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This Week With George Stephanopoulos features the fiscal cliff minuet between Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (excuse me while I wipe Saxby's slime trail off my screen):

STEPHANOPOULOS: One thing that is also coming on quickly are all these negotiations over the fiscal cliff. If congress doesn't do something, we're going to have tax increases on January 1, spending cuts on January 1, more than $500 billion likely to cost every American family about $2,000.

Senator Murray, let me begin with you, we have already heard from the speaker and the president. Speaker Boehner says tax hikes aren't acceptable. President Obama says he won't sign any extension of the tax [cuts] for the wealthiest Americans. We've also heard from Senator McConnell, the Republican leader in the senate who says he will not raise taxes to turn off those spending cuts, the sequester.

So if Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner don't bend, do you still believe the president should go right up to the brink, go off the fiscal cliff and allow the tax cuts to expire?

MURRAY: Well, here's where we are, our country has a tremendous debt and deficit problem. We also have a challenge in making sure that we educate our work force. We need to make sure we care for our veterans who need that care today. We need to have research. And we need to be able to compete in a global marketplace, those investments are important.

Everyone who has looked at this, including the supercommittee that I served on, said we need to have revenue as part of the solution to this problem as well as looking at entitlements and spending cuts. What has been the missing ingredient is congress to date has been the revenue and to make sure that it is fairly distributed and the wealthy pay their fair share. That is what we face right now. If our Republican counterparts can step forward with that revenue piece we will be able to find a solution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And if not, go off a cliff?

MURRAY: Well, clearly, we have the ability between now and the end of the year to not go off the cliff. But we can't accept an unfair deal that piles on the middle class and tell them they have to support it. We have to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.

We just had an election where President Obama ran on that. We increased our majority in the senate with Democratic candidates who said that so solve this problem the wealthiest Americans have to pay their fair share, too.

So if the Republicans will not agree with that, we will reach a point at the end of this year where all the tax cuts expire and we'll start over next year. And whatever we do will be a tax cut for whatever package we put together. That may be the way to get past this.

Notice the stipulation that we're going to make more demands on the middle class? Again: We are not starting from a level playing field. The economic security of working and middle classes has been absolutely devastated in this recession. This continued mantra about a "balanced" deal makes as much sense as asking a rape victim to pay for her rape kit. The Democratic caucus has been consistent about their message -- don't buy it. (As my nana used to say, "The fishmonger never yells 'Rotten fish for sale!'")

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Chambliss, you said there could be riots in the streets if this isn't done right. So what is the right way to do this? You just heard Senator Murray say the defining principal for the Democrats, the president has said exactly the same thing, is that the wealthy are going to have to pay more.

CHAMBLISS: Well, what's going to have to happen, George is, that because there's no silver bullet, as was discussed in is the Simpson-Bowles commission and ultimately a recommendation of the Simpson-Bowles commission to do this -- we got to look at cutting spending. We still spend way too much money in Washington. What is choking our economy and what is choking the economy of Greece, and this is why I referred to it the way I did, even though it was a figure of speech, but, entitlements are choking us. And we've got to make the real right kinds reforms there to make sure that we do it right, that we protect these programs.

And then thirdly, listen, Speaker Boehner said it I think very well, I thought he showed great leadership by saying that revenues need to be on the table.

Again, we need to do it in the right way. Bowles-Simpson said, look, eliminate all these tax credits and tax deductions. You can generate somewhere 1 to 1.2 trillion in additional revenue. You can actually lower tax rates by doing that. And I think at the end of the day, what's got to happen, George, we've got to get this economy going again.

We have had an outside group, Ernst & Young, look at the raising of the taxes on the highest-income earners. What they concluded was we immediately lose 700,000 jobs in America. Now, is that the kind of economy that this president wants to start out with in his second term? I don't think so. President Obama said two years ago, now is not the time with a sluggish economy to raise taxes. We need to consider the fact that the folks who he's talking about raising taxes on are the job creators, the small business community. So there's a right way to do this and there's a wrong way to do it. And Speaker Boehner was absolutely correct, that you do have to have revenues on the table, but that does mean raising taxes. There are other ways to do it to get the economy going.

Let's take a little break and read something from that well-known Commie rag, Accounting Today:

The study is based on several assumptions, however. It assumes that the top two tax rates would increase from 33 to 36 percent and from 35 to 39.6 percent. In addition, it assumes the reinstatement of the limitation on itemized deductions for high-income taxpayer, known as the “Pease” provision. It also assumes that dividends would be taxed as ordinary income at a top income tax rate of 39.6 percent and there would be an increase to 20 percent in the top tax rate for capital gains. In addition, it assumes an increase in the 2.9 percent Medicare tax to 3.8 percent for high-income taxpayers and the application of the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income, including flow-through business income, interest, dividends and capital gains.

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Alice Rivlin is a Very Serious Person on deficit reduction.

It's very important that we all buy into the extreme sense of urgency around all this "fiscal cliff" hysteria, so that when they spring the Grand Bargain that solves everything, we understand that there was Simply Nothing Else To Be Done. Now that you have your marching orders, start laying in the cat food for your retirement years:

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats — holding firm against extending tax cuts for the rich — are proposing a novel way to circumvent the Republican pledge not to vote for any tax increase: Allow all the tax cuts to expire Jan. 1, then vote on a tax cut for the middle class shortly thereafter.

The proposal illustrates the lengths lawmakers are going to try to include new federal revenues in a fix for the “fiscal cliff,” the reckoning in January that would come when all Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs kick in.

Virtually every Republican in Congress has taken the pledge, pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, never to vote for a tax increase — a pledge both parties see as a serious impediment to a tax compromise. But if tax rates snap back to the levels of the Clinton presidency on Jan. 1, any legislation to reinstate some of those tax cuts — but not all of them — would be considered a tax cut.

[...] Lawmakers on both sides are now lamenting the fiscal train wreck that many of them voted to create, a confluence of spending cuts and tax increases that the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Tuesday could send the economy into recession.

At the same time, former Vice President Dick Cheney was meeting with Senate and House Republicans, in part to warn them of the dire consequences he sees in $500 billion in automatic military cuts that will begin to hit on Jan. 2. Off Capitol Hill, a broad bipartisan coalition of fiscal hawks, led by the co-chairman of President Obama’s 2010 fiscal commission, Erskine B. Bowles, restarted efforts to pressure Washington to reach a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction.

Fiscal cliff, Grover Norquist, tax pledge, deficit reduction, blah blah blah. Grand Bargain!

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It's hard to win the battle of words when media outlets insist on calling conservative Democrats "moderate" and "centrist." When polls show that the vast majority of voters in both parties support raising taxes on the rich, insisting on protecting the revenue stream of millionaires and billionaires is hardly a "moderate" position. Just sayin', Josh Marshall:

Moderate Senate Democrats are signaling strong resistance to tax increases in the President's deficit-reduction plan, and the early disapproval within his own party will no doubt give Republicans on the deficit super committee plenty of cover to block any and all revenue-raising aspects of Obama's plan.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) told reporters Monday night that he's put off by all the talk about increasing taxes when he believes the primary and only goal of the deficit super committee should be finding cuts to hack away at the deficit.

"Tax increases have to come second to cutting," he said. "I was just home over the weekend and that's what [my constituents] we're all talking about."

Which constituents, Ben? Oh, you mean your largest donors, like Big Pharma and the finance industry! Bless your heart!

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who represents a state whose economy is dependent on energy production, last week said the offset for Obama's new spending plans, which includes the elimination of oil and gas subsidies, "was not going to fly."

"Terrible," Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told Politico last week when asked about the president's ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. "We shouldn't increase taxes on ordinary income. ... There are other ways to get there."

Clearly trying to withhold her opposition -- at least for the day, Landrieu ducked into an elevator when reporters tried to stop her Monday night to ask her opinion about the President's speech.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a co-chair of the deficit super committee, gave an oblique response when asked Monday night about her response to the President's speech and how it would affect the super committee's work, noting that she hopes the panel can take a "fair and balanced" approach.

"Fair and balanced." Hmm. Where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah, it's wingnut foreplay - i.e. the sweet nothings they whisper in your ear right before they stick it to you!

Economist Dean Baker really lets John Kerry, Patty Murray and Max Baucus have it for the column that appeared in the Wall St. Journal this week -- but he's especially savage with Kerry:

Senator John Kerry, along with the two other Democratic senators appointed to the "Super Committee", had a column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday on their approach to the committee's work. This piece is infuriating for its empty platitudes and the refusal to acknowledge economic reality. In just 700 words the piece promulgated 3 major economic myths while ignoring the fundamental truths about the economy and the budget.

[...] The reason that we actually had a $240 billion surplus (2.4 percent of GDP) in 2000 was that the United States had a stock bubble propelled boom at the end of the decade. This caused the economy to grow much more rapidly than CBO expected with the unemployment rate falling to 4.0 percent in 2000, rather than the 6.0 percent predicted by CBO. Do the senators not remember the stock bubble?

In addition to promoting these false stories about the economy and the budget, the senators fail to tell the true story. The large deficits the country currently faces are not the result of an ongoing pattern of excessive profligacy. They are the result of the economy's plunge following the collapse of the housing bubble. Even with the cost of the wars, the Medicare drug benefit and the Bush tax cuts, the projected deficits were relatively modest prior to the collapse of the housing bubble.

The true story is that our deficit problem is really an economic problem - we let a huge housing bubble grow, which would inevitably collapse and sink the economy. The deficit is needed now to make up for the $1.2 trillion loss in annual demand from the private sector, which had been generated by the housing bubble. The bubble had led to booms to both construction and consumption that have gone bust now that house prices have crashed.

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Well, I'm sure Sean Hannity will be as quick as ever to pooh-pooh the prospects that President Obama is capable of igniting his supporters this year on the campaign trail -- it's been a running theme at Fox, you know, that there's a big "enthusiasm gap" and that candidates are actually running away from having Obama campaign for them.

Whatever. Today I went to Obama's campaign appearance for our friend Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle at the UW campus. As Murray put it: "I've got to tell you, for all those TV pundits and skeptics who say there's an enthusiasm gap -- I've got four words for them: Come to Washington state!"

Indeed, I'd wager that the majority of the 10,000 or so who packed HecEd Pavilion walked out energized and eager to go help drum up votes for Democrats over the next couple of weeks. Because Obama was at his best.

Perhaps the best indicator of a skilled rhetorician is one who can tell the same speech/story over and over again and yet find ways to make it fresh each telling. And Obama did that -- he's been telling this story about how Republicans drove the national car into a ditch for a long time, and he's been using the punch line: -- "You can't drive!" -- since at least May 14.

But he told it again, and you know what? It still worked.

Even a non-Obamabot like myself has to come away impressed with his sincerity and drive. And since I happen to share Obama's pragmatism, I'm more than happy to do my part to likewise urge people to get out and vote. Too much is at stake. It's too important that we spend the next two years playing offense. Sitting on our hands is going to mean we'll be playing a whole lotta defense.

Andrew Villeneuve at NPI has picture and some thoughts. Also, here's Philip Rucker's report for the WaPo.

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It turns out that the right-wing crazy who was threatening Patty Murray supporters with a cleaver in Spokane on Thursday is a man with a history of mental illness:

Friends and family of Sieler told KREM 2 News he is psychotic and needs help.

"He has no control of what he's doing," Sieler's ex girlfriend Theresa Stapleton said. "He's made death threats on people."

Stapleton is the mother of Sieler's child, and says she speaks to him regularly. Stapleton says Sieler has been off his medication and has dangerous psychotic episodes.

Recently, Stapleton says he's been obsessed with politicians who he thinks they are out to get him.

Interestingly, this incident is only the latest in a string of violent threats at Democrats -- and particularly President Obama -- cropping up very recently, and in all of them mental illness appears to be playing a significant role. Here are the most recent cases:

Sept. 22:

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Army veteran arrested after a seven-hour standoff was charged Wednesday with threatening to kill President Barack Obama as part of what authorities said was his plan to ignite a war between Muslims and Christians and "start an apocalypse."

Federal agents arrested Roman Otto Conaway, 50, when he surrendered early Wednesday at his home after the confrontation, in which he insisted a bulky belt he wore and three storage containers on his Fairview Heights property were packed with explosives.

The FBI and the criminal complaint say the belt turned out to carry only inert putty-like material — similar to children's molding clay — made to look like high-grade explosives, with wires attached to a curling iron Conaway claimed was a triggering device. Nothing dangerous was found in the storage drums.

Oct. 15:

PEORIA — While acknowledging years of mental health problems, a federal judge nevertheless sentenced a Bloomington man to nearly two years in federal prison Friday for repeatedly threatening the life of President Barack Obama.

Oct. 15:

BRATTLEBORO -- A 43-year-old Vermont man who threatened to kill the president via his Twitter account and blog will receive a mental health evaluation Monday.

At a detention hearing Thursday, Christopher King, of Rockingham, was permitted temporary release to get an in-person mental health evaluation at the request of the defense.

King was indicted and pleaded innocent on one count of knowingly threatening to kill President Barack Obama, Wednesday, in U.S. District Court in Burlington.

We already know what this means: The right-wing pundits who have been throwing gasoline on these people's fundamentally irrational fires will insist they have nothing to do with this -- this is just crazy people.

Of course, as we've observed on many occasions, this is simply a cop-out:

Part of the problem is that we actually have seen this happen time after time after time: A mentally unstable person is inspired by hateful right-wing rhetoric to act out violently -- and yet because of that mental state, the matter is dismissed as idiosyncratic, just another "isolated incident." And over the months and years, these "isolated incidents" mount one after another.

But simply ascribing these acts to mental illness is a cop-out. It fails to account for the gross irresponsibility of the people who employed the rhetoric that inspired the violent action in the first place, and their resulting moral culpability.

These claims also brush over the nature of mental illness. Of course, schizophrenics will often pick out the focuses of their obsessions purely at random -- from, say, Beatles or Metallica lyrics, artistic works by never intended to inspire any kind of action, let alone violent ones. However, rhetoric intended to inspire action -- particularly scapegoating rhetoric that simultaneously invokes fear and paranoia, most notably if it purports to represent secret, hidden, and suppressed information -- has a far greater potential power to affect mentally ill people, because it has an acute appeal to their particular worldviews.

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We're going to have to start calling it a "Hannity Job": If you're a Republican candidate, you can go on TV, get free airtime, and get stroked by Sean Hannity! All thanks to Fox News, the Republican propaganda network that puts it money where its mouths are.

Last night it was Dino Rossi's turn. Rossi is the Establishment Republican who actually managed to defeat the Tea Party candidate in Washington state, and he's giving Sen. Patty Murray -- a steady progressive vote from the Northwest, and a player on the Appropriations Committee -- a run for her money. A few things went unmentioned, as usual, including the fact that the state's Tea Party candidate, Clint Didier, refused to endorse Rossi. (Rossi declined when Didier demanded he pay obeisance to the Tea Party agenda.) And then there's Rossi's millions made from foreclosures after the housing bubble burst.

You see, there's a reason Dino Rossi wasn't a favorite of the Tea Party crowd: He ain't no populist.

As TPM reported last summer:

Rossi's day job entails very publicly helping rich people profit off the misfortune of those unlucky enough to have obtained a mortgage in the last four years or so. And that's leaving some in Washington a little confused about his priorities.

Rossi is a former gubernatorial nominee, and national Republicans are stoked about him now that he's decided to run for Senate against incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D). Sticking with the job he had before he announced his candidacy, Rossi has decided stay on as the headline speaker for a series of seminars advising real estate speculators on how to profit off the collapsed mortgage market. Today, his spokeperson told Salon that he plans do more before he's done.

The Democrats are reminding voters, too:

We'll be hosting Senator Murray here for a live chat Thursday the 7th from 5 to 6 p.m. Be sure to tune in. And be prepared to help out if you can. Her seat is one of the important ones.

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Well, the Tea Party folks held a "Take Back America!" rally last weekend in Asotin, Washington, which is in the far eastern reaches of the state. Stephanie Smith of KLEW-TV in Lewiston, Idaho, was there and filed this report:

"How many of you have watched the movie Lonesome Dove?," asked one speaker from the podium. "What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd. He got hung. And that's what I want to do with Patty Murray."

Violent eliminationist rhetoric like this is part and parcel of right-wing extremism, so this is simply another manifestation of the growing extremism of the Tea Party movement. After all, the Lewis and Clark Tea Party Patriots, who sponsored this gathering, are in fact a classic example of the way the Tea Party movement has become a launching pad for a revival of the Patriot movement of the '90s.

Their blog, for example, is rich with propaganda in favor of the "Sovereignty Winter Fest" (aka the "Washington State Tenth Amendment Rally") -- an event held last month in Olympia that, as Devin Burghart reported for IREHR, not only was rife with Confederate flags and far-right rhetoric, but was primarily an event aimed at bolstering the "Tenther" constitutional theories. As we've reported several times, these theories all originated with the Patriot/militia movement of the 1990s.

Of course, Sarah Palin will not find this kind of talk extremist.

[H/t First Read.]