Romney's tax plan: Increase taxes on poor, slash for the wealthy

It's no surprise for someone who doesn't care about the poor. The Romney plan is even more brutal than the Bush plan that kicked the economy. Besides not making any financial sense (there's only so much money that can be generated by the poor - they're poor, after all) it's immoral to continue the brutal assault on those most in need. Bloomberg:

He would also raise taxes on poor families with children at home and those going to college. Romney does this by reducing benefits from the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit and by ending the American Opportunity tax credit for college education. Without these tax breaks, the poorest fifth of taxpayers would pay $157 more in taxes in 2015 than under current policy, the Tax Policy Center says in its analysis of Romney’s plan. The second poorest group would pay $82 more, according to the center, whose past work has been praised by Republicans and Democrats alike. While Romney would make these two groups — the poorest 125 million Americans — pay higher taxes, the top 60 percent all would get tax cuts. The top tenth of one percent would save, on average, $464,000 a year, the Tax Policy Center’s analysis says.

Obama may be weak, too soft on Wall Street, too right wing and generally uninspiring, but the more people see Romney and the rest of the GOP candidates, the better Obama looks. Romney's plan is just more class warfare by the Romney class against everyone else. Haven't we had enough of that? Read the rest of this post...

The most important part of the Prop 8 decision may be the dissent

Liz Newcomb raises an interesting point about the dissent in the Prop 8 decision reached today.

The decision today was a 2-1 decision. As anticipated, Judges Reinhardt (Carter-appointed and very liberal) and Hawkins (Clinton-appointed) went our way. Judge Smith did not. Smith is a George W. Bush appointee who was chairman of Idaho's Republican party before winding up on the 9th Circuit. Smith was by far the most conservative member of the panel. So it is not all that surprising that he was not with us.

However, the inability to bring Smith on board is concerning for me. To understand why, one has to understand that the court issued a narrow ruling that was limited to the peculiar circumstances of California. I welcomed this, because I belong squarely in the camp that thinks that asking the Supremes to make same-sex marriage the law for the entire country at this juncture is a bridge too far. The narrower position that the court took is stronger. The court essentially said that regardless of whether same-sex couples have a due process right to marriage across the board, the situation in California is unconstitutional, because that right was granted and then taken away without good reason.

After watching the hearing, I thought there was a chance Smith might get on board with a narrow ruling and I hoped he would. A unanimous ruling with the support of such a conservative justice would have shown that the issue has the potential to transcend the nasty ideological divide on the court.

But the two more liberal justices didn't persuade him.

In other words, we hope this isn't a bellwether of how the Supreme Court may split when the case finally gets there, if it gets there. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Pathetically bad karate rap song

My favorite part is the sassy geishas.

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Greece preparing to sign yet another bailout deal

Germany and France are unhappy because the deal has not yet been signed, but it's hard to criticize Greece for considering all options (again) with signing up for a $170 billion bailout. They've been here before and there's a high chance of being in this same position again in the near future. The plan involves even more austerity, which means even less growth and more social turbulence. No matter how much cash is shoveled over, will it really be a rescue plan or will it turn out to be financial handcuffs for a generation or more?

Greece's government is preparing the text of an agreement on a 130 billion euro bailout that must be put to political leaders for approval, a Greek government official said, suggesting Athens had largely wrapped up talks with lenders on the rescue. The political leaders are due to discuss that agreement late on Tuesday. "The Greek government is working on the final document that will be discussed at the political leaders' meeting later in the day," a government official, who declined to be named, told reporters.

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UBS chops bonus pool, increases stock

The deals that Big Finance was cranking out for years were often ridiculously large and unsustainable and so were the bonus payouts. Many of these organizations have shifted a lot of pay over to stock so that the deal makers are more deeply tied to the long term success of the business, but it's still unusually high compared to other industries. Long term, even the trimmed compensation plans are well above what the industry (and their investors) can sustain. Bloomberg:

UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest lender, cut its 2011 bonus pool by 40 percent and investment bank chief Carsten Kengeter waived any variable pay entitlement as his division posted a second consecutive quarterly loss. The bonus pool, including pay deferred into future years, fell to 2.57 billion Swiss francs ($2.8 billion), from 4.25 billion francs in 2010, the Zurich-based bank said today. The pool at UBS’s investment bank is down 60 percent. “I don’t see how compensation should stay the same or go up if profitability of the banking industry is going south,” Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti told reporters in Zurich today. “We’re trying to strive for a situation in which both the shareholder and employee can have a win-win situation.”

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Romney's sons have $100 million trust fund

It's good to be da' king. I wonder how much of it is stashed away in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Mitt Romney's five sons -- Matt, Tagg, Craig, Ben and Josh -- are sitting pretty with a trust fund worth $100 million. Getting there took investments that produced great growth, according to the Romney campaign. It also took smart tax strategies. Romney and his wife Ann have been giving to the boys since 1995, and, according to a spokesperson for the Romney campaign, all of their contributions have been below gift-tax contribution limits.

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Syria descends into civil war

The scenes of Assad's forces attacking Homs look very familiar. We saw the same thing over and over in Iraq when US forces used 'shock and awe' tactics. They didn't work for Bush and they probably won't work for Assad. The pro-Assad forces are claiming that the opposition is now firing back, but that is a natural consequence of a regime that fires on unarmed protesters. Eventually the protesters return with guns and start shooting party officials and clerics that support the government.

Assad is precisely the type of dictator that the US has been more than happy to keep in power if they are considered to be on 'our' side. Russia is still playing that game and so it is hardly surprising that they see the US position on Syria to be yet another opportunistic power grab. From the US point of view the US has invaded two countries in the region, toppled the regimes in three more and is looking to do the same in Syria and Iran.

As with unemployment, Syria is a topic that the GOP simply does not want to talk about. Mitt Romney attacked Obama for not calling for Assad to go quite quickly enough for his taste back last year but only wanted rhetoric, not actual military action. Meanwhile there is a steady demand to start a war with Iran, a war that would inevitably be three times the fiasco of Iraq.

If there was any actual sense or strategy to the GOP campaign against Iran they would be all for military action against its only significant ally when the Assad regime is possibly on the brink of collapse. The fall of Assad would be a real defeat for the regime in Tehran. Instead they demand a war on a country that can shut off the world's oil supply and create a global recession.

The reason for this silence is that while AIPAC has a very clear policy against the Iranian regime, they are less keen on regime change closer to home. For AIPAC to thrive, Israel must remain perpetually isolated and insecure, a lone 'democracy' surrounded by dictatorships.

At this point there are no good options. Doing nothing poses a serious risk of Assad murdering tens or even hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters. The 'Free Syrian Army' is not (yet) considered capable of sustaining a campaign against Assad. The US is floating a proposal for a 'coalition of the willing' but is unlikely to find support without UN sanction.

The most likely outcome is that the world will stand by as Assad commits his massacre, then the Russians lose patience and drop their opposition to action by NATO. Meanwhile Syria will descend into civil war and the effects will spread into the neighboring countries. Read the rest of this post...

Appeals court: Prop 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL - full text of the decision

Here's the decision.  This decision, if affirmed by the Supreme Court, could strike down state anti-gay ballot initiatives, and even anti-gay legislation at the local and federal level. Read the rest of this post...

GOP desperate to avoid defense cuts agreed to in automatic trigger

Obama's 'cave' on the debt ceiling increase is starting to look a little different as the GOP realizes that they really do not like the deal they have struck, and they have no leverage to force the President to change it.

Last year, the GOP held the routine debt ceiling limit increase hostage for $1.2 trillion in cuts. At the time the GOP was attempting to brand itself as the party of fiscal prudence. Much to the annoyance of many on the left, President Obama responded by embracing the cause of deficit reduction.

At the time, Obama's move looked ridiculous as the country is in a recession caused by a lack of demand. The last thing the country needs to worry about right now is the risk of inflation.

Fast forward to the present however and it is now the GOP that is complaining about the deal they struck. GOP Senators McCain and Kyl do not want to see any cuts in spending on bullets and bombs, so their first idea was to try to get the White House to agree to just forget about the military cuts. When the White House dismissed that proposal they came back with a proposal to save the military machine by transferring the cuts to the rest of the federal budget instead.

This is how the GOP negotiating strategy collapses when they can't hold the country hostage with a gun to its head. The McCain/Kyl proposals all offer something that the President probably doesn't want in return for something he wants to avoid.  Heads I win, tails you lose.

The GOP now has a choice, they can either agree to tax the rich at the same rate as everyone else, or they have to live with the consequences of the steep cuts in military spending they demanded. And even though the full impact of those cuts will fall in future years, the Department of Defense is going to be planning for those cuts right now.

So the net effect is that in an election year, President Obama will take credit for being serious about the need to tackle the budget deficit with spending cuts and a tax policy that taxes Mitt Romney at least as much as the rest of us, and will blame the GOP for the specific spending cuts that they demanded. Meanwhile, the GOP's ability to claim credit for the $1.2 trillion in cuts they demanded has been undermined by the attempt by MCCain/Kyl and others to weasel out of their side of the bargain.

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GOP anti-abortion activist Karen Handel angrily quits Komen, contradicts CEO Brinker

Good riddance.  Now what about CEO Nancy Brinker, who hasn't exactly been contrite the past week?

The AJC has her letter of resignation, and Handel is ticked - and full of herself. Here's a snippet of her letter:

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants. [emphasis added]

What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.

Woah, Nelly. So Nancy Brinker is a liar?  That's what Handel is saying?  Because Handel just said in her letter that the decision to drop Planned Parenthood was in fact motivated in part by "the need to distance Komen from the controversy."  Yet Brinker said the other night, in her infamous YouTube address, that this was simply a matter of Komen no longer funding pass-through grants.  So is Handel a liar?  Is Brinker a liar?

One more thing.  Handel, Ms. "I will defund Planned Parenthood" GOP Activist, is suddenly complaining about other people bringing politics into this.  Sorry, Karen, but you chose to appease the far right - of which you are a proud card-carrying member - and you got caught.  And in typical Republican fashion, you figure it's not "politics" when you're playing politics, it's only "politics" when you get caught.

Cry me a pink river. Read the rest of this post...

Was the Komen backlash the women’s movement’s Arab Spring?

Gloria Feldt, the former head of Planned Parenthood (and a colleague I respect a great deal) says yes. From Gloria, writing in the Daily Beast:

The political dots connected directly: from the appointment of avidly anti-abortion activist, former Georgia secretary of state, and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel as a Komen senior executive to Rep. Stearns’s conveniently timed investigation, to the new policy announced then retracted by Brinker. The Republican right is out of control, the War on Women is in full battle formation, and it was finally time for women—and men—to be mad as hell and stand up to the bullies. To have our Tahrir Square moment.

At last, women saw enough red to get over the pink, the fear and the preference to play victim rather than to embrace our own power.

And that’s exactly how to stand down both ideologues who are terrified of women getting a fair shake, and the small but powerful fringe obsessed with other people’s sex lives. Embracing our power is how to overcome the shaming and false allegations toward women’s human right to make their own childbearing decisions and reproductive health services that have saved the lives of everyday women, pro-life in the largest sense of that word. It is how to overcome the right’s demonization of anyone who doesn’t toe its narrow conservative line, whether it’s racist attacks on President Obama’s citizenship, intolerance of gays and lesbians, or disrespect for the moral capacity of women. To borrow the right-wing’s favorite book, Atlas isn’t going to take it anymore; we’re making a collective shrug on this one.

I got to know Gloria Feldt while consulting for Planned Parenthood in the early 2000s. They were one of the few organizations in town that was willing to do what it takes to win. And that was in large part because of Gloria. Sadly, I've rarely seen that kind of political chutzpah replicated in other organizations since. Read the rest of this post...

Are we being set up for war with Iran?

A number of stories like those below are turning up all in one week, and it's caught my eye, among others. Is someone "preparing the battlefield" of American public opinion?

Foreign Affairs:

Al Qaeda in Iran
Why Tehran is Accommodating the Terrorist Group

The article answers the "why?" question in a way you don't expect, but the headline has a Bush-like scream — Al-Qaeda; Iran; Get it? (Unlike the two examples below, this is not a news item. If Seth Jones is carrying someone's water, his name may be worth remembering.)

Washington Post, same week:

Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds

An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb.

The source here is Congressional testimony by Obama DNI James Clapper, so the article is news. (The man to note is Clapper.) The article also mentions that "thwarted plot" to kill the Saudi ambassador, a story some have found wanting.

Wired.com, still same week:

Iran Now a ‘Top Threat’ to U.S. Networks, Spy Chief Claims

American officials have complained for years that U.S. networks were crawling with Russian and Chinese hackers. On Tuesday, the nation’s top intelligence official told Congress that there’s a new danger to America’s information security: Iran. Too bad he didn’t provide much evidence to back up the claim.

Et tu, Wired? Yes, there's a disclaimer. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, that disclaimer is 988 words short of this picture.

Note that the Foreign Policy and Wired articles include disclaimers of a type, but the stories got scheduled and placed nonetheless, and with those headlines (all that most people read). The combined effect of those stories and headlines, and others like them with different hooks, is "Be very afraid of Scary Iran." Sound familiar?

Is a new product being rolled out? Fall product season starts after Labor Day. Spring season starts after New Years.

If we are being set up for war, let's ask a few questions, starting with: By whom? The candidate list is long:

  ▪ Some group of Democrats, including elements of the administration? (See Clapper's involvement above; also this from Leon Panetta, Obama's Pentagon chief.)

  ▪ Elements within the Pentagon, trying to move the needle? (Is there only one McChrystal in McChrystal-land?)

  ▪ Some group of Republicans (the Sheldon Adelsons of the world), working with or without a candidate's foggy support group? (For a prior example of this kind of interacton, involving John McCain, Randy Scheunemann, the 2008 campaign, and the nation of Georgia, try here and here.)

  ▪ The NeoCons, making a comeback? (AEI is on this too.)

  ▪ The Israelis — the government, their surrogates, or others? (Too obvious a perp to need a link.)

  ▪ Some combination of the above?

If this were a novel, watching these machinations would be fascinating. That's a large list of people with sharp elbows and a common purpose.

A second question: Will we fall for it? There are stories that, under Bush II, Admiral Fallon and others were responsible for stopping Cheney's Iranian war plans. Will Kill Iran, Part Deux succeed?

The consequences for getting this wrong are huge. As I wrote earlier, if we go for it, we may not win:

This really matters. It would change the world. If we get this one wrong, we'll be at war with someone who can bring the war back to us, to our Midwestern towns and suburban malls. The population of Iran is more than double that of Iraq (Iran is the 17th most populous nation on Earth). It has four times the GDP of Iraq. It's not peopled by tribesmen and sheepherders alone, but contains a great many urbanized professionals.

Iran is a society that, if pushed to war against the West, will go. The secret services in Iran include groups like the Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basij. The last two groups alone are more than 200,000 strong. Ugly as they are in that spy-vs-spy way (are we more pretty?), they could easily bring the global war to our cities as a regular feature. Imagine Omaha or Moline getting the Tel Aviv treatment. There are lots of Molines. Is that a world you'd choose to live in?

Imagine the oil shocks after sabotage bombings in the Persian Gulf. Imagine oil priced in euros on an Iranian bourse. Imagine security checkpoints in every mall in America after the first couple of bombings. Imagine the eager, muscular overreaction of our national security protectors. Imagine the budget for war on steroids.

And please, let's not imagine that if the Israelis bomb Iran for us, we won't be blamed. If you were Iran, would you not strike at the source first, and the client after? We struck at Al Qaeda by taking down Kabul.

The Iranians might just decide to bypass the client and strike the puppet-master. Unless you think the puppet-master is Israel, that puts us — you, me and our shopping malls — in the cross-hairs.

If this is an op, who's placing all these stories? Is this pre-Iraq all over again?

If it is, let's hope Ms. Clinton is on the side of peace and the angels — along with some of our other generals — and that Mr. Predator Drone will get his post-Super Bowl militarism thrill in other ways.

GP Read the rest of this post...

If it’s Tuesday, it must be "pro-life" Romney

Flipper Romney is at it again.  This time, he's "pro-life" and siding with Susan G. Komen for the Cure in their political spat with Planned Parenthood. Romney also said he wants the government to cut off all funds to Planned Parenthood. HuffPost notes that this wasn't exactly Flipper's position ten years ago.

Romney has a long way to go to convince conservatives of his anti-abortion credentials. He emphasized in the interview on Monday that he is a "pro-life individual" and was a "pro-life governor." Nevertheless, he sought Planned Parenthood's endorsement during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign, attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser, and answered in a Planned Parenthood questionnaire that he supported state-funded abortions.

It wasn't exactly Flipper's position back in 2005 either, when he was so pro-choice he pre-dated President Obama in demanding that insurance companies cover contraceptives.

Mitt Romney accused President Obama this week of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience,’’ referring to a White House decision that requires all health plans - even those covering employees at Catholic hospitals, charities, and colleges - to provide free birth control. But a review of Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor shows that he once took a similar step.

In December 2005, Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion.

Ever wonder how Romney justifies lying about pretty much every position he's ever held in public life?

PS The title of this post, "If it's Tuesday, it must be 'pro-life' Romney" is a reference to something that happened to me when I was working in the US Senate back in the late 80s, early 90s.  I was in an elevator, and the door opened, someone got up, and it was taking a few seconds for the door to close again.  All of a sudden, a certain well-known, boisterously ethnic northeastern Republican Senator hurried by with a few aides in tow.  One of the aides said to the Senator, just before our door closed, "remember Senator, today you're pro-choice."  I'll never forget the moment.  The other guy in the elevator and I just started howling.  It's the perfect encapsulation of what politics is for far too many people, including Mitt Romney. Read the rest of this post...