Joe Scarborough [2003]:You’re going to stop the whole country from having sex?

Christine O’Donnell: Yes

ThinkProgress has put together a document compiling what we know about Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell in her own words. (via brooklynmutt)

Bait and Switch

agreatnation:

“Second, this is obviously — obviously — a setup. The whole point is to avoid a vote on the middle-class tax cuts while Democrats control the House; when and if Republicans regain control, they can refuse to let anything but a full extension reach the floor. So the goal is actually permanent extension; what they’re offering isn’t a compromise, it’s a trap.”

— Temporary Tax Cuts For The Rich? No. – NYTimes.com

Which is why I fully expect Democrats to start talking up the many benefits of compromising and offering a temporary extension of the tax cuts for the rich.

A truly crafty Democratic leadership would realize the fiscal exigency of letting all the tax cuts expire as soon as possible. Thus, you hit the GOP with stalling it now (while steadfastly offering your own package of middle class relief), and then let them block these same measures from the floor because of their desire to please the richest of the rich. A two-fer. Once the outcry reaches sufficient heights, you allow the GOP to allow a middle-class-only tax plan to reach the floor.

Naturally, this means that we’ll get full extension of everything forever and give it to the GOP using terms such as “compromise.”

Only after 2003 did they really get things in tune…

[An] increasing share of national income [has] gone to the top 1 percent of earners since the 1970s, when their share was 8 percent to 9 percent. In the 1980s, it rose to 10 percent to 14 percent. In the late-’90s, it was 15 percent to 19 percent. In 2005, it passed 21 percent. By 2007, the last year for which complete data are available, the richest 1 percent were taking more than 23 percent of all income.
The richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing 130,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007.
That does not leave enough spending power with the rest of the population to sustain a flourishing economy.

Bob Herbert discussing Robert Reich’s book Aftershock.
Generic GOP response to everything but the last line: So what?
Generic Democrat response to everything: If we just move those deck chairs to this side, and these to that…
Generic Population response, living it, far too busy to read about it: inchoate blood rage.
Making the current situation any clearer?

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.

Governor John Winthrop founded the City of Boston on this day, Sept. 17, 1630.
The top of said hill was promptly lopped off and turned into the Back Bay. Government takeover of landfill and etc…, but at least the gambit ultimately paid off handsomely and benefits the very, very rich. So: win/win.