In yet another fantastic display of hypocrisy, the liberal mainstream media spent the week attacking Governor Mitt Romney for having a 15% tax rate.  Since the media is loath to engage in any actual investigative journalism when it comes to the Democrats, I decided to do a little of my own.  Here’s what I found.

Start with Senator John Kerry who is among the 400 richest Americans thanks to his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry’s, inheritance.  Their last publicly released tax returns in 2003 revealed that they paid a rate of 13.4% on a declared income of $5.5 million. This from the man who, just last year, tried to avoid half a million dollars in taxes by anchoring his yacht in Rhode Island rather than Massachusetts. Estimates pin Kerry’s net worth somewhere between $700 million and $3.2 billion compared to Romney’s lower net worth of $202 million.

Take a look at former Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards’s 2003 tax returns, and you’ll find that he paid an astonishingly low rate of 5.1%.  Seems a bit low for a man with a net worth hovering around $54.7 million.

But, of course, Kerry and Edwards’ income tax rates were protected under lock and key by the mainstream media during the 2004 presidential race against President George W. Bush.   Speaking of Bush, you’ll also never hear anyone mention the fact that he paid a rate of 27.7% in the same year.

Tax rates aside, in yet another attempt to make something out of nothing, the media has been reporting relentlessly on Romney donating millions in cash and stocks to the Mormon Church, as if tithing to one’s church is somehow a negative.  Thanks to donations like Romney’s, the Mormon Church is able to sustain a large philanthropic network and send young men on two year missions that provide extensive humanitarian aid to a countless number of people in need.  If you call that bad, I’d hate to see what you call good.

This much I can assure you—Romney’s millions donated to the Mormon Church did far more good than the $353 Al Gore gave to charity in 1997 or the $0, $820, $175, $2,039, and $0 Senator Kerry gave between 1991 and 1995.  Contrast that to the $28,236, $31,914, and $31,292 George Bush gave between 1991-1993 when he was a mere private citizen.  That is the real story that you will never hear.

Instead, you will hear report after report on Romney’s tax rate and his donations to the Mormon Church.  You’ll hear about how the Democratic Party is the party of the little man, and the Republican Party is the party of the selfish, rich fat cat.  That’s what the Democratic Party and the mainstream media want you to believe.

So before you buy into the Left’s big tax fable like the Occupy Wall Streeters did, take a good hard look at what you’ll never see reported—the facts.

SOURCES:

KERRY & EDWARDS TAXES

BUSH/CHENEY TAX RETURNS

CHARITABLE GIVING

Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC)

Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV): John Ensign, former U.S. Senator from Nevada and former Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, was forced to resign from office in May 2011 as the result of an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. In a scandal that first broke in 2009, Senator Ensign publicly admitted to an affair with the wife of long-time staffer Douglas Hampton. Ensign then allegedly tried to cover up the affair by bribing the couple with lucrative gifts and political favors.

According to The New York Times, after Hampton discovered the affair involving his wife Cynthia, the senator bought his silence by giving him “a strong boost into a lobbying career.” Ensign asked political backers to find Hampton a job. “Payments of $96,000 to the Hamptons also were made by Senator Ensign’s parents, who insist this was a gift, not hush money. Once a lobbying job was secured, Senator Ensign and his chief of staff continued to help Mr. Hampton, advocating his clients’ cases directly with federal agencies.”

These lobbying activities seemingly violated the law related to the Senate’s “cooling off” period for lobbyists. According to Senate rules, former Senate aides “may not lobby the Member for whom he worked or that Member’s staff for a period of one year after leaving [their] position.” Hampton began to lobby Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his job on Capitol Hill.

In November 2010, the Federal Election Commission dismissed a complaint that Ensign had violated campaign-finance laws, and in December, the Obama Department of Justice announced that it would file no criminal charges against the senator. Ensign, however, was unable to avoid the ongoing investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. In May 2011, the Senate Ethics Committee issued a devastating report that summarized the evidence against Ensign and made the extraordinary recommendation that the Justice Department reopen a criminal investigation.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC): Former Senator John Edwards, who was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004 and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, was indicted on June 3, 2011 by a grand jury in North Carolina on six felony charges, attributable at least initially to the cover-up of an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, who had been hired as a filmmaker for his campaign. After years of lies denying the relationship, Edwards finally admitted to the affair in the summer of 2008 but continued to claim until January 2010 that a child conceived out of wedlock, Frances Quinn Hunter, was not his child.

According to campaign aide Andrew Young, Edwards had pleaded with him to claim that he, Young, was the father and not Edwards. ABC news reported that Young stated in an interview that Edwards asked him to “Get a doctor to fake the DNA results… and to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child.”

As is so often the case when politicians get involved with sexual shenanigans, it is the cover-up, not necessarily the transgression, which now has Edwards in legal hot water. John Edwards is alleged to have diverted campaign funds for his personal use to hide the affair.

On May 25, The New York Times reported that the DOJ had conducted a two-year investigation into the use of more than $925,000 in political donations to hide the affair. Edwards was indicted on June 3, 2011. Should Edwards be convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison and fined as much as $1.5 million. The trial date has been set for January 30, 2012.

A federal grand jury indicted two-time presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday over $925,000 spent to keep his mistress and their baby in hiding during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

The case of USA v. Johnny Reid Edwards contains six counts, including conspiracy, four counts of illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements.

The indictment said the payments were a scheme to protect Edwards’ White House ambitions. “A centerpiece of Edwards’ candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man,” the indictment said.

“Edwards knew that public revelation of the affair and the pregnancy would destroy his candidacy by, among other things, undermining Edwards’ presentation of himself as a family man and by forcing his campaign to divert personnel and resources away from other campaign activities to respond to criticism and media scrutiny regarding the affair and pregnancy,” the indictment added.

The indictment and an arrest warrant were filed in Greensboro, N.C., which is in the district where his campaign was headquartered.

Negotiations between Edwards’ attorneys and federal prosecutors to settle on a charge to which Edwards was willing to plead guilty continued through Thursday, but proved fruitless, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. Prosecutors had insisted on a plea to a felony, which would endanger his ability to keep his license to practice law.

An Edwards spokeswoman said she wasn’t aware of the filing and declined immediate comment.

Read the whole thing here.

Carville and Rendell have this in common. They are Democrats; they are fiercely partisan; and they were strong supporters of Hillary Clinton during the primaries back in 2008. Their maneuvers should perhaps be read in light of an op-ed piece that Leslie Gelb published in The Wall Street Journal back in the middle of June, suggesting that, when Robert Gates retires, Hillary be made the first female Secretary of Defense; that, in 2012, she be put on the ticket in place of Joe Biden; and that Biden be awarded the booby prize and be named Secretary of State.

I have no idea whether Gelb ran his piece past the Clintons before publishing it. But I would not be surprised. He, too, is a restless, frustrated, critical Democrat on the outs, and the scenario that he paints is by no means ridiculous. Joe Biden is not an asset, and Barack Obama views him with obvious disdain. Bill Clinton is a talented campaigner and a master in the art of staging comebacks, and in 2012 Hillary might be able to turn out a host of white women to vote for Obama who would otherwise sit on their hands.

As it happens, on Saturday, President Obama will have a priceless opportunity that he would be ill-advised to pass up. On that fateful day, in Rhinebeck, New York, on the estate of John Jacob Astor IV, if the rumors are borne out, Chelsea Clinton will marry Marc Mezvinsky in the presence of 400 of their parents’ best friends. And, although Bill Clinton is not a Sicilian, he would certainly be hard-pressed on so auspicious a day to deny anyone who asked of him a favor – least of all a sitting President of the United States who came to him, saying, May their first child be a masculine child!

For such an interchange, the circumstances should be ideal. Apart from former Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee John Edwards and former Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore – who are, not to put too fine a point on it, indisposed, and whose recent difficulties might have the unfortunate effect of reminding attendees and the general public of past indiscretions on the part of the father of the bride – virtually everybody who is anybody in the Democratic establishment is likely to be in attendance.

The atmosphere should be just right. Chelsea’s intended is also connected. His mother, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinksy, represented Pennsylvania in Congress from 1993 to 1995 and was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor there in 1998. His father, Ed Mezvinsky, represented Iowa in Congress from 1973 to 1977, chaired the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee, and was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in that state in 1988. Moreover, shortly after the beginning of the new millennium, the groom’s father, who is known in law-enforcement circles as Fast-Talkin’ Eddie, was convicted on 31 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud, and two years ago he was released from prison. Upon request, I am sure that Fast-Talkin’ Eddie would be willing to arrange a meeting with the goodfella affectionately known to one and all as Slick Willie.

Of former President Clinton could we not say something like what Mario Puzo once wrote concerning another powerful individual?

Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody came for help, and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promises, nor the craven excuse that his hands were tied by more powerful forces in the world than himself. It was not necessary that he be your friend, it was not even important that you had no means with which to repay him. Only one thing was required. That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man’s troubles to his heart. And he would let nothing stand in the way to a solution of that man’s woe. His reward? Friendship, the respectful title of ‘Don,’ and sometimes the more affectionate salutation of ‘God father.’ And perhaps, to show respect only, never for profit, some humble gift – a gallon of homemade wine or a basket of peppered taralles specially baked to grace his Christmas table. It was understood, it was mere good manners, to proclaim that you were in his debt and that he had the right to call upon you at any time to redeem your debt by some small service.

I should think that Marc Rich and many another figure in debt to Barack Obama’s prospective benefactor could testify to the truth of such a claim. William Jefferson Clinton is known to everybody as a generous man, and he, too, has a taste for peppered taralles . . . of one sort or another.

Of course, in these propitious circumstances, should President Obama come hat in hand to speak with former President Clinton in the library at the Astor estate in Rhinebeck, one could easily imagine the latter asking the former, Why didn’t you come to me at the beginning of this affair? One can even imagine him speaking in a voice like cold death and saying something like the following: We have known each other many years, you and I, but until this day you never came to me for counsel or help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me to your house for coffee though my wife is your Secretary of State. Let us be frank. You spurned my friendship.  You feared to be in my debt. The Democratic Party’s capo di tutti capi might even bring the conversation to a temporary halt with a single question: Why do you fear giving your first allegiance to me?

I cannot imagine Barack Obama enjoying such an exchange any more than the appropriately named Amerigo Bonasera enjoyed the interview with Don Corleone depicted in the opening scene to Godfather I. But to something of the sort he may soon have to submit. He might have saved himself a great deal of trouble had he taken the advice I offered him in a post on this site back in January and consulted the Comeback Kid at that time. Of course, even then, as I made clear, it was doubtful whether our President could have saved many of his associates in Congress. But neither he nor his predecessor cares one whit for the Democratic Party.

In any case, by now, both surely have their eyes on 2012, and in the two years that follow the thumping that the Democrats are going to get this November Bill Clinton and his minions could do a great deal for Barack Obama if they were willing. To start with, were our current President to give his first allegiance to his predecessor, I am confident that Carville, Rendell, and Gelb would start singing a different tune.

And who knows? On Monday, Dick Morris might get a call.

UPDATE: Something more ominous seems to be in the offing. Michael Barone reports that President Obama has not even been invited to the wedding. Could this mean that Slick Willie, Fast-Talkin’ Eddie, and the Ragin’ Cajun are planning to go to the mattresses?

Journalists love transparency.  As long as they’re not the ones being exposed.

No steadfast journalism rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the United States today. The ends justify the means for the Democrat Media Complex. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. And when the whistle is blown, they simply double down. “Journolist” — like Media Matters, but more insidious, if that’s possible — is an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle, technology and “the masses” uncovered the conspiracy:

Talk radio and the Internet have allowed outsiders the ability to challenge a multiple generational shift from journalism being about the story, to journalism being crafted toward a partisan end. From Newsweek killing the Lewinsky story to the Swift Boat veterans (until the undermedia pressure got too big) to the Dan Rather implosion to the open attempt to keep the Al Gore masseuse story under wraps to the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter debacle to the Van Jones admission of missing the story to the networks ignoring the ACORN video footage to the media playing up trumped up charges of racism in the Tea Party — while ignoring exculpatory evidence — to the mother of all media-as-political weaponry: the non-vetting of candidate Obama, the mainstream media has shown that it is in an ideological death spiral. And the ground is right here.

American journalism died a long time ago; today Tucker Carlson got around to running the obituary. What The Daily Caller has unearthed proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that most media organizations are either complicit by participation in the treachery that is Journolist, or are guilty of sitting back and watching Alinsky warfare being waged against all that challenged the progressive orthodoxy. The scandal predictably involves journalists posing as professors posing as experts. But dressed down they are nothing but street thugs. They deserve the deepest levels of public consternation. We must demand that they do.

The only way that the media will recover from the horrifying discoveries found in the Journolist is to investigate and investigate until every guilty reporter, professor and institution is laid bare begging America for forgiveness. Will they do it?

If the powers that be don’t comply with this demand, we can always call Jonathan Alter and Eric Alterman racists.*

During his last public ceremony as commander in chief, he was booed by thousands of Americans who simutaneously cheered for Barack Obama as he was sworn into office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Except for a June 17 speech in Erie, Pennsylvania in which Bush defended his policies and criticized Obama’s, the former president has been remarkably silent about his successor. He has not fired back at Obama despite the new administration inappropriately blaming Bush for all of their failures.

One year after taking office however, Obama has done a total reversal on his isolationist, non-interventionist foreign policy, and is now pushing President Bush’s neo-conservative philosophy as a justification for starting a new war in Afghanistan. What the Democratic Party once criticized as an over-simplified good vs. evil argument has become the cornerstone of Obama’s reasoning.

“Evil does exist in the world,” Obama recently admitted. “A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of man.”

In the wake of this stunning adoption of the Bush foreign policy doctrine, there is little, if any dissent. The same people who crucified Bush for liberating Iraq are hardly criticizing Obama for using force to promote democracy in Afghanistan.

Recent Gallup polls find that 62 percent of Americans think Obama’s war in Afghanistan “is the right thing” whereas only 39 percent of Americans think Bush made the right decision by sending troops to Iraq.

Any American who thinks that Bush was misdirected when he sent troops to Iraq in 2003 can’t possibly deny that renewing war in Afghanistan in 2009 to hunt Al Qaeda, eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks is, at the least, equally fallible.

Still, Obama is receiving the kind of public support that an American president, any president, deserves during wartime. Many anti-war activists, journalists and elected officials have been remarkably quiet, affording the new commander in chief the opportunity to launch a successful war campaign.

Very few Americans showed the same faithfulness to President Bush, including members of his own party. Republicans who favored non-interventionism to nation building abandoned Bush, and Democratic senators like John Kerry, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton who voted for the war turned against it before the 2004 elections so they would have the ammunition they needed to criticize their incumbent opponent.

America quickly forgot about how President Bush charismatically lifted our spirits during some of the darkest moments of our nation’s history when the Twin Towers collapsed. After all, even Senator Kerry admitted Bush’s handling of the aftermath of  the 9/11 attacks was “terrific,” during the 2004 presidential debates.

But after President Bush successfully secured America in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, he was rewarded with accusations of committing human rights violations and war crimes – an incredible irony since his policies were responsible for liberating tens of millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some Americans accused Bush of lying and starting a war under false pretenses simply because our troops never found actual weapons of mass destruction.

Despite what Michael Moore implied in his film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Congress did not base their 2002 authorization for the Iraq War solely on the premise that Saddam Hussein either had or was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Their legislation reads very clearly that America’s purpose in sending troops back to Iraq was to enforce U.N. resolutions, some of which were violated in the 1990’s and probably should have been enforced by President Clinton. Whether actual weapons were found or not, the war in Iraq was legally and morally justifiable, and necessary.

In addition to enduring criticism for his war policies, millions of Americans demanded the new Obama administration prosecute Bush for his decision to indefinitely holding detainees charged with war crimes. When President Obama signed an executive order in May that reinforced that same Bush policy, the far left was mute.

Almost no one said a word. Apparently, its acceptable for Obama to indefinitely hold detainees, just not Bush.

As Obama continues to make decisions that mirror the Bush doctrine, it is becoming apparent that the former president was not ignorant or irrational in his foreign policy decisions despite the harsh criticism and disloyalty he endured. He was in fact, ahead of his time, a visionary who understood politics and warfare in the modern age of terrorism.

That is why Obama is now following his lead.

It should be obvious now, even to Obama’s most passionate supporters that shielding the free world requires more than mere words like “hope” and “change.” Bush’s detractors should be embarrassed having arrogantly thought they could do it better, and those Republicans who abandoned Bush when he needed them most should take a moment to reflect on their fortitude or lack thereof.

Americans who chastised President Bush for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq should apologize and show him the same respect they are now showing President Obama as he neutralizes the Taliban in Afghanistan.

George W. Bush seemed to have an almost mystical understanding of what the American people needed when we needed it most. He reminded all of us of why we should be proud to be Americans at a time when there was a whisper that we brought the Sept. 11 attacks upon ourselves for promoting democracy abroad.

President Bush deserves our respect, not our betrayal.

This article also published here.

Hands down, the ’00s were the worst political decade at least since the 1990s.

Reason.tv celebrates the (lack of) personalities, the scandals, and the screw-ups that made us all want to forget the first 10 years of the 21st century.

Approximately 2.10 minutes. No politicians were hurt in the making of this video.

Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

For downloadable versions of this and other videos, go to Reason.tv.