By Randall Rasmussen

Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle has become the second Barack Obama Cabinet nominee to have a tax problem. You can read the story here.

According to the story, Daschle paid $128,203 in back taxes for 2005, 2006 and 2007 plus $11,964 in interest. He failed to report $88,333 in income (one month’s work), about $250,000 in personal car services that he had previously reported as business related and removed $15,000 in charitable deductions to organizations that apparently didn’t fit the definition of a charity.

Daschle is Obama’s nomination to become Health and Human Services secretary, and he is expected to be confirmed.

Tim Geithner previously had been confirmed as Treasury Secretary despite failing to pay all of his self-employment taxes for four years. And like Geithner before him, Daschle paid his back taxes after being considered for a Cabinet appointment.

And just like Geithner, Daschle is being described as the “best person” for the job.

One tax evader in an administration is bad enough, but two of them (that we know about) is setting a new low standard for Cabinet secretaries. And this after Vice President Joe Biden has said it was “patriotic” to pay taxes.

The dilemma is with Sen. John Thune, who defeated Daschle four years ago for U.S. Senate, and who recently voted against Geithner because he was a tax cheat.

If you’re Sen. Thune, do you vote for or against Daschle?

By Scott Aust

Kayla Gahagan had a couple of interesting stories this week about a controversial community theatre production that was to have been performed at Central High School.

“Spring’s Awakening”, written in Germany in 1891, has often been censored because of its depiction of sex, abortion, suicide, masturbation, child abuse, rape and homosexuality.

Read the latest story here.

I’m not one to question the definition of art, even it it doesn’t conform to my aesthetic tastes. But comparing the content of “Spring’s Awakening” to “Romeo and Juliet”?

Joey Lore, a language arts teacher and technical director in the play, said it is ironic that “Romeo and Juliet” — which includes suicide, teenage sex, murder and violence — is part of the district’s curriculum, and no one complains.

“If you walked the hallways, at any high school, what you hear is much more blatant discussion than what would be tastefully portrayed onstage,” he said. “… For this play to have raised eyebrows was really shocking.”

To quote my man, Johnny McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!” Seems like someone is letting his passion overrule reality. Can you really be surprised that scenes involving masturbation might not be acceptable?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m too much of a Puritan…

By Randall Rasmussen

The $819 billion stimulus plan passed the U.S. House Wednesday without a single Republican vote.

The Associated Press story said that President Barack Obama had repeatedly urged Republicans to give the plan bipartisan support. But since House rules under Speaker Nancy Pelosi prevent the minority party from proposing amendments to majority-written legislation, the only way the House vote could be bipartisan is if Republicans switched parties and voted with the Democrats.

South Dakota’s Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted for the plan.

“I am voting to support the House version today based on the inclusion of many provisions important to South Dakota and the nation, and to move the process along. I will evaluate the final package with these same consideration,” Herseth Sandlin said in a release.

Oh, the stimulus is stuffed with all kinds of pork. The Congressional Budget Office said only about one-fifth of the amount would be spent this year. How is that going to jump-start the economy?

It is nothing more than a pork bill, with every Democratic wish thrown in for good measure.

Herseth Sandlin joined the Blue Dog coalition to emphasize her belief in fiscal restraint and paying for expenditures and tax cuts with spending cuts elsewhere. Yet, she voted for the Moby Dick of pork bills.

Stephanie, it’s time to turn in your Blue Dog credentials.

By Scott Aust

Low flow toilets anyone?

If you read today’s dead tree edition you saw that Rapid City is offering a $75 rebate to homeowners who install one of those water saving models, and another $125 to those who buy a high-efficiency, front-load clothes washer. You can see the story online starting Thursday.

Does it seem strange for the city to propose water conservation when the whole point of the upcoming hefty water rate increases is to raise more money primarily for building two new treatment plants?

Robert Ellis, the city’s public works director, admits the higher rates are a form of water conservation in that they essentially penalize people, mostly those who frequently water their lawns, with even higher rates. He explains the Catch 22 thusly:

Ellis said conservation does mean less water sold but it also reduces stress on the system’s equipment and facilities and conserves water resources.

“Water in the aquifer is finite. Water in Pactola and Rapid Creek is finite as well. To make those resources last well into the future at some point we’re going to have to talk about water conservation, and the longer you put it off the harder it’s going to be for people to understand the importance,” he said.

So I guess the argument is conserve now while you have a choice because you may not have a choice in the future. I don’t have kids or a lawn to speak of so I don’t use much water now. I’d be interested to hear from people who do plan to cut back on water use or take the city up on its rebate offers. Or any other ideas about conservation in general.

By Kevin Woster

Apparently, I’ll be buying another new fly rod this year.

Once again, doing my part for fiscal recovery in the United States.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what fishing gear your country can buy for you.

It didn’t seem to work that well under the Bush administration last year. I mean, I got a beautiful Sage rod and a Ross reel with my “stimulus” check, which stimulated me to go to Dakota Angler and quick draw my debit card.

KABLAM, baby! God bless America!

Later on, the remainder of the check stimulated me to buy Mary a nice 3-weight Scott rod with a matching Ross for her birthday.

I can’t tell you how patriotic we felt, up there in the high country, casting flies to save our country.

“O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain….”

Now it seems that the $825-billion stimulus plan pushed by the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress will not only provide money for vital road construction and water projects - and not-vital goft courses, dog parks and hiking trails - it also will, once again, rustle up a stampede of federal-government checks.

For lots of people, including me. Which is OK, I guess, but at some point doesn’t it make sense to start paying off the national debt instead of increasing it?

Just a thought.

I understand the road work and the water projects, and the jobs and needed improvements they will bring. But I’m a bit perplexed as to why the government should pay for new ski slopes and pooch-play areas.

And that new fly rod? That’s just got me stumped completely.

P.S. On another matter, a Blogmore regular called yesterday to comment on my post about al-Arabiya and Olbermann: “Geez, what was that?” he said.

“Satire?” I responded, with some hesitation.

“Satire?” he snorted. “Now you’re starting to write like Randell Beck.”

I’m assuming that was meant as high praise.

By Kevin Woster

This just in from the Mount Blogmore Washington Bureau:

Keith Olbermann suffered a tearful, screaming emotional breakdown live on MSNBC after learning that President Barack Obama gave his first interview as the leader of the free world to a Dubai-based TV station.

“Aaaaaaaarrrrghhhhhh! I work my buns off for two years to get the savior elected, and I don’t get the first interview? I knew I should have endorsed Dan Patrick!” Olbermann screamed, seconds prior to collapsing. “If that’s the way it’s going to be with Obama, I’m going back to Sports Center. Is that still on, by the way? Am I still on, by the way?”

Olbermann was later hospitalized, and in a poetic turn of events today shares a double room with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who had a grand mal conniption fit over Obama’s interview with al-Arabiya TV.

“This proves it,” a clearly sedated Limbaugh mumbled by telephone from his hospital bed. “The new president’s definitely a Muslim terrorist. And speaking of the new president, does anybody remember his middle name? I want to make a fuss about it, but since that last Thorazine cocktail I can’t remember what it is.”

Limbaugh also relayed a message from the likewise-sedated Olbermann, who hadn’t yet been given phone privileges, or collected his wits: “My main man Keithy wants to know if Tim Geithner got traded to the Mets for Bill Richardson and a Blagojevich to be indicted later?”

It must be true. It came from our Washington Bureau.

And speaking of the Mets, did Obama strike out, belt a homer or merely hit behind the runner in deciding to go with al-Arabiya for his coming-out interview?

By Randall Rasmussen

The U.S. Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary Monday on a 60-34 vote.

It’s an unusual number of “nay” votes for a Cabinet appointment because of what the Associated Press called “personal tax lapses.”

President Barack Obama said just before Geithner was sworn in: “Tim’s work and the work of the entire Treasury Department must begin at once. We cannot lose a day, because every day the economic picture is darkening, here and across the globe.”

The economy may be in trouble, but do we need a tax cheat as treasury secretary?

For those who are not keeping score, Geithner, who was New York Federal Reserve Bank president, worked at the International Monetary Fund but did not pay all of the taxes he owed for four years. Geithner called his failure to pay the taxes a “careless mistake,” and he paid all that he owed. However, he did not pay two years’ worth in taxes he owed until just after he was nominated as treasury secretary because he wasn’t legally liable to pay them.

In other words, he’s a tax evader.

Sen. John Thune voted against Geithner and Sen. Tim Johnson voted for his appointment.

Thune said in a release: “Yet for four years he failed to pay his lawful taxes, after being informed of his obligation to do so. If I were to support this nomination, I don’t know how I would explain such a vote to my fellow South Dakotans who work hard and pay their taxes every year – on time and in full.”

Does anyone really believe Geithner, Obama and others that this financial wizard really couldn’t figure out his own taxes? Or was he just smart enough to figure out that he could avoid paying all of the taxes he owed and get away with it?

By Kevin Woster

So says Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Justin Brasell, Sen. John Thune’s campaign manager for his 2010 reelection run.

McConnell knows a bit about Brasell, having hired him as his own campaign manager back in Kentucky last year. Brasell also worked as chief of staff for Kentucky Congressman Geoff Davis.

McOnnell says in a news release sent out Monday by, well, Brasell, that Brasell is “a smart strategist, a great manager of precious campaign resources, and is known in Kentucky for building highly effective grassroots campaigns. He will be a perfect fit for South Dakota and John Thune’s respected campaign team.”

Suppose Brasell felt funny about writing that, about himself? Or did McConnell come up with that himself?

Ah, who cares. It’s politics.

And in case there was any doubt about the junior South Dakota senator’s political intentions - there weren’t - next year, the Brasell announcement pretty much settles them.

So does the $3.9 million or so Thune has in the campaign bank already.

Any guess on how much more than that he’ll spend in the campaign?

By Kevin Woster

Who could possibly disagree with that?

Well, Gov. Mike Rounds, for one. And he’s a big one when it comes to deciding how and whether South Dakota will revamp its public-information policy to one of more openness.

Rounds tells my brother, Terry - a former Argus Leader reporter gone home, at least for the duration of the legislative session, to his former employer, the Associated Press - that he hasn’t changed his opposition to the notion that there should be a presumption of openness in state reocrds, unless there’s a compelling reason to keep them secret.

South Dakota’s current policy is closer to: We’ll give you public records, if you give us a good reason why we should. And there’s lots of good reasons why we shouldn’t. Oh, and even if we give you a record, we’re not going to make it particularly easy on you.

Obviously, most of us reporters like the first concept. I’d think most of the state population would, too. And now, the Republican leader in the state Senate - Dave Knudson - says he has “evolved” on this issue from his opposition last year to support this year of a presumption of openness.

Democratic Sen. Nancy Turbak Berry of Watertown led that charge last year, unsuccessfully. And this year she’ll apparently have the support of the Republican leader - and a man who would be governor.

The open-information movement has long legs. I was delighted while listening to NPR on the road to Pierre lastl week to hear a report that President Barack Obama would issue an executive order changing administrative-branch policy on public information to one that begins with a presumption of openness.

That’s the third best thing he’s done as president so far, right behind appointing Hillary Rodham Clinton and Tom Daschle to his cabinet.

By Scott Aust

The ads weren’t his idea. But by lending his name and position to them as a spokesperson certain links Mayor Alan Hanks to the message that there are positives about the local economy, even amid an atmosphere of economic uncertainty all around us.

You can read about it here.

Hanks says it’s his job as mayor to be positive regardless of criticism:

“If some folks want to criticize me for being optimistic and trying to send a positive message out to encourage people to be positive, I guess that comes with the job.”

Hanks said he doesn’t have his head in the sand about the economy. He knows things aren’t perfect. But I wonder if the constant assertions that things aren’t so bad are going to backfire for his re-election efforts this spring.

Based on the anonymous phone call I got from an angry, unemployed Rapid Citian, the mayor lending his voice to the ads may turn out to be a mistake.

What do you think?

By Scott Aust

The Chamber of Commerce is pitching an idea to increase the terms of Rapid City’s mayor to four years and council members to three years. Both now serve two year terms.

According to Randy Hamburg, chamber of commerce chairman, the idea is elected officials could do a much more effective job and make better decisions if they didn’t constantly have to worry about re-election campaigns so frequently.

“About the time you become comfortable about what city government is about, and understand the budget, which is reasonably complex, then you’re standing for election again. I’m not sure one can be as effective if they know they’re always standing for re-election,” Hamburg said. “So what we’re trying to do is have a little bit longer term so these people can actually get something done.”

Any opinions about term lengths and effectiveness in office?

By Kevin Woster

A Republican friend of mine said yesterday that he’s been coaching his GOP pals to show some class in celebrating the transfer of presidential power.

He feels like Democrats failed miserably in that regard in the first term of George Bush the 43rd.

“I keep telling them that we have to do it better than they did,” my friend said.

And I have to agree with him that there was a clear failure to get over it on the part of many understandably distraught Al Gore supporters, whose angst over the contested 2000 election turned into a simmering hatred toward the president that endured for a full eight years.

In fact, continued ill will showed even at Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony yesterday, a time when you’d think we all could be gracious, even toward the opposition. When the new president thanked the old president for service to the nation, the response from the crowd was at best weak and clearly insincere.

It made you wonder if bad losers must inevitably be bad winners.

Either way, I hope Republicans take my friend’s advice.

Our nation will be the better for it.

By Kevin Woster

So said Yale University professor and poet Elizabeth Alexander, in a poem presented moments after President Barack Obama took the oath of office.

It was, as we have discussed before here on the mountain, a wonderfully peaceful transfer of power, based on a vote of the people and a system that, while imperfect, is still beautifully conceived and powerfully preserved. It all happens so smoothly that it’s easy to forget all the failures it overcame and the sacrifices that helped it endure to achieve more and more of its promise.

Those sacrifies cross all political divisions and all lines of race. But surely they are especially obvious among the African American community, which has particular reason to celebrate this day.

“Say it plain, that many have died for this day.”

Indeed they have, so that many more could live in freedom.

That’s cause for all to celebrate.

As Fleming says, “God bless America.”

By Randall Rasmussen

Most news stories about the transition from the Bush administration to the Barack Obama presidency make frequent note about all the troubles he is facing. As if being president of the United States was otherwise a cushy job if not for the incompetence of the soon-to-be departed George W. Bush.

One success of Bush’s presidency is that he has managed with great competency to have prevented another terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the more than seven years since Sept. 11, 2001.

That could be why Obama is keeping Bob Gates as defense secretary and installing men with solid military backgrounds as national security adviser (James Jones) and military intelligence (retired Adm. Dennis Blair).

Obama has said he wants to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and shift the emphasis to Afghanistan. He is helped in this regard because the Iraq war has been won, and more troops already are being moved into Afghanistan.

Bush said in last week’s farewell address that he has spent all his energies keeping Americans safe at home. In this he has succeeded and passes the baton of national security to Obama on Tuesday. Here’s hoping that Obama’s rhetoric during the presidential campaign of discounting the war against terrorism was a political expediency that he will cast aside to maintain Bush’s policy of keeping the war as far from our shores as possible.

You Bush-haters may throw your shoes now.

I hate to jump in here, for fear of being hit by collateral Florsheim damage. But I have to leave a temporary message for the person - with a blog name that had something to do with Custer - who tried to comment on Randy’s thread. I accidentally hit “delete” instead of “approve” during moderation. Sorry, Custer whatever. If you’re reading this, and I hope you are, please try again. It could have been worse. I could have hit “spam.” K.W.

By Kevin Woster

Sen. Tim Johnson’s son, Brendan, seems a solid and even logical choice for U.S. attorney in South Dakota.

And he seems to be going about lining up support in a smart, respectful, bipartisan way.

But if he has plans for elected office, isn’t there a better springboard than U.S. attorney?

Sure, prosecution experience - the old law-and-order line - can work in South Dakota. It did for Bill Janklow, who just about maxed out the spring in that office, going on to governor and - before his tragic accident - Congress. But state AG is an elected office of relatively high visibility and clear political connections.

The AG is in the paper all the time, as well as some of those less-significant media sources (I tease, broadcast, I tease…).

Who hears from the U.S. attorney, except for a few carefully chosen comments in press releases and very occasional interviews with reporters?

Ask a typical voter to name the current U.S. attorney and you’ll get a blank stare. Few will be able to tell you that it’s, uh, to tell you who, er, to identify the, uh, well….

Let me get back to you on that. I’m sure it’ll come to me.

(I tease, Marty, I tease…)

In addition, as one of my Democratic friends point out, if you’re running for a statewide elected office in a campaign that might benefit - as Tim Johnson’s did in a big way in 2002 - from Native American support, do you really want to be known as the top federal lawman in South Dakota?

I don’t get it.

I realize I’m asking a lot, but could somebody please smarten me up?

By Kevin Woster

The Rapid City Journal’s editorial board criticized both Tim Johnson and John Thune in our editorial Sunday for changing their votes on the $700 billion financial assistance package.

Better known as the bailout.

Thune supported releasing the first half of the money which went, uh, which went, hmmm, where did that money go, anyway?

Johnson voted against the package.

They switched their positions last week, with Thune opposing release of the second half of the bailout to help, uh, to benefit, hmm, well, I’m not quite sure about that, either.

Johnson was, however, and he voted to send off the second $350 billon.

The Journal editorial says that’s simple politics, that Johnson likes the plan now because the new guy in the White House will wear a “D” on his political vest. Same reason, the editorial says, that Thune now opposes the plan.

Johnson says his earlier concerns about a lack of oversight and direction have been addressed. Thune says he’s worried that the second half of the bailout might be too limited in its targeted use.

Maybe. And maybe. But the editorial makes a pretty good point.

Doesn’t it?

By Scott Aust

I was surprised when I logged on this morning and saw my story about Rapid City possibly adding sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policies had 139 responses on Rapid Reply. Of course most were of the typical homophobic flavor, I guess because sexual preferences make some feel all “oogey”.

Here’s a link to the story.

Hopefully we’ll get some more enlightened debate about it here. Should the city make it a part of policy that it won’t discriminate against you for sexual preference or gender identity? And is the potential cost of defending future lawsuits a legitimate concern? What do you think?

By Kevin Woster

After months of shuffling it around in the migrating foothills of papers and variously-bound reading products I call the top of my desk, last night I finally started to read Free Lunch, a book by David Cay Johnston that digs into the financial power elite in the United States.

(Remain cool, DeMersseman, you’ll eventually get it back…)

Chapter 2 is titled, Mr. Reagan’s Question. And it refers to Ronald Reagan’s question for voters near the end of a 1976 (actually, it was 1980, as pointed out below) campaign debate with incumbent President Jimmy Carter:

“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

It was a powerful punch at the end of an evening of smooth combinations by a politician who was every bit as effective on the stump as Bill Clinton, if not quite so smoothly articulate.

Now, to head off all the linguistic historians of Mount Blogmore, let me be clear: I’m not claiming that Reagan was the first pol to pose this particular question.

In fact, if memory serves, Gaius Flavius Fimbria offered its rough - in more ways that we could imagine today - equivalent to the people of Nicomedia immediately before, uh, unseating Lucius Valerius Flaccus in a Roman run-off, of sorts.

Apparently, the voters decided they weren’t better off, which ended Flaccus’s political career, as well as his life.

Thank goodness we don’t take the answer quite so seriously these days.

Still, it’s always worth some thought: Am I better off now than I was four years ago? I asked myself, and wasn’t sure.

How about you?

And while we’re talking about Johnston’s book, here’s a paragraph from the Reagan-question chapter that makes a fairly strong indictment of financial priorities in the United States:

“For a nation whose leaders frequently invoke their belief in the Bible, curious indeed is how the political rhetoric ignores the overriding duty of the New Testament to care for the poor. ‘Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor” for “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ Jesus said those who believe must sacrifice for the poor; we sacrifice for the rich at the expense of the poor.”

Truth or lie?

By Kevin Woster

It’s a pretty interesting day for birthdays.

If you listen to The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor on NPR, you know that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Edward Teller and Frank Conroy were all born on this date.

I missed Keillor this morning myself. But, fortunately, my buddy Chuck over in Brooking sent along an e-mailed version, which included a marvelous poem by Patrick Kavanagh called “Having Confessed.”

After Keillor reads the poem, he lists selected birthdates. And today’s were typically intriguing.

King, Teller, Conroy.

We recall King’s death, of course, and how it shook America to the core. But it’s also nice to celebrate his birth, and all the good it would bring to this nation. And maybe today we should try, for at least a day, to act more King-like, huh?

It’s a tall order, for some of us.

Then there is the strange birthday connection between King and Edward Teller, the Budapest native and physicist generally remembered as the “father of the hydrogen bomb.”

I like to think of him as “Doctor Strangelove.”

I’m sure he had many good qualities. But he was no MLK. Far from it.

Then, somewhere in between along with the rest of us, there is Conroy, a New York City native and author who, according to Keillor, once castigated a student at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop for stuffing some meaningless details into a short story.

“The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it - to remember, to keep in mind - as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain - to the end of the story - and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you’re going to have a very irritated reader on your hands.”

If fear that I have irritated some readers over the years. If not necessarily a Volkswagen, I’ve made my readers lug a riding lawn mower up the hill to understanding from time to time.

Which reminds me of what Rapid City lawer Jeff Hurd said last week after a witness he was questioning at the state Transportation Commission hearing said she was confused by a query:

“If I were smarter, I could ask a shorter question.”

Hurd’s plenty smart.

But as he implied, we could all benefit by heeding the T.S. Eliot explanation for a bit of writing that got away from him: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

Maybe the same could be said of blog threads?

Hmmmm.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Rev. King. You, too, Frank Conroy.

And Edward Teller? Well, if you can’t say anything nice ….

By Randall Rasmussen

Will wonders never cease?

President-elect Barack Obama had dinner Tuesday night at the home of conservative commentator George Will’s house. Also in attendance were William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Might the meeting of opposite minds also have included radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh? He was absent from his show Tuesday, the day after he offered to meet with Obama to discuss tax cuts. From Yahoo! News: “Is Rush at Obama Dinner?”

If so, wouldn’t that have been a fascinating conversation?

P.S. Limbaugh said on his show today that he was at the White House for lunch Tuesday. The suggestion by the substitute host that he was meeting with Obama was just a joke, apparently. But the Obama dinner at Will’s house with conservative scribes was for real. — R.R.