AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care

A poll conducted by the Associated Press in association with Stanford University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that the majority of Americans favor taxing the rich to pay for health care.

The House bill would impose a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.

The poll tested views on an even more punitive taxation scheme that was under consideration earlier, when the tax would have hit people making more than $250,000 a year. Even at that level the poll showed majority support, with 57 …

Obama Bowed, And Look What These Presidents Did

While President Obama comes under fire for bowing to Japan’s Emperor Akihito, conservatives are ignoring the history of American presidents showing deference to, in come cases, questionable world leaders.

Richard Nixon embraced Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Nixon had a romantic moment staring into the eyes of Chairman Mao.

President Eisenhower bowed before French President Charles DeGaulle.

And Ronald Reagan went to Bitburg where 49 SS soldiers were buried, so as not to offend West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

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On Monday’s Radio Show…

• AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder David Swanson says that if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is prosecuted, his interrogators should be prosecuted as well. Swanson defends his controversial demand.

• Tennis legend Andre Agassi tells Alan why he decided to reveal his life’s darkest moments in his new book, Open: An Autobiography.

• Alan considers the strange standards that some pundits have when evaluating presidential leadership.…

Mark Shields Longs For President Who’s A “Manly Man” Who’ll “Kick Some Tail”

On “Inside Washington,” columnist and commentator Mark Shields said he’s been bitten by the nostalgia bug (h/t Think Progress).

SHIELDS: We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There’s an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail …

Rudy Stays On Message

Jed Lewison had a little fun with Rudy Giuliani’s appearance over the weekend on Fox News Sunday. Remember, it was Joe Biden who famously said, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

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Vivid Says It Has Carrie Prejean Sex Tapes And Wants To Distribute Them

Vivid Entertainment says it has possession of sex tapes made by former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean and would like to be able to offer them to the public.  TMZ has the letter Vivid head Steve Hirsch sent to Prejean’s attorney, Charles Lemandri, looking to make a deal to distribute “erotic footage that Carrie Prejean, former Miss California, produced for her boyfriend following their four (4) day rendezvous in February 2007.”

TMZ has the same video (eight in all, along with 30 photos), “but has not posted [it] because it’s just too racy.”  There seems to be some dispute as …

McCain Camp Calls Palin Book “Revisionist,” “Self-Serving,” And “Fiction”

John McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt (right), told Politico that charges about him in Sarah Palin’s new book are “made up.”

Schmidt, Palin writes, was “grim-faced” and “cool,” and tried to pin the campaign’s troubles on what he claimed was Palin’s post-partum depression, and even went to so far as to try and dictate her diet.

According to excerpts…, Palin “took in his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own cognitive connections humming along.”

“I’m a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state, I thought as …

In New Book, Palin Says She Doesn’t Believe In Evolution

Sarah Palin says she doesn’t believe in evolution, as pointed out in the New York Times review of her book.

Elsewhere in this volume she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers …

To GOP, Bowing: Not Okay; Kissing And Hand-Holding: Okay

Karl Rove believes President Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor is “inappropriate,” saying the bow is part of the president’s “world-wide apology tour.”

George W. Bush, however, seemed a bit more intimate with the world leaders with whom he consorted:

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GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, Dr. No, Stands In The Way Of Health Care For Veterans

Isn’t it the Republicans who tell us they love the troops more than us anti-American liberals?  But it’s GOP Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, also a physician, who is obstructing a health care plan for veterans.  The legislation, which has bi-partisan approval (with the exception of Coburn), would provide long-term home health care for the wounded.

The urgently needed legislation consolidates more than a dozen improvements in veterans’ health care — most notably a new assistance program for family members who wind up providing lifelong home nursing to severely disabled veterans. These vital caregivers — who sacrifice careers and put …

Rudy: “I Think Sarah Palin Is Great For The Republican Party”

Would he have chosen her to be his running mate, then?

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