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Thank goodness there is at least one of these talking head shows on Sundays where Republican talking points are pushed back and where it's not just a bunch of millionaire pundits talking about how we need to inflict pain on our senior citizens, and raise the Medicare age in order to appease the GOP during these deficit negotiations. That show is Up With Chris Hayes.

While discussing the Republicans' absolute refusal to raise taxes, their dire warnings about the economy collapsing when Bill Clinton raised taxes, guest host Steve Kornacki asked former Romney advisor Avik Roy how he reconciled that with the similar rhetoric we're hearing from Republicans today. Roy argued that things are different now because of the “Obama levels of spending” and that the rich today are somehow shouldering way too much of the tax burden, therefore we're going to have to raise everyone's taxes in order to balance the budget.

Here's some of the response he got from the rest of the panel.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: The average income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has fallen back to the level of 1966 when Johnson was president, and the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent have gone in today's dollars from 4 million to 22 million. In 2010, the first year of the recovery, 37 percent of all of the increased income in the entire country went to 15,600 households.

We have created a privatized system to redistribute upwards and the reason people at the top are sharing a larger share of the income taxes because their incomes are growing at this enormous rate, but their burden is falling. And to suggest we don't need to raise more revenue by applying it to people who are a success depends on this government, on living in this society, with its rules that make it possible to make that money is just outrageous. It is arguing that we should burden the poor and help the rich.

[...]

LAURA FLANDERS: No, you're right. we have 50, 5-0 million Americans living in poverty at this point with food stamp help for many of them. We've got 9 million Americans over the age of 50 who are food insecure. One in three of us have no savings whatsoever.

I mean, you talk the Johnson years, in that period, '65 to '73 the war on poverty reduced poverty by 43 percent. We know how to do it. It works. That's what we should be talking about. We are in a crisis where we're going to see stimulus. We're going to see stimulus of poverty and hunger in this country and it's shameful. And again, going back to '63, you had more than 60 percent of Americans, I think even in1983, 60 percent of Americans had private pension plans. Now, it's under 20 percent.

So these elders that you're talking about, young people with greater unemployment than ever before. I mean, this is the stuff that we want to be talking about after the last election, children and poverty are exploding.

JOAN WALSH: And also... we need higher tax rates for the tippy top earners because everybody likes to talk about building the middle class or rebuilding the middle class. Well, the top tax rate that the middle class we in the '40s,' 50s and '60s. The top marginal rate was in the 90's. I'm not saying you should go back to that, but you can't say at 37 percent.

They followed up with more discussion on tax loopholes and deductions, who they favor, what should be done to make sure they're not upside down with whether they benefit the working class. Laura Flanders brought up the issue of a Wall Street transaction tax, which gets mentioned far too rarely. She also discussed that while everyone is pushing for cuts to Medicare and raising the age to receive benefits, none of them want to talk about defense cuts.

If you missed the show, the whole thing was worth watching. It's generally a nice break from the typical Sunday show fare and this week was no exception. Go check it out here.

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Ed Schultz talked to Van Jones and Laura Flanders about the coordinated crackdowns we saw in cities across the country of the Occupy movement camps, the most notable of which was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's clearing of Zuccotti Park.

As they noted, it's likely that the recent move by the mayors across the country is going to do nothing but strengthen the movement and spread it out. They also discussed the futility of more aggressive police action against the protesters just two days before the already organized International Day of Action scheduled for November 17th.

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Thank goodness we had Laura Flanders to keep Andrew Breitbart in check on HBO's Real Time on Friday night, because Bill Maher sure as hell wasn't going to do it. Why he and his producers felt the need to have Breitbart on there in the first place is beyond me, but I could say the same thing about CNN, MSNBC, Fox and anywhere else that gave him an opportunity to push this book of his over the last couple of weeks, the most disgusting of which was Dylan Ratigan's fawning interview with him on MSNBC.

Sadly, Bill or Laura didn't ask him about his latest video editing hit job, which Karoli covered here -- Breitbarted Again? BigGovernment Uses Deceptively Edited Video To Smear University Professors - UPDATED. I didn't expect much from Maher after the way his prior shows in which he had Breitbart on as a guest proceeded. I think Flanders might have called him out for it if she was given more time to talk.

For a little reminder of just how obnoxious Breitbart was in one of his previous appearances, here's this little blast from the past with Breitbart defending Rush Limbaugh and getting his butt handed to him by Michael Eric Dyson. And Matt called him out for having him on last year in September -- Dear Bill Maher: Andrew Breitbart Is Not A Journalist.

But never mind that he's been a completely obnoxious guest during past appearances, or that he and his cohorts are known liars who put up one deceptively edited smear video after another, and that he is nothing but a right-wing flame thrower with no regard for truthfulness or accuracy, as Media Matters has documented. Let's bring him on one more time to do Real Time so he can play the misunderstood victim again and feign ignorance about the content that he controls that goes up at his site and what he's really all about, which is lining his own pocket while doing the bidding of the Koch brothers and company and their astroturf "Tea Party" movement.

We've done so many posts on Breitbart, I've lost count, but you can see the better part of them with a quick
Google search. Despite his history, our corporate media continues to have him on the air as though he's someone credible without laying out his history of lies and distortions and ambush "journalism", the latest of which is now Bill Maher.

You can let HBO know what you think of their decision on the HBO forum here.

And if you're on Twitter Maher's user name is @billmaher.

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Ed Schultz talked to GritTV's Laura Flanders about President Obama's noted absence supporting the protests we're seeing in Wisconsin and around the country and had a graphic up titled "base dumping". Someone needs to tell Ed that the correct term for the Democrats constantly dumping on the progressive wing of their base is "hippie punching."

Ed and Laura talked about the need for President Obama and the Democrats to get out in front of this and show some support for labor and for the president to act like he still believes some of what he campaigned on and that he's supportive of labor unions. They talked about some of his advisers telling him that he needs to reconnect with his base. Ya' think?

If the Democratic Party and President Obama don’t figure out that they’re not going to win elections by crapping on their base and on labor unions, they’re going to find out again as they did in the last mid-term election that they haven’t given the voters a reason to support them.

Politicians do the right thing when they’re pushed, so I think it’s wonderful that we’re finally seeing the Democratic base wake up and show up for these protests around the country. What it’s going to take for us to have our political system cleaned up and the voices of the people heard instead of the big monied interests is beyond me, but I think people taking to the streets is at least a good start.

There are still more of us than there are of them and the Koch brothers and the “tea party” can try on influence our elections, but there’s a rate of diminishing returns on that which is not endless once you screw over enough people.

I’ve got a conservative co-worker that has finally realized just how terrible this astroturf teabagger movement is. He’s a divorcee that’s been Jesus’d into being afraid of gay people getting married, even though he’s been married, divorced and remarried himself and after years of trying to tell him that these tea partiers don’t care about the working class, he finally figured it out for himself.

When he found them out there bashing unions and talked to them himself at a protest in our area he went to, he was horrified. Later I got him to listen to some of Fox on my satellite radio while we at work and he was even more horrified yet. He asked me if these people just wanted there to be nothing left but rich and poor and I told him, yes, that’s exactly what they want.

I would guess we've got a whole lot of others with buyer’s remorse and with similar stories all around the country with this overreach by these Republican governors as well. If President Obama and the Democratic Party don’t realize that it’s time to take a stand with the working class and with the unions that helped get them elected, we’re in for some hard times with retaining what’s left of a middle class in America.

I really hate to see that happen when one of my conservative friends finally woke up to the fact the Republicans uses religious issues to divide people and the the "tea party" hates unions. If the leadership of the Democratic Party and President Obama are not willing to stand up for the working class, I hope we start seeing more Wisconsin sized protests around the country despite their disregard. They ignore us at their peril.

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Well, Jon Stewart ignored Bernie Goldberg on his show tonight, but apparently Goldberg wasn't done whining to Bill-O about his treatment by Stewart on The Daily Show. He doubled down with pissing and moaning about how mean some commenters were on his blog and at least O'Reilly pointed out that this happens on all sides.

Bill-O also thinks that a comedy show is the "key component of left wing TV". So I guess a comedian ranks right up there with that mythical "left wing media" they keep harping about that doesn't exist. Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow do not a "left wing media" make and Keith's not some flaming liberal.

When MSNBC's lineup for the day consists of something along the line of Sam Seder, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Alan Colmes, David Shuster who they just booted, Nicole Sandler, Laura Flanders, Thom Hartmann, Cenk Uygur, Amy Goodman, Welton Gaddy, Mike Papantonio, Ted Kennedy Jr. and Ron Reagan Jr., along with Schultz, Olbermann and Maddow, then tell me there's an actual "liberal" television network out there.

Apparently the two of them are very upset that there is a lack of right wing comedians out there. I would imagine that might have something to do with conservative brains not recognizing satire. Case in point -- Colbert Study: Conservatives Don't Know He's Joking:

Last week, Stephen Colbert revisited a segment he had done on Florida Representative Bill Posey, who sponsored a bill that "would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate," in order to put insane rumors of President Barack Obama's birthplace to bed.

Colbert thought a similar measure should be taken to end the whisperings that Posey was a human-alligator hybrid. Posey, in response to Colbert, said, "I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn't civil...There is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator." And one wondered, "Does Posey not realize that Colbert is not speaking in earnest? His reaction seems uniquely stupid!"

Stupid, yes. But apparently it's not unique at all, according to a study from The Ohio State University, which proves, with math and stuff, that lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of The Colbert Report.

Here's Bill-O and Goldberg with their little cry-fest about how mean the commenters at his site were and bemoaning the lack of conservative comedians. Those damn liberal Hollywood elites keeping all of those not-funny nonexistent right comedians from having their chance to break out onto the scene! Damn them!...lol.

Hey guys, I'll give you a hint about what happens to comedians who used to be funny until they became flaming right wingers (or in Jackson's case, until she outed herself as one and started going to tea bag rallies). They end up being someone named Dennis Miller who isn't doing comedy tours any more, but O'Reilly's show, or this wingnut, Victoria Jackson. It's just amazing that no one finds them funny these days, isn't it?

I did actually used to like Dennis Miller back in the day when he had his series on HBO and he just strikes me as nothing but a shallow, angry shell of a man who no longer has anything of substance to say when I watch him these days. After he let 9-11 fry his brain and Bill Clinton was no longer around to beat up on day after day he's digressed to humor that the average 9th grader can relate to.

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From GRITtv--Week In Review: Which Side Are You On?:

What happened to organized labor in the US? With the decline of manufacturing jobs and rise of female-dominated service fields, does the old labor union model still hold up, or do we need new ways of organizing and supporting workers? And what happened to solidarity?

Paula Finn, Editor of the New Labor Forum, Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and The Wrecking Crew and Wall Street Journal columnist, Tom Geoghegan, labor lawyer, recent Congressional candidate, and author of Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back joined Laura to talk about labor’s problems and suggest some solutions to help all of us, whether we’re union members or not.

From GRITtv:

In Max Blumenthal’s book Republican Gomorrah and in his GRITtv appearance, he introduced us to Francis Schaeffer, one of the important figures in the anti-choice and religious right movements in the United States. Frank Schaeffer, Francis’s son, wrote a book about growing up in the religious right, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.

Schaeffer has a new book now, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), and in it he takes on both the “incipient fascism” of the religious right and what he called “proselytizing” atheism of Richard Dawkins and others. He joins Laura on GRITtv for a fascinating interview about his own journey, and how people, religious or irreligious, are all looking for answers to the same questions.