What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments. And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent. Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.

How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits? Well, history is repeating itself. The original campaign for the Bush tax cuts relied on deception and dishonesty. In fact, my first suspicions that we were being misled into invading Iraq were based on the resemblance between the campaign for war and the campaign for tax cuts the previous year. And sure enough, that same trademark deception and dishonesty is being deployed on behalf of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Attorneys for U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., threatened Thursday to sue radio stations if they continued airing a commercial critical of the senator’s past conduct with women.

Vitter’s attorneys claimed in a letter to the radio stations that the 60-second advertisement is “false, misleading and defamatory.”

The spot talks about Vitter’s alleged battery of a woman and of the arrest of the senator’s former aide, Brent Furer, on charges stemming from an incident involving the aide’s girlfriend.

The ad, paid for by Senate candidate and former Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor, is being run on radio stations around the state.

Traylor campaign strategist Roy Fletcher said the claims made in the commercial are true and Vitter just doesn’t like its content.

“To me he’s trying to suppress free speech,” said Fletcher, who developed the ad.

Now it's time to man up. A judge found Vitter committed battery on a woman. It was an unprovoked attack. Next, Vitter's notorious scandal with the DC Madam. She ran an escort service for powerful men in Washington, if you know what I mean. Then a former prostitute said she, well, serviced Vitter on numerous occasions in New Orleans. That's family values, right? Now, Vitter's Senate aide for women affairs holds his girlfriend hostage while slashing her face with a knife. Vitter didn't fire the aide. Vitter gave him two more years on his public payroll. Some conservative, huh? Hey Vitter. What's next? Republicans, it's time to man up for change.