Tag: TMC Politics

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

E. J. Dionne: Who Is Sanctimonious?

Washington – What does President Obama think of those who fought and bled to pass his bills in Congress (in some cases losing in this year’s election for their pains) while also defending him against wild charges from the right wing? Are they among the liberals he described as “sanctimonious” who long for the “satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people”?

Obama’s comments make you wonder: Who does he think he can count on when conservatives try to repeal the health care law, force cuts in programs he supports, investigate his administration down to the last pencil, and continue to denounce him as an un-American socialist?

A senior Obama lieutenant insisted that the president wasn’t attacking liberals. He was responding only to those condemning him as a “sellout” for a tax deal that achieves many progressive goals, at the cost of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and egregiously conceding billions to very rich people who inherit large estates.

Yet simultaneously, the White House was also sending out signals that it was consciously casting the president as a centrist problem-solver in a new iteration of Bill Clinton’s old “triangulation” strategy.

John Nichols: It’s the Estate Tax Exemption, Stupid

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been given a charge from the chamber’s Democratic caucus to negotiate a better tax deal than President Obama got from Senate Republicans.

And Pelosi says she will do just that.

But what’s her “ask”? What’s her credible — and doable — demand?

Pelosi should pull no punches. But, If we assume she cannot get the Republicans or Obama to abandon the absurdly uneven trade-off that defines the deal — a two-year extension of tax cuts for billionaires in return for a one-year extension of basic benefits for the unemployed — then she has to look elsewhere.

For plenty of practical and political reasons, Pelosi can and should start the pushback by focusing on the side deal to renew the estate tax with broad exemptions for millionaires — up to $5 milion for individuals, up to $10 million for couples — and a top rate of 35 percent for the coming two years.

Pelosi has already pointed to the estate-tax agreement as a bone of contention for House Democrats.

“We believe the estate tax in the bill is a bridge too far,” the Speaker has said.

Beverly Bell and Tory Field: “Miami Rice”: The Business of Disaster in Haiti

“We were already in a black misery after the earthquake of January 12. But the rice they’re dumping on us, it’s competing with ours and soon we’re going to fall in a deep hole,” said Jonas Deronzil, who has farmed rice and corn in Haiti’s fertile Artibonite Valley since 1974. “When they don’t give it to us anymore, are we all going to die?”

Deronzil explained this in April inside a cinder-block warehouse, where small farmers’ entire spring rice harvest had sat in burlap sacks since March, unsold, because of USAID’s dumping of U.S. agribusiness-produced, taxpayer-subsidized rice. The U.S. government and agricultural corporations, which have been undermining Haitian peasant agriculture for three decades, today threaten higher levels of unemployment for farmers and an aggravated food crisis among the hemisphere’s hungriest population.

It looks like all out war has just been declared on Capitol Hill and not by the Republicans, although they continue to lob their missiles at anything Democratic. Are the House Democrats, at last, taking a stand against Reagan/Bush/Obamanomics?

First up, 54 House Democrats have sent a letter telling President Obama that they cannot accept his capitulation compromise bill with the hostage takers Republicans in its current form.

House Democrats Voice Opposition to Tax Cut Deal

In a closed door caucus meeting on Thursday morning, House Democrats voted to reject the tax cut deal between the White House and Congressional Republicans “as currently written.”

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in a statement after the vote said changes would need to be made to the bill before she allows it to come to the floor for a vote.

“In the caucus today, House Democrats supported a resolution to reject the Senate Republican tax provisions as currently written,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We will continue discussions with the President and our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the days ahead to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.”. . . . . .

“House Democrats share the president’s commitment to providing the middle class with a tax cut to grow the economy and create jobs,” Ms. Pelosi said. “The House passed a bill last week to provide tax cuts for all Americans but not a bonus tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. The extra tax cut for the top 3 percent does not create jobs and increases the deficit. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans blocked the bill from being approved by the Senate.”

Ms. Pelosi added, “Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to create jobs and economic growth, to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and to do this in a fiscally sound way.”

The President continues to tout that this bill will create “millions of jobs”. Really? When in the last 10 years have these tax cuts created one job? This is just more trickle down, voodoo economics. Obamanomics.

The economy will move “backward” if lawmakers don’t approve a deal to extend tax cuts for the rich in exchange for more unemployment benefits, President Obama said Thursday.

“Every economist that I’ve talked to or that I’ve read over the last couple of days agrees that this agreement will boost economic growth over the next couple of years and has the potential to create millions of jobs,” Obama said at a meeting with his Export Council.

Families will welcome tax cuts in their paychecks in January with the deal, Obama said, warning that “if this framework fails, the reverse is true.” He added, “Americans would see it in smaller paychecks that would have the effect of fewer jobs.”.

The vote on the Dream Act and the Defense Authorization Act which contains the repeal of DADT have also been postponed by Majority Leader Reid.

With time running out on the lame-duck session of Congress, the Senate Wednesday postponed a vote on the controversial immigration bill known as the DREAM Act and didn’t take up the Defense Authorization bill, which includes an amendment aimed at repealing “Don’t ask, Don’t tell,”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also announced postponement of plans to consider a measure to provide health care compensation to 9/11 first responders. The DREAM Act and 9-11 measure will be taken up Thursday.

“We sometimes run into roadblocks in the Senate,” Reid said, as he explained that a scheduling conflict with the House delayed the DREAM act vote. The House passed the DREAM Act late Wednesday by a vote of 216 to 198.

This morning the Republicans blocked the 9/11 Health Bill as well as Workers’ Rights, Social Security cost of living and Mine Safety Bills.

If the President thinks for one minute that giving the Republicans while they hold the majority of the country hostage, he’s either a fool or a liar. I believe he’s the latter and a bad one at that.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Reich: Why the Obama Tax Deal Confirms the Republican Worldview

Apart from its extraordinary cost and regressive tilt, the tax deal negotiated between the president and the Republicans has another fatal flaw.

It confirms the Republican worldview.

Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story — the same one they’ve been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is big government’s fault and the solution is to shrink government.

Here’s the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Now they take in almost a quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings of the typical worker have barely budged.

David Sirota: Watch the Outfielders In Baseball, Watch the Corporate Lobbyists On Taxes

When I went to Phillies games as a kid, my dad would always remind me that if you want to know what’s going on in the game, its more important to watch the fielders than to watch the ball after the ball is hit. Watching the fielders like Von Hayes and Lenny Dykstra and how they reacted told you if the ball hit by Tim Raines or Ron Gant was going to be a foul, an out, a base hit or a homer.

It’s sorta the same thing in politics – if you want to know what a bill really does, it’s more important to watch corporate lobbyists’ reaction than to listen to the politicians pushing the bill. That’s because whereas politicians have a vested interest in making themselves look good for purposes of reelection and party advancement, lobbyists jealously represent Big Money, without regard for partisanship or electoral maneuvering.

Michael Winship: The Heartbreak of Premature Capitulation

There’s this old joke about the French Revolution. A group of prisoners is lined up before the guillotine. One by one, their heads are lopped off. Then, the next man is put in place. The lever is pulled, but the blade stops just inches above his neck. This must be a sign of divine intervention, the judge in charge declares, and the man is freed.  

The same thing happens to the next prisoner, and the next and the next. Finally, as the very last man is prepared for execution, he looks up at the mechanism and exclaims, “Wait! I think I see your problem!”  

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you President Barack Obama, providing needless aid and comfort to those who would do him wrong, handing over his own head without a fight, afflicted with a curious syndrome we men of science have decided to call Premature Capitulation.

Obama is just caving to the hostage takers again like he did with health care. He just continues to lie and throw the true Democratic principle under the bus.

From James K. Galbraith

Whose side is the White House on anyway?

The president should know that, as Lincoln told Congress in 1862, he “cannot escape history”

This isn’t a parlor game. The outcome isn’t destined to be alright. It will not necessarily end in progress whatever happens. What we do, how we proceed, and how we effectively resist what is plainly about to happen, matters very greatly for the future of our country, of our children, and of another generation to come. We need to lose our fear, our hesitation, and our unwillingness to face the facts. If we thereby lose some of our hopes, let’s remember the dictum of William of Orange that “it is not necessary to hope in order to persevere.”

The president should know that, as Lincoln said to the Congress in the dark winter of 1862, he “cannot escape history.” And we are heading now into a very dark time, so let’s face it with eyes open. And if we must, let’s seek leadership that shares our values, fights for our principles, and deserves our trust.

History will not judge this President kindly.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Verlyn Klinkenborg: John Lennon

I don’t remember how I heard that John Lennon had been shot. Thirty years ago, on a warm December night in Manhattan, it was suddenly, in the air, on the street – with only a brief, grim gap between news of the shooting at the Dakota, on 72nd Street and news of his death at Roosevelt Hospital. I called my brother in California and then sat in the stairwell of a building at 27th and Third, numb and grieving, like everyone else.

*

*

*

We remember what we remember of Lennon, and of that night. When I was young, he was the only adult that mattered outside my family – the Beatle of Beatles. I loved his wit; his irony; his “Help!”; his urgent, reedy voice; his unceasing transformations. Like everyone else who loved him, I can’t help grieving, even now, for all the transformations we lost 30 years ago when John Lennon was only 40.

John Nichols: Organizing for America Sacrifices Credibility, Harms Obama, By Talking Up Misguided Assault on Public Employees

Organizing for America, the online community of campaigners for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential run that evolved into a Democratic National Committee-aligned “activist” network is undermining its own credibility — and, ultimately, harming the president– by attempting to gin up support for Obama administration initiatives that Obama backers did not support in 2008 and do not support now.

While OFA, the succesor organization to the “Obama for America” campaign organization,  was a disappointing player during the health care and banking reform debates, it has now begun to inflict actual harm – not just to progressive ideals but to the long-term prospects of maintaining what remains of Obama’s political base.

OFA, so silent on the compromise the Obama administration is trying to gin up to extend tax breaks for the rich, has found something it is for: cutting the pay of federal workers.

Julian Assange: The truth will always win

In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.”

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

New York Times Editorial: The Tax Cut Endgame

We suppose it could have been worse. The deal could help to stimulate the weak economy. And if the Republicans had blocked an extension of unemployment benefits, as they were threatening to, millions of Americans would have suffered greatly.

But the country can’t afford to continue tax cuts for the rich indefinitely. And by kicking the issue down the road to 2012 – a presidential election year – it all but guarantees more craven politicking then.

Speaking on Monday evening, the president said that the deal would extend for two years all of the tax cuts, both those from the Bush years and those for low-income workers from last year’s stimulus law. Recently expired benefits for the long-term unemployed would also be extended for another 13 months.

In addition, the agreement includes a one-year cut in payroll taxes that will put a relatively modest, but much needed, $120 billion in workers’ pockets, and a year of bolstered write-offs for business investments.

On a decidedly sour note, Mr. Obama also said he had agreed to cut estate taxes even more than in the last year of the Bush administration. That is not compromise. It is capitulation.

Joan Walsh: Party time for Bush and Cheney!

Obama extends tax cuts for the rich that the GOP passed with chicanery and Cheney’s vote. How did we get here?

I know they weren’t the best of friends when they left Washington, but I bet former President Bush and Dick Cheney at least had a phone call tonight congratulating one another on one of the great heists in history. In 2001, they knew they couldn’t make their budget-busting tax cuts for the rich permanent, so they agreed to phase them out in 2010, leaving the political consequences to another administration. Even with that chicanery, the Bush tax cuts were divisive enough that they required Cheney to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. No problem. That’s how Republicans play: They reward their wealthy base.

Increasingly it seems, Democrats, too, reward the wealthy in their base, and ignore their much larger constituency of working and middle class voters, struggling in the economy destroyec by Bush and Cheney. President Obama’s compromise was a long time coming, telegraphed for months, but depressing nonetheless. The good news is that he got a little bit more for caving than some Democrats expected. It’s great that unemployment insurance may be extended 13 months; many Americans will appreciate a payroll tax cut, an extended Earned Income Tax Credit and the latest patch of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Can Democrats “Up Their Game”?

Last week, I sat down with these Democrats who were defeated in November to get their sense of what the election means for the future and how the president should respond. Their observations were more revealing than the abstractions that conventional punditry typically invokes to explain what “the people” supposedly said.

They spoke just off the floor of the House shortly after it approved an extension of the Bush tax cuts only for families earning under $250,000 a year. This vote of principle was unfairly dismissed as “symbolic,” but Perriello said something that pointed to the opportunity Obama and the Democrats had kicked away.

“Why not up the game,” he asked, “instead of playing the same old game?” Perriello was in no mood to criticize his already beleaguered party. But his comment pointed to how it might have avoided a debilitating tax cut endgame.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Kuttner: What Now for the Democrats?

Let’s imagine the political possibilities of the next two years and beyond. So far, President Obama’s response to the drubbing of the mid-term has confirmed the progressive community’s worst fears. Astonishingly, he still seems to believe the following:

The American people care more about bipartisan compromise and budget cuts than about ending the economic crisis.

If he just compromises a little more, the Republicans might still meet him halfway.

The recipe for economic recovery has something to do with reducing the short term federal deficit.

All three of these premises are disastrously wrong — as politics and as economics.

Dan Froomkin: On Jobs, Robert Rubin Points In The Wrong Direction Again

WASHINGTON — On a morning when dire unemployment numbers underscored the desperate and urgent need to jump-start the job market, shameless financial arsonist Robert Rubin was hosting a massive exercise in distraction.

The job market is suffering from a terrible cyclical shortfall in aggregate demand brought upon by the financial crisis and the Great Recession, but Rubin wanted to talk about long-term structural issues affecting employment — like the need to reduce the budget deficit, or change corporate tax rates. His is a Wall Street agenda, not a Main Street agenda.

The setting was a policy conference hosted by Rubin’s pet think tank, the Hamilton Project, and its strange bedfellow, the liberal Center for American Progress.

As Clinton administration Treasury Secretary, Rubin presided over the nearly-fatal deregulation of the financial industry, then went on to make $126 million nearly driving Citigroup into bankruptcy, making him arguably one of the men most responsible for causing the financial crisis. But it was so lucrative for him that he can underwrite events like this one.

Thom Hartmann: Tax Cut Lies: The Day The News Died

The New York Times today jumped on board with a classic Frank Luntz “Big Lie.”

Democrats in the House and Senate put forth a bill that would reduce taxes on the first quarter-million, and then, when that failed, the first million dollars of income for every single American. . . .

   WASHINGTON – The Senate on Saturday rejected President Obama’s proposal to end the Bush-era tax breaks on income above $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals, a triumph for Republicans who have long called for continuing the income tax cuts for everyone.

What? “Republicans who have long called for continuing the income tax cuts for everyone”??

EVERYONE would have gotten a tax cut under the Democrats’ proposal. Every single taxpayer in America, from the street-sweeper to Bill Gates. Everyone!

From David Waldman at Today in Congress, seems to be the only one pointing out that there were two other bills on the agenda for the Saturday Tax Cut Showdown in the Senate. One was to extend all the tax cuts permanently and the other was to extend them for two years. What happened to those two bills? This is what happened, the Republicans manipulated the Senate rules to make the Democrats look bad and the White House just tags along.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

   Convenes: 8:15am

   By unanimous consent, at 10:30am Saturday, December 4, the Senate will proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Reid motion to concur with the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.4853, with the Baucus amendment #4727 [link] (tax cut extension for those making up to $250,000, plus several additional items such as UI extension, AMT relief, estate tax, 1099 repeal, making work pay credit, and others).

   If cloture is not invoked, the Senate would immediately proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Schumer amendment #4728 [link] (tax cut extension for those making up to $1 million, plus several additional items such as UI extension, AMT relief, estate tax, 1099 repeal, making work pay credit, and others).

   The time from 8:30am until 10:30am will be equally divided and controlled between the Leaders or their designees.

So what ever happened to the supposed deal for having four votes rather than two? Well, apparently that deal — which would have included two Republican amendments that would have offered the choice of either a temporary or a permanent extension of all the cuts — fell apart when a Republican objected to it at the last minute, leaving a surprised and embarrassed Mitch McConnell at the table empty-handed.

Why would a Republican object to a deal offering the minority an equal number of amendments on the bill, each aimed at doing exactly what they supposedly wanted? Because someone in the Republican Conference thinks both of the Democratic amendments will fail on their cloture votes, and Dems will be embarrassed by their inability to settle this situation, and then House Republicans will be free to write the extension bill they way they want it come January. And they’ll make the extension retroactive to January 1, and look like heroes.

Why would a Republican make a surprise objection at the last minute and embarrass Mitch McConnell like that? Because Mitch McConnell hasn’t been the Republican Leader for at least the last year. Jim DeMint is the real Senate Minority Leader, and he plays harder ball than McConnell does. He just showed Mitch who’s boss by pulling the rug out from under him, and reminded Republicans that the source of their power is not their ability to use procedure to leverage deals, but their ability to leverage procedure to prevent any from being made while Democrats control the White House and Congress.

It’s time to stop trying to understand Republicans in terms of figuring out what they want and trying to find middle ground. If “what they want” were even really of interest to Republicans at this point, then they’d have been over the moon at having a legitimate shot at passing an amendment to make all the tax cuts permanent today. But they walked away from that (as they walked away from a legitimate shot at passing both 1099 repeal and a $39 billion stimulus rescission earlier this week, totally abandoning their “tax cuts don’t have to be paid for” rhetoric in the process) because “what they want” at this point is for Democrats to be seen losing as often as possible, on as many things as possible.

Waldman repeated this several times today on Twitter:

I can’t repeat this enough: Senate GOP was offered a vote to extend all cuts permanently and still said no.

His explanation of why they did this:

Why would GOP oppose their own plan for permanent extensions? It might pass, and people might think Dems helped. And they can’t have that.

The Republicans along with his Tea Party allies and a few Blue Dogs have 98% of the country held hostage and will most likely continue to do so for the next two years.

There were these two Bloggers, an Economist and a Dead Comedian who met in a virtual bar to discuss the economy and Social Security. The conversation turned to why President Obama is trying to do what George W. Bush failed to do, cut the only safety net many Americans have, Social Security. The President’s Cat Food Commission failed to get the 14 votes needed to pass the resolution that Congress would have been obligated to vote on. Now there are those on both sides of the aisle that want to bring to a vote anyway. Why do these people and the President hate 98% of Americans?

What the first Blogger said:

Well naturally the commission failed to get the required 14 votes and the press is spinning it as a new majority baseline for future compromise. But we knew this.

What is far more disturbing is Dick Durbin voting for it on the basis of wanting it to “move forward.” He is seen as a proxy vote on this for the president.

If they pursue this Social Security/Austerity business I think we’ll have a one term presidency (even, Gawd help us, if the Queen of the Arctic gets the nomination.) And I’m not sure that the Democratic Party won’t be permanently shattered.

I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it’s vitally, vitally important that the president understand that if he goes after Social Security, the Republicans will turn the argument on him just as they did with “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma” and end up solidifying the senior vote for the foreseeable future and further alienate the Party from the liberal base. I know it makes no sense that Republicans would be able to cast themselves as the protectors of the elderly, but in case you haven’t been paying attention lately, politics doesn’t operate in a linear, rational fashion at the moment. After all, the Republicans just won an election almost entirely on the basis of saving Medicare.

The Economist added his two cents agreeing with the first Blogger that “a fair number of “centrist” Democrats – probably including the Incredible Shrinking President – seem willing, even eager, to join up with Republicans in cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.”:

The question you have to ask is, why are Democrats such suckers on this issue?

The proximate cause is that cutting Social Security is one of those things you’re for if you’re a Very Serious Person. Way back, I wrote that inside the Beltway calling for Social Security cuts is viewed as a “badge of seriousness”, which has nothing to do with the program’s real importance or lack thereof to the budget picture; that column elicited a more or less hysterical reaction, which sort of proved the point. (Looking back at the column, I was surprised to see that it was about the ISP himself; tales of a debacle foretold.)

But why Social Security? There was a telling moment in 2004, during one of the presidential campaign debates. Tim Russert, the moderator, asked eight or nine questions about Social Security, trying to put the candidates on the spot, while asking not once about Medicare, which serious people – as opposed to Serious People – know is the real heart of the story. Why the focus on Social Security?

The answer, I suspect, has to do with class. . .

So going after Social Security is a way to seem tough and serious – but entirely at the expense of people you don’t know.

From the past, the Dead Comedian weighed in to remind his bar stool companions that this is what the “owners of this country” have wanted all along:

The second Blogger summed it up:

The political analysis is equally simple, but it uses power as the dynamic – If you’re in the predator group, you get to eat the prey. It’s just a matter of feeding; no ill will intended.

(“The Incredible Shrinking President”? Well, that one’s gonna stick.)

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Ms Amanpour will discuss the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell debate with Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, Lt. Col. (ret.) Bob Maginnis, Senior Fellow of the Family Research Council, R. Clarke Cooper, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness and Tammy Schultz, Director of National Security and Joint Warfare at the Marine Corps War College.

Can we win in Afghanistan? will be the question for former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, former ambassador to the United Nations and Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, Sakena Yacoobi of the Afghan institute of Learning and George Will

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr Schieffer’s guest will Sen. Richard Durbin, Democratic Whip, (D-Ill), Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican Whip, (R-Ariz), Nancy Cordes, CBS News Congressional Correspondent and Jim VandeHei, Executive Editor, Politico

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent, Susan Davis, National Journal Congressional Correspondent and Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic

Senior Editor. They will discuss these questions:

Will Obama Grab the Deficit Cause and Drive a National Movement for Shared Sacrifice?

Why are Combat Commanders and Troops Worried about Open Service by Gays?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: The Republican Leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Democratic Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will talk about the “battle grounds” in the Senate.

MTP’s Round Table panel New York Times columnists David Brooks and Tom Friedman, BBC World News America’s Washington Correspondent Katty Kay and Republican Strategist Mike Murphy will continue the discussion of the Senate, as well as, Wikileaks, START, DADT and tax cuts.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Taking center stage this Sunday: the lame duck Congress tackles some hot button issues: compromise over tax cuts, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, unemployment benefits, and the deficit. What will they achieve before the new Congress and is there room for compromise? The president makes a surprise trip to Afghanistan. And the leak felt around the world as Wikileaks releases confidential State Department documents.

Up first the view from both sides of the aisle with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch.

Plus, an exclusive: New York Rep. Charlie Rangel in his first television interview since being censured by the House of Representatives.

Then the unlikely Republican maverick in an era of increasing partisanship, we’re joined by the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: This week on GPS: Just what have the 250,000 diplomatic cable from the latest WikiLeaks document dump proven? Nefarious backroom dealings? The secretive inner workings of the State Department? Or do these documents show that American diplomats might actually be good at their jobs? Fareed offers his take.

And to help make sense of WikiLeaks, the financial crisis in Europe and its effect on America, we’ve assembled an all-star GPS panel. Niall Ferguson of Harvard, Richard Haass of the Council On Foreign Relations and Gillian Tett of the Financial Times.

Then, 2010 was a catastrophic year. Devastating earthquakes led the list, but the year also brought an uptick in climate-related deaths — from floods and droughts, heat and cold, . What’s it all about?

Next up, someone Fareed calls “one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life-in-general out there.” Bill Maher, the host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and one of this county’s most prominent stand-up comedians has had Fareed on his show before. Now see what happens when the tables are turned.

And finally, a last look at when nationalism, is perhaps, out of fashion.