A few weeks ago John McCain called Social Security a "disgrace". I expected Obama & Co. to jump all over this comment. When they didn't I was very surprised, and honestly, a bit worried. I couldn't understand why Obama would let McCain get away with calling the most successful government program in our country a "disgrace". The only good explanation I could come up with was that Obama was saving McCain's gaffe for another time. I am happy to report I was right about that.

Frank Rich has an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times that answers the question, "Why isn't Obama leading in the polls by double digits?". LINK

Hillary Clinton has joined John McCain in calling for a "gas tax holiday" this summer. Their plans are basically to suspend the 18.4 cent per gallon tax on gasoline this summer in the hopes that it will reduce the price of gas and therefore help the average consumer.

Friday afternoon the Clinton campaign released Hillary & Bill's 2001-2006 Federal income tax returns. link As one might expect the Ex-President and the Senator made a lot of money writing books and making speeches in the years after Bill's Presidency. Aside from the large numbers there is one issue that jumps out after reviewing the returns, and that is Bill's relationship with Yucaipa Global Holdings (Yucaipa). This Cayman Islands based company paid Bill Clinton $2,500,000 in guaranteed payments in 2006. For tax purposes Yucaipa is considered a partnership. In a partnership guaranteed payments are made for services rendered or for the use of capital. It appears Yucaipa's major investor is billionaire, Ron Burkle, so it is unlikely that Bill Clinton received guaranteed payments in return for his use of capital. As a result, it seems likely that Clinton performed services for Yucaipa and the guaranteed payments were compensation for these services.

As you probably know Hillary is refusing to release her tax returns until she is damn good and ready to let us see them. The Wall Street Journal brings up some interesting questions about Bill & Hillary Clinton's finances which might be answered if we got to see her 2006 returns. My personal favorite is this one:

As you may be aware, two non-profit journalism organizations cataloged the false statements uttered by President Bush and his administration regarding the threat posed by Iraq for the two year period beginning in September 2001. If you haven't heard about it you can read about it here and here. According to the paper Bush & Co. uttered 935 false statements during the period covered. Most of this is actually old news to most of us political bloggers.

Andy Olmsted aka G'Kar who used to post over at Obsidian Wings was killed in Iraq yesterday. He left a letter for Hilzoy to post in the event of his death. You can read it here. link

I just read a great opinion piece written by Andrew J. Bacevich which appears in The American Conservative magazine. (full article here) Mr. Bacevich is a frequent critic of the Iraq War, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and a retired U.S. Army Colonel. In the article Mr. Bacevich's takes General Petraeus to task for buying time for the Bush Administration, Congressional Republicans, and Congressional Democrats. While doing this he brings up the best point I have heard yet in regard to Petraeus' testimony:

I was perusing my new favorite wingnut blog when I came across a story on how tax cuts lead to more tax revenue. I have heard this argument many times before but this particular piece does a great job of highlighting the most ridiculous part of this argument. Here is the money paragraph from the story (I put the really dumb part in bold letters):

Jay Tea over at Wizbang took a break from his usual wingnutty commentary and brought up some good points about NJ governor, Jon S. Corzine, not wearing his seat belt when his motorcade hit a guardrail which caused him to be seriously injured.link

Mr. Tea supposes: