Senator from Connecticut is Microcosm of Congress–DODDering Old Fools

March 18, 2009

 

 

The ink was barely dry on my posting from this morning when the silver-haired old whore from Connecticut I had taken to task retreated from his sanctimonious position about AIG bonuses, and did a 180 degree turnabout. After spending all day Tuesday blustering feigned outrage at AIG, Christopher Dodd reversed course today and admitted that he not only was complicit in the bonus shenanigans, but was actually responsible for the language attached to the federal stimulus bill which allowed the incompetents at AIG to gorge at the public trough.

 

I honestly don’t understand where these vipers get the stones to show their faces. They have absolutely NO SHAME!!! Most people when caught in a lie at least have a smattering of contrition and the good sense to lay low for a while. But Dodd has been lying, cheating, and stealing for so long, he simply doesn’t possess any mechanism within him for turning off the switch.

 

My question is…when are we going to tell the pious members of our beloved Congress that they shouldn’t be accepting their salaries for their mind-blowing ineptitude? It’s one thing to be useless, we expect that from those self-serving clowns. But at the very least our Congressmen should heed the basic tenet of medicine that says, “First, do no harm.”

Sadly, that ship has already sailed, and only the rich and privileged have life jackets.

Obama is Too Big To Fail

 

 

March 19, 2009

 

Is the honeymoon over yet? Can we all finally admit that a mere two months into his term, Barack’s administration is every bit as conniving, irresponsible, deceitful, shameless, arrogant, greedy, devious, carnivorous, treacherous, and calculating as George Bush’s ever was?

 

The entire country is crumbling from within, and Obama’s team members are busy covering their tails about the ever-growing AIG scandal as they’ve all been exposed as liars, even as they continue to dole out our money to select pork projects and friends on Wall Street. If the phrase hadn’t been outlawed, we could have them labeled as “enemy combatants”?

 

So much for change.

 

We are on the verge of real revolution here, folks. People are furious, and sweeping reforms need to be made, and where is the Messiah through all this chaos? He’s filling out his NCAA hoops bracket on ESPN and cracking wise with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. This man is a serious egomaniac and all you Obama voters were had. His ascendancy to the presidency was built on an everyman’s appeal that soon morphed into hero worship, and was sped along by a fawning media that refused to ask the tough questions and failed to understand that a lawyer raised in Chicago politics could in no possible way be honest.

 

But what is alarming is how much this guy loves himself. Watching him on Leno was terrifying. I firmly believe his only desire for the presidency was rooted in self-gratification and his need for attention and adulation. He has no interest in the people beyond how much they’ll genuflect at his feet. Not that this is unusual for politicians, but it’s telling that whenever someone asks him what it’s like to be president, he immediately mentions the perks. On Leno, he talked about how cool it was to wear his jacket with the presidential logo on Air Force One. Virtually every time I see him speak, he mentions the Secret Service, so we all know how important he is. We are, after all, talking about a man so impressed with himself that he wrote two autobiographies by the age of forty-five when no one had heard of him save the handful of politically aware Americans that watched his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

 

This guy would be an empty suit if it weren’t for his puffed chest, but everyone is still enthralled. The media is his biggest enabler. Last night on the Hannity show, Phil Donahue gushed that, “His smile could save us all.” Even Obama’s wife is getting in on the act. Two weeks ago CNN’s Jack Cafferty wrote on the CNN website, “I think I am developing a crush on America’s First Lady. Michelle Obama is more compelling than her husband. He’s good, but she’s utterly fascinating.” And, of course, we all remember Chris Matthews’ man-crush on the Messiah when upon hearing an Obama speech he spurted, “I felt this thrill going up my leg.”

 

Well it’s time for the pretty boy to roll up his sleeves and get to work instead of gallivanting across the countryside having his ass kissed. Taxpayer money is flying out of the vault while Congress berates Wall Street executives for legislation that Congress passed, and Barack is turning a blind eye to all the corruption among his crew. Remember when bills were going to be put online for five days before being voted on, so the American people could have a look at them? That promise, like all the others, went the way of the horse and buggy once the Messiah secured his fiefdom.

 

This man is dangerous, but the American media won’t take him to task. They have too much invested. And Obama is too big to fail.

A-I-Gee, It Wasn’t My Fault

 

March 18, 2009

 

Seriously, folks…it’s way past time we throw the tea in the harbor…or better yet, drop a bomb on anything that moves in Washington. The American people are being bent over like Barney Frank at a Fire Island biker party, and there is no end in sight as the finger-pointing has just begun.

 

Amid the hue and cry about AIG executive bonuses, the loudest voices are those of our beloved, two-faced Congressmen screeching their indignation about payouts they engineered and wondering why there was no “oversight” to the billions and billions being taken from the taxpayers’ pockets. They conveniently leave out the part about how they ramrodded 1000-page legislations into law, literally overnight, and against the will of the people, without bothering to read them. “Something has to be done now,” they intoned. Now they profess ignorance of the bills’ pesky little fine points that allow AIG’s “best and brightest” to receive bonuses so obscene that the notion of a mere $100,000 salary is considered destitution.

 

“This is another outrageous example of executives-including those whose decisions were responsible for the problems that caused AIG’s collapse-enriching themselves at the expense of the taxpayers,” cried Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, all three of his chins quivering in mock outrage. Dodd didn’t mention that during last year’s campaign cycle he was the largest recipient of AIG campaign contributions. He also failed to discuss his massive role in the current economic meltdown as he blocked legislation for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and received sweetheart loans from Countrywide, one of the largest villains in the mortgage crisis. Like father, like son. Dodd’s old man was a crook, too. Thomas Dodd was censured by the Senate in 1967 for using campaign money for personal purposes, and, mercifully for the good people of Connecticut, died of a heart attack in 1970 before he could put his sticky fingers into the till again.

 

John McCain was on the Hannity show last night expressing his outrage-as much as that Cigar Store Indian automaton can express outrage-at the malfeasance being committed by his brethren and cronies against the “American people.” Always the “American people.” McCain was the one who, in a grand choreographed flourish, interrupted his presidential campaign last September to “return to Washington” so he could spearhead the first government bailout. To think that McCain was the next best choice to the Messiah last November is not only stunning, but downright terrifying.

 

Now, it turns out, tax cheat and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, knew about the AIG bonuses, but did nothing to stop them even as taxpayer money was being back-hoed into AIG coffers. Geithner is now in the unenviable position of having to admit ignorance, or admit culpability. Either way, he’s thoroughly incompetent, but that’s hardly cause for concern in Washington where ignorance, inculpability, and incompetence are the order of the day. “We’re doing more in weeks than other countries do in years,” Geithner proclaimed last week while trying to sell the ever-continuing three-card Monte the government is playing on the taxpayers. Geithner is as oily as they get, and he looks every bit the entitled, smug, little Ivy League liar that he is.

 

But they say you get what you deserve, and in the case of the American people, this is eminently true. Americans, as a whole, are painfully stupid about most things, but especially politics. All those exit polls where Betty Sue and Billy Joe are interviewed after voting are great fodder for Jay Leno and Jon Stewart (America’s main source for “news”), but also offer a glimpse at the swirling eddy we are now beyond escaping. Americans, the media tells us, are angry, but they continue to re-elect incumbents at well over a 90% clip. Most, I’m sure, are unaware that you can vote for someone besides the cynical and scheming mountebanks from the two major parties. Alas, the brainless among us can hardly be convinced to pull a third-party lever when they’re pre-occupied texting their votes into American Idol. “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them,” Patrick Henry once said during the American Revolution. Indeed.

We’ll Soon See if Barack Goes BRRR–AAA–CCCKKKK!

March 14, 2009

 

You can call Joe Biden a lot of things: loudmouth, loose cannon, plagiarizer. Now add prescient to the list. CNN reported today that Russia’s Interfax news agency has announced its interest in using Cuban airfields during patrol missions of its strategic bombers. Just as Biden predicted during the campaign at a speech in Seattle, we may be seeing the “major international crisis” that he expected to test the fortitude of our new Commander-in-Appeasement, Barack Obama.

“There are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us,” Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev told Interfax.

Zhikharev, who is the chief of staff of the Russian Air Force’s long-range aviation, said, “If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there.”

Hopefully Barack will have fulfilled his promise of closing Guantanamo by the time the Russians arrive—the base will make suitable quarters for the Cossacks, whom Barack will, no doubt, eagerly welcome in his new global community.

“Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” Biden said back in October. “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here . . . we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

So here we have it. As so often happens, history is repeating itself, and we’re going to soon see if our new prez has the gumption to go nose-to-nose with Vladimir Putin, who has been busy rebuilding the Soviet empire by slapping down Chechen rebels and invading Georgia while Obama has been tilting at windmills. Presumably, Putin won’t agree to a game of H-O-R-S-E to negotiate matters, and the silk-talking Obama will have to finally use some tough rhetoric to conciliate the potentially disastrous engagement. Of course, we can always use Hillary, our new Secretary of State, as the point man. We’ll surely get a tough stance from the woman who didn’t have the balls to call out her husband when he was getting hummers in the Oval Office. God forbid, we may even find ourselves wishing for the good ol’ days when “W” was running the ranch.

But wait…it gets better. Zhikharev also told Interfax that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered a military airfield on La Orchila island as a temporary base for Russian strategic bombers.

“If a relevant political decision is made, this is possible,” he said, according to Interfax. Zhikharev said he visited La Orchila in 2008 and can confirm that with minor reconstruction, the airfield owned by a local naval base can accept fully-loaded Russian strategic bombers.

Let’s get Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon on that one, Mr. President. Penn’s jump shot is weak, and Sarandon is iffy with her back to the basket, but we know they can both go to their left. The fun is about to begin…I’ll take Putin laying the points.

Goodell Has no Gonads

 

February 20, 2009

 

If you checked the very back pages of your sports section today, you found the story tucked in among the daily transactions that the gutless NFL has decided to fine Steelers’ wide-receiver Santonio Holmes $10,000 for his end-zone celebration following his game-winning catch in Super Bowl XLIII. This fine, coming a full nineteen days after the fact must be music to the ears of referee Terry McAulay, whose crew was responsible for whistling a whopping eighteen penalties on game day, and now gets to tack on another for shits and grins. And on the nineteenth day, GOODELL created a nineteenth penalty.

 

Goodell, the tough-talking commissioner of the NFL, who wasn’t heard from the day after the game, when Cardinals fans were rightly upset at this missed call from a crew that hadn’t missed so much as an untied shoelace all day, snuck this fine through in typical NFL fashion…behind closed doors and under cover of night. Had the penalty been assessed during the game, as it should have been, the Cardinals would have been in excellent position to drive the field and win the game. But the NFL has long been in the business of apologizing for screw-ups that cost team games, usually throwing their own sacrificial lamb, Mike Pereira, the Vice President of Officiating, to the wolves.

 

This time, Goodell himself decided to woman up and offered the following feeble explanation. “As you know, part of this rule is to avoid having a reaction from opposing players and, from what I could see, only seeing it once, it didn’t seem like it was anywhere near that.” Sort of like saying the point of homicide laws is to prevent people from getting killed, but since Nicole Brown didn’t complain afterwards, we’ll let O.J. walk free. Oh, wait a minute–.

 

But don’t you worry….Goodell and Pereira are putting the finishing touches on a new rule that will fine players for wearing their socks too high. You can close the barn door now, Roger, the cows are gone.

Eric Holder…Hold This!!

 

February 20, 2009

So Eric Holder, our country’s new Attorney General, wants to have a discussion on race. He said so today during a speech honoring Black History Month. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. “Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”

Well, Mr. Holder, allow me to offer some insight as to why talks about race are lacking in this country. Perhaps it’s because such “talks” aren’t talks at all, but rather one-sided diatribes where black leaders recite grievances and blame everyone but blacks themselves for their inability to get their acts together. Perhaps it’s because blacks scream “racism” for any perceived slight and whites have to cower and take it lest they lose their jobs, are charged with hate crimes, or are socially ostracized.

But I, Mr. Holder, am not afraid of you, as to me you are just a sleazy remnant of the Bill Clinton administration. So let’s have that talk. Let’s talk about the fact that blacks make up 14% of the U.S. population but are 41% of the prison population. Let’s talk about the fact that 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. Let’s talk about the fact that blacks under perform every single racial and ethnic group on any standardized test—I know…it’s cultural bias. Nevertheless, Asians and students from the Middle East-many of whom don’t even speak the English language-outperform whites on said tests.

Let’s talk about the fact that black criminals prey on white victims for 45% of their crimes while whites prey on black victims a mere 3% of the time. Let’s talk about “black leaders” like Jesse Jackson, the Rev. who fathered a child out of wedlock, and blowhard Al Sharpton, who cry about injustices they manufacture like the Duke rape case and the Tawana Brawley hoax, but are largely silent when it comes to imploring their own to demonstrate personal responsibility.

Indeed, in the black community, those who choose to achieve are called sell-outs and Uncle Toms. Bill Cosby is routinely castigated for calling attention to the plight of inner cities where blacks complain about not being accepted in the mainstream even as they kill one another, refuse to speak the King’s English, and insist on retaining their “culture.” Success stories like Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas are derided as being too white, and even comedian Chris Rock admits that, “Books are like Kryptonite to a nigger.”

So while Holder wants to look the other way and disregard the billions of dollars thrown at the black problem in the form of welfare, affirmative action, college admission quotas, Section 8 housing, and myriad other social programs, he wants to look closely at, and have “talks” about, race. Be careful what you wish for Mr. Attorney General, because if all the fed-up middle-aged white guys take you up on your talks, we may decide we’ve had enough of carrying your race on our backs.

Golf is the Only Sport That Matters

 

 

February 2, 2009

 

 

The time has come, at last, to deposit the NFL in the “Dustbin of Sports” alongside the charter member NBA, steroid-abusing MLB, and the sports of cycling, boxing, tennis, and track and field. Yesterday the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII by defeating the Arizona Cardinals in a thriller, but what I’ll most remember about the game was the omnipresence of referee Terry McAulay who got more face time than Pacman Jones at a sleazy strip club. The game was awash in penalties—18 accepted in all—and violated what used to be an understood maxim in big games…”Let ‘em play.”

 

But the NFL becomes more and more ludicrous with each passing season. Terry McAulay and his crew essentially took away any rhythm that might have otherwise been established. I’m not going to cry for the Cardinals…there were egregious calls on both sides of the ball, but it did seem as if the Cards got the short end of the stick. A ridiculous late hit call on Ben Roethlisberger, a no-ejection on James Harrison for a street mugging, a ticky-tack chop block call on Edgerrin James, and a critical no-call on what should have been a no-brainer when Santonio Holmes used the ball as a prop in his end-zone celebration after scoring the winning TD. And then, on the last play of the game, with everything at stake, the booth review team thought it unnecessary to have a look at Kurt Warner’s fumble—even though numerous viewings of the tape still don’t yield a definitive answer.

 

This is the same Terry McAulay whose crew screwed the Titans in their playoff game against the Ravens earlier in the Divisional playoffs when they missed a delay of game penalty on the Ravens on a play in which Baltimore converted a key third down and then went on to kick the winning field goal. Ed Hochuli, he of the big arms and even bigger ego, cost the Chargers a game earlier in the season against Denver, but he was rewarded with the Dolphins-Titans playoff game. Refereeing is becoming worse and worse and I believe it’s largely due to instant replay—the fix has become the problem.

 

The rules state video evidence must be “indisputable,” but this rule seems to be skirted when it’s convenient. The very same Santonio Holmes who scored yesterday’s game-winner, was involved in a goal-line controversy against the Ravens in the regular season and was awarded a TD after referee Walt Coleman determined the ball had crossed the goal-line even though the call on the field was no TD, and replays were inconclusive. Walt Coleman was the referee who put in his biggest fix by invoking the “Tuck Rule,” which essentially allowed the New England Patriots to win a Super Bowl they shouldn’t have even been playing in.

 

With the media all in a lather today about the non-review of the Kurt Warner play, NOT A ONE ever addresses the most indefensible aspect of instant replay: Why aren’t coaches allowed to challenge in the last two minutes of either half? Think about how preposterous this is…at the most critical junctures of the game, coaches have to rely on the Pooh-Bahs in the booth to seek justice. And the NFL wonders why people think the fix is in.

 

The NBA is already one hundred percent devoid of credibility. Referee Tim Donaghy is doing time as we speak for using “inside information” to alter the outcome of games, and commissioner David Stern would have us believe he’s a “rogue.” But the truth is no one takes the NBA seriously anymore as it is officiated by blind old men who don’t even bother with the rules anymore….traveling is so epidemic they’ve actually coined a term for a rules violation and players are lauded for their ability to “jump stop.” A typical Kobe Bryant drive to the hoop features more steps than an A.A. meeting, but this rapist is the poster boy for the league.

 

The inmates have always run the asylum in the NBA. All-time top-50 player Scottie Pippen once famously refused to enter a game when the last play wasn’t called for him. Toni Kukoc went on to hit the game-winner, justifying the play call, but Pippen sulked that he didn’t get the rock. And this year Stephon Marbury, who has ruined every team he’s played for, is being paid $21.9 million by the Knicks to wear street clothes and pout. He’s what passes for a superstar in this most ridiculous of all leagues.

 

Major League Baseball is composed of greedy, hormone-injected musclemen who whine about everything and are given outrageous long-term contracts based on “upside”, which they demand to renegotiate as soon as they’ve done something as pedestrian as hit .280 with 25 homers. Pitchers who throw a mere 200 innings are considered “workhorses” and the universally acknowledged “strongest union in sports”—the Major League Baseball Players Association—refuses to honor any other unions’ work stoppages.

 

Tennis players routinely tank for appearance fees, and recent gambling probes have uncovered strange “betting patterns” on several matches. The seeding system at tennis tournaments ensures that the best players don’t face any good opponents until the semi-finals or finals, and its instant replay system makes it incumbent on the player to do the umpire’s job.

 

Track and field doesn’t even make any pretense of being on the up-and-up anymore. Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, and countless other Olympians have been banned from the sport and/or jailed for illegal steroid use. And cycling, widely considered the dirtiest sport, was until recently dominated by Lance Armstrong, a former cancer victim and seven-time Tour de France winner who tries to tell us with a straight face that in a sport where mere seconds or even hundredths of seconds decide the outcome, he–as a clean athlete—was defeating rivals who were using.

 

This all brings me finally to golf. There will be the naysayers who will say golf isn’t even a “sport,” but virtually every pro athlete plays the game and is frustrated by his inability to master it. The sainted Michael Jordan is a weekend hack despite his lies to the contrary. The game requires power to drive the ball 300-plus yards, accuracy to hit the ball close (as Sam Snead once said, “We have to play our foul balls.”), and touch, tempered by nerves of steel, to put the ball in the cup. There are no teammates to pick up the slack when you have an off-day, and the only penalties called are those you call on yourself. What an outrageous concept! Fair play and integrity!!

 

What’s more….golfers actually have to EARN their money!!! There are no contracts, long-term, short-term, or otherwise. Each and every year, players have to perform well enough to keep their cards…those that don’t wind up grinding it out on lesser tours where the money pales next to that of the PGA Tour.

 

Golf courses are blissfully free of the obnoxious music and histrionics that medicate the brain-dead and attention-span challenged fans of most other sports; and save the occasional “you da man”, golf is free of the hip-hop generation of fans who think they’re entitled to inject themselves into the play on the field. Golfers are well-spoken and almost without exception (John Daly aside) don’t make the tabloids or police blotters. And if you can name the last time Tiger Woods tanked, I’ll buy you a lifetime of free dinners.

 

I grew up a sports freak, but with each passing year, I find myself becoming less and less interested. I gave up on the NBA years ago, baseball followed shortly thereafter, and now the NFL is an afterthought unless I have money riding. For now, and probably forever after, only golf endures.

In Defense of Michael Phelps

 

 

February 4, 2009

 

So the media has found its quarry, and is now doing what it does best: tearing down the very heroes they created, fawned over, and exalted to Brobdingnagian stature. The sanctimonious media which tanked, in all its white guilt, to ensure we have a black president, are now finding moral compass in assassinating the character of a hugely successful, likable, and driven 23-year old who happened to enjoy a few tokes of the good herb at a South Carolina frat party.

 

These sportswriters (and I use the term “writer” loosely)—you know, the ones who charge their papers for 3-martini lunches and hoard the free liquor in the press box—are wringing their hands about the coming end of the world as we know it because Michael Phelps indulged in something any normal 23-year old should indulge in.

 

Never mind that Phelps works harder in one day than these fat louts work in their entire lives; in their minds, Phelps signals the beginning of the end. Phelps is a role model they cry…but Charles Barkley disabused us of any such notions years ago, and in a world where nudity, violence, and misogyny are the Holy Trinity of pop culture, it’s laughable that Phelps is being pilloried as he is.

 

The very language used by the vast majority of the writers is indicative of how ignorant they are about a subject of which they shoot their mouths off. Virtually every piece I read on the topic referred to Phelps smoking a “bong pipe.” NO ONE…and I mean NO ONE says “bong pipe.” You smoke out of a bong, or you smoke out of a pipe, NO ONE smokes out of a “bong pipe.” But when have journalists ever let their ignorance stand in the way of a good story?

 

Jemele Hill, the race-baiting writer for ESPN, who was suspended last year for making an ill-advised reference to Adolf Hitler in one of her columns, was on ESPN in recent days, lecturing Phelps about his indiscretions, and of course, pointing out how much money he will lose in endorsements. I find it curious how all the pious media always translate everything into dollars and cents—as if the set-for-life Phelps will really be hurt by a few lost endorsements. Hill, who will accomplish far less in her life than Phelps has already accomplished in his, has the temerity to tell the Olympian how he should be spending his free time. I can’t wait for her tutorial for Tiger Woods on how to hit a 175-yard cut shot.

 

And Pat Forde, another ESPN hack, writes in one of his pieces how his impressionable progeny, budding young swimmers they, have seen their world affected by this “crashing news.” Forde trots out all the bromides about role-models and obligations, never realizing that Phelps’ influence is minimal and has slipped through the cracks in a youth culture dominated by luminaries like Fifty Cent, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and rapist Kobe Bryant. He doesn’t even see the irony in the fact that today’s children wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything of a physical nature if it involved anything more than pulling themselves from in front of their computers or idiot boxes to waddle their corpulent asses to the fridge.

 

Phelps is a 14-time gold medal-winner who is by all accounts a hard-worker (DUH!!), generous, and a respectful young man. He is free to come out my way anytime to smoke some of the good California medicinal…perhaps the perfect prescription for the uptight, self-righteous media members now standing in line to tear down the monster they created.

There May Be HOPE, After All, For Obama

February 3, 2009

 

Well you can knock me over with a feather! Our new president may actually have some substance behind all the hot air he’s been blowing for the past several years. His admission that Tom Daschle was a bad nomination, and that it sent a bad message, is my first ray of hope (that word again!) that Obama may actually be trying to change the culture of Washington, even if his hand was forced.

 

Obama admitted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I don’t want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.” In so doing, Obama has become the very first politician I can ever recall taking responsibility for anything that didn’t involve self-aggrandizement. Hats off to the new prez!

 

Now I’m not naïve enough to think that Obama doesn’t have an agenda, but as an American, I will pull for anyone–Democrat, Republican, or otherwise– if they are doing honest work and trying to flush Washington of the bloated and vile lifers that seem intent on spending forever at the public trough. (The Kennedys or Clintons, anyone?) If Obama remains true to his word, I’m in his corner….but I’m not holding my breath.

Obama Brings Chicago to the White House

 

 

January 30, 2009

 

 

There’s so much change going on in Washington right now that my head is spinning faster than Linda Blair’s at a revival meeting. Former Senator Tom Daschle, Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is under fire for not paying over $140,000 in taxes for free use of a car and driver that was provided by a Democratic fundraiser. This is Obama’s second nominee to brush off his tax obligations in what is becoming a disturbing, if not utterly predictable, pattern.

 

It seems the tax and spenders can’t be bothered to dig into their own pockets, but they’re ready to stick it to you and me. Obama administration officials called Daschle’s skullduggery “a stupid mistake,” and decided Daschle should not be penalized because he had discovered the tax liability himself and brought it to the attention of the Finance Committee, which is vetting his nomination. Daschle said he realized in June 2008 that he might have a tax problem.

 

This doesn’t pass the laugh test, even for the odious cesspool that is Washington. Daschle’s “stupid mistake” took place over a period of four years, making them “stupid mistakes”…plural. So this wasn’t any oversight, but rather an ongoing criminal enterprise as they say in the racketeering game. Daschle would have us believe that he spends his free time combing over old tax records just to make sure he’s paying his fair share—how else to explain his sudden discovery that he’d made a “stupid mistake.”

 

It turns out Daschle is a two-sport athlete. He has spent the last four years doing lobbying work for K Street law firm Alston & Bird, where he received generous remuneration (can you say millions?) from the insurance companies and health care providers he will be charged with policing should he be confirmed. That makes two tax cheats and two lobbyists among Obama’s nominees. And the night is still young.

 

Daschle has been a long-time confidant of Obama’s, just another one of the Messiah’s “guys on the block”—those close acquaintances that end up being indicted, going to jail, and generally abusing their power, with Obama apparently oblivious to it all. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But fret not, rumor has it Daschle has a deadly hook shot from the low block.