This judge is blamed for the backlogs in Atlanta. Maybe the better story is that he says he was one of the office’s most productive judges. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

A judge can be removed from his civilian job for double-dipping. Social Security has also filed papers to recover more than $309,000 in back pay and interest from Jennings.

By dividing his time between jobs, Jennings could not give Social Security his full attention, which in turn contributed to the nation’s mountainous backlog of disability claims, wrote William N. Cates, the administrative law judge who heard the case.

Jennings worked in Social Security’s Atlanta North office, known as the agency’s “backlog capital” of the country. With an average wait of 838 days, the office in May ranked as the slowest in the nation in resolving the appeals of people who say they are too sick or injured to work.

Jennings, who said he made more than $300,000 a year working for both Social Security and the Army, acted “purely for personal gain,” Cates wrote. “Judge Jennings’ dual employment and the ramifications thereof warrant his removal.”

See full story here:

MONTPELIER — The federal government has ruled that the Social Security Administration must extend benefits to the children of partners in same-sex unions even if the parent is not biologically related.

The U.S. Department of Justice opinion was in response to a case involving a Vermont couple. It says that the federal Defense of Marriage Act does not exclude the nonbiological child of partners in a same-sex union from receiving benefits.

The October 2007 opinion was made public this month.

The opinion refers to two Vermont women who entered into a civil union in 2002 and later tried to pass on the nonbiological parent’s disability benefits to their child born in 2003.

See original document:

Even those individuals who have little or no tax liability may qualify for a minimum payment of $300 ($600 if filing a joint return) if their tax return reflects $3,000 or more in qualifying income, which consists of earned income (e.g., wages, net self-employment income) as well as Social Security or certain Railroad Retirement benefits and veterans’ disability compensation, pension or survivors’ benefits received from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in 2007. Many of these individuals normally wouldn’t have to file a 2007 return because their incomes are below the filing thresholds, but they will have to file a return in order to receive a rebate.

Where necessary, the following benefits (in any combination) must be reported on Line 20a of Form 1040 or Line 14a of the Form 1040A to meet the qualifying income requirement:

Social Security benefits reported on the 2007 Form 1099-SSA, which individuals should have received in January 2008. Those who do not have a Form 1099 may estimate their annual Social Security benefit by taking their monthly benefit and multiplying it by the number of months during the year they received the benefits.
Railroad Retirement benefits reported on the 2007 Form 1099-RRB, which should have been received in January 2008.
The sum of veterans’ disability compensation, pension or survivors’ benefits received from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in 2007. Individuals may estimate their annual benefit by taking their monthly annual veterans’ benefit and multiplying it by the number of months during the year they received benefits.

IRS cautioned that Line 20a of Form 1040 and Line 14a of the Form 1040A are designated for Social Security. To qualify for the economic stimulus payments, these lines should also be used to include any qualifying Railroad Retirement or veterans’ benefits.

See article here:

See also See IRS site at this link:

Frm today’s New York Times:

For decades, people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome have struggled to convince doctors, employers, friends and even family members that they were not imagining their debilitating symptoms. Skeptics called the illness “yuppie flu” and “shirker syndrome.”

But the syndrome is now finally gaining some official respect. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which in 1999 acknowledged that it had diverted millions of dollars allocated by Congress for chronic fatigue syndrome research to other programs, has released studies that linked the condition to genetic mutations and abnormalities in gene expression involved in key physiological processes.

The agency has also sponsored a $6 million public awareness campaign about the illness. And last year, it released survey data suggesting that the prevalence of the syndrome is far higher than previously thought, although these findings have stirred controversy among patients and scientists. See details here: