REPUBLICROOK BILL FRIST STILL VERY MUCH IN THE RACE FOR THE TITLE: "MOST CORRUPT U.S. SENATOR"

Most people paying attention to this sort of thing have surely come to the conclusion by now that Tennessee Senator Bill Frist is not just an extremist in his politics but also extremely dishonest, unethical and, in all likelihood, destined for prison. Whether he's caught lying about how "blind" his blind trust is (not blind at all) or about his faith-based, fraudulent "diagnosis" of Terri Schiavo, the Senate Majority Leader is one nasty piece of work. (I mean that is an undoctored photograph of the man!)

So it should have surprised no serious Frist watchers when Associated Press reported that the inside stock trader has also been fiddling with his taxes-- BIG TIME!. Apparently the senior senator from Tennessee thought it was ok to use "charity" donations to defraud the government (the citizens and taxpayers). His so-called "AIDS charity," for example, was used to funnel almost half a million dollars into the hands of his corrupt political supporters as "consulting fees." Apparently the 18 donors who contributed the bulk of the $4.4 million to Frist's "charity" were helping him fund his partisan scams-- and all at the taxpayers' expense! Many of these corrupt organizations found this a convenient way to bribe the ethicless Frist, who had tremendous impact on their business before Congress (such as 3M, Eli Lilli, GoldmanSachs and Blue Cross). Frist was then able to transfer the untaxed loot to Far Right pseudo-religionist organizations with Republican extremist agendas and to family members of his political cronies.

According to the A.P. story "Political experts said both the size of [the] charity's big donations and its consulting fees raise questions about whether the tax-exempt group benefited Frist's political ambitions. 'One of the things people who are running for president try to do is keep their fundraising staff and political people close at hand. And one of the ways you can do that is by putting them in some sort of organization you run,' said Larry Noble, the government's former chief election lawyer who now runs the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that studies fundraising. Kent Cooper, the Federal Election Commission's former disclosure chief, said the big donors' motives are also suspect. 'These tax deductible gifts were earmarked through Senator Frist,' Cooper said. 'They were raised in the political arena at the 2004 Republican Convention and the natural question is were they given to the Senate majority leader to gain favor or were they given for true charitable purposes?' Cooper said the consulting fees were 'excessively high' and the fact that they were 'paid to primarily political consultants also raises questions about the long-range strategic benefits for the 2008 presidential race.'"