Today's edition of quick hits:

* The latest step in a larger farce: "A House committee voted Wednesday along party lines to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt.... The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 23-17 to favorably report a contempt resolution against Holder to the full House, which could take up the resolution and vote to advance it. "

* Afghanistan: "A suicide bomber killed 21 people including three U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint in a packed market in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday -- the third assault targeting Americans in as many days."

* Who won in Egyptian elections? Stay tuned.

* Something resembling progress in Greece, where officials "ushered in a new government on Wednesday that will put it back at Europe's bargaining table, ending a seven-week leadership vacuum that had destabilized this already fragile nation and cast a shadow over the euro zone's future."

* A case worth watching: "The Supreme Court could give Citizens United a second look this month as it decides whether to take up a lawsuit against the state of Montana, which wants its century-old state law restricting corporate influence in elections to stay in place."

* To put it mildly, the Romney campaign does not want to talk about immigration policy -- at least not today.

* Drone arithmetic: "Last month, a 'senior administration official' said the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under President Obama is in the 'single digits.' But last year 'U.S. officials' said drones in Pakistan killed about 30 civilians in just a yearlong stretch under Obama. Both claims can't be true."

* And I'm delighted to see The American Prospect, which was on the verge of closing up shop, will survive. (Full disclosure: I blogged for the Prospect in 2006, and have written a few article for the magazine since.)

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

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There were at least tepid hopes that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would announce significant steps to improve the domestic economy today, but he choice otherwise. Republicans are relieved, but they appear to be the only ones.

As was the case two weeks ago, when he not-so-subtly urged Congress to approve fiscal stimulus, Bernanke once again said he would "welcome economic support" from Capitol Hill. That, of course, is no longer an option -- congressional Republicans make no secret of their refusal to act.

But the Fed chairman still isn't willing to step up in a big way, either. Bernanke announced "a modest increase in its efforts to reduce borrowing costs for businesses and consumers by extending its existing 'Operation Twist' asset-purchase program through the end of the year," but chose not to take significant action to accelerate growth or lower unemployment, despite the fragility of the recovery, the slowing job market, and the crisis in Europe.

Repeating a line we've heard before, Bernanke said, "We are prepared to do what is necessary. We are prepared to provide support for the economy." He's just not "prepared" to do anything of any significance right now -- we're in trouble, but not enough trouble to stop the Fed from sitting on its hands.

Jonathan Bernstein argues this is today's most significant political story -- he's right -- adding that there's also "a real divide between the parties on how the Fed should be responding to the weak recovery."

It's true that Barack Obama has not made monetary policy a priority, and has (at least publicly) declined to put any pressure on the Fed to act. But Mitt Romney wants the Fed to go in the other direction entirely: He opposes any further efforts by the Fed to help the economy. He has gone at least half-Paulite and seems far more concerned about (phantom) inflation fears than he does about economic growth.

Indeed, on Sunday, in a little-noticed part of his Face the Nation interview, Romney bashed "politicians" who "want to do everything they can just before an election to try and temporarily boost something" when they should be concerned about "the potential threat down the road of inflation." ... What we have here is Romney also benefiting from a presumption that he cares about economic growth, when in that interview he's explicitly expressing far more concern about inflation.

To believe the Fed should be focusing more inflation, which barely exists, and less on economic growth is to be completely detached from reality.

As we discussed earlier, the White House asserted executive privilege this morning on certain Justice Department documents related to the so-called "Fast and Furious" controversy. The Republican talking point of the day seems to be pretty straightforward: this must mean the president is directly involved.

A spokesperson for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the decision "implies" that White House officials were involved in the operation. Fox News' Andrew Napolitano made the same argument on the air: "Executive privilege protects communications with the president, the human being of the president, not with people that work for him and the Justice Department."

No matter what one thinks of the underlying controversy -- and for the record, I think the right's interest in the matter is kind of silly -- it's worth pausing to clarify that executive privilege doesn't necessarily involve communications with the president. Josh Israel noted there are actually "two types executive privilege: the robust 'presidential communications privilege' and the more limited 'deliberative process privilege.'"

The White House may invoke the latter to apply to executive branch officials outside of the president's inner circle, as long as they were involved with the government's decision-making process. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all asserted executive privilege in matters not involving presidential communications.

And Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey invoked the same "deliberative process privilege" as recently as 2008, rejecting congressional subpoenas for reports of Department of Justice interviews with the White House staff regarding the Valerie Plame Wilson identify leak investigation.

Republicans, including House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), are well aware of this -- they endorsed the distinction during the Bush/Cheney era -- and have acknowledged that executive privilege is not limited to the president's direct communications.

But they're playing a political game today, hoping you aren't well aware of this.

We talked earlier about a new report from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which scrutinized the tax plan in the House Republican budget, crafted by Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and endorsed by Mitt Romney. This afternoon, the specific analysis (pdf) was released, which allows us to dig a little deeper.

Here, for example, is a chart I put together showing the net change in federal tax burdens by income group. The darker red shows the change for single workers; the lighter red shows the change for married couples filing jointly.

In case this isn't obvious, the middle class would pay a little more every year, while the very wealthy would benefit enormously. In other words, if you liked the ineffective, budget-busting Bush/Cheney tax cuts, you'll love the Paul Ryan plan endorsed by Romney.

The main difference: under the Ryan/Romney model, millions of middle-class workers will actually end up paying more in taxes.

As for fiscal responsibility that Republicans occasionally pretend to care about, the Tax Policy Center's Roberton Williams added, "The Ryan plan as laid out is a revenue loser and would make it harder to bring the deficit under control."

It's quite a plan, isn't it? A windfall for the rich, higher taxes on the middle class, and an increase in the deficit. As Josh Marshall joked, "What's not to love?"

Leading birther attorney Gary Kreep has clinched a race for county judge in San Diego, California, beating career prosecutor Garland Peed. With about 1,000 votes left to count, Kreep is ahead by 1,569. The Peed campaign told us last night that they're unlikely to ask for a recount with a margin that big.

Since we started covering the race on our show, we've gotten letters from voters in San Diego who want to explain the Kreep phenomenon. Bob and Jenny say they voted early, by absentee, and got their information about the race from the candidates' ballot statements. Kreep's statement links to his website, but doesn't mention the birther cause. Bob and Jenny write that they decided on Peed because Kreep seemed to them like the wrong brand of mainstream:

We saw that Kreep served on the Reagan delegation to the 1976 & 1980 nominating conventions and that was what convinced us to vote for Peed.  It was only after our ballots were sent in that we got more information about the candidates.  

Early coverage of the race in the local San Diego Union-Tribune describes this year's judicial elections as "typically low-key" and makes no mention of Kreep's birther activism. Kreep has starred in birther infomercials and served as a lawyer for groups questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Jackie in San Diego say her family voted for Kreep because they had no idea:

About a month ago, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R), who oversees the state's elections, caused a giant mess, threatening to keep President Obama off the Arizona ballot due to imaginary questions about the president's citizenship. He eventually backed down and said, "If I embarrassed the state, I apologize."

As it turns out, Bennett's not quite done embarrassing Arizona.

If you forward this clip to the 6:24 mark, you'll notice that Bennett, who says he's not a "birther," has a new conspiracy theory. Nick Martin has the story of Bennett's comments last week at a Republican event.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett says he's convinced Obama was born in Hawaii, but he now believes the president fraudulently claimed to be born in Kenya so he could get into college. He also believes the president has spent millions of dollars since then to cover it up. [...]

"Now, I know there's a lot of people that are very skeptical as to whether he was born in Hawaii," Bennett told the crowd. "Personally I believe that he was. I actually believe he was fibbing about being born in Kenya when he was trying to get into college and doing things like writing a book and on and on and on."

In the same video, you'll notice Bennett telling the crowd that voters should "send him back home ... wherever home is." He added that Obama "has spent $1.5 or $2 million" to hide his college records.

It's worth noting that Bennett isn't just the top election official in Arizona, he's also the state co-chairman of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in Arizona.

So, here's a question for the Republican presidential nominee: how comfortable is the candidate with his Arizona co-chairman's crackpot ideas about the president?

The polls have been pretty consistent for a few years: the Affordable Care Act isn't popular. The component parts of the Affordable Care Act tend to be very popular, but the right's misinformation campaign has largely been a striking success: the public has been persuaded to hate the reform law, facts be damned.

With this in mind, if the Republican justices on the Supreme Court kill "Obamacare" in the next few days, plenty of Americans -- many of whom stand to lose a great deal from the law's demise -- will feel misguided pleasure.

But as Greg Sargent noted this morning, there's a catch to public attitudes Republicans need to keep in mind: the American mainstream still has no use for the old, dysfunctional mess, and still wants health care reform.

Today's Associated Press poll finds that an overwhelming majority, 77 percent, want the President and Congress to start work on a new health bill if Obaamcare is ruled unconstitutional. Only 19 percent want the system left as is. In other words: Americans want reform.

There's no denying that public opinion on Obamacare has not turned around, as some of us predicted it would. The new poll also finds that only 33 percent support the law, versus 47 percent who oppose it (though the AP doesn't break out those who think it didn't go far enough).

But many other polls have shown that the individual reforms Dems support are quite popular.

Quite right. It's tough to predict with any confidence what the high court majority will say, but if the entirety of the law is struck down, I'd recommend Democrats have a replacement plan ready: it should cover young adults on their family plans until they're 26, guarantee protections for those with pre-existing conditions, offer tax breaks to small businesses and subsidies to those who can't afford insurance, eliminate annual and lifetime caps on coverage, lower prescription drug costs for seniors, and cover 100% of preventive care costs.

Does that plan sound familiar?

Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* It's almost certainly an implausible outlier, but the new Bloomberg National Poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by 13 points, 53% to 40%, among likely voters. No one should take this too seriously.

* Knocking down yesterday's ABC News report, Romney told reporters yesterday that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) "is being thoroughly vetted" as part of the VP search process.=

* The Obama campaign unveiled two new ads this morning, including this one on Romney's record of raising "taxes and fees" during his one term as governor. The spot is set to begin airing in nine battleground states.

* A lawyers for the Obama campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission yesterday, arguing that Karl Rove's attack operation, Crossroads GPS, is plainly a "political committee" subject to federal reporting requirements.

* In Arizona, a Project New America/Public Policy Polling survey shows Romney leading Obama by just three points, 49% to 46%.

* The same poll, by the way, shows an even more competitive U.S. Senate race, with Rep. Jeff Flake (R) up by only two over Dr. Richard Carmona (D), 43% to 41%.

* In Florida, the Republicans' U.S. Senate primary appears to be just about over, with former appointed Sen. George LeMieux, quitting the race this morning, and throwing his support to Rep. Connie Mack IV.

* And finally, Herman Cain -- remember him? -- will kick off a "Truth Tour" in early September, right after the Democratic convention.

As part of the House Republicans' laser-like focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs," the House Oversight Committee scheduled a vote today on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants more documents related to the so-called "Fast and Furious" controversy, and he's been unsatisfied with Holder's efforts to reach a compromise.

Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said, "The only constitutionally viable exception to the Department of Justice`s obligation under the subpoena would be executive privilege." So, today, the White House asserted executive privilege.

"I write now to inform you that the president has asserted executive privilege over relevant ... documents," Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to the committee.

Executive privilege allows the White House to argue that some private communications between the president and members of his administration cannot be divulged to Congress.

In theory, this should probably affect the contempt vote -- Issa recently explained, "We very clearly want to respect the history of executive privilege" -- but it won't. The far-right committee chairman said the assertion of executive privilege in this case is "untimely," so the vote will proceed anyway, because Issa wants it to.

The White House's message, meanwhile, has the benefit of being accurate: "President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege six times, while Bill Clinton did so in 14 instances, 'both of whom protected the same category of documents we're protecting today (ie after-the-fact internal Executive Branch materials responding to congressional and media inquiries -- in this case from the Justice Department). In fact, dating back to President Reagan, Presidents have asserted executive privileged 24 times. President Obama has gone longer without asserting the privilege in a Congressional dispute than any President in the last three decades.'"

Associated Press

The Romney campaign's heckling squad.

Earlier this week, President Obama's senior campaign strategist David Axelrod took a firm stand against heckling. "I strongly condemn heckling along Mitt's route," he said of the hecklers targeting Mitt Romney in Ohio. Axelrod added, "Let voters hear BOTH candidates & decide."

Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt added, "We have sent a strong message to our supporters that this campaign should be an open exchange of ideas, not one where we drown out the other side by heckling and crashing events."

Any chance the Republican will also aim for the high road? Apparently not.

Mitt Romney has declined to call on his supporters to stop heckling President Barack Obama's campaign. [...]

Romney was asked if he would also condemn heckling during Obama events. He declined.... Romney says American politics has a "long history of heckling and free speech."

Romney specifically told Fox News Radio yesterday he doesn't believe in "unilateral disarmament" when it comes to his supporters disrupting Democratic campaign events.

Keep in mind, we're talking about a fairly specific, deliberate plan from Romney Campaign HQ. They sent hecklers to disrupt an Obama campaign event in May, and last week, Team Romney sent its bus to circle an Obama event in Cleveland, honking its horn repeatedly, for no other reason than to be obnoxious. It's presidential politics at a junior-high-school level.

Most striking of all, instead of distancing himself from ugly tactics, Romney claims credit for this nonsense. As we talked about a few weeks ago, it'd be easy for the Republican to say, "If people are going to try to disrupt public events, that's up to them. I'm running for president of the United States, and I don't have time to concern myself with who is or isn't heckling."

But that's not what Romney is saying at all.

Way back in March, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center published a fairly detailed analysis of Mitt Romney's new tax plan and there were three main takeaways: the policy would disproportionately benefit the very wealthy; it would make the deficit worse; and it would actually increase taxes on those towards the bottom.

It's that third point that tends to be the most controversial. How can Romney cut taxes across the board while simultaneously increasing the burden for some? The answer is, by eliminating specific breaks that benefit working families, millions of Americans will end up paying more, even after an across-the-board cut.

A new analysis shows that the House Republican tax plan suffers from an identical flaw.

The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets -- 25 percent and 10 percent -- and cut the top rate from 35 percent.

Those changes would benefit virtually every taxpayer, but they also would reduce federal tax collections by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. To avoid increasing the national debt by that amount, GOP leaders such as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) have pledged to get rid of all the special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.

Republicans have declined to identify their targets. However, some of the biggest "loopholes" on the books are popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and retirement savings, which disproportionately benefit the upper middle class.

As a consequence, millionaires would get a tax cut of about $300,000 annually, while a married couple earning $100,000 would see their net tax burden increase by about $2,700 a year.

Don't be too surprised if we see campaign ads this fall about the "Republican plan to raise middle-class taxes."

Complaining about President Obama's new immigration policy, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday the move will make it more "difficult" to pass a comprehensive reform package. Since reform efforts are impossible in this Congress anyway, it wasn't much of a complaint.

But Boehner added something else that struck me as interesting.

"Where's the president's immigration plan? Where does the president stand on this issue? Instead of campaigning all the time, maybe he ought to come back to Washington and go back to work," Boehner said.

It was an odd thing to say. If the House Speaker wants to know where President Obama's immigration plan is, he can type "President Obama's immigration plan" into the Google machine and, wouldn't you know it, one of the first results is President Obama's immigration plan. It's 29 pages long, written in easy-to-read language, and it's been online since May 2011.

Maybe Boehner isn't much of a reader? Well, Obama also delivered a detailed speech, outlining his immigration plan, last summer in Texas. The Speaker can watch the video.

When Boehner asks, "Where's the president's immigration plan? Where does the president stand on this issue?" it's disconcerting because it suggests the Speaker doesn't just disagree with Obama's approach; it suggests the Speaker doesn't understand that Obama's approach exists.

What's more, I feel like this sort of thing comes up all the time, with folks demanding Obama produce plans he's already unveiled.

Associated Press

One GOP leader is waiting for marching orders from another.

From time to time over the last few years, there's been some debate about who, exactly, is the nation's leading Republican. Is it John Boehner or Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill? How about Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor? Maybe the RNC chair? Roger Ailes? Rush Limbaugh?

As of a few months ago, the mystery ended. America's leading Republican is the man the party -- or at least most of it -- wants to be president: former one-term Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

His transition from candidate to GOP standard bearer carries consequences Romney may not yet fully appreciate. Indeed, we saw the manifestation of this dynamic yesterday when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) balked at giving his opinion on President Obama's new immigration policy.

McConnell said he would wait -- until presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had taken a position first.

"I think we're going to wait and see what governor Romney has to say, and we're going to be discussing his views on this," McConnell told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday. "I think many of us may have similar views. Others may not."

McConnell said he was deferring to Romney because the former Massachusetts governor is "the leader of our party from now until November -- and, we hope, beyond."

Three times McConnell was asked for his position, and three times he said he would wait for guidance from Romney.

At the surface, it's rather amusing to see Mitch McConnell refuse to take a position on a controversial issue, waiting for his party's inexperienced, flip-flopping nominee to tell McConnell what to think.

But just below the surface, there's another problem that Romney needs to acknowledge and address: as McConnell made clear, without saying so explicitly, leading the Republican Party at the national level comes with responsibilities. In GOP politics, members tend to get in line, and take specific cues from the man out front. Romney may not hold office right now, but there's an expectation that he'll give marching orders and ... lead.

This is a role that Romney is not accustomed to. Indeed, it's part of his background that generally goes overlooked, but Romney has never actually led. He's never tried. He's never had to.