Who Is Financing The Right Wing Jihad Against Mike Honda-- And Why?

Two weeks from today will likely be the last time anyone ever hears about Ro Khanna, unless he gets arrested for criminal activities up the road. His campaign is one ultra-expensive failure financed by conservatives-- both Republican conservatives and Democratic conservatives, all eager to replace progressive icon Mike Honda with a sleazy conservative disguised as a Democrat. Alexander Kaufman wrote up a report of the interview Politico did with Warren Buffet, the second richest man in America (after Bill Gates), worth $67.3 billion. Buffet says he thinks wealthy people like himself, you the multibillionaires particularly, shouldn't be paying taxes at lower rates than their servants. Some of the richest people in America pay as little as 10% on their income taxes, far less than when the middle class was being built and people paid 90% on income over a million dollars.

Buffett said his own tax rate was “certainly not too high.” He has frequently pointed out that his tax rate is lower than that of his secretary. Debbie Bosanek, his secretary since 1993, has been a symbol for tax inequality since Buffett began touting the disparity in their tax rates as far back as 2007. During a 2012 interview with ABC News, Bosanek said she paid a tax rate of 35.8 percent, while Buffett paid 17.4 percent.

...Buffett urged the federal government to charge higher tax rates on income earned from some stock dividends and capital gains. Currently, such income is taxed at rates far lower than ordinary income. This helps widen income inequality and is an example of one way that wealth gained from assets such as stocks and property grows much faster than wages or the actual economy, as French economist Thomas Piketty argued in his bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Up top is a new campaign ad from Mike Honda, one of the staunchest supporters of ordinary working families in the entire Congress. The ad contrasts Honda to Khanna, who is the quintessential handmaiden for the wealthy greed-hogs who don't want government services because they want lower taxes for themselves. Right wing billionaires, like extremist sociopaths John & Laura Arnold and Peter Thiel, as well as Romney's 47% dirt-bag Marc Leder, all of whom normally only give to Republicans, are maxing out to Khanna and giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to slimy SuperPACs running smear campaigns against Honda on Khanna's behalf.

Why do these greed-obsessed billionaires love Khanna so much? Simple: Khanna insists that the current corporate tax rate is too high, adamantly opposes increasing taxes on the one percent and wants to tax capital gains income as ordinary income as well as lowering repatriation of profits taxes from companies that have hidden their assets overseas to avoid taxes. Oh, yeah-- and he wants to cut Social Security benefits. He has vociferously attacked Honda for proposing to increase Social Security benefits-- a position Honda has led on and shares with every progressive in Congress-- and insisted it was "just a campaign tactic." Khanna:

"We need to have an honest conversation about Social Security and Medicare. Mike Honda has been campaigning on increasing, increasing Social Security benefits beyond what the current cost of living adjustments will allow. He knows that's impossible, he knows he's never going to get the votes for it. He knows the budget doesn't work, but it's just a campaign tactic. And the reality is, we need to start having an honest conversation."

Does that sound like a Democrat to you? Khanna has been running for office ever since he was caught stealing an election for student body president at the University of Chicago in 1966. He also once lied to California voters, claiming that Bill Clinton had endorsed him. Clinton, who had been neutral in the primary, immediately endorsed his opponent, Congressman Tom Lantos, who proceeded to wipe the floor with Khanna. Khanna tried insinuating that President Obama was backing him too-- but Obama endorsed Honda in no uncertain terms:

"Congressman Mike Honda is the right leader for the 17th district. Together, we’ve worked hard these last four years to bring meaningful, positive change to our nation, but there is much more to do. As we continue rebuilding our economy from the middle out, we know expanding educational opportunities is critical. Congressman Honda's lifelong commitment to education and fierce advocacy for innovation and technology is exactly what this nation needs as we continue to move America forward. We need Congressman Mike Honda in the United States Congress, and I urge you to vote to keep him there."

Khanna's a liar and a creep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), the president of the congressional freshman class typifies the high regard in which his colleagues hold him:

Mike Honda is a great American, and one of our living icons in the Democratic ranks of the United States House of Representatives. In much the same way that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia is a living, breathing reminder of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Rep. Honda of California takes us back even further, to the 1940s of the Japanese-American internment camps. I often mention with pride that a Pennsylvanian, Justice Owen Roberts, dissented, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of the Executive Order creating those internment camps. Mike Honda, born in 1941, spent his early childhood years in an internment camp in California.

…Nelson Mandela once said that “resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Mike Honda could easily have turned to resentment or bitterness over the mind-boggling unfairness of his family’s wartime internment. Instead, he has devoted his life to the positive and uplifting work of making America a more just, more peaceful, and more progressive nation. I am deeply honored to be a fellow member of the House Democratic Caucus with Mike Honda, and even prouder to serve alongside him in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I urge my fellow Democrats to support Representative Honda’s reelection in whatever way you can.