The non-partisan Tax Policy Center has analyzed Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposal. Business Week reports on the findings:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would lead to higher tax bills for lower- and middle-income Americans while most high earners would pay less tax than they do now, according to a new analysis.

The 9-9-9 plan would translate into a tax cut for almost 95 percent of Americans with cash income exceeding $1 million, according to the analysis released today by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.

The Associated Press has more. If you want to crunch the numbers yourself, here is the Tax Policy Center's analysis and charts.

Via Matt Yglesias, Susie Madrak's great point:

If #OWS Has No Coherent Message, How Come Eric Cantor Is Suddenly Talking About 'Income Disparity'?

I don't want to refight the "Make Him Do It Wars." But this was sort of the point. Yglesias writes:

Obviously at some point in the process of political change it matters which policies get adopted. But control of the agenda space matters too. For a long time, we were talking about “the deficit.” The deficit is a real thing, and it would be nice to address it. There are some good progressive ways to address it. But dragging the conversation in that direction was a victory for the conservative movement. Dragging the conversation onto the terrain of inequality is a major win for the 99 Percenters.

This has always been true. And it is true for Obama as well. Since his jobs speech and his jobs bill, and with the emergence of the Occupy Movement, it's obvious the conversation has changed. This could have happened before. But no spilt milk. Let's look forward.

One last key point - while we can have differing opinions on the degree Obama has been complicit in the goings on, pro and/or con, it seems clear to me that not making Obama the focal point of the Occupy Movement (again pro and/or con) has been critical to its success. Pols are pols and do what they do. To me, OWS is not about Obama specifically. It's about all of our institutions. It's about problems bigger than Obama.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton today announced the number of people deported from the U.S. in fiscal year 2011 (which ended in September.) The total, which is the highest number yet: 400,000. (ICE press release here.)

According to ICE, "55 percent of the 396,906 individuals deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions." It could not answer how many of the felonies were immigration offenses like illegal re-entry which don't require the commission of a separate crime:

Individuals can be convicted of a felony just for returning to the U.S. or being found in the U.S. after the government orders them to leave.

[More...]

There are two important TV programs to watch tonight.

• 9 p.m. (ET): CNBC will air "Billions Behind Bars: Inside America's Prison Industry." The program examines the multi-billion dollar industry of private prisons. The Justice Policy Institute (JPI) was consulted by CNBC producers throughout the making of the documentary following its release this summer of Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies, which explored the political strategies private prison companies employ to influence policy.

• 9 pm ET: PBS: Lost in Detention, FRONTLINE and the Investigative Reporting Workshop examine the Obama administration’s controversial get-tough immigration policy. [More...]

Busy for a while. A little inspiration for your discussions:

Open Thread.

Too funny:

[The Occupy protests] are similar in their lack of focus, in their inchoate nature, and above all in their refusal to engage with existing democratic institutions. In New York, marchers chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," but, actually, this isn't what democracy looks like. This is what freedom of speech looks like. Democracy looks a lot more boring. Democracy requires institutions, elections, political parties, rules, laws, a judiciary, and many unglamorous, time-consuming activities, none of which are nearly as much fun as camping out in front of St. Paul's cathedral or chanting slogans on the Rue St. Martin in Paris.

Much more democratic to chant slogans at a campaign rally. There is a reason people don't read Slate anymore (I got this from Greenwald.) The stupidity is breathtaking. Dumber than Scarborough.

Speaking for me only

At Daily Kos, Big Tent Democrat interviews his 17 year old daughter about why she joined Occupy Wall Street. What a smart, articulate young woman.

Q: What do you think the goals of Occupy Are?

A: To help wake America up to the fact that the country can't go on focused on the needs of the few over the needs of the many.

The movement has passed its one month anniversary, raised $300,000.00 and grown globally into Occupy Together. Reuters reports a new poll shows most New Yorkers support the protest. [More...]

Busy again. But read John Judis' review of the Ron Susskind book.

And yes, Geithner should have been fired.

Open Thread.

Herman Cain, the newest Republican flavor of the week, told those attending a Tennessee rally yesterday about his response to a someone who had challenged his pro-border fence position on his call-in radio show. Cain said he responded:

When I'm in charge of the fence, we going to have a fence. It's going to be 20 feet high. It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrocuted, electrified," Cain said. "And there's going to be a sign on the other side that says it will kill you."

Today on Meet the Press, he said he was joking: [More...]

Open thread.

Nate Silver writes about Herman Cain:

The other litmus test is Iowa, where there have been few credible polls conducted in recent weeks. But the former leader in Iowa, Mrs. Bachmann, has since seen her numbers slump badly in national polls. Tim Pawlenty has dropped out of the running, meanwhile, while Mr. Romney has yet to fully commit to the state for fear of raising expectations.

Mr. Cain’s winning Iowa would be a potential game-changer. Iowa has not historically been as important for Republican voters as for Democrats, but a win there would give rank-and-file Republicans — many of whom like Mr. Cain but are not convinced that he is viable — confidence that a vote for him would not be wasted.

I don't believe that for a second. Herman Cain has no chance of winning the nomination. He is a vanity candidate with no organization, skill or seriousness. He would have no chance of winning a general election. These "predictive" models have value when judging credible candidates. But Herman Cain is not a serious candidate. Only Rick Perry has a theoretical chance of beating Romney. I say theoretical because Perry is a terrible candidate. Here is a predictive model I believe in - terrible candidates will campaign terribly. Romney knows what he is doing. Perry doesn't. Perry's hope is that the Media (especially Fox) decides to go after Romney. Fox has settled on Romney I think and the rest of the Media seems unlikely to completely turn on him. There will be no NBC October 2008 type debate to try and topple Romney. Absent some Romney scandal emerging, I think the GOP race is over. More . . .

I've been writing for two years about the ever-increasing power given to the DEA and its involvement in sting after sting with no connection to drugs coming to the U.S. From the DEA's Excellent African Adventures to the case of Russian pilot Yuri Yaroshenko to Viktor Bout. (Two of the defendants in the Yaroshenko case were acquitted and sent home to Africa.)

The judges in the Southern District of New York have continuously defeated claims of manufactured jurisdiction, allowing the cases to proceed. The crimes are instigated by the DEA, don't come to fruition, and yet we (the taxpayers) end up funding their missions and then paying to incarcerate those snagged for the 20 plus year sentences they ultimately receive.

The newest Iran case is no different. The DEA is now a global police force, with offices in 83 countries and a budget in the billions. They are global holy warriors. [More..]