The Reason There Are So Many Lawyer Jokes …

This is very funny. Your Honor, excellent judgment.

Meanwhile, this is a fine headline, but an even better photo. I just wonder how the AP photographer got to the scene in time to get the cat and the bear in the frame. Brilliant! Call Pulitzer!

DENIED!!!


Photo courtesy of www.tuaw.com

It appears that Senate Republican will have to wait to permanently repeal the Estate Tax. The bill, short-titled the "Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005," would have made permanent the Estate Tax's temporary repeal that was passed as one of the "Bush Tax cuts" of his first term. The permanent repeal was defeated by a vote of 57-41. Apparently, Republican Senators Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) broke with their party in opposing the cloture motion to force a vote on the bill. As a result, the repeal will expire in 2010 and be reinstated as a federal revenue generator starting in 2011.

Sadly, our very own Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins voted to end discussion and force a vote on the bill, despite indications from both that they would not stand with the permanent repeal supporters within their party. The Bangor Daily News weighed in … sort of … the issue, but it isn't clear what they think should happen. The Press Herald featured this guest column last Thursday, but hasn't published much on the subject since.

The Globe's Scott Lehigh views the GOP's decision to proceed on the Estate Tax bill as an effort to rally the three wings of the Republican Party.

I guess, if we're going to beat a temporarily dead horse, I should direct you to this piece written by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which notes:

Those who argue for repeal say the estate tax discourages entrepreneurs. What? Passing on $4 million tax free to your kids is not enough incentive?

Talk about discouraging entrepreneurship. Repeal the estate tax and within a few decades control over America’s productive assets will be in the hands of non-productive Americans who never lifted a finger in their lives except to speed-dial their financial advisors.

People who inherit great wealth just because they’re lucky enough to have super-rich parents don’t have any particular incentive to be entrepreneurial. They don’t have any particular incentive to do anything. Giving them control over the American economy is like giving control over a Boeing 777 to teenagers with joysticks.

Of course, this news got buried yesterday due to this story. I guess the Estate Tax story needed some visuals – bombs and dead puppies or something – make a note, boys.

Meanwhile, The Hammer bid adieu to Congress in a manner that speaks of the reasons behind his exit. Among his final words before the chamber, he noted:

You show me a nation without partisanship, and I'll show you a tyranny. For all its faults, it is partisanship, based on core principles, that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican or Democrat, however unjust, all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences -- except for all the others."
Well, there it is.

I'm reminded of the rival gangleader, Roman Maroni in the 1980s Michael Keaton vehicle Johnny Dangerously, who announced in a goodbye message before being deported:

I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy corksuckers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes … like yourselves.