The Alternative Minimum Tax (as Rodney Dangerfield might have put it) don't get no respect. Few who don't pay it have ever even heard of it. Those who do pay it hate it. The A.M.T. has no real champions among the political class, because there are so many other facets of tax policy to get worked up about. Take the estate tax, for instance -- a tax only paid at death, but one with a rousing political chorus on both sides (Republicans scornfully refer to it as the "death tax"). The estate tax gets some respect in Washington, both pro and anti. The A.M.T., not so much. But it should get a whole lot more attention now that the GOP has released their new tax-cutting outline. Because Donald Trump is effectively trying to cut his own taxes by a whopping 81 percent -- and, really, that's just the minimum tax break Trump would receive.

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Since football and politics collided on the gridiron last weekend, it now must officially be considered "football metaphor season." So, to get in the spirit: Republicans in Congress are facing third down with a long way to go, right before the end of the first half.

The game so far, for those who may have missed it: Republicans won the coin toss (by putting their own referee on the Supreme Court), but since then have put zero points on the board, failing spectacularly in multiple drives (using their healthcare reform playbook). The Democrats have put the only points on the board, scoring twice (since the only two big pieces of legislation that Trump has signed have been largely written by Democrats). Their last touchdown was a spectacular interception (by "Chuck and Nancy") which was run in for a touchdown (hurricane relief) with a two-point conversion (the budget and debt ceiling extensions).

We're almost halfway between congressional elections, meaning we're fast approaching the first two-minute warning. And while Republicans are still deep in their own territory and face third and long, they're feeling a bit optimistic, because the next play they're going to run (tax cuts) is their favorite play of all time. It's worked well for them repeatedly in the past and they usually function smoothly as a team on this particular play, so it could do wonders for them right now (they hope).

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Most Americans alive today have no memory of our country ever changing its borders. And the last time it happened, many Americans alive at the time had no memory of the country adding previous states, either. The 47th state (Arizona) was admitted to the Union in 1912. Hawai'i and Alaska joined in 1959. Since then, we've now gone 57 years without the United States of America changing its outline on the world map. "This sort of history happens to other people in the world, not us," we tell ourselves. I was thinking of this while watching the muted attention given to Puerto Rico after it got hammered by Hurricane Maria this weekend. But that's a really subject for another column. What made me think about our historic cartological stability again today was the vote for independence being conducted in the parts of Iraq under Kurdish control.

The Kurds are voting either for or against becoming their own country. As of this writing, the results of the vote are not known, but most predict an overwhelming majority will indeed vote for independence.

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The zombie legislation attacks (again)! While much else was going on in the political world this week, the most important event was the reanimation of the Republican "repeal and replace Obamacare" effort: It's not dead! It's alive! And it's lurching around threatening millions!

We went with a different metaphor, earlier in the week, that of the Republicans as Sisyphus, pushing the same damn rock up the hill once again. But we could easily just have gone with Yogi Berra's famous: "It's déjà vu all over again." That might have fitted onto a tweet better, anyway.

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The Republican Party, from all accounts, seems to be busy channeling their inner Sisyphus. It's really hard to come to any other conclusion, when they are once again focused on a healthcare bill that is likely to fail in the Senate next week. For the GOP, hastily-written and underanalyzed healthcare legislation seems to be the giant rock they are condemned for all eternity to roll up a hill, only to watch it roll back down again in the end.

Sisyphus, according to Wikipedia, was "punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness" by Zeus. Sisyphus was subjected to the eternal torture of pushing a heavy bolder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll back down again -- "an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration." Sounds pretty familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the Republican "repeal and replace Obamacare" efforts all year long, doesn't it?

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President Donald Trump gave his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, which was notable for the amount of bluster it contained. Now, blustering is a time-honored tradition at the U.N., but it is usually reserved for heads of state from countries that are insecure in their standing in the world and led by charismatic totalitarians. Think: Hugo Chávez, or Fidel Castro in his prime. So it was pretty unusual to hear such a speech from an American president, who at one point threatened to obliterate another country from the map. Bluster has long been a cornerstone of Trump's foreign policy (such as it is) -- a deep-seated belief that talking tough with lots of swagger will cause all foreign countries to see the error of their ways and thus do exactly what the United States (or Trump) wishes them to do. It hasn't been working in any noticeable way yet, but that didn't stop Trump from giving it another try yesterday on the world stage.

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I have to admit I don't have time today to write a proper column with lots of deep thought behind it, so instead I'm going to let President Trump's first United Nations speech percolate a bit before soberly commenting upon it. But rather than running just a "Program Note: No Column Today," I thought it'd be amusing to briefly comment on the newest Trumpism, one he used in his speech today: Trump's new "Rocket Man" nickname for North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Now, figuring out what goes on in the mind of Trump is an exercise best left to the professionals, so I won't even try to fathom why he latched onto this particular label. But he sure does seem to like it, using it in a tweet this weekend and then announcing it to the whole word at the U.N.

The problem with Trump's use of Rocket Man is that it isn't particularly insulting. It actually sounds pretty cool, in a retro 1950s-sci-fi kind of way. Elton John and Bernie Taupin didn't write the song until 1972, and Taupin admitted being influenced by a 1970 song of the same name by the band Pearls Before Swine. But both songs were inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury ("The Rocket Man," from the book The Illustrated Man), which is about as retro 1950s-sci-fi as you can get.

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The Republicans are getting ready to unveil their tax-cutting plan. Reportedly, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been meeting with congressional GOP leaders to come up with a plan both the White House and congressional Republicans can get behind. So far, they've been fairly secretive about this effort, because no matter what they decide they're bound to annoy at least one faction of their own party. To say nothing of Democrats, or the public at large.

The original effort was supposed to be a "once-in-a-generation reform of the entire tax code." It was supposed to be "revenue-neutral," which makes the entire exercise nothing more than redistribution of the tax burden. After all, if you make a whole lot of changes to the tax system but wind up collecting the exact same amount of money, then all you have done is to shift some of those taxes from one group to another. Republicans generally abhor "redistribution of wealth," but not in this particular case, because in practice it would almost certainly mean shifting a large part of the tax burden from businesses to individuals, and from the wealthy to the middle-class.

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As is true during most weeks of the Trump administration, a whole lot happened in the political world last week. But most of it was completely overshadowed by the game of "Deal, or no deal?" that Trump was playing. For the second week in a row, President Donald Trump shocked the leadership of his own party by sitting down and (quite literally) breaking bread with Democrats. Yes, Donnie had Chuck and Nancy over for dinner, and Washington hasn't been quite the same since.

Much was reportedly discussed in this meeting, including areas where the Democratic agenda and the Trump agenda might overlap such as infrastructure spending. On taxes, Trump apparently agreed with Democrats that any tax cut bill should not lower taxes on the wealthy -- a rather stunning admission, if true. But none of that made much news. The headline item was a deal (a possible deal?... a framework of a deal?... a discussion about a deal?... a deal to make a deal?... nobody really knows, at this point) over what to do about two sticky subjects: the people covered under DACA, and border security.

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For the second time in two weeks, President Donald Trump may have cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, this time on protecting the DACA "dreamers." That isn't a definitive statement because, at this point, nobody's really even sure if a deal was actually agreed to, or what exactly will be in any such a deal. Trump is sending out some very mixed messages, perhaps in reaction to his base already condemning the idea as "amnesty." But the fact remains that Trump once again reached out to the Democratic congressional leaders, inviting them over to dinner to hammer out some sort of path forward on major legislation. Notable in their absence in this meeting were any Republican congressional leaders.

All of this adds up to a very muddled situation. Is Trump dealing with Democrats to the exclusion of Republicans? Perhaps, but then again perhaps nothing concrete will come of the negotiation. Has Trump agreed to put aside demands for money for his border wall in these negotiations? It sure sounds like it, but he could always change his mind. Will Trump's base revolt against the deal and turn against him? Well, a quick look at the pages of Breitbart already shows signs of this happening, but it remains to be seen whether this is a temporary thing or not. If Trump sells the idea, they may decide to continue to support him in the end. Or not. As I said, it's a very muddled situation right now.

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