Where is the Obama administration’s sense of propriety? Apparently it’s wrapped up in victory-at-any-cost mode if the website for the federal government’s Health and Human Services is concerned. For, if you go to the HHS.gov website, you’ll see a banner that advertises for a political issue, instead of a legitimate government “service.”

There you’ll see a banner/button pushing the political cause of nationalized health care. Worse, clicking on that button takes you to a faux petition style email page where you can “state your support” to the president for his “commitment to health care reform.” This is basically the president giving the public a fake place to tell him to support his own cause. There is also a link to healthreform.gov which is little else but an Obama issue advocacy campaign website and not really a legitimate government site at all.

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Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, the former trial lawyer lobbyist who looked out for the interest group while in the state’s highest office — even though doing so meant preventing decreased costs and increased access to care within her own state’s health care system — has a tax problem.

According to this letter from Sebelius to Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, the Kansas Democrat and her husband hired a CPA to “conduct a thorough review” of their tax returns for 2005, 2006, and 2007 “in preparation for [her] confirmation process as the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.”

While conducting his review, the CPA found that the Sebeliuses owed $7,040 in federal taxes, which was paid along with $848 in interest.

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Update 3/31/09 by Jeff: Ho, hum, it appears Gov. Sebelius is yet another Obama nominee with a tax problem.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (Democrat), fresh off a losing battle against the GOP-led state legislature to solve the state budget crisis by incurring more debt while keeping expenditures exorbitant, has been selected by President Obama to head up the department of Health and Human Services. Given the amount of time between the February 3 withdrawal of Obama’s first choice for the post, former Senator and health care rationing advocate Tom Daschle (D-SD), it certainly appears that Sebelius was a very, very distant second choice (if that) to fill the empty cabinet position.

The reason she was a distant second for the post, though, probably (based on President Obama’s track record of nominees to date) had little or nothing to do with a reluctance to nominate yet another lobbyist to his cabinet.

Before being elected state Insurance Commissioner, Sebelius was executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association (an organization which has since dropped the accurate title for the more obfuscative “Kansas Association for Justice”). She continued protecting the state Trial Lawyers Association’s interests as Governor, using her veto power in 2007 to kill SB 55, a tort reform measure aimed directly at lowering health care costs by providing partial protection to health care professionals in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling “that physicians and other health care providers could be sued under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act for disputes over the care and treatment of patients.”

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The National Organization for Women has long had a low threshold for support of candidates for office and position. The criteria they use to judge worth generally consist of two requirements (1) Be Female (apparently 21st century androgeny and transgendered-rights haven’t yet caught on in this corner of Leftopia), and (2) Be Liberal.

Luckily enough for Democrat Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, she meets both of these requirements (despite her fence-straddling support of the Iraq war and her profiting from criminal and Democrat bundler Norman Hsu to the tune of $27,000), meaning she’s a natural to receive the active endorsement of NOW for the “NOW”-empty position of Health and Human Services secretary.

The following release hit my inbox just after dinner last night:

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He’s got the New York Times calling for his removal (check out Hot Air for appropriate scorn at the way that the Grey Lady is weaseling on this one), there was a quid pro quo between Daschle and the guy who gave him the car and chauffeur, and the best defense that Obama’s press sacrificial victim secretary could come up with?

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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 Moe Lane.