Mr. 0%

Is it possible that for ten of the past twelve years, Willard Mitt Romney paid no federal income tax at all?

According to an unnamed source known to both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and CNN's Dana Bash, that's the case. And Reid is not backing down when Romney tells Hannity that he oughtta "put up or shut up," he's doubling down:

“It’s clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is. Whatever Romney’s hiding probably speaks volumes about how he would approach issues that directly impact middle-class families, like tax reform and the economy. When you are running for president, you should be an open book.

The Dems are forcing Romney into a corner of his own making. Mitt keeps having to defend, primarily because whatever is in those taxes is obviously damaging to him, or else he'd release them. Since the wealthy live by different rules and have all the tax lawyers and tax accountants in the world to help them "preserve capital" it is not hard to imagine Mitt having skirted his civic duty, even if foolish for someone with designs on the White House.

This whole narrative has made it impossible for Mitt to carefully choreograph his introduction to the electorate - Obama For America has already introduced him to us all as Mr. Bain, destroyer of American businesses. Best of all for Barack, it plays right into Romney's policy choices, as demonstrated by this new, hard-hitting ad:



My only fear is that Romney is so weakened by the time the GOP Convention rolls around, they replace him with somebody who might actually win.

Spare Change

News from France and Greece: austerity candidates lost. In France, it means the end of Nicholas Sarkozy's governance:

Exuberant crowds filled the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution, to celebrate Hollande's victory. He will be France's first leftist chief of state since Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

Sarkozy thanked his supporters and said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.

...

Hollande wants to renegotiate a hard-won European treaty on budget cuts that Germany's Angela Merkel and Sarkozy had championed. He wants more government stimulus, and more government spending in general despite concerns from markets that France needs to urgently trim its huge debts.

What does that mean for America? If the European debt deals fall apart, it could hurt Obama's reelection chances. But is it a harbinger of an anti-austerity vote that could cross the Atlantic?

Per Robert Reich, against socialism:

Socialism isn't the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations.

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world's productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

...

And this is why a second Obama administration, should there be one, must focus its attention on more broadly distributing the gains from growth. This doesn't mean "redistributing" from rich to poor, as in a zero-sum game. To the contrary, the rich will do far better with a smaller share of a robust, growing economy than they're doing with a large share of an economy that's barely moving forward.

This will require real tax reform -- not just a "Buffett" minimal tax but substantially higher marginal rates and more brackets at the top, with a capital gains rate matching the income-tax rate. It also means a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, whose benefits extend high into the middle class. That will enable many Americans to move to a 35-hour workweek without losing ground -- thereby making room for more jobs.

It means Medicare for all rather than an absurdly-costly system that relies on private for-profit insurers and providers.

It will require limiting executive salaries and empowering workers to get a larger share of corporate profits. The Employee Free Choice Act should be an explicit part of the second-term agenda.

It will require strict limits on the voracious, irresponsible behavior of Wall Street, from which we've all suffered. The Glass-Steagall Act must be resurrected (the so-called Volcker Rule is more ridden with holes than cheese), and the big banks broken up.

And it will necessitate a public educational system - including early child education - second to none, and available to all our young people.

Is there the political will to reform capitalism -- in order to save it?

Great Day for Sanity

Wow, for an off-year election, Tuesday, November 8, 2011 turned out to be a doozy of a setback for the reactionary GOP forces that swept the elections one year ago. Sanity has prevailed like wildfire:

• In Ohio, Republican Governor John Kasich's anti-union law was struct down forcefully by voters

• Ditto the Mississippi anti-choice law defining personhood at conception - gone, gone, gone

• Arizona State Senate President and architect of the absurdly strict immigration law, Republican Russell Pearce, was voted out in a recall election after spending crazy amounts of dough

• Marriage equality is safe in Iowa thanks to a definitive Dem State Senator win that was supposed to be a squeaker with the Tea Party candidate

• Maine now has same-day election registration after the GOP ran ads against that voting right

• Even the Raleigh, NC school district went Dem majority...

• ...and Pittsburgh got referendum approval of a city library-supporting tax (.25/$1000 of property value)

It sure seems like proof that Republican overreach and partisanship has awakened the non-reactionary Americans from their electoral slumber. I'll be interested to see if they guys like Kasich "moderating" their positions or at least pretending to from here to the next election. Is this the beginning of the Obama "comeback?"

Because in non-Election Day news, Obama's healthcare reform just won a big court test (with conservative judges included), and the GOP's "front-runner" is making his own disaster much, much worse. Daily.

Is there a tide turning?

God bless democracy.

God bless these United States of America.

Fascism Watch: Voter Suppression

Finally, the mainstream media is starting to notice that the GOP is systematically suppressing voting rights. From today's LA Times:

Early voting was reduced from two weeks to one week. Voting on the Sunday before election day was eliminated. College students face new hurdles if they want to vote away from home. And those who register new voters face the threat of fines for procedural errors, prompting the nonpartisan League of Women Voters to suspend voter registration drives and accuse the Legislature of "reverting to Jim Crow-like tactics."

What is happening in Florida is part of a national trend, as election law has become a fierce partisan battleground. In states where Republicans have taken majority control, they have tightened rules for registering new voters, reduced the time for casting ballots and required voters to show photo identification at the polls. The new restrictions were usually adopted on party-line votes and signed by Republican governors.

During Florida's legislative debate on the new law, a Republican state senator argued that it should not be easy or convenient to vote. Voting "is a hard-fought privilege. This is something people died for," said Sen. Michael Bennett of Bradenton, the chamber's president pro tempore. "Why should we make it easier?"

This is their way of undermining democracy in the U.S. Perhaps they feel only landed gentry - male - should have that right...per the original rules in the Constitution? Back when a slave was only 3/5 of a vote?

Seven states — Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — voted to require registered voters to show photo identification at the polling place. Democratic governors vetoed such bills in five other states.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law estimated that new laws across the nation "could make it significantly harder for more than 5 million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012." The new restrictions will "fall most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters," the group said.

The Jim Crow Republican Party, with the photo i.d. as poll tax.

If Obama wins this next election, it'll be an even greater victory thanks to these rigs.

Elizabeth

Candidate for Massachusetts Democratic Senatorial nomination, Elizabeth Warren:

I like how Obama and Warren are attacking the GOP "class warfare" smear head-on.

And lest we forget, she spoke so intelligently on the financial crisis and need for reform, she made Jon Stewart horny.

Polls and Elections

The GOP polls lower than ever in the history of the CNN poll, i.e. since 1992. President Obama sees a surge against the "generic Republican candidate."

And in Wisconsin, the recall election meant to oust GOP control falls short.

Cheaters

Putting aside sexting on Twitter, how about trying to rig an election with a bunch of fake candidates?

Wisconsin state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) is standing by the state GOP's new strategy of recruiting fake Democratic candidates for the state Senate recalls -- which have been launched as a Democratic counter-attack on Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee union legislation -- in order to force Dem primaries and delay the general elections.

As for playing chicken with the Federal Debt Limit, the top GOP economist is telling his party not to play games:

Contradicting GOP lawmakers who have suggested a US default would not lead to economic disaster, a bipartisan group of budget officials warned on Tuesday that even a brief lapse in payments could trigger a crisis. Among them were Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former CBO director under President Bush and a frequently cited Republican economic advisor.

"It's a bad idea," Holtz-Eakin said at a panel discussion of former CBO heads in Washington. "Little defaults, big defaults; default's a bad idea period and there should be no one who believes otherwise."

Holtz-Eakin has supported the GOP's efforts to secure cuts in exchange for raising he debt ceiling, but made clear that at the end of the day it had to be raised. He cited numerous dangers from a default scenario, such as its effect on the bond market.

"The idea that somehow it's a pro-growth strategy to raise interest rates on a permanent basis in the United States is just crazy," he said. "We need to grow at this point more than anything else."

Let's face it, today's GOoPers are anything but adults:

Robert Reischauer, CBO director under Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton, said while he could envision a scenario in which a sudden plunge in the stock market shocked both parties into compromising on a deal, it was too unstable and dangerous an approach to trifle with.

"Do I advocate that? No," he said. "Do I think that's risky? Yes. But we're looking for adult behavior here and seeing none. "

Republicans lawmakers have raised eyebrows in the bond market in recent weeks by suggesting that defaulting on US debt as part of a partisan standoff may not have major consequences for the economy. Last week Moody's warned Congress that even approaching the August 2 deadline that the Treasury Department has set before defaulting on their payments would lead them to downgrade US bonds.

Maybe they just want to sink the economy in hopes that that will be their ticket to a victory in 2012.

You know, the Global Depression strategy.

Silly Elephants

Silly elephants, thinking you could dismantle Medicare with your Paul Ryan 1890's era budget. And now it appears you have tied your own leg to an anchor:

Republicans are going to have plenty of questions about their plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program tomorrow morning after Democrats romped to an improbable victory in a special election focused almost entirely on the issue.

Democrat Kathy Hochul lead 48-43 with over 83% of the votes counted and her victory looks to be a strong one -- the Associated Press called the race within an hour of the polls closing. Corwin underperformed in key GOP counties while Hochul's margins in Democratic areas were in line with the party's high water mark in the district from 2006, a wave year that swept the Republicans out of the majority in the House and Senate. The district is normally a safe seat for Republicans and few considered it vulnerable when Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY) resigned over topless photos he posted in a Craigslist personal.

Hochul's message focused relentlessly on the Paul Ryan budget, which she highlighted in ads, public statements, and debates at every opportunity. Her attacks on its cuts to Medicare benefits and its tax cuts for the wealthy proved impossible for Corwin to overcome, who tried her best to defend the GOP budget cuts before eventually giving in and falsely accusing Hochul of seeking similar cuts while muddying her own position on the plan.

And per excellent new DNC chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL):

"Tonight's result has far-reaching consequences beyond New York," she said. "It demonstrates that Republicans and Independent voters, along with Democrats, will reject extreme policies like ending Medicare that even Newt Gingrich called radical."

Yummy. And how about Obama's decision to bail out Detroit car companies in the wake of the Great Bush-GOP Crash of '08?:

And with Chrysler completing its repayment of $7.6 billion in federal loans six years early, Democrats say the Republicans running for president -- all of whom slammed the bailout program, they say -- have found themselves on the wrong side on what has turned out to be a successful jobs program.

"Midwestern families would have been left out in the cold: no job, no income, no industry" if Republican bailout foes had their way, Granholm said. "And these voters are not going to forget it."

The Democrats on the call had a field day reminiscing about Mitt Romney's 2008 New York Times op-ed, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," in which the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination said American automakers would be on a "suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses" if a bailout plan went ahead.

Meanwhile, as his enemies prepare their circular firing squad, the President dines as the very welcome guest of royalty:



Love Barack and the Queen. They seem to enjoy partying together.

Image her relief after his boorish predecessor.