The worst part of Fox News’ incessant yammering on about the Benghazi attack is that they have been so transparently partisan and gotten their facts so terribly wrong, that it has made it virtually impossible to have a real investigation into the death of the US Ambassador to Libya, either in the US or in Libya.
Why is Fox News helping the terrorists?
Republicans now say that they are willing to “compromise” by raising revenue in addition to cutting services, but they want to raise revenue by closing tax loopholes rather than raising tax rates. This is a hypocritical smokescreen rather than an honest proposal.
Politico has an interesting article “Tax loopholes alone can’t solve fiscal cliff“, which lists the top ten loopholes in terms of how much they cost the government in lost revenue. Let’s look at just the top five:
Heading the list at number one is the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, which costs the government $164 billion. If we eliminate that, then employees would have to start paying taxes on what their employers pay to provide health insurance. Needless to say, closing that “loophole” would cost the middle class far more than the rich. Yes, once again the GOP would be protecting the 1% at the expense of the middle class.
Number two is the exclusion for employer pension benefits (cost: $162 billion). Employees would have to pay taxes up front on their 401K plans, which means they are going to have far less money to retire on (unless they are rich and aren’t depending on a pension).
Number three is the home mortgage deduction (cost $100 billion). I don’t care how many houses John McCain or Mitt Romney own. Even if they have mortgages on all those homes (and I doubt they do), this will take a much bigger percentage chunk out of middle class homeowners’ income. If this were eliminated, how many people could no longer afford their mortgage payments and would lose their homes? Not to mention that housing prices would plummet.
Number four is the exclusion of Medicare benefits (cost: $76 billion). Yeah right, let’s make seniors with medical problems pay off our deficit. Just how are they going to pay those taxes? With their pensions? Think about it. If you’re on Medicare and need an expensive operation to save your life, even if all your medical costs are completely paid for, you’d have to pay income taxes on what Medicare paid to cover those costs.
Number five in Politico’s list is interesting. It is the loophole that taxes capital gains at a lower rate then ordinary income (cost: $71 billion). Naturally, Republicans don’t see this as a loophole (even though that is how it is accounted for by the government). They see it as a tax rate, and have already said they won’t support raising the rate. Unsurprisingly, it is the biggest loophole whose elimination would cost the rich any significant amount of money. Even more ironically, it is the only loophole in the list that has ever been eliminated (and by Ronald Reagan of all people).
All of these supposed “loopholes” are extremely popular. Can you imagine any Congressperson (from either party) ever proposing that we eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction? The powerful realtor lobby would go nuts!
And yet, eliminating all of the top 10 loopholes wouldn’t even get us half way to generating the revenue we need. It would be almost impossible to close enough loopholes to balance the budget. It’s that little thing called “mathematics” again. What is the chance that Congress will eliminate any of the top ten loopholes, let alone all of them? You guessed it.
So the next time anyone says we should raise revenue by closing loopholes, ask them what loopholes they want to close.
Some CEOs are complaining that they will have to pass the cost of health insurance for their employees on to customers. One of the biggest complainers was John Schnatter, who claimed he would have to raise the price of each pizza by 11 to 14 cents. First of all, is that all? Second of all, Schnatter claims that he already provides health insurance to 100% of his employees, so why would his costs go up? Regardless, after customers started boycotting his pizza, he backed down. Besides, since Schnatter was a supporter and fundraiser for Mitt Romney, it is more likely that his complaints were just so much hot air. If he was really worried about costs, he could reduce them by lowering how much he pays himself.
Even Republicans who are pretending to want to compromise are saying they will only do it only if the Democrats agree to “entitlement reform“, which is their code phrase for cutting Medicare and Social Security. This is their plan for gaining popularity? Or just a ploy so they won’t be blamed when we go over the fiscal cliff?
Leading Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss has publicly renounced Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, stating “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.”
Chambliss may not be the first, but he is definitely the most prominent Republican to say he no longer feels bound by the pledge (which he signed) to not raise taxes. Some freshmen Congresspersons have also said that they no longer feel bound by the pledge, which they were almost required to sign before winning a Republican nomination.
Maybe there is hope for the GOP yet?
Or maybe not. Karen Handel, the former executive for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, who nearly destroyed that charity with her attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, is considering running for the Senate against Saxby Chambliss. Handel previously ran for governor of Georgia on a strong anti-abortion platoform, but lost. Handel has called Planned Parenthood “a bunch of schoolyard thugs.”
UPDATE: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has now said “I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform.”
On the other side, Grover Norquist claims that the anti-tax pledge will hold. “For 20 years Democrats have tried over and over to trick Republicans into breaking the pledge. It hasn’t happened. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
It takes a while for the final final vote totals to be calculated, what with people in the military sending in ballots from overseas, etc. So even though it has been a few weeks, we are just now getting a relatively authoritative vote count for the presidential election.
Ironically, it looks like Mitt Romney is going to end up with 47% of the vote. This will be an easy number to remember, since one of his biggest gaffes was to claim that Obama was the candidate of the 47% of voters who “believe they are victims” and are “dependent on government”.
And lest you feel sorry for Romney as someone being piled on after losing the election, Romney himself doubled down on his 47% comments several days after the election on a phone call with his rich supporters, claiming that Obama won the election by giving “gifts” to minorities and women. As Time magazine put it “Has there ever been a less gracious presidential loser than Mitt Romney?”
On his show, Bill O’Reilly recently said “Traditional America as we knew it is gone. Ward, June, Wally and the Beave — outta here!”
I thought it was weird enough when conservatives attacked Murphy Brown, a fictional TV character. But now they seem to be basing their vision of conservative America on a classic sitcom — Leave it to Beaver.
But sure! Let’s take America back to the era of higher tax rates for the rich, back to less obscene pay for CEOs and hedge fund managers, back when politicians were spending more time bolstering the social safety net than trying to blame our nation’s problems on the poor or on immigrants (you know, the people who founded this country).
As Ruben Bolling said about his own comic:
The right has always fetishized 1950s suburbia as the idyllic landscape of “traditional” America, full of nuclear families, strong values, men in suits and Wonder bread (R.I.P.). But how would the world of Leave It to Beaver really see the 2012 election? Mitt looks an awful lot like Ward, but is Mitt’s Bain-inspired economic worldview one that Ward would approve of?
BTW, in an amazing show of overly sweet irony, the Wall Street Journal has a recipe for faux Hostess cupcakes but made with a high-brow bittersweet chocolate glaze and a white chocolate mousse filling, called Hostess Cupcake 2.0.
For your Thanksgiving-dinner-with-your-relatives enjoyment, MSNBC has a list of handy retorts to use when your Fox-News-listening uncle Gary starts spouting off his latest talking points. My favorite is number 5:
When He Says: “Obama promised to be post-partisan, but he’s completely unwilling to work with Republicans.”
You Say: “Obama spent all of 2009 and much of 2010 trying to compromise with Republicans on the stimulus, health-care reform, deficit reduction, and financial reform. Meanwhile, even before Obama took office, the GOP held a meeting where they agreed on a strategy of knee-jerk opposition as a way to beat Obama in 2012. “If he was for it, we had to be against it,” as one participant explained it. Wanna blame someone for the lack of bipartisanship? Look at your own party.”
“Last night we had a rough audience, very unpleasant. And then halfway through the show they voted to secede.” — David Letterman
“After the election, 20 states said they’ve got to get out. They said, ‘We can’t take it anymore,’ so 20 states are working on seceding from the United States. We’re facing real economic problems, so take those 20 states that want to leave and charge them $10,000 apiece.” — David Letterman
“Facebook just launched a new app. They teamed up with the Department of Labor to create what they call the social jobs app. You can browse through two million job listings. You know it’s bad when even Facebook thinks it’s time for you to get a job.” — Jimmy Kimmel
“Facebook also has an app that can help you lose your job. It’s called Facebook.” — Jimmy Kimmel
“Facebook and the Department of Labor have teamed up for a new app that displays job openings. It’ll be weird when people find a job because of Facebook, then get fired from that job for using Facebook, then use Facebook to find another job. It’s the circle of life.” — Jimmy Fallon
“Yesterday, President Obama gave his first press conference since being re-elected. And a lot of people are saying it looked like he was trying to cover up some of his gray hair. So I guess Obama’s major goals include jobs for women and Just For Men.” — Jimmy Fallon
“Yesterday Barack Obama looked especially good. He looked relaxed and ready to lead, so he took questions from the press for 20 minutes then finished up with a few Al Green songs.” — David Letterman
“There are now reports that President Obama will name Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be the next Secretary of Defense. Apparently this is part of America’s new defense strategy to bore our enemies to death.” — Jay Leno
“President Obama is in town today. He’s visiting the places that were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. And he’s visiting people who lost their power. Those are Republicans, but that’s a different story.” — David Letterman
“Colorado and Washington just legalized marijuana. If Hostess can’t figure out a way to make money off of that, then maybe they shouldn’t be in the snack cake industry. I guess I’ll just have to take my business to Little Debbie.” — Jimmy Kimmel
“Arizona elected the first openly bisexual congresswoman. She’s a lady promising to reach across the aisle and grab whatever’s there.” — Conan O’Brien
“During his final speech on the House floor yesterday, Congressman Ron Paul said the Constitution has failed. Which must be a bummer because he’s actually one of the guys who signed it.” — Jimmy Fallon
“The economy is so bad that on the way to work I saw Phil Jackson holding a sign that said, ‘Will coach for food’.” — Jay Leno
“The economy is so bad, MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen.” — Jay Leno
“The economy is so bad, President Obama sent Susan Rice out to defend it.” — Jay Leno
After defeat after defeat, suddenly several states passed amendments and laws giving gays the right to marry. What turned the tide? The answer is in an interesting article on Buzzfeed.
I consider myself a moderate, even though in today’s partisan world moderates seem like a dying breed. So it is interesting to read an article that shows that one of the main reasons why so many states adopted gay marriage rights was because proponents adopted tactics aimed at moderates. This came after a yearlong research effort, which made significant changes to the talking points and television ads run in support of marriage equality.
Instead of ads talking about “rights”, the new ads focused on committed relationships. Instead of avoiding talk about “values” the new ads speek to values directly, emphasizing the golden rule and how values should be taught in the home. And probably most importantly, the ads made it clear that accepting gay marriage may not be an easy decision and gave voters permission to change their position (just as Obama changed his position).
The new message looks something like this:
My name is Bill Stevens. I was brought up thinking that marriage was between a man and a woman, but I came to realize that gay and lesbian people are just born that way. After all, who would choose that harder path? I also know the value of my marriage and the vows we made, so I understand why gays and lesbians would want to make that unique and important commitment, too. I teach my children not to judge others and to practice the Golden Rule. I feel confident that they learn their values from my wife and me and legalizing gay marriage is not going to change that, nor does it threaten my marriage. For all these reasons, I’ve now decided to support marriage for gays and lesbians.
And it worked.
“A decorated war hero has an affair with his own sexy biographer, who thinks the spy master is stepping out on her with a second girlfriend. So she sends an email from a secret account saying ‘step off or I will cut a bi-atch.’ And the second hottie freaks out and contacts her friends, FBI agents, who launch an investigation, but gets pulled off the case because he sexed her a shirtless photo. The spy master protege, also a general, has sent thousands of e-mails to the second woman. This isn’t just a love triangle, folks. It’s a love pentagon.” — Stephen Colbert
You seriously can’t make shit like this up. Could it get any weirder?
UPDATE: Ranker has a list of the top Spy Sex Scandals in history.
The campaign to put Barack Obama’s head on Mount Rushmore is gaining steam. How many conservative heads will this cause to explode?
“It was announced today that former General Petraeus has agreed to testify before Congress. I guess he figured, ‘Why not?’ Those questions can’t be any tougher than the ones he’s getting at home right now.” – Jay Leno
“According to a study, there are three areas where humans now are getting dumber. High school kids. Retirees. And another group of dumb people? Four-star generals.” – David Letterman
“No wonder we don’t know what’s going on in Libya. They’re all too worried about chlamydia.” – Jay Leno
“This David Patraeus scandal is insane and has no signs of stopping. In a weird twist today, a jogger recently found the driver’s license of Patraeus’s mistress, Paula Broadwell, in a park. He knew it was her driver’s license because under sex it said, ‘Lots with David Patraeus’.” – Jimmy Fallon
“This whole scandal has changed the way the White House does business. Like, you know the Situation Room? It’s now the Compromising Situation Room. They’ve changed it.” – Jay Leno
“See, when a general tells his wife, ‘I was pitching a tent in Afghanistan,” technically he’s not lying.” – Jay Leno
“It’s now being reported that General Petraeus wanted to run for president. But, you know, he can still win. He’s an older white guy with a sex scandal, so there’s something there for Republicans and Democrats.” – Jay Leno
“A woman in Arizona ran over her husband with her Jeep because she blamed him for Obama getting reelected. See, I don’t think the woman is being fair. If Obama hadn’t saved the auto industry, she wouldn’t have been able to run over her husband with an American-made car.” – Jay Leno
“It turns out that Democrats are actually considering Mitt Romney’s tax plan as a way to avoid the fiscal cliff. Three weeks ago, Obama was like, ‘Mitt Romney has terrible ideas!’ And now he’s like, ‘Hey, you gonna finish those ideas?'” – Jimmy Fallon
“There’s a petition for Texas to secede. It has 25,000 signatures. The signatures are from every state but Texas.” – Conan O’Brien
“Another big storm could hit the Northeast by Wednesday, preventing millions from visiting relatives for Thanksgiving. But there’s also a downside.” – Jimmy Fallon
“The Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree is being put in place this afternoon. They bring it in and hoist it with a crane and steel cables. It’s the same way they get Chris Christie into his pants.” – David Letterman
“Then they start decorating the tree with a beautiful array of Christmas lights and on the very top they put a tiny little Mayor Bloomberg. In fact, it actually is Mayor Bloomberg.” – David Letterman
Despite embarrassing themselves by jumping the gun attacking Obama over the Libyan Embassy attack, the Republicans don’t have any hard facts so they keep throwing innuendo around.
This is beyond hypocrisy. Just a few months ago at the Republican convention, they were trying to rewrite history by saying that George W. Bush “kept us safe”. In order to believe that, not only do you have to ignore the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, and (worst of all) getting us into a preemptive war of choice in Iraq that cost 4,488 Americans their lives. Was that “safe”? Heck, were the victims of Hurricane Katrina kept “safe”?
What makes this even more scary is that Romney surrounded himself with the same neo-cons who ignored the warnings about 9/11 and got us into a stupid war in Iraq.
“‘Skyfall,’ the number one movie at the box office this week, made over $100 million. It’s the biggest opening ever for a James Bond film. There’s not a lot of sex in the movie – it’s very downplayed. See, James Bond is just a secret agent. It’s not like he’s head of the CIA.” – Jay Leno
“David Petraeus was reportedly not well liked at the CIA where he worked. A tip to you fellows out there – don’t cheat on your wife if you work with professional spies who don’t like you.” – Conan O’Brien
“The new ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ video game was released today, and it actually features General David Petraeus. So I guess it’s safe to assume the game has plenty of cheat codes.” – Jimmy Fallon
“People are disappointed. A four-star general, highly decorated, brilliant strategist, director of the CIA – and yet he’s behaving like your common congressman.” – Jay Leno
“This David Petraeus scandal just keeps getting bigger. It turns out that another top general and an FBI agent had inappropriate contact with Jill Kelley, the woman who sparked the investigation. They need to stop this thing or we’re gonna end up with nobody left to run the government.” – Jimmy Fallon
“How about that General Petraeus? Then they got an FBI guy sending pictures of himself with his shirt off. Is that the surge or are you just happy to see me? … You know who I blame for all of this? Anthony Weiner. He’s the guy who started this whole thing.” – David Letterman
“Today a rare 76-carat diamond went up for auction in Switzerland. The jeweler called it ‘a priceless stone’ while David Petraeus’ wife called it ‘a start.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“A woman is so angry with the election results that reportedly she got in her car and ran over her husband. She’s so mad that Romney didn’t win, she runs over her husband. It was Karl Rove’s wife.” – David Letterman
“Arizona has elected the first openly bisexual congresswoman. Apparently she did very well with swing voters.” – Conan O’Brien
“You remember Paul Ryan? He was Mitt Romney’s Gilligan, his little buddy. He wanted to be vice president but it didn’t work out. They did some of those focus groups and it turns out people didn’t want a vice president with two first names.” – David Letterman
“Folks, I’m no fan of ‘Sesame Street.’ They expose our children to dangerous liberal ideas like befriending the homeless, two men sleeping in the same bedroom and counting.” – Stephen Colbert
“The movie ‘Lincoln’ opened over the weekend. It’s getting unbelievable reviews. It’s so authentic. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln. Sally Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln. John McCain plays himself.” – Jay Leno
“I was surprised to learn Abraham Lincoln was not a vampire hunter.” – Jay Leno
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