A favorite Republican talking point lately is that the businesses are not creating jobs because they are “hamstrung by uncertainty.” According to this argument, the specter of taxes and regulation is paralyzing companies, and if only Congress would preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and promise to not produce any new regulations, a flood of business investment would ensue. Last night on CNBC, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) told supply-side guru and Reagan disciple Larry Kudlow that the way to get businesses to “unleash” the nearly $2 trillion in cash and assets they’re currently sitting on is to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich and then cut marginal income tax rates even further. “C’mon, we know what works,” Pence said:

C’mon, we know what works. Larry, you know what works better than most Americans, and that is across-the-board marginal tax relief…We’ve got to demand, whether it’s this fall, whether it’s after the election, or whether it’s in a newly minted Congress next year, we’ve got to demand that we preserve tax relief, no American sees a tax increase on January 1, and then promote across-the-board tax relief on marginal rates that’ll really unleash all that more than $2 trillion in trapped capital in this economy.

Watch it:

It seems like some variation of “c’mon!” has become the Republican leadership’s go-to argument these days, but Pence shouldn’t be so smug when it comes to the efficacy of marginal income tax cuts to spur business investment. As The Wonk Room explains, business investment following the Clinton-era tax increase far outstripped that following either the Bush or Reagan supply-side tax cuts. “The failure of investment to respond to supply-side tax cuts greatly undermines the central premise of the theory underlying the policy,” wrote economists Michael Ettlinger and John Irons.

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson recently started a political firestorm by complaining that veterans benefits allocated for servicemembers exposed to Agent Orange run “contrary to efforts to control federal spending.” He even went as far as to say that “the irony” is that “the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.”

Now, veterans advocacy group VoteVets, the nation’s largest progressive veterans organization, is calling on President Obama to fire Alan Simpson. Citing not only his comments about veterans benefits but also his earlier remarks comparing Social Security to a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” VoteVets asks that Obama remove Simpson from “his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community — and all Americans — confidence in the conclusions it reaches”:

The nation’s largest progressive veterans organization, VoteVets.org, is calling on President Obama to relieve former Senator Alan Simpson from his chairmanship of a deficit reduction commission for defamatory comments about veterans. [...]

His comments came on the heels of outrageous comments about seniors and others on Social Security, as well as women. The veterans pointed to those comments as well, but wrote that Simpson’s attacks on ill veterans compelled them to write. They said firing Simpson was a matter of honoring our veterans. [...] “We ask that you remove [Simpson] from his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community–and all Americans–confidence in the conclusions it reaches,” the letter concludes.

Additionally, last night on Countdown With Keith Olbermann, Paul Sullivan, executive director of the veterans advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense appeared to call for Simpson to be fired as well, saying he was “absolutely not” the right person to be co-chairing the commission. When Olbermann asked Sullivan if the the ex-senator should be fired, Sullivan replied, “Let me put it to you politely. There’s lots of work for out of work politicians in Washington. I’ll leave it at that.” Watch it:

National tea party organizer and profiteer Eric Odom recently launched Liberty.com, a conservative website meant to “eclipse the influence of MoveOn.org in campaigns across the country.” Partnering with an umbrella group, the site launched with a formidable $700,000 budget and 70,000 members, and has the “intention of becoming an all-encompassing conservative grass-roots organization that weighs in on federal and state political races and issue-oriented movements.” The site features multi-media news and opinion content, along with fundraising and action components, supporting its mission “to keep the right honest, the press nervous, and the left unpopular and out of power.”

“We’re looking to compete directly with MoveOn.org. We’re looking to be a player for a long time. No one else on the right is doing what we’re doing,” said Liberty.com spokesman Yates Walker, who served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, and until recently was a consultant for the campaign of Christine O’Donnell, a tea party-backed U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware. Yates also worked for the special election campaign of Doug Hoffman, who ran for a House seat from New York’s 23rd district last year.

In a video posted on Liberty.com yesterday, the site baselessly accuses O’Donnell’s moderate Republican primary challenger, Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), of having an extramarital affair with a man. During a video podcast about the race, a voice off screen can be heard asking, “Isn’t Mike Castle cheating on his wife with a man?” “That’s the rumor,” the woman on camera responds with a sly smile. Watch the exchange:

When asked for comment about the unsubstantiated charge, Walker — who is listed as the media contact for Liberty.com and is described in numerous articles as its spokesperson — told Politico’s Ben Smith, “We asked the question, we didn’t specifically say it,” adding that the supposed gay affair is “common knowledge” in Delaware. “We thought we’d throw it out there,” Walker said, explaining that he has no qualms about propagating the empty rumor because Castle is a “a threat to American sovereignty.” Walker “didn’t offer any evidence for the claim,” Smith notes.

It’s ironic that Walker would so casually throw groundless rumors about people’s purported sexual impropriety “out there,” considering that he himself has been accused — and acquitted — of serious sexual misconduct. ThinkProgress has learned that, as a student at Cincinnati’s Xavier University in 2006, Michael “Yates” Walker was indicted on rape charges and held on a $250,000 bond, quietly leaving the school shortly thereafter. The Xavier Newswire reported on November 13, 2006:

Xavier University senior Michael “Yates” Walker was released on $250,000 bond Tuesday evening after being indicted on three counts of sexual misconduct and two charges of rape. Walker could face up to 35 years in jail if convicted.

Walker, a 27-year-old resident of Norwood, is formally accused of the Oct. 12 rape of two Xavier University freshmen girls. According to the Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Seth Tieger, Walker invited the two women to his off-campus apartment where he proceeded to serve alcohol to the minors until they lost consciousness. One of the women reported waking up naked the next morning, unable to recall the previous night. The second woman suspected nothing, and accompanied Walker on a date the following evening where Walker attacked her again.

When contacted by ThinkProgress, Walker told us, “I was falsely accused. Most of the charges were thrown out of court and I was found not guilty on the rest.” He also defended Liberty’s campaign against Castle by referring us to other right-wing blogs who have pushed the rumor.

Walker was never convicted. For this reason, Walker should know better than to toss sensational accusations about someone else’s sexual history in light of his own experience.