Tag Archives: buffett rule

Morning Bunker Report: Tuesday 5.1.2012

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——————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

ALWAYS CHOOSE wealthy parents — If you don’t come from a wealthy family with tens of thousands of disposable income, well, that’s a shame — no small business for you. Romney wants young people to “take a shot,” “go for it,” “take a risk,” “get the education,” and “start a business,” but only if the federal government has no role in creating those opportunities. In the 2012 campaign context, the point isn’t to mock Romney for being very wealthy or for having very wealthy parents. Rather, what matters here is that he’s opposed to using public institutions to help level the playing field for everyone else. — Steve Benen

MITT ROMNEY thinks you should read W. Cleon Skousen: conspiracy theorist, slavery apologist, tea party icon. – “Skousen quotes from an essay which argues that “one of the blessings of slavery” was that slaves’ marriages were fleeting, and suggests that being bought at auction improved slaves’ self worth. The real victims of slavery, he suggested, were the white owners. The book also referred to black children as “pickaninnies”—which prompted lawmakers in California to block the text from being used in classrooms. In Skousen’s book, the model Supreme Court decision was Dred Scott, which correctly demarcated the limits of federal power; Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in that case, was the model Supreme Court justice.” — Mother Jones

GOOD NEWS, Arizona lawmakers are on the verge of doing what no one else could — defeat the secret United Nations plot to lower poverty, eliminate radioactive waste, and improve the public health. Obvious, glaring threats to our way of life. Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state unemployment office. A final legislative vote is expected Monday on a bill that would outlaw government support of any of the 27 principles contained in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, also sometimes referred to as Agenda 21. – What’s Wrong With Arizona?

“REPRESENTATIVE PAUL D. RYAN strolls the halls of Capitol Hill with the anarchist band Rage Against the Machine pounding through his earbuds. At 6:30 every morning, he leads an adoring cast of young, conservative members of Congress through exercise sessions in front of a televised trainer barking out orders. For fun, Mr. Ryan noodles catfish, catching them barehanded with a fist down their throats. He may be, as a friend described him, “a hunting-obsessed gym rat,” but Mr. Ryan, 42, of Wisconsin, has become perhaps the most influential policy maker in the Republican Party, its de facto head of economic policy, intent on a fundamental transformation of the federal government.” — Wow. Half-Wonk, Half-Jock. Half-Objectivist, Half-Catholic. Half-Punk, Half-Wall Street. Paul Ryan is like a projected fantasy of what every high school Young Republican wants to be when he grows up. No wonder GOPers and reporters alike are writing his name all over their notebooks. – The Man, the Legend, the Catfish Noodler

STEPHEN FINCHER (R-TN), ANOTHER TEA PARTY FRESHMAN barfed into Congress on a wave of anger over government-funded bailouts of banks, is accepting cash from bailed-out bankers. Now those incumbents are collecting thousands of dollars for re-election campaigns from the same Wall Street firms whose excesses they criticized. They have taken no significant steps to curb them or prevent future taxpayer-financed rescues. Republican freshmen have made clear their disdain for expanding government, and openly opposed a financial regulatory overhaul enacted by Democrats in 2010 before the newcomers arrived in Washington. [...] “I haven’t seen any of them putting forth legislation on breaking up the big banks or on other things that would genuinely prevent a bailout next time,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a Washington- based umbrella group of organizations that supported the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations. – Bloomberg

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS————————————————————

Former President Clinton: Obama ‘Deserves to Be Re-Elected’ – “He’s got an opponent who basically wants to do what they did before, on steroids, which will get you the same consequences you got before, on steroids,” Clinton said at a campaign event this weekend.

“I WOULD SUPPORT the president’s version of the DREAM Act…I think that Senator Rubio’s version of the DREAM Act would create a second class status for folks. And I understand that Speaker Boehner has said that he doesn’t expect that that issue will be addressed in this Congress…He said the DREAM Act would be a handout and has campaigned with Kris Kobach, who authored the Arizona and the Alabama laws…” – Los Angeles’ Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, chair of the Democratic convention later this year, criticized Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) work-in-progress version of the DREAM Act. – CBS NEWS | Video

WHILE OBAMA SAID it’s “entirely appropriate” to “remember what we as a country accomplished” in getting bin Laden, the President advised that people look at what Romney said in 2007 and ask him why he now says something different: OBAMA: As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assumed that people meant what they said when they said it, that’s been at least my practice. I said that we’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggested they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it. – Obama: ‘I Assumed’ He Meant It When He Said He Wouldn’t Get Bin Laden

THE REASON for all the dust that’s being thrown up is that, every time he talks about foreign policy, Romney is a blindfolded man in a yard full of rakes.  Is anyone taking seriously the complaints now coming about how the president’s re-election campaign is using the decision to kill Osama bin Laden to its own advantage? I think the killing of the author of the 9/11 atrocities, and a considerable international murderer even beyond that particular crime, is something that a president who wants to be president again is within his rights to use. However, Willard Romney is all a’flutter. (“My dear young chap, that simply is not done.”) There apparently were no clouds in the sky at which John McCain could yell, so he weighed in on the dreadful inappropriateness of it all. [...] In the present case, the president actually gave the order. Osama bin Laden is actually dead. And, having done what he did, the president is well within his rights to wonder out loud if Willard Romney would have made the same call, given what Romney said back in 2007, when he was just starting to run for president. And it’s no more or less “fair” on the merits than is Romney’s constant refrain that the president “doesn’t understand how the economy works” because he’s never been a vulture capitalist. (Today in New Hampshire, while travelling around with Senator Kelly Ayotte, his latest vice-presidential beard, and demonstrating the pure class and raw political courage that has marked his entire political career by throwing a cheap shot at someone who wasn’t in the room, Romney said that, “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” This from a man whose toughest decision in his life has been which house to sleep in.) — Charles P. Pierce

“I’VE KNOWN RICH PEOPLE, and why not, since I’m one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing “Disco Inferno” than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar.” – Stephen King, “Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!”

DID PRESIDENT OBAMA’S re-election campaign take its new slogan from MSNBC? The campaign unveiled a new video with a new tagline on Monday morning. The slogan? “Forward.” The “Morning Joe” crew were among the many to notice that the slogan bears more than a passing resemblance to MSNBC’s nearly two-year-old branding line, “Lean Forward.” – Joe Scarborough: Obama’s New Slogan Taken From MSNBC

FACTOID: “BACKWARDS” has already been trademarked by the Republican Party.

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!

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“I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-f—king-American, is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Gov. Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.” – Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake! – The Daily Beast | via: randomactsofchaos

The Republican idea that the rich don’t have enough

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JAMELLE BOUIE WRITES that Liberals can’t be complacent about the GOP’s embrace of the Ryan budget: The Only Reasonable Response Is Alarm. Here’s a longish snip:

The Ryan budget does a lot of things. It flattens the tax code and dramatically cuts taxes for high-income earners. It caps federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product, and it calls for higher military spending. It turns Medicaid into a block grant for the states, and gradually shifts Medicare to a private insurance plan.

Here’s what we know about these ideas. Over the next ten years, Ryan’s tax plan would cost the federal government $4.6 trillion in revenue on top of the $5 trillion it costs to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts. Ryan, in other words, would engineer an unprecedented financial windfall for the wealthiest Americans. Everyone else would have to pay for it.

His Medicaid plan would cut the program by $800 billion over the same period, and cause 14 million people (at least) to lose their health care coverage. His budget would cut food stamps by $133 billion over the next decade, and cut the Pell Grant program to nonexistence. Non-defense discretionary spending would all but vanish. Veterans’ health care, medical and scientific research, highways, education, national parks, food safety, clean air and clean water enforcement, and law enforcement would be on the chopping block, along with funds for low-income housing and other programs to assist the working poor.

This is neither compassionate nor an attempt at achieving “the ends of the welfare state through more private means and more efficient public means”—it’s a whole scale attack on the idea of social responsibility. Paul Ryan doesn’t call for new charity, and he doesn’t even attempt to provide incentives for these newly enriched rich people to give away their money. It’s simply Robin Hood in reverse; taking from everyone to give the most privileged. The methods might be new, but the idea—that the strongest, most powerful people deserve the spoils of civilization—is as old as human history. Paul Ryan is but one in a long line of people who have worked to enrich the wealthy at all costs.

This is the budget which Ryan claimed would be endorsed by the Pope.

Related: 

Morning Bunker Report: Sunday 4.22.2012

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————————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

ROMNEY CAN DOG-WHISTLE WITH THE BEST OF THEM. Romney appeared on stage in front of this official campaign banner: See, there’s a very racist stereotype about black people being “lazy and shiftless,” and another one that has to do with “welfare queens” who don’t want to work. So when you create a disgusting slogan like this one, it serves as a dog-whistle, stoking white racist anger while also offending every black person in the country. Yeah, it was probably intentional. The Republican Party’s use of the Southern Strategy is well-documented and verified by actual Republican leaders. [Racist Romney Campaign Banner | Bob Cesca]

OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: A REPUBLICAN congressional candidate in Iowa told a TEA PARTY audience yesterday that PRESIDENT OBAMA does not love his country because he supports raising taxes on millionaires. [...] After distorting how much revenue the proposed Buffett Rule, which raises taxes on millionaires, would bring in, Dan Dolan used the president’s support for the measure as evidence that he is unpatriotic. “I have a hard time thinking that he loves this country if he’s willing to turn them against themselves for his own advancement…” [...] a new CNN poll this week found that 72 percent of Americans — including 53 percent of Republicans — support the Buffett Rule. We called Dolan’s campaign to inquire whether he also believes that the three out of every four Americans, and a majority of those in his own party, don’t love their country. We will post their response if one is provided. [Iowa GOP candidate doubts that Obama 'loves this country' because of Buffett Rule] — which reminded me of this:

Bill Maher: Save our children (if you won’t save our richest one percent, who will?)

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REPUBLICAN JESUS IS ALSO INFECTED WITH ODS: First up is a look at Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of the Roman Catholic diocese of Peoria, Illinois, who caused quite a stir with a homily last weekend, when he compared President Obama to Hitler. And while that proved to be the part of Jenky’s hysterical tirade that generated the most attention, there’s a little more… [...] Jenky not only likened the president to Hitler and Stalin — a line that was not appreciated by the Anti-Defamation League — he went on to compare those who support the administration’s policy on contraception access to Judas Iscariot. But don’t miss the bishop’s conclusion: “This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries — only excepting our church buildings — could easily be shut down.” Now, the notion that contraception access might lead the government to shut down Catholic institutions is obviously ridiculous — someone might want to remind Mr. Jenky that there’s a commandment about bearing false witness — but in context, when the bishop concluded his harangue about his hatred for the president by giving the congregation voting instructions, that raises a separate legal question… [This Week in God]

SAY QUESTIONABLE SHIT ABOUT THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, PASS ON ENTERTAINING HIS TROOPS. Fort Knox’s June 23rd concert was originally scheduled to have Nugent as the headliner. On Tuesday, Nugent said that he would be “dead or in jail by this time next year” if President Barack Obama is re-elected.” Forty-eight hours later, changes to the concert lineup were in the works. “After learning of opening act Ted Nugent’s recent public comments about the president of the United States, Fort Knox leadership decided to cancel his performance on the installation,” said a post on the official Fort Knox, KY Facebook page Thursday. [...] Nugent met with the Secret Service on Thursday, calling the get-together “a good, solid, professional meeting.” The agency added that any potential issues had been resolved. Outside his Secret Service comments, Nugent’s rough week included a guilty plea in an Alaska black bear killing case. .. [Anti-Obama Comments Lead To End Of Rockstar's Appearance]

CHARLES P. PIERCE COMMENTS ON Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods and the weirdo Secret Service agent – And then, with the shrewd self-awareness that’s marked her entire career, she continues… “The president, the CEO of this operation called our federal government, has got to start cracking down on these agencies. He is the head of the administrative branch and all of these different departments in the administration that now people are seeing things that are so amiss within these departments. The buck stops with the president. And he’s really got to start cracking down and seeing some heads roll. He has to get rid of these people at the head of these agencies where so many things, obviously, are amiss.” So sayeth the woman who found being the CEO of this operation called the state of Alaska too demanding to finish out her single term at the job. Historians are going to look back at this era of our politics and wonder why we all decided to start eating paint chips. Was there a famine or something? [Esquire]

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS—————————————————————-

DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HEAR FROM REPUBLICANS, LISTEN TO DEMOCRATS ON SOCIAL SECURITY – Get ready for the pro-Paul Ryan austerity headlines that will predict an imminent demise of Social Security. On April 23, the Social Security Trustees Report for 2012 is expected to be released – and you can expect that the shills for the one percent will be blaring that seniors may need to live on cat food if the US is going to be saved from financial ruin. But an advance analysis of the report on the financial status of the program, posted on NiemanWatchdog, argues that “last year’s report projected that at the end of 2011, Social Security would have an accumulated surplus of around $2.7 trillion, which it now has. This year’s report will show that it will be even higher at the end of 2012.” That’s right, the current $2.7 trillion surplus of Social Security funds is expected to rise by the end of this year. [Forget the Scary Headlines: Social Security Has More Than a $2.7 Trillion Surplus]

HOW MAINTAINING TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY LEADS TO AUSTERITY FOR THE REST OF US (what the Democrats are fighting): The state budget gaps of the last five years led to $290 billion in cuts to public services and $100 billion in tax and fee increases. Those actions lengthened the recession and delayed the recovery. Because spending reductions were dominant, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost; undermining education, health care and other state priorities, which likely will cause future economic harm to states. Federal aid mitigated the harmful effects of the spending cuts in the early years of the budget crunch, but its expiration last year had a catastrophic effect, making 2012 the worst year since the downturn began for cuts in funding for services. More federal aid and a more balanced response, with an equal reliance on revenues and on service cuts, could have mitigated these effects. These are the findings of a new analysis of state budget data and trends over the last five years. While the broad outlines of this story have been well-known, this is the first attempt to quantify how states collectively balanced their budgets in the face of the worst fiscal problems in at least 70 years. Since 2008, states have enacted almost $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenues… [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

TAX REFORM: THE GOP REFUSES TO RAISE TAXES ON THE WEALTHIEST ONE PERCENT (i.e. restoring the American value of fairness): Republicans work from a baseline that includes a full extension of the Bush tax cuts. The Democrats’ baseline assumes the expiration of the tax cuts for families earning more than $250,000. The Congressional Budget Office uses yet another baseline, one that assumes that all of the Bush tax cuts will expire, because that’s what current law says will happen at the end of 2012. The difference in revenue between the Republican and the current-law scenario exceeds $4 trillion over 10 years. So before we can even discuss what a new tax code should look like, we somehow need to resolve the most polarizing question in American politics: Should taxes be higher or lower? [...] The Tax Policy Center estimates that if the Bush tax cuts expire, the average America will face a $1,749 tax increase in 2013. That’s not something you want in a fragile economy after a decade that’s been terrible for the middle class. But it may be something we need if we’re going to get real revenue-raising tax reform. The two parties would still have to settle on a final revenue number, but at least they could agree on one that would cut taxes on almost all Americans. No one would have to vote for a “tax increase.” That’s not the case in the current world of baseline confusion. It’s sad to think that the only way to save the tax code might be to let it collapse at the end of the year. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. [Ezra Klein]

image: americanprogress.org

Morning Bunker Report: TGIF 4.20.2012

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————————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

MICHELE BACHMANN accuses President Obama of  ‘waving a tar baby in the air’ – ”This is just about waving a tar baby in the air and saying that something else is a problem,” Bachmann told Florida-based conservative news organization Shark Tank on Wednesday. “I have never seen a more irresponsible president who is infantile in the way that he continually blames everyone else for his failure to first diagnose the problem and second to address the problem. It’s always everyone else’s fault,” the Tea Party darling added. The term originates from the “Uncle Remus” stories, in which a doll made of tar and turpentine is used to snare Br’er Rabbit. While “tar baby” is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself,” it has long been recognized as a derogatory term for African Americans.

POOF! NRA Scrubs Nugent Video From Website, YouTube – There’s plenty of convention content available on the group’s web page and YouTube channel, but you won’t find any footage of the Sunday afternoon discussion with Nugent — an NRA board member — that led Mitt Romney to distance himself from Nugent and prompted the Secret Service to schedule a meeting with him. “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” Nugent told a crowd at the convention. That comment piqued the interest of the Secret Service, who’ll be meeting with Nugent Thursday. The White House did not immediately respond for a comment on whether it or the Secret Service played a role in the deletion of the videos. Nor did the NRA immediately respond to a request for comment. [image: morningamp]

  • BUT DID HE SHIT HIS PANTS AGAIN? Nugent says had solid meeting with Secret Service – ”Good, solid, professional meeting concluding that I have never made any threats of violence towards anyone. The meeting could not have gone better,” the 63-year-old singer and guitarist said. …”The Secret Service interview of Ted Nugent has been completed,” agency spokesman Brian Leary said. “The issue has been resolved. The Secret Service does not anticipate any further action.”

IN CASE YOU’RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH DRESSAGE, The Hill helps out: …Romney and his wife Ann co-own Rafalca, a highly regarded 15-year-old Oldenburg mare they have sponsored in numerous dressage competitions including this year’s World Cup Final, which takes place in the Netherlands. Dressage is a highly disciplined form of horsemanship that can appear to look like dancing… DressageDaily.com revealed in August 2010 Romney also picked music from the soundtrack of the film “The Mission” for Rafalca’s freestyle routine at the National Dressage championships. – Of course, I still have some strains of class resentment from my homeland, but a president who owns horses and whose wife’s horse performs in dressage competitions? That’s a royal family lifestyle. [...] And here is Rafalca in her dressage best: Not exactly great positioning for a candidate campaigning for more tax cuts for the wealthy and massive cuts in aid to the poor. The top hat is a great touch, no? [Andrew Sullivan]

ERIC CANTOR SUGGESTS RAISING TAXES ON THE POOR: ‘You’ve Got To Discuss That Issue’ – Today, response to a question by ABC’s Jon Karl, Cantor made it clear that Republicans are interested in raising taxes on the poor while lowering tax rates for everyone else as part of any comprehensive tax reform plan: CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair. And should we broaden the base in a way that we can lower the rates for everybody that pays taxes. [...] ThinkProgress has repeatedly explained why many Americans don’t pay income taxes — most either don’t make enough money or are college students or seniors with no yearly incomes. And those Americans are subject to various other forms of taxation, including the federal payroll tax. The richest Americans, meanwhile, have seen their tax rates fall even as their incomes skyrocketed, contributing to rising inequality and exploding federal deficits. As Cantor made plain today, though, none of that matters. In addition to making the poor and middle class shoulder the burden of draconian budget cuts, Republicans want to raise their taxes too.

REP. PAUL RYAN dismisses Catholic bishops criticism of budget plan – “These are not all the Catholic bishops, and we just respectfully disagree,” he said on Fox News after being questioned about the bishops criticism of his budget plan. The USCCB later responded to Ryan’s comment, informing The Hill that they represented “all of the U.S. bishops on key issues at the national level.” Ryan has said that his Catholic faith helped shape his budget plan. But Catholics have questioned his admiration for the libertarian novelist Ayn Rand, who advocated the “virtue of selfishness” and called Christianity the “the best kindergarten of communism possible.” Ryan’s House-approved budget for 2013-2022 would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, by $133.5 billion over the next decade. Approximately 2 million individuals would be cut off from the program entirely, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 44 million would see their benefits cut.

  • JOHN BOEHNER, a Catholic, said at a press conference Wednesday the cuts were necessary, despite the impact they may have on the poor.

—————————————————————-PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

Women of all ages and ethnic groups are more likely to identify as Democrats than as Republicans or Independents. Forty-five per cent of women say they’re Democrats, versus thirty-two per cent of men, according to a 2009 Gallup poll. The reason women are more likely to vote Democratic has less to do with what we generally consider women’s issues than Democrats seem to think. But the real reason means that Republicans will find it difficult to close the gender gap: women tend to support big government. “For more than a decade, women have been more likely than men to favor an active role for government,” said a Pew Research Center report released in March. “And recent surveys show that higher percentages of women than men say that government should do more for the poor, children, and the elderly.” Women advocate strengthening government regulation, especially on health, the environment, and food and workplace safety, much more than men do. [The New Yorker]

WAR CRIMES: Former Congresswoman: Not too late to hold Bush and Cheney accountable –Former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) told MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on Thursday… “As a former prosecutor and a former member of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, I spent a lot of time taking a look at the statues,” she explained. “It’s one thing to abuse power, and it’s one thing not to do the right thing, but it’s another thing to commit a crime.” Holtzman said Bush and Cheney appear to have “knowingly” violated at least three statues. She said Bush and Cheney likely committed conspiracy to defraud the United States, for the “deceptions” involved in going to war with Iraq. Secondly, she claimed they violated federal statues regarding the wiretapping of Americans without a court order. Thirdly, Holtzman said Bush and Cheney violated federal laws prohibiting torture. “What we can’t afford to do is allow a president to say he is above the law,” she remarked.

BUFFETT RULE: Democrats Vow To Keep Pushing Millionaire Tax Despite Expected Failure – Democrats found McConnell’s positions disingenuous, arguing that a GOP-waged filibuster would be the only reason for the Buffett Rule’s failure. “All of their arguments just don’t stand up because they’re so afraid of this issue,” [Chuck] Schumer said. “Are they for it or against it? They say, ‘Well, it won’t pass.’ It won’t pass because they are opposed to it,” he said, adding that Republicans are the ones guilty of chicanery. “The gimmick is when they block something and say, ‘Let’s not pay attention to it because we won’t let it pass,” Schumer said. “If they think fairness is a gimmick, if they think that having people pay their fair share is a gimmick, then they’re just completely out of touch with the American people.” [...] Schumer vowed to keep bringing the Buffett Rule back until Republicans give in, the way they did on the payroll tax cut fight. “We’ll keep pushing this issue all year long, and we think we’ll pick up more and more Republicans,” Schumer said. He added that the idea is not just to score campaign points, but to show people that Democrats are more in line with them on tax policy, and to ultimately pass the bill.

SEN. HARRY REID: Buffett Rule Is A Path Toward Economic Fairness

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Morning Bunker Report: Thursday 4.19.2012

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————————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

MITT ROMNEY, Who Spent 212 Days Out Of State One Year, Attacks Obama For Vacationing – Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney took up a common conservative refrain against the president today, attacking Obama for supposedly vacationing too much. “I would think you could kind of suck it up for four years particularly when the American people are out of work,” Romney said …As of August of last year, when Obama’s vacations briefly dominated the news cycle, George W. Bush had taken almost three times as many vacation days as Obama, and Ronald Reagan had taken almost double the days at similar points in their terms. But the tact is especially odd coming from Romney, who is no stranger to taking leaves while in office. In 2006, his last year as governor of Massachusetts, Romney spent 212 days out of state — more than four days each week, on average — preparing for a presidential run. […] This vacation hypocrisy is nothing new for Romney, though, who attacked Obama last year for going to tony Martha’s Vineyard — even though it turned out Romney would be on the island on the very same day. More importantly, in this day and age, no president is ever out of communication, no matter where in the world they go. So any discussion of Obama’s vacationing is mere distraction and a weak attempt to make a scandal out of nothing.

REPUBLICANS PICK AND CHOOSE THEIR “CHRISTIAN” CONVICTIONS: Boehner to Catholic bishops: Take ‘bigger look’ at Republican budget –Referencing Matthew 25, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on Congress to put the poor first in budget priorities and rethink cuts to programs that benefited the least among us. But Boehner, a Catholic, said at a press conference Wednesday the cuts were necessary, despite the impact they may have on the poor.  [...] The House Agriculture Committee approved a measure on Wednesday that would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, by $133 billion over the next decade. Approximately 2 million individuals would be cut off from the program entirely, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 44 million would see their benefits cut. In a letter to House Committee on Agriculture members, Bishop Stephen Blaire described the proposed cuts to the program as “unjustified and wrong.” “If savings need to be achieved, cuts to agricultural subsidies and direct payments should be considered before cutting anti-hunger programs that help feed poor and vulnerable people,” he continued.

After Demanding Offsets For Payroll Tax Cut, GOP Won’t Offset ‘Small Business’ Tax Cut For Millionaires – Despite calls from some conservative members of the party, GOP leadership won’t demand spending cuts to offset the “small business” tax cut that is being proposed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Politico reports: Several Republican leadership aides say they have no plans to offset the tax cut, which a centerpiece of their agenda during these next two weeks in session. The payroll tax cut, which Republicans did everything to block until it became politically impossible to continue, primarily benefited working class Americans and has real economic benefits. Cantor’s tax cut, on the other hand, is supposedly targeted at small businesses, but will largely aid millionaires like Oprah Winfrey and the owners of professional sports franchises. According to the Center for American Progress’ Seth Hanlon, the bill gives millionaires an average tax cut of $45,000.

Cantor ‘Puzzled’ That Obama Would Threaten To Veto The Latest GOP Tax Cut For Millionaires – Due to its non-existent targeting to actual small businesses, the cut would benefit hedge fund managers, wealthy lawyers, professional sports teams, and Oprah’s production company. Despite all this, Cantor is still “puzzled” that President Obama would threaten to veto the bill, which he did yesterday. On CNBC this morning, Cantor accused Obama of not caring about small businesses due to his opposition to the tax giveaway: Well, listen, the President’s now issued a veto threat against the bill, which is kind of puzzling, because the President has continued to say he’s for small business, he’s for the middle class, and yet he’s now denying any help to small businesses, who frankly could use a 20 percent tax cut…

Republicans Give Up The Game: It Was Never About Deficits – The contrast is particularly stark this week: Senate Republicans blocked the Buffett Rule, dismissing its capacity to raise $47 billion over 10 years, while House Republicans are pushing a broad business tax cut that would add $46 billion to the deficit in just one year. On top of that, House committees are now looking for ways to override automatic cuts to defense spending they agreed to last August as a means of enforcing the controversial debt-limit deal. [...] Underlying this story is a broader GOP strategy of using deficits as a cudgel to attack Democrats when they come to power and use legislative leverage to force cuts to federal programs. Democrats yielded to the GOP for the first half of 2011. But small government isn’t synonymous with responsible budgeting, and when Democrats demanded that Republicans look to the other side of the federal ledger to reduce deficits, the GOP implicitly acknowledged that bringing the budget closer to balance wasn’t their real priority. Democrats say they’re still willing to address deficits with the GOP, but only under a more balanced approach. Republicans so far haven’t budged, and many would rather see wholesale changes to the rules of governing than make concessions to grapple seriously with the issue that they put on the national agenda.

RIP DICK CLARK — LET’S MAKE YOUR DEATH INTO A GOP TALKING POINT: GOP lawmaker: Dick Clark should be remembered as model of free enterprise – [House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.)] came to the House floor just a few hours after Clark’s death was reported, and said an ongoing Republican speech about the need to foster small businesses reminded him of the discussions he had with Clark over the years about taxes and free enterprise. “I just want to say that as I listen to your discussion, I was reminded of how he regularly said everyone should pay their fair share of taxes,” Dreier said of Clark. “He said that not too long ago to me. “I said I appreciate that, because he knew he was paying my salary,” Dreier said, adding that he had dinner with Clark just two weeks ago. “He was a believer in the free-enterprise system, he was a believer in encouraging individual initiative and opportunity on a regular basis,” Dreier said. “You guys are here talking about the need for tax fairness and the imperative to ensure that we encourage more people like Dick Clark. I think it’s important for us to remember the wonderful life that this man had.”

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OBAMA TO GOP: Abide By Debt Limit Deal Or Else Face A Government Shutdown – In a major escalation of a slowly building fight over funding the government, the White House has warned House Republicans, in no uncertain terms, that the government will shut down in September if the GOP does not adhere to an agreement they cut with Democrats in August during the standoff over raising the nation’s debt limit. “Until the House of Representatives indicates that it will abide by last summer’s agreement, the President will not be able to sign any appropriations bills,” writes Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, in a letter addressed to congressional appropriators Wednesday. The message is simple: The government will shut down just ahead of the 2012 presidential election if Republicans break faith with the debt limit deal. [TPM]

BERNIE SANDERS: Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy – “This country faces enormous problems, the middle-class is declining, poverty is increasing, we’re worried about global warming, we’re worried about health care, we’re worried about education,” he said, “and the American people are looking to Washington and saying, ‘What’s going on? We have enormous problems, and you’re not addressing those problems.’” “One of the reasons that Congress is not addressing those problems is the power of big money in terms of campaign contributions and in terms of lobbying,” Sanders continued. “Working people are trying to keep their heads above water, and here on Capitol Hill all kinds of money is flooding into this institution so that Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy and powerful, and forgetting about the middle-class and working families.” He blasted the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which held that limiting corporate campaign spending violated the First Amendment. [...] Sen. Charles Schumer said at the summit that the Citizens United decision was the worst since Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld state laws enacting racial segregation. “Something like 17 people have given half the Republican super PACS half of their money,” he noted. “What is happening to America?”

I BLAME FOX NEWS: The latest Pew poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama by a full six points — 50% to 44% — among senior citizens. Ingrates. The president is saving Medicare recipients billions of dollars by closing the Medicare Part-D donut hole, and yet they’re leaning Romney. A new HHS report indicates that 3.6 million Medicare enrollees saved a total of $2.1 billion in 2011 thanks to these ACA provisions. And since the discounts are phased in slowly between 2010 and 2020, the savings will only increase in the future. Old people should be at the top of the pro-Obama roster because of this. After all, if Romney is elected, he’ll repeal the ACA and the donut hole will open up again, meaning senior citizens will have to pay for life-saving prescriptions out of their own fixed-income pockets for a period time every single year. [Bob Cesca]

Same Thing, Both Sides Do It, GOTCHA LIBTARDS! – So apparently, when Obama was a young boy, someone fed him dog meat in Indonesia. Which, according to wingnuts, is exactly the same thing as a grown man making the decision to strap his dog to the roof of the car and terrorize it on a cross country trip. SUCK ON THAT LIBERALS! And of course the WH press corpse is on the job mainstreaming this bullshit.

JOHN BOEHNER YESTERDAY: “This election is going to be a referendum on the president’s economic policies. They’ve not only not helped the economy, they’ve actually made it worse. When you look at his higher taxes, his refusal to deal with the debt, the regulatory regime here in Washington out of control, they’ve scared every businessperson and investor in America.” Speaker Boehner has an odd definition of “worse.” While Boehner talks about Obama’s “higher taxes,” Obama has actually cut taxes. While Boehner said Obama has refused to deal with the debt, Obama offered Boehner a $4 trillion debt-reduction plan that Republicans rejected. While Boehner frets over a “regulatory regime,” Obama has actually created fewer regulations than his Republican predecessor. And then there’s the notion that Obama made the economy “worse.”… [Time for Boehner to update his talking points]

Morning Bunker Report: Wednesday 4.18.2012

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Ted Nugent ObamaCRAZY UNCLE TED NUGENT DOUBLES DOWN: “I spoke at the NRA and I will stand by my speech. It was 100 percent positive,” Nugent told the Dana Loesch radio show today… Nugent told a crowd of convention-goers that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” [...] “See, I’m a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally, and there are some power-abusing corrupt monsters in our federal government that despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth to identify the violations of our government, particularly Eric Holder and the president and Tim Geithner, ad nauseum.” [...]  Nugent told Loesch that he’s stating publicly what Mitt Romney is really thinking but can’t say. “Mitt Romney knows what I’m saying is true. He put it in the words for him, I put in the words for me,” he said. [ABC News]

Nugent Compared Obama and Democrats to a Coyote that Needs to Be Shot – Our President and Attorney General, Vice President, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals, they’re criminals. […] It isn’t the enemy that ruined America. It’s good people who bent over and let the enemy in. If the coyote’s in your living room pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him. […] We’re Americans because we defied the king. We didn’t negotiate or compromise with the king. We defied the emperors. We are patriots. We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?

ROMNEY ACTIVELY SOUGHT NUGENT ENDORSEMENT and Agreed to His Demands to Win It – Mitt Romney actively sought, and won, Ted Nugent’s endorsement in early March. According to a report in the Texas Tribune and Nugent himself, the two had a lengthy conversation about gun laws and the endorsement on March 2nd. Nugent made Romney pledge not to put any new restrictions on guns. Romney obliged: It was on a phone call with the candidate earlier today that Nugent gave his blessing. He talked to Romney by phone while he was at a sporting goods store in Michigan “celebrating the orgy of guns and ammos and bows and arrows and camouflage clothing and hunting and fishing and outdoor family supplies.” Before endorsing him, Nugent demanded that Romney pledge there would be no new gun laws or restrictions on Second Amendment rights in his administration. Romney obliged. Nugent also warned Romney about the “out of control” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “These are not Ted Nugent demands,” he said. “They’re logic demands. They’re ‘we the people’ demands. They’re right over wrong, good over bad.” [Right Wing Watch]

So, why should anyone care about Nugent’s latest ridiculous tirade? Well, for one thing, a spokesman for the Secret Service confirmed to Dan Amira, “We are aware of it, and we’ll conduct an appropriate follow up.” For another, if the Romney campaign wants to pretend that Bill Maher and Hilary Rosen count as an extension of the Obama campaign, then Nugent certainly appears to be fair game as a key Romney ally. After all, Romney actively sought, and eventually earned, Nugent’s personal endorsement after a private discussion between the two just last month. If the president, vice president, and everyone they know are asked to comment on Rosen’s comment last week, it’s hardly unreasonable to think Romney may want to respond to Nugent’s threatening language this week. The ties between the president and Rosen are tenuous at best, but Romney reached out directly to Nugent, hoping to pick up his support. Romney passed on criticizing Rush Limbaugh after his misogynistic tirade a month ago. It’ll be interesting to see how, and whether, he addresses Nugent’s rhetoric now. [The Maddow Blog]

Click HERE to see the 2007 cover for Nugent’s ‘greatest hits’ album. Classy.

Here’s your very special Mitt Romney Milquetoast Moment: Romney Campaign Responds To Calls For Nugent Condemnation - Mitt Romney’s campaign is responding to calls from Democrats for Romney to condemn his celebrity endorser Ted Nugent after the conservative rocker’s incendiary comments over the weekend. “Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from,” said Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul. “Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.” [image: stfuconservatives]

Ted Nugent FACTOID: Dated a 17-year-old when he was 30, then made himself her legal guardian – Seventeen-year-old Hawaii native Pele Massa was too young to marry Nugent. So Nugent made an agreement with the girl’s parents to become her legal guardian. This was rated #63 on Spin magazine’s “100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock” list.

Wang Dang Technically Legal Poontang!

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‘Buffett Rule’ Debate Blocked by Republicans (or when a majority vote isn’t really a majority) – But the fierce debate preceding the 51-45 vote — the Democrats were nine votes short of the 60 they needed — set off a week of political wrangling over taxes that both parties insist they are already winning. Senate Democrats intend to return repeatedly to the legislation, named after the billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has complained that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. On Thursday, House Republicans will counter with a proposed tax cut for businesses that they say would spur job creation but would cost the Treasury almost exactly what the Democrats’ tax increase would raise. [...] Democrats said they saw that as a sign of weakness. Pointing to a Gallup poll from last week that indicated 60 percent of Americans supported the proposal, including 63 percent of political independents, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, called the Republican response “proof positive” that “for first time in decades, maybe generations, they’re on the defensive on their signature issue,” taxes. After he made that comment, a CNN poll was released putting support at 72 percent, including 53 percent of Republicans. [image: arielnietzsche]

TAX DAY REMINDER: Tax system unfairly benefits rich people – In fact, “The 400 highest income filers paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent in 2007 (before the Great Recession)” and “In 2011, the top 1 percent of households by cash income received 75.1 percent of the benefit from the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends. The middle class, meanwhile, received only 3.9 percent of that benefit.” No wonder that, while a plurality of Americans believe they pay too much income tax, far more believe the system benefits the rich. But it’s not just the wealthy: Tax rates are lower even for average families and corporate tax revenues are a much smaller share of the economy than was historically the case. All of this matters, because if the deficit continues to be fetishized and we let wealthy individuals and corporations pay less than their fair share, the only thing left on the table is massive cuts to programs we all care about. Programs that could be paid for by cutting tax deductions and loopholes, including first and foremost the low tax rates on investment income.

GOP plans to cut Obamacare subsidies to pay for Ryan Budget (i.e. tax cuts for the wealthy paid for with austerity for the rest of us) – The House Ways and Means Committee has announced plans to mark up legislation that would reduce the deficit by $53 billion between 2013 and 2022, following instructions in the GOP’s budget. Republicans are hoping to cut the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies by $43.9 billion over the next decade, making coverage less affordable for many middle class Americans. The provision would require people to “pay back insurance subsidies if the government determined they received too much based on their income threshold.” Other provisions would repeal social services block grants to states and require Social Security to claim child tax credit, amounting to an estimated savings of $7.6 billion. [Think Progress]

Senate GOP will join legal challenge against Obama’s recess appointments – Senate Republicans will join a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Miguel Estrada, a one-time GOP nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, will write an amicus brief on behalf of the Senate Republicans.

  • According to the Congressional Research Service, President Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments. President George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments, and as of January 5, 2012, President Barack Obama had made 32 recess appointments – [Recess appointment - Wikipedia]

Morning Bunker Report: Tuesday 4.17.2012

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What is Mitt Romney’s real tax plan? Apparently we got a rare glimpse of this when reporters overheard a private conversation Sunday night with supporters at a fundraising party: “I’m going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction,” Romney said, adding that he would also likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes as well. “By virtue of doing that, we’ll get the same tax revenue, but we’ll have lower rates.” Okey dokey. If Romney could actually get Congress to agree to this, I figure it would bring in roughly $100 billion in revenue. That’s assuming a complete elimination of the deduction for all state, local, and property taxes. In return, this would allow tax rates to go down across the board by about one percentage point. Maybe one and a half. Or, alternatively, it might allow tax rates on the rich to go down by five or ten points. I wonder which he has in mind? [Kevin Drum]

What’s Mitt Romney hiding? A lot, for someone asking for our votes – Mitt Romney has a secret plan to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Mitt Romney is filing for an extension on his taxes, a move that, not coincidentally, prevents him from having to release them. This all makes sense from a guy who thinks that the inequality from which he benefits so enormously should only be discussed in quiet rooms. But it’s not exactly the stuff with which he’s likely to convince a majority of voters that he can be trusted with the governance of their country. After all, Romney doesn’t even want to tell us what policies he’s running on, let alone how his personal conduct has measured up.


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FROM ROMNEY’S BOOK: “Welfare without work erodes the spirit and the sense of self-worth of the recipient. And it conditions the children of nonworking parents to an indolent and unproductive life. Hardworking parents raise hardworking kids; we should recognize that the opposite is also true. The influence of the work habits of our parents and other adults around us as we grow up has lasting impact.” Does this mean Romney’s children became indolent and unproductive because their mother stayed at home and their father sat in a conference room and fired people for a living? I don’t know, but they do fit the equation Mitt Romney has laid out. Given what we now know of the Romneys, I believe a better title for Romney’s book would be — No Apology, The Case for Being a Privileged White Man. [Indolent and Unproductive | Bob Cesca]

Anti-Mormon pastor endorses Romney because Obama ‘opposes’ the Bible – Fox News host Clayton Morris noted that Jeffress was quoted in October as saying, “Evangelical Christians should not vote for Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon, therefore not a real Christian.” “Critics would argue that President Obama is a real Christian,” Morris continued. “By that metric then, why wouldn’t you support Barack Obama?” “Well, again, I never said that quote that you attributed to me,” Jeffress argued. “There was a spurious article in one magazine that just completely fabricated that quote. I’ve never said don’t vote for Mitt Romney because he’s not a Christian. But in my book that you were so kind to reference, I said, given the choice between a Christian like Barack Obama who embraces non-biblical principles like abortion and a Mormon like Mitt Romney who embraces Bible principles, there’s every reason to support Mitt Romney in this election. I’ve been consistent in that.” Jeffress added that he expected evangelicals across the nation to put Romney in the White House because Obama “opposes biblical principles.” [image: mittfitts.com]

Dick Cheney, unapologetic war criminal and second in command to an administration which almost completely trashed this country, calls Obama an ‘unmitigated disaster’ — in a moment of unmitigated density and stunning lack of self-awareness: “He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country. I can’t think of a time when I felt it was more important for us to defeat an incumbent president today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmitigated disaster to the country. I think to be in a position where he gets four more years in the White House to continue the policies he has, both with respect to the economy, and tax policy, and defense and some other areas would be a huge, huge disappointment.” – DICK Cheney, speaking at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention in Cheyenne, Wyoming on Saturday, about the President.

Republicans to slash food stamps – The White House deliberately increased monthly benefits in 2009 by about $20 per person as a way to pump stimulus dollars into the economy. And in this post welfare-reform crisis, hard-strapped governors have sought to maximize food stamp dollars as a cheap way to help families without tapping state funds. The higher costs and visibility—especially as more businesses advertise that they will honor the electronic benefit cards introduced in the 1980’s—are what’s driving the Republican push. The Recovery Act boost in benefits is already phasing out and will be gone entirely by November 2013. But the package now, to be taken up by the House Agriculture Committee Wednesday, would end this abruptly summer, impacting families Sept. 1, and saving about $5.9 billion in 2012 and 2013. [...] the severity of the proposed House cuts could be an over reach for two reasons. First they are all coming from the Agriculture panel in a context where rich farm subsidies continue to be protected at a time of record income for producers. Even in the commodity lobby, there is broad consensus that the current system of cash payments to growers at a time of high farm profits can no longer be politically defended. And by not striking more of a balance, the committee risks real damage to the coalition that has supported farm and food programs together for decades.

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“Tonight, Senate Republicans voted to block the Buffett Rule, choosing once again to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest few Americans at the expense of the middle class. The Buffett Rule is common sense. At a time when we have significant deficits to close and serious investments to make to strengthen our economy, we simply cannot afford to keep spending money on tax cuts that the wealthiest Americans don’t need and didn’t ask for. But it’s also about basic fairness—it’s just plain wrong that millions of middle-class Americans pay a higher share of their income in taxes than some millionaires and billionaires. One of the fundamental challenges of our time is building an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. And I will continue to push Congress to take steps to not only restore economic security for the middle class and those trying to reach the middle class, but also to create an economy that’s built to last.” – President Obama in a statement on Monday’s vote

Henry Paul Monaghan, a professor of constitutional law at Columbia Law School and prominent conservative legal scholar, urges the Supreme Court to uphold health care reform — “Moreover, the market for health care is distinctive (if not entirely unique) in several key respects. Virtually all of us will need and obtain health care at some point, but we often cannot predict when or in what ways we will need it. And for the vast majority of us, direct payment for the health care services we obtain would be prohibitively expensive. Yet not obtaining needed medical care can be the difference between life and death. These features help explain why, unlike many other markets, insurance is the overwhelmingly dominant means of payment in the health care market. They also explain why Congress has required that individuals be given emergency care without regard to their ability to pay. As a result, and again unlike other markets, uninsured individuals who are unable to pay directly for needed medical services necessarily shift the cost of those services to others — to health care providers, the government, individuals with insurance, and taxpayers. In that way, Congress is not creating a market which it then seeks to regulate. The insurance-based structure of the health care market is already firmly in place. That is why it was well within Congress’s discretion to design legislation to operate within, and to address problems posed by, this vast market.”

“The ESCHATON DECADE has been a pretty fucked up decade, a time when this country stopped even bothering to pretend to live up to many of its supposed ideals. We go to war and kill lots of people for no good reason, elites have eliminated any accountability for themselves for criminal wrongdoing, we’ve tortured and assassinated people, and the response to massive economic suffering and related criminal fraud has been to give lots of free money to the people who caused it all.” – Duncan Black

Morning Bunker Report: Sunday 4.15.2012

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In case it wasn’t already clear that last week’s controversy over stay at home moms was entirely manufactured, this should put the question to bed. [Mitt Romney] told a New Hampshire audience: “I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.” [ThinkProgress]

Mitt Romney and Ann: the students “struggling” so much that they had to sell stock – Her idea of her and Mitt facing “not easy years,” having “no income,” “living on the edge” as “struggling students,” was that the couple had had to face college with only sale of stock to sustain them. By Ann’s own account, the stock amounted to “a few thousand” dollars when bought, but it had gone up by a factor of sixteen. So let’s conservatively say that they got through five years as students—neither one of them working—only by “chipping away at” assets of $60,000 in 1969 dollars (about $377,000 today). Look. I don’t begrudge Romney’s having had his college tuition and living expenses paid for with family money. Mine were too. My background, though not as fancy as Mitt or Ann Romney’s, was privileged enough. But the guy should just come out and admit it: “I was a child of privilege and have my parents’ wealth to thank for my education. That said, I worked very very hard in business, and the vast majority of my fortune I earned myself.” But there is of course a reason he can’t say that: such a statement is customarily followed by an expression of gratitude and a willingness to give something back to society. And gratitude and a willingness to give something back are precisely what Romney lacks—in common with the party he’s aspiring to represent. [via: yobaba]

While some in media don’t even know what the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is, some Republicans remain actively hostile towards it. Former Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is now running to unseat Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), weighed in on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Thursday, saying the law was a “nuisance” that shouldn’t be in place. [...] ”Will, you know, will repealing it be a priority? If you came back and said, you know, that’s really the thing that’s hurting my business the most. My guess is there are other things that we can do that have a higher priority in terms of what I, what I believe might need to be done. I think you know we need to create — that thing is a nuisance. It shouldn’t be the law,” replied Hoekstra. The Fair Pay Act may seem obvious and noncontroversial, but let’s not forget that when the bill came to the House floor in 2009, 172 out of 175 House Republicans rejected it. And one of them, Hoekstra, wants to go to the Senate next year to help repeal this “nuisance.” Incidentally, Mitt Romney, who doesn’t want to say whether he supports the Ledbetter law or not, is quite friendly with Pete Hoekstra. [Maddow Blog]

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A video comparing Presidents Obama and Reagan talking about tax loopholes for the wealthy, as compared to the tax rate paid by average Americans:


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Bill Moyers: Wall Street’s Massive Freak Out When Asked to Pay Their Fair Share – April 12, 2012 | So what do these big moneyed nabobs have to complain about? Why are they whining about reform? And why are they funneling cash to super PACs aimed at bringing down Barack Obama, who many of them supported four years ago? Because, writes Alec MacGillis in The New Republic — the President wants to raise their taxes. That’s right — while ordinary Americans are taxed at a top rate of 35% on their income, Congress allows hedge fund and private equity tycoons to pay only pay 15% of their compensation. The President wants them to pay more; still at a rate below what you might pay, and for that he’s being accused of – hold onto your combat helmets – “class warfare.” One Wall Street Midas, once an Obama fan, now his foe, told MacGillis that by making the rich a primary target, Obama is “[expletive deleted] on people who are successful.”

DCCC billboards hit Republicans on Ryan budget in 14 states – As House Republicans drive around their districts during the April recess, 14 of them will see billboards attacking them on Medicare and tax cuts for millionaires, courtesy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The billboards will remain up for all of April, and target Republicans facing difficult reelection campaigns. GOP Reps. Charlie Bass (N.H.), Sean Duffy (Wis.) and Steve King (Iowa) are on the list, as are Dan Lungren (Calif.) and Steve Southerland (Fla.). The billboards show a concerned-looking elderly man next to the House member’s name and the phrase “protecting millionaires instead of Medicare.” Voters are directed to a website, www.millionairesovermedicare.com, where a video shows footage of the targeted Republicans. In the video, a banner pops up as each Republican is speaking to say that he “voted to end Medicare.” The fine print sources the 2011 roll call vote for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget proposal.

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 4.14.2012

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Victoria Jackson: Only Communists And Fascists Believe In Climate Change – ”This is the opposite of capitalism. It is the opposite of free enterprise and what made America the greatest nation in the world. This bill would be supported by the occupiers, Valerie Jarett, Van Jones, Obama, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Communists, Fascists, Socialists, whatever you want to call it, it’s the government taking over. It’s the government picking the winners and losers. Even though it looks pretty on the outside it’s the way our country is being destroyed right now.” – Victoria Jackson, speaking in opposition to a proposed alternative energy bill in Florida.

Rep. Virginia Foxx says ‘I Have Very Little Tolerance’ for people with student loans: Foxx (R-NC) took on a unique enemy during a radio interview yesterday: people with student loans. Though many politicians sympathize with those who are saddled with exorbitant student debt, Foxx, who chairs the House subcommittee on higher education, had a different take. Appearing on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, the North Carolina congresswoman recounted her own experience paying for college, where she worked her way through and graduated after seven years. Foxx then pointed to her own experience as justification for why she has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt.” “There’s no reason for that,” she concluded… [ThinkProgress]

Mitt Romney plays to NRA interests in bid to win over conservative base – ”In his second term, [Obama] would be unrestrained by the terms of re-election,” Romney said. “Who will stand up for the rights of hunters and sportsmen, and those who act to protect their families? President Obama has not. I will.” [...] “Obama has spent his entire political career engaged in a stealthy assault on your right to keep and bear arms. [If he wins] re-election to the White House, [he] will be immune from elections and free to misuse his ever-increasing power,” LaPierre said. Other key figures in the NRA have gone even further in their assaults on Obama. Ted Nugent, the ageing rocker who sits on the NRA board, called the president an “anti-American monster in the White House” in comments promoted on the NRA website. The increasingly hysterical tone of the organisation’s pronouncements is only to be expected in an election year, observers of the NRA say. “For the guys running the NRA, every election has to be Armageddon. This year, it’s ‘Obama is one election away from repealing the second amendment and stealing your guns’ – even though he’s done nothing but expand gun rights,” said Mark Glaze, director of the bipartisan coalition of more than 650 US mayors, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. [image:jessesublett]

Mystery donor gives $10 million to Crossroads GPS group to run ads against Obama and Democrats – The huge contributions, which make the donors among the top political givers in recent history, offer new evidence of the altered world of campaign finance: After the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, spending by interest groups has risen dramatically. The landmark ruling allowed corporations, unions and nonprofit groups such as Crossroads GPS to spend money directly on electoral politics. Crossroads GPS and its sister group, American Crossroads, hope to spend up to $300 million in the 2012 election cycle, promoting conservative ideas and helping elect Republicans up and down the ballot.

———————————————————–——PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

The Buffett Rule is not raising a tax, it’s closing a loophole. It’s a quirk of the tax code that certain millionaires who enjoy private-equity riches pay a lower tax rate than middle-class families, and approving the Buffett Rule would not only mean establishing a degree of fairness, it would also mean scrapping this loophole. The point is not lost on President Obama, who made this observation on Wednesday: “I’d just point out that the Buffett Rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction towards fairness, towards economic growth. It will help us close our deficit and it’s a lot more specific than anything that the other side has proposed so far.” [emphasis added] In other words, where Paul Ryan is vague and evasive, Obama is being direct and specific. The president is identifying actual loopholes he wants to see closed (Buffett Rule, corporate-jet loophole, tax subsidies for oil companies), which would total tens of billions of dollars in the coming decade. Meanwhile Republican leaders talk about loopholes, but choose not to back this talk up with anything substantive. [Maddow Blog]


image: cindyburkeoriginals

Obama likely paid higher tax rate than Romney in 2011 – Obama also pays a slightly lower rate than his own secretary, the White House said. “The tax code should not (be) written in a way that allows for the wealthiest Americans to pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-class Americans,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. The Democratic-controlled Senate plans a Monday vote on the Buffett rule, one day before the U.S. tax-filing deadline. Americans favor the rule by 60 percent to 37 percent, according to a Gallup poll released on Friday. [...] A Romney spokeswoman called the tax debate an attempt by Obama to distract attention from the slow pace of job creation on his watch. Romney himself said the Buffett rule and other tax increases proposed by the White House were an “assault on economic freedom.” 

WSJ: President Obama paid $162,000 in federal income taxes on $845,000 of income in 2011 — an effective tax tate of 19%. Compare that to Mitt Romney, who, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, only paid an effective tax rate of 14% on income of $3 million. And you wonder why Republicans hate the Buffett Rule. [via]

Morning Bunker Report: TGIF 4.13.2012

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————————————-WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

Remember, ladies: this whole ‘war on women’ thing is just in your silly, little heads. In an exchange caught on camera, Virginia House Speaker William Howell (R) berates the group’s executive director Anna Scholl, mocking the group’s website and her. Howell criticizes the Washington Post’s article about the group’s as “full of half-truths or un-truths.” In a failed attempt to back up his accusation, Howell notes that while the Commonwealth paid about $230,000 on ALEC-related expenses, it spent even more on travel for the same and other legislators to attend conferences by the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislators. When by Scholl pressed as to how omission of that irrelevant detail constituted an inaccuracy, Howell berated her: “I guess I’m not speaking in little enough words for you to understand.” When Scholl responded to the slight, telling him “I’m a smart girl, actually I went to the University of Virginia,” more than capable of understanding polysyllabic words. Howell curtly replied, “We’ll good for you.” [ThinkProgress]

Congratulations, Arizona Women- Every Single One of You Is Now Officially Pregnant – According to Jan Brewer and the deep thinkers in the Arizona legislature: Life starts earliest in Arizona, which now defines gestational age as beginning on the first day of a woman’s last period, rather than at fertilization. In practice, that means the state has banned abortions after about 18 weeks (20 weeks from the last menstruation) except in the case of medical emergencies. [...] Now that Arizona has decided to separate being pregnant from when you actually become pregnant, every single woman is, according to the law, pregnant the moment they begin their last period, and will remain officially pregnant until the beginning of your very next period. There will apparently be a 1 day window in between these two events in which you are not officially pregnant.

Karl Rove’s Pro-Millionaire Facebook Campaign – The latest brainstorm from Karl Rove & Co. is on the right: a Facebook petition opposing the “Buffett Rule,” which would ensure that millionaires pay a minimum 30% tax rate. “Really,” says Greg Sargent, “it continues to amaze that people in positions of real influence could venture something this idiotic with no evident sense of embarrassment.” Lack of gall has never been one of Karl Rove’s weaknesses, so his lack of embarrassment probably isn’t really all that surprising. But what’s this all about? It is kind of dumb, after all. My guess: it’s just part of a “mud against the wall” strategy. It’s not likely to gain much traction, but it’s cheap and it might produce some useful feedback.

  • The problem Obama and Buffett are trying to address isn’t that each of them personally can’t pay more in taxes if he so chooses… Rather, they are trying to solve a society wide problem that threatens the future of a country of over 300 million people — one that, in their telling, requires a bit more sacrifice from high earners as a whole class if we are to have any hope of solving it…. The silly implication that there’s something hypocritical about calling for higher taxes on the wealthy when you are wealthy yourself and could just write a check if you really wanted to is about nothing more than sowing confusion about who is really looking out for whose interests. [Greg Sargent]

U.S. priests accused in 700 sex cases in 2011: report – Sixty-eight percent of the complaints relate to events that took place between 1960 and 1984 — the majority from 1975 to 1979, the report says. Many of the clergy members accused have since died, or been relieved of their church duties. More than 280 of them had been accused in the past, it said. Of the 21 accusations made by minors, seven were considered credible by the police and three were determined to be false, the report said. Three other cases were still under investigation. The Church spent $144 million dealing with the scandal in the United States in 2011 — including attorneys’ fees, settlements, and support for offenders — a decrease from $150 million in 2010. [...] The publication of the report comes several weeks after the start of the first trial of an American bishop who sheltered pedophile priests.

  • WHY ARE CHURCHES TAX-EXEMPT AGAIN? Catholic Bishops are urging every diocese to hold a “Fortnight for Freedom” during the two weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, for parishioners to study, pray and take public action to fight what they see as the government’s attempts to curtail religious freedom. [...] Several states have denied financing to Catholic agencies that refused to place foster children with gay parents. And the federal government refused to reauthorize a grant to a Catholic immigration organization that served victims of sex trafficking because as a Catholic group, it would not provide or refer women to services for abortion and birth control… the bishops say that unjust laws should be either changed or resisted. In this passage, the bishops seem to refer to the recent attempt by President Obama to accommodate their objection to the health care mandate, by ordering the insurance companies, and not the Catholic institutions, to pay for birth control coverage. [NYTimes]

———————————————————–——PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday night said the Republican-led “war on women” was real, claiming their view on birth control would take the United States back to the 1950s. “I think the war on women is real,” he told MSNBC host Ed Schultz. “And look, I’ll tell you when it’s going to intensify. The next president of the United States is going to get to name one, possibly two or more, members to the Supreme Court.” Biden said it was an “outrageous assertion” for CNN contributor Hillary Rosen to claim that Ann Romney, a mother of five, had not worked a day in her life. “My entire career as a senator and the vice president is to get to one point, when my daughter is able to make whatever choice she wants and no one question it,” he explained. [Raw Story]


Biden to Attack “Romney Rule” on Taxes – Biden will coin a new phrase — “the Romney Rule” — to illustrate his case, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the Obama campaign. “The Buffett Rule says that multi-millionaires should pay at least the same percentage of their income in taxes as middle-class families do,” Biden will say. “The Romney Rule says the very wealthy should keep the tax cuts and loopholes they have, and get an additional, new tax cut every year that is worth more than what the average middle class family makes in an entire year.” Biden refers to the so-called Bush tax cuts on individuals earning more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000. Romney wants to extend and expand the cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year; Obama wants to let them lapse. “Look, these are tax cuts to people who didn’t ask for them, who don’t need them, and who know the nation can’t afford them,” Biden will say. “And it matters. There’s a stark choice we have to make.” [image: Joe Biden Unleashed | Mother Jones]

Whitney Tilson, a millionaire hedge fund manager, wants President Obama to raise his taxes. Despite the fact that the Buffett Rule, the proposed minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans, would have made his federal tax bill 40 percent higher, Tilson was one of four millionaires standing with Obama yesterday at an appearance touting the rule. Tilson also penned an editorial in the Washington Post calling for the Buffett Rule’s passage, saying, “It’s okay to raise my taxes” because “simple math and basic fairness” demand it: It’s not class warfare to say that people like me — who aren’t suffering at all in these tough economic times, who are in many cases doing the best we’ve ever done and who can easily afford to pay more in taxes with no impact on our lifestyle — should be the first to step up and make a small sacrifice. [...] Think of it this way: Every billion dollars not raised from millionaires is equal to a million average U.S. families each paying an extra $1,000 in taxes. That would be real hardship for a lot of families that, unlike mine, are struggling to make ends meet. [ThinkProgress]


Taking the false-equivalence fallacy to the extreme – What much of the political world seems to be saying today is that the “war on women” now has two competing counterweights. One the one hand, we have a party that has pushed for restricting contraception; cutting off Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds; forcing physicians to lie to patients about abortion and breast cancer; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; trap laws at abortion clinics, forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, opposition to prenatal care, and measures that make it harder for women to fight pay discrimination. On the other hand, we have a media pundit with no connection to her party’s presidential campaign who said something about Mitt Romney’s wife professional background. Don’t you see? Both sides clearly have a problem here. Republicans were losing the “war on women,” but not anymore. Let’s pause to appreciate the differences between policy and politics. A public policy offensive involving women’s health, waged at the local, state, and federal level is a serious development, worthy of scrutiny. It affects people in direct and personal ways… to obscure the differences a national policy initiative and a 30-second soundbite on CNN, which the pundit has since apologized for, is take the false-equivalence fallacy to depths that simply aren’t healthy for our public discourse. [Steve Benen]

Morning Bunker Report: Wednesday 4.11.2012

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————————————-WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

imageRick Santorum: thanks for the memories — “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better” with taxpayer money (which he of course qualified as “blah” people). - He said women aren’t capable of serving in combat because there would be “emotions that are involved.” - “I refer to global warming as not climate science, but political science.”  - He told a mother her gay son is engaging in unhealthy activity that the government should not “promote.” - Santorum is pro-income inequality.   -Santorum promised to significantly reduce federal funding for food stamps, arguing that the nation’s increasing obesity rates render the program unnecessary. - He called contraception a “license to do things” - Santorum found “it almost remarkable for a black man” to be pro-choice.  - He told a rape victim: “Make the best out of a bad situation” - In 1994, the candidate said single moms are just “breeding more criminals.” [ThinkProgress]

Idaho’s only black lawmaker gets KKK membership invite – On Saturday, Democratic state Rep. Cherie Buckner-Webb used her Facebook page to share photos of the KKK “application,” which asked for $35 and a proclamation that she was “a White Christian man or woman.”…“(It) was addressed by hand,” the lawmaker noted. “Something a little unsettling.” [...] “Initially, I wondered what was someone’s thought process in sending that to me. My first inclination was someone wants me to know the Klan is still around,” she explained. “I am really concerned about the climate of intolerance in a lot of different areas. I see a lot of intolerance toward gays, toward women,” the Boise Democrat said, recalling recent legislative battles over LGBT rights, abortion and contraception. “I would be a fool not to take note and govern myself accordingly,” she added. “It was a sign for me to remain vigilant, to remain careful and to remain thoughtful.”

George Zimmerman’s Attorneys Quit, Say Client ‘Disappeared’ – The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him. “On Monday we began fielding questions…’did we know anything about (this) website?’ And our initial response was, well that’s probably bogus, we don’t know anything about that. And we started making inquiries and frankly confirmed that he, through friends or family, had in fact set that site up and it was legitimate. We immediately began telling the media, disregard the earlier website we gave you that we had set up. Go for the one we now know that he set up.” “We were happy enough with that, but disturbed that he had not communicated with us,” Uhrig said. The attorneys said that Zimmerman repeatedly ignored their legal advice. “We learned that he had called Sean Hannity of Fox News directly — not through us,” Uhrig said. “We believe that he spoke directly with Sean off the record and [Hannity's] not even willing to tell us what our client told him.”

Because this wouldn’t be at all weird or basically insane –

Glenn Beck, once a shining star in the conservative universe, has seen his influence fade a bit since leaving Fox News to set out on his own. Now he’s built a replica of the oval office to give “Reagan-esque” speeches, so says the Glenn Beck TV Team. [tpmmedia]

———————————————————–——PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

President Obama Makes the Case for the Buffett Rule – Instead of giving more than a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americans—those who make more than $250,000 a year—we need to be investing in the things like education and research and health care. These are the same investments we’ve been making for generations because they lead to strong, broad based economic growth that helps everyone, as the President explained: “What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few, which is what’s been happening for over a decade now, and gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider.” The fact is, the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent of earners is as high as it’s been since the 1920s. And those same people are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years. To address this imbalance in our tax system, President Obama has proposed the Buffett Rule, based on the simple idea that people who make more than $1 million each year pay at least the same share of their income in taxes as middle-class families do…


…

Beyond a Buffett Rule, the Obama We’ve Been Waiting For – Later, in the speech, he sharpened his criticism of the Republican embrace of zombie-eyed granny-starving to a sharper point, daring the GOP to produce a list of things they would actually cut to make the pixie-dust math of the Ryan budget actually work. “They won’t do it,” he told the crowd, “because they know, if they do, they’ll lose.” This appeal to honesty and political courage likely will fall on deaf ears, alas. (How do I know this? Because of an interview that zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network in which he spectacularly attempted to wedge zombie-eyed granny-starving into the Gospels: “A person’s faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private,” Ryan said in an interview released on Tuesday by the Christian Broadcasting Network. “So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person.” First of all, he doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about. The social magisterium of the Church is a lot of things, but consonant with supply-side trickle-down economics is definitely not one of them, no matter how hard the crowd at First Things tries to make it so.

Elizabeth Warren Nabs Planned Parenthood Endorsement In Massachusetts Senate Race – The Planned Parenthood Action Fund said their decision to endorse Warren was partly due to Brown’s support of the Blunt Amendment, of which he was a co-sponsor. The amendment would have allowed employers and insurers the right to deny coverage for any procedure that contradicts their moral or religious beliefs. Warren opposed the failed amendment to the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s health care reform law. “Now more than ever, Massachusetts voters want and deserve to be represented in Congress by someone who puts smart policies ahead of political ideologies,” said Dianne Luby, president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund in Massachusetts, in a statement.

Food Stamp Program Helping Reduce Poverty – A new study by the Agriculture Department has found that food stamps, one of the country’s largest social safety net programs, reduced the poverty rate substantially during the recent recession. The food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reduced the poverty rate by nearly 8 percent in 2009, the most recent year included in the study, a significant impact for a social program whose effects often go unnoticed by policy makers. The food stamp program is one of the largest antipoverty efforts in the country, serving more than 46 million people.

Morning Bunker Report: Tuesday 4.10.2012

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————————————-WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

Robertson tells man ‘you are the boss’ in marriage – Televangelist Pat Robertson once again added to his list of controversial statements Monday, telling a man that he is “the boss” of the family when a conflict arises between him and his wife over money given to church. On the latest episode of The 700 Club, Robertson responded to a male viewer’s letter about his wife demanding the couple not give more in tithes to their church because of their difficult financial situation. Tithes are the money Christians give from their income to their church as a religious obligation. “You know big man, you are the boss,” he said. “I know people don’t want to hear that, but you are the high priest of your family and you are the man of the house.” [...] Robertson added: “You need to push forward and your wife will come along. But if you’re vacillating and she pulls you back, you’re not much of a leader. You’re supposed to be a leader, you supposed to be the high priest. You supposed to intercede for your family before the Lord. And, as they say, ‘Man up.’”

Joe Arpaio Wonders If GOP Candidates Are In On Conspiracy To Hide Obama’s Birth Certificate – Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is disturbed that the Republican presidential candidates haven’t supported his quixotic effort to get to the bottom of President Obama’s birth certificate, and is begining to wonder if they’re part of the cover up. [...] APRAIO: I’ve had presidential candidates visit me in my office. I’ve talked to every one of them. … I don’t see anybody talking about this. I don’t see any senators talking about it. But when they mention me, they seem to forget my name. So isn’t that interesting? On both sides of the fence, they don’t want to talk about it. … How come everybody’s hiding this? [...] But Arpaio’s political star may have fallen along with his legal one. Arpaio is now on the verge of losing his badge thanks to accusations from the Department of Justice that his department systemically profiles based on race and has mishandled hundreds of sex crimes cases.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) argued yesterday that the female members in his caucus agree with him that the GOP’s “war on women” is just “a manufactured issue.” [...] “There is no issue. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say — and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — ‘we don’t see any evidence of this.’” The Senate is out this week, but McConnell may way want to pay a little closer attention to what members of his caucus are actually saying. In this case, McConnell specifically mentioned five Republican senators — all of whom are women, and three of whom have raised serious concerns about what their party is up to. [...] McConnell seems comfortable speaking for all of these women, and ascribing beliefs to them. But if McConnell stopped telling us what these senators think and started listening to what they actually think, he might learn something important. [MaddowBlog]

———————————————————–——PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

Obama will talk about taxes in Florida on Tuesday when he delivers a speech in support of the “Buffett Rule,” a measure to insure a 30 percent tax on income over $1 million earned by wealthy Americans. Vice President Joe Biden will travel to the battleground state of New Hampshire on Thursday also to discuss taxes. The Obama campaign sees the issue as a weak point for Romney, a former private equity executive and ex-governor of Massachusetts. “Middle class families are taking it on the chin right now and they don’t see others doing their fair share,” Wisconsin Democratic congresswoman Tammy Baldwin said in a conference call set up by the Obama campaign. On April 16, the Senate will take up the “Buffett Rule” although it is unlikely to be approved as Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to bring the issue to a full vote. [Reuters]

Dick Durbin, Senate Dem Leader, Hammers Romney Over Swiss Bank Account – Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) slammed presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney for using a Swiss bank account and refusing to release more years of tax returns. “When is the last time a presidential candidate had a Swiss bank? I think the answer is never,” Durbin said on a conference call organized by the Obama campaign. The number two Democrat in the Senate said he asked billionaire investor Warren Buffett if he’d ever owned an an account in the tax friendly nation.” “‘Nope,’” Durbin said, quoting Buffett , “‘there are plenty of good banks in the United States.’” Durbin said there are only two reasons to hold a Swiss bank account: “Number one, you believe the Swiss Franc is a stronger currency than the United States Dollar. And that apparently was the decision the Romney family made during the Bush presidency.” “And secondly, you want to hide something, you want to conceal something,” He said. “It is impossible for him to explain or defend owning a Swiss bank account.”

Rep. Baldwin calls for House to vote on ‘Buffett Rule’ tax for millionaires – Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) on Monday urged leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives to bring her legislation to the floor to enact the so-called Buffett Rule. [...] Republicans have condemned the proposed rule as class warfare and it is unlikely to pass in the GOP-led House of Representatives. Nearly all House Republicans have sworn to fight any and all tax increases. But Baldwin said the American people “deserve to know where their Representatives stand” on this “critical” issue. “Our current tax code has been influenced by powerful special interests and includes loopholes and special provisions that allow approximately a quarter of all millionaires to pay lower effective tax rates than millions of middle class families,” she explained. Approximately 94,500 millionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than millions of families earning less than $100,000, according to the Congressional Research Service (PDF). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that the Senate will vote on the legislation on April 16, tax day.

NEA Wants $1.5 Trillion From Closed Corporate Tax Loopholes To Fund Popular Education Programs – The National Education Association is ramping up a public information campaign to build support for closing big corporate tax loopholes and directing the revenue toward key education initiatives. The push comes weeks after the Obama administration released a framework for corporate tax reforms that would be revenue neutral, suggesting a schism between the powerful union and the White House. But in a Monday interview, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel applauded Obama’s record on education and said his group’s push is meant to raise awareness of one of many ways to finance more federal investment in education. “One reason to look at corporate taxes is because it is so huge,” Van Roekel said, citing the Center for Tax Justice, which concludes (PDF) that closing seven specific corporate tax loopholes could raise nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. NEA proposes using the money to raise the maximum Pell grant award to cover half the average cost of public higher education, fund Title I spending on students from low-income families and other initiatives.

Obama announces opposition to Minnesota same sex marriage ban – “While the President does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples,” Kristin Sosanie, Obama’s Minnesota Communications Director, said in a statement. “That’s what the Minnesota ballot initiative would do – it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples – and that’s why the President does not support it.” The statement is nearly identical to another statement by the Obama campaign regarding efforts in the New Hampshire legislature to repeal the state’s same sex marriage law. That effort ended unsuccessfully in late March. [...] “The amendment does not represent the values Minnesotans hold dear – that marriage is about love and commitment, and that freedom means freedom for everyone,” Minnesotans United for All Families said in a statement. “We’re happy that President Obama and Minnesotans from all walks of life see this amendment for what it is – a government exclusion to a group of people simply because of who they are.”

Morning Bunker Report: Tuesday 4.3.2012

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It’s election day in Wisconsin, Maryland, and DC.

THE WHITE HOUSE / DEMOCRATS

Obama: Supreme Court won’t overturn health care law  – “I think [the individual mandate] is important and I think the American people understand, and I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to insure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care,” said president Obama …  Overturning the law would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” since it was passed by a majority of members in the House and Senate,” he said. “I just remind conservative commentators that for years we’ve heard that the biggest problem is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That a group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

Andrew Sullivan comments, “Too aggressive? A harbinger of a campaign theme if the Court strikes the law down? Or a necessary self-defense? After Citizens United, I’d lean to the latter.”

Obama to slam Republican ‘social Darwinism’ — He will roast a budget passed by the Republican House of Representatives, and backed by the party’s presidential candidates, as a “Trojan horse,” according to excerpts of a major speech he was due to deliver later Tuesday.  […] “Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It’s nothing but thinly-veiled Social Darwinism… But Obama argues that the plan will punish the middle class and further enrich the wealthy, a message around which he is building his campaign for a second White House term. “It’s antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it,” Obama was to say in his speech, in a repudiation of trickle-down economics. “By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training; research and development — it’s a prescription for decline.” […] Obama will also use his speech on Tuesday to make a new push for the “Buffett rule” a plan named after billionaire financier Warren Buffett, that would mandate that all Americans earning over $1 million pay at least a 30 percent tax rate.

“This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is a different party than I’m used to…. It really is different.” – Joe Biden (source)

Joe Biden dismisses Mitt Romney as ‘out of touch’ — “Here’s what I don’t think that Governor Romney seems to understand,” Biden said. “It’s not just about the kid that doesn’t get to go to college because we’re not willing to help him. It’s about that parent, that proud parent looks at his kid and knows, ‘There’s nothing I can do to help this kid.’ … I don’t know that he understands that there are people like my dad who felt ashamed that he wasn’t able to borrow the money and apologizing to me. The worst thing in the world for a parent is to know they can’t help their child, whether they’re sick because they can’t get insurance for them because they have a preexisting condition, or they can’t help get them to college.” That doesn’t mean Biden is counting on an easy win, but he said the anti-government rhetoric out of the Romney camp as it fights to secure the nomination guarantees that voters will have a stark choice in November. “This is the first time the Republicans aren’t hiding the ball,” Biden said. “They’re saying exactly what they think. They’re not talking about compassionate conservatism.”

Clinton praises U.S. for uproar over Limbaugh comments  – “As a woman and as someone who can vaguely remember being a young woman — and as a mother of a young woman of that age and generation — I thought the response was very encouraging.” “I think we need to call people out when they go over the line. They’re entitled to their opinion, but no one is entitled to engage in that kind of verbal assault,” she said, according to a transcript released Monday. […] “There’s been no place better to be a woman than in 21st-century America. So we cannot allow any voices to be given credibility that would undermine the advances that women have made in our country,” she said.

THE SHORT BUS: AKA THE 2012 GOP PRIMARY

Romney: Obama wants to ‘establish a religion called secularism’ – “I think there is in this country a war on religion. I think there is a desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism. They gave it a lot of thought and they decided to say that in this country that a church — in this case, the Catholic Church — would be required to violate its principles and its conscience and be required to provide contraceptives, sterilization and morning after pills to the employees of the church. … We are now all Catholics. Those of us who are people of faith recognize this is — an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion. It’s one more reason we need to get rid of Obamacare. It’s also one more reason we need to get rid of Obama.”

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote…” — JFK (what religious freedom USED to mean)

Wisconsin Chaos Buries Romney’s Big Moment – Romney is on the verge of all-but-officially taking the GOP nomination on the strength of a growing delegate lead and impressive array of endorsements. But the Wisconsin contest, where Romney is favored despite starting behind Rick Santorum in polls last month, also happens to be taking place in the only primary state so far where the presidential battle is an afterthought. Instead, Wisconsin is dominated by Gov. Scott Walker’s recall battle and the ongoing legal fight over the controversial labor law that precipitated it. “Frankly, the presidential primary is being well overshadowed by the recall election,” Wisconsin GOP strategist Mark Graul told TPM. “People are just so hyper-focused on this recall that the presidential election is really just a distant second in most activists’ and voters’ minds, not just on my side of the aisle but with Democrats as well.” This week, the state officially certified the petition campaign to recall Walker, setting a June 5 date for the election that Democrats had gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures in order to force.

Rick Santorum Faces Triple Wipeout in Wisconsin, Maryland, and D.C. — The poll shows Romney leading 40 percent to 33 percent in Wisconsin, and here’s the key stat: Santorum has lost every state for which there is exit polling when the percentage of evangelical voters is less than 50. And in Wisconsin, says NBC, evangelicals make up 41 percent of the Republican electorate. Santorum’s failure to expand his base beyond very conservative and religious voters has hurt him badly in such states as Michigan and Ohio, even as he has racked up wins elsewhere. And he looks to be toast in Maryland, where a Rasmussen poll has him trailing Romney, 45 percent to 28 percent. Santorum has no intention of pulling the plug on his campaign, even if he gets wiped out on Tuesday. || me: HOORAY!

BEARING FALSE WITNESS: Santorum Claims California Universities Don’t Teach American History – “I was just reading something last night from the state of California. And that the California universities – I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.” In fact, of the 10 UC system schools, just one (San Francisco) doesn’t offer American history courses. But that’s because it doesn’t offer any humanities courses at all — it’s a medical school. Meanwhile, Berkeley, Irvine, Davis, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz all offer numerous American history courses. All require students to take U.S. history before they can graduate.