According to Mitch McConnell:

"For a fairly small state like ours to have someone who is a major player in the country is an enormous advantage to Kentucky because every time I'm in a negotiation, I always try to look for the things that I think will have the most adverse impact on us."

Entire video available at WBRD.

H/T Hillbilly Report

They sat in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard and waited for the police to throw them in jail. But the over 100 strong members of the Culinary 226 and Bartenders 165 union were not quiet in their waiting, blocking traffic for an hour and chanting a message for the decision-makers of the Cosmopolitan resort, where union employees have been working without a contract for two years.

"Cosmopolitan, look around, Las Vegas is a union town!" they chanted. “... No justice, no peace! ...”

NBC News 3:

Culinary Union spokeswoman Yvanna Cancela says the planned Wednesday evening protest will be the first time in two decades that workers have engaged in civil disobedience outside a unionized casino.

Workers have been in contract talks with Cosmopolitan Las Vegas owner Deutsche Bank for two years.

According to watch commander Lt. Bruce Miyama there were about 1,000 demonstrators at the protest. At 5:40 p.m. some started blocking the roadways. 104 people were arrested, cited and released. No physical arrests were made.

The demonstrators were out of the roadway by 6:05 p.m. and traffic was reopened at 6:30 p.m.

More than 80 Metro officers were on scene.

Union members described it as an act of civil disobedience and stressed the action was non-violent and included clergy members.

The protesters blame Deutsche Bank for their lack of a contract for not allowing fair wages and benefits:

"You always hate to do something like this, but sometimes this is what happens and it's necessary – fighting for justice. I am prepared to be arrested," one protestor said.

In a press release, the Cosmopolitan stated

"As we've said before, the Cosmopolitan management is in ongoing negotiations with the union to find a fair agreement. We are hopeful that progress can continue in a positive direction and for continued clarity, the negotiations are being conducted solely between The Cosmopolitan management and the union."

"Our highest priority will continue to be on the safety and hospitality of our guests and CoStars. We will work with the authorities to ensure that access to the resort is maintained."

In a revealing interview with The Wall Street Journal, House Speaker John Boehner discussed the conversations he had with President Obama during closed-door fiscal-cliff negotiations. Appearing to have a case of battle fatigue after weeks of negotiations, at one point in the interview Boehner said "I need this job like I need a hole in the head." He says he was most shocked by Obama saying that Washington doesn’t have a spending problem. The speaker, just entering his second term, also explained his notorious “Go f--k yourself” snap at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “I was in Ohio, and Harry’s on the Senate floor calling me a dictator and all kinds of nasty things. You know, I don’t lose my temper. I never do. But I was shocked at what Harry was saying about me,” he said. Boehner also discussed his decision to vote for the Senate tax package, saying a "no" vote would do "serious damage to the economy.”

"What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: "At one point several weeks ago," Mr. Boehner says, "the president said to me, 'We don't have a spending problem.' "

"I am talking to Mr. Boehner in his office on the second floor of the Capitol, 72 hours after the historic House vote to take America off the so-called fiscal cliff by making permanent the Bush tax cuts on most Americans, but also to raise taxes on high earners. In the interim, Mr. Boehner had been elected to serve his second term as speaker of the House. Throughout our hourlong conversation, as is his custom, he takes long drags on one cigarette after another."

"Mr. Boehner looks battle weary from five weeks of grappling with the White House. He's frustrated that the final deal failed to make progress toward his primary goal of "making a down payment on solving the debt crisis and setting a path to get real entitlement reform." At one point he grimly says: "I need this job like I need a hole in the head."'

"The president's insistence that Washington doesn't have a spending problem, Mr. Boehner says, is predicated on the belief that massive federal deficits stem from what Mr. Obama called "a health-care problem." Mr. Boehner says that after he recovered from his astonishment—"They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system"—he replied: "Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with ObamaCare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem." He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: "I'm getting tired of hearing you say that."'

"With the two sides so far from agreeing even on the nature of the country's fiscal challenge, making progress on how to address it was difficult. Mr. Boehner became so agitated with the lack of progress that he cursed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Those days after Christmas," he explains, "I was in Ohio, and Harry's on the Senate floor calling me a dictator and all kinds of nasty things. You know, I don't lose my temper. I never do. But I was shocked at what Harry was saying about me. I came back to town. Saw Harry at the White House. And that was when that was said," he says, referring to a pointed "go [blank] yourself" addressed to Mr. Reid."

"Mr. Boehner confirms that at one critical juncture he asked Mr. Obama, after conceding on $800 billion in new taxes, "What am I getting?" and the president replied: "You don't get anything for it. I'm taking that anyway."'

And here you have the latest go-to Republican talking point, "But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem."

Yet in the last year in the Budget Control Act, and the 2011 spring budget deal to avert a shutdown, Congress actually cut $1.5 trillion in spending. After reduced interest payments due to a smaller debt are factored in, a good deal more than $1.5 trillion is cut from spending. The interest savings amount to about $250 billion, bringing the total deficit reduction achieved to date to more than $1.7 trillion. And before that, there was the $700 billion in reduced Medicare spending passed in the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

We have indeed already confronted the "spending problem."

Not that this will keep the GOP from trying to do away with those pesky "entitlements."

A new ad from AFSCME, SEIU and the NEA, this one It's a Wonderful Life-themed, pins House Speaker John Boehner as the bad guy in fiscal curb negotiations. The ad, backed by a six-figure buy, will run in the districts of Republican Reps. Rick Crawford of Arkansas, Mike Coffman of Colorado, John Fleming of Louisiana, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, and Scott Rigell of Virginia, as well as on national cable.

"What will happen if House Speaker John Boehner gets his way on the budget?

Welcome to Boehnerville, where the rich won't pay their fair share; our children's educations will be cut; Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will be put at risk; and the economic recovery would falter.

Call your member of Congress and tell them to stand up for middle-class families. Because in America, everyone deserves a wonderful life."

The ad launched yesterday and will run through the weekend.

And while your making those calls, don't forget to tell President Obama to take Social Security cuts off the table, in current and in future negotiations.

H/T Laura Clawson

On Monday, Vermont Senator Sanders appeared on MSNBC's "Politics Nation" to talk with Rev. Al Sharpton about the ongoing budget negotiations.

"Not only is what they are proposing absurd, I think they are crazy politically." said Sanders. "I think when the people understand that they want to maintain tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, whose effective tax rate is very, very low and at the same time they want to balance the budget by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, I think people all over this country are going to say, you guys are nuts, you're really out of touch with what ordinary americans are thinking and believing." he continued.

A White House spokesman responded to the GOP's fiscal cliff counteroffer late Monday, saying it "does not meet the test of balance." Erskine Bowles of the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission also criticized the offer.

“Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer and Robert Reich, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, discuss the latest fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington. Robert Reich believes Democrats have the power in the budget battle, because the Bush tax cuts for the rich — which Republicans want to extend and Democrats oppose — will expire no matter what anyone agrees on come January.

“The question is, will the Democrats actually hold firm?” Reich asks. Reich also addresses whether limiting tax deductions instad of raising marginal tax rates on the rich could generate the $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues that Obama has set as a goal: “Just by limiting deductions for the wealthy you can’t get anywhere near the $1.6 trillion. … Now if you made the tax on capital gains equal to the tax on ordinary income, maybe that preference would get you closer. But nobody is talking about doing that, unfortunately.”

Reich said that Republicans would be the losers if Congress failed to negotiate a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

“I think we are moving in the right direction and we are moving in the right direction because the Democrats are holding most of the trump cards,” he said. “If nothing is done, remember, we go back to the Clinton tax rates of the 1990s, which were not all that bad, in fact the economy did quite well under those tax rates. If nothing is done, basically the Republicans lose.”

“And, if the Republicans try to make a case that they are not going to vote for an extension of middle class tax cuts unless the rich also get a tax cut that puts the Republicans in the position of showing America that they are going to hold the middle hostage and they sure are shills for the very rich -- something that a lot of people suspect anyway, but that kind of demonstration is not going to be good for the GOP,” Reich added.

Across-the-board spending cuts are set to go into effect at the beginning of 2013 if Congress fails to pass a budget that reduces the federal deficit. The Bush tax cuts are also set to expire.

Democrats have said they won’t accept any fiscal cliff deal that doesn’t let the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire, however they want to leave tax rates for middle and lower-income Americans unchanged.

Republicans have said they will oppose any increase in tax rates, but are open to reducing tax write-offs to increase revenue.

“Just by limiting deductions for the wealthy you can’t get anywhere near the $1.6 trillion,” Reich noted.

Robert Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President-Elect Obama's transition advisory board. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet; and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. His commentaries can be heard weekly on public radio's "Marketplace." In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Vision Foundation Prize, by the former Czech president, for his pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the century. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.

Video courtesy of Current TV.

Activists gathered Sunday in Leesburg, Virginia, to protest covert negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership. "People think Citizens United was bad?" one demonstrator said. "You ain't seen nothing yet. The TPP is the most dystopian agreement that could possibly exist."

The TPP, a so-called "free trade" agreement, represents a threat even greater than the Citizens United ruling. Of the agreement's 30-something chapters, only two have to do with trade and the rest are a list of corporate giveaways. The TPP is being negotiated in secret and not even members of Congress and the Senate have access to the text. If implemented, this agreement will hardcode corporate dominance over sovereign governments into international law that will supercede any federal, state, or local laws of any member country. This document should set alarm bells ringing.

Thousands turned out to march at Wednesday's Chicago Teacher's Union rally downtown that aimed to send a strong message to Mayor Rahm Emanuel concerning teachers' ongoing contract negotiations.

"He stole your 4 percent raise. Then he cussed me out!" Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis exclaimed to a full house of some 4,000 Chicago Public Schools teachers at the Auditorium Theatre, Fox Chicago reports.

After the rally, the teachers took to the streets for a rush-hour march.

At issue for the CTU members are their salaries, the longer school day, resources for their schools, as well as the city's expansion of charter schools while public schools struggle. According to a recent report, CPS is aiming to open 60 new charter schools in the next five years, though the city says that number is as yet only a "projection."

In a press conference preceding the teachers' rally, Emanuel admitted that CPS teachers should receive a raise.

"Chicago teachers deserve a pay raise," the mayor said, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. "They work very hard. Chicago schoolchildren do not deserve a strike."

Yet many teachers remain skeptical of the mayor. Harper High School teacher John Thuet told the Chicago Tribune that he believes the mayor has "lost touch with reality."

"I feel like we're getting walked on. They're extending our hours, not giving us raises. And if we don't stop it now, I don't know when it will stop," Thuet told the Tribune.

The teachers union appears primed to take action -- and rumors of a strike are no secret. While no strike vote was taken Wednesday, CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said this week that such a vote will be taking place "when it’s appropriate" -- likely before the school year's end.