In an op-ed I HOPE will get picked up across the country, Henry Bloch explains why taxes need to be raised on the rich ASAP.

From KC Star:

I do not understand some Republicans’ resistance to the idea of tax increases on the wealthy. The argument we have been hearing from some politicians about the rich being the “job creators” is misguided. First of all, let’s not forget that our economy was doing better and the nation’s unemployment rate was lower before the Bush tax cuts, which benefited the top 1 percent of earners the most. Secondly, one would be hard-pressed to prove that low tax rates result in increased job creation. Companies today are holding record levels of cash, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high.

I have been a student of the U.S. tax system for more than half a century. From the mid-1930s to the early-1980s, the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners in this country was between 68 percent and 94 percent. That’s double and triple of what it is today. Yes, it’s time we balance the budget, but it is also time we balance the tax burden.

He’s a registered Republican.

Your thoughts?

He talks with the folks at Morning Joe.

I liked how he didn’t overreact to the Geithner plan. Refreshing to say the least.

Thoughts?

Following up on the previous post…here’s the video of Powell questioning Palin’s wisdom when she talked about “small town values.”

I always thought that the whole “Real America” talk was remarkably dumb because it alienated more voters than it drew in…and I’m glad to see that Powell shares that view.

What’s more, the GOP often romanticizes the small town as if it was some utopia away from the troubles of their big, bad dysfunctional urban counterparts. And yet if you’ve been to small town America lately, nearly every single person living there is reliant on the government because our agricultural backbone is heavily subsidized. Apparently that irony is lost on folks like Palin.

And as far as dysfunctional goes, well, that’s a human condition and it runs rampant in both places. I used to go hunting with my grandfather in northern Missouri near Brookfield and Kirksville and you would not believe the conditions some people live in. It’s tragic actually. But I’ve been there, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and, like Powell said, the GOP needs to wake up and start realizing that instead of portraying America in a completely unrealistic light.

Moving on…

“I’m comfortable that the government has to step in when the free market gets off rail. The nice thing about our government, compared with France — everyone says we’re going to be France. We’re not going to be France. We go in and go out.”
- Jack Welch on ABC’s This Week this morning

And why is Welch comfortable with government intervention? Because he’s realistic. He knows what would have happened had the government not intervened.

Look, Republicans do themselves no favors by trying to redefine what socialism is and suggesting before Obama has taken office that he’ll be a liberal boogeyman who’ll take away our freedoms. Because that’s a bar set so low he’ll be able to walk right over it to solidify a very moderate, reasonable image.

“Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for the next president, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.”
- David Frum in a column at NRO today

As the author of Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” line, Frum is keenly aware of the appropriate framing. And Bush was able to ride that frame to a two term presidency.

So no doubt Frum sees that the next 2 years will be incredibly bad for the Republican brand and they do themselves no favors by pushing the “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend” meme. It was a dog from the beginning and it continues to get increasingly absurd with each utterance.

Long story short, Frum doesn’t want to give Obama the firepower for a cake walk in 2012.

Conservatives take note.

In the event my title is a bit too obscure, pictured above is Mr. Andrew Sullivan lighting his petard, shortly before he is about to be hoisted by same.

This definition may help:

pe·tard n.
1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.

Word History: The French used pétard, “a loud discharge of intestinal gas,” for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. “To be hoist by one’s own petard,” a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare’s Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means “to blow oneself up with one’s own bomb, be undone by one’s own devices.” The French noun pet, “fart,” developed regularly from the Latin noun peditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, “fart.”
^{The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.}

The question on the table Mr. Sullivan – is prompted by the well established and strongly held views about the virtues of divided government that you promoted during the 2006 midterms and prior to Barack Obama entering the presidential race – to whit:

^{[Continued after the fold and/or at Divided We Stand United We Fall]}

Andrew Sullivan on Divided Government:
06-Apr-2006

29-May-2006

31-Oct-2006

“Here’s one reason for conservatives not to be afraid sitting out this election or voting Democratic. Gridlock! The best government we’ve had in recent times was the Clinton-Gingrich face-off. They restrained the worst in each other, brought out the best, and gave us welfare reform, peace, and fiscal surpluses… The great strength of the American system is its capacity for divided government. If there was ever a time for it, it’s now. ” – Andrew Sullivan

04-Nov-2006

16-Nov-2006

“I can see, in other words, where I have given too short shrift in the book to the Jeffersonian idea of a nature’s God as the source of divided government and individual liberty….” – Andrew Sullivan

23-Nov-2006

“Things To Be Thankful For… Washington has divided government.” – Andrew Sullivan

And further, please consider that in 2008 we are looking at: A high probability of a Democratic President, a 100 seat Democratic majority in the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosoi; A 60-40 filibuster proof super-majority in the Senate under Harry Reid or Hillary Clinton; And the largest concentration of single party federal power in the lifetime of most readers of this blog.

So, in consideration of all that, I was wondering if you thought it no longer important to your readers that the nation is careening at high speed down a highway to single party government hell in 2009?

Searching your site, the only post I can find in the post-Obama presidential candidate timeframe that addresses the issue you found so important in 2006, is this single post:

10-Aug-2007

There is a stark contrast between Sullivan the vocal advocate for divided government before Obama entered the race and the Sullivan who apparently doesn’t think one party unified government is so bad, or certainly not important enough to write about after Obama entered the race.

Regarding Bartlett’s solution to the “nightmare scenario” of single party Democratic government in 2009 (I cannot respond to Sullivan’s solution since he has not offered one) – specifically his suggestion of focusing on Republicans retaking the House of Representatives – The problem is that it is flying in the face of history and ignoring the state of the Republican Party and House elections.

It is impossible for the GOP to retake the House or Senate in 2008. In the 100+ years since we have been electing senators directly, the House of Representatives has never switched majority unless the Senate did also. “Never” as in “not even once”. This is a law of politics like gravity is a force of nature. So what about the Senate? There are 33 Senate seats contested in 2008. Of these, 21 are held by Republicans and 12 by Democrats. Simple numbers – the Republicans have a lot more at risk, and will be playing defense. The Democrats have many more opportunities to take seats than Republicans. Advantage Democrats. Big, big advantage. The question is not whether the Democrats will increase their majority in the Senate, the question is whether they will achieve a 60-40 filibuster proof super-majority. Right now, it looks like they have a super-majority in sight.

The fact is Mr. Sullivan, the best and only chance for the continuation of the divided government you so admirably supported in 2006, is if the Republicans can hold the White House. When you argue for the inevitability of an Obama victory, you argue for a massive concentration of single party Democratic power and even fewer restraints on a unitary executive than were on President George W. Bush. That is unlike the soul of any conservative I have ever known.

Regardless of how much you personally like and respect Obama, I have to wonder if this is really what you want? Do you really want to see that much power invested in one man without checks, balances, and a vigorous opposition party?

Or will you ask your readers (as you did in 2006) to help avert the “nightmare scenario” Bartlett invokes, hold their collective nose and vote for McCain to secure divided government? And to ask them to do so – as you so eloquently put it – “For the country’s sake – and for the soul of conservatism.”

Mr. Sullivan, I believe the fuse on your petard is lit, sir.

^{[x-posted from Divided We Stand United We Fall]}

Justin touched on this story. Let me expound…

“I did not know about these remarks, but I take responsibility for them. I repudiate them. My entire campaign I have treated Senator Obama and Senator Clinton with respect. I will continue to do that throughout this campaign.”

That was John McCain yesterday, apologizing for remarks made by talk show host Bill Cunningham at a McCain rally. Cunningham repeatedly referred to Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama and called the Illinois senator a Chicago-style hack.

McCain added that he did not think it was appropriate to use Senator Obama’s middle name in such situations.

He may not make sweeping speeches about unity or dazzle us with his promises to change the attitudes of Washington, but McCain is a man who has walked the bipartisan walk for many years. No, he hasn’t always been 100% civil but he fundamentally understands what it really takes and what it really means to respect your opponents and work with them rather than against them.

McCain didn’t have to speak out so harshly against his own supporter. He wasn’t even at the event and could have disavowed all knowledge and taken no responsibility. But he didn’t. And I think the shows, yet again, Obama isn’t the only candidate in this race who represents change.

When it comes to fair and open standards that benefit all, Lessig has to be one of the more brilliant minds you’ll ever read or listen to on the subject. Now he’s thinking about running for Congress, but he doesn’t want to just serve…he wants to change congress.

He has 3 things he’s basing that change on…

1. Accept no money from PACs or lobbyists
2. Work to end Congressional earmarks
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns

More explanation here…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed he’ll run. We need real change in Washington, and a guy like Lessig could do just that.

This podcast looks at (1) results of the South Carolina Democratic Primary; (2) a brief discussion about the media coverage of identity politics and (3) a look ahead to the Florida and February 5th primaries…

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Feel free to email us questions/suggestions for next week’s podcast (you can also email an audio file of your question and we’ll include it in the podcast).

This podcast covers the results of the Iowa Caucuses. We discuss the significance of Huckabee’s victory, the state of the Republican race after Iowa and we also dissect Obama’s victory and analyze the rest of the Democratic race.

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This podcast covers (1) problems with Bill Richardson’s campaign, (2) the reality of Mike Huckabee’s recent momentum, (3) Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama argue over a Novak Column, (4) the significance of experience in the 2008 election, (5) Fred Thompson’s troubles and (6) more…

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This podcast covers the MSNBC Democratic debate in Pennsylvania. Specifically, we discuss (1) Hillary Clinton and immigration, (2) the styles of Obama and John Edwards, (3) how the campaign has progressed since the debate, (4) Biden and his quips and more…

[Note: audio problems have been corrected in this podcast...many thanks for your patience]

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My blogmate Pete Abel over at Central Sanity, came up with an idea of a letter to GOP Leaders urging them to pay attention to the moderates within the Party. The letter is catching on and I wanted to share what he has written with you.

Yeah, I know some will think this is a waste of time, but I am thankful for Pete having the huztpah to make his voice heard. Hopefully, others will follow.

So, here is the letter:

We, the undersigned, are moderate Republican voters, a growing force within the Party.

If you are or know an incumbent or prospective Republican candidate who shares these beliefs and who wants the larger GOP to stand united behind them, we encourage you to let us know, so that we can add you or your candidate to our roster of those we will support with our votes, voices, volunteers, and dollars.

A good point by one of our soldiers in Afghanistan:

An Army sergeant complained in a rare opinion article that the U.S. flag flew at half-staff last week at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan for those killed at Virginia Tech but the same honor is not given to fallen U.S. troops here and in Iraq.

In the article issued Monday by the public affairs office at Bagram military base north of Kabul, Sgt. Jim Wilt lamented that his comrades’ deaths have become a mere blip on the TV screen, lacking the “shock factor” to be honored by the Stars and Stripes as the deaths at Virginia Tech were.

“I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT, yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. service member,” Wilt wrote.

Indeed, why not?

The recent spat between California Governor Arnold Scharzenegger and talk show host Rush Limbaugh shows two examples of modern conservatism.

More here.

It’s become fashionable to put down Barack Obama, just to compensate for the embarrassing fervor of his fans. But that too can go too far, and today I read something that reminded me what it is about him that genuinely appealed to me before he was a superstar. From an excellent Seattle Times column by the syndicated Eugene Robinson:

He is both an African American and the biracial son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother; both a product of the streets of Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer, and a son of the streets of Jakarta, where he played as a kid. Obama is the personification of “both-and.”

That makes him representative of the growing numbers of us who rather smoothly juggle multiple identities. Any African American who speaks differently with black friends than in mixed settings, any college grad who works with his hands among other honest skilled laborers, any Jew like me who has a bizarre sense of homecoming among my neo-Orthodox cousins but feels even more at home at 1 A.M. in snowy Moscow in a bus full of karate students from all over the world, the windows steaming up as the South African team sings an African chant with Japanese words — well, we can relate.

He said his belief that American politics has seen enough “either-or” â€â€? and that he can shift the paradigm to “both-and” â€â€? is what led him to undertake “the risks and difficulties and challenges and silliness of a modern presidential campaign.”

Thus on the question of inner-city poverty and dysfunction, Obama proposes a suite of orthodox solutions â€â€? early childhood education, after-school and mentoring programs, efforts to teach young parents how to be parents. But he also emphasizes personal responsibility: “The framework that tends to be set up in Washington â€â€? which is either the problem is not enough money and not enough government programs, or the problem is a culture of poverty and not enough emphasis on traditional values â€â€? presents a false choice.”

That’s exactly the frustration of so many centrists — our sense that the Right and the Left each have a part of the truth, and they can’t put the two parts together because they’re too busy fighting with each other. When Mike Huckabee, for instance, says the right to life includes the right to basic health care and education, we feel the same relief listening to a Republican as we do to Democrat Obama. The relief of someone being drawn and quartered when the horses pulling in opposite directions are called to a halt.

While more resources are needed, “there is a strong values-and-character component to educational achievement,” Obama said. “To deny that is to deny reality, and I don’t want to cede that reality to conservatives who use it as an excuse to underfund the schools. … Sometimes people think that when we talk about values, that somehow that’s making a ‘lift yourself up by your own bootstraps’ argument and letting the larger society off the hook. That’s why I always emphasize that we need both individual responsibility and mutual responsibility.”

The cultural values of “educational achievement and delayed gratification and intergenerational responsibility and hard work and entrepreneurship” produce success, he said, but “if a child is raised in a disorderly environment with inadequate health care and guns going off late at night, then it’s a lot harder to incorporate those values. We as a society can take responsibility for creating conditions in which those cultural attributes are enhanced.” [...]

“We’ve learned that it was a good thing to break down the gender barriers that were keeping women from fully participating in the society; on the other hand, it turns out that things like marriage and fidelity are actually good things,” he said.

Robinson observes that Obama is not the first to say these things: “[N]o message gets through without the right messenger and the right moment. Not everyone is convinced that Obama is that messenger.” It is, however, the combination of the message and the messenger, who not only embodies it but has an unusual facility for articulating it, that is so appealing. When Obama gave the 2004 convention keynote speech that launched him into the political stratosphere, what struck me about it was his ability to express complex ideas with clarity, which has the effect of not just respecting but flattering the listener’s intelligence: what he’s saying isn’t oversimplified, yet you understand it so clearly that you feel smart, and you feel that he knows you’re smart. Robinson describes this nicely:

That’s the way Obama talks, by the way, in sinuous but precise sentences that practically diagram themselves as they go along.

It’s this rhetorical skill, combined with his appeal to those of us with multiple identities and the chameleonlike ability his own multiple identities give him to speak to many different singular identities in their own languages — that makes up Obama’s political whammy.

Read the whole column, and see who doesn’t think it’s Obama’s time.

The National Review contributor sums it up best…

John Kerry is awful, and anything we can do further to degrade his political prospects is worth doing. But really, I saw a clip of him making the much-deplored remark, and it was obvious that the dimwit in Iraq that he referred to was George W. Bush, not the American soldier. It was a dumb joke badly delivered, but his meaning was plain. My pleasure in watching JK squirm is just as great as any other conservative’s, but something is owed to honesty. There’s a lot of fake outrage going round here.

And scene…

If you’ve never visited “The Best Page In The Universe,” what can I say…you’re missing out on so much.

As always, the author Maddox tears apart 9/11 conspiracy films like Loose Change with the greatest of ease.

One note, his site isn’t safe for work, but really…who cares.

Mr. President,

On behalf of millions of gay and lesbian Americans, I write to denounce your decision to divide the American family by promoting an amendment that would insert discrimination into the United States Constitution. Your decision to use the grounds of the White Houseâ€â€?America’s Houseâ€â€?to advance discrimination is an insult to millions of fair minded Americans from all walks of life.

Mr. President, gay and lesbian Americans pay taxes, contribute to community and family life across our great nation, and worship the same all-loving and compassionate God. Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans, under your command, serve proudly in our nation’s military, fighting to win the war on terror and promoting liberty across the globe. Your effort to codify discrimination against our families, including men and women in uniform while the nation is at war, is offensive and unworthy of the office of the Presidency. Great Republican Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan have united Americans and appealed to our best hopes, not our worst fears.

-Patrick Guerriero, President of Log Cabin Republicans in an Open Letter to President Bush yesterday.

Senator Pat Roberts: “I am a strong supporter of civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead.”

What the Senator is saying is that saving lives trumps all else. And I cannot disagree more.

Saving lives trumps much. And how much it trumps is a valid area for discussion and disagreement. But there are things worth dying for. Our Founding Fathers seemed to think civil liberties are among them, since they fought a bloody revolution for them. Patrick Henry wasn’t hyperbolizing when he said, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” [ . . . ]

Sometimes [security and liberty] do conflict. And we civil libertarians discredit ourselves when we deny it. The important point is that freedom is more important than safety. Just as our soldiers risk their lives to defend American freedom, we all accept risks in return for freedom. [ . . . ]

Liberty may be no good to those who lose their lives, but life may become no good to those who lose their liberty.

Thank you, Seth Chalmer! God, what a bunch of pussies we’ve become!

Seth is not being reckless; he does acknowledge that “A balance between liberty and security can be argued and changed. Privacy rights aren’t fundamental human rights like the right not to be killed or enslaved.” But he is bringing up a fundamental point: Freedom takes courage, and it cannot be had without risk.

The next time you’re feeling really scared of another terrorist attack, think of yourself and your loved ones as warriors for freedom. That little thought experiment works wonders. Courage is not instead of fear, it’s in spite of it.

UPDATE: Check out this post on “terror management theory” at ThoughtTheater, linked in the comments. [I'm quoting irresponsibly and indiscriminately both from the text of Daniel DiRito's post and from the sources he quotes. Go over there to see who's who.]

Research has shown that people, when reminded of their own inevitable death, will cling more strongly to their cultural worldviews. The data appears to show that nations or persons who have experienced traumas (e.g. 9/11) are more attracted to strong leaders who express traditional, pro-establishment, authoritarian viewpoints. They will also be hyper-aware of the possibility of external threats, and may be more hostile to those who threaten them. [ . . . ]

When looking at the fact that nearly two thirds of Americans polled seemingly accept a program of widespread domestic surveillance, the theory offers a plausible explanation. Essentially, anything that helps assuage the fear of death can potentially be seen as an acceptable situation [ . . . ]

According to the theory, Americans traumatized by the 9/11 terrorist attacks turned to Bush in part because, subconsciously, his clear and values-driven message helped assuage their fear of death. [ . . . ]

“Psychologically terrorized people are attracted to clear vision of where evil lurks in the world and clear vision of how to obliterate it,� Solomon says. And in our post-9/11 world, he continues, Americans are, in some ways, a psychologically terrorized people, with thoughts of death a hazy but ever-present reality.

This doesn’t weaken my point, it buttresses it. If we are awakened to how insidiously we’ve been terrorized, it may galvanize us to defy it.