Tag Archives: Tom Daschle

A fine mess you got us into, said the fat man to the little man

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Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy- a fine messI’m convinced the economic “mess” we find ourselves in, is of the Laurel and Hardy variety. The iridescent definition of “mess” leads us to infer that our predicament-mess, results from a clutter-mess of options. To hear the parade of experts, our financial mess is a chaotic tangle to dumbfound even a string theorist. I think it’s more like a job for CSI. This “mess” is painted to obscure an entirely un-messy crime scene. The common American is in a mess alright, we’re staring at a bare bank vault floor.

Sleuths can trace a fugitive’s ATM visits, and every bank transaction above $2,500, do you think they can’t follow the money when it’s in the twelve figures, if they wanted to?

empty bank vaultThe mess may be a clutter of fingerprints and a tangle of wire transfers to Switzerland. Maybe we face a daunting defensive line of corporate lawyers. The press is no helping any, choosing to interview the usual odd-footed pundits, instead of the over hundred economists trying to beat down the door to oppose the various economic stimulus bank heists.

The entire public discourse is being dumbed down. The MSNBC text title beneath Obama as he gave his Daschle mea culpa, read “IS CHANGE TOO DIFFICULT?” By the way, couldn’t the President of the United States have enough clout to answer each question about Tom Daschle with a quick admission and segue to a pitch for his proposed stimulus package?

Next the spotlight moved to Joe the Plumber, the Senate Republicans inviting him to a closed door session where he could brief them on his Middle East junket, the stimulus, and party strategy. Joe the Not Even Licensed Plumber?

I was beginning to suspect Sarah Palin had been selected as a ruse to give the American people no choice but to elect a black man to the presidency. Now it appears the GOP was purposefully courting idiocy, and realizes now perhaps that it hadn’t aimed low enough. Maybe it hopes to recreate its success in the shoes of Dumb George.

To Joe the Plumber, every problem is not going to look like three quarter inch pipe in need of a wrench. Problems like the economy, or how to use your watch to calculate how to get to a political rally on time, are going to look like powerful quandaries. And the media hopes to use Joes like Joe as a Greek Chorus, or in modern parlance, a focus group of one, to demonstrate to the public beast that Joe the Everyman Us is stumped.

Does Obama have the votes to pass this or that? Even with a Democratic majority, polls will show that if Joe Public can’t count it on the fingers of both hands, he’ll believe the pundits when they say Obama doesn’t.

The tax problems of evasive fraudsters

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Before Tom Daschle stepped down to circumvent further disgrace, there were accusations of a double standard with regard to overlooking the tax problem of the nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary versus Nancy Killefer’s tax problems which led to her failed appointment to the OMD. “Double standard” is right. “Tax Problem” is right. But not in comparison to Daschle. The DOUBLE STANDARD is about how the misdeeds of politicians, compared to those of common citizens, are regarded. The TAX PROBLEM, is just a problem of syntax. When it involves common citizens it is more commonly referred to as TAX EVASION or TAX FRAUD.

The media is complicit in application of this double standard, more than minimizing it with problematic wording. Why is there no follow-up investigation to the tax evasive activities? Are these cabinet nominees stepping down for consideration in apology for their fraud, or because they want to avoid being confronted about why they did it? Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion, but that wasn’t touching on the extent of his crimes, was it?

Instead of having forgotten to pay the taxes, might Tom Daschle have been trying to obscure the benefits he was receiving, lest he face accusations of CORRUPTION?

There are suggestions that Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination for more tax problems than merely having failed to withhold income taxes for her domestic workers. But what of that charge? Was that a memory lapse, or a purposeful accounting standard to keep her transactions under the table, in order to pay the lower wages of an undocumented worker?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s failure to pay Social Security taxes on income he received while employed by the International Monetary Fund, may have been an oversight, after all, it amounted to peanuts compared to what these bureaucrats earn otherwise, but why not ask, whether the IMF is right not to withhold payroll taxes. It’s usually the law for all businesses who are the immediate supervisors to workers. Small businesses can’t get away with filing 1099s for contract employees if in fact the company held direct supervisory authority over them.

For policy makers and policy abusers, apparently it’s punishment enough to deny them cabinet positions. Expecting them to obey the law is too much.

Corrupt Donkey pounds the Corrupt Elephant

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Republicans and DemocratsWASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Daschle collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in fees in the last two years speaking to leaders of the industry President Barack Obama wants him to reform as the administration’s health secretary. Daschle earned $220,000 from health care industry

And then there’s that other Barack Obama appointed ruler and tax cheater caught named Timothy Geithner, the tax code’s poster boy, as an LA Times opinion piece calls him. Democratic Party corruption rises to the top under Obama!

The National Rifle Association and Republican Party corruption of the Bush Klan was ahead of Tom Daschle in the matchup in the past, but Tom is now once again pounding away at the elephants!

We are but the mere spectators and well taxed at this point of the contest, in who is the most corrupt, Donkey or Elephant? Do we have a winner? Tom? Are you OK?