The House of Representatives was busy yesterday engaging in vicious class warfare against working families.

It's late - but this is just too classic to miss.

According to the Post Wednesday, a deal is in prospect for an almost-but-not-quite repeal of the estate tax.

That failed cloture vote (follow the HR 8 tag) persuaded GOP House zealots to cash in their chips.

So cloture on the MTP was lost 57-41.

Nevertheless, it's way too early to assume that HR 8 has gone away.

Some parsing needed. This is mine:

It's a regular souk beneath the Capitol Dome on the Senate side.

Naturally, right about now, the GOP are desperate for a clean win.

But the Dem senators whose votes they need for cloture are equally desperate to retain their self-respect and dignity as legislators.

Kidding.

The Note today says

The Free Enterprise Fund is quite pleased with this statement on Sen. Mark Pryor's (D-AR) Web site: "I support the permanent repeal of an estate tax that harms small businesses and family farms."

It also has this:

In a piece that also looks at gay marriage, the Wall Street Journal's Sarah Lueck and Brody Mullins report that Sens. Kyl, Baucus, and Schumer "hope to reach a deal" on an estate tax compromise "in the next couple of days," according to aides.

Isn't he supposed to be on our side?

Veh ist mir...

All sorts of stuff - not perhaps all of it disinformation - has been coming out about the Billionaires Charter (aka HR 8) which comes to the Senate floor this week, so we're told.

(Tomorrow the vital business of S J Res 1, the Save Your Children From Homo Marriage Amendment, takes precedence.)

Expectations are being dampened down with a vengeance.

The Senate, meanwhile, is scheduled next week to take up legislation by Arizona Republican Jon Kyl that would permanently repeal the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. If enacted, Kyl's bill would plunge the government another trillion dollars into the red during the first decade (2011-2021) that it would be in effect.

I'm posting on behalf of Coalition 4 America's Priorities, a non-profit group comprising dozens of progressive groups from around the country and supported by Bill Gates Sr. (who ought to know something about having a lot of money).

We probably don't need to sell you much on the issue, since few issues are no-brainers as much as this one, but we'll be around in the comments afterward if you have questions or disagreements. Suffice to say, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this repeal would cost as much as $1 trillion dollars between 2012 and 2021. If you click through to their site, there's a wealth of info about this subject. And you can also see Harold Myerson in today's Washington Post, Mark Weisbrot in Mother Jones, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel in The Nation for more. The issue is starting to pick up steam, but we're in a time crunch.

In less than a week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will have Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl introduce a bill that would sweep away this tax, resulting in the predictable windfall for the friends and fundraisers of the Bush/Cheney administration.

Republicans are nervous about their position, which is why right-wing groups are warning Kyl's fellow Arizonan, John McCain, not to wander too far off the ranch, and why the Free Enterprise Fund has run TV ads targeting Lincoln Chafee and others (which FactCheck.org did a superb job debunking).

Well, we've got a TV ad now too, and during this week that senators are out of Washington and back home, we've been putting them on the air in key markets around the country. We've just posted it to YouTube, and we hope you'll take a look.

But of course that's not all we hope - we need your help contacting these lawmakers immediately. You can send them an email through our site, but after you've done that, it would matter a lot to call their state offices. This link gives you their DC numbers, but don't call that number this week. Instead click on their name and find their district number. A phone call will go a lot farther, and another call to their DC offices next week will go even farther than that. We need to keep the pressure on.

Remember - the first vote is scheduled for June 6, but just because that date passes doesn't mean it will be over then. It's a big fight, and we hope you'll help support this.

Cross-posted to Daily Kos and My Left Wing.