Here we are again.

We read his words. We speak of his actions. We remember what he tried to teach us.

About dignity, respect, love and most of all…peace.

We read his words. We speak of his actions. We remember his…peace.

We knew his words were not new to us when we heard them.

We knew it was not a new idea when he told us to view others according to the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin.

We knew he preached to us as a disciple of the Christ who was a disciple of the prophets of old.

We knew when he preached to us that peacemakers are the blessed he was only repeating what we’ve heard preached for thousands of years.

We knew he’d read somewhere about loving others as we would have them love us.

We’d heard that idea for thousands of years.

We did not listen for thousands of years. We did not listen to Dr. King. We murdered him just like they murdered the prophets of old, like they murdered the Christ.

And, yet, here we are again.

Today we honor the ministry and prophecy and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today stand barely a week away from a heinous public act of violence, the attempted murder of a member of the U.S. Congress and the murder of six others standing by.

Today we stand barely three weeks away from the killing of Mexican teenager outside Nogales, Mexico as he tried to scale a chain link fence separating his homeland from the promised land.

Border agents said they shot and killed the teenager because he was throwing rocks at them.

Today we honor the ministry and prophecy and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here we are again. Only months after politicians chanted and recited such battle cries calling for “Second Amendment solutions.”

For people to be armed and dangerous.

For fellow travelers to not retreat but reload.

Today we honor the ministry and prophecy and sermons of Martin Luther King. Jr.

We read his words. We speak of his actions. We remember his…peace.

Will we listen this time? Will we reject violence? Will we reject fear? Will we reject hate?

Will we ask writers and movie-makers to beat weapons into plowshares?

Will we ask designers of video games to end the violence?

Will we seek, as we have heard about before, a more just and peace-loving society?

Here we are again. We will read his words. We will speak of his actions. We will remember his…peace.

Will we listen this time?

How long, O LORD, must I call for help but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “violence!” but you do not save?

It is a plea as ancient as the Hebrew prophets – and older – a call to peace and justice and tolerance.

In our time, Martin Luther King, Jr., showed us a way to achieve societal and political advancement in the ways of peace and non-violence.

We’ve forgotten…already.

A Congresswoman lies in an Arizona hospital room fighting for her life. Six others are dead — a violent attack by a deranged young man who should never have held a gun. No matter what motives prove to have lead him to such evil, it is evil nonetheless as violence is always evil.

Fear leads to hatred and hatred to violence, particularly if fostered and promoted and exploited by those in power who seek to win and in the process divide a people for power’s sake.

There can be little doubt the political rhetoric in this nation-state in this time has reached such violent proportions that a member of Congress can be gunned down outside a supermarket.

Those who perpetuate such violent language must stop it. Those in leadership positions with influence over the incendiary rage must use their influence to lead those who follow to peace.

The last place on this planet where fear should have a chance to gain a foothold should be in these United States of America.

Exploiting fear – or creating it where it does not exist – is a much a violent crime against a people as actually pulling a trigger.

Those of us who are not fearful must seek to understand those who feel the fear and help them achieve peace.

A nation, a people, who succumb to exploited fear turns to anger turns to hatred and, in the end, destroys itself.

Hundreds of thousands of red-winged blackbirds in Arkansas just droppin’ outa the sky? Deader ‘n a doornail?

Flyin’ around one minute, mindin’ their own business, eatin’ bugs and stuff and – then – WHAM! Blackbird not singing in the dead of night. Just dead.

And if that’s not enough, just a couple of days later – also in Arkansas – a 100,000 dead fish washing up on banks of the Arkansas River. Not all fish, just drum; thousands of ‘em…dead, too.

The Arkansas game wardens say the rest of the fish – bass, crappie, catfish – are all safe to eat. Um…yea…no thanks.

What kind of conclusions can we draw from this unusual behavior?

Well, we could point to potential environment conditions in Arkansas. But that would be like shooting dead fish in a barrel. Besides, it doesn’t get serious in Arkansas until Razorback hogs start droppin’ like flies.

Those folks really need to learn to filter the run-off from their stills. Or, at least, quit tryin’ to feed the moonshine to wildlife.

We could go all apocalyptic and suggest these are signs of the final days. But I’d only go there if someone with orange skin was to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for advancing people of color. But orange? Really?

Nevermind, I’m quite sure all this has nothing to do with birds droppin’ outa the sky or fish washin’ up dead.

The world’s pollution is safe as long as the Republicans are in charge.

Game wardens now tell us the birds suffered “acute physical trauma leading to internal hemorrhage & death.” Whoa…a rough way to go. Lightning, they said, or maybe bottle rockets and M-80s from the still people.

Okay, but then, how do we explain this huge crack opening up in Africa?

Geologists point out the African and Arabian tectonic plates meet in the Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia. (The desert is so-named because it’s Afar piece from anywhere else.)

The plates, say the geologists, have been spreading apart by 1 inch each year for the past 30 million years. But an eruption of the Dabbahu Volcano in 2005 at the northern end of the Afar tore apart the 35-mile gash in a couple of days.

Scientist say the Red Sea will eventually dump into the new rift and a new ocean will be born…or made…or filled…whatever.

Not to worry, though, this probably won’t happen for another million years, which kinda kicks the whole end-of-the-world-in-2012 thing down the road a piece.

Assuming we survive the orange people.

Words and gossip can once again flow freely over the InnerTubes. But diplomats should be warned against assessing the dimensions, quality and value of Ukrainian nurses’ racks attending Moammar Gadhafi.

The matter is not put to rest, however. The U.S. government is actively seeking ways to bring this 21^st Century tattle-tale to justice – or, rather, the U.S. version of justice for people who spread information across the globe. It’s embarrassing, after all, and by golly no one is entitled to embarrass the government of the United States! We can more than adequately handle that ourselves!

Speaking of that, the Senate cleared the great tax deal yesterday and sent it to the House of Representatives, where feisty Democrats say they will strip out of it a boondoggle for the 100 or so wealthiest families who might have to pay a bit more in taxes when old codgers die and pass along millions to their trust-fund babies.

Ha! That’ll show ‘em, by golly.

They won’t really do it, of course. They’ll feign ferocity and, in the end, vote to go along with the tax deal.

But wouldn’t be funny if they really voted to strip out of the bill the estate tax silliness? That would, of course, alter the bill and require it to go back to the Senate where Republican senators say they would, then, reject it completely.

This would send the entirety of Washington into apoplexy. The Senate would freak out. The President would freak out.

The year would end and millionaires and billionaires would have to, collectively, come up with $300 billion to help reduce the federal deficit.

Of course, taxes would also go up for what’s left of the middle class, too; and we’d lose that extra $19.95 in our pay each month. Unemployment benefits would have to be extended under a separate measure. But fixing these problems all possible – assuming Democrats have any spine left, which is iffy at best.

If Congress walked away for the year and let the tax cuts expire, the poorest 20 percent of Americans would have to pay an additional $393 in taxes in 2011. The middle 20 percent would have to pay $1,521 more and the richest 1 percent would see their taxes go up by nearly $77,000.

But, you see, there is actually a bigger picture than this. It’s called the future of the country (what a concept).

James Kwak, writing in the Baseline Scenario, argues letting the tax cuts expire is far better in the long run for the middle class than extending the current – and modest – tax cuts because increasing revenues now and over the next 10 years will help keep Social Security and Medicare afloat.

But Republicans are not interested in that. No, sir. You see the end game here is to see Social Security and Medicare destroyed…dismantled…go away…everyone for themselves.

Not to worry, the rich will be just fine.

BREAKING: Federal judge in Virginia rules unconstitutional key provision of Obama health care reform bill…but refuses to freeze it or invalidate it. Go figure.

Ring, Christmas bells, merrily ring…tell all the world the tax deal is king…”

Oh, the weather outside is frightful but the tax talk is so delightful. But since we’ve no place to go, let the snow job go on in the Congress…” Or something like that.

It’s a good tax deal, says the White House and the Congressional Republicans and most Congressional Democrats – except, of course, those looking out for the working people of ‘Murka.

Take Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example. Bless his heart, he stood for 8.5 hours on the Senate floor Friday afternoon and into the evening filibustering the tax deal. It was a real filibuster, too, not those fake or threatened filibusters the Senate Republicans have used so effectively to frightening their Democratic colleagues.

Sanders actually took the floor of the Senate and kept talking for over eight hours, without stopping except to catch his breath, never relinquishing the floor.

But the tax deal will be adopted anyway.

President Clinton says the deal is as good as we’re gonna get in this era of Republican insistence on tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires.

The New York Times this morning points out a “hefty chunk” of the deal, which will add nearly $900 billion to the deficit, is really good for the middle class – what’s left of it – and will benefit, too, the lower class – which is the rest of us outside the top 2 percent of the wealthiest.

The good ol’ New York Times, the Gray Lady; remember when it thought going to war in Iraq was such a great idea?

Anyway, the NYTimes piece points out the annual adjustment to the alternative minimum tax will increase in 2011 insulating couples making as much as $74,450, up from the current limit of $72,450. This will cost $137 billion.

Actual wage earners, if any remain, will also see a reduction in the Social Security tax. A one-year payroll tax cut for incomes up to $106,800 will go from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Couples earning that much will see as much as $4,272 extra in 2011.  That tax break will cost $112 billion.

Extension of the jobless benefits will cost $57 billion.

The deal also includes a temporary repeal of the limit on itemized deductions and an absolute repeal of the scheduled phase out of personal exemptions: another $21 billion to the deficit.

Just makes me want to cry…like John Boehner.

Precious few – if any – are the statesmen and women in our nation’s capital, these days. They are vastly outnumbered and outflanked by reactionaries.

Sure, politics is the art of compromise but this would imply a give-and-take, not just take-and-take-and-block-and-whirl-and-triangulate-and the hell with the best interests of our people.

Children brought to the U.S. by parents outside the legal immigration system still can’t go to most colleges and earn a chance to enter the great melting pot.

Gay folks still can’t be honest about who they are in the military.

And wouldn’t be just freakin’ hilarious if the lawmakers got so twisted up in their own triangulation they simply didn’t get the tax deal passed and millionaires and billionaires ended up with a tax hike, anyway? Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!!

The Senate just can’t – yet – seem to find the cojones to pass the DREAM Act. Reactionaries keep on the sidelines a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell but, by golly, they quickly moved to extend their own millionaire tax break for the next two years.

The House of Representatives, still in control of Democrats, moved quickly on the DREAM Act and DADT but have so far balked at the tax deal.

This is fun, isn’t it? Maybe the Grinch could steal Congress this year, instead.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg Poll of ‘Murkins taken earlier this week suggests only 51 percent of us think we’re better off in 2010 than we were in 2008. (And by, “better off,” the Bloomberg Poll means, “have more money.”)

Only 35 percent responded they are better off today than in 2008. Wanna guess who they are?

The same poll suggested only one-third of those responding support extending tax cuts for millionaires.

Another one-third of the responders say they want to see tax cuts extended for only the middle class and 25 percent of all responders say all tax cuts should expire.

Oh yea…and the poll also suggested the current numbers are better for President Obama than they were for President Reagan in his second year in office. In a poll taken in October 1982, over 60 percent of Americans said they were better off than when Reagan took office.

Reagan won re-election by a landslide in 1984.

Just sayin’.

Thank God. We can all rest easier now knowing this may put in end to the publication of diplomatic gossip. Of course, I’m not sure now where we’ll get our tidbits about Moammar Gadhafi’s hot Ukranian nurses.

Hmmm…maybe Scotland Yard could help us capture bin Laden.

Oh well, the Assange and Wikileaks case certainly teaches us how the most powerful people in the world can get retribution if you piss ‘em off.

In other BREAKING NEWS on this Pearl Harbor Day, reports continue to surface about a cave in at The White House. Not to worry, the building is still intact. It’s just that the President, himself, appears to have caved in and agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

Glad we didn’t take seriously all that campaign talk about ending the Bush tax cuts.

But the tax cut deal is good news! We were worried the millionaires and billionaires might have to fork over more of their riches to taxes and help reduce the U.S. debt. Thankfully, they can now go off to St. Bart’s for the holidays without a worry in the world.

Maybe those millionaires and billionaires will spend their holidays dreaming up new jobs for everyone, since the Republicans on Capitol Hill promised that will be the result of extending those tax cuts…as evidenced by the enormous number of jobs created since the tax cuts were enacted in 2003 and 2004. In fact, the millionaires and billionaires are really going to have to think hard to dream up new jobs because jobs already created are so plentiful.

The President, himself, said the tax deal will create “millions of new jobs. “ Paul Krugman, writing today in the New York Times, points to the OCB estimates which suggested extending the Bush tax cuts will reduce uemployment by 0.1 to 0.3. percent in 2011 and twice that in 2012.

But, hey, what’s $700 billion to the budget deficit when we’re reducing unemployment by 0.1 to 0.6 percent?

The good news is what’s left of the middle class will also get to keep its tax cut. The average U.S. household, which has an income of $49,777 will continue to get a tax break of $2,142. A family which earns $311,330 will get to keep $9,318. The President really wanted them to keep only $8,012.

And unemployment pay will continue for one more year for the 9 million Americans considered now chronically unemployed.

But that shouldn’t be a problem because all the millionaires and billionaires spending the holidays down on St. Bart’s will come back with “millions” of jobs for those 9 million people chronically umemployed.

What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s make sure we have this straight:

Unemployment benefits for about a third of the 6.2 million now chronically unemployed have already started to expire and will continue to expire through this glorious holiday season.

Tax cuts for what’s left of the middle class, sponsored by the Obama Administration and approved by the Congress as part of the stimulus act in 2009 are also set to expire on December 31.

Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, sponsored by the Bush Administration and approved back in 2003 and 2004 – as we were fighting two unnecessary wars – are also set to expire on December 31.

Congress doesn’t really need to take any action on the tax cuts. They simply expire.

Congress does need to vote to extend unemployment pay for those out of work.

Got it straight, so far?

Good.

But here’s the deal: Republicans and some Democrats say they won’t vote to extend unemployment benefit or to extend tax cuts for what remains of the middle class UNLESS the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires can also be extended.

Seems fair.

Wait…no it doesn’t.

Republicans and some Democrats are willing to let hungry people get even hungrier through this glorious holiday season to stand on the principle that millionaires and billionaires should continue to pay less in taxes.

In addition to being morally reprehensible, this principled stand of Republicans and some Democrats will add $700 billion to the debt of our great nation. And this after Republicans took back the House in the November elections promising, in part, to reduce the national debt.

I have a few questions:

1. Are you freakin’ NUTS??

2. Do you take us for fools?

3. What part of, “morally reprehensible,” don’t you understand?

INTERPOL, Situation Room

“Gentlemen, I’ve called you here because we need to issue a Red Alert.”

“A Red Alert? Wow, that’s sounds important. What’s a Red Alert?”

“It’s an important alert, not to be confused with a Blue Alert or a Green Alert.”

“Yes, sir…and why are we issuing a Red Alert?”

“We have a rampant information spreader, a RIS, on the loose, gentlemen, someone so despicable they would willingly publish on the InnerTubes information embarrassing to diplomats worldwide!”

“Excuse me, sir, but are we sure spreading information – even embarrassing information – on the Internet is a crime? I mean, isn’t that pretty much why the Internet exists?”

“You don’t seem to suitably ascertain the severity of this problem, young man. We’re talking major diplomatic embarrassment here!! This man, Julian Assange, has a website, Wikileaks, devoted to peeling back government secrets and diplomatic gossip from around the world. This is much more severe than the website devoted to peeling back the onion, Wikileeks.”

“But, sir, are we sure this is a crime?”

“Doesn’t matter. This man has embarrassed the United States by publishing diplomatic gossip and revealing the results of inter-office fantasy baseball leagues and it must be stopped!”

“But, sir, I’ve read the released cables and, well, to be honest they don’t exactly tell us anything we didn’t already know: Saudi Arabia worried about Iranian nuclear weapons? The U.S. worried about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? That Alexander Putin is an alpha dog? Don’t we already know these things?”

“Look, young man, did you join Interpol to rid the world of its top criminals or did you join Interpol to argue?”

“But, sir, Assange’s mother has asked us not to hurt him.”

“Mother, schmother…we must protect the United States’ right to diplomatic gossip!!”

“Begging your pardon again, sir, but we’ve been nearly 10 years now trying without success to capture Osama bin Laden. Do we really need to divert our resources now to capturing a guy who puts information out on the Internet?

“Aren’t there far more nefarious undertakings afoot? Like the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in the U.S. Congress conspiring to cut unemployment benefits to those without jobs at Christmas time? That seems far more criminal to me.”

“Who cares about such trivial matters, young man?” We already have the fire built and the stake whittled. We need someone to burn!!”

But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]