I haven’t written in a while because I was working on what I would call a long diatribe on the “Culture of Corruption”, as Nancy Pelosi called it. I wanted to try to show that since George W Bush is out of the White House, and The Anointed One has taken over, there will be no more corruption. What actually started to happen was I started to go through all of the various high profile morons in elected office and compare and contrast the corruption between the Dems and the Repubs. I began to notice that since The Appointed One started to name his cabinet members, the main stream media was writing my page for me! WOWE, look at the corruption being glossed over!
The Obama Administration has allowed these people to walk right on by, and they were sworn in with little issue. True, it made headlines but that didn’t slow things down.
Let’s start with our favorite obstructionist from South Dakota, Tom Daschle. When he was the Senate Majority Leader, he used to block about anything GWB tried to get passed, if for no other reason than to block any work getting done. His most notorious obstructionist move was to try to block Bush’s tax cuts in 2002, he said it would make the recession worse than it already was. This was the recession after the Internet bubble bursting, caused by a lot of money being thrown at Internet-based businesses that had poor business plans and had no way to make a profit. It was also a result of the terrorist act of 9/11/2001. Of course, the tax cuts *DID* benefit the economy, they pulled it out of the recession we were in. Over all, Daschle was the leader of the beginning of what is known as the “Do Nothing Congress”.
Of course, no one can prove Tom was involved in the voter fraud in South Dakota in the 2002 election, but why is it when there is massive voter fraud, the Democrats always seem to be very near by? Dead men voting: In Daschle’s home state, fraud wanders off the reservation
Daschle has since paid $146,000 in back payments and interest, and apologized on Monday for what he called income tax errors. Obama said Monday that he “absolutely” stands by Daschle despite the revelations.
DeMint said he came to that conclusion after it became “obvious” that Daschle knew about the tax problems long before his nomination and did nothing to make it right.
“The average American would likely face criminal charges with tax evasion of this size, yet he did not address the issue until he was nominated,” he said. link
Now we step over to the next cell and we meet Timothy F. Geithner, The Appointed One’s nomination for Secretary of the Treasury. Here’s a guy who has had his fingers in the til for many years, and yet, when he ‘forgot’ to pay his self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund, he blamed it on Turbo-Tax. This guy is a world-class loser. Of course, once he paid off his back taxes, all was forgiven and he got a pass. Nothing like a get out of jail free card. From Wiki:
At the Senate confirmation hearings, it was revealed through documentary evidence that Geithner had not paid $35,000 self-employment taxes for several years, even though he had acknowledged his obligation to do so, and had filed a request for, and received, a payment for half the taxes owed. The failure to pay self-employment taxes was noted during a 2006 audit by the Internal Revenue Service, in which Geithner was assessed additional taxes of $14,847 for the 2003 and 2004 tax years. Geithner failed to pay, or to admit his failure to pay, the self-employment taxes for the 2001 and 2002 tax years until after President-elect Obama expressed his intent to nominate Geithner to be Secretary of Treasury.
In a statement to the Senate panel considering his nomination, Geithner called the tax issues “careless”, “avoidable”, and “unintentional” errors, and he said he wanted to “apologize to the committee for putting you in the position of having to spend so much time on these issues.” Geithner testified that he used TurboTax to prepare his own return and that the tax errors are his own responsibility. The Washington Post quoted a tax expert who said that TurboTax has not been programmed to handle self-employment taxes when the user identifies himself as being employed. Geithner said at the hearing that he was always under the impression that he was an employee, not a self-employed contractor, while he served as director of the Policy Development and Review Department of IMF.
When the IRS audited him in 2006 and pointed out the error, Geithner paid the taxes he owed for 2003 and 2004. But he failed to pay the same taxes for 2001 and 2002. In his confirmation hearings, Geithner wouldn’t say why. But the reason is pretty clear: He didn’t have to. There’s typically a three-year statute of limitations on tax audits. If the IRS doesn’t catch you before three years have passed, you’re off the hook. Unfortunately for Geithner, public officials are held to a higher standard. So in November 2008, he went and paid the back taxes even though he didn’t have to. (Fun fact: The IRS can’t accept money it isn’t owed—and after three years, you legally don’t owe the money anymore. In all likelihood, the agency will return the unowed back taxes to Geithner.) link
Comparing Geithner to Daschel:
Daschle, by contrast, omitted income. Sure, there’s a gray area around what constitutes a gift or a fringe benefit (on which you don’t have to pay taxes) and a business transaction (on which you do). But the car service provided by InterMedia Advisors, for which Daschle sat on the board and earned more than $2 million in consulting fees, doesn’t seem particularly ambiguous. “Under Section 132 of the Internal Revenue Code, the value of transportation services provided for personal use must be included in income,” the finance committee reported last Friday. “Senator Daschle estimated that he used the car and driver 80 percent for personal use and 20 percent for business.”
Even less gray is the $80,000 of consulting income Daschle simply failed to report. He’s got a decent excuse—InterMedia screwed up its calculations and didn’t include that income in its annual statement. But the disparity should have been clear in Daschle’s books. (Apparently the IRS agrees: While the service didn’t penalize Geithner, it did slap Daschle with fines.) link
Next prison cell. Well, not quite, yet. This woman actually had the brains to pull her self out of consideration, once it was noticed she too was behind on her taxes.
Nancy Killefer, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the federal government’s first chief performance officer, is withdrawing from the post, the White House said Tuesday.
Ms. Killefer, 55 years old, failed to pay employment taxes on household help for a year and a half, the Associated Press reported. In 2005, the AP said, the District of Columbia filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay the unemployment compensation tax. The error was resolved five months later.
An administration official confirmed that she is withdrawing over a tax problem. The official said that the matter surfacing during the vetting that took place before her nomination was announced and the Obama team decided to move forward anyway.
“But the environment changed,” the official said. “On the heels of Geithner and Daschle, she just didn’t want to go through with it.” link
In other words, the anonymous official figured that they were pushing their luck to try to get Geithner and Daschel through, and she could block everything.
Why is it, most of the people The Annointed One wants to place in a high position has a problem? Why is it there are always serious issues concerning the basic tenets of honesty and trustworthyness when the public starts looking into these people’s past? Isn’t anyone besides me just a littled pissed about all of this?
Do we need to go into the other issues about The Appointed One’s association with other crooked individuals like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Rev Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, and these are only the few folks we know that were directly involved with The Appointed One. Chicago has a history of corruption, from the lowest to the highest levels.
We could also lookinto Pelosi’s background, like the deal where American Somoa was exempt from the minimum wage deal passed a couple years ago… It appears her husband has a big financial interest in Star Kist tuna, and much of the low wage labor is in American Somoa. Have you seen anything in this latest version of the $850 BILLION stimulus package? Look carefully, you will see it. It sounds more liek American Samoa was exempted from the Minimum Wage act in order to keep his expenses low and profits high. The morning crew from Fox News summed it up in a couple of statements:
GRETCHEN CARLSON: It just so happens Steve that Star Kist tuna employs 75% of the island’s work force. They are making a lot of tuna there. Apparently then that is shipped off to San Francisco in a district where Nancy Pelosi is from. And now her people are saying that, you know, she has never been influenced by Star Kist at all but other people are saying, hey, this is a little bit of hypocrisy because how can this particular group of people benefit by not having to pay the new minimum wage which is almost $2 more an hour before.
KILMEADE: They have two major plants there and then all of a sudden they don’t have to pay this money and this is a woman I’m going to fight corruption and things on the up and up and make things transparent. Reps. Eric Cantor and Patrick McHenry are beside themselves. Cantor says he is shocked. Now Patrick McHenry when he realizes this, hopped up on the Senate floor, says wait a second have you exempted the American Samoa you have included all these other regions and territories, everything else? When they started debating stem cell research, excuse me based on this is American Samoa going to be excluded from stem cell research? And Barney Frank went crazy said to him sit down essentially. Continue with your talk that had nothing to do with stem cell research in American Samoa.
DOOCEY: So in American Samoa they have a lot of tuna. It’s processed by Star Kist, which is, their headquarters is actually in San Francisco because Star Kist is owned by the food conglomerate Del Monte which is in Nancy Pelosi’s home district. Are you connecting the dots? Let’s get this straight. Everybody has got to raise their minimum wage except American Samoa which, of course, has so many people who are pulling tuna out of the sea, shipping them off via Del Monte whose corporate headquarters in Nancy Pelosi’s home district. I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Don’t you think? link
And then we have the infamous presidential election in 2000 where the people in Florida couldn’t figure out how to punch one and only one hole, all the way through a paper card. A ‘Modern’ Democracy That Can’t Count Votes
Ok, now that I have bashed all of these politicians for being corrupt, and cheating on their taxes, let’s find out what happens to those who are either not as well connected, or are not in the favor of some one in high places. Let’s take Wesley Snipes. Yes, this is the Blade actor, the guy who likes to kick butt and take names. He was convinced by some con-men that there were certain wages that should not be considered taxable income, and so he followed their advice, did what they told him to do, and he is now looking at a prison term.
On April 24, 2008, Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for willful failure to file federal income tax returns under US Tax law. While defense lawyers urged leniency, prosecutors argued that Snipes should be made an example of because of his fame. link
Where is Wesley’s Get out of Jail Free card?
And for the Quote of the Day, from a person who did time, and had the money and arrogance to be a politician but wasn’t, the slum lord Leona Helmsley: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” She did 19 months in federal prison and two more months under house arrest, after being initially sentenced to 16 years.
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After having written the above, it was announced that Tom Daschle has decided to bow out and had withdrawn his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Did he voluntarily bow out, or was he pushed out?
“Tom made a mistake, which he has openly acknowledged. He has not excused it, nor do I,” Obama said. He added that the “mistake” should not diminish the “many contributions” Daschle has made to the country. link
Also,
It was unclear whether Daschle, with his deep network of ties in the Senate stemming in part from his time as majority leader, would have been able to weather the criticism over his tax problems in confirmation. Sources told FOX News that concern was growing that even if Daschle was confirmed his tax lapses would detract from the drive for health care reform.
Daschle had also been tapped to be Obama’s health czar but he apparently will not be taking on that role either.
“I will not be the architect of America’s health system reform, but I remain one of its more fervent supporters,” Daschle said.
Thank the Powers That Be for that! We have seen hints of his health system reform, they have several names for it… Socialized Medicine or National Health Care, and it can all be summed up with one word - WELFARE.
—>Gardie
Tags: corruption, Nancy Pelosi
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