GOP Working Overtime To Keep College Students from Voting

From the New York Times:

Political leaders should be encouraging young adults to participate in civic life, but many Republican state lawmakers are doing everything they can instead to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. Some have openly acknowledged doing so because students tend to be liberal.

And this too:

William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration. New Hampshire Republicans even tried to pass a bill that would have kept students who previously lived elsewhere from voting in the state; fortunately, the measure failed, as did the others Mr. O’Brien favored.

Read more.

Nod to Eric Byler.

Washington Post: Growing Wealth Widens Distance Between Lawmakers and Constituents

From the Washington Post:

The growth of income inequality has tracked very closely with measures of political polarization, which has been gauged using the average difference between the liberal/conservative scores for Republican and Democratic members of the House.

“The proximity of these trends is uncanny,” according to a 2003 paper by researchers Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. “Remarkably, the trends of economic inequality and elite political polarization have moved almost in tandem for the past half-century.”

Excellent commentary on this from Eric Byler at Coffee Party USA.

Newt Gingrich Fails To Qualify For Virginia, His Home State’s Ballot

Newt Gingrich pointing
Are you perhaps to blame for Newt "The Buck Stops There" Gingrich's latest electoral problems?

Remember, if Newt Gingrich has a problem, someone else is to blame.

Remember that. The man who has already christened himself the GOP nominee for President of the United States commits no errors. He is infallible.

Case in point: Newt blames the State of Virginia for his failure to qualify for his home state’s primary ballot.

From the BBC:

Newt Gingrich, one of the leading US Republican presidential candidates, has said Virginia’s electoral system is flawed, after failing to qualify for the primary ballot in his home state.

Virginia party officials say he did not submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the 6 March ballot.

Mr Gingrich’s team vowed to pursue an “aggressive write-in campaign” – although Virginia does not permit this.

Gingrich critics say the setback shows serious lack of organisation.

Four other presidential Republican candidates – including Texas Governor Rick Perry – failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot.

Can you imagine this man as president? Newt “The Buck Stops There” Gingrich, man of a thousand excuses.

Newt, dude, you only had to get 10,000 good signatures.  Your campaign only submitted 11,050. Even local candidates here who only need two or three hundred signatures submit at least double the required number.

Was it really that difficult to find 10,000 good signatures in the entire state of Virginia? Or didn’t you really try?

Rick Perry: Shall We Leave the Governing to Sodomites and Infidels?

A response to Rick Perry’s latest bizarre ad where he declares, "There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school."

Well, I know plenty of kids who celebrate Christmas in school, yea, even public schools.

And I know of plenty of kids who pray at school. See You at the Pole, yes?

Anywho, thanks to our friends at Second City for this very appropriate retort to Governor Rick "Texas will secede!" Perry.

BOOM! Obama Just Played The Bin Laden Card (Video)

From Business Insider:

President Barack Obama was just asked to respond to Republican charges that he has engaged in a foreign policy of appeasement.

Obama responded: "Ask Osama bin Laden, and the 22 out of 30 top al Qaeda leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement — or whoever is left out there, ask them about that."

There you have it.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com

If Congress (Read – The GOP) Does Not Act, Middle Class Taxes Will Rise

It’s simple.

If Congress — meaning the Republicans in Congress as Democrats are on board — does not support President Obama’s plan to extend and expand the payroll tax cut, middle class taxes will rise.

Find out how much your taxes will rise here.

I will lose over $1000.  How much will you lose?

Watch and read President Obama’s weekly address here on this crucial issue.

I Believe Herman Cain

Herman Cain ad
Herman Cain and his Mona Lisa smile. Sincere, or creepy?

I believe Herman Cain.

I believe Herman Cain has not a single clue that groping a woman without her permission, trying to kiss her without her permission, and other bawdy actions, qualify as sexual harassment.

Herman Cain does not believe he sexually harassed anyone.

Consider Cain’s remarks regarding attorney Gloria Allred, hired by Sharon Bialek, one of the women who came forward alleging sexual harassment by Herman Cain, “Let me put it to you this way: I can’t think of anything I would hire her to do,” Cain laughed, referring to Allred. “I can’t think of a thing.”

I believe there are other men and women like Herman Cain who believe likewise.

Heard a few of them today on Chicago’s  WBBM as the station reported Cain’s suspension of his presidential campaign. “Give-em heck, Herman!” someone called to the candidate as he made his announcement.

I believe there are people who don’t get it.

It’s a question of ethics, and we don’t get to write our own rules.

Tea Party Leader Joe “You Lie!” Walsh: Build Moats With Alligators to Regulate Immigration

Congressman Joe Walsh, who infamously shouted “You lie!” during one of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses, believes we can solve our immigration problem by building moats, and filling the moats with alligators.

What could possibly go wrong?

From the Daily Caller:

A freshman GOP congressman on the House Homeland Security Committee is telling President Obama he’s “game” for building an alligator-filled moat along the U.S.-Mexico border to counter illegal immigration.

“I actually think a moat might be a very good idea and I’m wondering how many alligators it would take to secure the entire border,” Rep. Joe Walsh says in a May 11 letter to Obama.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com

Here is Rep. Walsh losing it at a town hall meeting in front of his constituents:

Walsh is being challenged by Raja Krishna Moorthi, and I will support him in any way I can.

Study: Optimal Top Tax Rate For The Rich Is 70 Percent

From ThinkProgress:

According research by Nobel Prize-winning economist Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez, the optimal top income tax rate for wealthy earners is about 70 percent, far below today’s top rate of 35 percent. Diamond and Saez argue that the top tax rate should be set at the point where it maximizes revenue, which can then be used to aid lower-income Americans. They also note that “even increasing the average federal income tax rate of the top percentile to 43.5 percent, which would be sufficient to raise revenue by 3 percentage points of GDP, would still leave the after-tax income share of the top percentile more than twice as high as in 1970.” (HT: Americablog)

For how long can we afford to ignore these pesky Nobel Prize winners? You know, like Paul Krugman.

Bush Tax Cut For The 1 Percent Greater Than The Average Income Of The Other 99 Percent

This is so, so sad.

From the National Priorities Project (a wonderful site you should subscribe to):

The average Bush tax cut in 2011 for a taxpayer in the richest one percent is greater than the average income of the other 99 percent ($66,384 compared to $58,506).

Check out the entire page here.

What’s wrong with this picture?