Some interesting articles to read:

Chuck Schumer says that the Republicans are deliberating meddling in the Minnesota Senate race.

Tired of getting felt up by some TSA guy every single time you fly commercial. Well check out this new screening system.

Al Gore says that he does not want to be Barack Obama’s “Climate Czar.”

The Democrats are planning on investigating George Bush and his administration once he leaves the White House. Didn’t they do this to the Romanovs?

George Soros wants Barack Obama to regulate hedge funds and to tax hedge fund managers at higher rates.

Obama will officially resign from his Senate seat over the weekend, paving the wave for the likes of Jesse Jackson Jr.

The GOP is going to file federal lawsuits to repeal McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations.

Want to work in the Obama administration? All of you folks who claim you have that phony ADD, there is no way in hell you could sit still long enough to fill out this application.

Sarah Palin addressed fellow GOP governors yesterday in Florida and she is not too happy about the growing list of industries lining up at the government teat for a bailout.

Vladimir Putin discusses Georgia onions with Nicolas Sarkozy.

When a bus driver hits three pedestrians, what would be your first thought? Fire the SOB. Not according to the union that thinks it is “unfair” to fire someone for killing pedestrians.

A government school student did a little experiment. She wore an Obama t-shirt to school one day and a McCain t-shirt another day … you can imagine the reaction from fellow students AND teachers.

A Marine put pumper stickers on his car with sayings like “Islam=Terrorism” and “We Died, They Rejoiced.” His car is then banned from all federal installations. So he drives his car to Arlington National Cemetery to visit his son’s grave and guess what happens

The Postal Service isn’t doing too well … what did you expect? It’s a government operation.

It seems we have less idiots wandering around these days … the number of adult smokers has dropped below 20%.

A US company is being accused of gender discrimination in Sweden because of an advertisement that says wives will get beauty treatments if their husbands buy power tools.

Did you hear the one about the pot dealer’s tax return? The New Yorker who claimed the whole city as a dependent? The exotic dancer who deducted . . . well . . . you know?

Bankrate.com has listed the 10 craziest tax write-offs, presented as a shot of levity to help make filing your annual federal income-tax return a little less tedious.

1. It went up in smoke

Don’t forget to claim your black-market earnings.

Hatter must have thought he was hallucinating when one of his clients, a criminal-defense attorney, referred a marijuana dealer to Hatter. The dealer was facing prison time for drug dealing and didn’t want to be nailed for tax fraud as well.

“Because he was involved in an illegal business, he could not take any deductions, period,” Hatter says. “The tax code is written where if you are engaged in something illegal, you have to recognize all of the income, and none of the deductions are recognized, even the cost of the product. It was quite an education on my part.”

Hatter chuckles at his client’s income statement, or lack thereof: “Let’s just say he wasn’t getting 1099s from his customers. He gave me a number, and we paid taxes on it. I had no basis for it because he dealt in cash.”

2. No receipts from above

Tithe with a check, not cash.

Putting a few bills into the church offering plate got one client of Virginia CPA James T. Campbell in a bind when the IRS asked for canceled checks or receipts to support his charitable deductions. Explaining why he had no such receipts, the taxpayer said he simply throws in cash “as the spirit moves me.”

Campbell says the IRS agent paused to consider the taxpayer’s response and then offered this advice: “I understand how the spirit can move you. So my advice to you is to always take your checkbook to church with you. When you feel the spirit coming on, just take out your checkbook and fill in any amount you think is right, whatever the spirit may dictate. It makes no difference how much you give, just as long as you have a copy of the canceled check.

“This way both the spirit and the IRS will be pleased.”

3. Silence is golden — and deductible

While we’re on the subject of charitable deductions, Allyson Baumeister, a CPA at Sanford, Baumeister & Frazier in Fort Worth, recalls one prominent client who found a creative solution to a chronically noisy next-door neighbor: He bought the house, ripped it out of the ground and donated it to a local women’s shelter. He then claimed the value of the house as a charitable deduction.

“The deduction was limited to a percentage of his income, but his income was such that that wasn’t a problem. From what I recall, the IRS may have adjusted the value somewhat, but it did allow the deduction,” Baumeister says.

4. He took Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too

That’s a lot of dependents.

When accounting software was in its infancy, a rookie CPA at Hunter Group of Fair Lawn, N.J., prepared a return for an individual with one small glitch: The software mistook the filer’s address “New York, N.Y.” for the name of a dependent.

The mistake went unnoticed by the firm and the client until one day they received a phone call from the IRS. The agent apologized that the deduction was being disqualified, even though, as the agent politely agreed, it might indeed be justified.

5. But you can write off the pimp hat

Form 1099 is needed for this business expense.

When does an entertainment expense exceed IRS criteria? Ed Mendlowitz, a CPA with WithumSmith+Brown in Morristown, N.J., found out the funny way when a businessman client wanted to deduct the cost of a call girl he hired to entertain some clients.

When Mendlowitz told the businessman he’d have to present said contractor with a Form 1099 to support this business expense, the client declined to do so and dropped the whole idea.

6. The ‘Zoolander’ deduction

Deduct your Botox injections? Maybe.

Those who work in front of the camera for a living — like Derek Zoolander in the 2001 film comedy — are often inclined to work their accountant to deduct all manner of personal property and perks as business expenses, from full wardrobes to back waxing.

“We have public speakers, and we help them understand that they cannot deduct all of their clothing, even though they wear it onstage,” says Dallas CPA Ken Sibley. “Models can deduct a lot of makeup and certain pieces of apparel, but it has to fit the rules. We don’t let them deduct the pedicures, manicures and back waxing for therapeutic reasons.”

The craziest “Zoolander” deduction? New Jersey CPA Alan Sobel wins the prize: “Deductions are sometimes claimed for money given to infants for ‘modeling’ for their parents,” he says. Seriously.

7. What are you, an Indy driver?

New Jersey CPA Elihu Katzman couldn’t believe this one: “We had a client-salesman that was asked the number of miles he used his car for business that year. He insisted that he drove 60,000 miles, all for business.

“We asked him if he had any time to sleep, in that he must have spent most of the day and night driving.”

8. The $50,000 business meeting

Imagine Hatter’s surprise when a client-attorney listed $50,000 in entertainment expenses on his tax return — quite a chunk considering the guy’s gross income was in the $300,000 range.

“I said, ‘Man, what is that?’ He said, ‘Well, I threw a party for my clients.’ And I said, ‘You didn’t invite me?’ Anyway, we started going through it, and he said, ‘Walt, I’ve got to tell you, that was for my daughter’s wedding. But I did invite all my clients.’”

What was the lawyer’s occupation? Criminal-defense attorney!

9. Finally, the Social Security crisis solved

Warning: If parents ever start documenting this deduction, we’ll no longer need to worry about Social Security.

Marcia Geltman, a CPA with Nisivoccia & Co. in Randolph, N.J., says parents have asked her more than once if they can claim a bad-debt loss from unpaid loans to their children.

“The correct answer is, unless you have documentation verifying the existence of the loan and have taken legal action that resulted in a determination that the loan is not collectible, no deduction is allowed,” she says. “Let us hope that, in the long run, we receive more blessings from our children then these momentary aggravations.”

10. Inflated assets

It’s a classic feel-good-all-over tax case that has grown to mythic proportions over the years. Hatter explains: “The one they always talk about at CPA classes is where a topless dancer got breast implants and wrote them off as a business deduction under Section 179 and treated them as a capital asset, as an ordinary necessary business expense, and was able to deduct them.

“The IRS challenged her, it went to the tax court, and she won.”

This article was reported and written by Jay MacDonald for Bankrate.com.

Speaking of income tax…There is currently a bill in the house and senate to simplify our tax system and get rid of the IRS, it is called the Fair Tax Act.

Do you know what the FairTax Act is?

* Ensures Social Security and Medicare funding
* Enables workers to keep their entire paychecks
* Enables retirees to keep their entire pensions
* Refunds in advance the tax on purchases of basic necessities
* Allows American products to compete fairly
* Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
* Closes all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
* Abolishes the IRS

For more information visit www.fairtax.org.

Some interesting articles to read:

The Al Franken / Norm Coleman recount debacle continues in Minnesota. Read this story and tell me you don’t think something stinks up there.

Energy independence? Check this out! We have more oil than we ever imagined in the Bakken Formation .. and it is inside this country! The environmental groups had better get busy before we actually start recovering this stuff!

Iran thought it would be a lot of fun to test a new type of missile near the Iraqi border.

So .. waddaya think? Will the Obama’s send their children to government schools? Are you freaking kidding me? Government schools are for YOUR children, not the Obama’s!

America lurches left … Mark Steyn. Lefties hate this guy .. all the more reason you should read this.

Gotta love P.J. O’Rourke. He says conservatives “blew it.” Golly, ya think?

It looks like Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, will probably be running for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.

What is shaping up to be trouble for president-elect Barack Obama, Cuban president Raul Castro is going to visit Russia next year.

The polls show that Jesse Jackson Jr. is the favorite to replace Barack Obama in the Senate.

The FEC will not be auditing the Barack Obama campaign because it doesn’t want to conduct a messy audit of a sitting president. Meanwhile, there is a rigorous audit of the McCain campaign going on.

Obama wants Congress to accelerate the confirmation of his top appointees. Something tells me that won’t be a problem.

How about Secretary of State Al Gore?

More talk of the Fairness Doctrine from Democrats. One Democrat Senator says that he believes technology has moved beyond our ability to regulate things. Well isn’t that comforting.

Here’s something for you to consider … Google is teaming up with the government in order to help federal officials “track sickness.”

The latest from Time Magazine on Barack Obama: “Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope…”

According to CNN, 59% of Americans think that Democratic control of both the executive and legislative branches will be good for the country.

Gas prices are falling so guess what happens … people start buying SUVs again! Amazing how that happens.

As you read this story, I want you to think about all of the people employed by this ski resort rather than the wealth envy: Ski resort for super rich files for bankruptcy.

A local paper in Oklahoma didn’t report that Barack Obama won the election. The paper says it’s because the story isn’t local news. Other people say it’s racist!

You might get a kick out of this … Where whiteness meets race: The Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere — yes it’s real — tackles the notion of white privilege and white people’s responsibility to challenge racism, but can it help move people beyond race?

Visit boortz.com

I was listening to Clark Howard yesterday and he says that the number of bankruptcy filings is likely to hit an all-time high in 2009.

Clark also says that according to The New York Times, banks are buying “trigger lists” from credit bureaus and independent data management firms. These lists compile info about who is in bankruptcy or otherwise in desperate financial shape. Once a bank obtains a trigger list, they target the people on it with horrible come-ons for new lines of credit.

Wouldn’t you think that banks would have learned their lesson by now?  Isn’t this the sort of shit that got us into this economic mess?  You know, giving people lines of credit who already can’t or couldn’t make their payments and also have a low income.

Their “second chance” pitches offer you another shot at rebuilding your credit by opening more of it! One industry insider in the Times article referred to this segment of the market as “creative lending products.”

You’re typically expected to pay hundreds of dollars to apply for a credit card that may have annual fees of up to $200. Then you’re given a credit line that’s equal to what they charge you in fees — so that the risk to the bank is nada. In addition, they charge you massive rates of interest.

Equifax has a proprietary way of culling names for trigger lists called the TargetPoint Predictive Triggers system. Basically, the bureau analyzes data to see a customer’s propensity to open new lines of credit within 90 days. The exact formula, however, remains a “secret sauce,” according to a spokesperson in the article.

Trigger lists are also common in the world of mortgages. When you apply for a mortgage, your info can be sold so that other marketers can call you and solicit your mortgage business.

This is so far out of line, according to Clark. Here we are in a time when we need to heal both the banking sector and our family budgets, and everybody is trying to slice and dice us to figure out how to take advantage of us. Shame on all involved parties.

Clark wants you to know about this so you can resist the temptation of “second chance” pitches. It’s not a lifeline they’re offering; it’s an anchor around your neck that will make you financially drown.

Read the full NY Times article.

Clark Howard was talking this past Friday about a story he was reading in The Washington Post about how a  crooked employee at the U.S. State Department who worked with a criminal ring to steal personal info from passports.

What kind of info is available in a passport record? Basically everything that a criminal could want to steal your identity and open false lines of credit. That includes Social Security number, physical description, names and places of birth of your parents, etc.

The D.C. police stumbled onto this ring back in March when they stopped a 24 year old smoking marijuana in a car. They had probable cause to search the vehicle and found passport applications, multiple credit cards and more. It was the tip of the iceberg of cracking this ring that potentially had access to the records of up to 192 million Americans who have passports.

The State Department is now sending letters to the several hundred people who actually did have their identities breached, and they’re offering free credit monitoring for a year. But they refuse to talk to the media on record about this employee breach.

So what can you do?  Clark say’s there is only one imperfect remedy — but it works: Do a credit freeze. See Clark’s guide to credit freezes for detailed info.

One other thing.  If you have been reading my blogs for awhile, you should already know that I support the death penalty.  This type of action by anybody deserves the death penalty because these people are out to destroy someone’s life.  This is such BS!  But we’re such pussies in this country anymore that alot of idiots out there will be crying that the punishment is to severe.

Read the full Washington Post story.

Some interesting articles for you to read:

Okay, I know the election is over. But this video is more about your children being educated in government schools. Take a look at what this government school teacher had to say to one of her elementary school students supporting John McCain.

It’s official, Rahm Emanuel will be Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

There is no doubt that Obama will face great challenges as our next president. What kind of challenges? Well here are some to start with.

Here’s a real shocker … Vladimir Putin may to return to the Kremlin in 2009.

Majority Leader Harry Reid is about to oust Joe Lieberman from his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

New Hampshire now has a female majority in the State Senate and a new female US Senator.

How expensive is the United Nations for us, the taxpayers? And you know it is spending that money oh so wisely.

The taxpayers also shelled out millions of dollars to support the ethanol industry. That was a mistake.

How soon will it be before the name “Obama” is one of the top baby names in the United States?

A study conducted in British Columbia has concluded that you must ditch your weed whacker and buy a goat. I wish I were kidding folks.

And now the environmentalists will explain how wind farms are hurting salmon. Yes, salmon.

Great Britain’s Daily Mail asks the important questions in life … Why DO women have these tramp stamps? Is it really that hard to figure out?

Are you disgusted by the leaks from the McCain campaign smearing Sarah Palin? Maybe you can participate in Operation Leper.

Here are some interesting articles to read:

Barack Obama is trying to blame McCain for the drop in GDP.  It’s the same old trick: try to link McCain to President Bush.  The trouble here is that there are enough stupid voters out there who will buy this stuff.

Obama’s “tax calculator” will show you how much of tax cut you will receive, but it won’t calculate how much of a tax increase you can expect (for all you evil rich people).

Obama’s plans for election night include a gathering of 65,000 … and he is going to do it without some sort of rap artist or Communist band.

Here’s a column out of Ohio: If we elect an admitted socialist president, we’ll deserve what we get.

Democrats are already making plans to decorate their offices … seriously!  And with your tax dollars.

The Republicans are considering actively pursuing Joe Lieberman to join their ranks.

Here’s a fun little stroll down memory lane … an article from 2006 predicting Obama as a presidential candidate.  The best part is if you read the comments about him not being ready or qualified.

Celebrities are threatening to leave the country if McCain is elected.  And the problem here is …?

A Pennsylvania resident mistook a government truck made by “McClain Galion” to be a government truck with a McCain bumper sticker … the woman promptly complained to her Senator about government trucks showing political bias.

Here’s some interesting news … Australia will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the Internet.

The New Jersey police are confiscating illegal firearms and melting them down, so that “they’ll never hurt anyone again.”  Melt criminals, not guns.

A Canadian man just finished serving 6 months in jail for his 45 day sentence.  Read it again.

A tattoo artist was fined $600 for not being in proper control of his vehicle … because he was driving with a tiny Chihuahua in his lap.

Voters in this election say they want a president who will go to Washington to solve their problems!  Well a listener has sent us this poster …

A Colorado police dog, Izzy, has retired from the force after being injured while fighting with a suspect.  Now the handler is trying to pay for Izzy’s surgery.  We need to help

Some interesting articles to read:

A former staffer of ACORN’s Project Vote testified that they were provided a “donor list” from Obama’s campaign in 2007 for fundraising efforts.

John Stossel and I are on the same page … there are people out there who have a duty not to vote.

Obama is upset that John McCain is calling him a socialist.  Obama says this is a “phony attack.”

Here is the story of a Democrat speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton who says that she is going to vote for McCain.

Columbia professor and Obama fan Jeffrey Sachs couldn’t tell Joe Scarborough one significant thing Barack Obama has ever done legislatively.

Joe Biden is less accessible to reporters than Sarah Palin, and he is being forced to use a teleprompter.

Someone has put together this video compilation of Obama apologizing for being late all the time to hearings.

Michelle Malkin has chronicled some Notorious Obamedia Moments of 2008.

Fraud and waste at the United Nations?  Can’t say that I am shocked about this report.

At the University of Florida, engineering students have actually created an Obamabot.  The real thing!  Maybe they should have taken some of that brain power to research Obama’s policies.

Two teenagers in Ohio thought it would be real cool to steal some McCain signs from someone’s lawn.  I wonder how cool they feel now after suffering from minor bullet wounds.

Joe the Plumber could be the next country super star.

A developer in Seattle can’t build a grocery store because of wetlands legislation.  So here’s what he is threatening to do … I’ll give you a hint, it involves strippers and a drive up window.

Do we have to start hiring baby sitters to watch our politicians?  A day after Republican Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty on 7 counts of corruption, Democratic Sen. Dianne Wilkerson was charged with attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.

Wilkerson, 53, lost the Democratic primary in September to Sonia Chang-Diaz despite support from Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. She is running a write-in campaign for the Nov. 4 election, in hopes of retaining the seat she has held since 1993.

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said it was coincidental the complaint was filed a week before the election. Wilkerson’s attorney, Max Stern, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press for comment.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Wilkerson was recorded by audio and videotape accepting bribes in exchange for helping a proposed nightclub in her district get a liquor license. She also allegedly accepted payments for helping another undercover officer posing as a businessman who wanted to develop state property in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood.

Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation.

And these are the idiots we have elected to office to represent us?  Nice job assholes.  From now on, I say that the penalty for any type of corruption by a elected represetative should result in the death penalty!  Read the full story.