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Sen. Kelly Ayotte was once again asked by her constituents at a town hall meeting about her vote against the Manchin-Toomey background check legislation and her response this time around was to make stuff up:

Before saying anything about New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, let's establish one thing: Although the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal would have expanded background checks for gun purchases, it wouldn't have created a national firearms registry. In fact, it would have strengthened existing law barring the creation of any such registry and stiffened penalties against any official who violated or tried to violate the prohibition.

With that said, check out Ayotte's explanation on Thursday afternoon for why she voted against expanded background checks:

I will tell you in terms of a universal background check, as it's been framed, I have a lot of concerns about that leading to a registry that will lead to a privacy situation for lawful firearms owners.

That's total bull. The text of the legislation would have explicitly prohibited the creation of a national gun registry in not one, not two, but three separate places. Read on...

Here's more from Steve Benen: The facts Ayotte doesn't want her constituents to know:

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As Susie already noted here, Elizabeth Warren's first chance to ask questions as a member of the Senate Banking Committee and to take some of these SEC chairs to task for not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for their behavior, apparently hurt some of the bankers' feelings. MSNBC's Chuck Todd used the occasion to play the Villagers' favorite false equivalency game and compare wingnut McCarthyite Sen. Ted Cruz to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Funny, how he sounds an awful lot like that anonymous Wall Street executive who was complaining about her.

And as Susie also pointed out, Warren telling the truth is not the same as Cruz' sorry display. What's really pathetic about Todd and and his cheap shot at Warren here is that even his colleague Chris Matthews went after Cruz and his attacks on Hagel for being the "new McCarthyism" in one of his segments on Hardball this Friday.

What I found humorous about the segment above is that even though Todd and his guests, Ruth Marcus and Michael Steele, did their best to be dismissive of Warren by even mentioning her in the same sentence as Cruz, you could also tell something else: They're scared to death of her.

Marcus admitted that maybe it was alright because Warren "was in her wheelhouse" (which I'd say is the understatement of the year), and they all had to admit that she'd be formidable if she decided to run for president -- -- although I find putting her in the same category as Marco Rubio is insulting as well.

There is no "Marco Rubio of the left," because the left doesn't need to prop up the few members of their party who are minorities to try to cover for their racist policies.

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From this Saturday's The Chris Matthews Show, it seem the Villagers believe the Obama campaign is going to quit going after Mitt Romney on the issue of his taxes once the Republican convention rolls around. I'm not sure why they would do that but that was the consensus here.

After discussing how poor old Mittens was somehow “baited” into discussing his tax returns last week during his little whiteboard fiasco and the fact that the Obama campaign has been happy to keep the discussion on Romney's taxes going, Chuck Todd weighed in with this statement on how long that discussion might go on:

TODD: But it seems to me like we're getting to an expiration date.

COOPER: I think so. Don't you? (crosstalk)

GARRETT: Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Swiss bank accounts. That's one year of tax returns. The Democrats look at five or ten years and say, whoa... (crosstalk).

TODD: Kelly, don't (inaudible) thinks, if I get to the convention...

O'DONNELL: That they'll move on.

TODD: They'll move on.

Quite a far cry from Todd's colleague Rachel Maddow and her reporting last week: Maddow: Romney’s history shows he’s willing to lie about his taxes:

Friday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow said that presumptive Republican nominee Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has, if precedent is any guide, given us no reason to take his word on the subject of his refusal to disclose his tax returns. In fact, he has given voters rather the opposite. [...]

Romney said that when he looked back over his tax returns from the last ten years, he found that he had never paid less than 13 percent of his earnings and that we’re just going to have to trust him on that. However, Maddow said, in 2002 when Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts, it was demanded of him that he release tax returns to demonstrate a residency in that state of at least seven years. Romney refused and insisted that the public take his word for it.

Eventually it came out that Romney had lied. He was forced to pay Massachusetts taxes retroactively, because when he said that the public would have to take his word that he had paid taxes for seven years as a Massachusetts resident, it simply wasn’t true.

Now he wants us to take his word that he has paid at least 13 percent of his massive income over the last 10 years in taxes. Why should we take him at face value? He has demonstrated a willingness to prevaricate on this very subject in his career as a public figure.

So why would the Obama campaign drop this issue? I'm not sure when they taped this show and if it was before or after his interview with NPR, but as of this Friday, Major Garrett claimed he'd never even heard about the issue with the tax returns from 1999-2001 and the issue in Massachusetts. You can read more details about that here: Ex-Fox's Major Garrett: Never Knew Romney Caught Lying On 1999-2001 Tax Returns.

My guess on Todd's hackery here is this is what we're going to hear out of him once the convention rolls through. This is an old issue and it's time to move on. And he'll have plenty of help as well. Here's to hoping the Obama campaign ignores him and so far this election season, I'm happy to say they've been doing a lot of that and ignoring the cries by the beltway Villagers.

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This Friday morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough and regular Mark Halperin decided to go after President Obama for what he said on a campaign stop in Florida this week, where he talked to voters about Mitt Romney's plans to turn Medicare into a voucher system and balance the budget off of the backs of seniors rather than asking the rich to pay more in taxes.

They both tried to paint the President as unfairly attacking Romney and for not differentiating between those who are on the program today and those who would be affected by the changes. Then Halperin admits that Paul Ryan's plan, which Romney has endorsed, is indeed radical and that there very well could be changes to current seniors' benefits. Halperin also thinks Republicans deserve some credit for "at least trying more new ideas" and that Democrats had better get on board to "save" these programs. Sorry Mark, but eliminating and privatizing them is not "saving" any of our social safety nets, it's gutting and getting rid of them. And it's not "new" since Republicans have been trying to get rid of the New Deal programs since the day any of them were enacted.

It is enough to make someone's head spin watching these two attempt to play the false equivalency game here and pretend "both sides" are equally at fault on the here and that anything the President said is unfounded. As Halperin admits, Republicans do want to fundamentally change Medicare and I don't think any current seniors want to see those benefits cut for their children. And I don't believe President Obama is out there misrepresenting what the Republicans would like to do. He told voters Romney and the Republicans would like to turn Medicare into a voucher program and they don't want to raise taxes on millionaires. Those things are true. Republicans have already talked continually about how it would not affect current seniors when Paul Ryan first proposed his budget, and it didn't make their ideas any less popular.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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While discussing Rush Limbaugh's defense of the NASCAR crowd that booed First Lady Michele Obama and the Vice President Joe Biden's wife Jill and Rush Limbaugh's subsequent defense of those fans and calling FLOTUS Michele Obama “uppity”, which host Chris Matthews rightfully called not “just a dog whistle, but a bugle call”, Matthews asked whether President Obama is going to have a hard time garnering the white vote this election as he did during his first campaign for president.

Andrew Sullivan, for all of his faults and with being in the same class as the David Brooks and Tom Friedman's of the world out there and with being wrong in his support of the Republican Party for years and making excuses for their policies, even though they obviously had utter and complete disdain for gay men such as himself, gets this one right.

As Sullivan rightfully asked here, just how many more minority groups does the GOP have to alienate and piss off before they have a real problem where they cannot just be the party of white angry men any more.

SULLIVAN: But I think it's a huge problem for the Republicans too.

MATTHEWS: How so?

SULLIVAN: Look, you've been watching these debates. Everybody, a lot more have been watching them. If you're a Latino, if you're black, if you're a woman and watched the way they sort of coo-cooed sexual harassment allegations. If you're gay and they booed a gay soldier. I mean how many minorities are they going to tell not to vote Republican until they realize this is going to be a problem for them?

And the more the Limbaugh brand adheres to the Republican Party, the more doomed they are.

As all of them noted, Romney has moved so far to the right on immigration, he's going to have to eventually move on that, but we're not likely to see him flip-flop again until the general election. How much longer the Republicans can continue to follow the Limbaugh model and use racial divisions to win elections successfully remains a question we haven't answered yet, but I sincerely hope those divisions continue to go by the wayside as Rush Limbaugh and Fox's audiences continue to age.

It's long past time that it's not socially acceptable for some racist like Limbaugh to be openly calling the First Lady "uppity" and all I can say is I have to wonder how someone like Limbaugh can continue to look himself in the mirror and spout hatred such as he did here, but I guess those millions he's got coming in somehow make that reflection of such ugliness a whole lot easier to ignore.

I hope Sullivan is right that there's finally a backlash against such hatred and ugliness and that those who are engaging in actual class warfare are punished at the ballot box.

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On this weekend's Chris Matthews Show, Matthews' "Big Question" for the week was this: Of the Republicans running for president, which one offers the best chance of becoming, a great president? The response, mainly crickets by his panelists John Heilemann, Kelly O'Donnell, Gloria Borger. The only one willing to give him an answer was Joe Klein.

His response of what Republican president might end up on Mount Rushmore -- Barack Obama. That's a pretty sad state of affairs with our current field of Republican candidates when all of them were not willing to say anything good about any of them.

And someone should remind Joe Klein that to be an actual Republican these days and not the Villagers imaginary idea of what remains of the Republican Party, you have to be a bat shit crazy ideologue who's not willing to negotiate with anyone on anything if you think there's political gain in it and the public will fall for it.

I'm not any happier than a lot of us with how far both parties have moved to the right and how money is corrupting our political process, but sorry Joe, the party that has run off the cliff with being insane should not have their label attached to our current president.

I'd like for him to be further to the left like the rest of us, and as aggravated as I have gotten with what's he's been willing to concede to the other side and with validating a lot of their talking points, I would not wish having to navigate this current political climate he walked into and the Congress he's been forced to deal with on my worst enemy. And today's current Republican Party does not deserve to have anyone who is even half-way sane tagged with their label. They deserve to be called out for the zealots and TeaBirchers they are that have taken over their party.

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Tom Coburn appeared on Morning Joe and with some help from Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski proceeded to trash Harry Reid as "playing politics" with Social Security when he said to "leave Social Security alone" and that it's not broke. When asked to explain why what Harry Reid said is not true, Coburn claimed that the government "stole the money" and since Wall Street is demanding that we must do something about our deficit right now, of course that deficit must be paid for on the backs of the working class and the elderly. Heaven forbid we can't ask the rich to pay for running up the deficit.

Here's more from Dean Baker who responded to similar comments made by Tom Coburn on NPR.

Letter to Senator Tom Coburn on Social Security Comments:

According to a clip that aired on a recent segment of NPR’s All Things Considered, you said that Social Security is broke because the federal government stole $2.8 trillion from the Social Security trust fund.

This assertion is mistaken. No money was stolen, and the law has been followed to the letter.

The recommendations of the National Commission on Social Security Reform in 1983, led to the growth of a large surplus. The surplus has always been used to buy bonds.

Just as with any funds used to purchase bonds, the money is borrowed by the government, but repaid at the end of the term of the bond. Saying the government stole from Social Security is like saying the government stole from a grandparent who bought a $100 savings bond for their newborn grand-daughter, and no one believes this to be the case. The reality is that the bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. The bonds will be repaid.

Currently, the bonds making up the trust fund will be able to pay full benefits through the year 2037, and 75 percent thereafter. This is a far cry from broke.

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The panelists on The Chris Matthews Show were all in agreement this week. President Obama needs to throw Congressional Democrats under the bus, punch down the hippies in his base a few times, preach some austerity during his State of the Union address and work with those nice reasonable Republicans. If he does that, all will be well with his chances for re-election.

MATTHEWS: John I guess that's the question. What's his biggest challenge though? Holding the center as he began to do at the end of last year with this deal or keep the left which is a bit unhappy with him lately?

HEILEMANN: Uh, well that's the easiest question you've asked me in a long time Chris. I mean he needs the...

MATTHEWS: Thank you.

HEILEMANN: He already, forget the... Congressional Democrats are already mad at him for various reasons. Who cares about those people. He has a huge support among the actual members of his base, African American voters, Latino voters, self described liberals, actual people in the country, they like the president and he's got a very high approval rating with them. The base is not his problem. The problem is winning back all those independent voters who shifted to the Republicans in the 2010 election and he can do that. The unemployment rate is obviously important over the course of the first year... this next year. But he's got a bunch of big agenda items that are perfectly tailored to getting back independents. He wants to do deficit reduction, he wants to do education, he wants to do trade, he wants to do tax reform. Those are all things he can get Republicans to work with him on and in the process do himself a world of good politically...

MATTHEWS: So...

HEILEMANN: ...and get himself well set for the next election.

MATTHEWS: ...you're saying one of the advantages of cutting deals with Republicans is they can't call you a Socialist any more?

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Oh the good old days of Republicans stealing presidential elections. Norah O'Donnell filling in for Chris Matthews and the panel of Dan Rather, Katy Kay, Kelly O'Donnell and Richard Stengel yuck it up over the ten year old coverage of the Florida recount debacle and Saturday Night Live's parody of Chris Matthews interviewing Katherine Harris.

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After playing some of the extreme rhetoric coming from the likes of Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck, Chris Matthews asks what’s driving the hysteria over the so called “ground zero mosque” and the apocalyptic language coming from the likes of Glenn Beck. The National Review's Reihan Salam apparently doesn't think that Rupert Murdoch has any control over Glenn Beck which I'll get to shortly.

Joe Klein says Newt Gingrich is smart enough to know better, which he is, but dismisses Glenn Beck as “something different” and a “paranoid lunatic who is a great entertainer” who is exploiting what always happens when we have a combination of a bad economic situation in the United States coupled with being at war. I agree with Klein that Beck is exploiting a lot of the real fear that is out there with the economy being so terrible right now. I disagree that he’s just some “paranoid lunatic”. Beck knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s happy to be using his fear mongering to enrich himself. He just doesn’t care what type of damage he’s doing in the interim. And I also agree with Klein that Beck is doing this with the full approval of his “puppet master” Rupert Murdoch.

The part of this segment I found really irritating was the National Review’s Reihan Salam and his dismissiveness of Rupert Murdoch’s control over Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck doesn’t do anything on the air without the full approval of his station’s ownership and to pretend he doesn’t is just nonsense.

Matthews: Reihan Salam, this whole thing, I think it gets ethnic, I think it is tribal. I listened to Rush Limbaugh this week saying, you know, we’re not Islamaphobic, we elected Barack Obama. That proves we’re not Islamaphobic. That’s saying he’s Islamic again when the guy’s a Christian.

Salam: I don’t think that’s quite what it’s saying. I think what it’s saying is that Barack Obama is someone who comes from a very different kind of background and Americans have embraced him in large numbers. I also think the idea respectfully that Glenn Beck is… ah… you know… is being controlled by Rupert Murdoch as his puppet master gets things wrong. (crosstalk)

When you look at Glenn Beck you see someone for example, remember Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March. What was the Million Man March about? A lot of people were terrified by that. It caused a lot of consternation among liberals and conservatives. But ultimately what you saw was an event where tons of African American men got together and it was really about identity and pride.

And I think that when you are looking at our politics right now, it’s true that in an economic downturn you see a lot of confusion, you see a lot of uncertainty and there is a decent number of people who feel like now “have nots”, but they feel like “are nots”. They feel like they’re not being respected in our public life and they want to assert themselves….

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