No, no…the ‘ol “Double Irish” isn’t a drink, but a legal tax strategy (does multimillionaire board member Al Gore know this?) used by Apple’s Irish subsidiaries to avoid America’s onerous corporate income tax. Following Google’s similar strategy of loading up profits in Ireland only to shift them to tax haven Bermuda and Facebook’s creative use of stock options to avoid U.S. corporate taxes, you might be wondering why our fellow high-tech liberals who say taxes don’t matter try so hard to avoid them. Oh, and just when these loyal Democrat fundraisers will a) offer an apology to Mitt Romney for taking advantage of a lower ‘carried interest’ tax rate through his private equity firm, and b) campaign for a lower combined state and federal corporate income tax in the U.S., which is now highest in the developed world. Just asking…

Uh-oh.

Just when one-party domination looked safe again in Minnesota, the St. Paul scandal that dare not speak its name has reared its ugly head. And it involves a veritable who’s who of Democratic icons apparently accustomed to manipulating the legal system for political gain.

The nomination of civil-rights attorney Thomas Perez for labor secretary has raised more than a few eyebrows in the nation’s capital. Perez, who perfected the art of filing lawsuits using “disparate impact” analysis in his post as assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, has been busy explaining a particularly unctuous quid pro quo with the city of St. Paul. Continue reading →