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After discussing the various roles some of the other GOP presidential contenders might be playing in the Republican primary race this year, Rachel Maddow concluded that current frontrunner Newt Gingrich's role is that of the Johnathan Swift character whose “modest proposal” recommended making use of poor children by turning them into a source of food.

As Maddow noted, Swift was joking in order to shock the public into having some awareness of the plight of the poor. Newt Gingrich, the “eat the poor” candidate with his long history of attacks on the poor in America, sadly, is not.

Between his advocating for having poor children replace union janitors in schools to clean the bathrooms, to calling child labor laws “stupid”, to arguing in the 90's that the government should take poor children away from their mothers and ship them off to orphanages, to his scam of a child literacy program he ran in the 90's, to calling President Obama “the finest food stamp president in history”, Gingrich if nothing else has served one purpose in this race as Maddow summed up this way.

MADDOW: It is useful to have Mr. Gingrich playing this role, articulating this viewpoint in this race. It's a return to Reagan era attacks on welfare queens, right? Eat the poor time. Everybody's got a role to play in this Republican campaign. […] Everybody's got a role to play. And Newt Gingrich's role as the frontrunner is he's a bit of a clarifying tonic with the whole country trying to understand the difference between the two parties on the most important issue of the election and the most important issue in the country, which is of course, pain... economic pain. The worst income inequality we have seen in generations.

Mother Jones has more on Gingrich's literacy program that she mentioned -- What Newt Gingrich Isn't Telling You About His Literacy Program

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From the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders -- Virtually Everything That They Wanted:

As a Thanksgiving deadline nears for action by the powerful congressional committee on deficit reduction, Bernie sounded an alarm over reports that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may be cut. "What we have to remember is that the last three times the Democrats negotiated with the Republicans, in almost every instance, they gave the Republicans virtually everything that they wanted."

Rough transcript below.

SANDERS: What we have to remember is that the last three times that the Democrats negotiated with the Republicans, in almost every instance, they gave the Republicans virtually everything that they wanted. In December, remember a year ago December, the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, the White House, and not only did they extend Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy, but they also provided new tax breaks in terms of the estate tax for the very, very richest people in this country.

Republicans got everything they wanted. In April, with the Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, the Republicans as everyone remembers threatened to shut down the government and the Democrats went along with $78 billion in cuts from the President's budget request; hurt a whole lot of people and it was just not good.

In August, in an outrageous display of unprincipled gamesmanship, the Republicans for the first time in the history of this country were prepared to not have America pay our bills, default, and the Democrats caved in there as well, providing $2.5 trillion deficit reduction package.

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Senior White House adviser David Plouffe was out there making the rounds this Sunday, defending President Obama's deficit reduction plan which has Republicans up in arms because he's dared to suggest that the rich should be paying more in taxes. During Plouffe's interview on Fox News Sunday, Wallace did his best to play concern troll for the wealthiest among us, trotting out some of the same tired talking points we've been hearing from Republicans, and repeated constantly on Fox, for some time now.

Chris Hayes debunked one of them this weekend on his show that Nicole wrote about here -- Chris Hayes: Welcome To Inequalistan!:

No sophomore slump for the second weekend of Up with Chris Hayes. On Saturday, Hayes took on the ever-present, but disingenuous, conservative talking point that the top ten percent of income earners pay seventy percent of income taxes. [...]

Nothing says "patriotic American" more than defending the super-rich from a three percent hike to pre-Bush tax levels:

You have to hand it to Brooks--he has a flair for turning reality upside down that George Orwell would admire.

The wealthiest 10 percent pay nearly 70 percent of all income taxes in this country because they make more than 70 percent of all the income! Check out Mother Jones charts on skyrocketing income inequality in America.

Over the last decade, as incomes for the very wealthy have soared, their tax rates have fallen. That 31 percent Brooks grouses about is considerably lower than the 37 percent they paid when they controlled less of the nation's money than they do now.

And Paul Krugman debunked the other as Susie noted in her post here -- Let's Look At Class Warfare and The 51% Who 'Don't Pay Any Taxes".

Plouffe did a decent job of pushing back at Wallace's rhetoric, but heaven forbid he was going to let a few facts get in the way of his talking points.

Transcript below the fold.

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From the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders -- The 14th Amendment:

Senator Bernie Sanders spoke during a rare Saturday session. He made case for President Obama lifting the debt ceiling on his own by invoking a provision of the 14th Amendment. "The Constitution is very clear in saying that the debts of the United States ‘shall not be questioned,' Sanders said. "The president swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and many constitutional scholars believe that the 14th Amendment gives the president the authority and responsibility to pay our debts regardless of the dysfunction in Congress. I think that's just what he should do if he is left with no other way to protect the full faith and credit of the United States." The idea is backed by leading legal scholars and by President Bill Clinton. He said that if he were still in the White House, he would use the amendment and "force the courts to stop me."

And from the Burlington Free Press -- Sanders calls on Obama to lift the debt ceiling with 14th Amendment:

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is calling on President Barack Obama to unilaterally lift the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment.

Section 4 of the amendment states that, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Sanders, an independent, isn’t fazed by the possibility that using the amendment to bypass Congress on the debt limit could lead to an impeachment vote. He says Americans would thank Obama for dealing with the crisis.

“I suppose if you use the 14th Amendment and Republicans try to impeach him, that’s their right,” he said. “But I would suspect that the average American would say, ‘Given the options, thank you, Mr. President, for making sure that I at least get my Social Security check, that our soldiers get paid, that Medicare continues to function and that interest rates do not go way up.’”

Current law requires congressional approval for raising the debt limit. But former President Bill Clinton has said that if he were still in the White House, he would use the amendment and “force the courts to stop me.”

“I think the Constitution is clear, and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for (expenditures) it has appropriated is crazy,” Clinton said in a July 18 interview with The National Memo.

But Obama has said he does not believe invoking the amendment is a viable option. “I have talked to my lawyers,” he said on July 22. “They are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.”

Sanders said other options for action on the debt limit are “dismal.” He blamed “right-wing extremism” among House Republicans and their “refusal to look at anything that resembles a fair and sensible and balanced approach.”

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Ed Schultz went after Sen. Orrin Hatch in his Psycho Talk segment for his little screed this week saying that the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the debt. TPM has more on that.

Dems Go After Hatch For Saying Poor Need To Do More To Shrink The Debt:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going after Sen. Orrin Hatch for saying that the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the debt.

"The top 10 percent are paying 70 percent of all income taxes. The top 50 percent pay something like 98 percent of all income taxes. Fifty-one percent don't pay anything," Hatch said.

"Democrats say they [the 51 percent] pay payroll taxes. Well, everybody does that because that's Social Security. They pay about one-third of what they're going to take out over the years in Social Security," Hatch said. "Obamacare -- a family of four earning over $80,000 a year -- gets subsidies. Think about that. That's what we call the poor?"

"Republican priorities are completely out of whack and Orrin Hatch's comments prove that point," DSCC's Shripal Shah told TPM.

"It's bad enough that Republicans are doing everything they can to protect tax breaks for millionaires and special interests, but the fact that the Republican idea of shared sacrifice means going after the those who are struggling the most is completely reprehensible," Shah said.

As I already pointed out here, Joshua Holland did a great job debunking last year why saying that the poor in this country don't pay their share in taxes even if they don't pay any federal income taxes is bunk. I wish Ed Schultz had made that point in this segment as well, but he didn't.

Maybe anyone that is on Twitter can make Ed and his staff aware of that fact on his feed at @WeGotEd.

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I think Bernie Sanders is one of the last people in the United States Senate that I can stand to listen to these days with all of this kabuki theater going on over raising the debt ceiling and the demands for deficit reduction on the backs of the working class and the poor along with Republicans drawing a line in the sand with their public refusals to raise taxes.

Ed Schultz asked Bernie about former President Bill Clinton tossing the idea about lowering the corporate tax rates in America in exchange for closing some loopholes, which Sanders shot down. We all know how that would turn out after watching how the Republicans are negotiating in bad faith on the budget right now. They'd get Democrats to agree that the tax rates should be lowered and then stomp off when they tried to get them to agree to which loopholes to close. That or the only ones they'd go after are those that affect the middle class and not the rich.

Bernie's still out there asking people to sign his petition, which now has well over 100,000 signatures. If you haven't signed yet, you can do so here.

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MSNBC's Chris Matthews talked to Rep. Jan Schakowsky about whether Paul Ryan is going to receive any support from voters with his recently released plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system and to balance the budget off of the backs of the elderly, the working class and the poor. The short answer is no but the bigger question is why? I agree with Susie and Digby that this stinks of nothing but an attempt to make the now defunct mess of a deficit commission and their co-chairs recommendations look "reasonable."

MATTHEWS: I'm with you. I'm with you on the macroeconomics. Let's go back to the microeconomics, the realities of this. Congresswoman, older people get sick. I‘ve noticed the older I get, the more I need a doctor. It‘s a fact. It isn‘t a good bet to go into business, if you‘re an insurance company, and assume that people aren‘t going to have health needs as they go into their 70s, their 80s, if they‘re lucky enough to make their 90s. They‘re going to have health problems that are going to cost a lot of money, especially near the end.

That's why the government has Medicare because it‘s not a good bet for business to insure people in their 70s and 80s they‘re not going to get sick. I'm laughing at the absurdity of this!

Now, here along comes a Republican guy—

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: -- a young guy like Paul Ryan, who is healthy as hell, and he says, oh, great, we will give you a little voucher to help you buy medical insurance when you‘re 83 years old.

Give me a break. Who is going to sell you the policy? I'm sorry.

You‘re the expert.

SCHAKOWSKY: Give me—yes, give me a break is right.

And the median income for people over 65 years old in our country, you know what it is, Chris? It's $19,000 a year. That is with everything. Those are the people. And frail elderly, you're going to send out in the market to choose among all the health insurance companies, and then some measly amount of money is going to be sent to them, and if they don‘t have enough coverage, then too bad for them?

And the thing that really frosts me is that what Paul Ryan says is that this is a moral issue. I agree with him that it‘s a moral issue. Do nothing about the wealthiest, and take it out on the backs of people who make a median income of $19,000 a year? It's unconscionable. And it's silly. And I don‘t think it's going to have the political support that he wants.

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Chris Wallace sounds like he's been going to the John Boehner school of compassionate conservatism. It wasn't quite a "so be it" but "get used to it" isn't too far off. That was his conclusion after showing how horribly damaging the decision to cut the RIF program is going to be for poor children.

Wallace: For all the talk of waste, fraud and abuse, cutting the budget will mean ending real programs that serve real people. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but we'd better get used to it.

Here's the press release from RIF.

Congress and President Obama Cut Reading Is Fundamental - America’s Largest Children’s Literacy Program serving over 4 Million children:

March 3, 2011—Statement by Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental

On March 2, President Obama signed a bill that eliminated funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) the nation's largest organization providing free books and literacy resources to prepare and motivate children to read. RIF’s ability to provide 4.4 million children with free books and reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 17,000 locations throughout the United States is in jeopardy.

RIF programs are in schools, community centers, hospitals, military bases, and other locations that serve children from low-income families, children with disabilities, homeless children, and children without adequate access to libraries. For 44 years, RIF has provided millions of children the opportunity to choose free and high-quality books to read and keep for themselves. The seeds of inspiration in these books have motivated children to follow their dreams and achieve their full potential.

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I really, really wish Ed Schultz would quit bringing Republican hack Ron Christie on his show. That said, I've got to hand it to Joe Madison for this rant here where he called out the greedy Republicans for holding the poor hostage to get their tax cuts for the rich.

MADISON: I’m going to tell you, what we really should be doing… we ought to be in the streets. We ought to be jumping on these greedy Republicans who have the audacity to try to keep going what they had going for the last ten years.

Here’s what I would tell Republicans. Okay baby, it’s in your court right now. Create the jobs! And you’ve got thirteen months to get these people off of unemployment that you held hostage. You’ve got two years to create jobs in this country instead of spending that money on your luxury items. Ron is full of it. This is an attempt to just allow rich people to maintain their hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand. Create jobs or shut the hell up and American people ought to be in the streets screaming, not at President Obama so much because I’m going to tell you, you guys sat here and you held the poorest of the poor hostage! You played chicken with poor people’s lives and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

They should be but that would require them having the capacity to feel shame in the first place. And amen to Joe. They keep saying those tax cuts create jobs, well let's see the job creation now that they got their wish. You know the next bullpucky they'll be spouting is that there's still "uncertainty" for the "job creators" since the extension is only for two years.

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Nothing like having Republican dirty tricksters tell us that we'd better not raise taxes on the rich and let those Bush tax cuts expire because we're a "connected society", but that's exactly the argument Alex Castellanos made on John King's show while doing his best job of channeling Rand Paul.

CASTELLANOS: There's a difference between 3.2, which is -- trillion which is what the president's plan would cost and then another 700 billion which is what the Republicans would add. However, the economic --

(CROSSTALK)

CASTELLANOS: -- and -- no the economic argument is this. We are in a connected society now. Can you tax just the rich people's side of the water bucket? Can you take money out of that? We've just seen Wall Street melt down and everybody's homes lose value. I think both sides have an economic as well political argument here that is this the time to take that much money out of the private sector --

Sorry Alex but the only part of that "bucket" most of us are seeing is the little bit the rich have decided to allow to trickle down our heads and it ain't water that's trickling down. Here's Rand Paul with some similar nonsense.

"I would say that [Democrats] must be in favor of a second American depression, because if you raise taxes to that consequence, that’s what will happen in this country," Paul told CNN host Wolf Blitzer.

"What if they just raised taxes on the richest, those making more than 250,000 dollars a year?" Blitzer asked.

"Well, the thing is, we're all interconnected. There are no rich. There are no middle class. There are no poor," Paul explained. "You remember a few years ago, when they tried to tax the yachts, that didn’t work."

"You know who lost their jobs?" he continued. "The people making the boats, the guys making 50,000 and 60,000 dollars a year lost their jobs. 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. Let’s not punish anyone. Let’s keep taxes low and let’s cut spending."