Nov 25 2012
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politics

McCain and Graham’s Phony Calls For More Tax Revenue

GOP members of Congress continue to contort themselves over Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge. They don’t want to seem tied to the pledge in the run-up to the fiscal cliff, yet they can’t quite get serious about serious tax reform.

Today’s profiles in courage come from John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two of the GOP’s leaders in the Senate:

On the Sunday talk shows, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called for raising revenues by scaling back tax deductions and credits.

‘I would be very much opposed to raising tax rates, but I do believe we can close a lot of loopholes,” McCain said on Fox News Sunday. He said that could be achieved by imposing ‘a limit on the amount of deduction on charitable giving, a limit on the amount you can take on your home loan mortgage deduction.’

McCain and Graham are trying to seem like heroic realists for supposedly sticking a finger in Norquist’s eye. They say they want to raise revenue, yet they remain wedded to current tax rates.

The candidate that proposed this exact type of “courageous” tax policy during the presidential campaign lost the election. There simply are not enough deductions that can be limited or eliminated altogether to make a real difference.

The GOP needs to get serious on tax rates, instead of trying to save face with gimmicks that purport to raise some revenue but without increasing the rate of taxation.

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Nov 25 2012
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Dissonance On The Right: Contraception Use Causes Abortion Rate To Decline

This one might get the Right into a pickle.

The Center For Disease Control And Prevention (“CDC”) reported this week that the abortion rate in the United States dropped in 2009 to an all-time low.

The reason? Increased use of contraception, more particularly increased use of the most effective types of contraception.

For example, sixty percent of teenage girls who have sex now use the most effective kinds of contraception, including the pill and patch. IUD use is increasing. These devices essentially prevent “user error.” And, use of the “morning after” pill — emergency contraception — is also rising.

Controversy raged in the U.S. earlier this year after the Obama Administration proposed requiring health insurers to cover the cost of contraception. Catholic groups called the proposal an attack on religious freedom. Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” for her advocacy in support of the proposal. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said “[w]hile some Americans may not feel that government mandates forcing them to pay for contraception are an infringement on their religious beliefs, others consider it to be an assault against their freedom of conscience.”

Now, however, we seem to have proof that increased use of contraception is causing a decrease in the abortion rate. The Obama Administration wants contraceptives to be more widely accessible, at lower cost. The abortion rate could drop even lower.

Prevention, of course, is often the best medicine. Doesn’t the Right want to prevent the need for abortion? Doesn’t the Right want the abortion rate to decline? Shouldn’t the Right embrace the CDC report and call for the increased availability of proven effective contraception?

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Nov 23 2012
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politics

Right-Wing Election Predictions: The Glee Continues Two Weeks Out

The folks at Pundit Shaming are having a lot of fun chuckling daily at the pre-election predictions of the right-wing pundit class. Romney was going to win, and he was going to win decisively they said. Some even thought a landslide was in the making.

Particular glee is directed toward the folks at PJ Media. These guys and gals were cheerleaders of the first order. Commonsense, analysis, and rational thought fell by the wayside, replaced with dreaming and self-delusion.

PJ’s election eve prediction round-up from its bevy of pundits is still hilarious, two weeks after the election. Watch the lunacy spill out like thousands of women falling out of Mitt’s binders:

“Mitt Romney wins . . . decisively”

“Romney is going to win, big time. Why? I can tell you in three syllables and a few numbers. The syllables are: Ben-gha-zi.”

“Romney will win because Catholic voters, particularly in the belt from Harrisburg to Minnesota, break for Romney. Obama will lose the election because he invaded one of the most sacred American traditions — religious liberty.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of Americans will vote for Mitt Romney.”

The comments are also hilarious, particularly those posted after the election was called for Obama:

“My goodness what a spectacular array of wrongness!”

“This article sounds like what my co-workers were saying last week. You wouldn’t believe how much money I won from them wagering on the election, that I would pay up if Romney won, but they only had to pay me if Obama got 303+ electoral votes.”

“If Obama is toast, does that make Romney a soggy biscuit? LOL you wingnuts got pwned.”

“I am laughing my ass off reading this. It makes Obama’s victory all the more sweeter.”

Yes, it certainly does. Collective “wrongness” has never been so laughably wrong.

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Nov 22 2012
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Another Indiana In The Making?

Richard Lugar served Indiana as a Republican United States Senator for decades. But in the Tea Party world, he was too moderate and too prone to compromise. The party nominated Richard Mourdock, whose “interesting” views on rape, pregnancy and abortion caused him to lose in a state that Mitt Romney carried easily.

It looks like Georgia might have an opportunity to follow in Indiana’s footsteps and hand a “safe” Republican seat to the Democrats in 2014. Former Susan G. Komen for the Cure executive Karen Handel could run for US Senate in Georgia in 2014.

You might recall Handel. She resigned after trying to get Komen to stop sending breast cancer screening grants to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortion. In her recent book, Handel says that members of Planned Parenthood “a bunch of schoolyard thugs.”

Handel is given a chance of winning the nomination:

“If she ran, she would be going up against Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), whom Roll Call reported may be vulnerable to a primary challenge from the right, given his ‘willingness to reach across the aisle and his comfort with the idea of compromise.’”

That’s the same thing that doomed Lugar. He was comfortable with the ‘idea of compromise’ with Democrats, a trait that is verboten in the Tea Party world.

So, Handel says that Planned Parenthood is comprised of “schoolyard thugs”? That’s just like, in Richard Mourdock’s world, pregnancy from rape is “something that God intended to happen.” Great. Replace another compromiser with a reproductive rights radical. That’s learning the lessons of the 2012 election.

The GOP might intend to lose its Senate seat from Georgia.

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Sep 26 2012
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politics

Keep On Talking: Tommy Thompson Edition

What is it about Republican politicians in Wisconsin that makes them so cruel?

We all know that Governor Scott Walker hates unions. Well, unless we are talking about the professional football referee’s union whose members are far more skilled than those replacement scabs that cost the Green Bay Packers a victory the other night.

Mitt Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan hates, well, everything.

Former Wisconsin Governor and current candidate for Senate, Tommy Thompson, joined this illustrious club recently when he was caught on tape recently saying that he is simply the best person around to “do away with Medicaid and Medicare”:

Keep on talking, former Governor Thompson. By saying you want to “do away” with two of the most important and successful social welfare programs in American history, you are making the case against yourself, and against your party, far better than your opponents can even hope to approximate.

Thank you, very much.

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Sep 21 2012
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politics

Keep On Talking: Republican National Committee Edition

This installment of “Keep On Talking” comes directly from the Republican National Committee in all of its edited, out-of-context message massaging. It’s one of the RNC’s very own advertisements highlighting the Right’s favorite meme of the week, “redistribution.” Here it is:

If you look closely, though, in the text shown in the ad of the President’s fourteen-year old comments that are supposed to make him look like a European socialist, he says he favors a “little” bit of “redistribution” so that everyone “has a chance.” That’s right, a “little” “redistribution” is necessary so that everyone has a “chance” to succeed. The sounds like the entire basis of the Federal student loan program. Heck, it was the entire basis of the wildly successful GI Bill that made it easier for veterans to attend college so . . . they had a “chance” to succeed. I guess Mitt Romney is against that.

Keep on talking, RNC. You are making the case against your candidate in brilliant and stark terms.

Nevertheless, Andrew Sullivan points out that the ad conveniently deletes the rest of the President’s fourteen year-old comments on “redistribution.” Those deleted comments show someone who is not a socialist, but a believer in the capitalist marketplace who wants to make it more efficient and fair:

I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot. How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities.

Wow, using “decentralized delivery systems” to foster competition and innovation in the marketplace. That sounds, well, almost Republican.

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Sep 20 2012
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Keep On Talking: Michelle Malkin Edition

The star in this installment is that poorly drawn cartoon character who calls herself Michelle Malkin. For the uninitiated, Michelle says she is “a mother, wife, blogger, conservative syndicated columnist, author, and Fox News Channel contributor.”

Here, Michelle and everyone’s favorite high-school graduate talking head, Sean Hannity, riff on the “revelation” of a fourteen-year old video showing the President saying he supports a “little” redistribution of wealth:

Let’s talk about a little “redistribution” that has long existed in American society:

1. The progressive income tax
2. Social security
3. Medicare
4. Medicaid
5. Federally-guaranteed student loans

Those are, of course, just some of the hallmarks of an enlightened capitalist society.  If supporting those things makes one a “radical,” well, then, most of us are “radicals.” Keep on talking, Michelle and Sean. You make the case brilliantly in favor of a “little” redistribution.

I hope you watched the entire long slog of the Hannity-Malkin display of wits, however difficult that proved to be. One of the best vignettes is where Michelle goes nuclear on that earnest conservative, David Brooks, for not only being in the tank for Obama (there is, of course, no evidence of that), but also for supposedly digging the crease in the President’s pants.

Now that’s some biting, insightful political commentary. You go, Michelle!

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Sep 20 2012
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Keep On Talking: Mary Matalin Edition

I am going to institute a new feature that I call “Keep On Talking.” This is where I encourage the leading lights on the Right to “keep on talking” because they make the case against themselves far better than their opponents can ever hope to do.

Here’s Mary Matalin “debating” Hilary Rosen on CNN on September 18. You may remember Mary. She is long-time GOP operative, commentator and raconteuer, who is also well-known for being married to James Carville, a long-time Democratic operative, commentator and raconteur.

Listen closely as Mary makes the case brilliantly that Mitt Romney truly sees the United States as comprised of ”makers” like himself and “takers” that make up the dreaded “47%”:

Bravo. Makers and takers. Producers and parasites. Us and them.

Of course, Mitt Romney himself never ”produced” a thing in his life. He specialized in leveraged buy-outs and stripping value out of the companies his company “purchased” by loading them with debt.

But that, of course, is a minor detail. Mary Matalin says that you are either a “maker” or a “taker.” You either contribute to society or you leech off of society.

For those comments, Mary, I salute you. You make the case brilliantly against Mitt Romney.

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Jun 08 2012
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politics

The Shameless Mendacity Of The Amoral Mr. Romney

It is abundantly clear that Mitt Romney will say anything, do anything, and be anything he thinks will get him to the magic 50.1% of the vote in any place his handlers think is worth capturing. He will say one thing in one place, another thing in another place. He will say one thing to one group of people, another thing to another group of people. All that matters is that his words simply sound good to certain voters, and look good on the Etch-A-Sketch of his massive marketing campaign.

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Let’s take a look at some of his objectively, verifiable fibs advanced this week alone:

  • On Tuesday, Romney said he would have supported a government bailout of the auto industry in 2008-2009 as long as the automakers entered into a “managed” bankruptcy. The problem was that Romney was caught on video at least ten times in 2008 and 2009 campaigning heavily against the bailouts under any circumstance.
  • Romney claims that “an independent inspector general” found that the Obama Administration steered Solyndra money to friends, family and campaign contributors. This is an objective, verifiable falsehood supported by absolutely no evidence.
  • Romney claims that the Obama Administration cooked up the Solyndra deal. This is another objective, verifiable falsehood. The Bush Administration advanced the Solyndra loan guarantee for two years before Obama became President.
  • Romney claimed this week that a book documenting the Obama Administration’s policy-making strategy showed that the administration intentionally sought to harm the economy. The author of the book, however, said Romney’s claim was “false, in a variety of ways.”
  • Romney claims that the Obama Administration had “super majorities” in both houses of Congress for two years and that it thus has nobody but itself to blame for the current state of malaise in Washington and the current sputtering of the economy. This, too, is an objective and verifiable fib.

Romney’s shameless, audacious mendacity does not, of course, prevent him from branding the President’s handling of the economy “a moral failure of tragic proportions.” Maybe it takes one to know one. P.M. Carpenter put it best in his blog:

It’s only June, and Mitt Romney has already exhausted all the hideous possibilities of a Dorian Gray mentality that would make even Oscar Wilde blush. Moral. That’s this pathetic, vile little pol’s new favorite word. Moral. Here’s a man who leads a party that endorses torture as well as unprovoked war, and coddles the rich while showing indifference to the poor. Moral.

Combine Gray with Elmer Gantry and you’d still come up short of the ‘moral’ abomination that calls itself Mitt Romney.

Mitt is nothing but a huckster and a carnival barker. Buyer beware.

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Apr 23 2012
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politics

Short-Cuts: Commies, Perpetual Etch-A-Sketching, Bad Dinner Conversation And Junk Statistics

Tail-Gunner Allen Is At It Again

A couple of weeks ago, the intrepid Rep. Allen West (R-Fla) announced that he has a list of 78 to 81 members of Congress that are also members of the Communist Party.

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West now charges that the FBI’s removal of Islamophobic material from the its training facility is part of a greater world-wide Muslim conspiracy to undermine America. “We should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy,” West told Brian Kilmeade on Fox & Friends.

Commies and radical Muslims apparently are everywhere. Watch out, America, the pod people obviously are on their way to replace us all. “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next!”

More Etch-A-Sketching In The Romney Campaign

The Romney campaign thinks it can simply wipe away the past inconvenient statements the candidate blurted out trying to capture the GOP nomination.

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Did Mitt make a jerk out of himself with women by saying that he wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood? No problem, just wipe it away.

Did Mitt alienate Latinos by saying he supported Arizona’s “papers please” and “e-verify” laws? No problem, erase it.

Last week, the Romney campaign named Richard Grenell as its new foreign policy spokesperson. It turns out that Grenell has a long history of tweeting really stupid things about women, who don’t like Mitt to begin with.

For example, Grenell once tweeted that “Hillary is starting to look liek Madeline [sic] Albright.”

Grenell remarked that Rachel Maddow looks like Justin Bierber.

Grenell tweeted that First Lady Michelle Obama had been working out and “sweating on the East Room carpet.”

Inconvenient statements, indeed, especially for a candidate trying to improve his station with women. How best to deal with such statements? Try to erase ‘em, of course:

On Friday afternoon, Grenell still featured a link to his personal site (http://www.richardgrenell.com) on his Twitter profile, which then showed that he had tweeted 7,577 times, according to a screenshot taken Friday by The Huffington Post. By Sunday morning, Grenell’s Twitter feed only listed 6,759 tweets and his personal site is no longer available.

Unfortunately for Mitt, the internet has its own permanence. You can scrub it all you want, but it will just keep coming back.

Would You Want To “Grab A Bite” With Mitt?

The Obama campaign is organizing a “Dinner with Barack” sweepstakes. Four winners will win round-trip airfare, a hotel stay and dinner with the President. Sounds pretty cool.

Did the Romney campaign try to match this? Not quite. It seems that a $5 donation can win you round-trip airfare, a hotel stay and dinner with Ann Romney, not Mitt.

This actually makes abundant sense. Who would actually want to “grab a bite” with Mitt?

He’d spend the meal telling you that the coffee tastes like it was bought at McDonalds and that the cookies taste like they came from a homeless shelter. He would remind you that “corporations are people, my friend.” He would regale you with stories of riding “dressage,” and you would look dumbfounded because you wouldn’t have a clue as to what “dressage” is. Mitt would then name-check all of the professional sports owners who are his friends.

You would stare at your watch non-stop. You would hope to receive e-mails, texts and other notifications to steal yourself away from Mitt’s sparkling personality. You would scream. You would scram.

The Junk Man Cometh

When I hear Mitt Romney drone on and on about how the President did not work miracles by immediately reversing the course of the Great Recession upon taking the oath of office, I am reminded of the power of the old adage about there being three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

Got nothing really to say, Mitt? Just make it up. Don’t worry about whether its true. The more outlandish it sounds, the better it is. The more aggressive it is in its falsity, the more likely it is to be believed. Throw in some really good sounding statistics and maybe enough low information, short memory voters will fall for the hokum.

Steve Kornacki summed it up quite well last week in Salon:

This speaks to the power of Romney’s basic message. He and his campaign are notorious for using highly misleading and outright junk statistics to blame Obama for economic conditions that are the direct result of the economic collapse that occurred just before he took office, on his Republican predecessor’s watch.

But we all know the recession started in 2007. Or at least we though we all knew that. If, however, enough American voters are willing to say “lie to me, Mitt, lie to me,” Mitt’s revisionist history could very well work.

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