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During one of Wolf Blitzer's "strategy sessions" on The Situation Room on CNN, Wolf Blitzer brought on former Cheney adviser Mary Matalin and one of their regular contributors, Roland Martin to discuss President Obama and his recent push to get what amounts to an alternative minimum tax on millionaires, or the "Buffett rule" passed so that people like Warren Buffet aren't paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Naturally Matalin thought that is a terrible campaign strategy, and who does she think President Obama should be taking advice from? Mark Penn -- Hillary Clinton's former adviser that helped her lose the primary race to then Sen. Obama and who left her campaign with her still owing him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his lousy advice. I agree with Roland Martin here and Penn is the last person any Democrat should be taking advice from right now, or for that matter, ever.

I also agree with Martin that President Obama should be going out to every area of the country where poverty is terrible and hitting Republicans upside the head politically for wanting to protect their rich campaign donors so they don't have their taxes raised.

And on a last note, if I had a dime for every time one of these Republican talking heads used the term "class warfare" to mean heaven forbid don't raise taxes on the so-called "job creators", who aren't creating any jobs, I'd be able to retire early. I really hope most Americans are not silly enough to fall for their rhetoric after it's become very obvious after the Bush years that cutting taxes on the rich does nothing to create jobs unless you target those tax cuts specifically for hiring Americans, instead of rewarding them for shipping jobs overseas as we do now.

Sadly we're not yet hearing a conversation in our corporate media or from enough in the Democratic Party about doing something about our terrible trade laws and trade imbalances and fixing the tax code to quit rewarding companies for a race to the bottom with forcing American workers to compete with slave labor overseas.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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We need to clone Bernie and bring him to my state. From the PBS Newshour -- Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I've Got a Lot of Problems With the President's Budget':

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, we get another perspective on the debate over U.S. spending and budgets. It comes from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. He's the longest serving independent member of Congress. He caucuses with the Democrats. And he serves on the Senate Budget Committee.

Welcome, Sen. Sanders.

First off, tell us what your main impressions are of the president's $3.7 trillion budget proposal for next year?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.): Well, Judy, I have got a lot of problems with the president's budget. I think it's bad.

But I think the Republican budget is a lot worse. And my job, along with other progressive members of Congress, is to help create a budget which is fair and which protects the most vulnerable people in this country at a time when the poverty rate now is higher than at any time since 1948.

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Digby wrote today that "They Got Tweety" here. I'd say they already had him. Regardless, here he is on Hardball repeating the Republican talking points that we just have to make spending cuts instead of raising taxes on the rich and that Americans don't want to see taxes go up on the upper earners in America.

Heaven forbid the Villagers would want to see the rich have to suffer in these tough economic times.

On Hardball this afternoon Matthews was talking about "cut-go" with Todd Harris and Steve McMahon, the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer of the Village and he ranted and raved about how both parties promise spending cuts to bring down the deficit but refuse to give any big specific items that would really make a difference. The Republican Harris went on about how "it's going to be tough, it's going to be painful and like I said, I hope entitlements are on the table." (Now keep in mind, they were talking about "cut-go" in the context of raising the debt ceiling, which means Harris is advocating for immediate cuts to "entitlements".)

After Harris babbled for a while about "entitlements" destroying the country, Matthews again said how frustrated he was that Republicans always refuse to say what they will cut --- "give me a couple hundred billion at least, give me somethin' big, they give me nothing. Democrats too, by the way."

McMahon piped up at that and said:

I'll give it to you right now. Democrats are going to come with a bill to take away the tax cuts for people making 250 thousand dollars a year. That's 700 billion dollars that we borrowed ...

Matthews: I hate to break it to you, but that's not a spending cut it's a tax increase.

McMahon: no it's not a spending cut, but it results in revenue that will...

Harris: It's a tax increase!

Matthews: Just remember the difference, it's a tax increase. You ask Americans whether they want that tax increase and a majority will tell you they don't want that tax increase.

As Digby and a lot of others have pointed out recently, that's just not true. Most Americans would like to see taxes raised on the wealthy to balance the budget.

At least McMahon looked like he was laying off of the eggnog today and talking about repealing the tax cuts again instead of austerity measures.

Someone needs to ask Al if he can get President Obama to listen to him. From The Uptake -- Sen. Franken Argues Against Tax Cuts For Millionaires:

U.S. Sen. Al Franken (DFL-MN.) says extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while failing to continue the unemployment insurance program is misguided, especially during the holiday season.

“The choice before us is clear this holiday season—lend a hand to those who simply can’t get by without the help, or give $100,000 in average tax cuts to people making over a million dollars,” said Sen. Franken Friday in his speech on the Senate Floor.

They've got the full transcript posted for anyone that wants to read it.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) lays it out in easy to understand graphics what extending the Bush tax cuts for millionaires really means. For example, a brand new Mercedes-Benz E-Class -- every year, for the next 10 years.