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Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch is terribly upset with the mean old Democrats for setting up those poor little oil company executives during their hearing this week.

Utah’s Orrin Hatch accuses Democrats of setting up oil company CEO’s for public grilling:

Sen. Orrin Hatch isn’t wasting words on what he thinks of harsh criticism that oil company CEOs are taking on Capitol Hill. He’s letting a portrait of a dog sitting on a pony tell part of the story.

At a hearing on gas prices, the Utah Republican said that Senate Democrats are conducting a dramatic hearing to “make some political hay at the expense of our witnesses today.”

Somebody's got to be looking out for the little guy. Hatch complained to the Morning Joe crew here that the hearings were "selective" and "because they're politically unpopular." Hatch and the Republicans complaining about the Democrats playing politics while they stand up for these oil company executives is about as humorous as his his counterparts in the House asking Democrats not to attack them for their proposed Medicare cuts earlier in the week as TPM reported here -- GOP Freshmen On Medicare Attacks: Let's Let Bygones Be Bygones.

Someone needs to remind Hatch about the Republicans attacks on Planned Parenthood and ACORN among others before he's allowed to complain about anyone being singled out for political attacks. The Democrats would be foolish not to go after them on either of these issues.

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In the wake of the news that Harry Reid is going to force the Senate Republicans to vote on Paul Ryan's horrid budget proposal that already passed in the House, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough looked to me like he was giving former Club for Growth President and current Senator from Pennsylvania Pat Toomey a chance to do some early damage control if Reid does force the Senate Republicans to take a vote on Ryan and the House Republican's budget bill.

I hate to break it to Toomey and Scarborough, but all of the talk in the world about how "serious" and "adult" and supposedly necessary Ryan's budget cuts are, it's not going to make his draconian proposals go over any better with the voters once they get a look at his plan.

And of course Toomey and Scarborough's ridiculous interview doesn't get to the substance of what is being cut. Just saying it's unreasonable that we can't take spending back to the levels the government had in previous years is completely ridiculous. The devil is in the details with who they're taking care of and who they're cutting services to and not just broad, sweeping, meaningless talking points like we saw out of the two of them here. And also par for the course, there was no mention of the Ryan budget cutting taxes for corporations on the backs of the poor, the working class and our seniors.

What matters are our priorities and Toomey's priorities are taking care of his rich campaign donors. We'll see how well that goes over with voters once Harry Reid forces that vote on the Senate floor. I'm sure Toomey knows full well that he and his fellow Republican Senators might be in for some town hall meetings like we've seen their counterparts in the House putting up with if they vote for Ryan's budget. Here's more from TPM on that.

Reid To Senate Republicans: You Wanna Privatize Medicare? Vote For It!:

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While discussing whether this birther nonsense is ultimately going to harm the Republican Party once their presidential candidates get through the primary race and have to start campaigning in the general election, Peggy Noonan did her best to downplay just how much of the Republican base believes that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. She also tried to blame the media for "whipping up" the story to make the conservative base look bad.

NOONAN: I think it is an issue that speaks to a small but passionate part of the anti-Obama base. I'm a little surprised over the years at how it's taken off. I think Donald Trump has taken to whipping it up and so people talk about it. But I don't think that it is a serious issue that will make anybody feel pro or anti-Obama. It doesn't change anything.

It's too bad that no one on the panel asked Peggy Noonan if she'd seen this recent report from Public Policy Polling:

Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don't think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure. The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise.

And I'd love for her to explain why Donald Trump is seeing a huge rise in the polls since he started going out there spouting this birther nonsense -- Obama Birth Certificate Issue Turns Trump into Big Problem for GOP:

The Barack Obama birth certificate controversy may or may not impact the 2012 election. Since those outside of the tea party aren't focused that much on the birth certificate -- or alleged lack thereof -- it probably won't get anyone elected president. However, the Republican primary is only for GOP voters, so if the issue is going to resonate, it would do so there. As such, new numbers about Donald Trump's rise in the polls, after outing himself as a "birther" send a troubling message to the mainstream GOP.

Republicans as a whole are being blamed for the issue, as asking these questions about Obama strikes many as racist. But most Republican candidates who aren't tea party icons aren't touching it since they know it is unlikely to come off well in a wider presidential election. Yet it now seems it can help someone in a Republican primary, however.

Rather than acknowledge that the problem is the wingnut Republican base and their primary voters, Noonan blames the media.

NOONAN:I think birthers stuff is confined mostly to people who really hate Obama and it's their number four reason for hating him. Do you know what I mean? They've sort of got a list and it's part of the list. But it's not this positive for anybody. I often think that the mainstream media whips it up because it makes the conservative base look bad.

Yeah, that's the ticket. It's a plot by that evil liberal media that wants to attack conservatives. Sorry Nooners, but they're doing a good enough job of that own their without any help. Scarborough went on to complain about how unfairly all of those poor TeaBirchers out there protesting were being treated compared to the evil dirty hippie union thug protesters. Scarborough thinks his show is the only place that showed offensive signs from the union rallies and that the media only focused on showing signs from the “tea party” protests. Apparently he doesn't watch Fox. And no one had to make an effort just to find at few offensive signs at those "tea party" rallies. They were all over the place.

Time for your weekly podcast with our own Driftglass and Bluegal, otherwise known as The Professional Left, or soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Driftglass. Enjoy the podcast and have a great weekend everyone.

Link for the podcast: Harold Ford Jr. shows that Math is Hard!

You can listen to the archives and listen to the archives free with no downloads at http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/ and you can also make a donation there if you'd like to help keep these podcasts going.

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Harold Ford Jr. (D-Wall Street) and The Washington Post's Ezra Klein had a bit of a back and forth on Morning Joe earlier today and apparently he had a problem with the concept of math when crunching numbers doesn't fit into his preconceived political assumptions. When Ezra Klein said you could take care of the shortfall for Social Security for the next seventy five years by raising the cap on payroll taxes, Ford wanted to argue with him.

Heaven forbid we can't get a little "shared sacrifice" from the likes of Ford to keep some lower income retirees afloat. Can't have that... oh no. But he loves the idea of means testing it, which we know would just turn it into a welfare program. And we all know what conservatives think about welfare.

Ezra responds here -- What’s hard about deficit reduction isn’t the math:

I got into a bit of a back-and-forth with Harold Ford on “Morning Joe” today over entitlements. Ford said he “didn’t like my math,” but the question with math, of course, is not whether you like it, but whether it’s right.

So let’s check it out. Start with Social Security: I said that the size of the shortfall over the next 75 year is 0.7 percent of GDP. You could pretty much wipe that out by allowing the payroll tax to apply to wages over $107,000 (Ford seemed to think the payroll tax applies to earnings up to $116,000 now, but he’s wrong about that). CBO estimates “the 75-year actuarial balance [of Social Security] to be 0.6 percent of gross domestic product.” I’ve seen 0.7 percent of GDP elsewhere, but I’ll take that as a slight strike against me.

As for eliminating the payroll tax cap do, “this option would improve the 75-year actuarial balance by 0.6 percentage points of GDP and extend the trust fund exhaustion date to 2083.” Come 2083, you’d have to do something else to shore up Social Security. But I’d be pretty happy to secure Social Security for the next 75 years. Rep. Ted Deutch, incidentally, has legislation to do exactly that.

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Mike Pence made no secret of where his priorities are when it comes to governing. Pandering to the extremists in the religious right comes before the reproductive health of women, especially poor women and he'd prefer to shut down the government to funding Planned Parenthood. Just shameless.

Media Matters Political Correction has more -- Would Rep. Pence Shut Down The Government Over Planned Parenthood Funding? "Of Course":

This morning on MSNBC, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) restated his commitment to his moral crusade against Planned Parenthood, once again letting down the Americans who voted for Republicans in hopes they would focus on job creation. There's no clearer evidence of the GOP's misplaced priorities than Pence's declaration today that "of course" he would be willing to "hold up this entire budget" — which would result in a government shutdown — over the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

WILLIE GEIST (CO-HOST): Are you willing to hold up this entire budget over defunding Planned Parenthood?

PENCE: Well— well of course I am. I think the American people have begun to learn that the largest abortion provider in the country is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X, and they want to see that come to an end. I think there's a broad consensus in this country, regardless of where you stand on the subject of abortion, there's a broad consensus for decades now opposing public funding of abortion and abortion providers. ... We're going to dig in and we're going to fight for the principle that taxpayers should not have to subsidize the largest abortion provider in the country, namely Planned Parenthood of America.

And as they noted, or course Mike Pence is lying here:

The funds Planned Parenthood receives through Title X go to family planning and health services other than abortion — things like pap smears and birth control. Pence's defunding efforts have nothing to do with separating federal tax dollars from abortion funding, since they're already separate; his amendment will undermine the ability of Planned Parenthood to provide any services because they also provide abortions — a much more radical objective.

Perhaps that's why he's had to manufacture the "broad consensus" he claims support him; in fact, a majority of voters oppose cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Being willing to shut down the government in the name of a rather meaningless moral crusade is such an extreme position that co-host Joe Scarborough (a former Republican congressman) incredulously asked Pence to clarify — twice.

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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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In what looked like it was going to be another typical softball session for Rep. Eric Cantor on Morning Joe today, Jeffrey Sachs managed to ask him a few questions that he probably wasn't too comfortable having to answer. Cantor defended the proposed budget cuts to NOAA, despite warnings that it could lead to furloughs at tsunami warning centers, which he disputed with Sachs here.

Sachs also asked Cantor whether Congress had any interest in closing the tax loopholes which allow corporations to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands. Cantor of course agreed that "if" anyone was cheating and not paying their taxes he'd like to put a stop to that. He claimed that Republicans would be willing to work with President Obama to close those loopholes. Sachs wasn't given a chance to follow up with him but if he had been, I imagine he would have asked him why Republicans were fighting to keep those loopholes open last year if that was true.

Of course along with supposedly closing the loopholes, Cantor wants the tax code "reformed", which I'm sure will result in lowering tax rates for corporations if their track record means anything. Republicans don't want corporations to have to pay any taxes, so I don't know why anyone should take in good faith that they'd start making sure they do now with these negotiations.

Cantor went on to brag to Mika and Joe about the "Interactive Jobs Forum" they were holding today. Campaign for America's Future has more on that -- GOP Bait and Switch on Jobs:

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While discussing whether Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker is actually going to be willing to make a deal with the fourteen Democrats who fled the state or not and the rights of the public workers in Wisconsin to collective bargaining on Morning Joe, MSNBC's resident racist and union hater Pat Buchanan lets everyone know why Republicans really hate unions. They organize to help get Democrats elected. And in Buchanan's world, if you're being paid a government salary from the taxpayers and you do that, it's really, really evil and nefarious.

Of course we never hear Pat complaining about corporate lobbyists influencing politicians -- because that's just freedom of speech don't you know. I'd like for someone to ask Pat if it's okay for corporations like private military contractors who are getting no bid contracts from their buddies in Washington paid for by our tax dollars to pay lobbyists or meet with politicians themselves to get a share of our tax dollars. I wonder if Pat is going to complain if the Koch brothers end up getting to buy the public utilities in Wisconsin for some ridiculously low price that rips off the tax payers there. Anyone think we're going to hear him start carping about that? Nope. Pat only cares if the taxpayers aren't happy that those evil union thugs are using money to... gasp... earn a living and collectively bargain for fair wages and decent working conditions. And worse yet... pull out the smelling salts... to support politicians who might have their best interests at heart.

People who work for the government that belong to unions are not spending taxpayer money to support their unions. They're paying part of their salaries. That money doesn't belong to the taxpayers any more than a private sector union member's salary belongs to the company they work for after they're paid. And they've got a right to expect to earn a living wage just like anyone else in America. But the Buchanan's of the world want to paint that as somehow being evil and misusing taxpayer dollars.

I've been at my job and in a union for over 25 years now and I've got a lot of conservative co-workers like anyone else out there obviously. I tell you this latest overreach by Walker and the teabaggers, the Republican Party and their cohorts in the media like Buchanan here is turning off people like I've never seen before. I've seen first hand conservative co-workers of mine looking at this stuff and just being completely disgusted and waking up for the first time to the fact that the Republican Party just hates working people and wants to destroy unions.

I really think these Republican governors and their strategy to go full bore and try to give unions a fatal blow may end up being one of the biggest political blunders I've seen in my lifetime if the reaction from the people I work with is any indication. So you go Pat. You're turning off Republican union members around the country and anyone that relates to or sides with them with your union bashing, just like your buddies in office.

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While discussing Rep. Peter King's upcoming McCarthyesque hearings on the threat of terrorism from Muslim Americans, even Joe Scarborough says that King is walking a fine line here and Ezra Klein agrees with Rep. Keith Ellison that King needs to back off and is not holding a serious investigation but just trying to raise his public profile by fear mongering. Pat Buchanan of course doesn't think anyone should pre-judge what King is up to.

BUCHANAN: Look the Muslim community is particularly vulnerable to an approach from abroad to try to make... radicalize them and make them enemies of America. That's legitimate. Every politician frankly raises himself up with hearings like that. I think we ought to wait and see what Peter King does.

When asked if he thinks there is a threat of a small group Muslim being radicalized in America as we've seen in parts of Europe, Klein responds that there's no reason to think we're going to see that in the U.S. because the Muslim community here is very different here. Pat Buchanan of course disagrees and uses the example of the Fort Hood shooting and Major Hasan as an example of how Muslims are being radicalized in the United States. And of course MSNBC's favorite bigot Buchanan thinks we shouldn't be demonizing Muslims, as he proceeds to demonize all Muslims.

KLEIN: How does this not demonize Muslims doing this? (crosstalk) You gave one example here and we're talking about an investigation into an entire religious community. We've gone from the one to the whole very quickly and people need to be very careful doing that.

BUCHANAN: Who is most susceptible or vulnerable to the recruitment coming out of the radical Islam? It's American Muslims.

KLEIN: Why do you think they're so vulnerable to it? There are radicals everywhere. (crosstalk) There are neo-Nazis who claim they're Christians? (crosstalk) Is the Christian community in America so deeply vulnerable to neo-Nazism?

BUCHANAN: I think the FBI would be watching those guys if you got Hitler over here broadcasting in the Unites States?

KLEIN: Uh, but we do have those guys there and we've got seen a ton of evidence.

Update: MSNBC's Martin Bashir has a few things to say about Rep. Peter King's hearings, what it's like to be mistaken for a terrorist, and why Rep. King's hearings are something to be endured, like airport patdowns and no-fly lists.

h/t Karoli

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