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Wow, I was barely done posting excerpts of Mark's Monday show, when I decided Tuesday's show was too full of gold not to post stuff as well. So here's the Great One, continuing his discussion on the Democrats, taxing the so-called "rich" and other class warfare demagoguery, and the "fiscal cliff." The first clip below is from Tuesday's first hour, the second clip from the second hour:[Edited for commercials, long pauses and other extraneous content] Download clip here Download clip here 

Well, that $80 billion a year will come in handy, no? That's the impression that six in ten Americans have as a solution to the trillion-dollar deficits in the latest Washington Post/ABC poll — and 39% of Republicans, too. The result demonstrates the political leverage of Democrats in the fiscal-cliff fight, and perhaps the leeway for the House GOP to compromise as well: Sixty percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll support raising taxes on incomes more than $250,000 a year, long a popular option overall, but also a divisive one: While 73 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of...

In a NYT Op-Ed today, Warren Buffett argued that the rich should pay a certain minimum tax, and he explained to activist Grover Norquist that it's preposterous to think that businessmen would forgo profitable deals merely because the rate of tax on the profits would go up. But why do people listen to Buffett on taxes? Basically because he's a rich, successful guy (which is why a lot of people are listened to on a lot of subjects). To that end, economist and former Romney advisor Greg Mankiw has a short post talking about Buffett as a master of "tax...

UPDATE: Twinkies-maker Hostess Brands says it has asked court to allow it to close its business and sell its iconic brands. PREVIOUS STORY: NEW YORK -- Is this the end for Twinkies? Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The...

Hostess Brands is seeking to liquidate. Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, said Friday it is shuttering its plants and firing about 18,000 workers as it seeks to liquidate the 82-year-old business. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 in January, said it has requested bankruptcy-court authorization to close the business and sell its assets. A victim of changing consumer tastes, high commodity costs and, most importantly, strained labor relations, Hostess ultimately was brought to its knees by a national strike orchestrated by its second-largest union. The work stoppage,...

Wednesday’s press conference marked the first occasion journalists have had to question the President directly – about anything – in eight months, and President Obama tipped his hat on his plans to confront the coming fiscal cliff with chastened House Republicans. In short, he will probably raise tax rates for the wealthy. But thanks to an explosive and, as my colleague Donny Deutsch put it, testosterone-fueled defense of UN Ambassador Susan Rice, a lot of what the President also said about his plans to reduce the deficit went ignored. That’s a shame – they were quite illuminating. Before Obama’s “bring...

Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The bakers' union represents around 5,000. The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but has called the concessions demanded in the new contract "outrageous." "Our members are on...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday pushed for his proposal to have the wealthy pay more in taxes as a way to tame the federal deficit, taking a hard line in his opening bid before he begins fiscal talks with U.S. lawmakers later in the week. "We should not hold the middle class hostage while we debate tax cuts for the wealthy," Obama said in his first press conference since winning re-election on November 6.

When President Obama took the stage at McCormick Place in Chicago well after midnight, we were all too wiped out with joy or depression or Nate Silver auto-refresh fatigue to pay careful attention to the speech the newly reelected president delivered. The phrase that lingered in most of our sleepy ears was the reprise of his career-launching invocation of the United States as being more than red and blue states. So soaring, so unifying. But those words were merely the trappings of magnanimity draped over an argument that was, at its core, harsher than the one he had regularly delivered...

...Four years ago, we were mired in two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Together, we've battled our way back. The war in Iraq is over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and our heroes are coming home. Our businesses have created more than 5 million new jobs in the last two and half years. Home values and 401(k)s are rising. We are less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last 20 years. And the American auto industry is back. We're not there yet. But we've made real progress. And on Tuesday, America...

Note that Barack Obama is running not on his liberal record, but as a challenger against incumbent Mitt Romney who has done all sorts of terrible things like causing the 2008 meltdown and outsourcing jobs to China. In Obama’s view, given the supposedly tranquil world abroad, we must try nation building at home, and thus concentrate on bold new initiatives like stimulus, infrastructure, green jobs, and federalized health care — none of which have been envisioned before, much less funded. And to the extent Obama has a concrete example, he points to efforts of the private oil sector to find...

Have you noticed how the Obama campaign has stepped up its class warfare rhetoric as we draw closer to Election Day? President Barack Obama constantly resorts to this tactic because he's simply unable to defend his own record in office, as 23 million Americans are out of work or underemployed and the economy remains in distress. Class warfare is all he has left. But voters aren't buying Obama's polarizing rhetoric. In a Gallup survey about the 12 most important priorities this election year, the issue of "increasing taxes on wealthy Americans" came in dead last among voters. Understandably, Americans are...

Our economy is lousy, the labor force participation rate is the lowest in 31 years, we’ve had 43 consecutive months with unemployment over 8 percent, and a record 47 million people are on food stamps, so one might expect President Obama would welcome as much help as he could get. Surely he would want private sector job creators – investors and entrepreneurs – to have the strongest possible incentives for turning around this Obama “recovery” where household incomes are falling faster than they fell in the Bush recession. But Obama’s priority is class warfare. That’s why he relentlessly denounces job...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — The room set aside for reporters to watch Tuesday night's debate erupted into applause after President Obama ridiculed the size of Mitt Romney's personal wealth. Mr. Romney was trying to make the point that both his and Mr. Obama's investment funds probably include investments in China — something the president has attacked Mr. Romney for. "Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?" Mr. Romney said. "You know, I don't look at my pension. It's not as big as yours, so it — it doesn't take as long," Mr. Obama retorted. His reply prompted laughter in the...

"Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. If you weren’t on it, you couldn’t join the ruling oligarchy. ....... ....Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose...

Obama: 'We Don't Believe Anybody Is Entitled to Success in This Country'

In the wake of the Daily Caller’s release of President Obama cheering Rev. Wright and invoking the race card in various ways, our friend Morgen Richmond decided the time was right to release some little-known Obama video of his own. He authorized me to release the video here first. The following clips are from 2002. Obama is speaking in a church at a 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Day memorial service. The full speech is here, and by and large it is a nice speech by a rising politician. Obama speaks about the need for empathy in society, about taking...

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone. The package will recoup 30 billion euros ($39 billion) for the public purse with a goal of narrowing the deficit to 3.0 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year - France's toughest single belt-tightening in 30 years. But with record unemployment and a barrage of data pointing to economic stagnation, there are fears the deficit target will slip as...

There was an old Greek legend that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, once visited the very successful tyrant of Miletus, named Thrasybulos, to find out what was the secret to his success and long reign. As the two men walked through a grain field, Thrasybulos said not a word in response to Periander's question. Instead, as they went, he would break off the strongest and fullest heads of wheat, crush them, and cast them aside. By the end of the walk, Periander realized that Thrasybulos had been answering his question all along. The key to maintaining power when you were...

Bill Clinton: No president could have "magically" fixed economy in one term By Leigh Ann Caldwell Last Updated 10:12 a.m. ET (CBS News) Former President Bill Clinton offered a strong defense for President Obama's re-election Sunday morning, arguing that no president could have "fully healed" the economy in four years. "That's why we've got to keep working at it," Mr. Clinton said on "Face the Nation." The president's efforts, Mr. Clinton argued, have reversed the downward spiral of losing up to 800,000 jobs per month. "His jobs record is better" than the Bush administration's, he said, adding that no president...