Article Of The Week

It's a curious case of populism, that which the media claims finds its voice in the likes of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck, three of the leading voices of corporate privilege in the U.S.A.

Recently, it had the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius columnist in "Why is Congress protecting a tax code that benefits the rich?" lamenting the "pro-billionaire version of populism (which) seems to have won big in the midterm elections." He cites

the demise of a congressional effort to strike down one of the most outrageous provisions of our messed-up tax code, which is the special treatment of "carried-interest" compensation that's paid to many investment fund managers.

This loophole is so unfair that it gets criticized even by some of the tycoons who have benefited from it, such as former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin and other prominent investors I've queried. Basically, it taxes the money paid to managers of private-equity funds and similar partnerships at 15 percent, as if it were risk capital, rather than at ordinary income rates of 35 percent.

The carried-interest break survives as do other policies which benefit big business

by invoking small business. It's argued that if congressional reformers have their way, they will gut compensation for all the little mom-and-pop partnerships that depend on carried interest....

A similar illogic leads many people to believe you are attacking Main Street if you suggest withdrawing the Bush-era tax cuts to people making more than $250,000.

Ignatius, normally a supporter of President Obama, notes "the politically enfeebled Obama administration has caved to extending the tax cuts." He misses (slightly) only when he suggests that support of tax cuts for individuals so wealthy most Americans never will know anyone they benefit may be "part of the American ethos that we all think we're rich."

Most Americans do not believe they themselves are rich, instead believing, no matter how stratospheric their income or privileged their lifestyle, that they are "middle class." They do believe, consciously or otherwise, no matter how unrealistically, that they may become rich. This fantasy, though long held in this nation, has been fueled in recent years by the ever-spreading practice of legalized gambling- and the mainstream media's glee in reporting, in words and pictures, every big winner. They are so normal and average, we see, just like we are. And if I can just land that one big lottery ticket or the catch the right slot machine....

But Ignatius is right on target (my Sharron Angle language) when he concludes

fixing the carried-interest loophole is probably dead, for this Congress and the next. It was hard enough to beat the big guys. But once they successfully hid under the cover of the little guys, it was impossible.

That political legerdemain is making America more unequal every year, and the polls show people are mad as hell at Wall Street and Washington, both. And yet the popular chorus continues: Save the tax breaks for the rich.

"People are mad as hell at Wall Street and Washington" while "the popular chorus continues: save the tax breaks for the rich." It brings to mind a favorite passage, one I've previously quoted, from page 249 of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? which shows, as Frank argued, that Kansans are similar to other Americans:

The state watches impotently as its culture, beamed in from the coasts, becomes coarser and more offensive by the year. Kansas aches for revenge. Kansas gloats when celebrities says stupid things; it cheers when movie stars go to jail. And when two female rock stars exchange a lascivious kiss on national TV, Kansas goes haywire. Kansas screams for the heads of the liberal elite. Kansas comes running to the polling place. And Kansas cuts those rock stars' taxes.

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Another Fan Of One-Way Bipartisanship

Take a number, Congressman.

You will note that beneath the number on your tag is a (D) for "Democrat." Only Democrats feel a need, obviously, to assert, as did Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) yesterday on Hardball (transcript here)

I`m willing to work with anybody, anybody that wants to bring this country together to solve problems. I think the electorate said they`re tired of the partisanship. They want people who are going to work for common sense solutions to bring this economy back. We`re so tired of the polarization.

I don`t care who it is, whether the Republicans, Democrats, Blue Dogs, independents, you know, progressives, whatever the strife, we`ve got to set these differences aside.

The problem, as we have seen over and over again, is that only Democrats- Representatives, Senators, left-leaning pundits, left-leaning columnists, and, above all, (barely) left-leaning Barack Obama argue for civility. In the case of Boren, a right-leaning Democrat, it took the form of opposing the re-election of Namcy Pelosi as Speaker:

I voted for Heath Shuler of North Carolina, a more conservative Democrat. I will vote on the floor of the House for a more conservative Democrat than Nancy Pelosi....

The problem is, we only had 43 votes. I think most Americans would agree there needed to be some changes. But unfortunately, they didn`t have those votes. There were over -- there are 150 Democrats who voted to stay with the same leadership.

According to this website, President Obama deserves credit for numerous accomplishments. But the following are among those which required congressional leadership, which came primarily from Nancy Pelosi amid a meek President and a center-right Senate Majority Leader:

* Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ending wage discrimination against women

*expanded access to college education for low-income students

*health care insurance for more children

*increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs for health and other services, for the Violence Against Women Act, for programs for disabled individuals

*redirected student loan program (a tremendous, and long overdue, reform)

*Credit Card Bill of Rights

*health care reform- modest and conservative, but finally

*Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as part of financial services reform

*a $799 billion economic stimulus plan, inadequate but enough to avert a depression

*small business loans

Oh, and those small business loans. On Hardball, to Boren's plea for bipartisanship he added

We`ve got to work with the business community. People are not talking about that. Democrats need to work with the business community. Barack Obama needs to work with the business community, the people that create jobs in this country.

Most new jobs in this nation are created by small, not big businesses. As Sam would sing, "you must remember this:"

The Senate passed long-delayed legislation Thursday designed to open up credit to small businesses and award them with other incentives to expand and hire new workers.

Democrats won a 61-38 vote to pass the legislation, joined by two Republicans. The measure would establish a $30 billion government fund to help open up lending for credit-starved small businesses, cut their taxes and boost Small Business Administration loan programs....

Obama said Thursday that the bill will help millions of small business owners across the country grow and hire. “These tax breaks and loans are going to help create jobs in the short term,” he said.

The new loan fund would be available to community banks to encourage lending to small businesses. Supporters say banks should be able to use the fund to leverage up to $300 billion in loans.

Democrats need to work with the business community. Barack Obama needs to work with the business community, pleads the Democratic congressman. That tally: all 59 Democrats issued a helping hand to the small business community, joined by only two Republicans- both of whom are voluntarily retiring, therefore immune to a primary challenge from the ultra-ultra right which now controls the GOP nominating process.

But credit the GOP with a rationale for their opposition because

The loan fund is opposed, however, by most Republicans, who liken it to the 2008 bailout of the financial system. They warn it would encourage banks to make loans to borrowers who aren’t good credit risks.

Your local grocer. Hardware store owner. Auto mechanic. Lazy, wasteful, and downright unreliable, the impression of the party which accuses liberals of being elitist.

And still, the goalposts keep getting moved, by the mainstream media and the "centrist" Democrats they adore, who oddly believe 'compromise' must be a one-way street.

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Krugman Admits Error; Limbaugh Doesn't

Rush Limbaugh did in fact quote Paul Krugman accurately when he noted that the Nobel Prize-winning economist stated the previous day at the roundtable on ABC's This Week

They should have said, "Okay, look, Medicare is going to have to decide what it's going to pay for. And at least for starters, it's going to have to decide which medical procedures are not effective at all and should not be paid for at all. In other words, it should have endorsed the panel that was part of the health care reform. If the commission isn't even brave enough to take on the death panels people, then it's doing no good at all."

But then Limbaugh went on to contend

I mean this is the guy they all bow down and genuflect toward, folks, and he said death panels and a national sales tax, that's VAT. "Some years down the pike we're gonna get to the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes." There it is. Sarah Palin was right and that's why they flipped out and had a panic reaction when the phrase was first used....

There's no question there are death panels in the Obamacare bill. Everybody knows it. Now, Krugman has let it out of the bag. But when Sarah Palin used the term "death panels," Krugman wrote a piece, it was August 14th, 2009, in the New York Times, and he called Sarah Palin and other conservatives lunatics for suggesting that there were death panels in Obamacare.

The "death panels" to which Sarah Palin was referring- as best as can be determined= was then the Comparative Effectiveness Research Center and oversight commission proposed as part of what eventually became H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. She wrote on her Facebook page on 8/7/09

And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Not surprisingly Limbaugh did not choose to replay this portion of the conversation, reported by politifact.com, between Krugman and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus in which they continued to discuss what was adopted as the Independent Payment Advisory Board:

Marcus: "They did talk about strengthening that commission, the famous IPAB, and giving it more power to go after more aspects of the health care system, because it's now rather constrained," Marcus said.

Krugman: "They made no headlines with that."

Paul Krugman was suggesting that the deficit reduction commission "take on the death panels people" by recommending the IPAB be given greater latitude to adopt policies to reduce Medicare costs. Politifact then published a piece suggesting not that Krugman was right in implying that the Board was granted extensive powers- which was the crux of Limbaugh's comments- but that the Bowles/Simpson proposal would strengthen the severely limited authority given it as part of the health care act. It explained

More specifically, the report recommends strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, a new board created under the 2010 health care law. The board is intended to make evidence-based recommendations on reducing costs and improving the quality of care in Medicare. In practice, the board will likely issue rules on which procedures it will pay for and which it won't, and these rules will apply across the board. (The board will not get involved in decisions on individual patients based on their worth to society -- the old "death panels" lie.) The board's recommendations will take effect unless Congress overrules them.

The co-chairs' proposal suggested several ways that the board could be strengthened, such as applying its recommendations to all health care providers without some of the exceptions allowed under the health care law. It suggested that the board make recommendations on benefit design and cost-sharing, which the health care law does not allow. Finally, the co-chairs suggested that the board's proposals apply not only to Medicare but also to private health insurance plans sold in government-sponsored exchanges.

Shorter Politifact: Krugman was wrong to argue that the deficit reduction commission should endorse greater authority for the IPAB because it already has boldly done so.

In an earlier piece, Politifact had noted that the board's conclusions apply only to Medicare and are not binding; that end-of-life counseling sessions (criticized by Palin) are not required and that the board does not consider individual cases but only recommends what treatment Medicare generally should pay for.

Limbaugh concluded by ranting

My point in doing this is to simply illustrate that they lie. They lie and the reason they lie is when we are right. Truth is the greatest threat these people face. Truth is the biggest enemy they've got. And now he's out there saying that death panels are a cost saver.

Yes, liberals (such as the inestimable Krugman) are different. Politifact reports an exchange in which

We e-mailed Krugman after the show to ask him about his comments. He said his reading of the report, particularly page 31, struck him as "a model of vagueness."

Then, however, Paul Krugman added

I was somewhat unfair in not giving credit for the endorsement of the IPAB.

An admission of error. Now, that's something you won't get out of a conservative, whether Oxycontin-swilling or otherwise.

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Comingling


At his last State of the Union Address, President Obama declared

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign companies -- to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.

Recognizing that the Republicans on the Court were called out, on national television, enabling foreign corporations and the governments which control them to determine American elections, Associate Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and was heard muttering "not true."

Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas had joined the three other corporatist Justices in ruling in favor of Citizens United in the controversial and pivotal January ruling, in which corporations, unions, and other advocacy groups were authorized to spend unlimited sums, without disclosure of source, on political campaigns while given the protection of freedom of speech.

But the New York Times in October reported that the "activism" of Thomas' wife Virginia, president and CEO of the right-wing interest group Liberty Central

.... is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.

Mrs. Thomas now has, appropriately, decided to resign from the leadership of Liberty Central because, reportedly, of the "distractions" caused by her high profile. Still, following the ruling in Citizens United and the GOP's squashing of the DISCLOSE Act, no one knows where those contributions came from.

Nor has Justice Thomas recused himself from any cases nor suggested that he would consider doing so. It's not surprising, given that, as Think Progress revealed in October

Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas have also attended secret political fundraisers. We published a memo detailing fundraising events, organized by oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, to fund Republican campaigns, judicial elections, and groups running ads in the 2010 midterm election. The fundraisers, attended by some of the nation’s wealthiest bankers, industrialists, and other executives, help fund much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo stated the Thomas and Alito were past participants of the Koch fundraisers. Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress’ resident legal expert, noted:

A Supreme Court justice lending a hand to a political fundraising event would be a clear violation of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, if it wasn’t for the fact that the nine justices have exempted themselves from much of the ethical rules governing all other federal judges. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court tells ThinkProgress that “[t]he Justices look to the Code of Conduct for guidance” in determining when they may participate in fundraising activities.

Now, it's Justice Alito, who recently attended a fundraising dinner for the right-wing American Spectator, whose publisher

helps lead a secretive group of conservatives called the “Conservative Action Project,” formed after President Obama’s election, to help lobby for conservative legislative priorities, elect Republicans (the Conservative Action Project helped campaign against Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23), and block President Obama’s judicial appointments. The Spectator’s gala last night, with ticket prices/sponsorship levels ranging from $250 to $25,000, featured prominent Republicans like RNC chairman Michael Steele, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (a major donor to Republican campaign committees and attack ad groups), and U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member and former Allied Capital CEO William Walton. Among the attendees toasting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the keynote speaker for the event, was Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.

We have, they tell us in civics classes, a tradition of separation of powers and checks and balances in American government. It's one thing for the Repub majority on the Supreme Court to have selected a President in 2000, in a decision Justice Scalia (who said "get over it"- a great legal mind) warned should not be used as precedent. But ten years later, a few of these judges continue to be heavily invested in the political process, trying to draw the country further right. Perhaps the mainstream media, though partial to the GOP, would consider inquiring into the political process of corporations and the Justices who are their most important supporters.

No, they won't.

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Outmaneuvered


On November 4, 2010 Digby contemplated the likelihood of a "temporary" extension of the high-end tax cuts, which the mainstream media has blessed with the label of "compromise." She speculated

I think this may be the one "compromise" the Republicans agree to. They will get credit for extending the cuts from the public, credit for bipartisan cooperation from the Village --- and most importantly, they will still get to run on the issue again going into the presidential election. This "compromise" a big winner for them all around.

This is one of those things the Democratic majority should have done long ago. They could have passed the tax cut extension for the middle class in the first year of the administration and argued about tax cuts for the wealthy as a separate issue. Instead, for reasons unknown, they waited until close to the election at which point a bunch of Blue Dogs went to the leadership and said they couldn't possibly win if they held the vote. (And then they lost natch.)

The Republicans are happy to have the "tax hike" boogeyman out there for 2012. And they are ecstatic that the administration has allowed themselves to be backed into the deficit corner --- the right's perfect terrain to wage this presidential campaign battle. Too bad for the rest of us.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had introduced legislation which would make permanent the Bush era-tax cuts both for the middle class and the wealthy. Permanent extension didn't seem to make sense as the GOP's goal, given the party's ability to use the upcoming expiration of the cuts as a political club against wary and intimidated Democrats. Now it appears that Digby was right and that McConnell's proposal was merely a negotiating tool, Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press reporting

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has introduced legislation that would extend the current tax rates permanently, but on Sunday he signaled an openness to negotiate. "I'm willing to listen to what the president has in mind for protecting Americans from tax increases," McConnell (R., Ky.) said.

Two prominent Republicans conceded Sunday that the best that Congress might be able to accomplish in the coming weeks is a short-term continuation of the current tax rates, set under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.

"If the president wants to compromise on a two- or three-year extension . . . if that's all we can get out of the president, and he is the president, so we'll work with him on that," said Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican and a leader of his party's conservative wing.

Republican President George W. Bush, a tax-cut fanatic second to none, signs into law legislation passed by a Republican-controlled Congress which cuts the income tax rate with a "sunset" provision, which requires the cuts to expire at the end of 2010. The cuts otherwise would have carried an exorbitant price tag seen abusive of sound budgeting. Comes 2010 and that same Republican Party parades rises up as one with the theme that if President Obama lets these same cuts expire it would constitute the biggest tax increase ever.

Democrats counter with support for extending those cuts for the vast majority of Americans, excluding the top 2% or so of citizens, and the media asks them: but will you compromise? And the GOP, having already set the terms of the debate, now says "o.k., we're big-hearted, we'll agree to extending temporarily the tax cuts for the rich."

This will, presumably, delight President Obama, whose commitment to no policy or principle exceeds his commitment to action he and traditional media can label "compromise." And two years from now we get to go through the same Kabuki dance. Only then it will not be the GOP demanding tax cuts for the wealthy by accusing the other Party of precipitously increasing them in the midst of recession; it will be the need to continue the cuts so as not to cut short the recovery. Shorter Republican Party: (a)in economic downturn, tax cuts for the least needy, necessary; (b)in economic recovery, tax cuts for the least needy, highly desirable; (c)in all other instances, see (b).

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A Randian Fairy Tale

Perhaps no one has encapsulated the new Republican ethos better than Kentuckian Rand Paul, whom Talking Points Memo quotes as saying shortly after his election to the U.S. Senate

We all either work for rich people, or we sell stuff to rich people. So just punishing rich people is as bad for the economy as punishing anyone..... We're all interconnected. There are no rich, there are no middle class, there are no poor. We're all interconnected in the economy.

This is becoming a common theme of the elitist right but as Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America's Future explains:

A job is created when demand for goods or services is greater than the existing ability to provide them. When there is a demand, people will see the need and fill it. Either someone will start filling the demand alone, or form a new business to fill it or an existing provider of the good or service will add employees as needed. (Actually a job can be created by a business, a government, a non-profit organization or just a person doing the job, depending on the nature of the good or service that is required....

Many people wrongly think that businesses create jobs. They see that a job is usually at a business, so they think that therefore the business "created" the job. This thinking leads to wrongheaded ideas like the current one that giving tax cuts to businesses will create jobs, because the businesses will have more money. But an efficiently-run business will already have the right number of employees. When a business sees that more people are coming in the door (demand) than there are employees to serve them, they hire people to serve the customers. When a business sees that not enough people are coming in the door and employees are sitting around reading the newspaper, they lay people off. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

Businesses have more incentives to eliminate jobs than to create them. Businesses in our economy exist to create profits, not jobs. This means the incentive is for a business to create as few jobs as possible at the lowest possible cost. They also constantly strive to reduce the number of people they employ by bringing in machines, outsourcing or finding other ways to reduce the payroll. This is called "cutting costs" which leads to higher profits. The same incentive also pushes the business to pay as little as possible when they do hire. (It also pushes businesses to cut worker safety protections, cut product quality, cut customer service, "externalize" costs by polluting, etc.)


This goes a long way toward explaining the war on the middle class waged by some of the benevolent rich and their Republican enablers. Perhaps when Paul claimed "there are no rich, there are no middle class, there are no poor." he was thinking about the America of the 1960s, as this graph (from Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which Piketty and Saez based on IRS data) indicates:






Or as demonstrated by this graph from wordpress.com from IRS data:





The largesse we have provided the wealthiest among us has not been extended to the middle class, as Jacob Hacker notes:

The Congressional Budget Office, using these income tax statistics, calculated that in 2005, the top 100th of one percent, the richest 11,000 households -- had an after-tax income that averaged $24 million a year. That was up from a $4 million average for this group back in 1979. That’s a remarkable change. In contrast, the middle fifth, the middle 20 percent of Americans, saw their incomes over this 1979-2005 period go from $41,000 a year to $50,000 a year. The concentration of income at the top is remarkable and sustained, and over the last 30 or 40 years, it has resulted in relatively little trickle-down to those lower on the economic ladder.


Obviously, Rand Paul's comment is of more than academic interest. For at least two decades now, the younger generation has been fed the myth that the Social Security trust fund is unstable, it's running out, and benefits won't be there for them to retire. Only then, the thinking of the perpetrators ran, can we convince young and middle-aged people to accept cuts to the program in the guise of raising the retirement age, changing the means by which benefits are calculated, means-testing, or, most radically, through partial privatization.

Social Security, while benefiting even the wealthy somewhat, is even more critical for the lower and middle classes. But if we are all the same- "no rich, no middle class, no poor"- there is little need for social insurance. And there is no reason not to extend tax cuts for the middle class to the wealthy- because, of course, they are really just like us, equally deserving of relief. It is extraordinarily dishonest, obviously, and turns F. Scott Fitzgerald's maxim on its head.

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Day 2 On Rush's Bus

Among the most irritating of cliches is "doubling down," increasingly used in political commentary and perhaps elsewhere.

So I won't use it, and simply say that one day of racial bigotry is not nearly as satisfying for Rush Limbaugh as are two consecutive days.

On Friday, Rush Limbaugh tried to explain away his heart-felt expression of racial bigotry the previous day. He rationalized

All right, here's the Politico story about which I spoke moments ago: "Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday suggested that Rep. Jim Clyburn -- the highest-ranking African American in Congress -- serve as chauffeur to Nancy Pelosi in the event he fails to win the race for House minority whip. 'Clyburn's worried about not having the perk of a big office, driver and so forth,' Limbaugh said on his radio show. 'The way this can all be worked out, Clyburn's new position: "Driving Miss Nancy." He gets to keep the car. He gets to go everywhere she goes, parties and everything else,' Limbaugh said. 'He's not in the back of the bus. He's in the driver's seat, and she's in the back of the car being chauffeured. Solved problem.'"

Now, if you didn't know anything but this, you would read the story and think that I originated all of this. You would think that I started talking about the fact that Clyburn's upset he doesn't have a car, won't have a driver, and won't have perks. My point here is that the Democrats do not want to give the keys to the car to Clyburn. They're all upset the Republicans had the keys to the car; they drove it in the bush. Clyburn now wants to be number two in the House, Steny Hoyer, a rich white guy, doesn't want him to have it. Once again, a black guy takes it on the chin in the Democrat Party. They don't want to give Clyburn the keys. They want him to get in the backseat. I'm the one trying to put him in the front seat! But here's how it all got started. I didn't make it up. I just reacted to this that aired on MSNBC yesterday morning.


Now, if you didn't know anything but this, you would read the story and think that I originated all of this. You would think that I started talking about the fact that Clyburn's upset he doesn't have a car, won't have a driver, and won't have perks.

Limbaugh may not have "originated all of this"- but he certainly promoted that idea, having said on Thursday

I like to unify people. I don't like seeing this kind of strife. Clyburn's worried about not having the car. Clyburn's worried about not having the perk of a big office, driver, and so forth. The way this can all be worked out....

(You gotta love the "I like to unify people"- nice touch from an admittedly intentionally polarizing figure, a hyper-partisan racial bigot.)

Limbaugh claimed

I didn't do anything but react to what the Democrats are doing and make a little humor out of it. Clyburn, instead of being at the back of the bus let him drive Nancy Pelosi around, if that's what leadership is about in the Democrat Party, perks, a car, driver. Get in the car, let him drive it, Pelosi in the back, Driving Miss Nancy. I knew it was gonna irritate 'em, and it did.

Well, now, taking the black man who is House Majority Leader, tying him to Driving Miss Nancy (Daisy) and referring to "being at the back of the bus." Just a little humor- great stand-up routine, unfortunately more reminiscent of Michael Richards than of Jerry Seinfeld. (Perhaps that's going a little too far, but I'm just trying to make a little humor out of it, to irritate conservatives. There now, isn't that better?)

Striving, apparently, to make matters (commentary) worse, Rush a moment later contended

My point here is that the Democrats do not want to give the keys to the car to Clyburn. They're all upset the Republicans had the keys to the car; they drove it in the bush. Clyburn now wants to be number two in the House, Steny Hoyer, a rich white guy, doesn't want him to have it. Once again, a black guy takes it on the chin in the Democrat Party.

Rush, for the second consecutive day (and maybe more; I haven't checked) plays the race card, suggesting the Democratic Party is racially prejudiced and makes personnel decisions on the basis of race. That is unlikely and an incendiary charge. If it is true, Limbaugh certainly hasn't demonstrated it, or begun to. (Arguably, though, racial bigotry isn't Limbaugh's greatest failing, as this picture from newsone.com, below, illustrates. Again, only trying to make a little humor out of it.)

This day, Limbaugh eschewed the "Democrats are waging class warfare" theme, fabulously popular with the Repub base. It's not easy striving, and failing, to ascribe class warfare to a party while you yourself are decrying the "rich white guy." Surprise! Rush wants that awful, bigoted rich white guy to get a big tax cut!

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