Regarding Steve Pearlstein: Sometimes I adore him, and then again, sometimes I despise him. This is one of the times when I love him.
(A copy of the following top-secret memorandum was recently obtained from a senior White House official. Its authenticity could not be confirmed.)
TO: Director/National Clandestine Service/CIA
FROM: Chief of Station/Lagos, Nigeria
RE: Results of Interrogation of Exxon Mobil CEO
Above-named subject, Rex W. Tillerson, was apprehended while disembarking at Lagos airport and brought to Covert Interrogation Center #7. After a cocktail of Sodium Pentothal and Desoxyn was administered, subject suffered some disorientation but was able to answer questions on oil and gasoline pricing and company finances submitted by FTC/DOE/DOJ joint task force, pursuant to presidential directive of 26 April. Water-boarding proved unnecessary.
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While it is well and good that the City of Waco is publicly recognizing this wrong, there are two quotes from caucasian women in the article that I find offensive in the extreme:
“And what is that saying to [the Fryer] family? That it was okay to rape and murder that lady?”
and
“That incident, the lynching, was horrendous, but so was the rape and murder of Lucy Fryer. There was another victim here,” said Patsy Kilgore, who is white and a niece by marriage of Fryer’s grandson. “We all need to be one, but I don’t think this is the way to do it.”
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How DARE do these two female dogs accuse the lynching victim of raping and murdering Fryer without any credible evidence?
Provisions Passed by Senate Would Raise About $5 Billion
House and Senate tax writers have been struggling to reach an accord on separate tax bills approved last year to extend some expiring tax cuts enacted during President Bush’s first term. But House Republicans have raised strong objections to Senate-passed provisions that would raise nearly $5 billion in taxes over five years — primarily by changing arcane accounting rules that have allowed oil companies to substantially lower their tax bills, according to House and Senate tax aides familiar with the talks.
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The biggest of the provisions would change accounting rules that apply to oil in storage. Currently, oil companies are allowed to calculate the taxable value of their inventories based on the value of the oldest stocks, when oil may have been worth $30 a barrel. But much of the inventory may have been pumped from the ground when oil was selling for more than double that. Critics say that understates the value of the companies’ oil supplies purely to lower their tax payments.
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