Free Republic

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...

If Tom Daschle's failure to pay taxes was enough to keep him out of the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Nancy Killefer's failure to pay taxes was enough to keep her out of the job of chief performance officer, why is Charlie Rangel's failure to pay taxes on thousands of dollars of annual rental income, for about 20 years in a row, not expected to amount to anything? He's boasting that the House Ethics Committee is going to give him a pass. If so, it'll be a whitewash,

Well now, that certainly didn't take all that long, did it? Nearing the end of yesterdays program we got word that Nancy Killefer was out. I thought that maybe she was being tossed to the wolves by Obama as a sacrificial lamb to give them something to chew on. Not so. She was a domino .. not a lamb .. and the next to fall was none other than the man with the Sally Jesse Rafael glasses, Tom Terrific himself, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Lordy, what a shame. Then later in the day we find out even more...

If Tom Daschle had his way, Tom Daschle would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for failing to pay his taxes. At least according to the old Tom Daschle, who gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor about the scourge of tax scofflaws. "Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter," the former Senate Majority Leader said in 1998 during a debate on a bill reforming the Internal Revenue Service. [video at source link]

Two weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama proved that even a clearly gifted politician cannot escape the gravitational pull of Washington forces that he has vowed to reform.

I just read a most amusing column at Marketwatch.com written by Mark Hulbert. The title reads “Is Obama Too Popular?” (for the market). The column suggests that there may be a correlation between presidential approval ratings and market performance in a way most people would not expect. Hulbert wrote “Though it might initially strike you as odd that the stock market would perform poorly when a president's rating is very high, it actually makes sense.” Yes it does make sense, perfect sense but for a different reason than...

On 9/11, President Bush learned of disaster while reading “The Pet Goat” to grade-school kids. On Tuesday, President Obama escaped from disaster by reading “The Moon Over Star” to grade-school kids. “We were just tired of being in the White House,” the two-week-old president, with Michelle at his side, explained to students at a public charter school near the White House. Even as he told the children his favorite superheroes were Batman and Spider-Man, his own dream of being the superhero who swoops in to swiftly save America was going SPLAT! It just ain’t that easy. Unlike W. and Dick...

The Federal Government is spending money like a Congressman adding pork to unrelated legislation, and has now had to resort to printing money to keep up with spending. The simple solution is for President Obama to line up several dozen candidates for open Cabinet positions. The Democrat candidate will pay back taxes and penalties, the media and public will find out about the candidate being a tax cheat, the candidate will step down, another one will come forward, the cycle repeats, and the Treasury will be replenished.

LISTEN LIVE:SOUND OFF CONNECTICUT WITH JIM VICEVICH: 9AM TILL RUSH Sound off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9am - Noon Jim Vicevich hosts "Sound off Connecticut" every weekday morning and although he tends to lean to the right "Sound off Connecticut" welcomes and encourages viewpoints from every side. So call in and voice your opinion. This is your chance to "sound off." http://www.wtic.com/Sound-off-Connecticut-with-Jim-Vicevich-9am---Noon/14065 TO LISTEN LIVE to the regular staion broadcast, cick here: http://www.wticam.com

How to Avoid a Tom Daschle Tax ProblemRON LIEBER Last Modified: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 5:21 a.m. In just a couple of hours on Tuesday, two high-level nominees for jobs in the Obama administration took themselves out of the running because of tax problems that they could have avoided. So what sort of mess is lurking in your return? Tom Daschle, who was to head the Health and Human Services Department, had income that he didn’t report in a timely fashion. Nancy Killefer, who was Mr. Obama’s nominee for chief White House performance officer, had a nanny tax problem....

<p>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.</p>