What´s wrong with the right?!

Reply to 13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush's Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:16:51 -0700

wquatman posted a reply:

Cheney: Benghazi 'One of the Worst Incidents That I Can Recall'
videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/cheney-benghazi-one-wo...

13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush's Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:02:06 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush's Watch Without a Peep from Fox News
by: Bob Cesca

The Republican inquisition over the attacks against Americans in Benghazi has never really gone away, but it appears as though in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the House Oversight Committee's Benghazi hearings this week there are renewed psycho-histrionics over Benghazi.

Lindsey Graham and Fox News Channel in particular are each crapping their cages over new allegations from an alleged whistleblower, while they continue to deal in previously debunked falsehoods about the sequence of events during and following the attacks. Fox News is predictably helming the biggest raft of hooey on the situation -- turning its attention to Hillary Clinton in an abundantly obvious early move to stymie her presidential run before it even begins.

So I thought I'd revisit some territory I covered back in October as a bit of a refresher -- especially since it appears as if no one, including and especially the traditional press, intends to ask any of these obnoxious, opportunistic liars about why they're so obsessed by this one attack yet they entirely ignored the dozen-plus consulate/embassy attacks that occurred when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were allegedly "keeping us safe."

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they're being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name "David Foy." This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what's considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

A few observations about this timeline. My initial list was quoted from an article on the Daily Kos which actually contained several errors and only 11 attacks (the above timeline contains all 13 attacks). Also, my list above doesn't include the numerous and fatal attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq war -- a war that was vocally supported by Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Fox News Channel.

Speaking of Graham, I ran a search on each attack along with the name "Lindsey Graham" in the hopes of discovering that Graham had perhaps commented about the attacks or raised some questions about why the administration didn't prevent the attacks or respond accordingly to prevent additional embassy attacks. No results. Of course. Now, this could mean the search wasn't exhaustive enough. But one thing's for sure: neither Graham nor any of his cohorts launched a crusade against the Bush administration and the State Department in any of those cases -- no one did, including the congressional Democrats, by the way.

This leads us to the ultimate point here. Not only have numerous sources previously debunked the Benghazi information being peddled by the Republicans and Fox News (for example, contrary to what the Republicans are saying, yes, reinforcements did in fact arrive before the attack on the CIA compound), but none of these people raised a single word of protest when, for example, American embassies in Yemen and Pakistan were attacked numerous times. Why didn't the Bush administration do something to secure the compounds after the first attacks? Why didn't he provide additional security?

Where was your inquest after the Karachi attacks, Mr. Graham? Where were you after the Sana'a attacks, Mr. Hannity? What about all of the embassy attacks in Iraq that I didn't even list here, Mr. McCain? Do you realize how many people died in attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates when Bush was supposedly keeping us safe, Mr. Ailes? Just once I'd like to hear David Gregory or George Stephanopoulos or Wolf Blitzer ask a Republican member of Congress about the above timeline and why they said nothing at the time of each attack. Just once.

Nearly every accusation being issued about Benghazi could've been raised about the Bush-era attacks, and yet these self-proclaimed truth-seekers refused to, in their words, undermine the commander-in-chief while troops were in harm's way (a line they repeated over and over again during those years).

So we're only left to conclude the obvious. The investigations and accusations and conspiracy theories are entirely motivated by politics and a strategy to escalate this to an impeachment trial. In doing so, the Republicans have the opportunity not only to crush the president's second term, but also to sabotage the potential for a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Even if they never arrive at that goal, they have in their possession a cudgel formed of horseshit -- a means of flogging the current administration with the singularly effective Republican marketing/noise machine, including the conservative entertainment complex. Very seldom does this machine fail to revise history and distort the truth. Ultimately, they don't even need a full-blown impeachment proceeding when they have a population of way too many truthers and automatons who take all of these lies at face value -- not to mention dubiously sourced chunks of "truth" proffered by radio and cable news conspiracy theorists who, if nothing else, are masters at telling angry conservatives precisely what they want to hear: that the probably-Muslim president is weak on terrorism. And so they'll keep repeating "Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate!" without any regard for history or reality. Like always.

www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/13-benghazis-that-occurr...

Bad News For Limbaugh: He May Be Breaking Federal Law By Accepting Money From Right-Wing Groups

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Sat, 11 May 2013 07:56:22 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

Bad News For Limbaugh: He May Be Breaking Federal Law By Accepting Money From Right-Wing Groups
by Leslie Salzillo

There were lots of headlines about Rush Limbaugh this week.The majority had nothing positive to say about the hate-speaking radio host or his parent company, Clear Channel, run by Bob Pittman and John Sykes. Not a good week for the Rushbo, at all. One headline referred to Limbaugh as a right-wing welfare bum, because he’s having to take money/gifts/payola from right-wing groups. Given that 95% of Cumulus radio network advertisers want no part of Limbaugh, it makes sense he would need to have other sources to subsidize his smut.

Payola, is indeed, taking place. Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks (linked to the Tea Party/Koch Bros.) have been paying Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, according to Dick Armey, former FreedomWorks Chairman. Limbaugh and Beck are taking money to talk up the right-wing agendas unbeknownst to their audiences. Pretty seedy – and it maybe illegal.

Some decades ago there was a shake-up in the music industry. Record execs were using payola to push their music/agendas. A law was passed making it illegal. FCC has specific rules against payola in the broadcast industry. Apparently, Rush Limbaugh’s show is being overlooked. With the new FCC Chairman coming in, maybe the government agency will take a good, long, and hard look into the goings on at Clear Channel.

An FCC rule states:

Any broadcast station employee who has accepted or agreed to accept payment for the airing of program material, and the person making or promising to make the payment, must disclose this information to the station prior to the airing of the program.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the FCC rule turns out to be the ticket for Limbaugh’s demise? And isn’t it ironic? Conservatives are always preaching “Free Market.” Once again, right-wing hypocrisy rears its ugly head.

www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/11/is-rush-limbaugh-breakin...

Reply to Tea Party Fantasies of Sending Obama to Prison for Benghazi

nobody@flickr.com (*Trova*) — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:42:44 -0700

*Trova* posted a reply:

Bill, I assume you've already begun to gather endless snippets from the web to counter all the damaging evidence that will be coming out in the next few days. If a Republican were president and this attack happened without any military response, and were followed up with countless lies, you and the accomplice media wouldn't stop talking about it. Typical.

The Con of Trickle-Down Economics

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:56:36 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

The Con of Trickle-Down Economics

Here is a quick explanation of Trickle-Down Economics: The belief that as revenue increases for the wealthy, or big corporations, those excess revenues will then “trickle down” to the rest of us by the way of more jobs, increased pay and better benefits.
Sounds great, right? In theory, yes it does.

However, it doesn’t take into account the one flaw we’ve faced since the dawn of humanity–basic human nature. Human nature is often very greedy, and those who have the most, in many cases, tend to be the greediest.

The old saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” in reality means power of any kind often corrupts. With our society placing so much emphasis on money, it has made having money equal having power. Trickle-Down Economics puts the health of a nation into the “generous” hands of the rich and powerful.

But you have to ask yourself, who benefits most from this philosophy? Who stands to gain the most by shaping an entire economic ideology around this belief? It doesn’t take rocket science to figure that out–the rich and powerful. Whose power in politics has grown thanks to rulings such as Citizens United, which allows big corporations the freedom to give unheard of sums of money to any political candidate or party? Yup, you guessed it—the rich and powerful.

Nearly all credible information you can find over the last 30+ years shows that middle class pay has remained pretty much stagnant. This fact remains indisputable as the income for the top 2% in this country has skyrocketed, and never more so than in the last decade.

Yet even with that indisputable information, you have millions of Americans who accept this economic theory.

It’s a magnificent con.

The rich and powerful have convinced millions to vote against their own interest. Right now, instead of supporting closing loopholes for individuals and big businesses that make millions (or billions), an entire political party has instead focused on cutting programs that mostly help lower and middle class Americans. They’ve screamed “class warfare,” yet have not supported a single deficit reduction solution that includes a sacrifice from the top 1%—even opposing the elimination of a tax break for people who own corporate jets.

It seems insane to think that a middle class American would fight to protect the tax rate of someone who makes a hundred times what they make, all while advocating the slashing of programs they themselves benefit from.

And the worse things get, the more tax breaks they want. Their talking point is near perfection:

“Well, how will raising our taxes create jobs? We need lower taxes so we can create jobs and boost the economy!”

They’re right, raising taxes won’t help create jobs, but lowering them didn’t help either. At least with increased tax revenue we wouldn’t need such drastic cuts to public employment like Republicans have pushed for the last 4 years

Republicans ignore the fact that we had historic economic growth, and all-time low unemployment, under President Clinton–with higher taxes. They’ve also ignored the fact that we faced the worst economic crash in 80 years, and shed millions of jobs, while we had the lowest tax rates in our nation’s history. These are two simple realities that easily prove the falsity of the Republican rhetoric that “tax cuts are vital for job creation”.

Ask yourself these questions: Over the last 30 years are most jobs gaining or losing benefits? Are people gaining or losing their pensions? Are they working less or more? Are health care plans getting better or worse?

Keep in mind when you answer these, that over the last 30 years executive pay and benefits have hit historic highs and corporate profits have skyrocketed.

It’s a great scam because the terminology in both its application and rebuttal to its opposition make for great talking points:

“The more profits we get to keep, the more jobs we can create.”
“How will raising our taxes help us create jobs?”

But if taxes were already low, and the economy went into recession, then the tax rates really had nothing to do with job loss or gain.
The choice is really about more tax revenue or less tax revenue—with the same amount of job creation. Logic says a country should take the tax revenue if the tax breaks didn’t actually create jobs..
And they haven’t.

What Republicans have done is taken this ideology of greed, manipulated the American people by masking it in a cloak of Christian values and then successfully deceived a large portion of the American population to vote against their own best interest. The astonishing part is— it has actually worked.

It’s one of the greatest cons in human history. They’ve co-opted the Christian faith and twisted it into a hateful, judgmental, ignorant group of cult-like followers to support an agenda of greed. They’ve built their economic base upon the idea that our best interests, and economic salvation, are found by giving those with the most wealth and power even more.

Now just sit and think about that for a second…

What a great con.

www.forwardprogressives.com/the-con-of-trickle-down-econo...

Tea Party Nation: Boston Marathon bombings Occurred Because Obama Admin “isn’t willing to destroy radical Islam”

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:48:08 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

I agree with this domestic enemy when he says "...to identify our enemy and then craft a strategy to totally defeat that enemy." Let's clean out the Reich Winger and NazTea Party threat to our nation.

Tea Party Nation: Boston Marathon bombings Occurred Because Obama Admin “isn’t willing to destroy radical Islam”

Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation sent out a mass email to members today claiming that the Boston marathon bombing occurred because “we have a government that is not committed to protecting America” since it isn’t willing to “destroy radical Islam.” In fact, Judson went as far as to disparage non-radical Islamic nations. Since the bombings, a witch hunt perpetrated by the right wing is out in force.

To be fair, a few leftists have also jumped the gun but not quite to this extreme.

Right Wing Watch reports:

Phillips said that “Radical Islam and perhaps even non-radical Islam” is a danger to western civilization, arguing that Muslims believe that “non-Islamic nations may be conquered or otherwise taken over.”

Unfortunately the sad truth is we will be hit again. It will happen sooner or later. It will probably be sooner than later.

There are two reasons why we will be hit again. First, we have a determined enemy who hates us. Second, we have a government that is not committed to protecting America.

It is a pretty safe bet right now that this attack was carried out by an Islamist. It was a well-coordinated attack. In its publication, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called for just this kind of attack.

While the government and media have fallen all over themselves to downplay this fact, there is a twenty-year-old Saudi student being detained as a “person of interest.” Person of interest in a nice police term that is used for someone who is not under arrest and therefore does not have to be read his Miranda rights and who hopefully will not lawyer up.

Barack Obama could not force himself to use the word “terrorism” in his speech last night and the FBI right now won’t call this a terrorist incident.

…

The reason we will be hit again is because our government is not committed to destroying our enemy. Radical Islam is our enemy.

Some in the far end of the Liberty Movement will start screaming about war mongering “Neo-cons.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

…

We need to first recognize our enemy and then come up with a strategy to destroy them. This is an ideological war. While sometimes that will mean guns and bombs, neither will destroy an ideology.

The values of the west, most of them good, some of them not so good are what will destroy radical Islam. In the west, we fall all over ourselves not to insult Islam.

Why?

We can go down the list of things Islam has done to the west. During the height of the Cold War, the Soviets came up with something called the Brezhnev doctrine. It said, “What’s ours is ours. What is yours is negotiable.” Radical Islam and perhaps even non-radical Islam holds to the same belief.

They believe that once a nation becomes Islamic it cannot have Islam removed from it. However, non-Islamic nations may be conquered or otherwise taken over.

Reagan knew that America had to stand up to the Communist threat. Bill Clinton wanted to ignore the Islamist threat. George W. Bush just wanted to hold the hand of the Saudi king and Barack Obama just wants to bow to him. As we mourn the victims of Boston, we need to make a solemn vow that we will not allow this to happen again.

The only way we make sure this never happens again is to identify our enemy and then craft a strategy to totally defeat that enemy.

Judson, do you talk to your mother with mouth?

freakoutnation.com/2013/04/16/tea-party-nation-boston-mar...

Poll: GOP Seen As Out Of Touch, Disapproval Of Sequestration Grows

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:21:31 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

they're not out of touch. They're greed driven and dishonest.

Poll: GOP Seen As Out Of Touch, Disapproval Of Sequestration Grows
By Ariel Edwards-Levy

A majority of Americans see both major political parties as out of touch, but especially the Republican Party, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds.

Seven in 10 Americans said the GOP was out of touch "with the concerns of most people in the United States today." Even among Republicans, 49 percent considered the party to be out of touch, compared to 42 percent who said it wasn't.

Fifty-one percent of Americans, including 21 percent of Democrats, said the Democratic Party was out of touch.

President Barack Obama fared slightly better, with 51 percent saying he was in touch. His approval rating of 50 percent was also narrowly positive, although a majority disagreed with his handling of the economy.

This all comes amid an uptick in dissatisfaction with the budget cuts brought by sequestration. Disapproval of the cuts is at 57 percent, up from 53 percent in an earlier Post/ABC poll taken March 10. The percentage of Americans saying they had personally experienced a negative impact from the cuts rose to 33 percent, up 8 points from March.

A CNN/ORC poll last week found a similar increase in those saying they were personally affected by sequestration.

The Post/ABC poll surveyed 1,003 adults between April 11 and April 14.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/gop-poll_n_3092346.html...

Secret Audio Tape Reveals Mitch McConnell Committed At Least One Federal Crime

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:57:26 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

Secret Audio Tape Reveals Mitch McConnell Committed At Least One Federal Crime
By: Rmuse

There are volumes written about exactly what ethics are, but generally ethics refer to well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans should do in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, and specific virtues. Politicians are rightly expected to display the highest ethics because their actions directly impact society, and citizens deserve representatives who conduct the people’s business fairly and that they never misuse taxpayer dollars for personal gain. There are mechanisms in the United States Congress to hold senators and representatives accountable for misusing public funds, and last Thursday, a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against a Republican senator who, by all accounts, violated Senate ethics standards and committed at least one federal crime; possibly two.

In February, during a private meeting at his 2014 reelection campaign headquarters in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and several campaign aides met to discuss opposition research collected on potential challengers. The discussion centered around actress and activist Ashley Judd, and one could argue the subjects discussed were unethical from a fairness standpoint, but Republican politicians are notorious for unfairly characterizing their political opponents as a matter of course, and campaigns are messy affairs. However, the ethics violation charges are not about what McConnell’s aides said about Judd, but about McConnell illegally using paid congressional staff time or resources for his re-election campaign. According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), McConnell did use “taxpayer-funded resources to pay staffers to dig up dirt on political opponents,” and CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan charged “it isn’t just an ethics violation, it’s a federal crime.” CREW filed an ethics complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate whether McConnell spent taxpayer dollars to dig up dirt on potential opponents, and a separate complaint with the FBI to investigate McConnell for violating two federal laws.

In the tape recording at McConnell’s headquarters, the speaker leading the discussion clearly said details contained in the opposition research “reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of [legislative assistants], thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through.” Phil Maxson is a legislative assistant, Josh may refer to Josh Holmes, McConnell’s chief of staff, and Jesse may be Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager. McConnell claimed the tape was recorded illegally and asked the FBI to investigate who taped the secret meeting, and if they broke the law they should face the consequences, but that is a rank deflection away from the real crime. Using taxpayer dollars is against federal law and congressional rules barring lawmakers from using congressional staff or resources, which are paid for with taxpayer funds, for campaign purposes.

According to 18 USC § 641, “Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another… money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years.” In 1993 a former House employee pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of government property after it was discovered he did campaign work at the same time he said he was conducting official business. Also, according to 18 USC § 1341 – Frauds and swindles, paying congressional staff for campaign work may constitute mail fraud, and in 1979 another former House member was prosecuted for mail fraud for putting campaign workers on his congressional payroll. If McConnell used anyone on his legislative staff to do opposition research, or paid campaign workers from his Senate payroll, he broke federal law on two separate counts and is in violation of Senate ethics rules.

McConnell’s spokesman said the taped recording was erroneous and that the aide leading the meeting did not say thank legislative aides three times for their work compiling research on Judd, but that they engaged in research “in their free time.” The tape recording is clear, and the aide did not say “in their free time,” but it is not unusual for Republicans to tell people what they heard was not what they really heard, and in McConnell’s case, the contention is an attempt to deflect attention away from his activities by alleging the recording may have been illegal. In fact, when McConnell’s office was questioned by reporters about misusing taxpayer dollars for this campaign, they refused to comment, but days later after realizing they were in violation of federal law and Senate ethics rules, told reporters they did not hear what the tape recording clearly revealed.

CREW executive director said McConnell should “welcome both an FBI and ethics committee investigation into his conduct,” but doubtless the ranking Republican in the Senate welcomes an FBI or Senate ethics investigation. Especially damning in the tape recording is naming Phil Maxson who has been in McConnell’s employ as a legislative aide since early in 2011, but according to reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, he was never paid by McConnell’s campaign committee or leadership PAC. McConnell’s request for the FBI to investigate the recording will also necessitate the Bureau to fully inquire whether he violated federal law(s), and coupled with the complaint filed by CREW detailing the U.S.C. violations and an impending Senate inquiry, he may rue the day he felt he was above the law and that he made enemies emboldened to tape a secret strategy meeting. It is not clear that the recording was even remotely illegal.

McConnell is a bad Senate representative for doing nothing but obstruct the U.S. Senate over the past four years, but these charges are serious and demand a thorough investigation by the FBI and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. The account also demands that the Federal Elections Commission conducts their own investigation to determine why McConnell’s legislative aide was working on his re-election campaign without filing a report with the FEC. Doubtless, McConnell will claim ignorance of the sordid affair and tap the legislative aides and his chief of staff to take the fall and shield him from prosecution, but the fact remains he was at the secret campaign meeting and plainly heard what the tape recording reveals; that he used taxpayer dollars for personal gain. Because McConnell did not immediately alert the FBI and FEC that a crime had been committed, and failed to tell the Senate Select Committee his paid legislative staff worked for his campaign, he is culpable for concealing the malfeasance and deserves to be prosecuted as if he directed the entire affair that is more than possible, it is entirely plausible.

www.politicususa.com/secret-audio-tape-reveals-mitch-mcco...

Rob Woodall: Mitt Romney Was Right About '47 Percent' Statistic

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:46:58 -0700

wquatman posted a new topic:

Another point this article left out is that among those who pay little to no taxes are some multi-billionaires, billionaires, multi-millionaires and millionaires.

Rob Woodall: Mitt Romney Was Right About '47 Percent' Statistic

At a Georgia town hall meeting in March, Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) said Mitt Romney was correct in his infamous "47 percent" statistic, adding that Americans need to pay taxes to participate in the political process.

"You know, folks mock Mitt Romney for what he said, but he’s right. Forty-seven percent of American citizens pay zero in income taxes. It’s just true," Woodall said, according to remarks recorded by Georgia Fair Share.

The "47 percent" argument is misleading -- 61 percent of the people who had no federal income tax liability in 2011 paid payroll taxes, The Washington Post pointed out, and 22 percent were seniors. The remainder of that group mostly had incomes below $20,000.

"In fact, the bottom 30% of American citizens profit from the tax code because they're getting refundable tax credits back," Woodall says in the video. "I don’t care if you’re paying a dollar. You need to believe that you are involved in the process, and you need to have skin in the game."

Refundable tax credits, which mostly go to the working poor and families with children, were expanded under Republican presidents as a way to incentivize work and reduce poverty.

Woodall's argument echoed one made by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) during her run for president. Bachmann said people should pay "two Happy Meals a year" in taxes.

"If I'm paying zero in income taxes and getting any benefit whatsoever -- good roads, good schools, good airports -- what do you expect me to do with my vote? It's not a selfish thing. It's just good economic interest," Woodall said. "If I can buy a dollar of government for a penny -- even if that government's only 50% effective -- I'm still getting a steal."

Romney's 47 percent video damaged the presidential hopeful's chances, as it contributed to the perception that the candidate was out of touch with ordinary Americans. Nevertheless, the talking point still has life in Republican circles -- former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now president of the Heritage Foundation, has said that "69.5 million Americans" are dependent on government, or about 22 percent of the U.S. population.

A Woodall spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/rob-woodall-mitt-romney...

Reply to Mike Huckabee: Obama May Be Planning To Grab Guns And Launch A Nazi-Like Dictatorship

nobody@flickr.com (wquatman) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:10:44 -0700

wquatman posted a reply:

STUDY: States With Loose Gun Laws Have Higher Rates Of Gun Violence
By Zack Beauchamp

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies in Congress frequently claim that gun violence is highest in places with the toughest crime laws. But a new study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) suggests something closer to the opposite is true — the states with laxer gun laws tend to be the ones contributing the highest shares of national gun deaths and injuries.

The authors of the report, called “America Under The Gun,” developed a list of ten indices of gun violence, ranging from gun homicide levels to firearm assaults to crime gun export rate (the number of guns sold in that state used in crimes around the country), and ranked each state from 1-50 along each index. They then took the average of each state’s ranking to determine its overall level of gun violence relative to other states. Lousiana was the highest, with an average of fifth-worst across all ten indices, while Hawaii’s 45.4 ranking was the best.
A statistical regression comparing these rankings with strength of gun law found a correlation between weak gun laws and violence levels as measured by the 10-index average. Comparing a state’s relative ranking in strength of gun law (as judged by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) to a state’s relative gun violence ranking yielded clear evidence that states with looser gun laws contributed more to the national gun violence epidemic:

While many factors contribute to the rates of gun violence in any state, our research clearly demonstrates a significant correlation between the strength of a state’s gun laws and the prevalence of gun violence in the state. Across the key indicators of gun violence that we analyzed, the 10 states with the weakest gun laws collectively have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high—104 percent higher—than the 10 states with the strongest gun laws.

Here is the map: (Go to link below)

The CAP report’s finding is yet another contribution to a growing body of empirical evidence that strong gun laws work. A prior, less comprehensive study also established links between gun deaths and loose gun laws. After Missouri repealed its background check law, gun homicides went up 25 percent despite a national and regional decline. Three independent papers have found that counties with more guns have higher rates of gun death.

The NRA has long attempted to use Congressional funding restrictions to cripple research on gun violence on grounds that it “may be used to advocate or promote” new gun laws.

thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/03/1811311/study-states...