Ezra Klein has an excellent editorial in the LA Times today detailing an inspired strategy to offer Hillary the position of Senate Majority Leader if she stays out of the race for Democratic Presidential nominee. The Job Sen. Clinton Should Want:
Skip the presidential rat race and whip the Senate Democrats into shape

Earlier this month, Steve Clemons' blog, the Washington Note, quoted highly placed sources as saying that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had pulled Clinton aside and offered her a deal: Eschew the presidential campaign and succeed Reid as leader of the Senate Democrats in 2009.

Maybe there's hope for the Democratic Party after all.

Santa Ana is assuredly the cesspool of Southern California. There is not a single laundromat or convenience store in Santa Ana that has a functioning restroom available to the public. There is either an "Out of Order" sign or the handles on the hot and cold running water have been removed. In the rare cases where a toilet is functioning, there is no soap or paper towels.

Welcome to Orange County, California, birthplace of American fascism. In polite circles the correct terminology is Behind The Orange Curtain, but I see no reason to mince words. This is the latest entry in my continuing series about homeless Americans in Orange County California. I started the series with a formal declaration of war on homelessness in The Revolution Starts . . . Now and added an update with My Santa Ana Urban Camping Trip.

Talk about the vacation from hell! As soon as I get back I'm suing my travel agent and making damned sure they fire the tour guide.

I've mentioned a few details of my past and current life from time to time. Long time regular readers of MyDD are aware that I am a long time member of Alcoholics Anonymous. For the last three years I have been living in a sober living home while I tried to find a competent bankruptcy attorney and get some financial wreckage cleared up. Last fall I got laid off from GreenPoint Mortgage, which Lou Dobbs has listed on his Exporting America Hall of Shame. When I was hired we had seven people in my department and when I was laid off there was one person who had just been hired two weeks earlier.

I'm Calling Bullshit On Homelessness. I have never lost a flame war yet, and I'm not about to start with this one. In two recent diaries over at MyDD, Tax Welfare For Billionaires and Tax Welfare For Billionaires II, I pointed out that tax cuts for billionaires were nothing more than thinly disguised welfare programs for the ultra rich. Since homeless Americans and working Americans have a greater need for economic assistance in these perilous economic times, I decided to take over Birch Park just south of downtown Santa Ana (page 829 in your Thomas Guide at E3) as a statement of my discontent with the current economic conventional wisdom that providing welfare to billionaires will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.

Those are the opening lines of an article in The Atlantic Monthly by Jack Beatty, Tax Evasion (subscription may be required). Bush and the GOP have already openly declared war on working Americans with his tax cuts and Iraq war. The middle class and working oor are paying far more than their fair share of taxes, because Bush and the GOP are allowing wealthy corporations and wealthy individual Americans to evade their fair share of taxes.

A very interesting question is why Democrats are not making an issue of tax equity. I submit its because they don't give a damn about middle class Americans or the working poor.

I read Matt's diary about Save The Internet launching on Monday. Art Brodsky over at TPM Cafe has an article, Congress Is Giving Away the Internet, and You Won't Like Who Gets It, that gets to the crux of the political problem:

This is going to be a reprise of MBNA Biden's Bankruptcy Reform legislation. Get ready for deja vu all over again as corporate Democrats slam this baby home for their big donors. Don't kid your selves. This legislation is a done deal. We're screwed.

Jonathan has an open thread diary that touches on the economic and social problems created by providing excessive tax cuts for the top 5%. Mother Jones has a terrific interview with David Cay Johnston this month that specifies exactly how the tax code provides massive amounts of welfare to the super wealthy.

I wrote a primer diary about Wealth In America that provides some basic facts about the inequality of wealth in America. For those who are interested in the subject I wrote a series of diaries about The Liberal Opportunity Society. Super G thoughtfully provided a summary of links to my previous diaries on the topic.

On the flip I'll provide a few excerpts from the Mother Jones Interview, Our Indefensible Tax System.