During the last election, Republicans campaigned for lower corporate tax rates. It turns out that our legal corporate income tax rate is among the highest in the developed world.

When one looks at the actual taxes paid, however, total business taxes payments are just about the lowest in the developed world as a percentage of GDP (Brookings Institution report) and about two thirds of American corporations paid no income taxes over an extended period (1998-2005, I think) (GAO report). The use of international tax havens is just part of the scandal.

Business taxes dropped below 10% of total Federal revenue for the first time since WWII during the Reagan years, rebounded a bit during Clinton's tenure, and went right back down during the Bush II years. They accounted for about 35% at the end of WWII.

Since 1980, the Country has been run for the benefit of large corporations and rich individuals. The dominant theory has been not to tax corporations or rich people and not to regulate business. Maybe somebody has finally started to ask, "and, how's that working out for you."

President Obama's proposal is just the first of a number of steps that need to be taken to restore fundamental fairness to the tax system. Maybe he's supporting this proposal because it's the right thing to do.

People who lack empathy, be they lawyers, doctors, or anything else are monsters. Empathy is the basis of all real moral and legal thinking, and it goes back to our prehuman primate relatives. What kind of person would deny emergency contraception to a rape victim? It takes a person devoid of any real human emotions.

If you want to know what a judge without empathy looks like, think Robert Bork, who I would bet suffers from Asperger syndrome. If you ever read any of his stuff, and then saw him during his confirmation hearings, and not conclude that he is a very flawed human being, you lack some basic human screws in your own head.

Finally, if anyone seriously thinks that notable Republican judges are simply driven by the law, consider Bush v. Gore. If the difference had been 500 votes in the other direction, you can bet your ass that the the decision would have gone the other way.

Republicans want judges that would never decide a case in favor of the little guy because they represent rich people and big business.

And Robert Burton just wrote a very fine essay.

I am not a lawyer, but a psychologist who worked in public sector employment for 25 years. Much of my work was done under federal court order or as part of a consent decree. I spent more time talking with judges and lawyers than with other psychologists.

I do not have access to details on how the test used in the New Haven firefighter case was developed or validated. Given the outcome of extreme adverse impact on black firefighters, the City of New Haven would have been held to a very high standard of demonstrating the test was valid and it use represented "business necessity". I suspect their attorneys knew they would lose a suit by black firefighters and decided to start over.

The fact that the district judge ruled in the City's favor and was upheld at the appeals level represents the law as it exists at the moment. Judge Sotomayor's ruling would have to be considered conservative, and in no way, legislating from the bench. If the Supreme Court reverses the decision, they will be ignoring precedent that goes back to 1969. They would be engaging in judicial activism.

The "conservatives" have it all wrong. Their problem is that they want judges who will consistently rule in favor of big business, Republican politics, big authoritarian government, and institutions over individuals. Anyone who does not meet those criteria is a "liberal, activist judge". They now have four justices on the Supreme Court who qualify by reasonable standards as fascists. Those justices do not rule on the "law"; their decisions on every politically sensitive case were predictable before any arguments were heard. Thank God Republicans lost the election so probably can't get another for at least four years.

Among the crimes of the Reagan administration that were extended and expanded by the second Bush, the most serious could be the politicization of the Federal courts.

The debate (ranting, raving and lying?) over health care reform is more evidence of the central problem of democracy in the modern age. Most voters are just too dumb to understand the issues. It's not a matter of education or having the facts; more than half of adult Americans will never understand a system this complex. What I would like to see is the good guys using tactics that are as dishonest, sleazy, fear based and manipulative as the opponents of health care reform. We've never had a fair fight over any political issue in my life time.

I find myself wondering how many of the current crazies are entitled to the Reagan defense: too stupid to be held morally culpable. It's really hard to tell the difference between people who are just too dumb to understand the issues and those who are perfectly aware that they are manufacturing "facts" and issues for their sponsors. Stupid I can forgive; the other guys are evil.

I personally think that Palin is entitled.