Try not to ask hopeful about female Dem 'rising stars'

(PNI) Get out that binder full of women …If a woman hasn't decided to run against Mario Diaz next year, she should grab the brass ring the community-college district board candidate tossed out this month.

Diaz, a Democrat and a candidate for a seat on the Maricopa County Community College District governing board, was part of recent panel discussion. Asked to name "rising stars" in the Democratic Party, he rattled off men's names, but came up blank on the women.

That is, until Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix and state Senate star, mentioned the slight on her Facebook page. The reaction was fast and furious. Comments ranged from "unbelievable" to "what an idiot" to a dissection of his campaign supporters -- of which women accounted for only 21percent, according to one post. Oh, and he has GOP supporters, too. So much for bipartisanship.

Diaz called Hobbs to apologize and then posted his apology, saying he "froze" when asked the question.

"My comment was to say that our community needed more women in political power, not that there are not women who serve in such posts," he wrote. "I have no excuses, I apologize."

What's wrong with this math? … Thirty-eight Republican members of the Legislature voted against Medicaid expansion. But 36 signed on to the lawsuit challenging that decision.

The missing plaintiffs were Sens. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, and Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale. Shooter has said he doesn't like to sue his friends. Reagan voted for Medicaid expansion before she voted against it.

Missing from the vote and the lawsuit is Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria. Murphy said he feared he wouldn't have standing to sue, since he was on vacation when the vote was taken.

Standing -- or having a legal reason to sue -- may not matter, at least as far as Gov. Jan Brewer's legal team sees it. None of the lawmakers has a right to sue, the lawyers argue, since they're not paying the "provider tax" at the heart of the plaintiff's lawsuit.

We'll see what the courts have to say about that matter; the case is before a Maricopa County Superior Court judge.

An unusual raffle … As part of the Christmas raffle this year, the Republicans in Legislative District 26, which covers parts of Tempe and Mesa, gave away an AR-15 rifle.

They said the point was to raise awareness about gun rights.

LD 26 Democrats issued a news release decrying a gun raffle held within days of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Committee Chairman Randy Keating, in a news release, called it "irresponsible" and "grossly insensitive."

"Arizona deserves much better from the LD 26 Republican leadership, and that is why we have decided to help collect donations for one of Arizona's leading gun-safety groups, Arizonans for Gun Safety," Keating said.

Pick your evil: insensitive timing or using the deaths of 20 children to make a political point.

A call to arms … Gov. Jan Brewer last week posted an "I Stand With Jan to Defend Christmas" postcard on her Facebook page. Within 24hours, it had garnered nearly 75,000 likes.

But based on the comments, both supporters and dissenters seemed to have missed the spirit of the season -- whatever season they choose to celebrate this time of year -- entirely.

Here's a little sample:

"Merry Christmas. I'm Hispanic and I'm tired of how all of these corrupt racist liberals like (President Barack) Obama and his supporters are trying to turn this great country into a 3rd world one."

"What exactly is Christmas being attacked by? This is idiotic. I can't believe you're in charge of an entire state."

"From what, pray tell?! What scaremongering phonies you are!"

"Merry Christmas Jan. Believe me I say it to everyone whether they like it or not."

Tweet of the week

"Just landed in Chicago. Saying it's cold would be like saying CPS (Child Protective Services) has 'a few issues.'"

--House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix.

Compiled by Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Alia Beard Rau, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Rebekah L. Sanders. Get the latest at politics.azcentral.com.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Truth-O-Meter checks claims about tax cuts for millionaires, number of gun deaths in U.S.

By Caryn Shinske
Published on Tuesday, August 7th, 2012 at 7:30 a.m.

The Truth-O-Meter this weekend took on controversial claims about tax cuts for millionaires and gun use.

In case you missed it, the Truth-O-Meter on Sunday handed down a Mostly False to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for claims made about tax cuts in a new ad. On Monday, a claim by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) about guns killing more Americans at home than on Middle Eastern battlefields received a Half True on the Truth-O-Meter.

DCCC claim

The group last week posted a series of videos on YouTube targeting 23 GOP House members, including New Jersey’s Jon Runyan (R-3rd). Runyan is seeking reelection in November against Democratic challenger Shelley Adler.

The ad campaign focuses on those representatives who were about to vote for "another tax cut for millionaires at the expense of the middle class and seniors," the group said in a recent news release.

But on Wednesday, the GOP-controlled House approved a Republican bill that extends all of the Bush tax cuts through 2013. Runyan and the other 22 representatives targeted by the DCCC campaign voted for the bill.

The House Republicans’ bill, however, would not extend five other tax policies benefiting lower-income households, which are separate from the Bush tax cuts.

Lautenberg claim

If New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator is to be believed, more Americans have been killed at home by guns than on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lautenberg said in a July 30 opinion-editorial column posted on NorthJersey.com.

Lautenberg’s column said, in part, "In support of the two wars, more than 6,500 American soldiers have lost their lives. During the same period, however, guns have been used to murder about 100,000 people on American soil." Those numbers are technically accurate, but experts told PolitiFact New Jersey that the senator’s comparison is flawed because he uses raw numbers to compare two very different populations. Lautenberg also focuses solely on deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, when many more have died in both wars, experts explained.

To comment on this story, go to NJ.com.

Claim concerns

Have you read or heard a claim from a politician that sounds too good to be true or too odd to be believed? Share the claim with us in an e-mail to PolitiFactNJ@starledger.com and we may test it on the Truth-O-Meter.

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Try not to ask hopeful about female Dem 'rising stars'

(PNI) Get out that binder full of women …If a woman hasn't decided to run against Mario Diaz next year, she should grab the brass ring the community-college district board candidate tossed out this month.

Diaz, a Democrat and a candidate for a seat on the Maricopa County Community College District governing board, was part of recent panel discussion. Asked to name "rising stars" in the Democratic Party, he rattled off men's names, but came up blank on the women.

That is, until Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix and state Senate star, mentioned the slight on her Facebook page. The reaction was fast and furious. Comments ranged from "unbelievable" to "what an idiot" to a dissection of his campaign supporters -- of which women accounted for only 21percent, according to one post. Oh, and he has GOP supporters, too. So much for bipartisanship.

Diaz called Hobbs to apologize and then posted his apology, saying he "froze" when asked the question.

"My comment was to say that our community needed more women in political power, not that there are not women who serve in such posts," he wrote. "I have no excuses, I apologize."

What's wrong with this math? … Thirty-eight Republican members of the Legislature voted against Medicaid expansion. But 36 signed on to the lawsuit challenging that decision.

The missing plaintiffs were Sens. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, and Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale. Shooter has said he doesn't like to sue his friends. Reagan voted for Medicaid expansion before she voted against it.

Missing from the vote and the lawsuit is Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria. Murphy said he feared he wouldn't have standing to sue, since he was on vacation when the vote was taken.

Standing -- or having a legal reason to sue -- may not matter, at least as far as Gov. Jan Brewer's legal team sees it. None of the lawmakers has a right to sue, the lawyers argue, since they're not paying the "provider tax" at the heart of the plaintiff's lawsuit.

We'll see what the courts have to say about that matter; the case is before a Maricopa County Superior Court judge.

An unusual raffle … As part of the Christmas raffle this year, the Republicans in Legislative District 26, which covers parts of Tempe and Mesa, gave away an AR-15 rifle.

They said the point was to raise awareness about gun rights.

LD 26 Democrats issued a news release decrying a gun raffle held within days of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Committee Chairman Randy Keating, in a news release, called it "irresponsible" and "grossly insensitive."

"Arizona deserves much better from the LD 26 Republican leadership, and that is why we have decided to help collect donations for one of Arizona's leading gun-safety groups, Arizonans for Gun Safety," Keating said.

Pick your evil: insensitive timing or using the deaths of 20 children to make a political point.

A call to arms … Gov. Jan Brewer last week posted an "I Stand With Jan to Defend Christmas" postcard on her Facebook page. Within 24hours, it had garnered nearly 75,000 likes.

But based on the comments, both supporters and dissenters seemed to have missed the spirit of the season -- whatever season they choose to celebrate this time of year -- entirely.

Here's a little sample:

"Merry Christmas. I'm Hispanic and I'm tired of how all of these corrupt racist liberals like (President Barack) Obama and his supporters are trying to turn this great country into a 3rd world one."

"What exactly is Christmas being attacked by? This is idiotic. I can't believe you're in charge of an entire state."

"From what, pray tell?! What scaremongering phonies you are!"

"Merry Christmas Jan. Believe me I say it to everyone whether they like it or not."

Tweet of the week

"Just landed in Chicago. Saying it's cold would be like saying CPS (Child Protective Services) has 'a few issues.'"

--House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix.

Compiled by Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Alia Beard Rau, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Rebekah L. Sanders. Get the latest at politics.azcentral.com.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Romney Takes Liberties With Claims About a Bipartisan Past

When Mitt Romney accused President Obama in their debate Wednesday night of refusing to work with Republicans, he held up his own record as the Massachusetts governor as an example of what political cooperation can achieve.

As a Republican governor whose legislature was 87 percent Democrats, he said, “I figured out from Day 1 I had to get along, and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.” The result, he said, was that “we drove our schools to be No. 1 in the nation. We cut taxes 19 times.”

Mr. Romney and the legislature did at times get along, Massachusetts schools were often top-rated, and some taxes did drop during Mr. Romney’s four years as governor, from 2003 through 2006. But a comparison of his claims to the factual record suggests that all three take liberties with the truth.

While the governor and the legislature came together to produce balanced budgets and enact a signature health care reform bill, much of those four years were characterized by conflict and tensions. In the opening months of his tenure, Mr. Romney vetoed a Massachusetts House plan to create new committees and raise staff members’ pay, and the legislators rejected his flagship proposal, a nearly 600-page plan to overhaul the state bureaucracy.

Mr. Romney proved to have a taste for vetoes, killing legislative initiatives in his first two years at more than twice the rate of his more popular Republican predecessor, William F. Weld, The Boston Globe reported in 2004. The lawmakers responded in kind by overriding his vetoes at a rapid pace.

By 2004, the second year of his term, Mr. Romney was provoked enough to mount an unprecedented campaign to unseat Democratic legislators, spending $3 million in Republican party money and hiring a nationally known political strategist, Michael Murphy.

The effort failed spectacularly. Republicans lost seats, leaving them with their smallest legislative delegation since 1867. Democratic legislators were reported at the time to have been deeply angered by the campaign’s tactics.

“They had a deteriorating relationship during the first two years,” Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Tufts University, said in an interview. The campaign “was designed to demonstrate that he could make life difficult for them if he chose to do so. It did not endear him to them.”

Mr. Romney quickly initiated a charm offensive, inviting Democratic leaders to dinners at his home for the first time since taking office two years earlier. But the legislators were soon “infuriated,” Mr. Berry said, when Mr. Romney, testing the presidential waters, began traveling outside the state and casting brickbats at Massachusetts’s traditionally liberal values before crowds of potential supporters.

On education, Mr. Romney was factually correct in stating that Massachusetts students were ranked first in the nation during his tenure. Massachusetts students in grades four and eight took top honors or tied for first in reading and mathematics on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal Department of Education test often called the nation’s report card.

However, educators largely agree that the state’s rise to first place was a result of a wholesale reform of state schools enacted 10 years earlier under Governor Weld. The reforms, carried out over eight years, doubled state spending on schools and brought standards and accountability to both administrators and students.

“Governor Romney does not get to take the credit for achieving that No. 1 ranking,” said Mike Gilbert, the field director for the nonprofit Massachusetts Association of School Committees, “but it did happen while he was in office.”

Under Mr. Romney, neither the governor nor the legislature enjoyed notable successes in education, although Mr. Romney is credited with battling successfully against efforts to dismantle some of the 1993 reforms.

Mr. Romney and the legislature cut deeply into state grants to local governments in 2003 amid a state budget crisis, forcing many school districts to raise property taxes. In 2006, Mr Romney vetoed a bill passed unanimously by the legislature that established standards for preschool education and set long-term plans to make it universal. He said the programs would cost too much at a time of budget austerity.

Mr. Romney’s claim that he was responsible for 19 separate tax cuts is also technically accurate. But here, too, the complete story paints a very different picture.

Perhaps the most substantial tax reduction occurred in 2005, when Mr. Romney’s administration wrote legislation refunding $250 million in capital gains taxes to 145,000 investors. But the legislation carried out a court ruling finding that the taxes had been illegally withheld in 2002; the court gave the state the option of refunding the taxes or rewriting the law to correct the illegality.

Mr Romney proposed the latter, and the legislature agreed.

Of the remaining 18 tax cuts, many were proposed by the legislature, not Mr. Romney, and others were routine extensions of existing tax reductions that were due to expire. One was a change in the Massachusetts tax code to make it conform to changes in the federal code. Two were one-day sales-tax holidays.

Mr. Romney’s critics note that his administration was also responsible for revenue-raising measures which, under that loose definition, might well be called tax increases. In his first year, Mr. Romney closed business tax loopholes and increased fees on an array of services, from marriage licenses to home purchases.

“Our numbers on revenue are that he raised about $750 million annually — $375 million from fees and $375 million from corporate taxes,” said Michael Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

In 2004, Mr. Romney signed legislation allowing local officials to collect an additional $100 million in commercial property taxes from businesses.

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Not Afraid to Talk About Race

Hey, I heard that: “Oh, no, the black columnist is writing about race, again.”

Yes, I am. Deal with it. The moment we allow ourselves to be browbeaten out of having important discussions about issues that persist, we cease to command the requisite conviction to wield the pen — or to peck on a keyboard, but you get my drift.

Varying political views among racial and ethnic groups are real.

They have always informed our politics, and no doubt they will continue to do so. The idea, naively held by many, that the election of the first black president would nullify racial grievances, bridge racial differences and erase racial animosities has quickly faded. We find ourselves once again trying to wrestle with the meaning and importance of race in our politics.

In fact, one could argue that examinations of racial attitudes in politics have become more fraught as racial motives, political objectives and accusations and denials of racism and reverse-racism serve as a kind of subterfuge hiding resentments and prejudices.

Either racial attitudes are naked, blatant and visible, this thinking goes, or they’re nonexistent, manufactured by race baiters and hucksters as devices of division. The middle ground, sprinkled with land mines made up of racial labels, is now a place where fair-minded people dare not tread.

That’s a shame.

But it’s not going to stop me. Strap on your lead boots and let’s go for a stroll.

A Pew Research Center American values survey released this week offers fascinating insights into how racially divergent values and the changing racial compositions of political parties influence our politics.

Let’s look at the racial makeup of the two major parties: from 2000 to 2012 the percentage of Republicans who are white has remained relatively steady, about 87 percent. On the other hand, the percentage of Democrats who are white has dropped nine percentage points, from 64 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2012. If current trends persist, in a few years the Democratic Party will be a majority minority party. But the largest drop in the white percentage has been among Independents: they were 79 percent white in 2000, but they are only 67 percent white now.

The racial diversity among Democrats and the lack of it among Republicans means that the two bases bring differing sets of concerns to the national debate.

For instance, blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to believe that poverty is a result of circumstances beyond a person’s control than a result of lack of effort.

Blacks and Hispanics also look far more favorably on the role of government, particularly as it relates to guarding against poverty and evening a playing field that they feel is tilted. Seventy-eight percent of both blacks and Hispanics believed that government should guarantee everyone enough to eat and a place to sleep, while only 52 percent of whites agreed with that idea.

This is not to say that minorities who favor a stronger government want more government handouts. There was very little difference in the percentage of blacks, Hispanics and whites who believed that poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs (it’s pretty high for all three groups, at 70, 69 and 72 percent, respectively).

They seem to want a chance, not a check.

To wit, 62 percent of blacks and 59 percent of Hispanics say that we should make every possible effort to improve the position of blacks and other minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment. Not surprisingly, only 22 percent of whites agreed with this idea. Only 12 percent of Republicans — almost all of whom are white — agreed. This percentage has been decreasing since 2007, while the percentage of white Democrats who agree has been increasing.

Now what does that mean for the presidential race?

A staggering 90 percent of Romney supporters are white. Only 4 percent are Hispanic, less than 1 percent are black and another 4 percent are another race.

Of Obama’s supporters, 57 percent are white, 23 percent are black, 12 percent are Hispanic and 7 percent are another race.

And what of the all-important swing voters (those who are undecided, who lean toward a candidate, or who say that they could change their mind)? Nearly three out of four are white. The rest are roughly 8 percent each blacks, Hispanics and another race.

That might explain why the Pew poll found that the swing voters lean more toward Obama voters on issues like civil liberties and the role of labor unions, but are closer to Romney voters on the role of social safety nets, immigration and minority-preference programs.

Put another way, Romney voters and swing voters — who are both overwhelming white — agree on the more racially charged issues.

Pointing out these correlations is not only valid, it is instructive and helpful. In large part this election will be about the role of government in our lives, and different racial and ethnic groups view that particular issue very differently.

The economy always looms large, but for those who feel left behind by the economy even when it’s roaring, but especially when it sputters, social safety nets and governmental activism can also have tremendous weight.

The trick will be to have a conversation about the direction of the country that takes that into account but lifts the language to a level where common goals can be seen from differing racial vantage points — to show a way to be merciful to those struggling while providing a path to financial independence and social equality. Contrary to what many Americans think, most people do in fact want a hand up and not a handout.

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Democrats Excited About Bain Should Remember Jeremiah Wright (The Atlantic Wire)

It's odd David Axelrod is so excited to see the attacks on Mitt Romney's business career in the Republican primary, considering that four years ago, the early airing of another emotional issue in the primaries was expected to stop Axelrod's own candidate, Barack Obama. Axelrod told old The New York Times' Jackie Calmes Thursday that Romney won't get valuable practice in responding to his rivals' "vulture capitalism" attacks. "Rather than immunizing him, this will likely just open the floodgates," he said. "I guess the only downside is that Mitt Romney might not be the nominee." It seems like Axelrod is forgetting fairly recent history. In the long 2008 primary, Obama had to deal with the inflammatory comments of his former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, who said a lot of things white folks found provocative ("Goddamn America," and so on.) Not only did Obama go on to win the general election, he won North Carolina --  a state with such charged racial politics that it had a eugenics program of forced sterilization until 1974.

Related: The Likeness of Being Romney and Obama

In the spring of 2008, the conventional wisdom held that video of Wright's speeches meant Obama was doomed. "Liberal apologists who grasp the devastating impact the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has on Barack Obama's chances of being elected president of the United States this year join the candidate in explanation and excuses. Sorry. No cigar," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker wrote. The New York Times' Bob Herbert warned, "the apparent helplessness of the Obama campaign in the face of the Wright onslaught contributes to the growing perception of the candidate as weak, as someone who is unwilling or unable to fight aggressively on his own behalf." And yet, Obama gave a celebrated speech on race, and this fall the first black president is up for reelection.

Related: Obama Slips in Battleground States; Gingrich Slips in Iowa

Related: Gingrich Admits Negative Campaigning Is Great

Democrats are oddly unified in claiming the early Bain attacks are awesome. "We were shocked that his rivals went there but nonetheless pleased because now the charges about his status as a corporate raider enjoy the luster of bipartisan ship," a senior Democratic strategist emailed Politico's James Hohman. This senior Democratic strategist was so sure of this analysis that he or she emailed the exact same thing to Talking Points Memo, including the misspelling of bipartisanship. The senior Democratic strategist is one of the few who wouldn't lend his or her name to the analysis. “It’s a total win-win, ” pollster Geoff Garin, of the pro-Obama superPAC Priorities USA, told Calmes.

Related: Mitt Romney's Secret Weapon: Mormonism

Soon we'll have a chance to see Romney's practice in action. Politico's Reid J. Epstein reports that Romney's campaign is working on a response "tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately." Here are two problems identified by conservatives that Romney can work on responding to now:

Related: Gingrich Is the Most Polarizing Candidate But Also Most Admired

Not everyone buys the "y'all are just haters" defense. In his New Hampshire victory speech, Romney said his rivals were echoing Obama's "bitter politics of envy." The Times points out that the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru warned, “Careful, Mitt. Don't want to insinuate that people only oppose you because they resent your success.”Romney supported TARP. RedState's Erick Erickson summarized Romney's argument Wednesday, saying, "Bain participated in capitalism, revitalized defunct companies, spun off as needed, and from the ashes of creative destruction of capital made a profit, saved or created companies, and saved or created jobs therefore let’s not attack Romney for his time there." Okay then, Erickson says, "If Mitt Romney saw, knew, profited from and participated in the creative destructive of capital, why did he advocate the government passing the troubled asset relief program (“TARP”)? Why not let the creative destruction of capital solve the problem and potentially make a profit off it?"And it looks like Romney might get the chance to practice and get his competitors off his back. Wednesday, Newt Gingrich indicated he might back off Romney a little bit, because, "Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect." Democrats might be officially let down by this retreat, but it's hard to imagine they feel the same way privately.

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Ann Coulter takes on Howard Dean about Wal-Mart SCOTUS decision (Daily Caller)

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a 5-4 decision that a class action lawsuit filed in California had failed to prove gender discrimination was a widespread policy of Wal-Mart. The markets rallied after the suit was dismissed and it was heralded as a positive sign for business in the United States by some observers.

On Monday’s “The Kudlow Report” on CNBC, conservative pundit and “Demonic” author Ann Coulter took on former Democratic National Committee chairman and CNBC contributor Howard Dean on the merits of the decision. Coulter explained the circumstances where a class action lawsuit would have been appropriate, such as when a broad range of individuals in similar circumstances are affected in a way that each individual case would not make financial sense to try separately.

“[H]ere you have none of that,” Coulter said. “You have, as you bring up, absolutely individual circumstances with each employee — not only that, you have individual circumstances with each manager. All of these employees have different managers determining what they get paid, how long they work, what their work treatment is like. The reason they wanted a class action in California was because of the Ninth Circuit, which is very anti-employer. It’s an insane case for a class-action case. And not surprisingly, 9-0, the court reject this had case, although at the risk of having the market collapse again, it was 5-4 with the four liberals saying that they could have brought a class-action under a different theory.”

Dean was less impressed with the Court’s decision and declared it an “anti-worker court,” but noted that the decision didn’t absolve Wal-Mart of the discrimination charges.

“Look, first of all, it’s important to note that the court did not find there was no discrimination,” Dean said. “That I didn’t hear anybody trying to claim that they found there was no discrimination. There could be. We don’t know that. That’s an issue that has to be tried. I hope a public interest lawyer who doesn’t rely on the 30 percent or whatever it is commission will be able to still try the case and find out. Secondly, it is true. This is a tough decision for employees. This is a pro-business court which makes it an anti-worker court, I guess in this context. I personally don’t think that’s a good thing for the country. I think right now, the corporate balance sheets have recovered fully from the crash of September 2008. But the balance sheets of the American families haven’t recovered. I think we’re out of balance. You know, I’m not a lawyer. I can’t say whether the — if they had a unanimous decision saying this particular one wasn’t the right way to certify it, we have to respect the unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court.”

Dean told Kudlow he wasn’t biased against Wal-Mart, but wished the company had put more of an emphasis on jobs in the United States versus overseas.

“Larry, let’s be honest — first of all, I’m not in the ‘I hate Wal-Mart’ crowd,” Dean said. “I think they’ve changed a lot over the last five or six years and I think they’ve made a difference. And they’ve created millions of jobs. Unfortunately most of the millions of jobs they’ve created have been in China, not in the United States. So I think it’s time we gave American workers a break here. I don’t think this case was much of a break for most American workers.”

However, Coulter said it wasn’t a defeat for employees necessarily, but instead a defeat for trial lawyers.

“I would like to disagree with the idea that this is employer versus employee here,” Coulter said. “This was anti-trial lawyer. That’s the advantage of the class-action. They get all their attorneys’ fees for the entire country. They get much bigger damage as a slice of this. Employees would have been hurt by this because Wal-Mart would have had a lot less money, all going to trial lawyers to hire more employees. This is not employer versus employee.”

Read more stories from The Daily Caller

Santorum parodies Huntsman, hits at Romney in new video

Ann Coulter takes on Howard Dean about Wal-Mart SCOTUS decision

I'm talking about Michaele Salahi, which means she wins

Michaele Salahi to perform song live, address rumors on upcoming projects

Politico's Vogel strikes again -- takes talk radio fight to Olbermann's Current TV debut

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AP source: House Dems to meet about Weiner case (AP)

WASHINGTON – House Democratic leaders are planning to meet Thursday to consider the next step in handling the scandal embroiling Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Weiner is resisting calls to resign. He has acknowledged sending sexually explicit messages and suggestive photos of himself to various women and then lying about it. The New York congressman has taken a two-week leave from the House and is reported to be in treatment at an undisclosed location.

A House aide described the leadership meeting set for Thursday on condition of anonymity because officials had not authorized a public discussion of their plans.

House Democratic leaders could decide to strip Weiner of his committee assignments and could take other actions to punish him.

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Porn actress: Weiner asked me to lie about talks (AP)

NEW YORK – A former porn actress who said she exchanged emails and messages over Twitter with New York Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday that he asked her to lie about their online communications.

Ginger Lee said she and Weiner exchanged about 100 emails between March and June, beginning after Lee posted a supportive statement about the congressman on her blog. She said they mostly discussed politics, but he would often turn the conversation to sex.

"'I have wardrobe demands too. I need to highlight my package,'" Weiner wrote Lee, in an email read aloud at the news conference by Lee's attorney, Gloria Allred.

Weiner acknowledged last week that he had sent lewd photos and texts to women after a photo of his crotch was posted on Twitter. In an interview two weeks ago, he acknowledged that he had exchanged messages with Lee but didn't elaborate.

Lee said she did not send sexually suggestive messages to Weiner.

"Anytime that he would take our communications in a sexual direction, I did not reciprocate," she said.

Weiner sent Lee an email after the photo of his crotch was sent out on his Twitter account, and "he asked me to lie" about their contact, she said.

Lee said she put out a three-sentence statement on the matter at his request. She said she then went into hiding and on June 2, he called her and told her to avoid press.

She said she was coming forward now to tell the truth and to deny reports that she was in an online sexual relationship with him.

Allred is a Los Angeles attorney who has represented figures in high-profile sex scandals, including a woman who said she was a girlfriend of Tiger Woods and a former child actress who said she had an affair with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A Weiner spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment. Weiner has taken a two-week leave from the House, in treatment for an undisclosed disorder at an undisclosed location.

House Democratic colleagues are looking for him to step down this week amid a growing chorus for him to resign. Even President Barack Obama has suggested he should leave.

Adding to the drama, Weiner's pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, returned Wednesday from a trip to Africa with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A fellow member of Weiner's New York Democratic delegation, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, said she's heard from Weiner's friends that the congressman was waiting for his wife to come home before making any decisions about his political future. McCarthy also cited talk among Weiner's friends about the possibility he could resign this week.

House Democrats huddled behind closed doors Tuesday for their regular party meeting, but they decided against taking action against Weiner in hopes that he'll resign soon.

The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, reiterated her call for Weiner to quit, saying after the meeting that she wanted to make sure nobody missed her earlier resignation call while members were on a weeklong recess.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said: "I think we should send a strong message to him that he should resign, and let's see what happens. The more of us who say it, the more telling it will be."

House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, had been content to let Democrats wrestle with the embarrassing scandal, but when asked Tuesday whether Weiner should resign, he responded, "Yes."

The furor over sexually suggestive photos and other revelations about the 46-year-old congressman has been a distraction for Democrats seeking momentum as they gear up for the 2012 elections. Besides Pelosi, several other Democrats have called for Weiner to quit, including the party chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Miga in Washington contributed to this report.

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Democratic leaders warned Weiner about calls for resignation (Daily Caller)

Following criticism that Democratic party leaders had waited too long to call for a resignation from New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, Roll Call reports that the statements from yesterday came after days of behind-the-scenes attempt to persuade Weiner to step down.

According to Roll Call, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi first thought Weiner needed to resign after his Monday press conference (during which he came clean after a period of lying and question-dodging) went awry. Weiner had called Pelosi just prior to taking the stage to field questions from reporters, and she told him he needed to tell the truth before they could determine the next step.

After days of applied pressure, party leaders individually called Weiner on Saturday morning to give him one final chance to step down before the party would go into attack mode. He refused.

Weiner did propose a leave of absence, during which he would seek “professional help,” but Pelosi told him that wouldn’t be good enough. Weiner also hinted at a possible resignation after the leave, but that wouldn’t have been satisfactory to top Democrats either.

(Wasserman Schultz, Pelosi call on Weiner to resign)

By the time news broke that Weiner had been communicating online with a female high school student from Delaware, the decision to send out party leaders to call for resignation was “already made,” a Democratic aide told Roll Call.

Though Weiner hasn’t responded to the statements yesterday from Pelosi, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Steve Israel, he hasn’t shown any indication that he plans to resign.

Roll Call also reports that Weiner isn’t an easy Member to push out of office. He’s done nothing illegal or explicitly against House rules (though an ethics investigation has been called for). And he isn’t dependent on the party for campaign money; he has his own large network of donors.

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