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Friday, December 10, 2010

Judge rules against Miller in Alaska Senate race

GOP candidate contested write-in ballots for Murkowski; appeal expected 


                              By BECKY BOHRER
The Associated Press

Ketchikan Superior Court Judge William Carey gathers his documents after hearing arguments from attorneys representing the state of Alaska, Joe Miller and Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Wednesday.


updated 1 hour 8 minutes ago 2010-12-11T02:49:52A judge on Friday ruled against 

Republican Joe Miller's lawsuit challenging how Alaska counted write-in votes for rival Lisa Murkowski in their Senate race, delivering a crushing blow to the tea party-backed candidate's longshot legal fight.
Judge William Carey's ruling all but ends Miller's hopes of getting relief in state court. Miller can appeal to the state Supreme Court, and his spokesman said he was mulling the option, but Carey cited past decisions by the high court in his ruling.
The judge said his decision to throw out Miller's lawsuit wouldn't take effect until Tuesday to allow time for an appeal.
Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said there are still outstanding issues "in terms of wanting to get a true and accurate count, and we don't feel like we're there yet."
Murkowski called on Miller to concede, telling The Associated Press: "It's time to end this. It's time to say that the election is over." 

The ruling marks a victory for Murkowski, who sought to become the first U.S. Senate candidate since 1954 to win as a write-in. Senators are scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 5, and the legal dispute has thrown into doubt whether someone from this race will be included. Murkowski's attorneys have argued that her seniority is at risk if she isn't sworn in then.
Miller's attorneys had asked Carey to strictly enforce a state law calling for write-in ballots to have the oval filled in, and either the candidate's last name or the name as it appears on the declaration of candidacy written in.
Miller argued the state shouldn't have used discretion in determining voter intent when tallying ballots for Murkowski. The state relied on case law in doing so and allowed for ballots with misspellings to be counted toward Murkowski's total.
"If the legislature intended that the candidate's name be spelled perfectly in order to count," Carey wrote in his much anticipated ruling, "then the statute would have included such a restrictive requirement."
Unofficial results showed Murkowski ahead by 10,328 votes and still in the lead by 2,169 votes even when excluding votes challenged by Miller's campaign. Carey said whatever interpretation he made would not change the outcome of the race, that "Murkowski has won by over 2,000 unchallenged votes."
Murkowski ran an unprecedented write-in campaign after losing the GOP primary to Miller. She focused heavily on educating voters on how to cast a write-in ballot for her, and she emerged with a wide lead after a tedious, weeklong count of ballots that was overseen by observers for both Miller and Murkowski.
Miller last month said he'd stop fighting if the ballot math didn't work in his favor. But he has since insisted that his fight was a matter of principle to ensure the law is upheld and Alaskans got a fair election.
Murkowski's campaign accused Miller of seeking to disenfranchise thousands of Alaska voters, and Murkowski said Carey's ruling delivered a "stinging rebuke" to his claims.
"When a court finds no merit in any of the arguments he's presented, that's really quite stunning," she said.
Arguments in court this week centered on what the word "appears" means. Some challenges by Miller observers included ballots in which voters spelled her name correctly but wrote "Murkowski, Lisa." Miller later conceded those should not have been challenged.
Miller attorney Michael Morley contended it wasn't the order of the words but the spelling that mattered. The spelling is what makes a name a name, he told Carey.
Carey said in his ruling that Miller's interpretation of the law was "inconsistent."
Miller also raised questions about precincts where election workers failed to mark whether they'd gotten identification of voters and ballots with similar-looking signatures. While the latter could have been due to voters asking for and receiving legally acceptable help filling out ballots, Morley argued these questions merited further scrutiny. Carey found the claims "unsupported."

"Nowhere does Miller provide facts showing a genuine issue of fraud or election official malfeasance," the judge wrote. "Instead, the majority of the problematic statements included in the affidavits are inadmissible hearsay, speculation and occasional complaints of sarcasm expressed by DOE (Division of Elections) workers."
There were also more than 2,000 ballots that were not counted toward Murkowski's tally and challenged by her observers. Those included ballots in which the ovals weren't filled in but Murkowski's name was written in, and those in which "Lisa M." was written. Murkowski's camp argued the intent of voters in those cases was to vote for Murkowski. But Carey sided with the state here, too, in saying those should not be counted for her.
State officials and Murkowski's campaign have sought a speedy resolution, saying Alaska would be deprived of representation if a winner isn't sworn in with the new Congress next month.
On Friday, state officials told a federal judge it would seek to have the stay he imposed on certification of the race lifted if Miller lost the state court case and did not file a speedy appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline last month kicked the case to state court and issued the stay to allow for the issues raised by Miller to be resolved.
DeSoto said Miller believes every valid write-in ballot should be counted "but not those that fail to meet the standard established by the state legislature." Miller has sought a re-count of all ballots and a final count that "includes only those who are eligible to vote."
"When we've ensured that these issues have been addressed, then we'll have an accurate count, and if Lisa Murkowski's tally is greater than Joe's, then he will certainly honor that result," DeSoto said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.   

Palin: Critics within the GOP are 'Important'





Is Sarah Palin Really serious about 2012

Discussing economic uncertainty on Morning Joe

Comparing Obama in '10 and Clinton in '94



As one of us wrote earlier this week, frantic projections of President Barack Obama’s vulnerability don't quite give enough weight to some key poll numbers. While the president is still upside-down with swing voters, whites, and independents, his approval ratings remain strong among his core Democratic constituencies: young voters, blacks, liberal Democrats, and women.
This afternoon, the president is huddling with another leader who earned the ire of the liberal wing of the Democratic party and found himself the target of primary-challenge speculation: Bill Clinton.
So, we dusted off the record books and took a look at how some of the same core groups viewed Clinton in the months after the mid-90s midterm shellacking of the Democratic Party.
According to a NBC/WSJ poll taken in December 1994, Clinton enjoyed slightly better approval ratings overall than Obama does now, with 48 percent approving and 44 disapproving. (Obama is currently 47-47, according to the most recent NBC/WSJ survey.)
Obama’s rating with liberals, at least as of the latest pre-tax-cut-kerfuffle poll in November -- is even higher than Clinton’s; the former president won a thumbs up from 70 percent of liberals, while Obama gets a positive rating from 79 percent.
Obama’s approval among black voters is slightly higher than Clinton’s was as well. Ninety percent of blacks approve of how the nation’s first African American commander-in-chief is doing his job, while 81 percent approved of the man tongue-in-cheekily referred to as “the first black president" in '94.
Clinton clocked in with a net positive of 10 points among young voters; Obama is at +7. The two leaders also shared similar levels of enthusiasm among self-described Democrats.
While the data shows that both Clinton and Obama retained strong support from the Democratic base after their party ended up on the wrong side of a wave election, Clinton’s relative resilience with independents and whites makes Obama’s deficit with those groups seem striking.
Even after the 1994 Republican Revolution, Clinton kept a slight advantage among independent voters, with 44 percent approving and 42 percent disapproving. But last month, Obama was 10 points upside-down with indies, 41-51.
Among whites, Clinton’s approval was slightly underwater in 1994, 44 percent to 47 percent.
That number for Obama now? Minus 17 points.

A Week Away From Government Shutdown, Senate Set to Take Up Omnibus


December 10, 2010 3:54 PM


ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports:
For all the talk about taxes lately, the Senate’s only must-do issue in the lame-duck session is extending government funding into next year, a fight that appears set to take place late next week.
Senators are up against a clear deadline: the latest continuing resolution to keep the government running ends at 12:01am on Sunday Dec. 19th. Either Congress acts before then or there is a federal shutdown.
The House has already acted. On Wednesday the lower chamber of Congress passed a new continuing resolution worth $1.1 trillion to fund the government through the end of the 2011 fiscal year. The House bill contains a two-year freeze on federal civilian worker pay, resolves revenue discrepancies with the Senate’s food safety bill, includes a provision that bans the transfer of terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison to the US, provides $513 billion overall for the Pentagon, and freezes discretionary spending at 2010 levels.
But the Senate next week is likely to amend the bill into a $1.1 trillion omnibus measure crafted by Sen. Daniel Inouye, chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill will reportedly provide around $20 billion more than the House one. The Senate Democrats’ expected omnibus push has already met with opposition from Republican leadership.
“One thing we’ll need to do before we leave this year is fund the government because Democrats didn’t pass a single appropriations bill this year,” the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor on Nov. 18. “Now they’ll try to mop up in the 11th hour with an omnibus spending bill that covers all of it. This is one more sign they aren’t learning many lessons from the election.”
“If this election showed us anything, it’s that Americans don’t want Congress passing massive trillion dollars bills that have been thrown together behind closed doors,” McConnell said. “They want us to do business differently, so I won’t be supporting an omnibus spending bill.”
Despite McConnell’s opposition, the bill may gain enough Republican support to pass. Specifically, Republican members of the Appropriations panel like Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have broken with leadership and expressed openness to the measure. In addition, Democrats may be hoping to win GOP support for the bill by wooing outgoing Republicans like George Voinovich, Kit Bond, and Bob Bennett with earmarks for their states. The three moderate Republicans from New England – Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts – are also viewed as possible votes in favor of the omnibus.
That is not to say passing the sweeping measure will be easy – some Senate Democrats such as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin could break with their party and oppose the bill.
Whatever happens, it will have to happen fast. The Senate is set to have its first procedural vote on the tax bill next Monday, so it is likely that the chamber will not take up the omnibus until Wednesday at the earliest. That would mean that both the Senate and the House would have to pass it by the end of Saturday if lawmakers are to avert a government shutdown.
--Matthew Jaffe

DADT Protesters Tell Senate: Forego Vacation Until DADT is Repealed


December 10, 2010 3:46 PM



ABC News' Arlette Saenz and Candace Smith report:
One day after the Senate shot down the chance to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, nearly one hundred protesters gathered north of the Capitol to urge the Senate to forego their holiday vacation and remain in session until DADT is repealed.
“None of us gets to go home for Christmas until we’re done with our jobs, the Senate doesn’t go home until it’s done with its job,” said Commander Zoe Dunning of the United States Navy.
Amid chants of “Don’t go home,” the protesters stressed that legislators had an obligation to the straight and LGBT service members stationed across the world through the Christmas holidays.
“If I can serve overseas in harm’s way for four Christmases defending my nation then the Senate can certainly do the same,” said Major Mike Almy of the United States Air Force.
Gay and straight activists shared stories of personal struggle and sought to show that, no matter the orientation, all service members serve the same military.
“Today all around the globe our service members in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard are standing watch in the cold, like we are today, some might be a little bit lucky and are in slightly warmer places but they’re standing watch and their orientation has nothing to do with their ability to do their job,” said former Sergeant Pepe Johnson.
The protest was organized by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a non-profit organization which was established in 1993 when DADT originally passed.  SLDN also organized the DADT rally with Lady Gaga this September.
--Arlette Saenz & Candace Smith

Soundtrack for a Lame-Duck Session: Our picks



We didn't intend to make a contest out of Senator Mark Udall's lame-duck Senate playlist project. But afterdozens of brilliant pitches from you, we just had to pick a top three. We tried to find a few of the most inspirational, yet realistic choices. Better to lessen the tensions, rather than inflame them!
Congress, we hope you're listening.
"You Can't Always Get What You Want", by the Rolling Stones
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Thanks to commenter Joan Meiselman
"Weapon of Choice", by Fatboy Slim (Really, only for the energizing tune and not the title! Wouldn't this make a great dance breakdown in the Senate hallway?)
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Thanks to commenter Garm-2772526
"Where is the Love" - Black Eyed Peas
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Thanks to commenter Sandie122
Although I really think takemeaway's suggestion of the GOP theme song as "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones deserves an honorable mention. As well as robibigh's "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

'Holy crow. It's an actual filibuster'



Popout
Since last week -- as in the clip above -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has been at 11 over the Republicans' insistence on tax cuts for the rich. This morning at 10:25, he launched a filibuster over it, and seriously, give that guy a foot rub after this. A couple of hours in, Dave Weigel reports:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are trading off time, which looked very necessary after two hours of speaking from Sanders left him visibly more tired.
Now Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) is taking a turn. Ms. Landrieu knows how to fill time -- she spent five minutes talking about large families, sometimes with nine kids, sometimes with 12 kids, sometimes with six kids... Sen. Landrieu didn't just go to Catholic school with mass every week. They had mass "every week, every week, every week."
And you know what? It's riveting. "Holy crow. It's an actual filibuster, not just a silent cloture vote," writes Twitter pal @hataroni. "This is amazing. An actual live filibuster. By progressives. Against tax cuts for top 2%. Streaming live." It's a C-SPAN 2 kind of Friday.
UPDATE: Sen. Sanders' office says he plans to keep talking for several hours instead of indefinitely. And since there are no votes scheduled for today, Sen. Sanders isn't holding anything up, NBC's Ken Strickland reports. Which makes this more of a "filibuster" than a filibuster.

Swindle of the year



By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 10, 2010; 


VIDEO
The House Democratic Caucus has voted to change President Barack Obama's tax deal with Republicans from its current form. (Dec. 9)



Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.
Some Republicans are crowing that Stimulus II is the Republican way - mostly tax cuts - rather than the Democrats' spending orgy of Stimulus I. That's consolation? This just means that Republicans are two years too late. Stimulus II will still blow another near-$1 trillion hole in the budget.
At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.
No, cries the left: Obama violated a sacred principle. A 39.6 percent tax rate versus 35 percent is a principle? "This is the public option debate all over again," said Obama at his Tuesday news conference. He is right. The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system. The left is similarly clueless on the tax-cut deal: In exchange for temporarily forgoing a small rise in upper-income rates, Obama pulled out of a hat a massive new stimulus - what the left has been begging for since the failure of Stimulus I but was heretofore politically unattainable.
Obama's public exasperation with this infantile leftism is both perfectly understandable and politically adept. It is his way back to at least the appearance of centrist moderation. The only way he will get a second look from the independents who elected him in 2008 - and abandoned the Democrats in 2010 - is by changing the prevailing (and correct) perception that he is a man of the left.
Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity - their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin - but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?
No, says the current buzz, the left will instead challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. Really now? For decades, African Americans have been this party's most loyal constituency. They vote 9 to 1 Democratic through hell and high water, through impeachment and recession, through everything. After four centuries of enduring much, African Americans finally see one of their own achieve the presidency. And their own party is going to deny him a shot at his own reelection?
Not even Democrats are that stupid. The remaining question is whether they are just stupid enough to not understand - and therefore vote down - the swindle of the year just pulled off by their own president.
The six German saboteurs referred to in my last column were not shot. They were electrocuted.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Letterman And O'Reilly Spar On Late Show (VIDEO)

David Taintor | December 10, 2010, 11:36AM

Bill O'Reilly and David Letterman

Read More



David Letterman and Bill O'Reilly assessed a number of potential 2012 presidential candidates on the Late Show last night, disagreeing over whether Sarah Palin will end up running.
Letterman acknowledged Palin could raise the necessary money to run, but he's not convinced she'll do it. "She knows that the second a person puts their hand on the bible and takes the oath of office, the stock starts to drop," he said.
"I disagree," O'Reilly said, adding that she could be a viable candidate.
They both agreed, however, that it would be entertaining if she did ... and good for both of their shows.
Moving on from Palin, they focused their attention on the current president.
"Its time for Barack Obama to stand on his own two feet," O'Reilly said.
"My God," Letterman responded, "he's come into a house that's been condemned for eight years, and he's standing on his own two feet and he's saying, 'holy crap, the plumbing's gone, the fireplace doesn't work, there's rats in the attic, the garage is going to blow up."


Watch a clip of the interview:

Brittany Smith, Easley found safe

Some good news for once

'Bouncing off the walls,' grandmother says

Virginia State Police are looking for 12-year-old Brittany Mae Smith and Jeffrey Scott Easley.
Courtesy of Virginia State Police
Police are looking for 12-year-old Brittany Mae Smith and Jeffrey Scott Easley.

Ongoing coverage

Related

From today's paper




Update 6:43 p.m.
Brittany Smith and Jeffrey Easley have been found safe outside Virginia, said Roanoke County spokeswoman Teresa Hamilton Hall.
Roanoke County police have scheduled a news conference for 8 p.m. 
"She's safe," said Liz Dyer of South Boston, Brittany's grandmother. "We're so glad. We're bouncing off the walls."
Brittany has talked to her father, South Boston Police Officer Benny Smith, Dyer said. She said the police asked her not to say where Brittany was found.
Check back at roanoke.com for more.
Update 3:50 p.m.:
The grim-faced Roanoke County police chief, concerned that the week-cold trail to missing 12-year-old Brittany Easley means bad news, released the Salem Walmart videotape, her last confirmed sighting, showing "a very small space" between the girl and her accused abductor, Jeffrey Easley.

Chief Ray Lavinder said Brittany "appears to be following him" as they shopped through the store, "always remaining very close to him." Easley, 32, was the boyfriend of Brittany's slain mom, Tina Smith, 41.

"We're really not sure what that situation is," Lavinder said today at a news conference, referring to the store video. "You just can't evaluate what's been said -- if threats have been made, that sort of thing -- from a video."

Electronic billboards with Brittany's description are up in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, Lavinder said, and more than 700 people have called or e-mailed tips. An Alabama convenience store video taken Thursday showed a man who fit Easley's description, but it wasn't him, Lavinder said.
Update 3:32 p.m.: Roanoke County police have released the surveillance video from the Salem Walmart where Brittany Smith and Jeffrey Easley were last seen Friday evening. Find the YouTube video here.
Posted: 3:05 p.m.:As of noon, Roanoke County police report they have received 660 tips in the search for 12-year-old Brittany Smith and Jeffrey Easely, but none have been confirmed sightings.

Police have confirmed that Brittany Smith's photo is being displayed on electronic billboards in North Carolina and Tennessee.

The next news briefing is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.


Salem Walmart surveillance camera video

Video uploaded to YouTube by Roanoke County Police Department



West Wing Week: "It's Alive!"


Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Walk step by step with the President as he visits Afghanistan to celebrate the holidays with our men and women in uniform, announces a free trade agreement with South Korea, attends a series of meetings at the White House and holds a press conference to answer questions about the tax cut compromise, signs the Claims Resolution Act of 2010, and more…
December 3rd, 2010
December 6th, 2010
December 7th, 2010
December 8th, 2010
Arun Chaudhary is the official White House videographer

The Surprise Trip to the Briefing Room

December 10, 2010, 7:09 PM

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

President Obama walked to a news conference with Bill Clinton at the White House on Friday.Drew Angerer/The New York TimesAfter successfully battling a locked door, President Obama and former President Bill Clinton walked into the White House briefing room on Friday.
The unannounced visit by President Obama and former President Bill Clintonto the White House briefing room was a surprise to absolutely everyone – including Mr. Obama’s top advisers.
When the meeting between the two men ended just after 4:15 p.m. on Friday, virtually everyone in the West Wing was in the White House residence at the annual holiday party for the building’s overworked staff.
The leader of the free world and the ex-leader wandered a deserted hallway, past the offices of the senior advisers, only to discover the door to the press corps briefing room locked.
Had it not been, Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton might have discovered only a few reporters milling about or catching a few minutes of sleep. Instead, they turned around and found a junior staffer sitting outside of the office ofRobert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
“Do you know how to open up the briefing room?” Mr. Obama asked the staffer, Katie Hogan.
“Yeah,” Mr. Clinton said, “can you help us unlock it?”
Hearing that, Mr. Gibbs walked out.
“I said, ‘what are you guys up to?’” Mr. Gibbs recalled later. “President Obama said, ‘we’re looking for some reporters.’”
“What have you guys got on your mind,” Mr. Gibbs –- always cautious — countered.
The two presidents told Mr. Gibbs that they had been talking about the controversial tax compromise that Mr. Obama had reached with Republicans and wanted Mr. Clinton to make a few remarks.
“I said, ‘can you guys give me about five minutes,’” Mr. Gibbs recalled telling them.
Ms. Hogan made a quick announcement over the West Wing public address system, urging reporters to come to the briefing room “right now!”
Mr. Gibbs hustled down to the briefing room, where the microphone at the podium was not even turned on. Reporters scrambled to their seats as the networks quickly flipped on the switches to go live.
At one point, some reporters asked how long Mr. Gibbs thought it would be until the hastily called press conference started.
“How long?” Mr. Gibbs said. “They’re just on the other side of that door!”
Mr. Gibbs said he did not know which of the two men initiated the idea to come to the press room. But one thing he did know, he said: “Only a locked door slowed the whole process down.”

Bernie Sanders says ExxonMobil paid no taxes in 2009, but that's inaccurate

The Truth-O-Meter Says:
Sanders

"Last year, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profit. Guess what. They paid zero in taxes. They got a $156 million refund from the IRS."

Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 in a Senate floor speech


On Nov. 30, 2010, Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, made aSenate floor speech about the gap between rich and poor in America. It soon went viral on the Internet. After receiving a number of requests by readers to fact-check it, we're doing so. (This predated Sanders' filibuster on Dec. 10, but he made many of the same points in both speeches.)
We'll take a look at two of the claims Sanders made in the Nov. 30 speech. In this item, we'll look at whether Sanders is correct about the tax bill paid by oil giant ExxonMobil. In a separate item, we examined how Sanders characterized the income earned by the top 1 percent of Americans.
In the Nov. 30 speech,  Sanders said that the government wasn't doing enough to hold companies such as ExxonMobil accountable. "These people want to cut back on the powers of the EPA and the Department of Energy so that ExxonMobil can remain the most profitable corporation in world history while oil and coal companies continue to pollute our air and our water. Last year, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profit. Guess what. They paid zero in taxes. They got a $156 million refund from the IRS. I guess that is not good enough. We have to give the oil companies even more tax breaks."
When we asked Sanders' office for a source of his claim that the company "paid zero in taxes," they pointed us to page 92 of the company's "10-K" form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 26, 2010. The form does indeed include a line that suggests that the company was refunded  $156 million in income taxes to the federal government in 2009. But there are two caveats that need to be included when citing this figure.
What does the number actually mean?
Douglas A. Shackelford, a tax professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina told PolitiFact that the $156 million number refers "to the U.S portion of the current and deferred income tax expense." But he added that this number does not refer to the cash taxes paid by Exxon to the U.S. government.
"It is a (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) number, not a figure from their U.S. corporate tax return," Shackelford said. "The actual income taxes paid by the Exxon to the U.S. government is confidential information. It is not reported in their financial statements."
The company agreed with that description. "The U.S. income taxes reported in the financial statements include more than ExxonMobil’s tax bill for 2009," said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers. The financial statements, he said, "reflect financial transactions related to U.S. federal income taxes booked by the corporation during the year and include finalization of the taxes for prior years."
For instance, the liberal Center for American Progress quoted Jeffers saying that the company's tax figure for 2009 was heavily influenced by a holdover tax issue from 2008 that was technically recorded on its 2009 books. "ExxonMobil was required to bolster its pension plan by $3 billion when the market went down in 2008," wrote CAP's Sima J. Gandhi. "This overpayment reduced the amount of taxes owed in 2008, but the tax adjustment wasn't made until one year later, which led to an overpayment and the refund in 2009."
The three-year tax numbers listed on the 10-K do seem to suggest that the company's 2009 tax bill was unusual. In 2007 and 2008, the equivalent tax totals on the 10-K were $4.5 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively, which suggests that some unusual factor reduced the ExxonMobil tax bill into negative territory for 2009.
While the company is not obligated to publicize its tax return, and thus the actual amount it paid in taxes, ExxonMobil has voluntarily released a figure for its actual federal income tax bill in response to media requests that questioned why the company reported a negative tax liability in 2009. Jeffers told PolitiFact that the "U.S. income tax expense for 2009 activities was approximately $500 million." The company declined to provide documentation for this number, however.
U.S. income taxes aren't the only taxes ExxonMobil paid
According to the 10-K, ExxonMobil paid $110 million in state income taxes, $6.3 billion in sales taxes, and $1.5 billion in "other taxes and duties." All told, the company's tax liability according to its 10-K was $7.7 billion. (These numbers are not necessarily totals actually paid but derived using generally accepted accounting principles.) And that only counts taxes paid in the U.S. It paid an additional $70 billion-plus in taxes to foreign governments in 2009, $15 billion of which was for income taxes.
The company does receive credit on its U.S. taxes for many of these foreign tax payments, which helps keep its domestic tax bill lower than it would otherwise be -- a complaint of many of its critics, who would like to see a curtailment of such benefits. Another criticism is that the company is (legally) able to shield some of its income by steering it through subsidiaries based offshore.
Sanders spokesman Will Wiquist said that "some have argued that these facts are not accurate because the company paid state and foreign taxes and because they lawfully wrote off the foreign taxes when paying their American federal taxes. Clearly, that is not the point of this statement by Sen. Sanders. He is arguing that the law should be changed to make companies like Exxon pay U.S. income taxes on their massive profits."
We agree that the tax policy toward companies like ExxonMobil is a fair subject for debate, but we do think that Sanders' articulation of the facts in his floor speech was misleading, because he omitted several important caveats, including a failure to note that the $156 billion number only refers to one specific type of tax -- U.S. income taxes. To his credit, Sanders did make that distinction in a June 9, 2010, speech, saying that ExxonMobil "reported to the SEC that not only did it avoid paying any federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million refund from the IRS."
Still, while focusing on the negative-$156 million figure and saying that the company "paid zero in taxes" in 2009 was eye-catching, it is, at best, misleading. And it ignores the fact that the company paid hundreds of millions in state income taxes, sales taxes and other types of taxes. We can't verify the company's claim that it's net tax was $500 million in 2009, but it's incorrect for Sanders to say "paid zero in taxes." We rate his claim False.