Medieval Politics in America.

For hire: Duke Assistant

This reminds us of medieval times in Italy – when superrich folks were playing games with the fates of city-states, pitting one against the other and gladly sacrificing a couple in pursuit of ever more.

Sheldon Adelson quickly got hang of this game with superpac nukes – now he’s arming Newt against Rick so Mitt will be stronger.

And we’re just waiting for some old billionaire foe of Sheldon to join the game, crushing the one or the other to prevent Mitt from winning.

So much for the people’s rule.

More.

Republican Debate, Iowa Dec 10th.

And then there were six..

NY State: Cut taxes for Middle class, Raise on Millionaires.

With the people.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented a balanced approach to fixing the budget in the State of New York this week, in his 12th month in office. Promising.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – New York’s millionaires will pay higher taxes while 4.4 million middle-class and upper-income New Yorkers will get tax cuts, under a reform plan the governor and legislature unveiled on Tuesday.

The new top income tax rate for those who earn more than $2 million will rise to 8.82 percent. Without the agreement, this rate would have fallen to 6.85 percent from the current top rate of 8.97 percent because a surcharge expires this year.

Full story.

Blago in Jail.

Just for the record; Blago got 14 years. That was a lot.

Full story.

Occupy K Street.

It’s a few days old, but the protests keep going.

Taking on K Street.

From Press TV:

Under the banner Take Back the Capitol, anti-corporatism protests have shut down K Street in Washington, known as the home for lobbying in the United States.

About a thousand protesters gathered on the street, shutting down the major downtown intersection to traffic as well as several blocks in either direction, The Politico network reported.

The police made several arrests, repelling the demonstrators. They, however, stormed back into the street after some time. Some activists chanted “hell no, we won’t go” as the security forces moved in and prepared to make more arrests. Many others of the protesters brought newsstand boxes and other objects to barricade the street.

Full story.

Clinton: Back to Work.

Back to Work.

The beginning of this short book is kind of interesting, as Bill explains why he chose to write it.. And the lack of campaigning and coherent message on the part of the Democrats in the 2010 midterms caused in his view a dramatic loss and indirectly – the problems and perhaps even the downgrade this summer.

From there on he outlines the whole standard centrist, third-way, progressive argument and brings lots of charts and facts about the last thirty years and problems in America.

It’s a bit dry – but it’s an important document, a short read, and it’s sort of a pamphlet with underpinnings for the whole 99% movement and the right-wing destruction of US in the last decades. It’s very “old news” if you follow centrist or liberal/progressive websites – but it gets a different weight coming from a former President who balanced the budget, put the country on the path to eliminating the debt and adding 22 million jobs in the process.

More.

Occupy not Dead.

Occupy New York.

Even though it sometimes appears to have quieted down a little bit – here are a couple of headlines from Press TV this weekend:

• Occupy spread across US despite the cold and police brutality
• OWS switch to marching as tactics of protesting
• Occupy shut down bank in Washington, D.C.
• Police crackdown on Occupy DC.
• Occupy New York has started a hunger strike.

More stories.

Axelrod on the Daily Rundown.

Axelrod:

“There’s a Reign of Terror within the GOP“

“Well, Newt Gingrich is the Godfather of Gridlock in Congress – he invented these techniques in the 90s”

Now we’re talking.