The thing that really irked me about the whole "President Obama won't let the media have access while he plays golf with Tiger Woods" silliness has more to do with the fact that, while the largest climate rally ever took place in D.C., President Obama's golfing buddies included two prominent Texas oil and gas executives. (Not that the media would have covered that in much context, mind you.)

Deals do get done on the golf course. I think most people understand that, and so it's not necessarily a bad sign that Obama was playing golf with the same scumbags who helped destroy the environment and ravish our coastlines. It's possible that Obama said, "You know, Jim, we're going to have to do something about this, and you're going to have to get used to it." (Likely? Who the hell knows?)

But see, the problem isn't that Obama talks to oilmen. It's that he never, ever talks to people like us.

No, neutered Skype sessions with the general public don't count. Why doesn't the president sit down and talk with a group of the struggling long-term unemployed, those whose income took a massive nosedive, and all these highly-educated, yet underemployed young people? (You know, the people he only talks to when he's campaigning.)

He's not alone in this, by the way. In the past ten years, it has become much less likely that rank-and-file voters have any meaningful access to their elected officials. A lot of them have stopped holding town halls (or only hold them when they can hand-pick the crowd). Look how many of them won't even take phone calls now -- you can only fill out an online email form.

Look at the people who do have access: Lobbyists, CEOs, big donors. Wall Street billionaires.

And we don't.

Every time I see one of those stories about Obama helping someone who wrote him about their troubles, I get annoyed. Because these are almost always individuals with systemic problems, not individual problems. We The People are flotsam and jetsam caught up in an ongoing economic tsunami, and all we get from the White House are words -- and PR events.

It's time for some real engagement with working people. How about a White House summit on that?

The next time a politician starts talking about "shared sacrifice" and "skin in the game," send them this Alternet article that puts that horse hockey in perspective:

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses with American research and infrastructure. They've passed the responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers' payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it's 22 cents.

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Leave it to Taibbi to put things in perspective. Yes, the one percent does need to believe these things. How else can they justify what they do? Now how do we rationalize the beliefs of the Tea Partiers and the rest of Fox Nation?

Matt Taibbi says that Mitt Romney's recently leaked remarks about low-income Americans were "insane."

"I think he really genuinely believes that the only reason that his particular message isn't resonating is that people want something for free and he's not offering it to them," Taibbi, a contributing editor forRolling Stone, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. "It's crazy."

[...] Taibbi, who famously labeled Goldman Sachs a "vampire squid" and recentlylambasted Romney in a Rolling Stone article, said the top one percent on Wall Street looks down on the poor because it's the only way they can psychologically excuse their "mass fraud and theft."

"It's all based upon this idea that 'poor people deserve to be poor because they don't work hard enough and I deserve the money that I make because I do work hard,'" Taibbi said. "It's just a pervasive belief ... the psychological underpinning of almost everything they do. If they didn't have this way to excuse their dismissal of the poor, then they wouldn't be able to do a lot of the things that they do."

He noted that "everybody pays taxes in one form or another, whether sales tax or payroll tax," and that income taxes comprise a small percentage of Romney's own recent taxes.

Taibbi added that Romney, who comes from a privileged background, disregarded another "tax" that many poor people have to pay: "a kind of qualitative tax which nobody talks about -- this sucky hard work tax."

"If you're low-income enough to not be paying income tax, you're doing a sh*tty job that nobody else wants to do in this country," Taibbi said. "You're cleaning toilets. You're driving buses at the night shift. You're bussing tables. You're doing all these things that Mitt Romney is never going to do."

As we've all realized by now, the core value of the Republican party is simple: They want cheap, disposable labor with no legal protections. Everything they do is geared toward that end. So they're especially infuriated when the Unwashed Unworthies like us actually manage to pull down a living wage. It disturbs them in a visceral way:

Conservatives these days walk a tricky line when it comes to wages. On the one hand, they strive to defend the just earnings of capitalist lords of enterprise. On the other, they try hard to foster resentment of any working people who might actually enjoy living wages and decent benefits. In a nutshell: while Wall Street bankers deserve every penny they get, public school teachers—to take just one example—are overpaid mooches who are leeching off society.

The latest hubbub illustrating this strange double standard came after the New York Times reported on a new contract between the New York Hotel Trades Council (UNITE HERE Local 6), representing city hotel workers, and the Hotel Association of New York, representing hotel owners. Over the course of a seven-year contract, hotel housekeepers will have received (cumulatively) a 29 percent raise, with a typical worker going from making around $46,000 per year to earning almost $60,000 per year. The contract also includes good union health insurance and other benefits.

It is a great contract, and members of the union should be congratulated for their work in securing it. But for some conservatives, the idea that a lowly hotel maid could possibly be paid $60,000 is an abomination. Fox News analysts called it a “nightmare.”

There’s plenty to say about their disgust. The first thing to note is the sheer hypocrisy of the right-wing revulsion. Back when we were debating the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, conservatives repeatedly rallied to assert that those making $250,000 per year were not at all rich. Among other absurdities, their apologetics produced the audacious spectacle of a University of Chicago professor with a household income of more than$450,000 per year complaining about how he is just barely getting by, noting that he and his wife “occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget.”

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From Time for Change at Democratic Underground, part of a very long piece about the division among Democrats. I thought this nailed it: Yes, the administration and Congress have accomplished a lot -- but where are the programs and legislation that will help the people who are drowning out here?

This is the difference. The priorities are not the same, and the upcoming attack on Social Security and the austerity proposals to come will prove it:

Obama’s supporters note that many of us don’t even get excited about such victories as the repeal of DADT, and they ask “what has happened to DU?” What has happened is that we have a Democratic president whom many or most of us have come to believe is very bad for our country. More specifically, we believe that his actions have repeatedly supported the wrong side in the ongoing class war. We cannot get excited about small victories because they don’t seem to us to matter that much in the context of today’s overall picture.

What do I mean by small victories, and why would I describe the repeal of DADT as a small victory? Well, to be blunt about it, many of us believe that the class war is the defining issue of our time because so much else depends on it. The result of this class war will determine how the necessities of life are distributed in our society. It will determine the status or even the existence of long-standing social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security. It will determine whether the corporatocracy is allowed to maintain and extend their control over systems of communication in our country. It will determine how many people are able to find jobs and obtain adequate health care, shelter, and food for themselves and their families. And it will determine whether or not any restraints will be put on the ability of the corporatocracy to destroy our planet.

With all that at stake, we can’t get too excited about victories not related to the class war. DADT was repealed because the corporatocracy didn’t care to fight against repeal. That did not threaten their profits in the least. They were probably happy to let it be repealed because it gives the appearance to some degree that we are a progressive nation. If DADT repeal threatened their profits or their power they would have fought tooth and nail against it, and it would not have been repealed.

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As Krugman points out, not only are they rich, they whine that they're not richer:

Digby finds another hard-working, wealth-creating salt of the earth type complaining about the possibility of higher taxes: Ben Stein. I think I need a drink.

But being the nerd I am, this is what caught my eye in the Stein rant:

I worked for almost every dollar I have, except for a small percentage my parents left me by virtue of hard work and Spartan living, and most of that was taken by the federal estate tax.

OK, the late, great — and I mean that — Herbert Stein died in 1999. At that time the first $650,000 of an estate was tax-free — $1.3 million for a couple, provided it did what CBO calls “minimally competent estate planning” — with a 55% tax on the amount above that.

So either Ben Stein inherited several million dollars — which, although this may be news to him, is not the experience of most Americans — or he’s just making stuff up.

Another dispatch from the front lines of the class war informs us that the rich are more ruthless than the rest of us. And in other news, dog bites man:

LOS ALTOS, Calif. — No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars.

The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.

The rich can also afford lawyers. In some states, despite your mortgage being a secured debt, the mortgage holder can still come after you. So if you're going to walk away, by all means, do so. But don't do it until you check your legal status.

Do you ever get the feeling that the class war is over, and their side won? Money for these guys - but massive conniptions over paying for national health care?

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.

A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.

Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses.

Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.

The Left Coaster: You can go to a soldier's funeral now, Mr. President

Politics in the Zeros: The unexpected return of class war

Where's the Outrage?: A doctor examines a sick patient.

MediaBloodhound: Leaked memo of McCain camp's future Hail Marys

The E&P Pub: John McCain vs the Des Moines Register

The Story of Stuff: A fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues. (h/t swimgirl)

Our Future: Conservatism, as we've known it since Ronald Reagan, is failing. Ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China. Even so, the class war continues, and my class is losing.

Jonathan Turley: Thank you Mr. President! China has embraced American values. They're defending their use of torture by citing the Bush torture program.

Beggars Can Be Choosers: Stocks plunge again as US moves closer to economic apocalypse

Pharyngula: Chris Hedges writes a book, wastes everyone's time.

Rising Hegemon: "My friends, it's all about me"

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Media hold McCain, Obama to different standards...Rebranding torture...What do you believe is the biggest threat facing our democracy? Some might say the appalling spread of false information...MSM looks at blogs...Play Pundit!...Journalist to be executed...Media won't take no for an answer...The propaganda machine Jack Welch built...LA Times owner looks to cash in on ballot proposition...