Free Republic

Look who's at the health care negotiating table -- Tom Daschle. The former Senate Democratic leader's nomination as health and human services secretary was derailed over a back taxes flap earlier this year. But that's not stopping Daschle, a close ally of President Barack Obama, from playing a significant role in Capitol Hill health care talks -- much as he'd be doing if he'd actually gotten the job. The outsized role is unusual for someone who's an adviser to lobbying firms, especially given Obama's campaign vow to change business as usual in Washington. Daschle was in a strategy meeting earlier...

By now, millions of Americans are familiar with Anita Dunn, who recently resigned her post as Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director after it was learned that she had previously cited Mao Zedong, the late Communist dictator and mass murderer, as one of her “favorite political philosophers.” By contrast, few people know anything substantive about Dunn’s husband, Robert Bauer, who has replaced Gregory Craig as President Obama’s White House Counsel. Craig resigned abruptly on November 13, after having repeatedly denied, for weeks, that he had any plans of stepping down. A 1976 graduate of the University of Virginia School of...

Officials: Anita Dunn may be leaving with her little red book, but her husband enters as the next White House counsel, bringing experience in suppressing dissent, assaulting the First Amendment and limiting speech. Dunn, whose favorite philosophers include mass murderer Mao Zedong, was expected to leave after a short stint. She rose to fame as chief strategist for former Senate majority leader, now national health care guru, Tom Daschle. While serving as White House communications director, she was the commanding general of the administration "war" on Fox News. Like her philosophical mentor, Mao, and her colleague, FCC diversity czar Mark...

A personal report. Last night (Wednesday, 11/4/2009) I attended a discussion with former senator Tom Daschle, now advisor on health care to President Obama. The event was held at the Reagan Library in California. What was unique about this event was that the audience was largely comprised of insurance agents who market and service health insurance in California. Also represented at the event were the major insurance companies selling health insurance to Californians, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Humana, Health Net and others. I am sure that a transcript of the event will be made public, but in general...

Lobbyists are quitting the business at a record pace, according to a study released Monday. Over 1,400 lobbyists "deregistered" with Congress in the second quarter of 2009, according to a study conducted jointly by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and OMB Watch. Typically, only a few hundred lobbyists quit each quarter. The giant spike in resignations came just after the Obama administration instituted strict new rules on lobbyist activity. The White House banned employees from receiving gifts from lobbyists and announced that any lobbyist hired by the executive branch could not work on the same issues on which he...

A piggy-back race with dwarfs dressed as jockeys has been slammed by critics as offensive and derogatory. Thousands watched the race at a Cranbourne racetrack in Victoria, dubbed the "midgets' cup", as part of Sunday's Cranbourne Cup meeting, Adelaide Now reports. What do you think of the race — was it harmless fun or just plain ridicule? Share your thoughts below. Three men raced down a 50m stretch with a short statured person on each of their backs. The race ended with one "jockey" falling and crashing headfirst into the dirt but he was uninjured. Victorian racing minister Rob Hulls...

Harry Reid (D-NV), current Senate Majority Leader, is concerned that the RNC may actually try to dethrone him in 2010. In a recent Las Vegas Review Journal article, Reid noted he is trying to raise a paltry $50,000 by midnight,December 31 – he currently has $2,750,000 in elections funds, most of the money coming from the gaming industry. This amount of cash on hand is a small sum to wage a “war” should the RNC launch a serious attack. Compared to John Kerry (D-MA), who recently won re-election, and is in “safe” state for Democrats - he has a decent...

This editorial from Investor's Business Daily is worth the read.And, this part is worth a fleeting note: Part of it has to do with Reid's rise to Senate minority leader and then majority leader in 2006. His constituents increasingly feel left behind. Sherman Frederick, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wrote in 2006: " 'Sen. Reid;s undoing came early in his last term when he became a big shot in the Democratic Party and quickly morphed into someone Nevada voters did not recognize - his political girlfreind in the House, uber-liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.' "

Politics: The senator who called the president a liar and never apologized may have worn out his welcome in his home state. Harry Reid may be riding the liberal agenda into political oblivion.In 2004, Republicans defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle largely on the theme that he neglected his home state in favor of national party interests. The GOP is hoping that in 2010 lightning will strike a second time, and Nevada polls indicate it may be more than wishful thinking. In 1998, Reid beat John Ensign by a hair-thin 428 votes. Ensign would go on to win Nevada's other...

Liberal Democrats like to say that if our government took all the money spent on the Iraq war it could pay for health insurance for all of the uinsured. Well, that may be, however, the Iraq war was a matter of national security. Regardless of what one believes, the purpose of the war was to prevent another terrorist attack. However, there is something liberal Democrats can do to help the government pay for the uninsured. This won't require changing the insurance status of the 90% of Americans who are very satisfied with the current system. Liberal Democrats just need to...

Former U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is playing a key role in shaping a healthcare reform compromise measure, analysts say. Daschle, who withdrew his nomination to be President Barack Obama's "health reform czar" in February after coming under fire for not paying certain taxes, has been ubiquitous in behind-the-scenes moves to forge an agreement establishing non-profit insurance cooperatives as an alternative to a government-run "public option" plan, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Six months have passed since the morning when Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, under fire for not paying certain taxes, called President Obama in his study off the Oval Office to withdraw his nomination as health secretary and reform czar. But these days it often seems as if Mr. Daschle never left the picture. With unrivaled ties on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, he talks constantly with top White House advisers, many of whom previously worked for him. He still speaks frequently to the president, who met with him as recently as Friday morning in the Oval Office....

Six months have passed since the morning when Tom Daschle, a former Senate Democratic leader, under fire for not paying certain taxes, called President Obama in his study off the Oval Office to withdraw his nomination as health secretary and reform czar. But these days it often seems as if Mr. Daschle never left the picture. With unrivaled ties on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, he talks constantly with top White House advisers, many of whom previously worked for him. He still speaks frequently to the president, who met with him as recently as Friday morning in the Oval Office....

Former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle's visit to the Oval Office on Friday, at the invitation of President Obama, was more than just a meeting between two loyal friends and political allies. It also served as a reminder of what might have been. As Obama's health-care agenda teeters in Congress, the White House listed the private meeting on the president's public schedule, sending a signal that Obama is still consulting Daschle on his top domestic policy priority. An assiduous student of health policy and an adept creature of the Senate, Daschle was Obama's first pick to oversee his reforms,...

Oval Office Visit Hints at Daschle's Role President Consulting Man He Once Wanted as Czar on the Issue By Philip Rucker and Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, August 22, 2009 Former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle's visit to the Oval Office on Friday, at the invitation of President Obama, was more than just a meeting between two loyal friends and political allies. It also served as a reminder of what might have been. As Obama's health-care agenda teeters in Congress, the White House listed the private meeting on the president's public schedule, sending a signal that...

Per Fox, Obama is huddling with former senator Daschle, who was dropped as HHS secretary when it was discovered that Daschle is a tax cheat. According to Fox, Obamacare is hung-up on a House that insists upon the "public option" (i.e. destroying all private insurance companies) and the Senate's failure to have enough Dems supporting the "public option." Reportedly, Obama and Daschle have been in daily contact on passing Obamacare.

Tax Tips: what's good for the goose...By Jeff Quinn Special to the Bonanza Wednesday, July 22, 2009 INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — The people presently in charge of the government are very good at taking shots at the practices employed by privately-managed businesses. But we guess there must be different rules applicable to those in control. So will somebody kindly enlighten the citizenry as to some of the recent shenanigans employed by the Social Security Administration, whose “motivational management conference” held recently at a high class Arizona resort managed to consume some $700,000 of taxpayer funds? Phoenix local TV (ABC-15) raised...

Sen. Tom Daschle, Rep. Jason Altmire, Healthcare Experts Tout Homecare As Cost-Effective Solution In The Healthcare Reform ProcessArticle Date: 26 Jul 2009 - 0:00 PDT During a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) stressed the cost-effective role that homecare can play in the reform of the U.S. healthcare system. The roundtable also addressed the controversial competitive bidding program for home medical equipment and services. The American Association for Homecare hosted the event, which was attended by congressional staff and media. Senator Daschle and Representative Altmire...

"I’ve got to own up to my mistake. Ultimately, it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes," Obama said on NBC’s "Nightly News with Brian Williams." "I'm frustrated with myself, with our team. ... I'm here on television saying I screwed up," Obama said on NBC. He repeated virtually the same words in interviews with other TV anchors. Worried about 'a distraction' Daschle said in a brief letter to Obama that he refused to...

“Health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” – Former Senator Tom Daschle, on Obama’s plan to ration health care

Tom Daschle, the man originally tapped to lead President Obama's health care push, is now urging him to drop the idea of offering a government-run plan. According to ABC, the former Democratic Senate Majority leader had this to say: "While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's...

So the president appoints Daschle originally, finds out he's a tax cheat, reinforces his support, accepts withdrawal, admits mistake, then appoints him to another position that will receive less public scrutiny? Does Daschle need a job that badly?

CBS Evening News: Educational Nonprofit Under Fire For Transporting Politicians With Money That Could Have Gone To Students ### Educap is a multibillion-dollar student loan charity run by CEO Catherine Reynolds. As CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported Monday night, Educap is under investigation by the IRS and Congress for alleged abuse of its tax-exempt status because it charges high interest on charitable student loans, and provides lavish perks with millions in compensation for Reynolds and her husband. CBS News has obtained exclusive details of what may have been the biggest charity perk: use of Educap's $31 million luxury...

Subject: Daschle, Rangel, Dodd and Bertrand de Juvenal Jonah, I picked up De Juvenal’s The Ethics of Redistribution and came across this timely quote in the introduction: “We may well wonder which of these two closely linked phenomena is predominant: whether it is redistribution or centralization. We may ask ourselves whether what we are dealing with is not a political even more than a social phenomenon. This political phenomenon consists in the demolition of the class enjoying ‘independent means’ and in the massing of means in the hands of managers. This results in a transfer of power from individuals to...

When Tom Daschle's highly publicized tax problems derailed his bid to become secretary of health and human services two weeks ago, it slammed the breaks on the momentum of one of President Obama's biggest campaign promises — health care coverage for all Americans. No potential HHS candidate has emerged yet who has inspired the excitement and passion many health care reform advocates — both on and off Capitol Hill — expressed for Mr. Daschle. When Mr. Obama nominated Mr. Daschle for the HHS post in November, Ron Pollack, executive director of the liberal health care advocacy group Families USA, called...

The 1,000+ pages of President Obama’s so-called economic stimulus bill contains language establishing a new National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (NCHIT) bureaucracy that will be charged with tracking and prescribing “allowable” health care treatments for all Americans. The new bureaucracy was the “brain child” of Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee, former senator Tom Daschle (D-S. Dak). “Health care costs in this country have been getting out of hand because we’re spending too much on the wrong treatments for the wrong people,” Daschle contended. “The current anarchic system allows individuals to make selfish choices that may not...

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported on a stealth provision in Porkulus that would set the stage for federal diktats in patient care.   The bill created a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, a Tom Daschle pet project that would study the effectiveness of patient treatments and set federal rules on which treatments would be allowed by health-care providers throughout the US.  As Betsy McCaughey reported, Daschle’s vision was to eliminate costly treatments and slow progress on medicine: Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties.  “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill....

President Obama has lost his pivotal health care "Czar." But forget about uncorking the bottles to celebrate. Someone will soon take his place. Background Just two days after the voters of South Dakota dispatched three-term Senator Tom Daschle to private life in 2004, this column (in a previous incarnation) gave him a big sendoff — "Let the door hit you on the way out." That was in part a reference to the fact that Daschle — a coldly liberal lawmaker who had survived politically by paying mere lip service to his constituents — was finally ousted when voters connected the...

Unable to post text from a Gannett newspaper. To summarize, Moveon.org is trying to derail Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's consideration for Health and Human Services Secretary. They claim Bredesen gutted TennCare, the state insurance program for the uninsured. Bredesen did cut services in TennCare to keep it solvent. He's a democrat who leans more towards fiscal conservatism than your typical beltway Dem. He has repeatedly refused to get on the "we need an income tax" bandwagon and simply said we need to live within our means. Link to Story

It's Worse Than We Thought By Doug Patton February 10, 2009 Perhaps it was all the hoopla about the historic nature of Barack Obama's presidency. Maybe the hype of election night and all that talk about wishing our first black president well actually made us all believe, for just a fleeting moment in time, that things would not be as bad as we feared they would be. It turns out they are worse. -snip- McCaughey reports that the bill calls for all medical treatments to be tracked electronically by a new federal bureaucracy known as the National Coordinator of Health...

Despite Daschle, Health Reform To Be a ‘Central Focus’ of Obama BudgetFebruary 9, 2009, 9:29 am Posted by Sarah Rubenstein Tom Daschle’s recent withdrawal from the HHS nomination has some people worried about the prospects for major health reform. Those folks may take some solace in something a senior administration official told the Treatment, the New Republic’s nifty health-care blog: Health care will be a “central focus” of Obama’s first budget proposal. The specifics are far from clear, but the comment is a signal that the administration isn’t giving up on health reform. In anonymous interviews with the New Republic,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Kathleen Sebelius, the pro-abortion governor of Kansas who has been criticized for supporting late-term abortions, is now seen as the most likely pick for Health Secretary. Should President Barack Obama select her, it would add to his growing pro-abortion record as president. Obama must find a new Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department because his previous selection, pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle, removed his name from consideration after a scandal over his not paying taxes properly. Pro-life groups complained about the Daschle nomination because the senator backed abortion and could craft a federal health...

What a start for Obama By Ralph R. ReilandMonday, February 9, 2009 "Well, That Certainly Didn't Take Long" was the headline on Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times last Wednesday.Dowd, unswervingly a Bush-basher and pro-Obama over the past two years, was referring to Obama's success in knocking himself off his elevated pedestal within two weeks of his inauguration.Obama and his "arrogant attitude" went "SPLAT" (caps in Dowd's original) after a "cascade of appointments who 'forgot' to pay taxes" and the development of a "helter-skelter stimulus package." Rasmussen Reports survey on Feb. 2 found that only 37 percent of...

For 12 years I collected taxes for the federal government. I was a field officer, knocking on doors in every kind of neighborhood, from gated subdivision to dilapidated trailer park. I collected millions of dollars, some of it voluntarily repaid to the Treasury, some after a bit of friendly persuasion, and some only after I took something. A car. A boat. A house. There was no profile of your typical delinquent taxpayer in the thousands of cases I worked. White, black, rich, poor, young, old, sick, healthy . . . the only things they had in common were that they...

An IRS survey finds that nearly nine in 10 Americans think it is "not at all" acceptable to cheat on your taxes. Although the survey was conducted in late August, its release comes as Tom Daschle, President Barack Obama's nominee to be Health and Human Services secretary, has acknowledged failing to pay more than $120,000 in taxes. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had similar problems on a smaller scale.

My sources tell me President Obama had a heads-up on Tom Daschle's tax problems nine days before they came out in the press. I'm also told that Daschle offered to step aside as Obama's health and human services secretary nominee before the story got out, but that Obama, who thinks of Daschle as some kind of father figure, said "no." If that's how it happened, then the new president wins the Rookie of the Week award, hands down. He should have accepted Daschle's offer then and there. Obama was being loyal. But in this business, sooner or later you learn...

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." —President Obama, Feb. 4Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill. And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the...

Health Care Politics: The Obama White House had high hopes that Tom Daschle could push (or sneak) its reform scheme into law. Sounds a little like the Hillarycare syndrome to us.Looking back on the scope of Daschle's tax transgressions, you might wonder why the president stuck with him as long as he did. Here's a guess: Obama needed a legislative technician, and Daschle fit the bill. As one insider, John Podesta, told the Washington Post, Daschle "was the right guy for the job of leading the department (of Health and Human Services) and finally getting health care reform across the...

Writing in the National Journal Magazine, political analyst Charlie Cook opines that President Barack Obama had better start playing his own game, or his administration is going to get labeled incompetent. Cook, who edits the respected "Cook Political Report," writes that, with such stains on the record as Sen. Tom Daschle’s withdrawal as Health and Human Services secretary nominee, embarrassing disclosures about Treasury nominee Timothy Geithner’s taxes, and a stimulus package that has run up against a wall of criticism, President Obama may be setting himself up for the shortest honeymoon in presidential history.

Today the African-American lady who is the mother of one of the victims of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole refused to meet with Obama in the wake of the throwing out of the case against the Jihadist bomb-master due to a recent Executive Order by Obama regarding Guantanamo. What else have we seen in just two weeks? What else can go wrong?

Picture the scene: a dignified Ted Kennedy stands beside President Barack Obama on a brisk, late winter day in the Rose Garden. Mr. Obama laments the events that caused him to withdraw the nomination of his anointed healthcare-reform czar, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, as Health and Human Services Secretary. Reaching back to the lofty rhetoric of his campaign, he implores his audience to look past his own lapse in judgment and seize the opportunity to implement sweeping national reform that puts health insurance within reach for the millions already uninsured – and the millions more whose coverage is...

WASHINGTON -- Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill. And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall...

Tom Daschle hasn't always been driven around in corporate paid limos. Once upon a time, back in the days of political expediency, Tommy D could barely afford floormats and Penzoil. Before he began telling us how to treat our health lives, he was telling us how to live our financial lives. In this timely YouTube recovery, Tom railed on the ills of Washington's limousine-elite, a mere decade before he became one. link...Get your dirty farm hands off my paintjob!... Don't hate Tom Daschle because he changed. Hate Tom Daschle because he is didn't pay his taxes, tried to get his...

“Nobody is perfect” was the not-so-profound observation of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs over the past several days as he tried to fend off criticism of the tax troubles of three top appointees. One of the three -- Timothy Geithner -- survived congressional and public scrutiny and was confirmed as secretary of treasury. But former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle -- who made a bundle in speaking fees and giving advice to health-care companies after he was defeated for re-election -- felt compelled to bow out from his nomination as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services...

President Obama, who swept to the White House on a message of hope and inspiration, is struggling to contend with a different emotion among Americans -- anger. Livid about their own vanished jobs and decimated retirement accounts, people across the country are being subjected to story after story about the excesses of the wealthy: the $18 billion paid out in Wall Street bonuses last year, the $35,000 chest of drawers for the Merrill Lynch chief executive's office, the planned Wells Fargo retreat in Las Vegas. This week, they got a new target: an Obama Cabinet nominee who had earned millions...

Reading this morning's dispatches from the scene of the Daschle crash -- everyone gingerly stepping through the wreckage, trying to comprehend the forces that generated such a highlight-reel wipeout -- it seems obvious that it had to end this way. It ended because the alternative was class warfare (enthusiastically stoked, no doubt, by partisans and media loudmouths). Yeah: A Shays Rebellion for our time. Peasants with pitchforks. Tom Daschle had to be jettisoned in an attempt to stave off a tax revolt that could potentially drain the Treasury faster than even the porkiest "recovery" bill. Officially, he withdrew without being...

Andrea Mitchell feels badly for tax-dodgin’ Tom Daschle. She really does. “I just got off the phone with Tom Daschle,” she said sympathetically on MSNBC. “And it was an emotional conversation…it sounded as though he were tearful, overwrought.” When Republican Senator Jim DeMint contended that Democrat support for Daschle’s nomination had wavered, Mitchell was clearly upset. “You can say that the Democrats were uncomfortable as well,” Mitchell lectured, “but they were all supporting him publicly.” “So this does read to the public as though the Republicans went after this man,” she wondered aloud, “someone that the President very much wanted,...

In the end, Tom Daschle had to go, not because of his tax problems, but because he had allowed a glimpse inside the Obama sausage factory. And what folks saw could have made even a certain peanut plant look pristine by comparison. It can be argued that Daschle's tax avoidance was less egregious than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's, even though the amount was substantially more....

I’m sure you’ve seen that one. It was a picture comparing various expressions of President Bush to various expressions of a monkey that made the rounds on the internet? Liberals circulated a lot of funny little pictures of Bush on the internet… didn’t they. Well, I thought it would be a good time to return the favor. I plan on returning a lot of favors in the years to come…oodles of them, one might say. I thought about responding in kind, but I’m not about to make it that easy for the libs. I do, however, plan on showing Barack...

REVIEW & OUTLOOKFEBRUARY 4, 2009 Tom Daschle's Washington His riches illustrate the expanding power of the political class. Just as Tom Daschle's Senate pals were preparing to grant absolution for his six-figure tax-free limousine -- could've happened to anyone -- the former Majority Leader yesterday withdrew his nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. Give Mr. Daschle credit for making the honorable choice, and sparing President Obama from a bipartisan populist revolt. Before this episode vanishes into Beltway lore, however, it's worth drawing a few lessons. Especially because the political left seems to want to make this a...