On November 3, Gallup reported that among the issues likely to be addressed in the new Congress, these were the top priorities of Americans, in order of importance:

• The number one priority of Americans, Democrats and Independents is passing a new stimulus bill to create new jobs. The number one priority of Republicans is repealing health care.
• The number two priority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents is cutting federal spending.
• The number three priority of Americans, Democrats and Independents is repealing the health care bill.
• The number four priority of Americans, Republicans, Democrats and Independents is extending all of the Bush tax cuts.
• Americans and Independents do not track on one single issue with Republicans over Democrats.
• More Republicans want to pass a new stimulus bill to create jobs than extend all the Bush tax cuts.

These are hardly the signals sent by a country that has swung wildly to the right.

It seems to be the pundits rather than the public who are obsessed with the right/left axis for judging every issue. The public just want jobs. They want the economy to get better. If one group of leaders doesn’t get it done, they throw them out and in a two party system, that means the other guys gets a shot again. If this was some big resounding affirmation of conservative priorities, extending the Bush tax cuts would be number one. But that seems to be the obsession of those in Congress on both sides of the aisle, not the public.

The country didn’t make some wild swing towards a conservative ideology in two years, nor can the defeats be blamed on “liberalism.” The Obama administration spent the majority of their time in office passing a health care bill that was founded on Republican principles, something Obama openly acknowledges. It was a theory of change nurtured by the Heritage Foundation, AHIP, PhRMA and the AHA, not by “liberals.” It did not solve the problem of health care in this country, but it wasn’t designed to. It was designed to make things better for the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and the hospitals. It did. Their stocks soared. If it had worked, and millions of people suddenly had access to health care who didn’t have it before, the story might have been quite different. And nobody would have cared where the ideas originated. [cont'd.]

photo: bright strangely via Flickr

Two Democrats seeking a compromise on the Bush tax cuts have suggested that a new tax rate be added for Americans making over $500,000 a year. Currently there are tax rates at roughly $250,000 and $375,000. Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Michael Capuano (D-MA) want to add the $500,000 tax bracket and extend that bracket at current rates for one year, while extending the rest of the tax cuts for 5 years. It’s basically a version of the decoupling strategy which the White House and leading Democrats would like to see. They feel this will eventually make it easier to let those tax rates expire.

Which is why Republicans, knowing they have over 60 reinforcements coming into the House by next year, and knowing that they can merely hold the current tax rates for the middle class hostage as long as they don’t decouple them, will never agree to this.

House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) threw cold water on a proposed plan to “decouple” the tax cuts, authorizing a temporary extension of the cuts for the wealthy and a permanent extension for the middle class, saying, “Taxes shouldn’t be going up on anybody right now.”

Asked on Fox News if Republicans or Democrats will give on the provisions of an extension, Cantor said, “No. I mean, one of the ideas that we’ve seen floated was this decoupling … That is a … signal right then and there that we’re going to raise taxes on small businesses. That’s exactly what we don’t need right now. What we need is certainty.”

There’s a great argument for having more brackets anyway, one that Democrats could win in the court of public opinion if they cared about those things. Right now, there’s enough of an aspirational class that calling people who make over $250,000 a year “rich” (which they are) confuses those who want to get to that point and are wondering why they’re being demonized. But adding in a millionaire’s bracket, or even further up the scale, would isolate the mega-rich from the merely rich, and would make completely clear who Republicans are working for.

Anyway, that appears to be a fantasy-world scenario. The tax cuts will get extended, and it’s likely they’ll all move together. This may not happen in the lame duck session, but it’ll happen eventually.

UPDATE: There’s no question Democrats brought this on themselves. They could have forced a vote on the tax cuts at any point in the past two years.

graphic: DarkBlack

From the best available information as to the original destruction date of the infamous “Torture Tapes” having been on November 8, 2005, the statute of limitations for charging any general crime by employees and/or agents of the US Government for said destruction will expire at midnight Monday November 8, 2010 as the general statute of limitation is five years. By operation of law, the statute would have run yesterday were it not a Sunday. So, by the time you are reading this, it is over. Absent something extraordinary, and I mean really extraordinary, a criminal statute of limitation is effectively a bar to subject matter jurisdiction and that is that. Ding dong, the John Durham torture tape investigation is thus dead.

Last week, I wrote a letter to the DOJ and saw to it that it was delivered to the main contacts, Dean Boyd and Tracy Schmaler, as well as John Durham’s office. None of them responded. Finally, late Monday afternoon I called Durham’s office, and they acknowledged having received the letter. Although extremely cordial, there was simply no meaningful information or discussion to be had on the subject. “We have no comment” was about the size of it. I asked about the remote possibility of the existence of a sealed indictment; there was “no comment” on that either, and there is absolutely no reason in the world to think anything exists in this regard.

Oh, there was one thing; when I asked why there had been no formal response to my letter, I was told perhaps it was a “little edgy”. Apparently actually phrasing an inquiry with legal specificity and facts makes it too “edgy” for the United States Department Of Justice. Who knew? Ironically, at the same time this discussion was transpiring today, the very same Obama DOJ was in US Federal Court, in front of Judge John Bates of the DC District, arguing for their unfettered right to extrajudicially execute an American citizen, and do so in secret without explanation. But my letter asking about the dying Durham investigation was edgy. The DOJ’s priorities, morals and duties seem to be a bit off kilter when it comes to their assignment of the term “edgy”.  [cont'd.]