Month: January 2009

No, really, Obama DIDN’T ask any of his nominees about their taxes.

I think that Jake Tapper isn’t going to be getting a Christmas card from the Obama administration. Ever.

ABC News has obtained the Senate Finance Committee Report on Tom Daschle’s nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which indicates that Daschle’s tax problems were even more substantial than earlier reported.

The report indicates that Daschle’s failure to pay more than $101,000 taxes on the car and driver a wealthy friend let him use from 2005 through 2007 is not the only tax issue the former Senate Majority Leader has been dealing with since his December nomination prompted a more thorough examination of his income tax returns.

Mr. Daschle also didn’t report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.

Via AoSHQ, and let me just add this: I expect to see Tom Daschle lay hands upon a leper at his confirmation hearing and heal that man of his affliction. Because it’s going to take about that much of a mitigating factor to make this pick for HHS palatable.

Moe Lane

PS: Does any Democratic politician pay his or her taxes properly, and on time? Do any of them know how to, even? It’s a heck of a thing to ask, but circumstances kind of require it right now.

Crossposted at RedState.

The Darth Giger gave it a run for its money, though.

I was sent an email on this Star Wars photoshop contest (supposedly the link’s on Fark).  Some pretty good, some not so much.  This one is probably the best so far:

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I’d like to note for the record that the original has always kind of haunted me.  Something about the endless Friday night at 3 AM that it represents.  This, on the other hand, does not.

Good job getting Sen. Corker mad there, Sen. Nelson.

In response to this story about how supposedly Senator Nelson of Nebraska had called in Senator Corker of Tennessee to try to get a “bipartisan solution” (read: “Republican cover”) for the Democrats’ debt bill, Sen. Corker’s office contacted Instapundit with the following:

UPDATE: A Corker spokesperson emails: “As I’ve told Fox, we were invited late yesterday to a meeting in Sen. Ben Nelson’s office and were surprised to learn by reading the news this morning that by accepting the invitation we had joined a gang. That’s not accurate and we did not attend the meeting.”

I repeat.  The Democrats own this one.  Because you won, remember?

Crossposted at RedState.

James Clyburn’s (D, SC-06) timeline for withdrawal.

  • June 16th, 2006: Voted nay on a resolution rejecting the imposition of a timeline on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
  • February 16, 2007: Voted to condemn the ultimately-successful surge strategy that allowed us to win the Iraq War
  • March 10, 2007: Clyburn acts as whip for Iraq supplemental bill that included a timeline for withdrawal.
  • May 1, 2007: Clyburn condemns Bush’s veto of the anti-victory, so-called “Iraq Accountability Act.”
  • July 30th, 2007: “Clyburn: Positive Report by Petraeus Could Split House Democrats on War” (and thus make the imposition of a timeline more difficult for the Democrats).

Continue reading James Clyburn’s (D, SC-06) timeline for withdrawal.

The New Ledger has gone live.

I’d like to bring to your attention The New Ledger, which is a new online site analyzing politics, the market, and the news. It’s been started up by a couple of friends of mine (and former colleagues from RedState), and a look at the masthead may reveal a few more names that would be familiar to RS readers. They’ve also set up a Transom feature on the site which will link to various interesting news stories.

There’s some good, solid writing talent on that site: I suggest that you check them out. I expect that it’ll be a regular stop for me.

Cracked.com has waited for this moment for a long time.

I do not know where to begin in excerpting “Cracked Officially Starts Feeling Sorry for MAD Magazine:”  I’m not sure that I can, effectively.  In some ways, it feels like a situation where wiseass killeth wiseass in a narrow, dusty room – that just happens to have a webcam in it to record the gory details.  And they are gory.  Gory, deliberately puerile, and hysterically funny.

But not to be a killjoy about this: remember that Silverlock quote I made yesterday?  The one about rubbing dung in people’s hair?  Yeah, you guys may have pushed the line with the “horse money” bit.  People get touchy about not having horse money.