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He really just can't stop himself. Here's David Brooks with another "both sides" knee jerk reaction to President Obama daring to talk about the need for the rich to pay their fair share in taxes and the fact that trickle-down economics don't work during his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas this week.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But, David, you're saying to focus on the fairness is off the point, that the point should be more about what's happening to the country?

DAVID BROOKS: I think it's about growth.

We have an inequality problem, there's no question. But I think people -- sometimes when you have -- we want a strong, growing economy and we want strong wage growth. And that's somewhat related to whether the top 1 percent get super bonuses, but it's not totally related to that. And so you better have a strong story about generating economic growth.

And I didn't see that story. And then, second, just politically, I agree with Mark the Republican Party has gone very far right, but if they singing the hymnal of FOX News, why do you sing to the hymnal of MSNBC?

Why don't you do something more centrist? Which is what I think he should have done. I think he should have acknowledged that not only do we have an inequality problem. We have got a growth problem and we have got a debt problem, which is the thing he entirely dropped.

Heaven forbid David Brooks can ever respond to a question on the extremism of the Republican Party without throwing in a.... "but Democrats are just as extreme" false equivalency out there and some ridiculous statement as he made here trying to pretend MSNBC is a liberal network because they've allowed some of their programming to represent liberal views or those of the Democratic Party establishment during their prime time programming or at the crack of dawn on the weekends. I can only assume that David Brooks either never watches MSNBC if he thinks what he said here is true, or he knows full well that it's not and he just doesn't mind lying to the PBS audience.

MSNBC for the most part is not the equivalent of Fox, but they come pretty close during a good part of their daytime programming and I'd say there right there with the three hours in the morning with Scarborough. So liberal network equal to counter Fox my ass Mr. Brooks.

David Brooks also seemed to be having a very hard time wrapping his head around the fact that income disparity and lack of taxation on the rich might be related to each other and why most Americans are struggling these days. I guess it never occurred to him that the reason we don't have any growth is because the rich are hanging onto most of the money in the United States to the point that we're destroying what's left of our middle class and where consumers don't have any money to spend with the outsourcing for slave labor overseas, the destruction of unions, and a race to the bottom on wages and workers protections, and where those who are lucky enough to still have a job for the most part have not seen their wages go up, but remain stagnant or go down instead, but the ones benefiting from that economic model are sitting on mounds of cash.

It's too bad the hapless Mark Shields who is often as big of a hack as Brooks during this weekly segment on the PBS Newshour didn't try to make the same arguments that Nick Hanauer did on Cavuto's show last week where he tried to explain over Cavuto's interruptions exactly why his taxes should be raised and how that's tied to job creation and how it's the 99 percent having money in their pockets and not the 1 percent hording all the cash that creates jobs and some basic common sense on supply and demand on what makes economies grow as opposed to Republican fantasies about confidence fairies and trickle-down economics -- Millionaire Nick Hanauer Shoots Down Neil Cavuto's Straw Men as He Explains Why His Taxes Should be Raised.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Just before President Obama gave his speech this Tuesday in Osawatomie, Kansas, Fox's Megyn Kelly brought on The National Review's Sarah Palin fan-boy, Rich Lowry to opine over whether there was some risk involved for the president by invoking Teddy Roosevelt with this latest push to get Republicans to agree to an extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Naturally Kelly was very concerned over whether this would place some undue burden on the, as she called them, "so-called rich" and they dismissed the fact that we have record income disparity now which is similar to Roosevelt's time because no one paid personal income tax in those days. Naturally they also used the opportunity to repeat the Republican talking points that Americans are over-taxed, over-regulated and that our entitlement programs are out of control to claim that Roosevelt would be horrified by the tax burden placed on them now. Lowry repeated the lie that the administration is trying to take us back to the days when upper earners were paying as high as fifty percent or more in taxes, when no one is talking about going back to those rates now.

And of course they couldn't finish trashing President Obama for daring to want to talk about some fairness in our economy without pulling out the other Fox boogeyman... Socialism. The horror.

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Here we go again with the Republican's meme of the week being repeated, this time by Wall Street apologist billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg, harping about the failure of the so-called "Super Committee." I guess he manged to tear himself away for a while from hyping overblown terrorist threats and having the police beat up the dirty hippies at Occupy Wall Street long enough to do this interview with John King.

So good of CNN to have Bloomberg come on to play the happy "centrist," touting the failed Simpson-Bowles deficit commission as some "reasonable" solution for everyone to have a little shared sacrifice. He did call for the end to the Bush tax cuts that were extended during the Obama administration, but never did the words income disparity leave his lips during this entire interview as far as what ails our country right now. He also continues like the rest of them in our corporate media to pretend that both sides are being equally inflexible rather than any admission that both parties have moved way to far to the right, with one falling completely off the cliff with protecting their tax cuts for the rich.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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As Lawrence O'Donnell noted during his Rewrite segment this Thursday, there is a group of those one percent of Americans who are doing better than the rest of us that actually care about income disparity in the United States and this week they went after Grover Norquist for his lobbying that no one in Congress ever raises taxes on the wealthy, ever, and lobbied the super committee themselves to please do the right thing, and raise their taxes.

O'Donnell invited anyone who would like equal time that disagreed with them that is among the wealthiest one percent that doesn't want to see their taxes raised to come on the air on his show and explain why.

Here's more from The Huffington Post on the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and their meeting with Norquist -- Patriotic Millionaires To Grover Norquist: 'Move To Somalia' :

Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, millionaires who want the government to tax them more, met with foremost anti-tax guru Grover Norquist in Washington late Wednesday afternoon. Not surprisingly, they couldn't find common ground -- and ended up debating the state of Somalia.

Patriotic Millionaires, a group of 200-plus people making more than $1 million per year (including actress Edie Falco and economist Nouriel Roubini, among others), believe that America has been good to them and that it is their duty to give back. "[The government] provided a foundation through which we could succeed," writes the group on their website. "Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have."

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Norquist felt the group only represented liberal interests. [...]

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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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Here we go with more fearmongering over whether the super committee manages to come to some sort of agreement or not. A couple of weeks ago we had Chris Cillizza, filling in for Chuck Todd on MSNBC's Daily Rundown, allowing the senior Sununu to spread lies about Social Security and Medicare.

This week, he brings in Sununu's son and conserva-Dem Blanche Lincoln to espouse the values of bipartisan negotiations so we can have members of Congress make cuts to our social safety nets in return for “tax reform.” Of course by “reform”, they're taking about lowing rates for corporations and the wealthiest among us and supposedly closing some loopholes or tax deductions, which I'll believe will happen when hell freezes over since Republicans have done nothing but obstruct any effort to do so in the past, no matter what the supposed trade-off.

CILIZZA: Well, this is a happy topic to bring you two in on, but let's start with, we are now seven days away from a deal. The super committee is keeping their cards relatively close to the vest. You guys have been in intense negotiations when you know the American public wants something, but you just can't make your colleagues do it. What's the attitude in the Democratic caucus right now, Sen. Lincoln if you had to guess?

So Cillizza thinks Lincoln knows something about Congressional negotiations and being on the side of what the public wants? Really? I hate to break it to him, but Blanche Lincoln was not on the side of public opinion during the health care debate. She was on the side of the insurance companies before finally starting to flip-flop after enough public pressure was put on her to do so.

Lincoln replied by fearmongering over the super committee not reaching an agreement supposedly interfering with holiday spending that our own RJ Eskow wrote about here – If the Super Committee Doesn't Cut Your Medicare, Santa Claus Will Die!.

LINCOLN: Well, I would think it's frustration, just like the rest of the country. I mean, people understand on capitol hill how big these issues are and how important it is. One of the things I hope that they'll understand is that the timing of this is crucial too. I mean, you're going to hit Black Friday and cyber-Monday about the same time you come out with the possibility of nothing coming out of the super committee and what does that do to consumer confidence?

Apparently the producers of Chuck Todd's show and Chris Cillizza think their audience has short memories and have no clue about Blanche Lincoln and who's interests she was looking out for during her time in the Senate. Shameful. Here are a few posts I'd recommend any of them read before they bring her back on again, not that it matters. I'm pretty sure they know perfectly well how dishonest they're being to the viewers.

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The media is now in a full court press to get the super committee and the Congress to along with austerity measures in the name of reducing the debt and deficit "for the grandchildren." CNN's John King, Republican Saxby Chambliss and Blue Dog corporate Democrat Heath Schuler participate in a little exercise that Chris Hayes described perfectly in the video below.

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Apparently Tom Brokaw isn't the only one out there who's confused about the notion of "shared sacrifice" and who thought the AARP's recent ad telling politicians to keep their hands off of their Social Security and Medicare was terribly unfair. CNN's Candy Crowley badgered the Director of the AARP, David Certner about whether seniors are going to be willing to "put skin in the game" when it comes to getting our budget deficits under control.

I assume she thought this was a "fair and balanced" discussion since she brought on representatives from the American Petroleum Institute and the Air Transport Association to ask them what they'd be willing to give up as well.

Transcript via CNN:

CROWLEY: Joining me here in Washington, Marty Durbin, executive vice president of government affairs for the American Petroleum Institute, Sean Kennedy, senior vice president of Global Government Affairs for the Air Transport Association, and David Certner, legislative policy director for the AARP.

Before we begin we want to disclose that the AARP and the American Petroleum Institute's advocacy and industry ads have run on CNN. I've seen them many, many times.

I'm sure that makes you all happy.

So listen, I want to start out with the AARP ad. This is representing seniors, for those who might not know. And this is one of the public ways you've been pressuring the super committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's a number you should remember. 50 million. We are 50 million seniors who earned our benefits. And you will be hearing from us today and on election day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: David, it seems to me that in fact this has become a threat, you know, to the super committee. Here's the super committee which we're all hoping will do the best thing for the country and everybody's out protecting their bailiwick. So what I want to know from each of you, I'm starting with David, is what are you willing to give up? What will seniors give up to help the country that's in a big problem at this point?

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Tom Brokaw is apparently very confused on the issue of “shared sacrifice” and who has and has not already been sacrificing in our society. On this Sunday's Meet the Press, while discussing a recent AARP ad where the group basically stated that the politicians had better keep their hands off of Social Security and Medicare, Brokaw called the ad selfish and an example of "I got mine, to heck with the rest of you." Brokaw followed that with a lot of hand wringing about what tough times we're all in for in America and how we need to be ready to “make some hard calls.”

It seems those “hard calls” include means testing Social Security, which is a terrible idea because it turns it into a welfare program that would be much easier to destroy. And nowhere in the conversation did raising taxes on the rich, raising the cap on payroll taxes, our terrible trade laws that encourage a race to the bottom on wages, the destruction of the labor movement or the refusal to regulate the financial industries come up as a solution to making sure we can keep our social safety nets in place and that we don't have senior citizens or anyone else for that matter living in poverty.

Color me not shocked since our Villagers in the corporate media still aren't over their fetish with austerity measures, regardless of where the majority of public opinion is at right now where people are fed up with the income disparity and the poor and middle class being the only ones asked to make some kind of “shared sacrifice.”

Transcript below the fold.

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On Tuesday's morning call-in show on C-SPAN, Washington Journal, a caller from Texas demonstrates what happens to your brain after watching too much Fox News and paying attention to Red State's Erick Erickson and his ridiculous "We are the 53%" campaign he launched in response to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

SAMUAL FROM TEXAS: I think a lot of people are getting onto the whole 9-9-9 plan because it's something easy to remember and you know, we're just overburdened with the tax system we have. People lately are really talking the ninety nine percent verses the one percent. I think something more here is another number – it's forty six, fifty four. I may be a little off there but I believe those are the numbers.

Forty six percent of Americans or right around there pay no personal income tax. And the other fifty four percent pay all of it and I think that's the real number and you know, we're basically having to carry the rest of the country on our back. And I'm not saying, you know, all these ninety nine percenters out there are poor people or anything. I think a lot of them are just people who've been handed everything in their life. But I like the ninety nine plan. If nothing else, everybody starts to pay their fair share, instead of one part of the country carrying the rest who's not doing anything.

Listen to the caller try to respond after host Greta Brawner points out that under Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, billionaire investor Warren Buffett would likely pay no income tax at all as the Huffington Post reported here -- Warren Buffett Would Most Likely Pay No Income Tax Under Herman Cain's '999' Tax Plan: Analysis.

You can almost smell the hairs burning off their head through the television screen. Sadly, Brawner did not point out the the caller that even though many do not pay any federal income taxes, they pay plenty of other taxes and many of them are also Social Security recipients.

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