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"So wait... you're laying off my son's teacher because this guy doesn't want to pay his taxes???!!!"

So the Denver Post has done us an extremely useful service today by highlighting just one of many ways that rich people in the United States get away with paying practically zero taxes. I think this could be useful because many of the rich people featured in the story happen to be Hollywood celebrities, who are often the bane of our conservative brethren on a great many issues. Let's take a look:

Actors, captains of industry, an Ivy League astrologer, sports figures, politicians, energy giants, schoolteachers from Pasadena, Calif. All these are also considered farmers or ranchers for tax purposes in Colorado. They have secured low property taxes through agricultural designations on land they own even though they personally have little or nothing to do with producing food — the reason state legislators originally created a low property-tax rate for the agriculture sector.

In some cases, the properties where they have second, third or fourth homes were traditional working ranches before they were sold to the wealthy and became what, in real-estate lingo, are termed "gentleman ranches" or "recreational ranches."

You can see where this is going, can't you? And once you get into the gory details, things get really ugly:

Actor Tom Cruise owns five parcels of land on a scenic mesa northwest of Telluride that has become an enclave of high-end vacation homes. Sheep graze around the mansions for brief periods each year, according to the assessor's office. Cruise pays just more than $400 in taxes for 248 acres for which he paid nearly $18 million between 1994 and 2002. He pays $11,380 in residential property taxes for the land where his $9.7 million home is located.

Yes, this is how poorly our tax systems across the country are designed: Tom Bleeping Cruise can get away with paying $400 a year in taxes for property that's worth around $18 million, all because he occasionally allows sheep to walk through it.

Want another ugly detail? Check out this one:

David Tresemer, an astrologer and Harvard-educated psychologist, owns 191 acres and four structures that are listed as farm buildings or residences in the foothills west of Boulder where he operates the StarHouse. It is advertised as a spiritual and cultural space for celebrations of the seasons, the lunar cycles and rituals from ancient and indigenous cultures.

He pays $11.48 in taxes for 38 of the vacant acres and $3,699 for the remainder of the land with the buildings.

OK, even if Ma and Pa Tea Party are still Tom Cruise fans, there ain't no way they're happy that a Harvard-educated astrologer is paying just over $11 in taxes for 38 vacant acres of land. And remember, these are only two examples that demonstrate how the rich and their accountants have completely gamed the tax code to their advantage. A more thorough audit of other rich people in other states would no doubt unveil countless other horrors.

Hey, have you got time for another one? Sure you do:

Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James own a 35-acre lot in the upscale West Meadows subdivision near Telluride. They purchased the land for $1.8 million in 1996 and pay $123 in property taxes on it annually because there is hay on it. They also own an $11 million home in the Mountain Village.

And:

Universal Faithists of Kosmon, which believes in a new-age bible purportedly channeled by a clairvoyant dentist in the late 1800s, purchased 40 acres of agricultural ground in Mesa County last summer. The land on the Grand Mesa includes a ranch house, so the tax is $1,503. The Faithists teach that human beings are going to evolve into the Kosmon Era, a time of worldwide peace and joy.

You get the idea. This is all happening as schools throughout Colorado are dramatically cutting spending and laying off teachers, and as one Colorado town dealt with its budget crunch by shutting off one-third of its streetlights.

This sort of stuff is pretty important. While Americans may grumble a lot about "big gubmint," they tend to like things such as street lamps and a functioning public education system. If we can no longer afford these things because the tax code thinks Tom Cruise is a cattle herder, then something is drastically wrong with the way we collect taxes in this country.

My, how the times have changed. Here's a "Save Social Security" rally in 2005, when Steny "Let's Raise the Retirement Age" Hoyer and Dick "Bleeding Hearts Should Be Open To Cuts" Durbin were defending the program from any possible threats. Now they're falling over each other in their eagerness to cut.

Somehow, I just knew it would be the Democrats that Wall Street finally lured into cutting Social Security - because they needed that "Nixon goes to China" cover. But could I just remind you that it's the wealthy who are living longer, not us? (They're the ones with the good health insurance.) So the next time they tell you they need to raise the retirement age, remember that.

Via Talking Points Memo:

It's the Democrats who have progressives feeling queasy.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explicitly put the idea on the table as well in a speech last month. "We should consider a higher retirement age or one pegged to lifespan," Hoyer said.

He echoed House Majority Whip James Clyburn, who put it this way: "With minor changes to the program such as raising the salary cap and raising the retirement age by one month every year, the program could become solvent for the next 75 years." One month a year may not sound like much, but if you're 30 years away from retirement, that adds up to almost three years.

In the House, though, Nancy Pelosi is the linchpin, and she's not nearly as enthusiastic as her colleagues. But, notwithstanding the enthusiasm gap, she also left the possibility of raising the retirement age on the table. When asked about it by TPMDC at her press conference last week, she criticized the plan, but mainly to say she disagrees with putting Social Security on the chopping block ahead of other measures. "Why they would start talking about a place that could be harmful to our seniors -- 70 is a relative age," Pelosi said. "Around here, there's not a lot of outdoor work or heavy lifting. But for some people it is, and 70 means something different to them. So in any event let's talk about growth, let's talk about how we can reduce spending, let's put everything, those initiatives: promoting growth, tightening the belt, looking at entitlements. But let's not start on the backs of our seniors."

There's one catch, though. Last week, Democrats included a rider to the supplemental war spending bill that will likely force the House to vote on a forthcoming fiscal reform plan, if the Senate passes it first. That package is being put together by President Obama's deficit and debt commission, and will be ready to go after the midterms. Pelosi had already pledged to give the package a vote, so perhaps nothing has really changed. But in a way, she also tied her own hands: if the Senate passes a broad tax-and-entitlement reform package at the end of this Congress and her own caucus is willing, she'll be hard-pressed to stop the Social Security reforms she thinks should come last.

Of course, that puts the onus on the Senate, which can't pass much of anything these days,especially if it includes tax hikes -- and any serious effort to pull the country back from the brink of fiscal crisis will have to include some of those. But if there's a fluke, or an unexpected decision on the part of 60 senators to hold hands and jump together, it could happen swiftly, with very little notice.

Don't get mad, get organized! And call your congress critters every single time you read a story like this to tell them you don't support any cuts in Social Security -- and you won't vote for anyone who does.

"a vice president for torture"
ITVsays:

A former CIA director has exclusively told ITVNews that torture is condoned and even approved by the Bushgovernment.
The devastating accusations have been made by AdmiralStansfield Turner who labelled Dick Cheney "a vice president fortorture".

Via SuburbanGuerrilla.

Posted by Avedon

Digby goes over the case only the way he can.

David Corn writes:Why Bush Has To Fire Rove

Catch finds the White House website not hosting today's video. Big surprise there.

Dick Daley Santorum

via Atrios Santorum says Rove doesn't speak for him.

Isn't that a surprise, old "man on dog" himself is the first to jump ship. The Rude Pundit probably thinks Karl will have to send Rick to the basement. Actually I don't see a parallel because Durbin didn't do say wrong, while Rove smeared every liberal in the country. Duncan has a great sense of humor. Santorum said the right thing for a change, while the White House backed Rove's rant. John thinks tricky Ricky is someone desperate for re-election.

Meanwhile Sadly, No! has: Dick's Dream Vacation

Senate Republicans who feared that they would not get the 50 votes they needed to destroy the filibuster spoke of abandoning the so-called "nuclear option" in favor of biological or chemical warfare.

"We should just gas all of them," said Sen. Rick Santorum of the Democrats, almost immediately after he had called them Nazis. Sen. Santorum later told critics that he had meant "sedating all of the Democrats with a non-toxic inhalant."

Another proposal on the table in behind-the-scenes discussion among conservative GOP senators is to inroduce Santorum's 6-year old niece, Bonnie Santorum, known to politicians as "Contagious Bonnie," into the Senate chamber. Most of the GOP senators have individually caught flus, coughs, incapaciting colds, and head lice from Bonnie in unfortunate happenstance encounters over the past two years, and Dr. Frist has certified that they have built up antibodies to her. Democrats, however, are expected to suffer and become unable to report for work long enough for the GOP to take advantage of their absence.

"And then the only issue would be whether we had a quorum," said Frist. "And when Dick Cheney is the Presiding Officer, well, a quorum is what we say it is."

The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"
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The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"

Ok, in a war situation, stuff happens, but to lose a third of the total inventory..does the word incompetent come to mind?

NBC Sports Chief Survives Plane Crash

By P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press Writer

DENVER - A charter plane carrying NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol crashed and burst into flames during takeoff from a southwest Colorado airport Sunday, killing at least two people and seriously injuring Ebersol and one of his sons. Rescue crews were searching for another son.

Dick Ebersol, 57, and son Charles Ebersol survived the crash at the Montrose Regional Airport outside this southwest Colorado town, NBC said in a statement through its Denver affiliate KUSA-TV.

Eyewitness Chuck Distel told The Associated Press by phone that Charles, a college senior, helped his father out through the front of the plane, whose cockpit had been ripped off by the force of the crash. read

City of Chicago uses Ebay!

Chicago to auction Windy City 'experiences'

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- City officials hope there are people willing to pay plenty of money to own a vintage Playboy Bunny costume, toss green dye into the Chicago River or throw a dinner party prepared by Oprah Winfrey's chef.

The Chicago-related items and experiences -- Playboy Enterprises and Winfrey's show are both based in the city, and turning the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day is a hallowed city tradition -- will be up for sale December 2-16 on eBay.

The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, which is sponsoring the auction, has seen its budget from federal, state and city sources decline from $11.8 million in 2002 to a projected $8.8 million next year, said department spokeswoman Anne Dattulo.

Hmmm...I guess Dick Cheney was right!

Video Clip Special!

FBI Interviews Halliburton Whistleblower

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - FBI agents recently spent a day interviewing the Army contracting officer who raised concerns that the Pentagon improperly awarded contracts without competition to Halliburton Co., Vice President Dick Cheney 's former company.The Army Corps of Engineers contract officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, was interviewed last week and now is gathering documents requested by the FBI and Army criminal investigators, her lawyer said Wednesday.

Video Clip of Chris Matthews interviewing Bunnatine Greenhouse on 10/29

Video