Now It's Daschle's "Honest Mistake"

Obama's pick for secretary of Health and Human Services apparently failed to pay more than $128,000 in taxes.

But after this disclosure, Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said, "The president has confidence that Senator Daschle is the right person to lead the fight for health care reform."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

McCaskill and "Idiots"

At first glance of the article's title, one could be forgiven for thinking Senator McCaskill was referring to her voters when she said, "These people are idiots."

Nope. She didn't mean them.

The "idiots" to whom she was referring are people who are laughing all the way to the bank, as they say.

So, who's the real idiot, Senator McCaskill?

Lower Mortgage Costs!!

Obama is promising lower mortgage costs.

Before you start celebrating, take note of what groups you are in.



First, determine you tax group:

1. You pay taxes
2. You pay little or no taxes

Next, determine your mortgage group:

1. You pay your mortgage
2. You are behind on your mortgage, but current on your cable TV bill

Now the results:

If you are in the b-b group, consider yourself a winner! Your mortgage costs, according to Obama, will be going down--and you won't have to pay any price for it.

For those unfortunate ones in the a-a group, you can consider your mortgage costs as increasing, because your taxes (or your future taxes) will most definitely be going up.

"Living Beyond Our Means"

How I loathe coming across--as I so often do--the phrase: "we have been living beyond our means." The authors, of course, are always referring to our country in general.

It really disgusts me.

Accuracy would require the phrase to be something like: "the unproductive have been living beyond the productive's means."

I'll leave out political labels for now... but you know who you are.

Cramer on Geithner

I found this interesting video of Jim Cramer talking about Timothy Geithner.

Height of Irresponsibility?

Today Barack Obama said:

"When I saw an article today that indicates that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses, the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004, at a time when most of these institutions are teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help then the entire system could come down on top of our heads, that is the height of irresponsibility."

What, you might wonder, could be more irresponsible than that? Our government giving the money to the bankers! Now that's irresponsible.

More on Geithner

I read an amazing opinion piece by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal this morning.

To say that it could have been written by Mr. Geithner's mother is a bit of a stretch; she likely wouldn't have described her son as a "tax scofflaw." But for Daniel Henninger to liken rejection of Mr. Geithner to a "witch-burning" is one of the most absurd comparisons I have read in a serious journal for quite some time.

If cheating on taxes doesn't disqualify one from becoming Treasury secretary then nothing does.

Federalism... But Only When It's Convenient

Principles are in short supply among politicians and pundits alike. It's one of many sad statements one could make about public discourse today that is, unfortunately, hardly debatable.

The freedom of speech we enjoy wouldn't mean much if people didn't say things that offended people. Likewise, Federalism wouldn't be significant if all the states in our union marched in lockstep.

California's desire to impose stricter standards on automobile emissions isn't something I necessarily support. However, I strongly support their right to make this decision for themselves.

More often than not, Bill Kristol is a man of reason. Unfortunately, all too often he makes me think I'm wrong in that assessment.

Timothy Geithner

Timothy Geithner is purported to be the only man in America that can get our economy back on track. Yet he a made an "honest mistake" for several years by neglecting to pay certain taxes he owed.

Either Mr. Geithner is not the genius people portray him to be and is therefore not qualified to be Treasury secretary, or he is a dishonest tax cheat and is therefore not qualified to be Treasury secretary.

The Obama team's stunning display of selective ethics and judgment can be seen in this enlightening 2 minute video of Rahm Emanuel on Meet the Press broadcast on January 18th 2009.