Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says the USDA’s black farmer settlement is backdoor “slavery reparations” cooked up by a “very, very urban Senator, Barack Obama.”
The congressional emissaries to the tax cut negotations announced by President Obama this morning have been set.
Anderson Cooper went all UFC on a Republican state representative from Texas who’s a big birther — or was a big birther. After Cooper was done with him, he might have fled to Kenya. Watch.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who Harry Reid put in charge of getting Senate Dems policy and messaging in sync, is pushing hard for a tax plan compromise that would create a new uber-tax bracket for income over $1 million a year. Defining people making $800,000 a year as ‘middle class’ does seem a bit much. But Schumer thinks it will box the Republicans in and there’s some polling data that says he’s right. But Reid, Obama and key Democratic senators aren’t buying it. At least not yet. Brian Beutler has the story.
John McCain is trying to find his way toward a rationale for continuing to oppose the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell even though he’d previously suggested he’s open to repeal in principle and would vote for it if the Pentagon found that it could be done without damaging military readiness. McCain is now arguing that all he cares about are the views of the four service chiefs, especially those of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, rather than the President, the Secretary of Defense or even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mullen — arguing in a rather strained fashion that even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is “not directly in charge of the troops.” (See the Goldwater-Nichols Act for more on this point.)
Once and future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sounds the alarm about Hezbollah infiltration across the US-Mexico border.
The NYT has a great infographic on the top salaries and tax rates of 1941, based on a list compiled at the request of FDR which has been released by the National Archives.
Pay particular attention to No. 4 on the list, one “J.C. Owsley.” The Times has been unable to identify who that is and includes a footnote cautioning that the “names may contain typographical errors by the Treasury.”
Any TPM reader familiar with captains of industry in the early ’40s who might be able to identify who this “J.C. Owsley” is?
David Leonhardt offers this assessment of the political perils supposedly facing Democrats on the Bush tax cuts: Read More
Sometimes you have to step back and just marvel at the madness of it all.
Congressional Democrats, clinging to the last vestiges of their power, are tied in knots over how to pass middle class tax cuts in the face of Republicans howling that the wealthy deserve tax cuts, too.
The White House meanwhile announces that it is undertaking good faith negotiations on tax cuts with those same Republicans who have made clear that they will never support raising taxes on anyone. Ever. Read More
When asked why Sen. McCain incorrectly stated that Sec. of Defense Bob Gates never served in the military, the senator’s office released the following statement to TPM: He “simply misspoke.”