If this is the best they’ve got, this childish “If you like high taxes rates so much, why don’t you marry them?” argument, they don’t have much at all. Hilariously, some flak at Heritage tries the idea that Buffett “downplays the role taxation plays in investment decisions.” Because what would Warren Buffett know about investment decisions?

Corporate America and the GOP have been playing a very dangerous game, throwing enormous amounts of money behind PR campaigns demagoguing the very deficit that their radical manipulation of the political system created in the first place. They thought they could hide their true intentions under the cloak of fiscal responsibility and good governance. The fact that the very tool they virtually invented to captivate the democratic process finally turned around and bit them in the ass is almost Shakespearean in its irony.

Corporations want to bring some money home from tax havens to the US, but in true Galtian fashion, refuse to pay taxes on it. They got what they wanted under the Republicans in 2004, but the Democrats stopped them in 2009. Fool me once… surely Congress won’t get fooled again. Will it?

A government contractor’s entire business model is based on trying to convince the politicians in power to give it large sums of taxpayer money. It should be evident to everyone that the potential for corruption is as enormous as the possible profits

There’s never been a more powerful lobbying team than the one assembled on this vote. And not only are the members of Congress who need to be reached amenable to their persuasions, they are in many cases wholly owned properties of entities like the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber spent $30 million on House Republican candidates last year. If they can’t bring enough of them along to vote, nobody can.

So, Spencer Bachus and Shelley Moore Capito are really upset with Elizabeth Warren. In a letter from the two leaders on the House Financial Services Committee, they demand that Warren correct her testimony to the committee from March 16. See, when asked about the mortgage servicer settlement and CFPB’s role in it, Warren said that they merely provided advice and expertise to state and federal regulators working on the agreement. But aha!

I went to GritTV’s New York City studios to discuss the HBGary and AnonLeaks developments with respect to the role of the US Chamber of Commerce in spying on American citizens for political activities. Lee Fang, the reporter from ThinkProgress who, along with Marcy Wheeler, first reported on HBGary’s work with the Chamber joined us for the discussion.

As I described on the Mike Malloy show on Friday and as Brad Friedman discusses in his post on being targeted by the Chamber of Commerce, the essence of the Chamber of Commerce/Bank of America/HBGary scandal is the use of intelligence techniques developed for use on terrorists deployed for use on citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

ThinkProgress has a post making it clear that the Chamber of Commerce’s nondenial denials don’t hold up. In this post, I’ll begin to show the close ties between the tactics HBGary’s Aaron Barr proposed to use against Wikileaks and anti-Chamber activists and those already used in counterterrorism.

The Chamber of Commerce has tried to craft another non-denial denial that they engaged a bunch of private spooks to spy on people like Brad Friedman.

If you’ve been following Marcy Wheeler, you know about the ChamberLeaks scandal which has erupted in the past 48 hours. According to hacked documents, a series of private security firms pitched a strategy to the US Chamber of Commerce to engage in smear campaigns against opponents of the Chamber’s work. The Chamber had several particular organizations in mind, including ThinkProgress, Change to Win, the SEIU, StopTheChamber.com and US Chamber Watch. And they hired a lobbying firm, Hunton and Williams, to go out to these private security firms and develop a campaign of sabotage. This included going after individuals and their families associated with these organizations.

Brad Friedman is the co-founder of the group VelvetRevolution.us, which created StopTheChamber.com, which is unaffiliated to the union-led US Chamber Watch effort. He was actually subbing for Mike Malloy on his national radio show last night when he heard the news. “I learned just before showtime about the attacks on my organization, but during the show I found out they had targeted me and my family,” Friedman said in an interview. “I used it to help explain how appalling and disgusting and anti-American these creeps are at US Chamber of Commerce.”