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Greg Sargent: I just got off the phone with Robert McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice. His criticism of Paul Ryan’s new budget was unsparing: He ripped it as “smoke and mirrors,” and claimed it would increase the deficit.
“He’s a phony,” McIntyre said of Rep. Ryan. “But he’s always been a phony.”
More here
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Charles Pierce: The only reason that the zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan gets to present his own federal budget, as though he were the shadow president and not a guy elected by roughly 180,000 people in and around Janesville, Wisconsin, is that he managed early on to convince people that he was not your run-of-the-mill zombie-eyed, granny-starving, trickle-down Randian snake-oil salesman of the kind that have been running Republican economic policy since half-past Ronald Reagan’s lucidity.
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Quinnipiac: President Barack Obama leads all the Republican presidential candidates in Virginia, with his 50 – 42 percent margin over Mitt Romney his biggest lead over Romney in this election cycle, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Putting Gov. Bob McDonnell on the ticket as the GOP vice-presidential nominee does not help the Republicans carry the state …. In a matchup of President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden against Romney and McDonnell, the Democrats win 50 – 43 percent.
Obama wins head to head against other Republican contenders:
54 – 35 percent over Newt Gingrich
49 – 40 percent over Rick Santorum
49 – 39 percent over Ron Paul
More here
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Glenn Kessler: …. During an economic speech on Monday, Mitt Romney charged that the Obama administration “banned” Thomas Edison’s light bulb.
Really?
…. It’s a cheap political shot for Romney to blame “Obama’s regulators” for a proposal that was signed into law by a Republican president and was broadly supported at the time. Moreover, we don’t see how higher efficiency standards translates into a “ban,” especially when light manufacturers have embraced the new standards.
More here
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President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner speak following a St. Patrick’s Day Lunch at the US Capitol, March 20
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