No lo entiendo

On this primary election day, let's talk about one part of the voting process itself.

An article in Mother Jones claims that Newt Gin.grinch and Mitt R.money want to disenfranchise millions of voters by removing the requirement that ballots be printed in multiple languages if the population of non-English speakers is sufficiently large to warrant it.

I've got to say, I agree with R.money and Gin.grinch here. English proficiency is a requirement for citizenship when you are naturalized. Native-born Americans and foreigners marrying Americans have every chance and incentive to learn English, and have no excuse for not being able to read a ballot. It's really that simple.

If you can't speak English, you can't engage in the political conversation. You can't listen to a debate and understand what's going on. If you're dependent on a translator, you'll miss a lot of nuance. Furthermore, translators will put their own personal spin on what the speaker is saying, and may mislead listeners -- intentionally or not. Ultimately, people who can't understand English are condemned to being told what to think. Worse, they can't participate in the public conversation and make their own views known to others who aren't just like them.

As for the ballots themselves, the article says:

"Some of these ballot measures involve very complex legal language," Camila Gallardo of the Latino civil rights organization National Council of La Raza points out. "Some of the language is hard to understand even for fluent English speakers, let alone if your first language isn't English."

Exactly. How can we trust that the translation of that complex English text is accurate and unbiased? And if the translators themselves don't really grasp the original English, there's no way to ensure an accurate translation.

The legal requirement for multiple languages on ballots is discriminatory in and of itself.

Covered language minorities are limited to American Indians, Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, and Spanish-heritage citizens - the groups that Congress found to have faced barriers in the political process.

It's an understandable sentiment. But Russian and Somali immigrants living in Miami are forced to learn English (or Spanish) if they want to read the ballot. Just because there are fewer of them doesn't mean they shouldn't get equal treatment under the law. And these days Somali Americans are facing at least as much discrimination as Latino Americans.

Then there are technical problems with multiple ballots and multilingual ballots. The more options you add to a ballot, the more confusing it gets and the more likely it is that your vote will not register as you intend it to. Remember Florida in 2000?

There are several existing solutions to this problem that would eliminate the costs and potential errors of multilingual ballots. People who have trouble reading English can register for an absentee ballot, giving them ample time to go over it and recruit an interpreter if necessary. In most places the blind and physically handicapped can bring a helper of their choice to assist them in the voting. The voter may still be relying on another person telling them what to think, but at least it will be a person of their choosing.

I think a big part of this has to do with language being such an important part of cultural identity. Many immigrant parents bemoan the fact that their kids don't learn to speak their ancestral tongue. Many feel that their culture will slip away completely if they learn to speak English. It's a common and reasonable fear, because it happens with every generation of immigrant Americans. How may proud Irish and German Americans speak Irish or German these days?

But when you come right down to it, if someone isn't comfortable with the culture of the United States and can't understand ninety-nine percent of everything going on in this country, perhaps it isn't the right place for them to live. Or vote.

Election Video Calvacade

I've been saving a few videos from the last couple of weeks and today I figured I'd put them all up at once.

On a number of levels, it's really been nauseating to watch the Republican primaries. Here's a great example of what I am talking about.


This level of ignorance, anger and hatred simply stuns me. But it's not just this kind of shit because...well...I expect this stuff from the right...the whole Barack X thing and all. What I don't expect is this.

 

A conservative audience yelling at Mitt Romney for not releasing his tax returns? Wow. Good thing the OWS narrative is dead.

This one blew me away.



Wait, huh? I thought conservatives were all about Jesus. WTF??!!? I submit that nearly all conservatives think that the Golden Rule is a bunch of pussy nonsense and that everything about "loving thy enemy" goes in one ear and out the other.

We've only been through two primaries and one caucus and there's already enough crazy for a whole year. And if you think the rest of the primary is going to be nuts, wait until the general election starts. The Barack X mouth foamers are going to go completely fucking batshit.

Somewhere In Arizona, Kevin Baker's Head Just Exploded

Narrative=Still Not Dead

A Peak Inside The Bubble

Bill Maher finally sat down and analyzed the whole Saul Alinsky obsession that the right has with the left and it was fucking brilliant. Among the points answered...

Saul Alinksy liked black people (Uh oh...:(...). He started to organize the Civil Rights movement in the 1930s which, as Newt will tell you, became a huge burden on white people. Alinksy also taught poor people to ban together, improve their lives and fight against slum lords. Oh no he di-ent! That's class warfare!!! Next thing you know we'll all be worshiping Vladimir Lenin!!!!

There's also the most concise explanation to date regarding the difference between Bush critics and Obama critics.

But the best part? Now I know who Barack X is...YES!!!!!

 

Yes

Newt's Loony Tunes

The other day Newt Gingrich announced his bold new initiative: a permanent base on the moon by the end of his second term in 2021.

This is an example of why I used to like Newt, twenty-odd years back.  It's also the perfect example of why I despise Gingrich now. Gingrich is a smart guy, and he likes a lot of the stuff that I like. I would like to see a moon base happen, but by putting it out there now Newt has given the idea the kiss of death.

George Bush killed the horse that Newt is now whipping. In 2004 Bush announced Constellation, his program to return to the moon. I was extremely skeptical. I figured it was just a gimmick to pretend that he was about more than death and destruction. At that point it had been eight months since the "cakewalk" in Iraq started, and things were starting to go very wrong. Bush apparently wanted to pull a Kennedy and look visionary.

Predictably, Bush was not serious. The deficit was rising quickly under the weight of two wars and two rounds of massive tax cuts, mostly going to the wealthy. The Constellation program was underfunded and mismanaged, and Bush ultimately wasted at least eight billions dollars on the project, getting little in return. Though the aerospace firms like Lockheed Martin got plenty of that money, and reliably Republican states like Alabama cashed in big time.

Obama canceled the Constellation program in 2010, and since then has redirected NASA to use private firms like SpaceX for space transportation. Many Republicans like Alabama's Richard Shelby hypocritically decried the move, but it's exactly the sort of thing that Republicans have been demanding government do. Gingrich's moon base plan would continue in this vein, using minimal government investment to prod private industry into space. By not mentioning Obama in his speech, Gingrich tacitly admitted that the president is on the right track.

The problem is that Gingrich, like Bush, is not serious. Newt made this promise while campaigning on Florida's space coast, which has been hit hard by cutbacks in NASA's traditional programs. By pandering to to these voters with such a grandiose notion, Gingrich has reinforced his image as a nut case and made space exploration an object of derision during the debate and the butt of jokes on late-night TV.

But the thing that most perfectly encapsulated everything about why I despise Newt was when he said, "When we have 13,000 Americans living on the moon, they can petition to become a state.” Like so many things he says (child janitors, anyone?), this idea is, in Gingrich's own words, "profoundly stupid" and a complete insult to the intelligence of the listener.

As Gingrich well knows, states have at least one representative in the House and two senators in the Senate, giving each state a minimum of three electoral votes. Nationwide the ratio of voters to electoral votes is about half a million to one. Small population states like Wyoming are drastically overrepresented, getting three times as many electoral votes per person as states like Illinois, California and Pennsylvania. It is largely for this reason that Republicans have been dominated the presidency for the past century while Democrats have dominated Congress.

Gingrich's Lunaria would get one electoral vote for each 4333 citizens, or about 125 times the national average. Is Gingrich just crazy, or is this his plan for a permanent Republican domination of Congress and the presidency? The next thing he'll suggest is that people start moving to coral reefs and oil rigs and petition for statehood.

As Jon Stewart mentioned, Gingrich opposed statehood for the Washington, DC, which has as many citizens as Wyoming. It has three electoral votes, but has no voting representatives in the House or Senate and no say over what Congress can do to them. Why is Newt talking about enfranchising people on the moon before enfranchising the people who live in our nation's capital?

And this shows Newt's real lack of vision. Just as the American colonies of the British Empire soon came to desire independence, so would any lunar colony, especially as it drew citizens from other nations. China has plans to go to the moon, and so does Japan, and Russia currently has the only reliable space transportation system. There won't just be Americans on the moon, and the rest of the would certainly have something to say about American claims to lunar territory.

Once they became self-sufficient, lunar colonies would have much more in common with each other than they would with Earth. In the long run they would either become independent nations or form a new federation among themselves, rather than carry over their anachronistic ties to a planet filled with people who have no idea what it's like wondering where you're going to get your next breath of air from.

Complete Agreement with...Ann Coulter?

Some folks on the right side of the aisle are pretty nervous after Newt's win in South Carolina. Take Ann Coulter, conservative fire brand, for example. In her recent column entitled, "RE-ELECT OBAMA: VOTE NEWT!" she opens with

To talk with Gingrich supporters is to enter a world where words have no meaning.

Well, that's certainly  true generally of conservatives:)

She goes on to discuss the circular reasoning of Newt's supporters and then explains Mitt's flip flops. This one really jumped out at me.

Romney's one great "flip-flop" is on abortion. (I thought the reason we argued with people about abortion was to try to get them to "flip-flop" on this issue. Sometimes it works!)

I actually laughed out loud at that one. No shit, isn't that the goal of pro life conservatives? Why are they complaining that Mitt's changed his mind?

She concludes with a line that is...dare I say it...Markadelphia like in its nature.

Conservatism is an electable quality. Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.

Finally. A conservative with which I agree on virtually nothing defining exactly what is wrong with the GOP today. Somewhere along the line, the base has allowed itself to be overtaken by virulent hubris that one normally associates with right wing bloggers. As I've been saying for the past several days, your average Joe Voter has no idea who Saul Alinksy is nor do will they respond well to another white old guy yelling at Barack Obama. If the right wants to win, Mitt is the best chance they have.

But she does raise a deeper point. Is conservatism an electable quality? It is but only in moderation as this is a center right country for the most part. I think the reason why the GOP is having such a tough time with their candidates is not they they don't like any of the above. It's because they are struggling to define who they are. Are they evangelical? Financial old guard? Libertarians? I don't think they know.

The party can't survive if one drops away so they desperately need all three. Yet they seem to be at odds with each other and don't really work and play well together. Some want to be more moderate so they can win but a very large portion want to go farther right. If the president wins re-election in the fall, this struggle will be one of the big reasons why.

Really?

Like A Puck...

Being a Minnesotan, loving hockey is simply expected. So, it's with a heavy heart that I must report that the apocalyptic cult formerly known as the conservative movement in this country has slithered into the National Hockey League like a puck shooting across the ice.

Tim Thomas, the goalie for the Boston Bruins, recently refused a trip to the White House to be congratulated for the Stanley Cup victory last season. He said, in a statement, "I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People. This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL."

Well, he's lucky that he still has that right to refuse because before you know it, men with guns will be coming to his house to force him to meet President Blackie McHitler. Sheesh... I guess you just have to roll your eyes and mourn the loss of yet another soul to the fantasy world of The Tea Party.

Oh, and according the Bruins media guide this year, the person Thomas would most likely want to have dinner with?

Glenn Beck.

SOTU Post Mortem

As he always does, President Obama gave a great speech last night to Congress. A few things struck me as interesting.

He seemed to back away from partisan attacks (odd, in an election year) using the word "American" over 80 times while making sure to say that we share certain values. That's very optimistic and, from him, I'd expect nothing less. I guess I don't really share his sunny outlook but I do appreciate his populist tone.

What I saw on display last night was the very obvious and monumentally titanic reluctance to accept that the federal government plays a key role in our society and in the world at large. The president presented a balanced and pragmatic approach to government and the private sector. Yet, anytime the government doing something was mentioned, the Republicans sat on their hands. Honestly, they looked like stubborn little children because, sadly, "key role" has somehow magically transformed itself into socialism. This was very apparent in Governor Daniels response and the commentary by folks like Ari Fleischer after the speech.

As Speaker Boehner put it, pre-speech, "The president and the GOP are from different planets." Yes, this is true. The latter resides on one that is a largely created work of fiction that does not exist in reality.

It's obvious to me that the GOP in Congress are going to do everything in their power to deny him any sort of successes this year. Fair enough, I suppose, given that this is an election year. Yet, it's also fair of him to make Congress (and that's D's and R's alike) his opponent. With approval ratings 30 points lower than his, they offer a stark contrast which he illustrated several times last night by saying, "Put it on my desk and I'll sign it." They won't, of course, and that clearly shows which of the two parties actually want to do something. I think we may see some surprises this year in the voting booth come November. Key question to consider: just how little do the American people want Congress to do? We're going to find out.

Although not directly mentioned in his speech, I was also please to hear about another SEAL team success in Somalia. I was wondering why the president told SecDef Panetta, as he was walking in, "Good job, today!" Now we know. This president has been highly skilled in the area of his many duties that fall under the mantle of "Commander in Chief."

The president set an upbeat tone for his reelection campaign and, to a much larger degree, America as a whole last night in the State of the Union. In looking at it in comparison to what Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have been saying about America, one has to wonder if Speaker Boehner's comment could actually be broadened to two different universes.

Mitt Finally Makes Up His Mind

After dithering for months, Mitt Romney finally made up his mind and released parts of his tax returns for 2010 and 2011. He really had no choice with Gingrich's hammering.

According to the Washington Post:

Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments. ... According to his 2010 return, Romney paid about $3 million to the IRS, for an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent.

Romney took advantage of the "carried interest" exemption that allowed him to treat his Bain Capital salary as income:

The returns confirm, however, that Romney continues to benefit from his association with Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded in 1984 and left in 1999. His earnings through Bain have drawn controversy because they are treated as capital gains rather than wages and thus benefit from being taxed at the lower rate of 15 percent.

This is the same gimmick that hedge fund managers use to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Yeah, it's legal, and Romney's not wrong for paying the minimum tax. But it shows how eminently unfair our tax system is. Number one on Mitt's list of campaign promises should be to get rid of crap like this in the tax code. All income should be taxed at the same rate, whether you earn it working in a coal mine or clipping coupons while you eat bon-bons.

Part of the reduction in Romney's tax liability were losses carried over from previous years. This can be a legitimate tax break, but one of the most reliable tax avoidance scams is to create phony losses in one year to reduce tax liability in later years. Are Romney's losses real or manufactured?

Returns from 2010 and 2011 are all well and good, but Romney has been running for president for the last six years, which means he's known that one day someone would be looking over his tax returns. I'm more interested in seeing his returns from 1998 and his days at Bain, through 2001 and 2004, when the Bush tax cuts kicked in, and 2007-2009 when the rest of the country got hit by the hammer of the recession. Did Romney made out like a bandit with the Bush tax cuts, and was he unscathed by the recession?

Romney's father released 12 years of returns when he ran for president. Will Mitt honor his father's example? Or does he have something to hide?

A Perfect Picture

I get a lot of people that rip me for being so tough on the right. One line I hear quite a bit is "If you are so liberal and open minded, how come you don't treat them that way?"

Well...

That's why!

Election Quotes

“I think Mitt Romney is a good man,” said Harold Wade, 85, leaving a polling place in this picturesque seaside suburb outside Charleston. “But I think we’ve reached a point where we need someone who’s mean."

I can't think of a better example of the right in this country today.

Yet, I'm wondering...perhaps someone can help me out....why? last? just-dave? anyone?

An Actual Derangement

With Newt Gingrich winning the South Carolina primaries yesterday, the path to the GOP nomination has become quite muddied. It looks like this one is going to go on for awhile and Mitt's inevitability is now seriously in question.

As I watched former Speaker Gingrich's acceptance speech, I chuckled. The right always seems to have a great propensity for characterizing their opponents weaknesses in such a way that they end up explaining their insanity much more clearly. Remember when Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome?" Well, I think the right (as clearly seen last night in the form of Ginrgrich and his supporters) have some taken their warped perception of this Bush "derangement" and actually achieved more perfectly what Krauthammer was describing but with President Obama instead. Here is Newt's victory speech  in its entirety.


At about 12 minutes in, Newt starts talking about President Obama. He says that the "centerpiece of this campaign is about American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinksy?"

Uh...huh?

Who beyond right wing bloggers know what he is talking about? I suppose the Tea Party folks do as Saul Alinksy was required reading, not for "researching the enemy" but for their own organizational purposes.

"Radical left wingers and people that don't like the classical America?" What Obama is he talking about? The one who said this when he accepted his Nobel Peace prize?

The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

And has backed it up with actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya? I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

"Food stamp president?" Is that the one added 2.3 million private sector jobs and has reduced public sector employment by 600,000 jobs? The one who averted another Depression after the mess Bush and the GOP left us in back in 2008? Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

"An american president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country" This is so unbelievably ridiculous that I'm at a loss for words.

"President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong." Let's see...bin Laden=dead. Al Alawki=dead. Hundreds of sorties by drones in Pakistan. Gaddafi=dead. Al Qaeda significantly damaged with ongoing US attacks. And a back channel warning from the president to the Supreme Leader of Iran which was repeated later in public. “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “That’s another red line for us and … we will respond to them.” Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

It's obvious that Newt and much of the right have created a fictional Obama...one that is all these things...because they can't run against the real one.  It's much more appropriate to characterize their's as derangement when you compare their fictional creation with the anger and frustration that formed over the very clear incompetence from the Bush Administration which ended up costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars of debt, it's not even a fucking contest.

He's Got Soul

This is so ridiculously wonderful I barely have the words.

Voices In My Head Redux

As I watched the upteenth GOP debate on Thursday night (for as long as I could stand it, anyway), I once again heard the most insane bullshit about President Obama. "He's the most dangerous president we have ever had," said Newt Gingrich. "Another term of Barack Obama will destroy the free enterprise system in this country," said Mitt Romney. "Our freedom is being taken away by the government," said Ron Paul. None of these things are remotely true and are fine examples of the "voices in my head."

Now, I've been assured by the fine folks that came up with this phrase that these sorts of statements and these candidates are not representative of their ideology. We'll set aside the fact that they have largely said the same things at one time or another and will likely vote for one of the four remaining men in the GOP field, essentially giving their support to such insanity. Today, I'm interested in something else in the interest of personal reflection.

I'd like each of the people who comment here and continually make the accusation that I argue with voices in my head and mis-characterize certain posters to use this thread for the following: lay out,  in very simple terms, how exactly I warp your views in comparison to the endless and unhinged views that we hear every day from conservative candidates, pundits and media. Let's use this simple, fill in the blanks form

Mark says that I am________________________
But in reality, I think that _____________________
I differ from (insert GOP candidate or pundits name here) 's statement in that I think________________________
So, that's how Mark is wrong.

As we move forward in the election year, I want to make sure that I am accurately portraying each and every one of your views. If you don't think that the president is destroying free enterprise or is the most dangerous president in history, this is the thread to explain the nuanced differences between yourself and these views. Be prepared to back up your statements with facts. For example, if you do think that the president is destroying free enterprise, then you will have to demonstrate how the 2.3 million private sector jobs he added and the 600,000 public sector jobs that were lost figure into this assertion.

Or, as was recently stated in comments by one of those "voices in my head," how exactly we are headed towards the road to hell and when we will arrive at the fiery gates.

I'll check back frequently to respond and offer mea culpa as needed

Newt's Trifiecta

The catch-phrase for this blog is "WHERE POLITICS, SEX, AND RELIGION ARE ALWAYS POLITE TO DISCUSS." With Newt Gingrich we have the trifecta.

According to a story in Thursday's Washington Post about Marianne Gingrich's interview with ABC's Nightline:

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1999 asked his second wife for an “open marriage” or a divorce at the same time he was giving speeches around the country on family and religious values, his former wife, Marianne, told The Washington Post on Thursday.

Gingrich is famous for asking for a divorce from his first wife, Jackie Battley, when she was in the hospital recovering from surgery. At the time he was apparently having an affair with Marianne, whom he married six months after his first divorce was finalized. Battley was Gingrich's geometry teacher, and they married when he was 19 and she was 26. Creepy, huh? According to L. H. Carter, Gingrich's campaign treasurer, Gingrich said of Battley: "She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer." Gingrich has denied saying it.

Gingrich started another affair with Callista Bisek in the mid-1990s. He was having sex with an aide at exactly the same time he was demanding President Bill Clinton be impeached for having sex with an aide. Newt famously blamed his patriotism for the affair in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network:

There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.

Apparently, Newt wanted to screw America but he had to make do with Callista. They married in 2000 after a very messy divorce that was conducted publicly in the pages of the Atlanta newspapers.

In Thursday night's debate Gingrich predictably blamed the media for bringing up his infidelity issue again, saying it was untrue. It got him another standing ovation. But really, who has more credibility on the details of Newt's infidelity? The man who has admitted to lying to and cheating on his wife for six years, or the woman he lied to and cheated on?

The most telling part of the interview for me was this:

“He said the problem with me was I wanted him all to myself,” she said. “I said, ‘That’s what marriage is.’ He said [of Callista], ‘She doesn’t care what I do.’ ”

It's a telling detail that gives the entire account the ring of truth. Like a pernicious little boy trying to get his divorced mother to let him go to an R-rated movie by claiming that "Dad doesn't care if I go," Newt tried to guilt his wife into letting him have a mistress.

Which brings us to the third leg of the Gingrich stool: religion.

Gingrich was raised a Lutheran, apparently became a Southern Baptist in grad school, and converted to Catholicism. According to Gingrich's Wikipedia page, he said:

"Over the course of several years, I gradually became Catholic and then decided one day to accept the faith I had already come to embrace." The moment when he decided to officially become a Catholic was when he saw Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to the United States in 2008: "Catching a glimpse of Pope Benedict that day, I was struck by the happiness and peacefulness he exuded. The joyful and radiating presence of the Holy Father was a moment of confirmation about the many things I had been thinking and experiencing for several years."

To me this just seems crazy. Anyone who was ever a real Lutheran or Baptist and truly believed Luther's teachings in the Reformation could never convert to Catholicism. And how could anyone who's been divorced twice have the gall to convert to Catholicism, a religion which requires the pope himself to grant a dispensation for divorce? I find it even harder to believe that anyone could describe Benedict ("Papa Nazi") XVI's creepy presence as "happy and peaceful." Every time I see Pope Benedict I'm reminded of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.

But why should Newt stop at Catholicism? Gingrich should go all the way and become an old-style Mormon. Republicans are concerned about Romney's religion, but Newt's the guy in the race who has admitted publicly that he was for all intents and purposes a practicing bigamist.

Thus, it is overwhelmingly apparent that Gingrich has no conviction or commitment to anything except himself, his own pleasure and his own convenience.

Republicans keep telling us that "character matters." Newt tries to finesse the issue by begging the forgiveness of God for the same sins he's repeated again and again over decades. Many envious middle-aged white men are more than glad to forgive Newt for his trespasses. But most Republicans also don't think that felons who've served their time and completely repaid their debt to society should be allowed to vote, a fact Mitt Romney pandered to when he attacked Rick Santorum on the issue.

Over the years Newt Gingrich has shown himself to be a megalomaniacal, mendacious, cynical, flip-flopping, self-serving narcissist. He is the fleshly manifestation of all the worst traits of the political animal.

During Newt's "strong" performance in the Myrtle Beach debate he gained many converts: the audience gave Newt a standing ovation after he slapped down Juan Williams for his uppity question about Gingrich's food stamp president remarks. Is it any surprise that Rick Perry was the first one to stand up and salute Gingrich, considering where Perry liked to hunt?

Newt's underlying argument is that he is the only man in the race who totally lacks integrity, the man for whom no hypocrisy is too great, no blow too low, no shot too cheap, or no lie too big. And the Republicans are willing to follow him down that road to hell.

The real question is, if Gingrich is the nominee will the Republicans be writing off the female vote? Mitt might be a calculating, cold-fish CEO, but at least he's got good hair and stands by his ma'am. Newt is every woman's worst nightmare: a fat, philandering, condescending loud-mouth who betrays his vows when his wives need him the most.

The Ricks

Rick Perry is out and is supporting Gingrich. Rick Santorum has now won Iowa. It's a day of Ricks that Mitt Romney, perhaps, did not want to happen. What's going to happen in South Carolina? More importantly, is this race now going to be longer than anticipated? It sure looks that way.

The Case Against Liberal Despair

So, all you Obama critics on the left, kindly pull your collective heads out of your collective arses.

Mitt's Tax Return Waffles

Despite Newt Gingrich's prodding, Mitt Romney is still waffling on releasing his tax return. But he has deigned us with an estimate of what percentage he's paying in taxes:

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney said. “Because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income, or rather than earned annual income.”

So, for sitting around collecting dividends, buying and selling stock, speechifying and running non-stop for president for years on end Mitt pays taxes at a rate of 15%, while  people who sweat and bleed and risk their lives on oil rigs and in war zones pay 25%, or 30% or 35%, not even including Social Security and Medicare taxes, which adds another 4-8%. That is, unless the Republicans get their way and it goes back up to 6-12%. Meanwhile, Romney doesn't pay a nickel of payroll taxes on capital gains and dividends.

I don't criticize Romney for paying that tax rate, or for making money through long-term investments. It's smart to optimize your income, and I don't begrudge him being rich (Obama paid 26%, which is a lot lower than many Americans). But I do criticize him for campaigning to make the Bush capital gains tax cuts permanent. Romney should man up like Warren Buffett and admit the inherent unfairness of the tax system. Capital gains should be taxed at exactly the same rate as earned wages, as they were before the Bush tax cuts.

In particular, gains on selling non-IPO stock are essentially gambling income, because repurchased stocks are just a bet that the price will go up. Companies never see a penny from repurchased stock, so buying shares on the stock market is not really an investment in the company. In fact, outstanding shares are often a liability because of dividends and loss of autonomy, and many companies have programs to purchase outstanding shares.

Incessant demand for stock price increases from shareholders is the number one cause of poor long-term decision-making in the management of companies. Since most execs have bonus plans linked to share price, their incentive is to do whatever it takes to jack the price up in the short term without regard to the company's future. If things go south, their golden parachute kicks in and they can just move on to the next gig. Most market players plan to sell off their shares at their peak price, and don't care what happens to the company after they cash out.

While it would be interesting so see Mitt's return from last year, I'm more interested in seeing his returns over the past 15 years. How did Mitt's income change before and after the Bush tax cuts, and how has he weathered the Great Recession? Did he make out like a bandit while all the vast majority of Americans suffered catastrophic economic and job losses?

The theory is that capital gains taxes should be low because it spurs investment and job creation. These taxes have been artificially low for 10 years now, and the only investment and job growth they've spurred has been in China.

Since the Bush tax cuts the rich have been getting richer and the middle class poorer. The Bush tax cuts have redistributed wealth from the middle class to the super wealthy like Romney.

It's time to end this welfare for the wealthy.