SCALIA'S DEATH & HIS POLITICALLY CORRECT REPLACEMENT (KAMALA HARRIS)

SCALIA'S DEATH & HIS POLITICALLY CORRECT REPLACEMENT (KAMALA HARRIS)

Saturday afternoon, February 13, 2016, SCOTUS Senior Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead in Texas.

Almost immediately after Scalia's death the Mainstream Media was reporting he died of "Natural Causes".

Although no Autopsy had been conducted yet, it was announced he died via "Natural Causes".

By Saturday evening of the same day,  Pres Obama announced via he would nominate a replacement during his term to replace Justice Scalia.

In 2015 a BLACK woman from Chicago (SANDRA BLAND) was found dead in a Texas jail cell.

In 2016 an Italian-American (WHITE) U.S. Supreme Court Justice (SCALIA) was found dead also in Texas.

Both human beings died due to mysterious circumstances of which we may never know.

Senior Justice Antonin Scalia was loved by many and known to write his opinions from a Conservative perspective.

In fact Scalia appeared to be the only true Conservative voice on the SCOTUS bench because Chief Justice John Roberts often delivers opinions in line with his more Liberal colleagues.

Following Pres OBAMA's announcement of nominating an immediate replacement for Scalia, the name floating on everyone's SCOTUS short list is KAMALA HARRIS.

Kamala Harris is a BLACK Woman age 51, from Oakland, California and an alumni of Howard University.

Ms Harris is the highly respected current State Attorney General of California and she is a Liberal who supports Pres Obama's agenda.

Just as Justice Scalia was very Conservative, Kamala Harris is very Liberal in her political ideology.

Sources:   CNN, USA Today, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Youtube

**** Who Could Replace Scalia? Here Are 10 Names

 Who could replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia if Republicans don't block all of President Obama's nominees, as appears likely? Here are 10 possibilities:

~ Sri Srinivasan: The 48-year-old federal appeals court judge was confirmed unanimously in 2013 for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — a traditional steppingstone to the Supreme Court. He would be the court's first Indian-American justice.

~ Patricia Millett: Srinivasan's 52-year-old colleague on the D.C. Circuit is popular in both parties and is frequently mentioned as a possible candidate. She argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court as an advocate.

~ Merrick Garland: At 63, Garland is older than most nominees, since presidents want their choices to stick around for decades on the bench. He is a moderate who serves as chief judge on the D.C. Circuit court and could be a compromise choice.

~KAMALA Harris: California's attorney general, 51, could be another leading candidate. She has the added luster of holding political office, a life experience that is sorely lacking on the Supreme Court. She's currently running for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.

~ Deval Patrick: The former governor of Massachusetts, 59, is a close friend of the president who served in the Justice Department during President Bill Clinton's administration.

~ Amy Klobuchar: If the Senate would be less inclined to block one of its own, the senior senator from Minnesota, 55, might be someone Obama would consider.

~ Sheldon Whitehouse: See "Senate" above. Whitehouse, 60, the junior senator from Rhode Island, is a former attorney general of Rhode Island and U.S. attorney with strong credentials.

~ Goodwin Liu: He was Obama's choice for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2010, but Republicans blocked his nomination, making him a less likely choice now. At 45, he sits on the California Supreme Court.

~ Paul Watford: A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Watford, 48, is another Obama nominee with a potentially stellar future.

~ Jane Kelly: She is a 51-year-old judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit who was a career public defender. From Iowa, she has enjoyed the prior support of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.

DEMOCRATS LEAVE ME NO CHOICE IN 2016; VAN JONES ADMITS DEMS ARE IN TROUBLE

DEMOCRATS LEAVE ME NO CHOICE IN 2016:

VAN JONES ADMITS DEMOCRATS ARE IN TROUBLE.

BLACK VOTERS ARE TIRED OF UNEMPLOYMENT & POLITICAL RETALIATION.

Due to an extremely Liberal, Divisive agenda which offers very few SOLUTIONS and OPPORTUNITIES for BLACK voters to experience Success in America, DEMOCRATS are leaving BLACK voters no choice but to support GOP candidates come Nov 2016.

BLACK voters are also tired of being victims of Political RETALIATION from the DEMOCRAT party.

~ Democratic Strategist Van Jones Talks About the Black Vote in 2016…and It’s Not Good News for His Party (Article date Oct 2015)

CNN political contributor Van Jones didn’t mince words when giving his assessment of the Democratic party ahead of their first 2016 presidential debate Tuesday night:

“I think this whole party has a problem. 

This is the whitest field that we have seen since 1992. There’s no Sharpton. There’s no Carol Moseley Braun. There’s no non-white people there, and this is a party that has to get, not 60%, not 70%, not 90%, but 94% of the black vote to win. 

This is a big problem for the whole party.”

Some on Twitter agreed when they saw the candidates take the stage for the Democratic debate:

Jones, a former green energy advisor in the Obama administration, went on to suggest that there’s room for the Democratic party to improve its numbers with minority voters:

“The Clintons get the black vote by default, but nobody has made a case yet that they can do better. If Biden gets in he might be able to make that case. But Bernie Sanders has so much room to grow with the black vote he should take the opportunity tomorrow to make his case why a white guy from Vermont should get the support of a party with that much black participation.”

GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson has argued that the Republican party has a lot to offer black Americans.

Carson also said the GOP is more willing to get past racism:

“I find black Republicans are treated extremely well in the Republican Party. I hear a lot about what you believe and the kind of principles you’re espousing and I think that’s far more important. I think the Republicans have done a far better job than Democrats in getting over racism.”

Star Parker, founder of CURE (Center for Urban Renewal and Education), believes the GOP should court black voters by focusing on traditional values:

“An ongoing point of contention in the Republican Party has been the extent to which clear identification with traditional Judeo-Christian values is a good idea.

My sense is that, when we add to the equation the growing impact of non-white voters, standing strongly for these traditional values — which would put Republicans in stark contrast to Democrats — would be a win-win for Republicans.”

One thing is certain: with another close election likely, both parties should realize the impact minority voters will have on determining the winner.

Sources: Independent Journal, Mediatate, YouTube

DONALD TRUMP IS A MEDIA GENIUS, HE WON'T BE FIRED

#‎trump‬

DONALD TRUMP IS A MEDIA GENIUS, HE WON'T BE FIRED:

Attention Liberal Mainstream Media networks, which includes FOX NEWS!

Go ahead and continue to Attack DONALD TRUMP.

TRUMP is a Media King, who knows how to use the Media to his Advantage.

Bashing TRUMP only makes him Stronger and more Popular.

And it's FREE ADVERTISING!

So raise your hand if you believe DONALD TRUMP is indeed a Media GENIUS who won't be Fired anytime soon.

Post Sources: Washington Post, YouTube

BILL MAHER (A LIBERAL) CRITICIZES RADICAL ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY

“This idea that somehow we do share values, that all religions are alike, is bullshit.

And we need to call it bullshit,”

BILL MAHER

Some 2016 Voters are concerned that if Syrian & Iraqi Refugees are allowed entry onto American soil without passing a thorough Certified Background Check, Pres OBAMA'S intentions might not be in our nation's best interest.

Other Voters are concerned a certain percentage of these Refugees (at least 13%) ascribe to extreme Anti-Western ideology, including orders from ISIL to help destroy the United States.

What do you think?

I say we need to Wake up!

Sources: Arab Center of Research & Policy, Investors.com, The Wrap, YouTube

GOP MEDIA BIAS WILL BACKFIRE IN 2016

#MediaBias

DONALD TRUMP vs MEGYN KELLY during the first 2016 GOP debate on FOX NEWS.

Mainstream Media Bias vs The GOP

Why is the Media so Biased against 2016 GOP Candidates??

Will this targeted Media Bias against the GOP backfire on major Networks after the 2016 election?

Sources: The Wrap, YouTube

FERGUSON Race Riots Being Encouraged By Liberal Media Networks Like CNN

CNN vs FERGUSON:

INCITING RACE RIOTS FOR RATINGS

CNN wants the Citizens of FERGUSON and Protesters to create another Race RIOT.

Why??

To Achieve Higher Network Ratings So CNN Execs Can Attract More Sponsors!

Dear People Of Ferguson,

Please don't allow CNN'S Racially-Biased reporting to Brainwash your minds into committing more acts of Counterproductive Destruction, which may lead to VIOLENCE or more BLACK People being KILLED by FERGUSON'S Police officers as MICHAEL BROWN was.

Please THINK before you ACT!

I'm Praying for all of You.

Regards,

BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ

DON LEMON vs MSNBC: "MSNBC Is A "Smug Liberal Club Of Mean, Condescending People"......I CONCUR!

"CNN’s Don Lemon Tears Into ‘Smug,’ ‘Mean’ MSNBC Over Romney Grandson Segment"

CNN anchor Don Lemon had some tough words for his competitors at MSNBC Monday night during a discussion about Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel poking fun at a crowded Mitt Romney family photo with his young black grandson.

Lemon used the opportunity to vent about the liberal network, calling it “smug” and unwilling to entertain actual diversity of opinion.

Republican Ana Navarro agreed with Lemon that it was in bad taste to use the child to mock the Romneys, but Marc Lamont Hill argued that they didn’t actually make fun of the baby itself, just used it to make a point about diversity in the Romney family and the GOP.

Lemon wondered if Hill would react the same way if the same segment aired on Fox. Navarro predicted, “By now, Jesse Jackson would be protesting and tied to a tree somewhere.”

Lemon then took on the “crowd” at MSNBC that’s given him lots of flak for comments he’s made on issues of race specifically. Lemon explained he’s never bothered responding because “dogs are supposed to howl at the moon, the moon doesn’t howl back.” He called MSNBC a “smug” club where despite touting diversity, there is “no diversity of opinion” on the network.

Hill agreed that “pockets” of MSNBC are “smug and condescending,” but Lemon continued on to dismiss the network as an insular den of liberalism where people are “saying mean, smug things about people who… may disagree with them.”

Sources: CNN, Mediaite, Youtube

Bob Kerrey vs His Nebraska Residency: GOP Wants To Block His Eligibility

Nebraska GOP pushes forward with Kerrey residency challenge


The Nebraska Republican Party will push forward in court with a challenge to the residency of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bob Kerrey, the group confirmed Tuesday.

Kerrey, who served as a Nebraska senator from 1989-2001, later moved out of the state to serve as president of The New School in New York City.

Last week Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale determined Kerrey moved back to Nebraska "with some urgency" to file the requisite residency forms, but that he remained eligible to appear of the May 15 primary ballot and the November general election ballot.

Gale said Nebraska state law requires Senate candidates meet requirements laid out by the U.S. Constitution, which only mandates a person be a resident of their state at the time they are elected.

On Tuesday, Nebraska Republican Party Executive Director Jordan McGrain said his group was challenging the ruling in court.

"Part of our contention is that while the federal Constitution provides the requirements to serve in the Senate, individual states certainly have the purview to decide whether or not he can remain on the ballot," McGrain said.

In the original challenge to Kerrey's residency submitted to the Secretary of State, the Nebraska GOP contended Kerrey hastily moved back to Nebraska after deciding to make a bid for Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Ben Nelson.

In his determination opinion, Secretary of State Gale concluded Kerrey initially listed his sister's Omaha residence on his voter registration application when he first moved back to Nebraska in February. He soon switched his residence to another Omaha address, telling the Secretary of State he was leasing the guest house on a friend's property.

In his determination, Gale wrote, "It is quite clear that Mr. Kerrey considered himself a resident of New York State until February 28, 2012, when he filed his first voter registration application with the Douglas County Election Commissioner."

Despite concluding the accusations from the Nebraska GOP had merit, Gale said he would be unable to bar Kerrey from appearing on the primary and general election ballots since the federal rules only require a person to reside in the state at the time of election.

McGrain said his group was pushing forward with a court challenge, saying, "We've heard a number of Nebraskans who are concerned in the manner in which Bob Kerrey was able to fly in at eleventh hour for purposes of running for Senate."

No matter the outcome, the effort will underscore a major element of the Republican campaign against Kerrey, which seeks to paint the former senator a New York liberal. Radio spots from the conservative group American Crossroads, which began airing last week, asserted: "A decade in Greenwich Village changed Bob Kerrey."

"We feel there's a compelling argument to get him removed, and I suppose the political byproduct is people remain informed that he still doesn't live in Nebraska," McGrain said. "It seems he's flying back to New York every weekend, and even if he won, would move with his family to Washington."


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, N in the Know, Youtube, Google Maps

Andrew Breitbart Mysteriously Dead At 43! R.I.P. Warning Or Natural Causes?

Andrew Breitbart, a Conservative Blogger is DEAD at 43 Supposedly from "Natural Causes".

Breitbart helped to launch popular Websites: "The Drudge Report" & "Huffington Post".

He later launched his own Successful site: "Big Government".

Call me Crazy or Call me a "Conspiracy Theorist" (I'm NOT) but I truly believe Andrew Breitbart Knew Something.
Something that could upset the 2012 Election.

He was probably getting ready to expose what he knew & now Suddenly he ends up DEAD in Los Angeles at 43.
NOT A Coincidence!

Even if Breitbart was a Pain-in-the-butt Politically for Liberals, GOP Establishment Leaders & some Conservatives, he still had the right of Freedom of the Press.

Someone on Twitter wanted to know if former Congressman Anthony Weiner is happy Andrew Breitbart is Dead.

I seriously doubt Anthony Weiner will issue a Public Statement Celebrating Breitbart's Death despite what he did to him.

On a Personal level, I am NOT happy to see Anyone Die regardless of what they have done because I'm NOT God.

I'm telling ya'll Los Angeles is Corrupt! This includes LAPD & the Coroner's Office.

When Powerful People want to get rid of Someone In the Political or Entertainment Arena, for the past several years their deaths have occurred in Los Angeles.

The Cause of Death is Always Mysterious and listed as Natural Causes, Suicide or Prescription Drug Overdose.

As this Election closes in, the American People are going to see even more Strange Things Occurring.

I Suggest We ALL Begin to Pray.

Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43.

R.I.P.







Publisher and Author Andrew Breitbart Dead

Andrew Breitbart, the noted conservative Internet publisher and author, has died. He was 43.

A statement posted on his website said that Breitbart died "unexpectedly from natural causes" this morning.

The Los Angeles Coroner's Office confirmed to ABC News Radio that Breitbart died shortly after midnight at UCLA Medical Center.

The following statement was posted on Breitbart's website today:

"With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart. We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:

'I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.

Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I've lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I've gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.'

Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us."

A conservative blogger and journalist, Breitbart helped launch the Huffington Post and was an editor at the Drudge Report.

He also founded his own news network, acting as the publisher of several news websites including Breitbart.com, Breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace.

Big Government broke the ACORN child sex trafficking scandal and also, in 2011, the "Weinergate" photo scandal that led to the resignation of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Breitbert was known for publishing controversial exposes and wrote a best-selling critique of celebrity culture, "Hollywood, Interrupted." His newest book "Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!" was on the New York Times bestseller list.




View Larger Map


Sources: ABC News, AOL, CNN, Huff Post, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama vs. Democrats: His "American JOBS Act"! They Need To Stick With Him!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

White House seeks to reassure Senate Democrats on jobs plan

The White House sought to reassure nervous Democrats about President Obama’s $447 billion jobs package Thursday, sending senior officials to brief the party’s Senate caucus about the proposal.

Afterward, lawmakers, administration officials and others present said the huddle went better than expected, given the resistance some Democrats have shown to the plan, and Tuesday’s losses in House special elections after GOP candidates won with anti-Obama campaigns.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the member of the Democratic leadership who has most frequently jousted with the White House, complimented senior Obama officials for taking 100 minutes of questions from the Senate Democrats.

“It was informative, we’re on the same page, we’re on the same team,” Schumer said. He acknowledged that senators “brought up their concerns” with the proposal but said they exited the meeting “unified.”

Senators heard presentations at a closed door briefing from Gene Sperling and senior advisor David Plouffe, who outlined the key points of the package of targeted tax cuts and infrastructure spending, members said.

“I think the key thing is we’re off to a great start in terms of getting excitement for the American Jobs Act,” Plouffe told reporters afterward. “The vast majority of our party is committed to showing that we’re going to act on jobs.”

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) called the meeting “very positive.”

“It was going through the package and the need for the package,” he said.

Even as Obama has been delivering a series of campaign-style speeches in support of his proposal, calling on the public to pressure Congress to pass the bill, some Democrats in Washington have been expressing reservations with the package.

Liberal members have fretted over the president’s proposal to cut the payroll tax, fearful of diverting money from the Social Security Trust fund. They say more direct government spending on infrastructure and salaries is needed to get the economy moving.

“I have been very unequivocal,” Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) told reporters Wednesday. “No more tax cuts. We have the economy that tax cuts gave us. And it’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

Some conservative Democrats have said they support the tax cuts, but oppose spending billions on teacher salaries and to build schools and roads, as the president has proposed, when Congress is working to reduce the deficit.

“If spending money could fix our jobs problem, it would have been solved long ago — because we’ve sure done our share of spending,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a frequent critic of the president.

Obama’s suggestions for how to pay for the package have not been universally popular with Democrats either.

Democrats have previously rejected proposals from the White House to limit tax deductions to those making more than $250,000 a year. Opposition has not faded now that Obama has advanced the idea again to pay for the bulk of jobs plan.

“We’ve had mixed signals from the White House about the willingness to break apart the package. But I think for sure the pay-for has to be considered separately from the merits of the bill itself,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connnolly (D-Va.), who represents a wealthy Northern Virginia district and has long opposed such proposals.

Republicans spent Thursday gleefully pointing to the voices of Democratic dissent as a sign that the president’s bill does not have support of even his own party.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) insisted Thursday that the criticism is minor. She noted that Democrats joined on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday to rally in support of the measure.

“There may be somebody that’s told you or spoken out about this, but our caucus is very unified in support of the American Jobs Act and the fact that it is paid for,” she said. “They may differ with some of provisions within it or the paid fors, but they do not differ in the fact that we must get behind it, we must pass it.”


View Larger Map

Sources: MSNBC, Washington Post, Google Maps

Obama's 2012 Re-election Team Helping Him To Lose? Horrible At Organizing! New Blood Needed!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama’s Team Is Blowing It

We were told, as I recall, that Barack Obama had to seek a debt deal with the Republicans to please independent voters. Well, the independent voters are speaking, and they don’t appear to be especially appeased. There’s a new Gallup poll just out showing that independent voters hate the deal. Their views on it are far more similar to the GOP’s than to the Democratic Party’s. Combine these data with the president’s approval numbers, which are swiftly heading south, and we have little choice but to conclude that this brilliant stratagem backfired. Isn’t it time for someone to say: this new White House political team is worse than the previous one?

First let me run you through the numbers. Americans disapprove of the deal by 46 to 39 percent. Democrats support it 58-28. Republicans oppose it 26-64. Independents oppose it 33-50. A second question asked of respondents: Was the deal a step forward or backward or neither with respect to “addressing the federal debt situation?” Democrats lined up 30-14-50. Republicans, 15-28-52. Independents, 16-25-50. Finally, independents also align more closely with Republicans on the question of whether the deal will have a good or bad effect on the economy. Whereas 29 percent of Democrats think the effect will be good, just 12 percent of independents and 8 percent of Republicans believe that.

The White House strategy failed, and it failed pretty spectacularly. It reminds me that I’m hard pressed to think of a White House strategy that hasn’t failed in the last several months. The springtime budget negotiation, the one where a government shutdown was narrowly averted and Obama bragged about overseeing the biggest single-year domestic spending cut in history, was a failure too; a success, one supposes, in the sense that the government did not shut down, but another situation in which Obama’s back was pressed to the wall by congressional Republicans.

Let’s see, what else? The immigration speech from May? What, you don’t even remember it? If it was at least partly intended as a sop to Latino voters before the campaign really revs up, it seems to have left them largely unmoved—Obama is below 50 percent with Latinos in some surveys. OK, how about the more recent Midwestern jobs swing? Probably did no damage, but certainly did no good. The Vineyard vacation? I don’t begrudge the man a little R and R, and maybe it’s a small thing, but that destination—a bad symbol, Martha’s Vineyard. He might as well have gone to California wine country. Last I checked, there are golf courses aplenty to be found in North Carolina, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Colorado.

When David Axelrod left to go to the campaign office in Chicago, and Rahm Emanuel left to become mayor, the spin was that David Plouffe and Bill Daley, their respective replacements, would, if nothing else, bring fresh and unwearied perspectives to these admittedly grueling and thankless jobs. But they appear to have given Obama bad advice at nearly every turn. Plouffe, from what I can see, just looks to be in over his head in this job. He was a whiz at organizing a campaign field network. But this is a different game.

The fundamental problem appears to be the excessive fixation on Obama’s (forgive me for even using this word) “brand”—this “adult in the room” nonsense. Whenever I see those words in print anymore, usually in a background quote from a White House aide or a Democratic source trying gamely to be on-message, I hear strong and unsettling echoes of the 2008-vintage messianism. Does anyone buy this anymore, outside of what appears to be an increasingly bubble-ized White House? Those beloved independents certainly aren’t thinking of the president that way these days, and one doubts that even most of his supporters are.

Obama’s brand is and has by now long been determined by events and facts, not by White House spin and set pieces, or by vestigial remnants of the Days of Hope. Those events and facts are almost uniformly grim (except Libya, whose political gains will be fleeting or perhaps nonexistent). Adults get credit when the household is running smoothly and the kids are well behaved and pulling good grades. With none of those things happening, the adult in the room is precisely the last thing to want to be. But they refuse to change gears.

Watching this White House over these last several weeks has been like watching a time-lapse video of an apple rotting. We’re supposed to believe now that the jobs plan to be announced next month will change everything. Maybe. But what needs to change is the way the White House approaches politics. To what? To a simple, blunt, and deeply real-world truth: He’s not nearly as bad as the other guys, who are crazy. That’s all he’s got. That’s his “brand” now. If his people keep insisting on trying to package him the way they did three years ago, he won’t have even that.


View Larger Map

Sources: Daily Beast, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Warren Buffett Urges Congress To Raise Taxes On Rich & Reform Tax Code

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.

Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.





A Closer Look at Taxes on the Rich

With the budget deficit growing and tax rates at a 60-year low, one question will remain near the center of the political debate in the coming months: Should the federal government raise taxes on the rich?

Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor known as the Oracle of Omaha, pushed the issue to the forefront this week by urging members of the new Congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction to stop “coddling” him and other affluent Americans and raise their taxes.

In an opinion article in The New York Times on Monday, Mr. Buffett said he paid just under $7 million in federal payroll and income taxes last year, about 17 percent of his income, a lower percentage than anyone else in his office.

Echoing comments he has made in the past, he called on Congress to make the tax system more fair by rolling back the so-called Bush tax cuts on people who earn more than $1 million a year and on income from capital gains and dividends. He would also close the loophole allowing hedge fund managers to be taxed at a lower rate.

Whatever the political viability, his proposal would put a significant dent in the nation’s budget shortfall. Based on projections by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office and the Treasury, the tax increase on all three fronts would generate as much as $500 billion in new revenue over the next decade — about a third of what the Congressional committee is supposed to cut from the deficit.

“It’s not going to solve the long-term budget shortfall all by itself,” said Eric Toder, an economist at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “The only way to do that is to have broader tax increases or reduce entitlements. But it could be an important piece of the puzzle.”

Because of Mr. Buffett’s high visibility and wealth — Forbes estimates his net worth at $50 billion, making him the world’s third-richest person — his comments brought a torrent of reaction. President Obama, who has fought unsuccessfully to increase taxes on the nation’s highest earners, cheered Mr. Buffett’s remarks during his Midwestern bus tour on Monday, saying that it was only fair that the spending cuts be balanced by tax increases on the wealthy.

Conservative bloggers and commentators brushed aside the proposals as grandstanding or as a gimmick to usher in a middle-class tax increase, and Pat Buchanan, a commentator on CNN, suggested that Mr. Buffett visit the section of the Internal Revenue Service Web site that accepts donations.

Republicans have been united in their opposition to tax increases, and gave Mr. Buffett’s proposals a chilly reception. All six Republican members on the committee have taken a no-tax pledge. Representative Kevin Brady, a member of the Ways and Means Committee and a Texas Republican, flatly rejected Mr. Buffett’s ideas.

“This is not a serious solution for deficit control or getting this dismal economy on its feet,” Mr. Brady said. “Economic growth does not follow a tax increase. So as much as I respect Mr. Buffett, his proposal fails on virtually every level.”

Despite the intense antitax sentiment that has helped the rise of the Tea Party movement since Mr. Obama took office, tax rates in the United States are at their lowest level since Harry Truman was president.

In 1950, the top income bracket had a 91 percent rate; today it is 35 percent. Mr. Buffett called for two new tax brackets for high earners — for income above $1 million a year and another above $10 million. While Mr. Buffett’s proposal did not suggest a rate, the Tax Policy Center has estimated that a 50 percent tax rate on income over $1 million would raise $48 billion over the next decade.

But one of the biggest factors reducing the comparatively low tax rates on investment income is the 15 percent for dividends, capital gains and “carried interest,” the money paid to hedge fund managers and private equity investors. Eliminating the carried interest provision alone would raise $21 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

And restoring capital gains and dividend rates to the levels before the Bush tax cuts — when capital gains were taxed at a top rate of 20 percent and dividends were treated as ordinary income — would bring the Treasury an additional $340 billion over the next decade.

Any of those measures would face intense lobbying and a battle in Congress. Indeed, Democrats were unable to roll back the carried interest tax break or the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy even when they controlled both houses of Congress. But with the prospect of severe spending cuts and another round of bitter deficit negotiations in Washington, proposals like Mr. Buffett’s call to raise taxes on the affluent are likely to become an increasingly urgent part of the discussion.


View Larger Map

Sources: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's Liberal Supporters Need To Grow Up? Fareed Zakaria Defends (Decision 2012)

Fareed's Take: Defending Obama's pragmatism

Over the last week, liberal politicians and commentators took to the airwaves and op-ed pages to criticize the debt deal that Congress reached. But their ire was directed not at the Tea Party or even the Republicans but rather at Barack Obama, who they concluded had failed as a President because of his persistent tendency to compromise. This has been a running theme ever since Obama took office.

I think that liberals need to grow up.

As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait brilliantly points out, there is a recurring liberal fantasy that if only the President would give a stirring speech, he would sweep the country along with the sheer power of his poetry. In this view, writes Chait, "Every known impediment to the legislative process - special interest lobbying, the filibuster, macroeconomic conditions, not to mention certain settled beliefs of public opinion-are but tiny stick huts trembling in the face of the atomic bomb of the presidential speech."

This does happen - if your watching the American president - but not if your actually watching what goes in in Washington.

The disappointment over the debt deal is just the latest episode of liberal bewilderment about Obama. "I have no idea what Barack Obama ... believes on virtually any issue," Drew Westen writes in the New York Times, confused over Obama's tendency to take "balanced" positions. Westen hints that his professional experience - he is a psychologist - suggests deep, traumatic causes for Obama's disease.



Let me offer a simpler explanation: Obama is a centrist and a pragmatist who understands that in a country divided over core issues, you cannot make the best the enemy of the good.

Obama passed a large stimulus package within weeks of taking office. Perhaps it should have been bigger, but despite a Democratic House and Senate, it passed by just one vote. He signed into law an unprecedented expansion of regulations in the financial-services industry, though one that did not break up the large banks. He enacted universal health care, through a complex program modeled after Mitt Romney's plan in Massachusetts. And he has advocated a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines tax increases with spending cuts.

Maybe he believes in all these things. Maybe he understands that with a budget deficit of 10% of GDP, the second highest in the industrialized world, and a debt that will rise to almost 100% of GDP in a few years, we cannot cavalierly spend another few trillion dollars hoping that will jump-start the economy.



Perhaps he believes that while banks need better regulations, America also needs a vibrant banking system, and that in a globalized economy, constraining American banks will only ensure that the world's largest global financial institutions will be British, German, Swiss and Chinese.

He might understand that Larry Summers and Tim Geithner are smart people who, in long careers in public service, got some things wrong but also got many things right. Perhaps he understands that getting entitlement costs under control is in fact a crucial part of stabilizing our fiscal situation, and that you do need both tax increases and spending cuts-cuts that are smaller than they appear because they all start with the 2010 budget, which was boosted by the stimulus.

Is all this dangerous weakness, incoherence and appeasement, or is it common sense?




View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, Democracy Now, GPS, Youtube, Google Maps

Rick Perry Will Beat Romney & Become GOP Front Runner; Victim Of Gay Smear Campaign? (Videos)

Enter Rick Perry, Formidable Fund-Raiser

When Gov. Rick Perry of Texas arrives in South Carolina on Saturday to begin his presidential campaign, he might claim any number of credentials for the country’s top office: Creator of jobs. Cutter of taxes. Defender of gun rights.

But it is a credential Mr. Perry is unlikely to highlight that could make him the most formidable entrant into the Republican primary so far: he is among the top political fund-raisers in the country, with a vast network of wealthy supporters eager to bankroll his presidential ambitions, and he has the potential to energize a Republican donor class that has shown only limited enthusiasm for the candidates already in the race.

In three campaigns for governor, Mr. Perry has raised $102 million, including more than $39 million during his successful 2010 bid for re-election. The Republican Governors Association, of which Mr. Perry is chairman, raised a record $22.1 million during the first half of this year. And in recent months, even as the candidate himself was coy about his presidential ambitions, Mr. Perry’s campaign finance operation has shifted into high gear, holding meetings around the country with dozens of the party’s top uncommitted donors, some of whom have already pledged to raise money for him.

“He is the most successful fund-raiser in the history of Texas politics,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization that tracks campaign spending. “He may be the best in the country. He will have no trouble raising the money he needs for his presidential campaign.”

People familiar with Mr. Perry’s plans say that he would aim to raise up to $10 million within a few weeks of formally entering the race, twice as much as any Republican candidate except for Mitt Romney has raised all year. Mr. Perry’s top “bundlers”— supporters who gather checks from friends, family members and business associates — could be asked to raise as much as $250,000 each, though campaign officials said that hard targets were still in flux.

To jump-start his fund-raising, Mr. Perry will hold events in nine cities between Aug. 29 and Sept. 1, according to an e-mail sent to his top donors Thursday afternoon.

“We are trying to get in the first million dollars of contributions very rapidly, to give the campaign its initial capital so important to get off the ground well,” wrote George Seay, Mr. Perry’s Texas finance chairman.

“From a fund-raising point of view, he looks very formidable,” said Barry D. Wynn, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a top fund-raiser for former president George W. Bush. “He’s battle tested with regards to his gubernatorial race. And I think a number of the people who have been pretty successful raising money for other campaigns are people he’s been able to make contact with.”

Last month, about two dozen current and potential Perry supporters met in Austin with members of the governor’s fund-raising team to discuss a potential run, many of them donors who supported the presidential bids of Mr. Bush or former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York in 2008. Mr. Perry’s aides did not ask for specific dollar commitments at the meeting, participants said, but several volunteered anyway.

“A number of people just volunteered that they were going to do their part in L.A. or San Diego or Palm Beach or Philadelphia or New York,” said Mr. Wynn. “Without being asked, they said, ‘We can do it.’ ”

Mr. Perry’s strength as a fund-raiser reflects, in large part, his lengthy tenure as governor — he is the longest-serving chief executive in Texas history — in a state that is a treasure trove of Republican money and has few restrictions on political giving. And as a sitting governor, he has one advantage that the Republican field’s current top fund-raiser — Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor — no longer enjoys.

In Texas, individual and political action committees may give unlimited contributions to candidates for governor, and Mr. Perry has exploited that leeway to the hilt: according to a study by Texans for Public Justice, fully half of Mr. Perry’s campaign contributions, totalling roughly $51 million, have come from just 204 donors giving $100,000 or more. A single couple, Robert Perry, a Texas homebuilder, and his wife, Doylene, who are not related to the governor, have given Mr. Perry more than $2.5 million over the years.

In a state whose government is fragmented among dozens of commissions, boards, and agencies, Mr. Perry has also raised aggressively from his own appointees, an approach permitted by state law and practiced by governors of both parties. According to Texans for Public Justice, since taking office Mr. Perry has raised more than $17 million from 921 of his appointees or their spouses.

“Democrats and Republicans have traditionally done this,” said Mr. McDonald. “But he’s taken it to a higher level than anyone else.”

In part because federal law caps at $2,500 the amount individuals can give to any one candidate during the primary, Mr. Perry will not be able to raise money nearly as easily as he has in the past. But Mr. Perry’s top donors represent a corps of bundlers-in-waiting that any of his rivals would envy.

And thanks to loose campaign rules in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, whatever money his wealthiest Texas supporters cannot give directly to Mr. Perry could easily end up in the coffers of one of the half-dozen or so “SuperPACs” — technically independent groups that in the wake of the court’s decision can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate — that have been set up in recent weeks by former Perry aides and supporters.

One former Perry aide, Dan Shelley, recently formed two independent expenditure groups, Veterans for Rick Perry and the Jobs for Vets Fund. Another group, Make Us Great Again, was formed with help from Mike Toomey, a former chief of staff to Mr. Perry who is now an Austin lobbyist.

Mr. Perry is also poised to make inroads among donors who had hoped to back either Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, or Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, before each man opted out of running. Many of those donors have relationships with Mr. Perry through his work with the governor’s association.

“In my time around the R.G.A., Perry’s genuinely one of the handful of governors who’s really been active nationally,” said Henry Barbour, Haley Barbour’s nephew and a lobbyist in Mississippi. “So he’s got those relationships, and I think that gives you a confidence.”

Mr. Barbour added: “When you’ve asked people for $100,000, or $250,000, or even a million dollars, you can do this at the national level.”




Next up for Mitt Romney is Rick Perry

Mitt Romney celebrated the final night of an extended summer vacation Thursday, emerging as the uncontested and still unscathed front-runner from an eight-way scrap.

That won’t last long.

The two-hour debate here, the third of the GOP presidential campaign, lacked the candidate who could ultimately present him with his stiffest competition: Rick Perry. Without Perry, and without the candidates taking any significant swipes at Romney, the forum had a preliminary feel to it — which is why the former Massachusetts governor never had to break a sweat.

Perry’s expected entry into the race Saturday will change all that.

The Texas governor may present the last best hope of beating Romney, the tenuous but still dent-free front-runner. And the remaining candidates are already scrapping furiously for a shrinking third-place spot.

Romney offered a glimpse of the race’s next phase with the observation that only he and long-shot Herman Cain “understand how the private sector” works.

“That will be a very effective message against Perry,” predicted former Sen. Jim Talent, a Romney adviser.

Romney’s high command wasn’t ready to directly contrast their candidate’s record with Perry, but they were happy to begin laying the groundwork for a campaign that will portray the decadelong Texas governor as a career politician running at a moment of maximum skepticism toward politicians.

“I think it’s very, very difficult to step into a national race and I think it’s a very difficult time to be running in your third decade in office,” said Romney strategist Stuart Stevens. “People are not looking for, ‘I have experience in government to solve government.”

Stevens also asked if Perry wouldn’t be another in a line of vaunted Texas presidential hopefuls who went bust.

“Is Perry going to be John Connally, is he going to be Phil Gramm — who knows?” he said. “It’s like a first-round draft pick — you just never know.”

Eric Fehrnstrom, another Romney adviser, cited his candidate’s private-sector experience when asked about Perry.

“I don’t want to contrast Mitt’s record with Gov. Perry or anyone else at this point except to say he has led four enterprises,” he said, citing Romney’s two private companies, the Salt Lake City Olympics and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Perry’s top strategist, Dave Carney, would only say of the debate, “There is one clear winner,” an apparent reference to the Texas governor. Perry spokesman Mark Miner declined to comment on Romney’s apparent jab.

But a Perry supporter who has led an unofficial campaign on the Texas governor’s behalf, Robert Schuman, gladly returned fire.

“He was a rancher first,” Schuman said of Perry. “And being a successful governor — as opposed to a mediocre governor — trumps being a successful businessman.”

Even as he emerged unmolested from the debate, Romney’s vulnerabilities were on vivid display earlier in the day Thursday.

“Corporations are people,” he shot back to a heckler at the Iowa State Fair, demonstrating his at-times awkward personal style that makes some in his party wince.

While he doesn’t arrive in Iowa until Sunday, Perry occupied a larger space on the stage than several of the candidates — he was even the subject of a debate question posed to three of them.

“He clearly cast a big shadow over the debate,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a longtime observer of Republican politics, who was in attendance.

Perry will loom just as large Saturday, when Iowa Republicans come back to Ames for the straw poll and the Texan announces his candidacy in South Carolina.

Some high-profile GOP officials in the Hawkeye State did little to hide their irritation over what they see as Perry’s attempt at scene-stealing.

Rep. Steve King, the influential Western Iowa conservative who is close to Rep. Michele Bachmann, suggested Perry’s timing reflects “his strategy to diminish the effect of the straw poll.”

King and other Iowa Republicans predicted that Perry’s abrupt entry and deliberate timing — the Texan will come to this state Sunday for a speech in Bachmann’s native town of Waterloo — would ruffle the feathers of Iowa GOP activists.

“To turn around the next day [after Saturday’s straw poll] and come here to Iowa and go to the very town and the very building where Michele Bachmann was raised and announced her candidacy — that’s a pretty strong statement,” he said. “That’s not going to be considered subtle here in Iowa. That might be subtle in Texas, but it ain’t subtle in Iowa.”

“It can’t help him,” King said of Perry’s bold approach to the state.

With Perry in the wings, the extended, unabashedly negative exchange that took place between Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty on Thursday demonstrated the new urgency of the undercard battle. Bachmann cast Pawlenty as too liberal; Pawlenty cast her as an ineffectual ideologue. Both are playing hard for victory in the straw poll here, and realizing the sudden reality that there may only be one ticket out of Ames.

A senior Bachmann aide, Ed Goeas, told POLITICO that the campaign sees three spaces in the race: One for Romney, whom Bachmann’s aides believe is capped at less than 40 percent of Republican support; one for grass-roots favorite Bachmann; and one for Perry, if his campaign succeeds in taking off. A Pawlenty adviser, meanwhile, argued that Bachmann has the most to lose from Perry’s entry, and that he will cut into her grass-roots base.

“The straw poll might produce the challenger to Perry,” said a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party, Craig Robinson, who now edits theiowarepublican.com. “There’s gonna be one winner on Saturday between the two of them.”

But Perry remains an unknown quantity heading into a crucial weekend. Recent presidential races have shown that highly anticipated new entrants, from Fred Thompson to Wes Clark, sink at least as often as they swim, and Perry’s strategy of competing for attention with the straw poll Saturday could also pull some attention away from one of his few clean shots at media attention.

And for all the anticipation among insiders, he remains largely unheard of in the state.

“They don’t know him,” said former Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen. “He’s creating all this media buzz but they don’t know him.”


View Larger Map

Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, NY Times, Politico, Youtube, Google Maps