Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (R-IL) slammed presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney for using a Swiss bank account and refusing to release more years of tax returns.

“When is the last time a presidential candidate had a Swiss bank? I think the answer is never,” Durbin said on a conference call organized by the Obama campaign.

The number two Democrat in the Senate said he asked billionaire investor Warren Buffett if he’d ever owned an an account in the tax friendly nation.” “‘Nope,’” Durbin said, quoting Buffett , “‘there are plenty of good banks in the United States.’”

Durbin said there are only two reasons to hold a Swiss bank account: “Number one, you believe the Swiss Franc is a stronger currency than the United States Dollar. And that apparently was the decision the Romney family made during the Bush presidency.”

“And secondly, you want to hide something, you want to conceal something,” He said. “It is impossible for him to explain or defend owning a Swiss bank account.”

Meanwhile, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina noted that while Romney will only release two years of tax returns this year, he gave Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 23 years worth of returns when being considered for vice presidential spot in 2008. “Here’s the question: Why is okay for him to give John McCain 23 years, and the American public only two?” Messina asked.

Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is disturbed that the Republican presidential candidates haven’t supported his quixotic effort to get to the bottom of President Obama’s birth certificate, and is begining to wonder if they’re part of the cover up.

In an interview with fellow birth certificate investigator Aaron Klein, Arpaio explained how government law enforcement agencies and the media are carrying water for Obama. When asked about Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates, Arpaio implicated them as well:

KLEIN: We understand the media, but what about GOP lawmakers on this? Are Republican lawmakers afraid of this too?

APRAIO: I’ve had presidential candidates visit me in my office. I’ve talked to every one of them. … I don’t see anybody talking about this. I don’t see any senators talking about it. But when the mention me, they seem to forget my name. So isn’t that interesting? On both sides of the fence, they don’t want to talk about it. … How come everybody’s hiding this?

Listen here:

Arpaio was a kingmaker earlier on in the GOP primary. Every major presidential candidate visited his office or spoke with him on the phone to try to secure his endorsement (he ultimately endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who made Arpaio his Arizona campaign chair).

But Arpaio’s political star may have fallen along with his legal one. Arpaio is now on the verge of losing his badge thanks to accusations from the Department of Justice that his department systemically profiles based on race and has mishandled hundreds of sex crimes cases.

Still, Arpaio should be heartened by the growing number of GOP lawmakers in recent weeks who have raised questions about the veracity of Obama’s birth certificate, including Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL).

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is either confused about what’s going on in his caucus, or in denial.

On a local Kentucky radio show today, the Senate minority leader argued that the female members in his caucus agree with him that the GOP’s “war on women” is just “a manufactured issue”:

MCCONNELL: There is no issue. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say — and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — ‘we don’t see any evidence of this.’

Except that they do. Three of the four women McConnell names have already come out against the GOP’s war on women — Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

In fact, Murkowski specifically pushed back on claims like McConnell’s, saying, “If you don’t feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters.” Maybe McConnell should take her advice.

Listen to McConnell’s remarks here:

By now, it’s well known that while presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney says he wants to “get rid of Planned Parenthood” and curtail women’s rights, he was once a staunch defender of the right to choose. He even attended a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood in 1994, to whom his wife once wrote for $150.

Now, Buzz Feed digs up a photo of Romney at another fundraiser for a pro-choice group, this one of Romney at the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (MWPC) awards ceremony in 1995:

The MWPC is the state affiliate of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which was founded by feminist Gloria Steinem. The group lists “[r]eproductive freedoms and the right to choice” as one of its top priorities and “prides itself in increasing the number of pro-choice women elected and appointed into office every year.”

Two years ago, former Missouri Republican Senator John Danforth, who also served as George W. Bush’s ambassador the U.N., told the New York Times that he worried about his party’s swerve to the hard-right.

Specifically, he said, “If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”

That day, it seems, has come. Today, as early voting begins in Indiana’s GOP Senate primary, two mainstream conservative organizations are opening fire on Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and backing his opponent, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R).

The Wall Street-backed Club for Growth Action is airing a 30-second TV ad and two 60-second radio ads tomorrow going after Lugar for being too willing to compromise with Democrats. “Dick Lugar might be a statesman, but he’s not a conservative,” one ad warns. “Indiana conservaties deserve better than Obama’s favorite Republican.”

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is opening up on Lugar with a six-figure buy of TV, radio, and online ads, along with a direct mail campaign.

Mourdock has already been endorsed by a host of prominent conservative groups.

A new poll shows Lugar is still clinging to lead over Mourdock, but barely. The incumbent leads 42 percent to 35 percent, with pollster Christine Matthews warning the result should “be of significant concern.”

The fact that the man who literally wrote the book on the beneficence of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and helped foment support for Bill Clinton’s impeachment, is warning that his party has drifted too far to the right should give pause to Indiana Republican voters.