During an interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameron on Saturday, Paul Ryan tried to explain why he denied requesting stimulus funds for a local energy company in 2009 after voting against and demagoguing the Recovery Act. “My office sends tens of thousands of letters to various federal agencies. This went through what we call my case work system, where it was treated as a case work request for a constituent,” Ryan said. “It wasn’t my intention to send letters supporting the stimulus”:

...





But the letters — at least five in total — are all signed by Ryan in different ways, suggesting that he or an aide hand-signed the documents. “Recovery Act” is also prominently written in the very first line:

The latest House Republican budget plan asks low-income and middle-class Americans to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while simultaneously delivering massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserving huge giveaways to Big Oil. It’s a recipe for repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration, during which middle-class incomes stagnated and only the privileged few enjoyed enormous gains.

Each component of the new House Republican budget threatens the middle class while doing nothing to add jobs or grow our economy. It ends the guarantee of decent insurance for senior citizens, breaking Medicare’s bedrock promise. It slashes investments in education, infrastructure, and basic research, all of which are key drivers of economic growth and mobility. And it cuts taxes for those at the top, asking the middle class to pick up the tab. It’s a budget designed to benefit the top 1 percent at everyone else’s expense.

The Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives released its proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 today, taking particular aim at our nation’s health care programs. This latest House Republican budget would fundamentally alter these programs, setting us on an uncharted path that would have adverse consequences for tens of millions of Americans.

Major consequences of the House Republican budget

Many seniors would be forced to pay sharply higher premiums to stay in traditional Medicare and keep their current choice of doctors.
New Medicare beneficiaries could pay more than $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050.
More and more seniors would gradually shift to private health insurance plans over time, increasing the privatization of Medicare.
Hundreds of thousands of seniors would become uninsured.
Premiums would increase for most Medicare beneficiaries.
More than 47 million Americans would lose health insurance coverage in 10 years.
Tens of millions of Americans would lose consumer protections that are essential for health and economic security.
States would be forced to slash Medicaid eligibility, benefits, and payments to health care providers.

Impact of the Ryan/Republican Budget

On March 29, 2012, the House of Representatives passed the 2013 budget plan proposed by Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). This plan makes dramatic changes to the Medicare program and to the entire federal budget.[3] As noted by Robert Greenstein, President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the Ryan Budget:

s Robin Hood in reverse — on steroids. It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation's history).[4]

The Ryan budget would transform Medicare from a community of people guaranteed the same standard benefits into a voucher program in which each individual would be required to attempt to find adequate coverage. Beneficiaries would incur more out-of-pocket health care costs because the proposed vouchers will not be large enough to cover the rising costs of health care. In addition, the Ryan/Republican budget would also raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, and likely lead to the demise of the traditional Medicare program by "making its pool of beneficiaries smaller, older, and sicker."[5]

What's at Stake

The following chart illustrates the devastating impact of repealing ACA and of implementing the Ryan/republican budget.[6]

(Please visit site for chart, it's a real eye opener)

The Medicare cuts, passed in the Affordable Care Act, come in the form of reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and supplemental private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. The Congressional Budget Office projects that they’ll extend the solvency of Medicare by eight years.

AARP, the seniors’ lobby and chief gatekeeper of Medicare benefits, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite its cuts, arguing that they wouldn’t affect seniors’ access to care. The law expanded benefits by closing the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.” The hospital and drug industries also endorsed the legislation, believing that the additional customers via the coverage expansion would more than make up for the cuts.

...

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.

Obama’s long-term plan to save Medicare, approved under the Affordable Care Act, is to set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, may only propose cuts to providers, not beneficiaries. Congress may replace the cuts by passing its own or with a three-fifths super-majority.

The Affordable Care Act makes many changes to strengthen Medicare and provide stronger benefits to seniors, while slowing cost growth. As a result, average Medicare beneficiary savings in traditional Medicare will be approximately $3,500 over the next ten years. Beneficiaries who have high prescription drug spending will save much more – as much as $12,300 over the next 10 years. In comparison, Medicare beneficiaries with low drug costs will save an average of $2,400 over 10 years.

This report provides estimates of savings from the Affordable Care Act to seniors and people living with disabilities enrolled in traditional Medicare. The Affordable Care Act will favorably affect beneficiary expenditures in four ways. First, premiums for Part B physician and certain other services are expected to increase at a slower rate than would have occurred without the Affordable Care Act, resulting in lower Part B premiums over time. Second, beneficiary copayments and coinsurance under Part A and B will increase more slowly because the Affordable Care Act slows the rate of growth in payments to hospitals and other providers. Third, closing the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, often called the “donut hole,” will lower costs for beneficiaries who otherwise would have been required to spend thousands of dollars out of their own pocket for their prescription drugs. Finally, the Affordable Care Act will provide many preventive services to seniors at no additional cost.

The Affordable Care Act will save approximately $500 billion over the next ten years through reduction in extra subsidies paid to Medicare Advantage plans, reductions in the rate of growth in provider payments, and efforts to make the Medicare program more efficient and to reduce waste, fraud and abuse. These reductions will lead to corresponding savings for beneficiaries through lower copayments and premiums. A slower rate of growth in Medicare is expected to result in a slower rate of growth in beneficiary out-of-pocket payments, and a slower rate of growth in Part B premiums. In addition, the closing of the donut hole will result in large savings for beneficiaries with high levels of prescription drug spending.

Total savings per traditional Medicare beneficiary are estimated to be $86 in 2011, rising to $649 in 2020 (see Table 1). For a beneficiary with spending in the donut hole, estimated savings increase from $553 in 2011 to $2,217 in 2020.

Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT)
In May 2009, DOJ and HHS announced the creation of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT). With the creation of the new HEAT team the fight against Medicare fraud has become a Cabinet-level priority.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder pledge to continue fighting waste, fraud and abuse. As of today, DOJ and HHS continue to make progress and succeed in the fight against Medicare fraud.

3. Ryan wants to end Medicare, replace it with a voucher system. Ryan’s latest budget transforms the existing version of Medicare, in which government provides seniors with a guaranteed benefit, into a “premium support” system. All future retirees would receive a government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But since the premium support voucher does not keep up with increasing health care costs, the Congressional Budget Offices estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050. A recent study also found that had the plan been implemented in 2009, 24 million beneficiares enrolled in the program would have paid higher premiums to maintain their choice of plan and doctors. Ryan would also raise Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67.

4. Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005? would have lost much of their retirement savings.

The new bosses billed the meeting in late January 2011 as their ‘welcome’ to the 200 workers at a long-established factory in Freeport, Ill. Maybe the description reflected some dark corporate humor lost on the workers, but just three minutes into their welcome, the new managers from Sensata announced that all the jobs in the factory—which produces finely calibrated sensors for the automobile and other industries—would be moved to China or another country by 2013.

Sensata is the creation of Bain Capital, a private equity fund co-founded in 1984 by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Sensata was assembled from various sensor manufacturers in 2006, and it has continued its acquisitions even as the U.S. share of its workforce declines sharply. Bain’s strategy for this basically healthy, moderately high-tech manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy is apparently to transfer all the work offshore.

The Illinois plant was previously owned by Honeywell. Tom Gaulrapp, who has worked there for 33 years, at first refused to believe that Sensata would move the highly automated and profitable operations from Freeport, where skilled employees had developed many of the products and machinery. Then he learned more about Bain and grew angry.
“Isn’t my job worth more than another dollar in a millionaire’s pocket?” he asks. “It’s our American dream they’re throwing overboard. We don’t have problems with them wanting to make a dollar, but when is enough enough? These companies have to have some responsibility to the communities in which they’re located.”

No, they don’t—or at least, not in the world of private equity funds from which Romney hails. Despite Romney’s claim to be a job creator (the honorary title Republicans bestow on all rich people), that world is one where the extra dollar in a millionaire’s pocket is always worth more than someone’s job.

So as Sensata strips out costs by sacking American workers in favour of Chinese ones, the value of Romney's own investments could rise, putting money into the pockets of a Republican challenger who has placed job creation in America at the heart of his bid for the White House.

...

The anger towards Bain and Romney is palpable. Romney has become the target for the emotions of a community who built lives based on the idea of a steady manufacturing job: a concept out of place in the sort of fluid buy-and-sell world from which Bain prospers. "I didn't have a clue what Bain was before this happened," said Cheryl Randecker, 52. "Now when I hear Romney speak it makes me sick to my stomach."

President Barack Obama's campaign has sought to make Bain's record of buying and selling companies – often involving job losses – a key part of its strategy of painting Romney as an out-of-touch super-rich financier. In turn, Romney, who left Bain in 1999, has defended his long career there, saying Bain ends up generating economic growth and spurring job creation. Far from profiting from layoffs, Romney has portrayed Bain as a model for the American future.

That argument stuns Illinois governor Pat Quinn. "If he thinks that is the model for American economic growth then he is barking up the wrong tree," Quinn told The Guardian.

Protesters will call out the two legislators for blocking the Bring Jobs Home Act, which would help prevent family-supporting American jobs — like those at Sensata — from being shipped overseas.

Sensata workers gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition addressed to Schilling in support of the Bring Jobs Home Act, and delivered them to Schilling in early July.

Despite overwhelming support for the bill among his constituents, Schilling voted against the measure — which would end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas — when it came to a vote later that month.

The Medicare cuts, passed in the Affordable Care Act, come in the form of reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and supplemental private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. The Congressional Budget Office projects that they’ll extend the solvency of Medicare by eight years.

AARP, the seniors’ lobby and chief gatekeeper of Medicare benefits, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite its cuts, arguing that they wouldn’t affect seniors’ access to care. The law expanded benefits by closing the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.” The hospital and drug industries also endorsed the legislation, believing that the additional customers via the coverage expansion would more than make up for the cuts.

...

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.

Obama’s long-term plan to save Medicare, approved under the Affordable Care Act, is to set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, may only propose cuts to providers, not beneficiaries. Congress may replace the cuts by passing its own or with a three-fifths super-majority.

The Affordable Care Act makes many changes to strengthen Medicare and provide stronger benefits to seniors, while slowing cost growth. As a result, average Medicare beneficiary savings in traditional Medicare will be approximately $3,500 over the next ten years. Beneficiaries who have high prescription drug spending will save much more – as much as $12,300 over the next 10 years. In comparison, Medicare beneficiaries with low drug costs will save an average of $2,400 over 10 years.

This report provides estimates of savings from the Affordable Care Act to seniors and people living with disabilities enrolled in traditional Medicare. The Affordable Care Act will favorably affect beneficiary expenditures in four ways. First, premiums for Part B physician and certain other services are expected to increase at a slower rate than would have occurred without the Affordable Care Act, resulting in lower Part B premiums over time. Second, beneficiary copayments and coinsurance under Part A and B will increase more slowly because the Affordable Care Act slows the rate of growth in payments to hospitals and other providers. Third, closing the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, often called the “donut hole,” will lower costs for beneficiaries who otherwise would have been required to spend thousands of dollars out of their own pocket for their prescription drugs. Finally, the Affordable Care Act will provide many preventive services to seniors at no additional cost.

The Affordable Care Act will save approximately $500 billion over the next ten years through reduction in extra subsidies paid to Medicare Advantage plans, reductions in the rate of growth in provider payments, and efforts to make the Medicare program more efficient and to reduce waste, fraud and abuse. These reductions will lead to corresponding savings for beneficiaries through lower copayments and premiums. A slower rate of growth in Medicare is expected to result in a slower rate of growth in beneficiary out-of-pocket payments, and a slower rate of growth in Part B premiums. In addition, the closing of the donut hole will result in large savings for beneficiaries with high levels of prescription drug spending.

Total savings per traditional Medicare beneficiary are estimated to be $86 in 2011, rising to $649 in 2020 (see Table 1). For a beneficiary with spending in the donut hole, estimated savings increase from $553 in 2011 to $2,217 in 2020.

Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT)
In May 2009, DOJ and HHS announced the creation of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT). With the creation of the new HEAT team the fight against Medicare fraud has become a Cabinet-level priority.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder pledge to continue fighting waste, fraud and abuse. As of today, DOJ and HHS continue to make progress and succeed in the fight against Medicare fraud.

3. Ryan wants to end Medicare, replace it with a voucher system. Ryan’s latest budget transforms the existing version of Medicare, in which government provides seniors with a guaranteed benefit, into a “premium support” system. All future retirees would receive a government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But since the premium support voucher does not keep up with increasing health care costs, the Congressional Budget Offices estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050. A recent study also found that had the plan been implemented in 2009, 24 million beneficiares enrolled in the program would have paid higher premiums to maintain their choice of plan and doctors. Ryan would also raise Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67.

4. Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005? would have lost much of their retirement savings.

The Medicare cuts, passed in the Affordable Care Act, come in the form of reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and supplemental private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. The Congressional Budget Office projects that they’ll extend the solvency of Medicare by eight years.

AARP, the seniors’ lobby and chief gatekeeper of Medicare benefits, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite its cuts, arguing that they wouldn’t affect seniors’ access to care. The law expanded benefits by closing the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.” The hospital and drug industries also endorsed the legislation, believing that the additional customers via the coverage expansion would more than make up for the cuts.

...

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.

Obama’s long-term plan to save Medicare, approved under the Affordable Care Act, is to set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, may only propose cuts to providers, not beneficiaries. Congress may replace the cuts by passing its own or with a three-fifths super-majority.

The media have portrayed Rep. Paul Ryan as a courageous reformer who is offering serious solutions to fix the country's finances. In reality, Ryan is an ideologue who offers fraudulent proposals that would hurt low and middle income Americans and put the social safety net in jeopardy. Media Matters looks at what the media should know about Paul Ryan and his policies.

Economist William Gale: "Low- And Middle-Class Households Bear The Entire Burden Of Closing The Fiscal Gap" Under Ryan's Budget Plan. Tax Policy Center co-director William Gale, who served as a senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush, wrote that Ryan's fiscal year 2013 budget plan is "essentially, an effort to have low- and middle-class households bear the entire burden of closing the fiscal gap and bear the costs of financing an additional tax cut for high income households." He added...

Tax Policy Center: Those Making More Than $1 Million Would Receive An Average Tax Cut Of $265,000 In Addition To Their Benefits From The Bush Tax Cuts. From a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) analysis of the Ryan plan...



Economist Paul Krugman: "Fraudulent" Ryan Plan Relies On "Completely Unsupported" Deficit Reduction Assertion.
Citizens For Tax Justice Director Robert McIntyre: Ryan Plan Is "All Smoke And Mirrors And No Deficit Reduction
Economist Dean Baker: Ryan Budget Isn't A Serious Proposal.
CBPP: Ryan Plan Would "Leave Many 65- And 66-Year Olds Without Any Health Coverage At All."

1. Ryan embraces the extreme philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ryan heaped praise on Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her philosophy that centered on the idea that selfishness is “virtue.” Rand described altruism as “evil,” condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor, viewed the feminist movement as “phony,” and called Arabs “almost totally primitive savages. Though he publicly rejected “her philosophy” in 2012, Ryan had professed himself a strong devotee. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he said at a D.C. gathering honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well… I try to make my interns read it.”

2. Ryan wants to raises taxes on the middle class, cut them for millionaires. Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result and to avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.” But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”



Audiences have booed Ryan for the unfair distribution:



3. Ryan wants to end Medicare, replace it with a voucher system. Ryan’s latest budget transforms the existing version of Medicare, in which government provides seniors with a guaranteed benefit, into a “premium support” system. All future retirees would receive a government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But since the premium support voucher does not keep up with increasing health care costs, the Congressional Budget Offices estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050. A recent study also found that had the plan been implemented in 2009, 24 million beneficiares enrolled in the program would have paid higher premiums to maintain their choice of plan and doctors. Ryan would also raise Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67.

4. Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005? would have lost much of their retirement savings.

I could do this in detail, but you can learn everything you need to know by understanding two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million.

Of these, $4.6 trillion is the size of the mystery meat in the budget. Ryan proposes tax cuts that would cost $4.6 trillion over the next decade relative to current policy — that is, relative even to making the Bush tax cuts permanent — but claims that his plan is revenue neutral, because he would make up the revenue loss by closing loopholes. For example, he would … well, actually, he refuses to name a single example of a loophole he wants to close.

So the budget is a fraud. No, it’s not “imperfect”, it’s not a bit shaky on the numbers; it’s completely based on almost $5 trillion dollars of alleged revenue that are pure fabrication.

...

On the other side, 14 million is the minimum number of people who would lose health insurance due to Medicaid cuts — the Urban Institute, working off the very similar plan Ryan unveiled last year, puts it at between 14 and 27 million people losing Medicaid.

Mitt Romney’s tax plan would be a boon for the wealthy, but a tax hike for 95% of Americans, according to a new nonpartisan study.

The report by researchers at the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, examined Romney’s suggestion of an across-the-board 20% income tax cut financed by closing existing loopholes and concluded there was no way to make the numbers work without burdening the vast majority of Americans with higher taxes.

Romney has not said which tax breaks he would end to finance his plan, but he has suggested that he would only look to breaks that benefit the wealthy. The report concluded that notion is a fantasy no matter how it’s constructed: There simply are too many middle class tax breaks on the table to avoid skewing the burden against the average American.

“Even if tax expenditures are eliminated in a way designed to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible, there would still be a shift in the tax burden of roughly $86 billion from those making over $200,000 to those making less than that amount,” the report reads.

This is a story on Breitbart, by editor/lying hack Mike Flynn, that a friend who's a Marine vet forwarded along to me (no links for liars):

Anyone who wants to can view the actual complaint filed against Ohio. But much like Mitt Romney with Jared Diamond's book, I'm pretty certain that Mike Flynn never actually bothered to read what he was citing.

Flynn claims that the lawsuit is an attempt:

"to restrict [service members'] ability to vote in the upcoming election."

That's a lie. The very first sentence of the actual complaint reads:

Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to restore in-person early voting for all Ohioans during the three days prior to Election Day – a right exercised by an estimated 93,000 Ohioans in the last presidential election.

The request is simple and direct: expand early voting for all citizens, not just military members. In no universe is that the same as saying restrict early voting for all citizens, including military members. It's pretty much the opposite of that.

Next comes the claim that:

"the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state's law governing voting by members of the military."

Insert chorus of Simon & Garfunkle's "The Boxer" here.

Today on Facebook, Mitt Romney claims that the Obama campaign is trying to “undermine” the ability of members of the military to vote in Ohio:

President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage. The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote. I stand with the fifteen military groups that are defending the rights of military voters, and if I’m entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.

This certainly sounds outrageous, but it is not true. Since 2005, Ohio has had in person early-voting in the three days prior to the election. This year, however, the Republican legislature in Ohio eliminated early voting during this period, except for members of the military. The Obama lawsuit is attempting to restore voting rights for all Ohioans, not restrict them for the military or any other group.

...

The Obama campaign’s request for a preliminary injunction does not seek to restrict military voting. Rather, it simply is asking that the full early voting period be open to all citizens, as it was under the law before this year.

Even Fox News acknowledges the purpose of the suit, noting “the lawsuit does not restrict the ability of military personnel to cast their ballots early.”

Romney’s spokesman, Ryan Williams, in an interview Saturday could point to no place in Obama’s lawsuit that seeks to restrict the rights of military voters…

Romney’s legal counsel, Katie Biber, said creating two separate classes of Ohio voters does not violate the 14th Amendment, though she also did not offer evidence that Obama’s lawsuit would make it tougher for members of the military to vote…

Mitt Romney attacked a lawsuit brought by President Obama’s campaign seeking the restoration of early voting rights for Ohio voters by falsely implying that Obama is trying to take away the early voting privileges for members of the military.

“President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage,” Romney said in a statement Saturday.

Actually, the Obama campaign’s lawsuit, filed by the campaign in mid-July, explicitly asks a federal court to restore in-person early voting rights to all eligible Ohio voters on the three days preceding Election Day.

The suit does not seek to prevent members of the military from voting in person during that period, rather it seeks to force Ohio to give other voters (including, for instance, cops and firefighters) the same opportunity to vote.

Special Report guest host Shannon Bream falsely claimed that the Obama campaign is suing to prevent military voters in Ohio from having extra time to cast their ballots. In reality, the lawsuit seeks to allow all voters in Ohio to cast their ballots during the window open to military personnel and their families. The lawsuit does not seek to restrict voting by military families in any way.

Correspondent Ed Henry followed with a misleading report that included a clip of Mitt Romney saying that it would be a disservice to members of the military to try to impede them from voting. But Henry did not cite any evidence that the lawsuit is intended to impede military voting.

As The Cincinnati Enquirer reported on July 18, "Now, only uniformed military personnel, their spouses and their voting-age dependents [in Ohio] can vote through Monday, the day before the Nov. 6 election. Everyone else must vote by the Friday before Election Day. The campaign says that means all Ohio voters aren't being treated fairly and that's a violation of the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause" (via Nexis).

Fifteen military organizations want to intervene in Obama v. Halsted, a lawsuit filed by the president's campaign in Ohio. The Obama filing claims that special early voting rights violate the 14th Amendment; the org leaders read that, and worry that their votes are in danger. Mitt Romney is with them.



That's all good, but the Obama campaign doesn't disagree with it. Here's the backstory. In the run-up to 2008, Democrats, who briefly ran the Secretary of State's office in Ohio, expanded early voting so that anyone could show up at polling sites in the days before the election. In 2011, the new Republican legislature and Secretary of State rolled this back. Early voting would now end on the Friday before election day. So the Obama campaign sued. This is how its argument begins.

...

If it wins, veterans will be able to vote early and so will everybody else in Ohio. To clear that up, the campaign filed a motion supporting the 15 military groups, reaffirming that "neither the substance of its Equal Protection claim, nor the relief requested, challenges the legislature’s authority to make appropriate accommodation, including early voting during the period in question, for military voters, their spouses or dependents."

Chopping the study’s key finding — that Romney’s tax plan will raise taxes on just about everyone except the exceptionally wealthy — into a convenient take home-size was a central focus of the Obama campaign this week and it used every method available to it to do so, including the president himself.

“An independent, non-partisan study found that one plan at least would give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and they’d pay for those tax cuts by raising taxes on the middle class — an average tax hike of more than $2,000 for families with children,” President Obama said at a White House event focused on his support for an extension of the Bush tax cuts on middle class families Friday.

...

The Obama campaign points to some half dozen campaign emails and online projects it devoted to the study this week when asked about the Tax Policy Center study push. The efforts included an online calculator the Obama campaign said would calculate a voter’s tax bill under Romney, an interactive map showing the “impact” of Romney’s plans on various states, and an email to supporters that pointed them to the study and its findings.

...

&feature=player_embedded

Though the Romney campaign has used TPC studies to its own benefit in the past, this time it called the group’s findings “a joke.”

The Romney campaign is pushing back against a new study from researchers at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center suggesting Mitt Romney’s tax proposals would actually increase taxes for a whopping a 95% of Americans, denouncing the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, as a “liberal” group. While the Romney campaign hasn’t rebutted the substance of the study, they claim the Tax Policy Center should be dismissed entirely as a biased source.

Objective, Third-Party Analysis Showed Governor Perry’s Plan Would Raise Taxes On Millions Of American Families – But He Doesn’t Seem Interested In The Discussion.