Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is proposing a law that would give Obama the authority to raise the debt limit for the remainder of his first term. Under current law only Congress has the ability to raise the debt limit so the country can continue to borrow money to pay off any debt already spent.

However, according to TPM the plan would have some strings attached that would heavily favor Republicans and allow them to continue to drag out the debt ceiling debate through the next election.

The plan would require Congress to pass a bill allowing Obama to raise the debt limit on his own, contingent on a series of steps: Obama would have to notify Congress of his intent tor raise the debt limit — a high-sign to Congress that would be subject to an official censure known as a “resolution of disapproval,” and which Obama could veto. If he vetoed the resolution, and if Congress sustained the veto, then Obama would also have to outline a series of hypothetical spending cuts he’d make, equal to the amount of new debt authority he’d give himself. Only then would the Treasury be allowed to issue new debt.

McConnell proposes rolling out this process in three tranches, to force Obama to request more borrowing authority, and to force debt limit votes in Congress, repeatedly through election season.

If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling limit before August 2, 2011, the U.S. will default for the first time in its history, which will cause U.S. credit ratings to be downgraded and could potentially push the country into a deep recession or depression. A default of the U.S. government could also lead to instability in world markets.

President Obama wants spending to be reduced by 3 trillion dollars over the next 10 years to be coupled with any debt ceiling increase.

States with higher percentages of people without degrees tend to be more conservatives. It makes sense why conservatives don’t value education – it would eliminate them. View the interactive map with degree statistics here.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed outrage over a federal loophole that allows people on the FBI terrorist watch list to legally purchase guns and explosives.  Being “known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity” is currently not a reason for someone to be denied purchasing weapons or chemicals that could make bombs.

The Government Accountability Office said that individuals on the terrorist watchlist attempted to purchase potentially legal equipment 1,228 times in the past six years.  Background checks were ran on all of these individuals and they were easily identified as being on the terrorist watchlist.  Out of the 1,228 potential terrorists that attempted to legally purchase guns and explosives 1,119 of them were allowed to.  The statistics show that this is not something that rarely happens.  If terrorists are allowed to legally purchase weapons in this country, then it gives them easy access to anything they need to pull off a terrorist attack.

The National Rifle Association and gun lobby are adamantly opposed to the bill that would close this “terror gap,” H.R. 2159.  They argue that even though they are potential terrorists, they have a right to purchase weapons and deadly explosives.  Republicans are backing the NRA and attempting to block the legislation.

The Tea Party is definitely not the party of intellectuals, but the crazy conspiracy theories just never end.  Apparently, one of the new cooky ones is that Obama is going to ban all fishing in America.  Where do these people come up with this stuff?  They claim that taxes for the middle class have gone up since he was elected, which is clearly false.  They believe that Obama is a Muslim non-U.S. citizen with some obsession for a one world government or some other non-sense.

You can see a video below by NewLeftMedia interviewing Tea Party protestors on April 15.  What exactly are they protesting?  They have no idea.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign a new immigration law passed by the state House of Representatives.

It will now be a misdemeanor to not have the proper immigration paperwork in Arizona.  It will also require police to determine a person’s immigration status, if they feel they may be an illegal immigrant.  Currently, police can only look into someone’s legal status if they are involved in a crime.  The new law will make it impossible for illegal immigrants to report crimes, harsh working environments, or seek medical attention because of the fear of deportation.

The bill may also encourage police officers to take immigration verification into their own hands.  The bill specifically says that race can not be used as a factor to determine if someone may or may not be a citizen, civil rights groups expect officers will use that as a factor.  American minority citizens would be targeted and unduly burdened by the new law.  Americans could be arrested for simply not having their driver’s license with them or because they look like a minority without being associated with any crime.

Federal courts have stuck down similar bills before stating that the federal government is the only entity with the authority to enforce immigration.  The law also makes day labor illegal, which violates the 1st Amendment.  Law suites are expected to be filed once the bill is signed into law.

Obama has been criticized by Republicans for attempting to renew a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.  The new START treaty would limit the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550, a two-thirds reduction from the original START treaty.  The number of nuclear missile launchers will be reduced by half.  It’s seen by the international community as a break through to stop nuclear proliferation.  It has even led to Ukraine announcing today that it would get rid of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, enough to build several nuclear weapons, which the U.S. has been attempting to accomplish for nearly 10 years.  China and Russia are now on board with sanction for Iran, which George Bush was never able to accomplish.  These are important steps to reach Obama’s goal of locking down all nuclear weapons and nuclear material in four years in order to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.  Republican criticism of Obama’s nuclear proliferation stance is counter to what their platform views were under Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan said that nuclear weapons are “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” … “[F]or the eight years I was president,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.” … “We live in a troubled world, and the United States and China, as two great nations, share a special responsibility to help reduce the risks of war. We both agree that there can be only one sane policy to preserve our precious civilization in this modern age: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.”

Today is “Tax Freedom Day.”  It’s the conservative day to remind all Americans exactly how much they pay in taxes.  They say if you work from January 1st until today all of that money goes to the government in taxes and from this day forward for the rest of the year you can keep your money.  It’s an estimate of the amount of “slavery” or “involuntary servitude” Americans face through government.

Of course, all of this ignores the fact that the U.S. has one of the lowest tax rates of the industrialized world.  We rank 5th lowest for tax revenues as a share of GDP.  In fact, taxes have remained stable since the 1950s and have decreased during most of the last 100 years.  Corporate and excise taxes have actually gone down.

Maybe all of the anger is directed because the U.S. redistributes American wealth as they claim?  Not really.  The U.S. is the least redistributive first world nation.  The U.S. actually offers some of the best government services in the world, for some of the least amount of taxes.  It’s not common to hear that the American government is incredibly efficient compared to other similar nations.

Conservatives harp on the amount that our government spends, but they don’t focus on how little our tax burden actually is compared to other similar countries.  They also tend to ignore the fact that nothing new has dramatically changed in our taxation.  It’s easy to complain about taxation, but our government provides valuable services for an incredibly inexpensive cost.

People often talk about how our country is attempting to redistribute wealth, but people seem to ignore that the wealthiest individuals are being taxed substantially less now than during most of this country’s recent history.  From 1917 until now we have had tax rates for the highest incomes groups up to 92% of their income.  That rate was not for just a few years.  In 1917 the tax rate was 67% for this group and it was still 70% in 1980.  From 1950 to 1963 the tax rate was 91% (92% in 1952 and 1952).  During the Reagan presidency the tax rate topped out at 69.13%.  The top tax rate in 2010 was 35%.  The lowest tax rate during the last 90 years was 24% in 1929, the year the Great Depression began.  So why are people concerned that the wealthiest Americans are getting taxed too much when they are being taxed at the historic low that they are now?

Chart From http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

A CBS poll shows that a large portion of Americans do not have a favorable view of Sarah Palin and a large percentage of Americans do not want her to run for President in the next election.

The poll shows that 71% of Americans do not want Sarah Palin to run for President and 41% have an unfavorable view of the potential 2012 Presidential candidate.  A surprising 56% of Republicans say they do not want to see her run for office and 88% of Democrats say the same.

You can read the full poll results here.

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos Rudy Giuliani attacked the Obama administration claiming that “we had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.”

Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York on 9/11.  You would think that would be hard to forget for someone like that.  Republicans also often forget who was the president on Sept. 11, 2001.  There was the shoe bomber incident, which can be comparable to the recent bombing attempt on Christmas.  What about the anthrax incidents that happened during the Bush administration?
This seems to be a common line of attack from Republicans.  They attempt to rewrite history in order to make themselves look better.  Dana Perino also recently claimed that there were also no domestic terrorist attacks during the Bush administration.  Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist, also claimed that 9/11 did not happen during the Bush administration.  Do they really think they can make such claims and people will start to believe them?