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Things I’d Like to Post About Today ….. (030309, Morning)

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Playboy tried to smear Rick Santelli’s rant as part of a vast right-wing tea party conspiracy. I would link, but the publication pulled its threadbare post without comment.

TPM Muckraker also pulled their related link, again without comment.

Uh, that doesn’t get it. Where are the “We were wrong. We are sorry” apologies?

Warren Todd Huston at NewsBusters has more, and notes that “while the fake story has been scrubbed, the claim of conspiracy is still floating around like a noxious cloud befouling the air. And, THAT, my friends, is how the left works. Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.

Megan McArdle at the Atlantic’s Asymmetrical Information blog (scroll down to Item 3 after her reproduction of what Playboy pulled; HT Instapundit) says that “The accusation against Santelli is potentially libelous, which is, I assume, why the article disappeared this morning. If I were Santelli, I’d sue.” McArdle also has a credible theory why it was pulled: Some of the alleged “conspirators” had a falling out some time ago. Oops.

Meanwhile, word of the story’s disappearance hasn’t reached the Atlantic’s Reihan Salam, whose related item is still up at Mark Ambinder’s separate blog at The Atlantic without a pullback as of 7:30 a.m.

Both Santelli and his employer CNBC (how about some backup, guys?) should at least threaten to sue to force a retraction.

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The Senate’s vote to give the District of Columbia congressional representation is blatantly and obviously unconstitutional. Ann Althouse says: “I don’t know how even to articulate an argument” to support it.

Without redefining boundaries, the only constitutional way to accomplish this goal, desirable or not, would be to amend the Constitution. That’s apparently too much work. I suppose another way around this might be to limit what is defined as DC to the immediate area around the White House and Capitol Building areas (which may or may not require a constitutional amendment), while having the rest of what is now DC apply to become a 51st state. I would suggest absorbing the freed-up area into Virginia or Maryland, but I don’t think either state would be interested.

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From an analysis by Emily Kaiser at Reuters:

U.S. companies, consumers and communities may grow so addicted to government financial help that cutting them off could trigger another recession soon after the current one ends.

One imagines this response from deep inside the Obama adminstration: “And your point is ….”?

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This is apparently controversial:

(Department of Justice lawyer and author of a search and seizure memo shortly after the 9/11 terorrist attacks John) Yoo wrote that the president could treat terrorist suspects in the United States like an invading foreign army. For instance, he said, the military would not have to get a warrant to storm a building to prevent terrorists from detonating a bomb.

The idea that the military or police would need such a warrant if such an operation was known to be in progress is madness.

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Non-shock of the day: President Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative nominee Ron Kirk has tax troubles. TaxProf has the roundup. Selected AP excerpts:

Ron Kirk, nominated as U.S. Trade Representative in the Obama administration, owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to make his payments, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday.

….. Kirk routinely gave any speaking fees he earned to Austin College, the committee said, and did not list them on his tax returns.

Instead, the committee said he should have listed the fees as income, then claimed them as charitable donations. The estimated effect was to reduce Kirk’s tax bill by an estimated $5,800, according to the report.

Kirk also deducted more than $17,000 as entertainment expenses for the cost of Mavericks’ tickets. The committee said he substantiated about $9,900 of that amount, and will owe about $2,600 in taxes on the balance.

Silly question 1: Why didn’t the AP point out that Kirk’s speaking-fee gambit was designed to evade Social Security and Medicare taxes on self-employment income, the same taxes Tim Tax Cheat Geithner didn’t pay until he knew he was going to be nominated? (*) To pull this off, Kirk must have failed to report both the fees and his contributions; otherwise, any tax return software or tax preparer would have known that these taxes were due.

Obama’s nominees seem awfully reluctant to pour money into FDR’s supposed crowning achievement.

(*) – The chartible contributions also may have increased Kirk’s income tax liabiity if his actual contributions in total were more than 50% of his adjusted gross income. If that’s the case, he would have had to wait until future years to deduct the excess.

Silly question 2: What about penalties?

Silly question 3: Is anyone going to point out how lucky Kirk is that he’s from Texas, which has no state income tax — unlike Geithner and Daschle, who also have to settle accounts with the income-taxing states where they have lived?

It has moved beyond insulting that this administration continues to lecture the business community and others about ethical conduct.


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