Dan Schorr made the same suggestion on Weekend Edition.

That's right, you've been nprwned.

Wait, haven't we been here before? Has LB been LB-pwned?

Sounds right to me LB.

It's weird living in an Empire. I can see controlling pirates in East Asian waters, but there is little or no other use I see for our massive military and the rest of the security apparatus. Yet it is unassailable, pointless & useless to discuss.

In 1955-75 you had Middle-East dictators building huge armies, lots of wars & threats everywhere. It was a shared craziness.

Now, it's like us and Lil' Kim in NKare the only crazies left.

Um, I'm as anti-Guantanamo as anyone, but even I don't advocate letting everyone go.

I do. KSM is ten years older and probably as damaged as Padilla. We know a lot more now and are watching more carefully. Deterrence isn't a factor. Let KSM sit around a fire with Osama and fantasize.

I am not much into revenge or punishment. For instance, I want Bush & Cheney in the Hague for the damage it would do to the Republicans now.

I wonder if Bush feels comfortable leaving the country now.

4: I do. There simply isn't anything else that Obama can legally do, after the years of extra-judicial imprisonment and torture that the Bush administration used to ensure that even the ones who may actually have committed crimes before they were captured, can't now be tried for those crimes.

Either Obama follows the Bush administration's line that some people deserve to be locked up for life without a trial or habeas corpus, and that the President of the United States is allowed to decide who t hose people are, or he rejects that idea, in which case, he's just got to let all the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the other gulags out, with appropriate compensation and support for the rest of their lives if necessary.

I don't lay any money at all on Obama actually rejecting Bush's powers now they've come to him - if he were going to do that, there would have been a squad of investigators heading to Guantanamo Bay and to Bagram Airbase and to the gulags in Iraq, at exactly 12:01 Eastern Standard Time January 20 2009. Instead, the prisoners continued to be tortured well into February at least, and Obama is making noises about how he's going to keep at least some of them in extra-judicial imprisonment indefinitely.

So, well. As Hilzoy on Obsidian Wings said, with apparent pleasure and support, the important thing is that Obama has continuity between Bush's military and his own. Not ending the torture; not ending the extra-judicial imprisonment; not giving up the Presidential power to imprison for life on just his say-so; maintaining continuity.

Well, Obama's got that.

7 gets it exactly right. Also, this:

This is what this generation of Democrats does every time: every time they come to a fork in the road, they try to take it.

There's always some sort of semantic twist involved with their policies, an asterisk, some kind of leprechaun trick to get around doing the simple right thing. They're all for gay rights, and then once the lights come on, they've basically codified the closet by ushering in Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

They campaign against the war in Iraq, promise to get us out, and say they were against it all along -- and then once they get in power, they start using words like eventually and in 4-6 years and once the situation stabilizes. Later it turns out that what they meant by being against the war all along was their conviction that we should have invaded on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday, or some such bullshit. Now there's this Gitmo business. This, folks, just isn't that tough a call.

I do. I don't believe that any of these people represent a present danger to anyone. They are known. They're not going to be able to disappear in the United States. But even if they could, 7.2 holds good.

Perhaps if Obama has cold feet he can give Guantanamo back to Cuba with the last few prisoners still in it. I'm sure Castro can find them jobs.

It may be a fantasy, but it's a fantasy well worth having.

Should we give Guantanamo back to Spain? That's who we took it from.

9.2 was how I originally read the post.

I'm a firm believer in revenge but now have low faith in the veracity of government sources. If KSM really is the central figure they say he is and they can't try him legitimately, they should shoot him and bury him in a ditch. Maybe they can hand over Guantanamo under the condition that Cuba shoots him.

I think I've already said this here, but I concur.

Should we give Guantanamo back to Spain? That's who we took it from.

AND WHO DID SPAIN TAKE IT FROM?

I can see controlling pirates in East Asian waters, but there is little or no other use I see for our massive military and the rest of the security apparatus. Yet it is unassailable, pointless & useless to discuss.

I was thinking right along these lines the other day. I mean, seriously, could anyone actually win a non-loaded debate on this? The only way the military stays as big as it is is that no one's allowed to question why it's so big.

Ooh, I have an idea for swirly-eyedness: The reason Obama's taking on all these expensive initiatives is so that suddenly people will be forced to accept deep cuts to the defense budget. It could be true!

I'd be in favor of turning it over to Spain if it was part of my plan of turning Florida over to Spain. Instead, let's keep it and make it a museum. With Tom Cruise imitating Jack on continuous loop. The stateless guys could be tour guides, or work in the Subway and McDonalds.

14: That's Spain's problem.

Hey, we pay $4,085 a month for the place (checks go uncashed). We stole it, we pay for it, we're not going to give it back.

18: New financial plan. Get a friend at the state department, have the Guantanamo checks sent to me, learn to copy Fidel's signature.

19: The checks haven't been cashed since Castro took over.

I think someone's going to notice.

(Apparently, they're made out to a government department that doesn't exist any more, either.)

WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE!

How many other secretive handouts to cronies are the Obama administration trying to hide from us?

CHIMPEACH THE OBAMPEROR

20: Everybody at Treasury seems pretty busy now. I'm hoping they won't notice a few thousand here and there.
(On the other hand, the IRS just sent me a letter saying I fucked-up my 2007 taxes and owe them money. The sad part is I had an accountant do my 2007 taxes.)

Policy-wise, having the checks cashed would be a big deal, but I think you could mitigate that by writing "Long Live Socialism" or "Die, Gringos, Die" below the endorsing signature.

19: It is a truly crazy signature: link.

Signed,

C ri Minallbulgur

That's a delightful fantasy, LB, but it would require Obama to be a lot more than what he is, a more competent imperial manager.

We could give back Diego Garcia, too.

I didn't realize that so many of you were looking forward to a Joe Biden presidency.

22: So what happens in cases like that? I mean, yes, you are on the hook for the amount due plus penalties. But what about the accountant? You paid this person and they apparently didn't do the job properly -- do you get the fee refunded? Can you shift the penalties to the accountant?

I've never seen the clip of Lenny Bruce himself doing it, but here is Dustin Hoffman's reenactment of Bruce's famous "unhuhuh" routine while he was under harassment for obscenity violations. Interesting to contemplate the change in pubic mores. Predictions on when an outfit like The Boston Globe will fee free to just print that letter with "blowjob"?

26: The IRS gave me a month to reply (either pay, contest, agree to pay but say I don't have the money just yet). There is no penalty as long as I don't try to dodge them, only (reasonable) interest. So far all I've done is asked the accountant whether I should contest or not. The amount requested is above the 'just pay to get rid of this amount', but it's not a problem to pay either.

However, it was a huge sinking feeling to receive a thick envelope from the IRS, especially since I did my 2008 taxes myself. It took me a while to realize that this wasn't my mistake and that I was being asked to respond to one specific issue, not getting an all-out audit.

I'm not inclined to be too hard on the accountant until I see what he says. However, it's not like our taxes are particularly difficult. We don't own a business or have any weird deductions.

27 was leased in perpretuity by the "Gouda" thread for 4 grilled cheese sandwiches/month.

Given the history, you might get a second opinion from a different accountant?

30: Yes, but the second accountant would want paid. The ratio of what the second accountant would want paid to what it could save me is high enough that I'm not inclined to try a second accountant if the old accountant says to pay.

28: Something I learned when I called for an extension: The IRS automatically gives you a second month. (Says the man whose original due date for his 2007 taxes was May 6th...) My understanding (supported by anecdotal evidence from the number of friends and colleagues who have received letters on 2007 taxes) is that the IRS started a more thorough verification system on items like stock transactions and the like. My "misunderstanding" is around a basis calculation and dividends within a 529 plan (college education fund). Don't assume the accountant had it wrong, the IRS errs on the side of just saying you owe the taxes if they don't have all of the documentation. (I have to say that I had a shockingly pleasant conversation with my IRS phone rep, far better than almost any that I have with credit card companies and the like. If I continue to fuck off and not fix them up, however, I suspect subsequent conversations will deteriorate in civility.)

32: I'm not assuming the accountant had it wrong. (I started doing my own taxes to save money, not because I wasn't happy with the accountant.) But, this issue is all W-2ish stuff, so I'm a bit curious as to how either the accountant or the IRS made a mistake.

However, it's not like our taxes are particularly difficult.

IRS might have fucked it up. A year or two back I got a letter saying I owed like 14k in back taxes on stock option sales from a few years ago. I sent them a copy of the transactions pointing out that those options had been taxed like crazy and in fact resulted in me getting a hefty refund. They responded with a letter basically saying, "whoops, our bad".

32: The IRS automatically gives you a second month.

OF course, if you choose to execute under this assumption, I do urge you to seek independent confirmation from the accommodating folks at the IRS.

34: That is what one of mine is. The way many option exercises work the "basis" of the subsequent sale is the sale price. If they just see the one side of the internal details of the transaction, they'll assume it is $0 and calculate what is some times shockingly high tax (often higher than the profit from the exercise).

The IRS is generally a whole lot less scary than it's generally perceived as. Sometimes incompetent, often prone to spitting out scary-looking computer-generated notices whether they make any sense or not, but not scary if you play straight.

Generally.

34, 36: Yes, I often ponder the difficulties of people with stock options and raise my fists while shouting "When will there be justice for all!"

Generally better to go with the specifics of your situation in general. but as a general rule my experience specifically matches what NPH said in general. (For instance I have a relative who has been a serial tax scofflaw for twenty+years running, I am amazed at how tolerant the IRS has been; he has basically been on continually re-negotiated back tax repayment plans the whole time.)

I have no desire to drag this out or gain personal experience in just how long you can dodge the IRS before you get hit. Also, I'm willing to pay what I'm supposed to pay.

Just getting the first letter from the IRS was stress enough. My general rule is to avoid pissing-off people who can spend more money on lawyers than I can unless there is an important principle involved or something significant in it for me. This is neither.

39: Yes, the bitterness of my complaints were unwarranted.

41: Nor would I counsel anyone to adopt my extreme slackitude in the matter of taxes (or any other important life duty). But given the nature of this place, thought I would pass along the tips, given the reasonable probability that you were a fellow practitioner.

If you're at all unsure of what to do, the one vital thing is to get your forms in on time. That month to pay, contest, or agree to pay later? If you're not sure of what to do, contest -- you can always say "Whoops, come to think of it you were right." Going through the contest process isn't going to annoy anyone or inspire retaliation, and you can back down at any point.

OTOH, if you let a deadline go by without responding, there's a good chance (I don't know IRS practice, but by analogy from state agencies) there's no way to fix it.

43.2: That's pretty much what the IRS said in the letter.

Yep. And seriously don't worry about pissing the IRS off. Anyone you deal with will be used to dealing with genuine thieves and crooks -- as an honestly confused citizen, you're a comparative pleasure to deal with. (Oh, you might run into someone being a jerk, but I wouldn't worry about it too much.)

JP Goofus writes poorly-worded comments giving his imaginary friends advice that might get them in trouble with the government.

Gallant writes pragmatic, useful comments in a pleasant and reassuring tone.

OTOH, if you let a deadline go by without responding, there's a good chance (I don't know IRS practice, but by analogy from state agencies) there's no way to fix it.

This has not been my experience with most IRS-set deadlines (as opposed to statutory and court deadlines), but it's certainly good practice to at least ask for an extension (which is usually granted, IME) rather than just let the deadline blow by.

Yep. And seriously don't worry about pissing the IRS off.

The above advice does not hold if you've got a lot of assets, or so I've heard (lacking any practical experience in same) from seemingly reliable sources.

(Apparently, they're made out to a government department that doesn't exist any more, either.)

Why yes, my name is El Ministerio Cubano de Relaciones Internacionales. Why do you ask?

I hope the checks have that "Must be cashed within 90 days" thing, or the fall of Castro could cost us big bucks (OK, about $3M; big enough for me).

All of my interactions with the IRS have been just fine, even pleasant (given the context of unfinished business). I got an extension for our 2005 return, then let the later deadline lapse for various reasons. There were phone calls and other communication, the most significant of which I suspect was this:
"Do you expect to owe for this year?"
"No, we always get a refund."
Didn't hear from them after that. In the end, I managed to extract the necessary documentation from a chaos of paper, met with our accountant and hand-delivered the return on the afternoon of April 15. And last week, we got a big fat check.

The sad part is I had an accountant do my 2007 taxes.

Shouldn't your accountant be accountable for that?

52: Totally pwned on account of trying to breeze through this and get back to work.

Sorry for the tax bitching. I'm much calmer now that I've had time to let it sink in. It's really not a big deal. I won't need to try to defraud the State Department.