Not always. I've been stuck taking the standard deduction for quite a few years now. When I made $40,000 a year, I had to take the standard deduction, and between federal income tax and FICA, Infernal Revenue ended up getting over $8,000 a year out of me. At present, I'm making $8.50 an hour and will still be taking the standard deduction.

On the bright side, I spent some of 2006 and the first nine months of 2007 in a tax-free zone. My E-5 pay (with some other associated benefits) translated to the equivalent of about $55,000 per year in a job where I'd have to pay taxes.

From what I've read, it seems that Massachusetts' mandated health care plan is working well. That is.........for those participating in it.

It took me so long to read this post gas prices increased twice since I started.

Caught by your own arguement.
But still you twist.

Cant have it both ways.

Either lack of evidence makes you guilty or not guilty in both cases.

Not just the one you want it to.

Actually, they've dropped since it started.

Dont get so high on yourself because you think you have read more than I have.

I have seen what Exxon says about all sorts of issues.
And it never seems to be completely truthfull.

There is no way I have enough money and time to prove they are lying.
But that does not mean I have to believe it.

I cannot prove the easter bunny does or does not exist.
But I have never seen any rabbit poop around easter eggs.

Thanks
RichC
:joker:

I have to pay for a war you believe in and I do not.
Since when do I owe you for a war ?
(O yea, I get arrested if I dont pay)

Why not pay for healthcare for my neighbor instead ?
I would much rather be helping than hurting people.

Thanks
RichC
:joker:

Speculation does not justify war.

Let them die in the streets.
While we go kill in other streets.

And hope you dont get sick and need some help.

Are we supposed to be the police of the world ?
Do we get to set the morals and standards for everyone.

What if another country invaded the US during our civil war,
and tried to tell us what to do.

Can you provide an example of just one?

Lobbyists.

Don't just complain, any fool can do that. Indicate where the logic is wrong.

B

:confused:

That's not an example. Provide an example supporting your allegations of Exxon "lying." Something tangible, and linkable.

Why would I be for something that screws up a system for myself so that somebody gets a benefit? Isn't that the definition of altruism? Something I was not, am not and will never be. Know many good govt run programs that didn't turn out into a slush fund for the govt? I don't.

Then you go help them.

How is it speculation that he was playing shell games? How is it speculation that several countries had a list of precursors that he wasn't supposed to have?

If he needs help and can't afford it, sucks to be him. If that happens to me, sucks to be me.

Could it affect us? If so, yes, we should hold him to his contracts.

That is your proof that they are lying?

.

Like I said, I do not have the resources to prove Exxon is lying.

Here is a link...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=exxon+lying

Basically you said that it was OK to go to war on suspicion of evidence.
But it was not OK to do anything to Exxon on suspicion of evidence.

That is using the same logic in two opposite ways.

But I would still rather play the fool if you don't mind.

I'm just talking here, but to me, there's a difference between a war and a legal action.

B

Arguing with the poor and missfortunate
 

Guys Guys remember you cant argue with right wing republicans that are poor and waiting for scraps. They are on some kind of spell defending the hoarders of the earth and steamrollers of death that are not Christians or believe in God. They say they do but they really don't.

What they believe in is Ronald Reagan, W, 41, 37, Rush, Vanity, and funny Levine.
please u right wing neo cons don't deny it.

How are you defining suspicion of evidence? Many countries provided the evidence of materials that went in with shipping manifests and what not. He was supposed to account for it. He didn't and played shell games. What part of that is in dispute?

Nuts are a vegetable, too.

You Gotta be Joking
 

So for a game of shell's gives the right for the destruction of a country and the deaths of over a million people. I hope you are never harmed over a shell game, or for someone else's deeds.

On that we can agree.

Now if only murdering-bastard megalomaniacs would tell the truth, life would be sweet.

B

Yes,

And a war should be much harder to start than a legal action.

But you have argued the opposite direction.

Leave Exxon alone but Kill Iraq.

There is no way that makes sense !!

So we cannot have peace till all the murdering-bastard megalomaniacs
start telling the truth ????

1. It was more difficult to engage in war. it took majority votes from both houses of Congress. You remember -- where some voted for it before they voted against it.

2. Factually incorrect.

3. I have no idea what that means.

4. No kidding, huh?

B

Yes!

A million people didn't die because of the shell game. They died because of the insurgents in Iraq from other places. Why don't you ask them if a million people should die for their cause?

Well, if it comes to bite us in the ass and kills us, I suppose our dead would be at peace.

Wrong
 

The vote was to look into war and for Afghanistan. Not to overthrow Iraq. The house and congress were bamboozled. Colin Powell showed drawings of trucks thought to have WMD's how does that guy sleep at night.

Read the resolution. It clearly and unambiguously empowered the President to determine whether to force Iraq into compliance.

B

Who wrote the resolution
 

You think this is the right direction for our country? To empower the President (W a drunk for over ten years and I bet he still is) to act in this way as a Christian society to kill hundreds of thousands of people to save the dollar and the oil companies. Hitler acted in this way and look what it sent Germany into. Are you sure you believe in the constitution and God?

Beautiful rhetoric, you should be a speech writer!

V

("V"?)

Yes, I do.

Got proof of his being a drunk anytime lately or just something you came up with?

What's religion got to do with it? BTW, oil is more than the oil companies. It is the economy of the world. That or we go back to the stone age.

Constitution, yes. God, not a chance.

Sure so kill and steal for it and not make changes in our own country to get off the dependencey of oil hey what happened to Hemp. Wasent hemp the crop of WW2 thanks to Nixon its out lawed oil baby oil

What are you trying to say in those 2 sentences?

We are trying to stabilize an area that is important to us. Further to that, even if we found oil in Texas, we'd still be dependent. Why? Because if the rest of the world tanks due to instability in that region, we tank too. Also, that area seems to be where our enemies are hiding. Not a bad thing to kill 2 birds at the same time.

Supremes reduce 2.5 billion to 500 million.
 

So, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday on Exxon's appeal of the 2.5 billion damage award against it. The SC chopped that bad boy way down to a paltry 500 million. Lots of lawyers cried yesterday I'm sure.
I'd say Exxon made out very well on that appeal. :)
Bad day for haters of Big Oil.:(

Legal Pad
With Roger Parloff
June 25, 2008, 3:08 pm
Supreme Court slashes $2.5B Exxon Valdez award
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday slashing the damages Exxon Mobil (XOM) must pay as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill could have unexpectedly wide-ranging consequences. An award to Alaskan fishermen and other residents was reduced from $2.5 billion to about $500 million.

In its ruling, the high court grapples once more with an issue that has long dogged corporate America and its adversaries: at what point is a verdict that’s meant to punish a defendant and deter future wrongdoing — rather than to compensate the plaintiff for his actual damages — excessive? In one the best-known cases, the Supreme Court in 1996 struck down a $2 million punitive-damages award over a $4,000 BMW paint job.

The decision in Exxon Shipping v. Baker arose in a different context than any of the previous punitive-damages cases decided by the Supreme Court — and in a context that many experts had thought might give the ruling somewhat less significance than usual. In earlier cases, the Court always decided whether the jury in a state court case had imposed an excessive punitive damages award. In such cases, the Supreme Court’s only justification for intervening was if it found that the federal Constitution barred the outcome — i.e., by ruling that the award was so outrageous as to violate due process.

The Exxon case, in contrast, was a federal maritime case, and the U.S. Supreme Court had the power to reduce the award on much narrower grounds: as a mere exercise of its so-called federal common-law jurisdiction. Since punitive damages awards in federal maritime cases are not a major source of anxiety for the business community, the case could easily have been decided in a way that would have had little significance for Chamber-of-Commerce types.

Nevertheless, Justice David Souter, writing for a 5-3 majority, seemed to go out of his way to hint that the rule he was announcing for federal maritime cases in the Exxon case - a rule that generally dictates a maximum 1:1 ratio between a punitive damages award and a jury’s compensatory award - might also reflect what the outcome would have been had it been decided on constitutional grounds. “In this case,” he wrote in the last footnote of the decision, “the constitutional outer limit may well be 1:1.” By cutting the Exxon Valdez verdict to $500 million, the high court set a 1:1 ratio with the $507.5 million compensatory damage portion of the jury’s award in the case.“It can’t have been an accident,” says Evan Tager of Souter’s inclusion of Souter’s provocative footnote. Tager is a partner in the national law firm Mayer Brown, a specialist in punitive-damages cases (always on the pro-business side of the ledger, I should disclose), and worked on an amicus brief supporting Exxon’s position in this case. “They didn’t have to talk about constitutional issues at all. It seems like a signal to the lower courts that they intend to take this 1:1 line, which was first drawn in State Farm [v. Campbell], much more seriously than they have been in prior cases.”

In the State Farm case, decided in 2003, the Supreme Court court ruled that as a matter of constitutional law, it would be an extremely rare case in which punitive damages could constitutionally exceed compensatory damages by a more than 9:1 ratio, and added that “[w]hen compensatory damages are substantial, then a lesser ratio, perhaps only equal to compensatory damages, can reach the outermost limit of the due process guarantee.” Souter argued in the footnote that the compensatory award of $507.5 million was “substantial,” especially in the sense that it was sufficient in itself to act as “encouragement” for wronged parties to bring suit.

Three justices from the more liberal wing of the court — John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Stephen Breyer — dissented from the ruling, arguing that the Court should let Congress fashion a 1:1 rule if it wants one, rather than taking the initiative and fashioning one of its own. (They tweaked the conservative majority for failing to exhibit “judicial restraint” - a principle conservative judges ordinarily champion.) The dissenters also rejected the majority’s apparent assumption that Exxon as a company was largely blameless for the criminal recklessness of the Exxon Valdez pilot, who, according to the court record, had downed five double vodkas before leaving port and, ultimately, running the tanker aground on a reef.

“The jury could reasonably have believed,” wrote Justice Stephen Breyer, “that Exxon knowingly allowed a relapsed alcoholic repeatedly to pilot a vessel filled with millions of gallons of oil through waters that provided the livelihood for the many plaintiffs in this case. Given that conduct, it was only a matter of time before a crash and spill like this occurred.”

The Exxon case also raised one side issue - an increasingly sore point among Supreme Court practitioners: the problem of justices recusing themselves from cases, usually because of stock-holdings. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself in the Exxon case (the justices do not state their reasons when they do so) and, as a result, one of the issues the Court had planned to decide in this case - whether federal maritime law permits punitive damages to be awarded against a corporate defendant solely based upon the reckless conduct of a “managerial employee” - resulted in a 4-4 tie vote. In such cases, the lower court’s ruling stands, but has no precedential weight.

Earlier this term an important preemption case, Warner-Lambert v. Kent, suffered a similar fate, while the Court last month was forced to decline review of a decision permitting a massive lawsuit against companies who did business with apartheid South Africa to go forward when four justices had to recuse themselves, leaving the court without a quorum.