Ron Paul’s Social Security Hypocrisy, Jon Stewart Catches Another Fox News Distortion and More

House Panel Urges Holder Be Found in Contempt:

Despite the White House invoking executive privilege over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had threatened a contempt vote if Holder did not comply with a House subpoena to release documents about the botched weapons program. Speaker John Boehner said the House will hold a floor vote to hold the nation’s top prosecutor in contempt next week if he doesn’t relent and release the documents Congress is seeking. (Read more)

Study Shows Republican Economic Plan Would Raise Taxes on Middle Class: A new analysis of the tax reform plan brought forth by Republicans shows the wealthiest Americans could see their tax bill go down while the middle class would face higher taxes. The GOP plan would set up two tax brackets, 25 and 10 percent, while slashing the top tax bracket, which is currently set at 35 percent. Senate Democrats prepared the study, but it was reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts. (Read more)

Ron Paul’s Hypocritical Social Security Stance: The former GOP presidential candidate once likened Social Security to slavery. He has also encouraged younger Americans to wean themselves of the program. Not that that’s stopping Paul from collecting Social Security, mind you. “I think the programs are so designed, just as I use the post office too, I use government highways, I do that too, I use the banks, the Federal Reserve system, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t work to remove this in the same way on Social Security,” Paul said Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Yet another instance of a politician asking people to do as he says, but not as he does. (Read more)

The Next Birther Conspiracy Theory: Because one birther conspiracy is obviously not enough, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has come up with a strange new one. Bennett, who once flirted with the idea of keeping Barack Obama off the state’s ballot because he was not convinced that the president was born in the U.S., said recently that he thinks Obama lied and said he was from Kenya to get into college. The co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in Arizona also said he believes Obama spent millions in an attempt to cover up that information. No word on what Donald Trump, the king of the birthers, had to say about this. (Read more)

“Joe the Plumber” Blames Gun Control for Holocaust: Some campaign news now from the same state and political party that gave us Rich Iott, the 2010 congressional candidate who liked to dress up as a Nazi. Remember Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, the man made kind of famous by John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign? Well, he’s now running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio. That in itself would not be news, except for an interesting new campaign ad Wurzelbacher came out with called “I Love America.” In the ad, he blames gun control laws for leading to the Holocaust and Armenian genocide. Later, a campaign spokesman hammered home the commercial’s point by suggesting gun control was also responsible for slavery. By the way, Iott recently endorsed Wurzelbacher. (Read more)

Video of the Day: Jon Stewart took aim at his favorite target on “The Daily Show” on Monday, taking down Fox News for distorting what President Obama said about the Dream Act. It just goes to show you that a little clever editing can sometimes completely change the context of something someone says. Fortunately, we have comedians like Stewart to point out these and other Fox News follies.

— Posted by Tracy Bloom