Fox calls for repeal of the 20th century

From media maters: Since President Obama's election, Fox personalities have expressed opposition to or called for the repeal of virtually every progressive achievement of the 20th century, including Social Security, Medicare, the Americans with Disabilities Act, portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid

Social Security is a federal social insurance program funded through payroll taxes that provides benefits to the elderly and disabled and their survivors. It was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935. Medicare and Medicaid were established by the Social Security Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. They provide health insurance to the elderly and the poor. All three programs have been defended by progressives and opposed by conservatives for decades.

Beck: Social Security and Medicare "represent socialism and should have never been created." On the January 27 edition of his Fox News program, Glenn Beck said:

Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should have never been created in the first place? Oh, gosh, Democrats, this is a scary question. Another trap. You know what? It's only scary if you don't know who you are or what you believe in.

I'm an American. I read. I believe in the Constitution. And, of course, Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should have never been created. Since FDR and his progressive buddies started Social Security, not our Founding Fathers, that should be fairly obvious to people.

Beck's "Plan": Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are "going away." On the April 12 edition of his Fox News program, promoting the next day's show about his "Plan" for entitlement spending, Beck said: "Tomorrow, we're going to roll up our sleeves and begin. We're going to cut health care. Right now, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are 40 percent of our budget. They're going away. It's going to be ugly, a lot of crying, but America needs a cure."

Tucker Carlson: "Unfortunately" Republicans won't "state unequivocally" they "want to do away with" Medicare and "most" Social Security. On the April 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity (accessed from the Nexis database), Fox News contributor Bob Beckel asked Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson, "Why don't you just state unequivocally that you want to do away with Medicare, which is what the Republicans want to do, and do away with most Social Security?" Carlson replied, "Unfortunately, they don't. Unfortunately, they don't. Unfortunately, most Republicans in positions of elected authority are unwilling to -- are unwilling to look right in the camera and say, 'We're going to have to pull back on entitlements.' "

Bolling is glad the young will have to work rather than rely on the "Ponzi scheme" of Social Security. On the July 24 edition of Fox News' Bulls & Bears, Fox Business host Eric Bolling said that "it's good" that a poll indicates that many young adults don't expect to receive Social Security -- which he called a "Ponzi scheme" -- because "they realize that they're not going to be able to suck at the teat of the nanny state too much longer, get off their butt, work, put some money away, and not have to rely on a system that's going to fold probably by the time they collect a check." On the August 14, 2009, edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, Bolling said "they should rename it the Madoff Social Security system."

Hannity relentlessly pushes false claim that Social Security and Medicare are "bankrupt." Since January 1, Sean Hannity has falsely claimed that Social Security is "bankrupt" or will shortly become bankrupt at least ten times, and falsely claimed Medicare is "bankrupt" or on the verge of bankruptcy at least 11 times. In fact, according to the 2010 report from the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, Social Security is estimated to pay out full benefits "by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084." The report likewise says of Medicare, "The projected date of HI [Hospital Insurance] Trust Fund exhaustion is 2029 ... at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 85 percent of HI costs. The share of HI expenditures that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues is projected to decline slowly to 76 percent in 2045 and then to rise slowly, reaching 89 percent in 2084."

17th Amendment

The 17th Amendment provides for the direct election of U.S. Senators, rather than their selection by state legislators. It was passed by Congress with the support of progressives and submitted to the states in 1912 under President William Howard Taft. It was ratified under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Recently, tea party activists and Republican members of Congress have called for its repeal.

Napolitano: "I would repeal the 17th Amendment." In an interview with Reason magazine published April 8, Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano was asked what he considered "the single most important reform." He replied, "I would repeal the 17th Amendment," which he called "unconstitutional" because it "abolished bicameralism." He added that the amendment "was an assault, an invasion on the infrastructure of constitutional government."

Huckabee: 17th Amendment "one of the dumbest things we ever did." On the October 16, 2009, edition of Fox News Radio's Brian & The Judge, Fox News host Mike Huckabee said that Republicans should consider calling for the repeal of the 16th Amendment, then said that we should "talk about -- this is one of those things that senators would never agree, but one of the dumbest things we ever did in this country was the 17th Amendment." He added:

The original Constitution and the way we operated for the first 120 years of our existence, senators were appointed by state legislators to represent the broader interests of the states to make sure the federal government didn't take too much power into itself. And most people don't even remember that. But we have had an increasing problem of too much centralization of federal power at the expense of local and state governments -- the antithesis of our Constitution -- because we've put all this power in the popular election of senators and representatives.

Beck: Wilson "supported" amendment, "when I see Woodrow Wilson, I immediately know -- bad thing!" On the June 11 edition of his Fox News show, Beck said of the 17th Amendment, "Like all bad things it started in 1913, Woodrow Wilson yet again. He supported this. Immediately now, when I see Woodrow Wilson, I immediately know -- bad thing! You can be quite certain that something is not going to have a good outcome if Woodrow Wilson was involved." He also commented that "Thomas Jefferson warned about" direct representation, and said that that absent the 17th Amendment, "Obama's health care bill would have never seen the light of day. A lot of things that they do in Washington would never have seen the light of day. Why? Because it wouldn't in the interest of your state." Beck later added that "it's taken them over 200 years to remove all those roadblocks, but they're almost done. Maybe it's time to put a few of them back."

16th Amendment

The 16th Amendment allows Congress to collect income taxes. It was passed by Congress and submitted to the states in 1909 and ratified in 1913, both under President Taft. Republican congressmen have called for the amendment's repeal.

Huckabee: "I think we ought to talk about repealing the 16th Amendment." On the October 16, 2009, edition of Fox News Radio's Brian & The Judge, Huckabee said, "I think we ought to talk about repealing the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the IRS."

Napolitano has repeatedly called for "floating" a constitutional amendment that "abolishes the 16th Amendment." On the April 28, 2009, edition of Glenn Beck (accessed from Nexis), Napolitano said, "How about floating a constitutional amendment amongst the states? Let's rescind the 16th Amendment. That's the income tax. If 25, 30 states start thinking about it and talking about it seriously, the Congress will take note because they will be scared to death it will starve them out of existence. And they won't be able to regulate progressively or retrogressively how we live." Likewise, on the May 6, 2009, edition of The Glenn Beck Program, asked by Beck about "this solution that you and I have talked about on a constitutional amendment, or a threat of a constitutional amendment," Napolitano said:

If two-thirds of the states ask the Congress to call a constitutional convention to consider the adoption of this amendment, which I'll describe in a moment, as it gets closer and closer to the two-thirds necessary and Congress would be required to call the convention, you'll see some reaction on the part of congress to attempt to placate the states that want to call this. Now, the constitutional amendment is a simple one. It simply abolishes the 16th Amendment and states affirmatively that Congress shall have no power to tax the personal incomes of individual persons. If that were enacted, it would starve the federal government back into the original footprint that the founders intended for it. But as it gets closer to enactment, Congress will have to do something for fear that it might be enacted.

Americans with Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), originally sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and then-Representative Tony Coehlo (D-CA) and signed by President George H.W. Bush, "prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities." Recently, it has been attacked by conservative pundits and candidates.

Stossel: "well-intentioned" ADA "unleashed a landslide of lawsuits," "requires that people be treated unequally." In his September 1 column, Stossel attacked the ADA, saying that it "requires that people be treated unequally" by requiring employers to accommodate disabled employees. He added:

The law has also unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by "professional litigants" who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses.

Stossel: ADA is "doing the disabled more harm than good." On the September 2 edition of Fox & Friends, Stossel said that the ADA is "doing the disabled more harm than good." Stossel said that "all these laws mean well," but that "these laws always have unintended consequences, and often they are worse than the good that the law was supposed to do."

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- signed by President Lyndon Johnson and opposed by then-Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater -- "prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal."

Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act. On the May 20 edition of Fox News' America Live, Stossel said that "it's time now to repeal" the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination by private businesses, "because private business ought to get to discriminate."

Stossel repeatedly defended his advocacy for a right to discriminate. Stossel reiterated his call to eliminate the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act in two FoxBusiness.com blog posts, on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and in his syndicated column.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Johnson after he "issued a call for a strong voting rights law," outlawed a number of discriminatory voting practices, including requiring literacy tests as a prerequisite for voting.

Briggs: Enforcement of Voting Rights Act "not a proper use of funds." During the August 31 edition of Fox & Friends, guest host Dave Briggs claimed that the Department of Justice "is demanding" that election officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, "print ballots in Spanish," and said, "The cost, again, $500,000 estimated, for what some say is 6,000 voters, which does sound like not a proper use of funds." He then asked a guest, "But, beyond that, I mean, do you think this is something that is absolutely required, is necessary, in our country?" According to media reports, at issue is a provision of federal law originally enacted in the Voting Rights Act explicitly protecting the right to vote of Puerto Rican voters educated in U.S. schools regardless of their ability to understand English.

Nuclear arms control

For decades, presidents of both parties negotiated and signed treaties with the Soviet Union (later Russia) to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both nations. President Ronald Reagan, who signed the START I treaty, repeatedly stated that his "ultimate goal" was the "total elimination of nuclear weapons." More recently, conservatives have panned President Obama's new START treaty, which would further reduce nuclear arsenals, and even questioned the importance of nuclear reductions in the first place.

Hannity: "We must not dismantle our nuclear weapons," "we can never return to a world" without them. In Sean Hannity's 2010 book, Conservative Victory, Hannity writes:

[W]e must be committed to retaining our position as the world's greatest superpower, by maintaining the world's strongest military and supporting our troops on and off the battlefield. We must not dismantle our nuclear weapons and must persist in perfecting our strategic missile defenses. [Page 222]

He also writes:

Conservatives, on the other hand, recognize that we live in a dangerous world, and that the world will always be dangerous because human beings are fallen. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle; the world has changed; much as we would like, we can never return to a world without nuclear weapons. [Page 209]

Abortion rights

In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, and in the second and third trimesters under certain circumstances. Since then, progressives have traditionally argued in favor of the decision and the right it preserved, while conservatives have opposed it.

Napolitano compared Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott case. On the April 28, 2009, edition of Glenn Beck, Napolitano said:

Dred Scott is a slave who was taken to a free state, Illinois, and while there, sues for his freedom. The case goes up and down, up and down. It finally goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could have said slavery is lawful. The Supreme Court could have said all human beings are free and he's free.

Instead it said, blacks are not persons and therefore don't have the right to bring lawsuits. This horrific determination by a court that a class of human beings are denied personhood -- fast forward a hundred years -- is the same logic the Supreme Court used in Roe versus Wade -- babies in the wombs are not persons.

Hannity calls for "protecting the lives of the innocent unborn" by "striving for the appointment of Constitution-respecting judges." In Conservative Victory, Hannity writes:

I certainly can't, in good conscience, make a raw political calculation about protecting the lives of the innocent unborn as casually as if we were talking about a no-smoking ban in a restaurant. We must continue to press for restrictions on abortion (such as parental notification) while striving for the appointment of Constitution-respecting judges and continuing our nonpolitical efforts to persuade Americans of the horrors and immorality of abortion. [Page 152]

Ingraham: "49 million babies have been aborted since Roe versus Wade. Five abortion doctors. It's all killing and it's all terrible." On the June 4, 2009, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, contributor Laura Ingraham said (accessed from Nexis):

[W]hen you talk about the issue of abortion, and someone killing an abortion doctor, that allows you to create sympathy for the entire abortion movement. And 60,000 dead as you pointed out by the hands of George Tiller. Five abortion doctors have been killed since Roe versus Wade. Five.

Now it's horrible, but 49 million babies have been aborted since Roe versus Wade. Five abortion doctors. It's all killing and it's all terrible.

O'Reilly repeatedly called Dr. Tiller "the baby killer." On numerous instances in 2009, Bill O'Reilly referred to Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller as "Tiller the baby killer." After Tiller's murder, O'Reilly repeatedly falsely claimed that he had only "reported" anti-abortion groups referring to Tiller in that fashion.

Labor unions

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act "to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices." Labor unions have long been part of the progressive coalition, while conservatives have worked to limit their right to bargain collectively.

Regular Fox segment: "Unions: Can America Afford Them?" Fox News and Fox Business regularly run segments titled, "Unions: Can America Afford Them?"

Varney: Unions are "the antithesis of freedom," "fortunately" private sector unions "have retreated," but public sector unions are still a "problem." On the September 4 edition of Fox Business' Freedom Watch, asked by Napolitano for his "observations from your native country in England" about whether "unions help or hurt the average worker," Varney replied: "Unions were a disaster for the British economy. They are the antithesis of freedom. They impose rigid workplace rules that have no place in a modern economy." Later, Varney commented: "Fortunately, unions have retreated in the private sector. It is in the public sector where they rule, and that is the nature of some of our problems." He added that "taxpayers" and "the concept of freedom and liberty" "suffer" from the existence of unions.

Kristol: "Thank God most of the workforce isn't unionized." On the October 18, 2009, edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, contributor Bill Kristol declared: "Thank God most of the workforce isn't unionized."

Beck says unions have "raped" police and fire fighters. On the August 4 edition of his radio program, Glenn Beck said of unions: "Look what they've done to the police and firemen. They've raped these guys. Along with politicians. Along with politicians -- raped them. The bravest among us." Beck went on to ask, "What, do you think the politicians are not in bed with the unions?"

Beck blames unions for woes of local governments and industries. On the February 25 edition of The Glenn Beck Program, Beck blamed unions for the financial woes of local governments, the auto industry, airlines, schools, the steel industry, and the textile industry. He continued: "Mr. President, until you get the unions out of this business, I don't think we have anything to talk about."

Beck regularly attacks union members as "thugs." On numerous occasions on both his Fox News and radio programs, Beck has referred to union members as "thugs" or "enforcers."

Carlson blames cost of living in NYC on "union pensions" and "raising taxes" for "schools." On the August 5 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson asserted that the cost of living in New York City, California, and Honolulu is "so expensive" "because of union pensions; because of raising costs for other things; for raising taxes along the way for schools." Carlson concluded: "If you go back in history and look at who incorporated a lot of that, maybe the blame comes right back to the same party. Or maybe it doesn't."

Cavuto tells union spokesman: "You politely do your Tony Soprano thing, albeit in your little sweater vest there." During the January 11 edition of Your World, Stewart Acuff of the Utility Workers Union of America appeared to discuss union leader opposition to a tax on health care plans backed by President Obama. Host Neil Cavuto told Acuff: "You politely do your Tony Soprano thing, albeit in your little sweater vest there, 'cause you're such a decent guy, but you're saying 'Mr. President, may I remind you that you are sitting in this room because of us.' Which is a very nice way of saying, 'Tread slowly, big guy.' "

Cavuto likened unions to Hurricane Earl on a "collision course on our towns." During the September 2 edition of Your World, Cavuto compared unions to Hurricane Earl, saying, "The monster and the mess. Your World on top of Earl's collision course with our coast and what could be unions' collision course with our towns." Cavuto added: "And get ready for Earl's wallop and, to hear some state and local governments tell it, unions' direct hit on their wallet."

Department of Education

The Department of Education was established by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and serves to "to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access." Conservatives have long called for the Department's dissolution.

Beck's "Plan": "[A]bolish the Department of Education." On the April 14 edition of his Fox News show, while detailing his "Plan" for the U.S. budget, Beck said: "We need to get control of our schools back to the parents, back to the states. The best way to do this is to abolish the Department of Education. We certainly don't need to be giving them more money. The federal government should only be responsible for the things that the states cannot do."

Unemployment insurance

The Federal Unemployment Tax Act, signed by President Roosevelt in 1939, together with the Social Security Act of 1935, established the modern U.S. system of unemployment insurance, in which employers pay payroll taxes to the federal and state governments which are used by the states to finance benefits to those who become unemployed through no fault of their own. Conservatives have often attacked the system of unemployment insurance as well as those who receive unemployment benefits.

Varney seizes on claim that "unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent," if Congress hadn't "extended unemployment benefits." On the August 31 edition of Fox & Friends, Varney cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Harvard economics professor and Hoover Institute senior fellow Robert Barro to claim that, in Varney's words, "If we had not extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks, [Barro] says, unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent." According to Varney, Barro argued that "you extend benefits like this, and it discourages people from going out to look for work especially, you know, the start of the benefit period, because it's nearly two years." Barro's theory and similar claims -- that extending unemployment benefits in the current recession provide a disincentive for people to find work -- have been widely disputed by experts.

Kilmeade: "Maybe" eliminating "unemployment benefits will get people to sober up" and get jobs. On the July 15 edition of Fox & Friends, referencing Senate Republicans who had blocked extending unemployment benefits, co-host Brian Kilmeade told Partnership Staffing Inc. CEO Bill Auchmoody that "maybe" the elimination of "unemployment benefits will get people to sober up and take some of your offers."

Hannity falsely suggested Fed said unemployment benefit extension increased ranks of those without jobs. On the February 22 edition of his show, Hannity claimed that the economic recovery act "actually raised unemployment," citing minutes from a January Federal Reserve meeting to falsely suggest that the extension of unemployment benefits in the recovery act increased the number of people who don't have jobs. In fact, the Federal Reserve minutes Hannity cited actually stated that the provision had the effect of raising the measured unemployment rate because people who lost their jobs sought to remain in the workforce in order to receive benefits rather than leaving the workforce and being counted as "discouraged workers" instead of "unemployed."

Bolling: Unemployment benefits are about "allowing someone to stay out of work for longer." On the February 11 edition of Your World, Christian Dorsey of the Economic Policy Institute explained to guest host Bolling how unemployment benefits provide economic stimulus and create jobs. Bolling replied, "Had you told me that some of the tax credits, or the payroll tax holidays were a good thing, I probably would have agreed with you, but when you tell me that another entitlement program -- allowing someone to stay out of work for longer -- and you tell me that's a job creator, I'm just going to have to disagree with you."

Beck: Unemployed workers who don't take low-paying jobs have "sold their soul" to the government." On the August 12 edition of his radio show, Beck said that "you now have people who are on unemployment, but they wont' take another job," purportedly because they pay less than unemployment benefits. Beck said that those people "have sold their soul to the government, they have sold their pride."

Beck on "some" protesting expiration of unemployment benefits: "I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans." On the August 16 edition of his Fox News show, Beck discussed a protest of "99ers," people whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out after 99 weeks. Beck said:

The 99ers. These people, some of which I -- frankly, I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans. They think that 99 weeks on unemployment benefits just aren't enough. Last week, they went out to Wall Street and they protested. Ninety-niner Connie Kaplan asked, "Are you going to tell us, Mr. President and Congress, that our lives are not worth saving?"

Connie, here's an idea. I'll save your life. Don't spend your remaining money on travel to get to a protest. Go out and get a job. You may not want the job. Work at McDonald's. Work two jobs.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 under President Richard Nixon and works to "protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment -- air, water and land -- upon which life depends." Its work has long been opposed by conservatives.

Gingrich: EPA "needs to be replaced." In his 2010 book, To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Fox contributor Newt Gingrich writes: "The EPA has become an engine of undemocratic bureaucracy filled with people who seek to impose their fanatical views on an unwilling American population. The EPA and its entire regulation-litigation, Washington-centered, command-and-control bureaucracy needs to be replaced." (Page 151)

Gingrich does not explain in the book what he proposes to replace the EPA with. Asked that question during a May 17 interview on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich did not answer directly, instead saying:

Well, first of all, in the case of the Environmental Protection Agency, you have a -- you have a bureaucracy which is self- selected of people who believe they have the right to make the most amazing micro-management judgments around the whole country.

And if you look at the degree to which they now issue rules, believe they can regulate the entire carbon economy -- and again, you want to talk about socialism. How about having a government agency of unelected people who decide they can literally rewrite the entire economy based on carbon?

And I think it's very hard to reform an agency which has spent two generations recruiting people who are more and more anti-business, more and more anti-commercial activity, and who represent a value system that's very hard to deal with.

Progressive taxation

Liberals traditionally support progressive taxation, in which those with less income are taxed at a lower rate than those with higher incomes. Conservatives have opposed that system of taxation in favor of "flat taxes" in which everyone pays the same tax rate.

Beck lashed out at "protected poor" taking tax money from the rich. On the January 12 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck used pie as a prop to show how the "protected poor" in the "bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend" while the "evil rich people" in the top one percent of income earners pay much more:

Here's the pie. This represents all of the money that we have in the federal government, all the taxes that are paid. Well, let's see who isn't paying their fair share. You decide. Is it the top 1 percent? This is the entire budget, all of our revenue, all of our revenue. How much do the top 1 percent pay?

Only -- only about this much. That's it. Only -- it's gonna be -- if I can get underneath here, and it's going to be yummy. Only about this much. That's the top 1 percent. Oh, I hate those evil rich people! When will they pay their fair share? This again is 1 percent. OK?

Now, how about the top 2 percent to the top 10 percent? OK? So, this would include the 1 percent here and the rest of them in the top 10 percent. That would be -- let's see -- that would be about here. We have from 2 percent to 10 percent, they're paying -- hmm, doesn't the pie look yummy now? I want some, seriously. OK, so that's -- this is the top 10 percent. So, I got to put 10 people in the pie. That's 10 people.

Now, we've got now 71 percent of the pie. The top 50 percent of pie- eaters account for -- now, this is the rest of the top 50 percent -- and that's going to be these people. Got it? We got to put 50 people to pay for that piece of pie. One, nine, fifty.

This represents the bottom 50 percent. They pay -- do I have any more? Yes. They pay the bottom 3 percent. OK? So, don't you hate this one guy? Oh, my gosh, he's just not paying enough. Got it? He's paying 40 percent.

Now, the top -- the bottom 3 percent I have to -- I have to let you know, the bottom 50 percent, that 3 percent, they pay -- the bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend. The rest of it is put in a protected poor pie place. They got their own pie, never even touched. In fact, from time to time -- it's so great -- from time to time, we just whip people up in such a frenzy where we're like, "I hate those people. Give them some pie!" Every year, we just give them some of the more -- yeah, we just give it to them, because we hate the top 1 percent. We just take more of their pie and we put it in the protected zone now.

Nobody, nobody could get in the protected zone. No! Don't take the poor pie. It's these people that we hate. These people are good. Got it?

Hannity repeatedly makes false complaint that "half of Americans ... don't pay taxes." Sean Hannity has complained over and over that "50 percent of American households no longer pay taxes," using the purported fact to ask, "What does that mean for America if you have a voting electorate that's not paying any taxes?" In fact, while 47 percent of U.S. households will reportedly pay no federal income tax in fiscal 2010, as the Associated Press noted, "[t]he vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property."

Republican operative recruits ‘street people’ as Green Party candidates

By John Byrne

A Republican political operative in Arizona has taken the third-party to the third degree: he's now recruiting candidates to run on the Green Party ticket in an effort to dilute support for statewide Democratic candidates.

And he's recruiting candidates on the street -- candidates with no political experience whatsoever.

The recruiter -- Steve May -- has some political experience of his own. He's been an Arizona lawmaker, and was embroiled in a national political spotlight after being hunted down for being gay under the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law, which prevents gay servicemembers from being out of the closet.

"Benjamin Pearcy, a candidate for statewide office in Arizona, lists his campaign office as a Starbucks," the New York Times' Mark Lacey reports. "The small business he refers to in his campaign statement is him strumming his guitar on the street. The internal debate he is having in advance of his coming televised debate is whether he ought to gel his hair into his trademark faux Mohawk."

Pearcy is pictured at center in the picture above (photograph by the Times).

"Mr. Pearcy, 20, is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees public utilities, railroad safety and securities regulation," Lacey adds. "Although Mr. Pearcy says he is taking his first run for public office seriously, the political establishment here views him as nothing more than a political dirty trick."

May says he's just helping the democratic process along. He's a onetime Arizona legislator and Army Lieutenant who was pursued under the Army's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law in 1999. May's service was ultimately restored by President Bill Clinton.

“Did I recruit candidates? Yes,” May told Lacey. “Are they fake candidates? No way.”

Democrats say otherwise.

“These are people who are not serious and who were recruited as part of a cynical manipulation of the process,” Paul Eckstein, a Democratic lawyer, was quoted as saying. “They don’t know Green from red.”

Notes Lacey, "Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates."

May was introduced to the street crowd by "a one-armed pregnant woman named Roxie," Lacey avers.

His other candidates include a tarot card reader "with less than a dollar to his name" and a 53-year-old "whose bushy white beard and paternal manner have earned him" the name Grandpa on the streets.

Montana Tea Party Leader Fired For Advocating Violence Against Gays — But Is Backed By State GOP Candidate

By George Zornick Up until Sunday, Tim Ravndal was the president of the The Big Sky Tea Party Association, a prominent Montana Tea Party group. He was removed from that position, however, after apparently endorsing violence against gays and citing the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard on his Facebook page.

On July 23, Ravndal declared his opposition to gay marriage in a Facebook status update. Another user replied: “I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions.” Ravndal then responded: “Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?”

The post was deleted, but here is a screenshot of their exchange:

In 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was beaten and tied to a fence post. Police said Shepard was attacked because he was gay. The almost inescapable conclusion is that Ravndal and the other user were referencing that murder, especially when the other user replies to Ravndal that he should be able to find Wyoming’s “manual” in newspaper archives “a bit over ten years” ago.

Ravndal now says he “never made the connection” between the Wyoming reference and Shepard’s murder. Nevertheless, the Big Sky Tea Party Association’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to remove him. However, the organization’s secretary, Kristi Allen-Gailushas — who is also a Republican candidate for Montana’s state senate — continues to back Ravndal, and defended his comments. On Sept. 3, she posted this to his Facebook page:

No matter what you guys say, Tim is a great American and Patriot. He does have a right to say what he wants. I know that he didn’t mean it, but in the heat of his anger with the ACLU might not have realized what he was saying. The people who are in the TEA party movement are called names all of the time. Racist, extreimest….you name it. Tolerance needs to be done on both sides especially the homosexual side. There isn’t any tolerance for people who have a different opinion than yours. If we say yes to gay marriage where does it stop? The people who want to have more than one spouse will be next and that is against the law. The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, are we now going to change the definition?

Allen-Gailushas subsequently wrote on Facebook, “The Gay community wants a war….they’ve got one!!” Clarifying later, she added, “I didn’t mean a literal gun war, but a war of the truth and the hypocrisy they espouse.”

Hate Pastor Behind ‘Burn A Quran Day’ Responds To Petraeus: ‘We Have Firmly Made Up Our Mind’

By Faiz Shakir

As ThinkProgress has reported, the Dove World Church based out of Gainesville, FL, is organizing an “International Burn a Quran Day” on September 11. Gen. David Petraeus warned yesterday that the hate campaign “could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.” Gen. William Caldwell — the commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan — echoed Petraeus’ admonition on CNN yesterday afternoon:

CALDWELL: What I will tell you is that their very actions will in fact jeopardize the safety of the young men and women who are serving in uniform over here and also undermine the very mission that we’re trying to accomplish.

I would hope they would understand that there are second- and third-order — second-, really, and third-order effects that will occur that will affect that young man and woman who’s out there on point for America, serving their nation today, because of their actions back in the United States.

Watch it:

The hate pastor leading the Quran burning is Terry Jones, author of the a book called “Islam Is Of The Devil.” During a combative interview with CNN host Kiran Chetry this morning, Jones seemed unwilling to reconsider his “Burn a Quran Day,” and instead offered his prayers to soldiers who might be put at greater risk:

CHETRY: Are you willing to have the blood of soldiers on your hands by this demonstration?

JONES: Yeah, we are actually very concerned of course. We are taking the General’s words very serious. We are continuing to pray about the action on September the 11th. We are indeed very concerned about it. [...]

CHETRY: So you’re saying you might not well go through with this? [...]

JONES: I am saying we are definitely praying about it. We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it.

Jones said that he is “weighing the situation,” but emphasized that he’s not backing down from the event. During the interview, he repeatedly conceded that he “would indeed offend” Muslims. But, he claimed, “peaceful Muslims” should be supporting his hate campaign. “Moderate Muslims should be on our side,” Jones argued.

Chetry, unable to restrain herself any longer, indignantly responded: “No moderate Muslim’s going to be on your side when you’re burning their holy book! I mean, that just sounds silly.” Watch it:

Already, the planned Quran burning has incited large protests in Afghanistan. “Several hundred Afghans rallied outside a Kabul mosque, burning American flags and an effigy of Dove World’s pastor and chanting ‘death to America.’ Members of the crowd briefly pelted a passing U.S. military convoy with stones, but were ordered to stop by rally organizers.”

On Saturday, 3,000 Muslims marched through Indonesia’s capital and five other cities to protest in front of the U.S. embassy, carrying signs saying, “Jihad to protect Koran” and “You burn Qu’ran you burn in hell.”

Right Wing Freaks Out Over Tea Party Tracking Effort

By Faiz Shakir Just before Glenn Beck’s “non-political” tea party rally on the National Mall less than two weeks ago, the NAACP — in collaboration with ThinkProgress, Media Matters, and New Left Media — launched a site called TeaPartyTracker.org. Consistent with the NAACP’s stated desire to expose the intolerant elements of the tea party, the new site will aggregate and filter content produced by its partners that is related to the core mission of holding the tea parties accountable.

The tea party tracking site has spawned a conspiratorial fit from the right wing. The conservative blog Gateway Pundit sees the effort as a “smear” against the right. Glenn Beck’s new site cautions, “Tea Partiers beware — the NAACP is watching you.” This morning on Fox & Friends, contributor Andrew Napolitano said that because Glenn Beck has assembled “the largest political gathering in the past 40 years,” “suddenly, the left is worried.”

Appearing on CNBC to discuss the CAPAF-sponsored Clean Energy Summit, John Podesta was asked about the tea party tracking effort by conservative host Joe Kernen. Podesta responded, “What we’re trying to do is just really focus on the facts, talk to people, see what they’re for. … We want to have an open dialogue.” Referring to Fox News, he added, “There shouldn’t just be one source of information about the tea parties coming from one of your network rivals.” Watch a compilation:

As frequent readers of our site are well aware, tracking the tea party movement is not something “new” for ThinkProgress. We’ve been monitoring the growth of angry right-wing activism, prior to when it was calling itself the “tea parties.”

This new TeaPartyTracker site will simply aggregate the content that ThinkProgress is already producing. As I explained to the Daily Caller and the Washington Post last week, ThinkProgress will continue to do what it has always done. We aren’t changing our focus or receiving any new resources for this specific effort. We’ll simply produce the content we always have, and the NAACP will select pieces of it that they feel deserve more attention.

Astroturf corporate front groups are already planning a response in reaction to our efforts to hold the tea parties more accountable. FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe said his organization will roll out “Diverse Tea,” a campaign that will showcase diversity in the Tea Party movement, sometime this week or early next week. “The idea is to create a platform for African-American Tea Party leaders, Hispanic Tea Party leaders and Jewish Tea Party leaders to get out there and talk about why they’re involved and why these issues matter so much to them,” Kibbe said.

Update Fox also called the Tea Party Tracker site a "sneaky new campaign" by "left-leaning media" to "paint" tea party "as racists."

Media turn to discredited Bush officials to respond to Obama's Iraq speech

From Media Matters Following President Obama's speech on the end of combat operations in Iraq, media outlets hosted discredited Bush administration officials Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, and Ari Fleischer to respond, despite the fact that the three were at the forefront of the campaign of misinformation used to sell the war. Rove led WH group that "promoted" view that Saddam had WMDs "and was seeking more" White House Iraq Group was formed to "set [messaging] strategy" for going to war with Iraq. The Washington Post reported in 2003 (accessed via Nexis), that the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 "to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it 'an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.' " Part of WHIG's mission, according to the Post, was to decide "what to demand of the United Nations in the president's Sept. 12 [2002] address to the General Assembly, when to take the issue to Congress, and how to frame the conflict with Iraq in the midterm election campaign that began in earnest after Labor Day." Rove was a regular participant in this group. WHIG promoted view that Saddam "had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more." The Los Angeles Times reported on August 25, 2005, (accessed via Nexis) that WHIG "promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more": The group consisted of Rove, Libby, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, and Mary Matalin, Cheney's media advisor. All are believed to have been questioned in the leak case; papers and e-mails about the group were subpoenaed. Before the war, this Iraq group promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more. In September 2002, the White House embraced a British report asserting that "Iraq has sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The Washington Post further reported that WHIG "assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the 'grave and gathering danger' of Iraq's allegedly 'reconstituted' nuclear program." From the October 30, 2005, article (accessed via Nexis): By summer 2002, the White House Iraq Group assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's allegedly "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. Wilkinson gave prominent place to the claim that Iraq "sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa." That claim, along with repeated use of the "mushroom cloud" image by top officials beginning in September, became the emotional heart of the case against Iraq. Rove repeatedly politicized national security issues, including the war in Iraq, and actively encouraged GOP to campaign on the issue. Think Progress has documented Rove's repeated politicization of the Iraq war and his encouragement that Republicans campaign on the issue in 2002, which included (emphasis in original): In January 2002, Rove told conservatives, "Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe...We can also go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." [...] In June 2002, Rove was giving PowerPoint presentations candidates advising them to "focus on the war" in their fall campaigns. In September 2002, Time reported that when friends asked whether Bush planned to invade Iraq, Rove was been [sic] known to reply, "Let me put it this way: If you want to see Baghdad, you'd better visit soon." In addition, according to an April 5, 2003, The New York Times article (accessed via Nexis), Rove worked "busily ... to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends. The Times quoted Rove as saying, "The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator's regime will be ended." From the Times: The White House portrays Karl Rove, President Bush's most influential political adviser, as playing no role in military decisions that are shaping the Bush presidency. But more than two weeks after the war began, Mr. Rove is busily working to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends. Tonight, Mr. Rove traveled here to tend to the Republican troops at the Texas Night fund-raising celebration of the Kent County Republican Committee. "The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator's regime will be ended," Mr. Rove declared after taking the stage to chants of "U.S.A.!" in a cavernous hanger filled with the local party faithful wearing Texas-style cowboy boots, hats and bandanas. Beyond courting Republicans at party events, Mr. Rove has in recent days been counseling Congressional Republicans and conservative groups on how to advance their domestic agenda even while attention is on Iraq. This week, he held forth at a lunch with conservative commentators and journalists. Some participants had backed the administration on Iraq when it faced criticism that the war plan provided insufficient force and that it had been overly optimistic about Iraqi resistance. Hadley took responsibility for infamous "16 words" in Bush's State of the Union address Hadley reportedly accepted responsibility for the infamous "16 words" incident, in which Bush claimed, "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." On January 28, 2003, as part of his State of the Union address, President Bush made the now-infamous claim that "[t]he British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a claim that was highly disputed and which turned out to be false. In 2003, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley reportedly accepted responsibility for the line appearing in Bush's address, despite having received two memos and a phone call from CIA Director George Tenet three months earlier raising objections to its inclusion in prior speeches. From a July 2003 FoxNews.com article: Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said that he had received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from agency Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons. As a result, Hadley said the offending passage was excised from a speech on Iraq the president gave in Cincinnati last Oct. 7. But Hadley suggested that details from the memos and phone call had slipped from his attention as the State of the Union was being put together. The false claim was credited as one of the bases for shifting public support for the war. As a July 2003 New York Times analysis noted: The speeches worked. Public opposition to the war, never fierce, began to melt, polls show, and by mid-March, when hostilities began, more than 60 percent agreed that ousting Mr. Hussein was worth spilling American blood. Today, those 16 words haunt the administration. They are the best-remembered flourish in a portrait of Iraq that today seems unrecognizable. They are a leading rationale for a war that has resulted in the death of 224 Americans. And they are either unsubstantiated or based on a lie. Hadley was also a part of the White House Iraq Group. According to a 2003 Washington Post report, Hadley was a "regular participant" in WHIG meetings. From The Washington Post: The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. Fleischer repeatedly hyped the nonexistent threat of WMD to pitch war As press secretary, Fleischer was responsible for pitching the Iraq war, which he often did by hyping the nonexistent threat of weapons of mass destruction. Ari Fleischer was the White House press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003. As press secretary, Fleischer was responsible for a number of false or misleading claims regarding Iraq and Saddam Hussein, including: * "I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." [4/10/03] * "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly ... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." [3/21/03] * "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." [1/9/03] * "Saddam Hussein does not exactly have a track record of telling the world the truth. So he, on December 8th, has to indicate whether or not he has weapons. Let's see what he says. If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." [12/2/02] * "[G]iven the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [3/21/03] * "[W]hen you take a look at the level of violence inside of Iraq, it is impossible to argue anything other than violence has, indeed, come down as a result of America's military operations." [6/25/03] * "There is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly. ... And all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." [3/21/03] Despite their history, media turns to Hadley, Fleischer and Rove to respond to Obama's speech Kilmeade hosts Hadley to discuss whether "the president is finally acknowledging the previous administration was...on the right track in the middle east overall." On the September 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade hosted two Bush administration officials, Margaret O'Sullivan and Hadley, to discuss whether "the president is finally acknowledging the previous administration was right - was on the right track in the Middle East overall." MSNBC's Morning Joe hosts Fleischer to defend Bush and compare invading Iraq to invading Nazi Germany. On September 1, MSNBC's Morning Joe hosted Fleischer to defend Bush for invading Iraq, and Fleischer compared Iraq to the invasion of Nazi Germany: FLEISCHER: Probably the most profound meeting I ever sat on at the White House was a meeting with Elie Weisel. Just President Bush, Elie Wiesel, Condi Rice was there and myself. And the president asked Elie Wiesel - Nobel Peace Prize winner, Holocaust survivor - should he remove Saddam [Hussein]. Wiesel said yes, and then he added, "If only the world had listened to Winston Churchill in 1938 or 1939, World War II and the Holocaust could have been avoided. And I thought to myself, if the world had listened to Churchill in '38, people probably would've said "you exaggerated the threat of Hitler. You know, who says there was a World War coming?" We'll never know what we averted by getting rid of Saddam and how many lives were saved as a result of removing the threat of Saddam Hussein. Rove: "This was not a well-delivered speech." On September 1, Fox News' On the Record with Greta van Sustern hosted Rove to attack Obama's Iraq speech, saying: "[T]his was not a well-delivered speech." Rove called Obama's mention of Bush "an attempt at graciousness" that "didn't succeed," and he criticized Obama for not taking a "confident" tone that showed "a celebration of what has happened" in Iraq "to this point."

McCain ’08 campaign joked with Secret Service: ‘Shoot out [Palin's] tires’

By Raw Story After John McCain's presidential campaign decided to withdraw from Michigan, his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin dissented. Once the Secret Service learned of Palin's plan to drive to Michigan one morning anyway, it got a blunt response upon asking how to handle it: "Shoot out the tires."

That was but one nugget of information revealed Wednesday in a lengthy Vanity Fair expose by Michael Joseph Gross, who chronicles Palin's journey from a small-town hockey mom to a powerful national force, and the "place of fear, anger, and illusion" it has led her to.

Palin, Gross learns, had a vicious temper during the campaign and was easily set off, yelling often at staffers and even throwing objects. "You just got to let her go through it," her husband Todd once told an aide. "Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn’t even mean."

Colleen Cottle of Wasilla, Alaska, who served on the city council, said Mayor Palin "had no attention span" and "does not understand math or accounting—she only knows buzzwords, like 'balanced budget'."

A source described as a Palin's "friend" told Gross: "Once, while Sarah was preparing for a city-council meeting, she said, 'I'm gonna put on one of my push-up bras so I can get what I want tonight.' That’s how she rolls."

"Insiders" said that after the campaign, Palin's temper and meltdowns were on full display. "We weren’t good enough for America," Palin reportedly told one of her children. "We’ll never be good enough for America."

Palin would often be engrossed in her Blackberry during her campaign, seeming distant and wrapped up. An aide once asked her what she was reading: "Im reading these great e-mails," she responded, "from the prayer warriors." (Prayer warriors, Gross notes, are individuals who ask God to affect a battle between the forces of light and darkness.)

On the night of her debate with her Obama campaign counterpart Joe Biden, she received an email from influential right-wing Christian activist Lou Engle comparing her to the biblical Queen Esther. "This is an Esther moment in your life," he told Palin. "Esther hid her identity until Mordecai challenged her to risk everything for such a time as this. Your identity is 'Sarah Barracuda.' ... Sarah, don’t hide your identity tonight."

Aides to Palin declined to speak to Gross on the record, telling him they received a signature threat from the former governor if they were to cross her: "I have the power to ruin you."

As for Palin's declining popularity in Alaska, a woman in Alaska offered a take: "People who loved Sarah Palin are disappointed," she said, reflecting on Palin's national transformation, "because they found out that Sarah Palin loves Sarah Palin most of all."

Bush-Era Iraq War Architects Emerge To Demand ‘Credit’ For Iraq War ‘Success’

By Faiz Shakir In April 2006, ThinkProgress produced a report titled “The Architects of War: Where Are They Now?” We wrote at the time, “a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded — not blamed — for their incompetence.” Referencing our report in July 2007, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, “To read that summary is to be awed by the comprehensiveness and generosity of the neocon welfare system.”

Flash forward to today, and the answer to our original question of the Iraq war architects — “where are they now?” — can be answered quite simply: They’re on your TV screens, in your radio, and in your newspapers — shamelessly demanding credit for the work they’ve done.

For example, consider former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith. According to the Pentagon Inspector General’s office, Feith delivered a briefing to the White House in 2002 that “undercut the Intelligence Community” and “did draw conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence.” What is he doing now? In an interview with NPR yesterday, he blasted Obama for not properly crediting the “success” of Iraq:

He didn’t say America is more secure. And that’s the kind of statement that could help explain to the American people why we need to persevere and do all the things that he’s pledging to do in the future. … And then he also, in January of 2007, just when the surge was getting underway, proposed legislation that would have ended the war in March of 2008. And had that legislation succeeded, it would have prevented the success that he celebrated in his speech tonight.

Another example: former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, who took blame for allowing President Bush to make the false claim in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa to build a nuclear weapon. What is he doing now? In an interview with the New York Times, Hadley demanded Bush be given “credit” for Iraq:

“I thought I owed it to the former president that somewhere out there somebody gives him some credit and points out that he’s the one actually that started withdrawing U.S. troops and he’s the one that set up the framework for both a long term relationship with Iraq and a December, 30 2011 end date,” Mr. Hadley said in an interview.

And there’s also former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who conceded the case for invading Iraq was determined based on what could be easily sold to the public. “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” he said. In an op-ed in the New York Times this Monday, Wolfowitz was more magnanimous about sharing “credit” with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi forces, and the Iraqi people. Wolfowitz, who incorrectly predicted Iraq’s reconstruction would be paid for with Iraq’s oil, urged Obama to maintain “a long-term commitment, albeit at greatly reduced cost and risk.”

And on your TV sets, you’ll frequently see Ari Fleischer — the prominent pre-war mouthpiece who said Iraq would “shoulder much of the burden” for reconstruction, who said the Iraqis would “rejoice,” and who claimed that there was no chance “of losing the peace.” On both CNN and MSNBC over the last 24 hours, Fleischer has bemoaned that Bush isn’t being given enough credit for ending the war in Iraq. Watch it:

Update Check out our Iraq War Timeline here.

REPORT: CEOs At Top 50 Companies That Laid Off Most Workers Raked In Millions In Compensation

By Ben Armbruster The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) released its annual report on

executive compensation today — “CEO Pay and the Great Recession.” “I’m afraid that this year’s report will raise just about everybody’s blood pressure,” lead author Sarah Anderson said. Indeed, the report found that “CEOs of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis took home nearly $12 million on average in 2009.” Those CEOs’ combined compensation totaled $598 million, while at the same time, their companies eliminated 531,363 jobs despite reporting a 44 percent average profit increase for 2009.

More staggering is the level of executive pay, according to IPS:

[A]fter adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century.

American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s.

The Kansas City Star took a closer look at some of the CEOs and companies in IPS’s report:

Fred Hassan, former CEO of Schering-Plough, presided over announced layoffs affecting 16,000 workers after a 2009 merger with Merck. He resigned after the merger, receiving “golden parachute” compensation in 2009 of more than $49.6 million to rank as the highest-paid layoff leader.

The top five companies announcing the most layoffs for the study period were General Motors (75,733); Citigroup (52,175); Bank of America (35,000); Caterpillar (27,499) and Verizon (21,308). Among those top five, the biggest compensation package — nearly $17.5 million — went to Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon.

According to IPS, American CEOs make 263 times the average compensation for American workers, up from the 30 to 1 ratio in the 1970s. For comparison, the average compensation of a Japanese CEO is less than one-sixth that of their American counterpart and 16 times more than the average Japanese worker.

But on top of the lavish CEO pay at the expense of the American worker, many of these top-layoff firms received money from the taxpayer bailouts in 2008. Of these, IPS notes, “American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault took home the highest 2009 pay, $16.8 million, a sum that included a $5 million cash bonus. American Express has laid off 4,000 employees since receiving $3.39 billion in TARP funding.”

“These numbers all reflect a broader trend in Great Recession-era Corporate America,” the IPS report says, “the relentless squeezing of worker jobs, pay and benefits to boost corporate earnings and maintain corporate executive paychecks at their recent bloated levels.”

In 2008, Sarah Palin Had No Idea Who Her ‘Political Heroine’ Margaret Thatcher Was

By Matt Duss A new Vanity Fair profile reveals some new information about former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Like this:

Early in the 2008 campaign, when John McCain’s aides discovered that Alaska-size gaps existed in Palin’s general knowledge (among those previously unreported: she had no idea who Margaret Thatcher was), they from time to time would give her some books to read in hopes of improving the candidate’s learning curve.

This is interesting, as Palin wrote on her Facebook page in June 2010:

I have received an invitation for a visit to London, and part of that invitation included the offer of arranging a meeting between myself and one of my political heroines, the “Iron Lady,” Margaret Thatcher. I would love to meet her and hope I’ll be able to arrange the trip in the future.

As I wrote last year when I offered her birthday wishes, Baroness Thatcher’s life and career serve as a blueprint for overcoming the odds and challenging the ’status quo.’ She started life as a grocer’s daughter from Grantham and rose to become Prime Minister — all by her own merit and hard work. I cherish her example and will always count her as one of my role models. Her friendship with my other political hero, Ronald Reagan, exemplified the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Perhaps Palin subsequently learned who Thatcher was from one of the books the McCain campaign gave her to read. Or perhaps the latest post was a bit of artistic license by Rebecca Mansour, the 36-year-old former screenwriter who Vanity Fair reports was hired in 2009 to ghostwrite Palin’s Facebook page.

Update In her new book, Meghan McCain calls Palin "the Time Bomb." She writes, "From the minute Sarah arrived the campaign began splitting apart. And rather than joining us, and our campaign, she seemed only to begin her own. ... There was a fine line between genius and insanity, they say, and choosing her as the running mate was starting to seem like the definition of that line."