“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home–but not for housing. They are strong for labor–but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. They favor minimum wage–the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all–but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine–for people who can afford them. … They think American standard of living is a fine thing–so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.”

Find out after the jump:

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“Yesterday Newt Gingrich laid out a new argument for why he should be the GOP presidential nominee: He’s got the most Twitter followers. But according to a former Gingrich staffer, he bought them.” [Gawker]

“President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.” [CBS]

Our guest columnist is a leading Koch factotum.

Senator Patty Murray, Chair
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Dear Senator Murray:

For many months now, your colleagues in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee leadership have engaged in a series of disparagements and ad hominem attacks about us, apparently as part of a concerted political and fundraising strategy. Just recently, Senator Reid wrote in a DSCC fundraising letter that Republicans are trying to “force through their extreme agenda faster than you can say ‘Koch Brothers.’”

So you can imagine my chagrin when I got a letter from you on June 17 asking us to make five-figure contributions to the DSCC. You followed that up with a voicemail indicating that, if we contributed heavily enough, we would garner an invitation to join you and other Democratic leaders at a retreat in Kiawah Island this September.

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Provocateur Ian Murphy, who played David Koch for Scott Walker, punks James O’Keefe with the offer of a $100 bill earned from “selling” crack pipes: “And he fucking took it. He took my crack pipe money, slipped it in his coat pocket, shook my hand and bolted back the way we came. I rode the elevator down to the first floor, cackling like an absolute madman. Best hundo I’ve ever spent.” [Buffalo Beast, via Raw Story]

“An eccentric California salvage diver is fishing for proof that al Qaeda overlord Osama bin Laden is really dead… ‘I’m doing it because I am a patriotic American who wants to know the truth. I do it for the world,’ [Bill] Warren told The Post.” [NY Post, via TPM]

Some of us who are members of the Stinque Legal Eagle club may experience (or remember) on a daily basis the lovely hell that is known as “doc review” — where you are sitting in a cubicle with five bankers’ boxes full of pieces of paper and you’re supposed to read every single page (which hopefully has been Bates-stamped) in the next 8 hour shift and stick a post-it pad on any paper that looks like it might help your side of the case.*

One normally is paid anywhere between $15 and $100 an hour to do this drudgery. Well, now the New York Times is inviting you to do it for free with the Palin Papers! And you don’t even have to have a J.D. or a bar card!

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