Say, remember when Tea Party displays of pitchforks demonstrated the violence inherent in the Right? Meet Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) .. Tea Partier and radical right-winger. Fox News highlights McCaskill’s whiny response at Republican insistence on keeping all of the current tax rates in place for at least the next 2-3 years, apparently believing that this means that people keeping their own money is somehow a gift from the government. If Republicans oppose more government confiscation, McCaskill argues, then people really should start grabbing pitchforks, or something:

McCaskill may be offering this cheap demagoguery now, but I suspect she’ll be singing a different tune in about twelve to eighteen months. She has to run for re-election in 2012 in a state that has returned to its conservative roots. Missourians know the difference between a tax cut and a tax hike; the latter is when one has to pay more than they did before, which is exactly what McCaskill wants to happen for small business owners. It’s the government’s money, dammit, and those pesky Republicans want to stop us from taking it!

Fox also reports that a deal is near to extend the tax rates in exchange for extending jobless benefits once again. That’s probably not a bad trade, even if the latter means more deficit spending in the short run. The GOP probably won’t get a better deal in January anyway, not with Democrats still running the Senate and Obama in the White House. Better for everyone to cut that deal now and get rid of the uncertainty rather than wait for another few weeks of Democratic stalling and end up in the same place.