets benefits without paying for them."
Alas, they do pay for them. As FactCheck among others noted, Republican conveniently ignore sales, excise and most of all, payroll taxes. Starting with the first dollar they earn, virtually all American workers pay the 6.2% Social Security tax (on income up to $97,000) and another 1.45% for Medicare. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center concluded, "three quarters of filers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes."
That millions of hard working American families pay no income taxes is due in large measure to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Created in 1975, the EITC "a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families" that results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for the credit when the EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities detailed in 2005, the EITC has not only been extremely successful in reducing poverty, it has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. None other than Ronald Reagan called it, "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."
As a new Gallup poll released today suggests, the American people seem to agree. In the wake of the new Obama tax cuts, Gallup found, "more say low-income Americans paying fair share of taxes."
Lie #4: Tax cuts always increase revenue
Thanks to supply-side snake oil salesman Arthur Laffer and his magical Laffer Curve, conservatives have been peddling this myth since the age of Reagan. Tax cuts, which GOP doctrine now claims is the universal cure-all for surpluses and deficits, male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction, are at the center of every Republican economic program. As John McCain put it during the campaign, "tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues." And in February, Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison offered the purest statement of Arthur Laffer's fantasy:
"Every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue."
As it turns out, not so much. The claim, as ThinkProgress neatly summed it up, is empirically and historically false:
The notion that cutting taxes somehow - magically - increases government revenues is a myth that won't die. "The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves...is contradicted by the historical record," reported the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which showed that revenues grew twice as fast in the 1990s, when taxes were raised, than in the 1980s, when taxes were cut. FactCheck.org called a claim like Hutchison's "highly misleading" and stated the obvious fact that "we can't have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers."
Lie #5: The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline
Back in February, AP reporter and John McCain donut server Liz Sidoti wrote of beaten and battered Republicans trying to find their way back from the political wilderness in a piece titled, "GOP tries to restore image of fiscal discipline."
Of course, that would constitute a return to a time that never was. Far from the deficit hawks of Republican legend, the modern Republican Party from Reagan forward devastated the U.S. treasury, leaving mounting debt and hemorrhaging red ink for as far as the eye can see. As it turns out, U.S. national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again under George W. Bush. As this eye-popping chart shows, under recent Republican presidents the debt exploded as a percentage of GDP, interrupted only by the all-too-brief fiscal sanity of the Clinton years.
"Reagan," Dick Cheney once famously declared, "proved that deficits don't matter." Apparently, that rule only applies when a Republican is sitting in the Oval Office
Lie #6: Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time
Through thick and thin, this hagiography of Ronald Reagan is central to Republican identity. But as Steve Benen rightly noted, it is President Obama whose stimulus plan delivered the largest two-year tax cut in history. And as it turns out, what Saint Ronnie giveth, he also taketh away.
As predicted, Reagan's massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rapid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not the balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Even his OMB alchemist David Stockman could not obscure the disaster with his famous "rosy scenarios."
Ultimately, Reagan was forced to raise taxes twice to avert financial catastrophe (a fact John McCain learned the hard way from Tom Brokaw last October). By the time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan nonetheless more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history.
Lie #7: FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse
Desperate to change their miserable present, Republicans are traveling back in time to rewrite the past. Despite the easily debunked claim (for example, here and here), Republican leaders including John McCain and Mitch McConnell still insist FDR made the Great Depression worse. Others, such as Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH) went so far as to blame FDR's programs launched four years after the 1929 stock market crash for causing it in the first place:
"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."
Of course, that's not history. As Jonathan Chait documented in his devastating demolition of conservative propagandist Amity Schlaes' revisionist attack on the New Deal, FDR slashed unemployment by more than half and largely restored industrial production and GDP growth even before the onset of World War II. Only when Roosevelt wavered in the face of conservative pressure in 1937 did his New Deal temporarily falter.
Lie #8: Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year
Having failed to either block President Obama's middle class tax cuts or to successfully demagogue his proposals for upper income and estate taxes, the Republican leadership turned to a new scare tactic. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and at least 17 other Congressional Republicans falsely claimed that Obama's proposed $650 billion cap-and-trade system constitutes a $3,100 a year tax on every American family. As Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) put it:
"The Democratic budget is proposing a national energy tax which according to studies at MIT could pose a $3,128 burden on every working family in America."
But as MIT professor and co-author of the study Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals John Reilly pointed out, the research "has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee." As he wrote in a letter to John Boehner:
"The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. [...] Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households."
For his part, Boehner responded by insisting he would stand by his discredited talking point. As they show time and again, the utter falsehood of a statement is no barrier to Republicans repeating it.
Lie #9: Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving
In his budget, President Obama has proposed raising $318 billion over the next decade by trimming wealthier taxpayers' deductions for charitable giving to 28% from its current 35%. Predictably, Republicans (joined by some Democrats) forecast an apocalypse for donations to charities. As John Boehner ominously warned:
"It will also deliver a sharp blow to charities at a time when they are hurting during the economic downturn."
But as Bloomberg and The Chronicle of Philanthropy each reported, Obama's proposal for 2011 would likely have little to no impact on charitable giving. As Bloomberg noted:
Not necessarily, say tax and philanthropy experts. They say altruistic or religious motives outweigh tax-shelter considerations among such donors, and cite previous limitations placed on deductions for high earners that they say haven't hurt donations.
Among those previous limitations, as OMB director Peter Orszag among others recalled, was the same upper income 28% deduction during Ronald Reagan's first term. As Orszag told reporters on February 26th, the record shows that "what drives charitable contributions is overall economic growth."
Ironically, what might have a more serious impact on charitable giving is Republican plans to scrap the estate tax. As then CBO head and later chief McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote in a 2004 study by the agency:
Furthermore, the estate tax provides an incentive to make charitable contributions during life. The paper finds that increasing the amount exempted from the estate tax from $675,000 to either $2 million or $3.5 million would reduce charitable giving by less than 3 percent. However, repealing the tax would have a larger impact, decreasing donations to charity by 6 percent to 12 percent.
Lie #10: The rich pay too much in taxes already
While 60% of Americans in recent Gallup polls believe upper-income people are "paying too little" in taxes, it is an article of faith among Republicans that the reverse is true.
In one variant of this argument, Arthur Laffer claims Barack Obama will have to raise taxes on lower and middle income Americans because "it cannot be done at the high end because those people can get away from it." That assessment echoes George W. Bush, who similarly argued in 2004, "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." (They are right in one sense; thanks to the GOP's gutting of the IRS in the 1990's, by 2007 the amount of federal revenue lost to fraud and unpaid taxes catapulted to $300 billion.)
Leave it to Bush's former flunkie Ari Fleischer to make even more comical Tax Week plea on behalf of the nation's bedraggled wealthy. The top 10% of taxpayers, Fleischer argued, are "supporting virtually everyone and everything" and "their burden keeps getting heavier." As he put it:
"It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand."
Oh, it's gotten out of hand all right, just not in the direction Fleischer claims.
As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities detailed, by 2007 millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Another CBPP study demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House.)
And as the New York Times revealed in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.
There is, of course, one final GOP meta-myth for Tax Day. Despite their best efforts to portray Republicans as the best economic stewards for America, the record clearly shows that the stock market and the economy over all almost always do better under Democratic presidents.
John McCain introduced this fraud along with Joe the Plumber during the 2008 campaign. McCain proclaimed Obama's plan to restore 1990's tax rates for taxpayers making over $250,000 meant "the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now." In February, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) regurgitated the long-debunked talking point:
"I don't think raising taxes is a great idea, and when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they are really talking about is small business."
Of course, they're not talking about small business. As CNN concluded in October, "fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan." But in case there was any doubt about the Republicans' deception on the point, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center quickly put it to rest:
Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The other 34.3 million - or 98.6% - would be unaffected by Obama's proposed rate hike.
Lie #2: The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms
This Republican scam over the so-called "death tax" is as bogus now as it was when President Bush first perpetrated it eight years ago. The House GOP budget, fittingly unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan on April Fool's Day, would eliminate the estate tax altogether. While Nevada Senator John Ensign recently griped, "It destroys a lot of small businesses and a lot of family farms and ranches in America," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) groused:
"People who aren't wealthy, who may have built up value in land over generations and many family farms find themselves in situations where they've got to sell the farm in order the pay the taxes."
But as the Washington Post explained, under President Obama budget, 99.76% of estates would pay no taxes whatsoever:
The estate tax is scheduled to disappear in 2010, only to be resurrected the following year at its 2001 level, when it applied only to estates worth over $2 million per couple at a rate of 55 percent. In fact, no one expects it to return to that level -- although letting it do so would be a far more rational response to the current crisis than the Lincoln-Kyl approach. Rather, President Obama has proposed holding the tax at this year's level: an exemption of $7 million per couple, with a 45 percent rate for amounts beyond that; this would cost $484 billion over 10 years. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has endorsed this solution, with indexing for inflation. This would hardly be punitive. At that level, 99.76 percent of estates would incur no tax whatsoever. Those who owe would pay, on average, $2.25 million less than they would have paid at the 2001 exemption level. Why in the world should these folks get more of a tax cut?
Why? Because even in a time of national economic calamity, the Republican Party remains committed to dramatically shifting the tax burden away from the wealthiest Americans. (And unfortunately, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and nine other Democrats are aiding and abetting that transfer by supporting a lower tax rate of 35% for estates starting at $10 million per couple. The price tag? $250 billion.)
Last week, the Tax Policy Center quantified just how few family farms or small businesses are actually impacted by the estate tax proposals under consideration:
We estimate that under the Obama proposal, 100 family farms and businesses would owe tax. (We define such estates as those where farm or business assets are valued at under $5 million and comprise the majority of estate assets.) The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would cut the number to 40. Even under current law, fewer than 2,700 family farms and businesses would owe tax.
Lie #3: 40% of Americans pay no taxes
This canard, too, has been in circulation since last summer. Parroting right-wing papers including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the McCain campaign argued, "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give 'welfare' to those who pay none." While Sean Hannity and Rudy Giuliani echoed the "welfare" charge in January, on Monday, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer kept up the drum beat, deeming Obama's middle class tax cuts a "moral problem" when "50% of the country gets benefits without paying for them."
Alas, they do pay for them. As FactCheck among others noted, Republican conveniently ignore sales, excise and most of all, payroll taxes. Starting with the first dollar they earn, virtually all American workers pay the 6.2% Social Security tax (on income up to $97,000) and another 1.45% for Medicare. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center concluded, "three quarters of filers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes."
That millions of hard working American families pay no income taxes is due in large measure to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Created in 1975, the EITC "a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families" that results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for the credit when the EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities detailed in 2005, the EITC has not only been extremely successful in reducing poverty, it has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. None other than Ronald Reagan called it, "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."
As a new Gallup poll released today suggests, the American people seem to agree. In the wake of the new Obama tax cuts, Gallup found, "more say low-income Americans paying fair share of taxes."
Lie #4: Tax cuts always increase revenue
Thanks to supply-side snake oil salesman Arthur Laffer and his magical Laffer Curve, conservatives have been peddling this myth since the age of Reagan. Tax cuts, which GOP doctrine now claims is the universal cure-all for surpluses and deficits, male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction, are at the center of every Republican economic program. As John McCain put it during the campaign, "tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues." And in February, Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison offered the purest statement of Arthur Laffer's fantasy:
"Every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue."
As it turns out, not so much. The claim, as ThinkProgress neatly summed it up, is empirically and historically false:
The notion that cutting taxes somehow - magically - increases government revenues is a myth that won't die. "The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves...is contradicted by the historical record," reported the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which showed that revenues grew twice as fast in the 1990s, when taxes were raised, than in the 1980s, when taxes were cut. FactCheck.org called a claim like Hutchison's "highly misleading" and stated the obvious fact that "we can't have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers."
Lie #5: The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline
Back in February, AP reporter and John McCain donut server Liz Sidoti wrote of beaten and battered Republicans trying to find their way back from the political wilderness in a piece titled, "GOP tries to restore image of fiscal discipline."
Of course, that would constitute a return to a time that never was. Far from the deficit hawks of Republican legend, the modern Republican Party from Reagan forward devastated the U.S. treasury, leaving mounting debt and hemorrhaging red ink for as far as the eye can see. As it turns out, U.S. national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again under George W. Bush. As this eye-popping chart shows, under recent Republican presidents the debt exploded as a percentage of GDP, interrupted only by the all-too-brief fiscal sanity of the Clinton years.
"Reagan," Dick Cheney once famously declared, "proved that deficits don't matter." Apparently, that rule only applies when a Republican is sitting in the Oval Office
Lie #6: Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time
Through thick and thin, this hagiography of Ronald Reagan is central to Republican identity. But as Steve Benen rightly noted, it is President Obama whose stimulus plan delivered the largest two-year tax cut in history. And as it turns out, what Saint Ronnie giveth, he also taketh away.
As predicted, Reagan's massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rapid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not the balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Even his OMB alchemist David Stockman could not obscure the disaster with his famous "rosy scenarios."
Ultimately, Reagan was forced to raise taxes twice to avert financial catastrophe (a fact John McCain learned the hard way from Tom Brokaw last October). By the time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan nonetheless more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history.
Lie #7: FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse
Desperate to change their miserable present, Republicans are traveling back in time to rewrite the past. Despite the easily debunked claim (for example, here and here), Republican leaders including John McCain and Mitch McConnell still insist FDR made the Great Depression worse. Others, such as Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH) went so far as to blame FDR's programs launched four years after the 1929 stock market crash for causing it in the first place:
"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."
Of course, that's not history. As Jonathan Chait documented in his devastating demolition of conservative propagandist Amity Schlaes' revisionist attack on the New Deal, FDR slashed unemployment by more than half and largely restored industrial production and GDP growth even before the onset of World War II. Only when Roosevelt wavered in the face of conservative pressure in 1937 did his New Deal temporarily falter.
Lie #8: Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year
Having failed to either block President Obama's middle class tax cuts or to successfully demagogue his proposals for upper income and estate taxes, the Republican leadership turned to a new scare tactic. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and at least 17 other Congressional Republicans falsely claimed that Obama's proposed $650 billion cap-and-trade system constitutes a $3,100 a year tax on every American family. As Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) put it:
"The Democratic budget is proposing a national energy tax which according to studies at MIT could pose a $3,128 burden on every working family in America."
But as MIT professor and co-author of the study Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals John Reilly pointed out, the research "has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee." As he wrote in a letter to John Boehner:
"The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. [...] Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households."
For his part, Boehner responded by insisting he would stand by his discredited talking point. As they show time and again, the utter falsehood of a statement is no barrier to Republicans repeating it.
Lie #9: Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving
In his budget, President Obama has proposed raising $318 billion over the next decade by trimming wealthier taxpayers' deductions for charitable giving to 28% from its current 35%. Predictably, Republicans (joined by some Democrats) forecast an apocalypse for donations to charities. As John Boehner ominously warned:
"It will also deliver a sharp blow to charities at a time when they are hurting during the economic downturn."
But as Bloomberg and The Chronicle of Philanthropy each reported, Obama's proposal for 2011 would likely have little to no impact on charitable giving. As Bloomberg noted:
Not necessarily, say tax and philanthropy experts. They say altruistic or religious motives outweigh tax-shelter considerations among such donors, and cite previous limitations placed on deductions for high earners that they say haven't hurt donations.
Among those previous limitations, as OMB director Peter Orszag among others recalled, was the same upper income 28% deduction during Ronald Reagan's first term. As Orszag told reporters on February 26th, the record shows that "what drives charitable contributions is overall economic growth."
Ironically, what might have a more serious impact on charitable giving is Republican plans to scrap the estate tax. As then CBO head and later chief McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote in a 2004 study by the agency:
Furthermore, the estate tax provides an incentive to make charitable contributions during life. The paper finds that increasing the amount exempted from the estate tax from $675,000 to either $2 million or $3.5 million would reduce charitable giving by less than 3 percent. However, repealing the tax would have a larger impact, decreasing donations to charity by 6 percent to 12 percent.
Lie #10: The rich pay too much in taxes already
While 60% of Americans in recent Gallup polls believe upper-income people are "paying too little" in taxes, it is an article of faith among Republicans that the reverse is true.
In one variant of this argument, Arthur Laffer claims Barack Obama will have to raise taxes on lower and middle income Americans because "it cannot be done at the high end because those people can get away from it." That assessment echoes George W. Bush, who similarly argued in 2004, "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." (They are right in one sense; thanks to the GOP's gutting of the IRS in the 1990's, by 2007 the amount of federal revenue lost to fraud and unpaid taxes catapulted to $300 billion.)
Leave it to Bush's former flunkie Ari Fleischer to make even more comical Tax Week plea on behalf of the nation's bedraggled wealthy. The top 10% of taxpayers, Fleischer argued, are "supporting virtually everyone and everything" and "their burden keeps getting heavier." As he put it:
"It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand."
Oh, it's gotten out of hand all right, just not in the direction Fleischer claims.
As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities detailed, by 2007 millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Another CBPP study demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House.)
And as the New York Times revealed in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.
There is, of course, one final GOP meta-myth for Tax Day. Despite their best efforts to portray Republicans as the best economic stewards for America, the record clearly shows that the stock market and the economy over all almost always do better under Democratic presidents.
Racial Killing Spree to Include President Obama
Suspects Contest Arrest
JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) -- Two men charged with plotting a racial killing spree that was to include President Barack Obama argued in federal court Thursday that they were illegally arrested and searched.
Arguments on their efforts to get government evidence against them dismissed are scheduled to continue Friday in federal court in west Tennessee.
Prosecutors say law enforcement officers who arrested Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman acted properly without arrest or search warrants because the two were armed and dangerous.
Authorities describe Cowart and Schlesselman as white supremacist skinheads who were plotting to kill dozens of black people, including Obama, during last fall's presidential campaign. They are jailed without bond. No trial date has been set.
JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) -- Two men charged with plotting a racial killing spree that was to include President Barack Obama argued in federal court Thursday that they were illegally arrested and searched.
Arguments on their efforts to get government evidence against them dismissed are scheduled to continue Friday in federal court in west Tennessee.
Prosecutors say law enforcement officers who arrested Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman acted properly without arrest or search warrants because the two were armed and dangerous.
Authorities describe Cowart and Schlesselman as white supremacist skinheads who were plotting to kill dozens of black people, including Obama, during last fall's presidential campaign. They are jailed without bond. No trial date has been set.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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