Rep. Weiner lashes other Democrats for timidity in defending Health Care

As Dana Milbank explains in the Washington Post, Anthony Weiner has forcefully defended the new health care act—this is the one year anniversary. And he has criticized his Democratic colleagues for not defending it more forcefully. But the President has to lead on this. Why is he not out front rebutting Republican lies? Here is the link to Weiner's speech before the Center for American Progress on Health Care.

Ezra Klein exposes RepubliCON hypocrisy on deficit

Ezra Klein exposes Republicon hypocrisy on the deficit. Their first priority is not raising any taxes of the rich. (Scroll down to the third item in the link.) At this point the issue is not RepubliCON lies and hypocrisy, but how to expose and discredit what they are doing. Any suggestions?

5% surtax on millionaires would eliminate need for RepubliCON cuts-Sen. Saunders

Will Obama come out for this? Here are Sen. Saunders and Gov. Rendel on how Democrats should "stand up for core principles." Great question from the journalist: "Why do Democrats lose the 'framing battle?'"

Now is the time for Obama to stand up and say, I will veto this!

As 60 minutes last night documented, heartrendingly, the rate of child poverty in the US will soon reach 25%, the highest since the depression. And the RepubliCONs want to cut needed programs for children, as ThinkProgress.org says in an article. Isn't this the time for Obama to stand up and say: "I will veto any RepubliCON attack on the well being of our children! Let the rich pay, and the children eat!

Why the Old Adage "Seeing Is Believing" Is Wrong

One of the remarkable aspects of the fierce "conservative-liberal" debate that is so disturbing today is the frequent reliance upon ideology rather than fact. More disturbing still (as folks like Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolution pointed out decades ago), recognizing "anomalies" or findings that are inconsistent with your theory is an incredibly hard thing for any true believer to acknowledge.

Thus, followers of Aristotle, found it heretical to believe (like the Copernicans) that the sun and the planets did not revolve around Mother Earth. Conservative, free-marketers similarly find it heretical to believe in any structural explanation for the massive levels of unemployment (Certainly this is an anomaly from the standpoint of "individual responsibility" it's hard to explain how 9-10% of the economically active population suddenly "got lazy" or failed to yank harder on their bootstraps). Certainly it's hard to recognize an anomaly like the impoverishing effect of our health care system (seen in rates of higher infant mortality, lower longevity, poorer health care outcomes) than in other industrialized nation states. Certainly it's hard to recognize the failure of "trickle-down" economic theory - when no one, with rare liberal exceptions, spotlights the consistently massive growth of wealth inequality in this country. And certainly, its hard to recognize that budget documents are moral documents as much as they are fiscal documents unless one is prepared to acknowledge that biblical teachings instruct us to favor the wealthy. In all of these cases, it's the tight prism of radically conservative ideology that prevails - even as the counterfactual universal grows larger and larger. For a good take on this conservative moral prism see Lakoff's blog http://georgelakoff.com/2011/02/19/what-conservatives-really-want/).

Michael Moore, eloquent in Wisconsin on the Repubi-CON

I used to think that Michael Moore was annoying. Then it seemed that he was right about everything. Here's Moore's talk on Youtube.

How to kill a recovery

Krugman does it again, prompting I think the first time I have posted twice in one day. Key points: "Last October, a comprehensive study by the International Monetary Fund concluded that “the idea that fiscal austerity stimulates economic activity in the short term finds little support in the data.” In other words the Republi-CON has no basis in reality.

The bottom line: "Republicans have managed to come up with spending cuts that would do double duty, both undermining America’s future and threatening to abort a nascent economic recovery."