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I don't expect we'll see any Republicans willing to support his legislation, but good for Sen. Sanders for doing this: Senator Introduces Bill To End Huge Corporate Tax Giveaway:

Corporations offshoring profits costs both the federal government and states billions of dollars per year. One of the more egregious giveaways is known as “deferral,” which allows U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes on overseas profits until they bring that money back to the U.S., giving them every incentive to leave it overseas permanently.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “The current tax system provides incentives for U.S. firms to locate their production facilities in countries with low taxes as a way to reduce their tax liability at home,” ultimately resulting in compensation for U.S. workers being lower. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is introducing a bill today that would end this practice and close several other corporate tax loopholes: [...]

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, “the provisions in this bill will raise more than $590 billion in revenue over the next decade.”

Due to the proliferation of loopholes, credits, and the use of tax havens, major corporations haven’t paid the full statutory tax rate in 45 years. In 2011, the 12.1 percent effective rate that corporations paid was the lowest in 40 years.

Here's more from Sen. Sanders' site: End Offshore Tax Havens:

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You've just got to love the right wing propagandists over at Fox, like Bill O'Reilly, having the nerve to be screeching about Al Gore and his business partners' decision to sell Current TV to Al Jazeera. Here's more from Mediaite on Bill-O's rant during the opening of his show this Thursday evening: Bill O’Reilly Tears Into ‘Hypocrite’ Al Gore For Trying To Settle Current TV Sale Before Taxes Went Up:

Bill O’Reilly had some harsh words for Al Gore tonight over his sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera. O’Reilly took issue with Gore’s hypocrisy in trying to finalize the sale before the fiscal cliff deadline this past Monday night to avoid paying higher taxes, as well as doing a deal with “anti-Americans” at Al Jazeera. O’Reilly declared that Gore has “shamed himself” with the deal.

O’Reilly highlighted Gore’s hypocrisy on taxes by bringing up video of Gore saying two months ago that he believes rich people such as himself need to “do our fair share.”

O’Reilly then set his sights on Al Jazeera, a network he declared to be run by “anti-Americans” and even sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. By making a deal with Al Jazeera, O’Reilly said, Gore has “shamed himself.” O’Reilly made it clear he would not want Al Jazeera to be censored, but said the whole deal is “sleazy” and “disgraceful.”

I'm not going to defend Gore on the tax hypocrisy, if the anonymous sources O'Reilly quoted here, that it was Gore along with his business partners who were pushing to get this through before taxes went up this year are correct. But as the article noted, Gore owns 20 percent of the company, so it wasn't just him pushing for the time table if the source is accurate. And if the source is not accurate, as O'Reilly admitted is possible, Gore may very well have not been the one pushing for the deal to go through before the end of the year to avoid the higher tax rate.

Of course, O'Reilly's solution for this is for Gore to come on his show and explain himself, which we all know would be a completely "fair and balanced" and cordial interview... or maybe not. The likely outcome would be O'Reilly screaming over Gore and calling him every name in the book and accusing him of sympathizing with terrorists, just as he did here.

Which brings us to O'Reilly's attack of Al Jazeera as some anti-American propaganda outfit. I just have to say, that's pretty rich coming from someone from the right wing propaganda outfit, Fox, which has an ownership stake by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. I guess O'Reilly doesn't have any problems with Uncle Rupert palling around with someone from the country where 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were from.

And as to the quality of Al Jazeera's programming, from what I've watched of it, they've done a hell of a lot better job than Fox or many of their American counterparts with just delivering straight news from around the world. The reason people like O'Reilly hate them is for the real reporting they were attempting to do when the United States decided to invade Iraq under false pretenses and reporters from that network along with others paid the price for that with their lives.

Fox and O'Reilly were too busy playing cheerleader for the Bush administration at the time instead of telling Americans the truth about what we were doing there.

There are legitimate concerns to be had about foreign ownership of our news media here in the United States, but I think they pale in comparison to the problem we have with media consolidation, which is far more dangerous. The quality and honesty of what's presented to the American public matters and having five or so huge media companies controlling everything we watch, read, listen to and the mixture of entertainment and news has been far more corrosive than any addition of news channels with foreign ownership will ever be.

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It seems former President George W. Bush isn't too worried about giving Mitt Romney some bad press just before the election. As Steve Benen noted, the contrast between how Bill Clinton is spending his time these days and Bush couldn't be more stark -- A tale of two former presidents:

Just this week, former President Bill Clinton has campaigned for President Obama in Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, Colorado, and Iowa. Today, Clinton will hit the stump for Obama in Wisconsin and again in Ohio. By most measures, the former president has become Obama's most popular and most effective surrogate.

And then there's Clinton's successor.

[George W. Bush] will spend Thursday in the Cayman Islands, delivering the keynote address at the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit. As Romney struggles to convince voters that he understands their economic struggles, having the previous Republican president reminding them of the questions surrounding Romney's financial dealings in the Caymans is beyond unhelpful.

Yes, as we first discussed in September, George W. Bush, with just five days remaining before Election Day, is headed to one of the most politically inconvenient locations possible for Mitt Romney: the Republican will deliver the keynote address this evening at the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit.

In case anyone's forgotten, Romney ran into a little trouble over the summer when we learned he has stashed cash in the Cayman Islands, and played fast and loose with the facts, hoping the public won't realize that Romney is using the Caymans as an apparent tax-avoidance scheme.

Which reminds me -- has anyone asked Romney about his secret tax returns lately?

Fat chance of that happening. Romney's been running from reporters asking him questions he doesn't like for months on end now.

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What would a Sunday be without Peggy Noonan around to impart some of her infinite wisdom to the masses on these bobble head shows? Here she is on Meet the Press pretending that Mittens lying like a rug about his tax plan not favoring the rich because he's going to close some mysterious tax loopholes to be named later is something new.

GREGORY: Peggy, I thought it was pointed when he said reelection of President Obama means chronic high unemployment. And yet, there-- there is all the evidence of the underpinnings of this economy being very strong. Is that a credible case he’s making?

NOONAN: Well, you had brought up the point about the underpinnings being strong. I think there is a general Republican point of view that if Mister Obama is reelected, nothing will move forward in Washington, a sort of cold, blanket, heavy on the economy will probably continue. No progress will be made. Taxes on corporations won’t be lowe-- lowered, so we won’t be more competitive. So, I think, that’s what he was referring to. However, I must add that there was a little news there in what Governor Romney said about, well, frankly, at the higher end for more well-off taxpayers. They’re going to lose some of the things they were relying on, like certain loopholes. I thought he might be talking about limits on the mortgage interest rate deduction. He was not clear about it. But it seems to me he was saying, look, we’re trying to be fair here, we’re trying to make it all work. But the-- but-- but don’t demagogue me on the rich get away with everything.

Yeah, how dare anyone "demagogue" poor old Mitt by telling the truth about his business practices, or his offshore tax havens and making people think he might not be a nice guy. The nerve of them!