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Of course that's not the case. The composition of the rich and poor in this country is in constant flux, as the income distribution changes dramatically over relatively short periods. Few are "stuck" in poverty, or have a "lock" on wealth.

Obama would discover this if only he'd put down his class-warfare manuals and look closely at the IRS' own data.

Take those megarich he vilifies — the top hundredth of a percent. According to a recent Treasury study, three-fourths of them in 1996 fell out of the group by 2005.

Meanwhile, more than half of those in the bottom income group in 1996 moved to a higher income group by 2005, with more than 5% leapfrogging to the richest quintile.

He also fails to understand how taxes change behavior. He thinks raising taxes on the most productive members of society won't "curb incentives to work or invest." Even TV news anchor Charlie Gibson knows better.

During a primary debate, the ABC host took Obama to task for proposing a doubling in the capital gains tax. History shows, he pointed out, that raising the cap gains rate actually ends up costing the government revenues.

Obama just didn't get it. "Well, Charlie," he argued, "what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."

Never mind that the top 1% of taxpayers already pay 38% of the total tax burden, according to recent IRS data, while the bottom 50% bear just 3% of the load.

Obama's economic plan also calls for mandating a "living wage." He plans to saddle retailers with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation, along with a mandate to provide seven days of paid sick leave to workers.

Obama assumes business owners will just eat the added costs.

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It's shocking that a mainstream candidate, with so many supposedly well-regarded economists advising him, would produce such a shoddy, poorly thought-out plan.

But the reality is that as Obama and his equally unknowing friends push windfall taxes, Exxon Mobil has already given the U.S. a massive windfall. As economist Mark Perry has noted, Exxon Mobil will pay more taxes this year to the U.S. Treasury than the bottom 50% of all taxpayers — combined.

In the first half, Exxon Mobil's after-tax income rose 15% to $22.6 billion. A lot of money, to be sure, until you consider that Exxon Mobil paid $61.7 billion in taxes — also a record.

The rest of Obama's plan is just as nonsensical. It would spend $50 billion on various kinds of stimulus, including $25 billion to help erase state government budget deficits. In other words, he'll reward profligate states and punish thrifty ones. This is "stimulus" only if you think stimulus is saving government jobs.

Another $25 billion would go towards "replenishing" the Highway Trust Fund to rebuild the nation's roads and bridges. The problem with this idea is that we're already paying for it, with a 18.3- cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and even more on diesel.

The real problem is not that we pay too little in taxes, or that "Big Oil" is enjoying "windfall profits." It's a big-spending, big-taxing Congress that "emergency" plans such as Obama's will only embolden. This lame plan will hurt the economy, not stimulate it.

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It's shocking that a mainstream candidate, with so many supposedly well-regarded economists advising him, would produce such a shoddy, poorly thought-out plan.

But the reality is that as Obama and his equally unknowing friends push windfall taxes, Exxon Mobil has already given the U.S. a massive windfall. As economist Mark Perry has noted, Exxon Mobil will pay more taxes this year to the U.S. Treasury than the bottom 50% of all taxpayers — combined.

In the first half, Exxon Mobil's after-tax income rose 15% to $22.6 billion. A lot of money, to be sure, until you consider that Exxon Mobil paid $61.7 billion in taxes — also a record.

The rest of Obama's plan is just as nonsensical. It would spend $50 billion on various kinds of stimulus, including $25 billion to help erase state government budget deficits. In other words, he'll reward profligate states and punish thrifty ones. This is "stimulus" only if you think stimulus is saving government jobs.

Another $25 billion would go towards "replenishing" the Highway Trust Fund to rebuild the nation's roads and bridges. The problem with this idea is that we're already paying for it, with a 18.3- cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and even more on diesel.

The real problem is not that we pay too little in taxes, or that "Big Oil" is enjoying "windfall profits." It's a big-spending, big-taxing Congress that "emergency" plans such as Obama's will only embolden. This lame plan will hurt the economy, not stimulate it.

Hope and change: Obama reverses, will support offshore drilling as part of compromise

An early dividend from today’s GOP House revolt? Nah. Obama’s simply on the wrong side of this issue politically and he knows it. And thanks to savvy Dems like Ken Salazar who think it’s a good idea to shrug off the prospect of $10 gas live with C-SPAN cameras rolling, Barry’s room to maneuver is narrowing by the day. Now that there’s momentum in the Senate for a compromise energy bill, the last partisan excuse to resist is disintegrating as we speak.

Let’s not call it a flip-flop. Rather, let’s borrow from his Iraq rhetoric and call it … a tactical readjustment.

Big breakthrough on solar power?

A research team at MIT claims they have discovered a process that will make solar power practical for mass production of energy, even when the sun doesn’t shine. Using photosynthesis as a guide, the team believes it has discovered the “nirvana” of exploiting the sun’s power to generate a reliable, stable, and safe source for electricity:

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

I’ve been through the cold-fusion roller coaster before, so color me skeptical at the moment. The study got published yesterday, and Nocera and Kanan will have to endure the scrutiny of their peers. However, if this works and is as cheap as people believe, it could revolutionize energy production, at least for certain applications.

Andrea Mitchell: Funny, the reporters covering the campaign didn’t think Obama played the race card

Not entirely true. Jake Tapper clearly thinks he did, as does Jonathan Martin at Politico. Even the reliably leftish Mika Brzezinski won’t deny it, as you’ll see. But Mitchell’s surely right in the aggregate: Doubtless the vast majority of the press pool that follows the Lamb can’t quite make the connection between what he said two days ago and the similar but notably more specific bit of race-baiting he did last month. St. Barack would never stoop to that, right, Sean Wilentz?

Again: Obama’s chief strategist accuses McCain of “injecting race into the election”; Update: Yes, Axelrod admits, Obama was referring to race

Update: Speaking of the Times editorial, hot off the presses from Team McCain:

If the shareholders of the New York Times ever wonder why the paper’s ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper’s editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate. This campaign has never engaged in ‘racially tinged attacks,’ and the Obama campaign conceded as much yesterday in a statement clarifying that “Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue.”

That the Times made this allegation in a blog post rather than running it on the editorial page indicates that they either knew the charge was bogus or they didn’t have the nerve to make their case in full view of the public. But in their new role as bloggers, the paper’s editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother’s basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons. They also have about as much care for the facts–the “board” has already been forced to append a correction.

Update: More nuance from Axelrod. Sure, he says, Obama obviously was alluding to his race in what he said. And yet … it’s McCain’s fault for injecting it?

Sen. Barack Obama’s chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”…

When pressed to explain the comment, Axelrod told “GMA” it meant, “He’s not from central casting when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He’s new to Washington. Yes, he’s African-American.”

Video: A “legitimate question”?

Protestor: So my question is: In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community, by the same US government that you aspire to lead — and we are talking about attacks like the subprime mortgage that you spoke of — it wasn’t just a general ambiguous kind of phenomena, a phenomena that targeted the African community and Latino community, attacks like the killing of Sean Bell by the New York police department and right here in St. Petersburg by the St. Petersburg police, and Jena 6 and Hurricane Katrina, and the list goes on. In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on the behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community or black community in this country?

Obama: Well, I, ah, I guess, I… Hold on a second, everybody. I want everybody to be respectful. That’s why we are having a town hall meeting. That’s democracy at work. And he asked a legitimate question, so I want to give him an answer.

Does Obama really think that the US government has made “numerous attacks” on the African community, or that this allegation has legitimacy? The protestors didn’t even provide a single example of the US government attacking anyone. The three incidents involving the police were at worst examples of municipal efforts, not federal, and Katrina was a hurricane with spectacularly bad local and state response, complicated by federal bungling.

Not once in his response did Obama point out the logical fallacies of the question, nor did he defend the American government against the charge of deliberately attacking African-Americans in the present tense, as the question was asked and intended. Casting this as a “legitimate question” calls into question Obama’s grasp of civics as well as his outlook on the government he “aspire[s] to lead”.

Rush Limbaugh's 20-year domination of talk radio is a remarkable testament to the durability of conservative ideas as well as to Limbaugh's skill...

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