Conservatives say they want to "bring back" the old USA, the one that existed during those decades of the twentieth century they only seem to see through a gauzy golden haze. Whatever its problems, that country was a place where Republicans and Democrats agreed on two simple principles: That the most fortunate among us should pay their fair share, and that our government must invest in the nation and its future.

When Rick Perry says he wants to bring back "the America I where I grew up," he's talking about the era when Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican President, built the Federal highway system. One of the reasons Eisenhower was able to do that is that the top tax rate was much higher than it is today. While today's highest marginal today is 35 percent and capital gains are taxed at only 15 percent, the highest tax bracket was 91 percent the year Rick Perry was born.

Whenever I talk about tax brackets I'm attacked by right-wingers who say I don't understand, that high taxes discourage job creators. They'll say things like "You hippies just don't get it! If taxes are too high rich people will stop working and investing. The Job Creators will go away!"

Well, I do get it. When I was spent a student year in Great Britain the top marginal tax rate was 102%. Once a person reached a certain level of income, they had to pay more in taxes than they earned. And a few years before that, George Harrison made a compelling case against the 95 percent tax bracket on the Revolver album by singing "Taxman." (The line is "that's one for you, nineteen for me." I make that a 95 percent marginal tax rate, but you can check my math if you like.)

So I'll come right out and admit it: Taxes can be too high. But that doesn't answer the biggest question of all: What's the ideal top tax bracket? Where can we set the percentage so that it provides the most revenue for the Federal government without discouraging high earners from making more money?

Thanks to a new and very thoughtful paper by economists Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez, we have the answer: 76 percent. That's right. The most effective top tax bracket in this country, the one that will provide the most revenue for the Federal government, is 76 percent. Know what that means, ladies and gentleman of Washington DC ? That's the rate that will cut the deficit the fastest.

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In advance of Yemen's "Day of Rage" set for Thursday, Yemen's president released this statement:

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Wednesday he will not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would bring an end to a three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.

Eyeing protests that brought down Tunisia's leader and threaten to topple Egypt's president, Saleh also vowed not to pass on the reins of government to his son.

"No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock," Saleh said, speaking ahead of a planned large rally due on Thursday in Sanaa that has been dubbed a "Day of rage."

I'm not sure the people are willing to wait until 2013. We'll see.

Moving on to Jordan, King Abdullah II has replaced his entire cabinet in an effort to expedite reforms.

The surprise move by the monarch, a key U.S. ally, was intended to prevent growing demonstrations across the country from gathering steam. But the Islamist opposition promised more protests, charging that the new prime minister is unfit to rule and that the king's step did not go far enough.

Members of Islamist and secular groups had demanded the dismissal of Rifai and his cabinet, widely accused of corruption. The government was also blamed for cutting subsidies that led to rises in fuel and food prices and for moving too slowly on political reform.

Over in Syria, unrest is also afoot with a rally being organized to take place in Damascus. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad isn't shaking up the government over it, because he claims to be "closely linked to the beliefs of the people." Yet, there are still organizing efforts afoot for a February 5th "day of rage".

The organizers of the planned demonstrations in Damascus and Aleppo have listed their demands: an improvement in living standards, respect for human rights, freedom of speech for all Syrian citizens, and greater influence for Syrian youth. They requested that the protesters come equipped with nothing more than Syrian flags and signs expressing their demands.

Dominoes can fall far away, or close to home. I can't help but notice the similarities between what has sparked the commitment to these demonstrations in the Middle East and our own situation here. Rising food prices, fuel prices, high unemployment, poverty and increasing divides between the haves and have-nots are not Muslim or Christian concerns. They're human concerns, and they exist in this country, too.

Over the weekend, I noticed that Coca-Cola and Nestle shut down their operations in Egypt, at least temporarily until things stabilize. Who knew they even had operations in Egypt? I wonder what they paid their workers. I'm guessing it wasn't enough for them to get ahead, just like here.

At the heart of these demonstrations, there's a human cry to be heard, to have hope, and a pathway to a better future. That's not all that different from here. We have the benefit of having elections, but whether they're free or fair is another question, given the current right-wing attack on minority voters and efforts at voter suppression, not to mention Citizens United. We've seen what the first round brought -- a Congress hell-bent on depriving us of access to health care, oppressing women, and catering to their corporate masters. What will 2012 bring? And will we be willing to have our own "day of rage"?

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You see, people get mad when there's 10% unemployment and a quarter of mortgages are underwater. They get even angrier when they see their government bail out the gigantic financial institutions that got us into this mess in the first place. And furthermore, they get super-duper-wicked-pissy-forever mad when the government decides to spit directly into our faces and tell us that we've entered a glorious Recovery Summer.

And when people are this angry at their government, they simply don't give a damn how crazy the opposing party is -- they're gonna vote for them anyway. David Brooks, in a rare insightful column, makes this point well:

This doesn’t mean that the Tea Party influence will be positive for Republicans over the long haul. The movement carries viruses that may infect the G.O.P. in the years ahead. Its members seek traditional, conservative ends, but they use radical means. Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture: a narcissistic sense of victimization, an egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity, a willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil.

The Tea Party style is beginning to replicate itself in parts of the conservative world. Dinesh D’Souza’s Forbes cover article, “How Obama Thinks,” contained the sort of untethered assertions that have become the lingua franca of this movement. Obama got his subversive radicalism from his father’s grave, D’Souza postulated: “He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and freedom are code words for economic plunder.” The fact that Newt Gingrich embraced this offensive theory is a sign of how severely the normal intellectual standards have been weakened.

But that damage is all in the future. Right now, the Tea Party doesn’t matter. The Republicans don’t matter. The economy and the Democrats are handing the G.O.P. a great, unearned revival. Nothing, it seems, is more scary than one-party Democratic control.

Here's the analogy I'll use:

Let's say you've found that your spouse has been secretly cheating on you for years on end without your knowledge. Your first instinct is to head down to the nearest dive bar and hook up with every sleazy person you can find, all the while relishing the angry revenge you're taking on your wayward partner. Sure, you know that the people you're shacking up with seem to scratch themselves a lot and some of them seem to have severe mental illnesses, particularly the one that keeps mumbling about the coming onslaught of sinister mice people. But that's not important, see, because you've been wronged and this is your time to seek righteous vengeance.

Two weeks later, of course, you're itching all over and rushing to the doctor to get an STD Value-Pack treatment.

So America, what I'm trying to say is this: I understand why you want to boot out the Democrats and I understand that you don't care who you have to vote for. But dudes, you're gonna wake up with crabs. Just be ready for it.

INSTAPUTZ: Revealing...

War Is A Crime: I'm not a lying sociopath, I merely eschew reality

culturekitchen: Remember when Arianna Huffington declared identity politics not ony evil, but dead?

Zandar Versus The Stupid:: Another milepost on the road to oblivion

Angry Bear: Forget jumping the shark. The Wapo is doing the tango with it

Runnin' Scared: Jailbreaking Dongle Freedom! IPone users, DVD copiers, oppressed no more!

Distributor Cap: Let the unemployed eat dog food.

Democurmudgeon: 4th of July ruined, I tell you!

William K Wolfrum: I for one and shocked, shocked! that Mel Gibson continues to be a racist sexist douchebag.

Harding "Institute": In Pol-lywood, ya gotta have "allegations" of a sex tape, is all.

Blog Note: Majikthise (Lindsay Beyerstein) has moved to Big Think. Check it out and bookmark.

Round up by Blue Gal; send tips to bluegalsblog AT gmail

Ann Coulter sides with the Church of the Mouse and the Disco Ball

via Pandagon: Glory be! Little Miss Coulter has arisen from her virgin's chambers to explain why the Texas Capitol should not only install a disco ball in the rotunda but why they should also pay for it. Sure, her defense of our glorious religion comes disguised as more Constitution and freedom bashing nonsense, but read between the lines--the government clearly needs to endorse the religion of drinking Lone Star and listening to the Ramones...read on"

Amanda does a great job of kicking Ann Coulter (as Eric Cartman would say ) "in the nuts."

This from Mr. Gilliard

via Driftglass from Steve: It’s not true that the Conservatives I know don’t give a damn so much as they are terrified that they were wrong. Deeply, primally terrified. Their whole psychological infrastructure is cobbled together out of half-baked conservative bumper-sticker ideology, gun lust, socially illiterate hatred of “welfare cheats” and other largely fictional or apocryphal lazy people (read: niggers and other swarthy folk) who want to leech off of them while they work harder and harder for less and less.

Despite a lot of bluster about Freedom and Individuality they are, at heart, happiest when they are conforming to the wishes of the Strong Man; when they know exactly their place in the hierarchy...read on

The Reid Report: Rand Paul, the Joe the Plumber of eye doctors

Eunomia: U.S. hawks suddenly discover the futility of NATO

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Because there are no racists...

Check out the Stand-Up Economist (h/t Batocchio)

Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues: Colorado Springs is what happens when rich twits refuse to pay taxes

onegoodmove: Freedom vs. Suckas

How the Mighty Are Falling

Jason Miller wrote this incredible piece for C&L today:

Somebody tell Karl Rove to drop the applause sign. The minions he manipulates are cheering for an America that does not exist. That abstract concept of America, and its embodiment of liberties and human rights, is a fiction. Norman Rockwell's portrayal of America was an idealistic perversion of a landscape, which for many, has been littered with oppression, bigotry, greed, torture and even murder. Goya's brutal painting "Duel with Cudgels" comes closer to capturing the essence of the underlying mean-spiritedness of that is very much a component of this nation.

Bush, his Neocons, and the obscenely wealthy Oligarchs, who finance Republicans and Democrats alike, embody the face of America which is seldom portrayed by our flag-waving mainstream media. Yes, there is a dark, brutish aspect to this self-proclaimed beacon of freedom and liberty, and I am going to delve into it. Read on if you dare to take an introspective look at the darker aspects of our national identity....please read on

God is Pro-Choice

via Seeing the Forest

If you believe in free will, God is pro-choice. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that suggests anything to the contrary. If you accept the concept of free will, then allowing individual choice is a requirement for allowing people to choose between Satan or God. Free will is at the crux of the abortion debate. Martin Luthur broke from the Catholic Church over the issue of free will in his essay, Concerning Christian Liberty. The Catholic Church rejected the idea that God's grace removes freedom from the human will at The Council of Trent. read on