Republicans Want to Tax Unemployment Benefits at 100% Rate, Supreme Court Finds 1st Amendment Unconstitutional

And Other News That Did Not Happen, But Could Have

Republicans who are negotiating spending cuts with Democrats to close the budget deficit have acceded to Democratic requests that part of the deal come from increasing revenues.  Republicans have proposed that a special tax rate of 100% be placed on all unemployment benefit income.  “This will place the burden of paying for such programs squarely on the people who benefit from those programs” an anonymous spokesperson said.  President Obama, in an effort to promote bi-partisanship is said to be studying the proposal.

The Supreme Court today issued an opinion in which they found parts of the first amendment to be unconstitutional.  Speaking for a 5 to 4 majority, Justice Scalia said that first amendment rights guaranteeing free speech did not mean free speech for those disagreeing with Conservative proposals.  “Allowing such speech”, he said, “placed an undue burden on Conservatives to defend positions which are in many cases indefensible and thus the first amendment supresses speech”. 

Scalia also said that while authority for the opinion was not in the Constitution, and in fact violated the Constitution he was certain his opinion was what the Founders meant.  Justice Thomas, who was part of the majority wrote that he didn’t understand any of this but that Scalia had told him it was ok, and that was good enough for him.

Bank of America announced that they would be giving large bonuses to executives who caused the Bank to buy Countrywide Financial.  After paying about $4 billion for the Company, the Bank has also had to pay over $8 billion to settle claims of malfeasance in the operations of Countrywide.  The Bank explained the bonuses by saying the debacle with mortgage backed securities took a lot of attention away from the Bank’s other debacles, and so was well worth the money it lost on the deal.

John Kerry is quoted as saving he would have been a “great President”.(ok, that really happened).  Asked to name other people who felt he would have been a great President,  Kerry responded by saying he would “have my people get back to your people”.

The Republican National Committee said they did not expect anyone to be the winner of the Iowa Caucuses early next year:

The reason for this comes from Iowa’s Republican Governor.

My feeling,” Mr. Branstad said, “is Iowans like candidates who are humble and hard working and who will make the extra effort to see people in all parts of the state and be open and honest and share their plans and vision.”

The RNC said that none of their candidates could meet that standard, and urged Iowa to change its standard to candidates that are

“arrogant quitters who make no effort to be open and honest and share their plans and visions.  Those”, the RNC said, “The Republican Party can provide.” 

The RNC went on to say that no, they were not pushing the candidacies of Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich.