A version of the "Buffett Rule" was introduced today by Senate Democrats after a call by President Obama for the super-rich to start paying their fair share in the State of the Union Address last week. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, formally introduced what he's calling the "Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012." Under the law, millionaires would pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate, or more than double what millionaire Mitt Romney has been paying. According to the Congressional Research Center, approximately 94,500 taxpayers, a quarter of all U.S. millionaires, pay a lower tax rate than the vast majority of middle-income taxpayers. While potential revenue has yet to be formally calculated, Whitehouse estimates that the law could generate $40-50 billion annually. more ›

Though the sun is shining here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it shines not for Newt Gingrich, as he failed to submit the 10,000 signatures necessary to appear on the GOP primary ballot in March. Gingrich had promised that he would deliver the signatures himself by Thursday's deadline, but he now joins every candidate besides Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, in failing to appear on the ballot. "Winning campaigns have to be able to execute on the fundamentals," senior Romney advisor Eric Fehernstrom gloated to the Times. "This is like watching a hitter in the World Series failing to lay down a bunt." Or like buying the Scottie tag charm without the dog bone charm. more ›

New Jersey Governor, non-presidential candidate and Mitt Romney supporter, Chris Christie went on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning and got right to business, dropping doozies left and right. To start, he dinged on host Mika Brzezinski for being in the "tank" for President Obama, then made some swipes at the President himself (including a few arguably false statements), all the while praising his man Mitt every chance he got. "My problem with the President is that he has not stepped up and led," Christie said, later adding that Obama is "probably the weakest president I’ve seen in my lifetime," and arguing that "I’ve had to face much tougher things in New Jersey from a political perspective than [Obama] has." more ›

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, once considered "Media Poison," is enjoying a resurgence thanks to the spectacularly abysmal GOP presidential field a string of good debate performances and his well-organized team in Iowa. According to a recent poll [pdf], Dr. Paul now finds himself a single percentage point behind Newt Gingrich leading up to Iowa's primary race on January 3. This has spooked Gingrich enough to hire a political consultant and possibly change his holiday plans to stick around the state, but Ron Paul's comments to Jay Leno on Friday that Michele Bachmann "hates Muslims" may give him some breathing room. more ›

4,500 Americans perished in almost nine years of war, on top of the $800 billion in taxpayer money spent. But the number of Iraqis that were killed is more than 100,000, which is a conservative estimate. “We are glad to see the last U.S. soldier leaving the country today," Said Hassan, a 25-year-old Baghdad shop owner said. "But the most important thing now is the future of Iraq. The Americans have left behind them a country that is falling apart and an Iraqi army and security forces that have a long way ahead to be able to defend the nation and the people.” more ›

All eyes were on the Gilded Historian at last night's debate in Iowa, as the GOP presidential field took shots at their new frontrunner. Michele Bachmann said he made his living on K Street, the "Rodeo Drive of Washington D.C." Rick Perry cautioned, "If you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partner, so I think the issue of fidelity is important." And Mitt Romney even took a shot at one of the former Speaker's ideas, saying he disagreed with "his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon," presumably because Romney's own race of insipid moon people have already developed extensive Saltine quarries there. more ›

Jay-Z has now joined his mentor Russell Simmons in his measured support for higher taxes on rich folk such as himself, telling CNN, "I wouldn’t mind paying more taxes if it went to the things that really mattered. If it went to education, people [in] poverty and if it went to the right things." He continued, “It should be clearly defined … where all the money’s being allocated. Because you can understand paying so much for taxes and then things not improving, you’re like, where’s everything going to?” We await the "Jay-Z for OMB director" campaign with bated breath. more ›

In a "remember me, three years ago?" speech in Kansas yesterday, President Obama told the crowd, "This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules." A new report [pdf] from the non-profit organization Public Campaign shows that 30 of the country's largest corporations—including GE, Wells Fargo, Verizon, and Fed Ex—paid more to lobby Congress from 2008 through 2010 than they did in federal income taxes. What country was the president referring to? more ›

Though Occupy Wall Street has spent much of their time amidst the canyons of the Financial District's "heroes," tomorrow's efforts are focused in East New York, as part of a nationwide day of action to call attention to the housing crisis that continues to plague much of the country. Occupy Our Homes will meet at the Pennsylvania Avenue subway stop in Brownsville at 1 p.m. for a tour of foreclosed homes, ending with a housewarming party for the families who are "taking these homes back for the community," despite impending foreclosure, and according to a release, volunteers from the many organizations involved will begin fixing up abandoned property. more ›

Though he's couched his opposition to the renewal of the "Millionaire's Tax" in the lofty language of personal conviction, Governor Cuomo appears to be warming up to the idea of bringing more "fairness" to the tax code in order to bolster an anemic state budget. The Times reports that Democrats in the State Assembly were warned that the governor may call a special session of the legislature on Tuesday, and sources say "leaders were discussing the creation of new tax brackets that would allow them to apply higher tax rates to the state’s top earners" while giving middle-class families a tax cut. Perhaps the governor cares more about polling than he initially let on. more ›

Because our commander-in-chief is a Godless heathen who hates Christmas almost as much as he hates the free market, President Obama coordinated tonight's three-stop campaign visit with the Rockefeller Center tree lighting to cause maximum anguish to New Yorkers. According to "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, this means the "FDR Drive, West Midtown, UES, [East] Village all subject to freezes" between 5-11 p.m. this evening. This excludes the "freezing" of 6-year-old Samantha Jenkins' heart when the President will tell her "Santa isn't real," before slipping an illustrated copy of Das Kapital in her Dora the Explorer backpack. more ›

Last night's GOP debate centered on foreign policy and national security, and a Politico headline sums up the mood pretty well: "Newt Shocks By Endorsing Mercy." Because "compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm" has become taboo within the Republican party with respect to illegal immigration, Newt Gingrich risked alienating primary voters by not acting like an unreasonable jingoist. "Let's be humane about enforcing the law," Gingrich said, telling the audience that he wouldn't automatically kick out immigrants who are "law abiding citizens." more ›

Here in America who you vote for is entirely your business—you don't have to tell your wife or your kids, your friends or your boss. Especially that last one. Because otherwise you might end up like Michael Verzillo, a black manager at a Long Island T.G.I. Friday's for 15 years who says he was fired after he told a white manager that he was going to vote for Barack Obama. Before we go on though—15 years at T.G.I. Friday's? Wow. more ›

In our modern era of political "analysts" who are paid to scream mindless talking points written by D.C. thinktanks on slick TV sets, Glenn Greenwald is a reasoned laser beam, armed with copious citations and his experience as a constitutional and civil rights attorney. Though he's often hailed by the left, his columns are dense and unsparing of Democrats and Republicans alike. Greenwald is a graduate of NYU Law and currently splits his time between New York City and Rio De Janeiro, where he lives with his boyfriend. more ›

Politicians win elections and earn their salaries by promising their constituents things and then explaining later why those promises were broken. This is in the Constitution, or Federalist 35 or something. But what happens to voters when they've been pushed to the very brink of insanity by a corrupt, inane political system and a rotten economy? According to new polling by the ABC News/The Washington Post, we're about to find out in 2012! The data shows it will involve a lot of misery, culminating in a campaign that is "a dramatic shift from the hope-and-change enthusiasm generated by Obama's first run for the White House." more ›

Approximately 1,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched to Foley Square at around 3 p.m. this afternoon to protest the Obama administration's role in a settlement that would indemnify banks who were directly involved with creating the mortgage crisis. Though the NYPD could not confirm the number of arrests, a DCPI officer noted that "they would be in the family of 20 or so," more than the four that the movement claims were arrested on the steps of the Supreme Court building. Eyewitnesses wrote that the NYPD began arresting protesters after they blocked pedestrian traffic in front of the courthouse, and one claims that video will surface of a NYPD officer punching a protester in the face. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] Student loans will account for more than $1 trillion worth of debt this year, amazingly set to surpass credit card debt. But there is a presidential candidate who is brave enough to free you from all this debt by never allowing you to get federal assistance to go to school in the first place: Dr. Ron Paul. "Just think of all this willingness to want to help every student get a college education," Paul said on NBC's Meet the Press. more ›

Besides the absence of baby pigeons, one of life's great mysteries is that in many cases you need to be gainfully employed so that someone else will hire you. No one likes a layabout, especially human resource departments who would rather not see that CRITICAL gap in your LinkedIn profile. But Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer tells the Daily News that such discrimination "is an outrageous bias that has no place in New York," and says he will lobby city council and Albany for a bill banning the practice. more ›

Ron Paul, fierce defender of liberty (there are exceptions!) is having a tough time distinguishing himself from the rest of the GOP field before tonight's debate in Las Vegas. So yesterday, Paul released his "bold, ambitious, Plan To Restore America" [pdf] that would eliminate $1 trillion in government spending his first year in office. Man, weren't things great before the Department of Education, the Department of Energy in the late 70s? more ›

Thanks to a pair of straw poll wins and an ingenious "9-9-9 Plan" that is akin to punching the poor and middle class in their faces nine times every nine seconds for the next nine decades, Herman Cain is now giving Mitt a run for his money in the GOP presidential field. This means his positions are getting more scrutiny, including his ideas about foreign policy. Daniel Drenzer over at Foreign Policy takes a look at Cain's website and finds "a total of five paragraphs on 'national security.' That's it." Yes, but historians will soon clamor for these brave, five paragraphs to appear under the bulletproof glass with the Declaration of Independence. more ›

Last night was the 756th GOP debate, and all eight candidates did their best to ensure that Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney. As the Washington Post puts it, the party's base has "turned their attention to the latest candidate to capture their fancy," and that man of the hour is Herman Cain, who saw other candidates criticizing his 9-9-9 plan for tax reform. Jon Huntsman said, "I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard about it," and Michele Bachmann noted, "when you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details." We are really typing this: Michele Bachmann is right. more ›

Things are looking up for the Stormin' Mormon: according to various reports, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will endorse Mitt Romney's presidential bid at 3 p.m. Billionaire GOP donors have less than one hour to convince Christie to run unless they throw down a few million to stop Greenwich Mean Time so they can have that custom-made helicopter painted "Jersey Buff." more ›

2012 GOP presidential candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich are positive that this whole Occupy Wall Street thing is overblown. This is because they represent all of the everyday millionaire pizza moguls and Tiffany's marketers/serial adulterers who know that these nurses, students, union members and other "people" are just jealous. "Part of it is jealousy…My parents never said that we hope the rich people lose something so that we can get something," Cain said at a joint appearance on Face the Nation, presumably forgetting that time he left a flaming bag of poo on John Schnattner's doorstep. more ›

The U.S. may not have those "death panels" that Sarah Palin once famously warned about, but we do apparently have a secret panel in charge of making a "kill or capture" list for the executive branch. Reuters is reporting that the panel, a subset of the White House's National Security Council, doesn't have a public record, any laws establishing its existence or guiding rules, and the White House is declining to talk about it. So maybe Ron Paul is onto something? more ›

Famed political polymath Hank Williams, Jr., widely known for his thesis on Americana entitled Football: Are You Properly Prepared To View A Game On Television? has posted a written apology on his website for the statements he made Monday on FOX and Friends. Williams likened John Boehner and President Obama's golf game to a hypothetical match between Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu, and generally sounded like he had no idea where he was. "I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me." Oh Hank, take a break from reading Dickens before you write! more ›